New quilt top, last socks and this and that

Today I finished this Paper Lanterns quilt top, just ten days after starting it. It has 100 blocks like my previous one, but half of them are just plain solid squares and the others are not too complicated either.

The pattern is Stephanie's Paper Lanterns, and you can buy it here. Her version is smaller and very feminine. I wanted to make bigger blocks and a bigger quilt, so I enlarged the blocks, and I made my lanterns shine in a dark August night. - I think I can manage to quilt this one on my sewing machine.

I used all my "impossible" fabrics, large prints, almost no colour in some, and fuzzy cut some big flowers from an odd shaped leftover piece. Some of the fabrics are from my mother, corner pieces left over when she made a round tablecloth. Some are my own curtain or cushion cover rests, and many come from my sister P. The fabric in the bottom row center is from a summer frock of my dear great auntie Saima. So once again I have sewn memories of the family into my quilt.

The blue and white sock challenge for babies born in Finland this year is doing really well. Of the 56,556 pairs of sock estimated to be needed, 55,706 pairs have been delivered to maternity wards throughout the country. A few hundred pairs are still missing from the big hospitals in the metropolitan area, and it is only March. I used up all my blue and white wool yarns and finished this lot last week:

I took them to the Flying Mitten on Monday, and once again they had a basket full of socks waiting to be collected and delivered. I reached my goal of 60 pairs, and even exceeded it by one pair. This has been a fun challenge, but it is over now and I have gone back to other colours and larger socks.

Little grandson has been busy painting and drawing, and his apron needs to be washed a lot. Therefore I was asked to make another one, and as there was some material left, and the pattern was there, it only took a little while to put this together for him:

It is time to clean the bird houses again for new residents. One house had fallen down in the strong wind, and another one had a big hole after an attack by a woodpecker. Mr K. made six brand new houses, with some variation in the opening diameter so the blue tits can take the smallest ones and others can choose between the larger entrances. Our trees have their birdhouses, so the new ones were placed in the woods around us.

We can see almost all of them from the kitchen window or from the places where we drink our afternoon tea in the garden. Not yet, but when the birds are nesting.

100 finished, one lost and found

Finally the one hundred different blocks for my Splendid Sampler quilt are done. This was a tricky one but I liked the look of it:

This one, Centered, is the number 100.

I placed the blocks approximately in the numerical order and made some changes to avoid big light areas. While doing that. I misplaced the XOXO block. Couldn't find it anywhere, not on the floor, not under the rows already sewn together. Not under my table, or the ironing board. Not in the bin. The next day, no result in my search. Frustrated, I started to arrange a new row for sewing, and there it was, lurking under another block, completely hidden because the other block had the sashings on but the XOXO didn't,

I need to quilt this in two halves, and join them in the end. I hope this will work out. The two halves of my top are now finished, with borders and all.

The binding will be in the same gray as the shadow and the border.

Today Mr K. took me to the big fabric shop the get the batting and backing for this quilt. I only bought one other fabric, and it will be for my next project.

The campaign for blue and white hand knitted socks for every baby born in Finland this year is going well. Many hospitals have received their full estimate of socks needed, and the others are at least at 60 %. This week I took my newest lot of ten pairs to the Flying Mitten:

With the yarn I have left, I think I can knit five more pairs and reach up to 60 pairs.

Something else for a change

In 2008, when I had just started my blog, I found this book at a craft fair:

I fell in love with this pattern, it was tailor made for my growing stash of worn out men's shirts.

Later I started looking for light coloured shirts in charity shops, as my suppliers seemed to prefer dark reds, greens and blues. I also bought several shirts in brown shades.

Finally, in the Summer of 2015. I had a top.

It remained that way for a long time, but then my dear friend Suzie showed some quilts she had quilted on her longarm. She was willing to quilt my large quilt! No kneeling down, no pinning. no fighting with a king size quilt on my sewing machine for me.

Suzie did an excellent job:

The quilt is as soft and light as I had hoped, and all I had to do was to add the binding which I did yesterday.

And now my spare room/sewing room has a brand new quilt on the bed.