Craft Olympics - all my thimbles

Finally the secrets are revealed, Christmas gifts opened and I can show what I have been doing to get all those thimbles from Melanie's Craft Olympics. My first thimble was for a secret knitting project, toe to top two at a time socks for my daughter Kaija, and the rest of the yarn was enough to make wrist warmers for her busy hands. The yarn is hand dyed Araucania yarn from Lentävä Lapanen, the Flying Mitten knitting cafe, very lovely to knit. I'm also beginning to learn the idea of the toe to top heel!

 

 

 

The yarn was so lovely I bought another skein and knitted socks and wrist warmers for my daughter-in-law-to-be as well.

Second thimble is for this stitchery, where I learnt some new stitches.

 

My third thimble came with this Granny Square quilt I made for my sister, who is a granny. The grey and pink outer rounds of the blocks are from our Granny's old summer dress.

 

All the fabrics came from my stash as usual, and 90 % of them are recycled garments or bed linen.

My fourth thimble was a change of plans: I had no time to make the wool applique I had planned. Wreath making is crafty too, so this will be within the rules.

 

The fifth and last thimble was for a new skill, needle-turn applique. The pattern is one of Kaaren's freebies on her blog The Painted Quilt. My work is nowhere near perfection but I could give it another try, hoping for better results and rounder circles. Sorry for the poor quality of the photos, the days are really very short and dark at this time of the year here.

The applique is on the front of this bag I made for Melanie as a Christmas gift for her knitting projects.

The Craft Olympics has been a fun challenge at the end of the year, not too demanding as we could choose our crafts and change our plans during the Olympics. Go to Melanie - she always puts the kettle on when visitors arrive! - and see who else has been a crafts athlete. Melanie has links to all the finished projects on her sidebar.

Granny Square Quilt and another thimble or two

This Autumn I have been working secretly on this project:

 

 

I saw Granny Square blocks at the Blue Elephant Stitches blog and knew it was my thing. I had looked at the grey and pink floral summer dress of my own Granny so many times, trying to figure out the best pattern for the fabric. I had almost all of the dress left, so I knew I could make it the main colour in this quilt.

 

Other florals and solids to match were easily found in my stash. I had been cutting 2½" squares of white leftovers for a long time every time I made a Unicef doll. Well, I needed to cut quite many more to get the 360 white ones to make 30 blocks, but I enjoyed it. Putting the blocks together was, as usual, almost addicting. I made a rule: every time I pressed the seams open for 5 blocks I was making at one time, I also ironed five pieces of laundry.

 

I wanted to stitch the quilt in a grid so I figured the width of my sashings accordingly. Then I added wide borders. All the white is recycled bedsheets, the good parts around the edges.

 

The stitching took a while but was not too difficult. Finishing this quilt also gives me my third thimble in the Craft Olympics organised by Melanie. Only two more crafts to go, and there is time until the end of the year.

 

Over 8 metres of binding (light grey and white stripes) meant two evenings in front of the TV. This is taken after I washed and before I ironed the quilt. Every bit of fabric was from my stash, most of them recycled.

 

 

It was a birthday gift for my sister P. Her husband's starry birthday quilt is on my header at the moment. I hope it will keep her warm at their new summer cottage.

 

This morning I took a picture of the sunrise just before 8.  We had a sunny day, but windy and cold. The snow is gone so we spent almost two hours raking the leaves in the back yard. I'm still feeling a bit chilly, after two cups of tea and all. It takes time to get used to the colder temperatures again.

I decided to frame the little stitchery for now to finally earn my second (because I finished the framing before the quilt) thimble in Melanie's Craft Olympics. I can unframe it and use it for something else later, if I find the perfect use for the fantasy bird.