Stitching and knitting

 

This little stitchery is something DD gave me for last Christmas as a kit. It required some new to me stitches such as long and short stitch and satin stitch over large areas, and stem stitch. This will be one of my Craft Olympics projects once it is all finished. I don't know what I will use it for. Any suggestions? The kit included framing instructions, but maybe it could be something more fun. The circle is about 6" in diameter.

 

We are enjoying the last splashes of colour. Rose bushes by the road

 

 

and maples in the village. 

 

 

  

My begonias are learning to swim. It has rained lots and lots lately.

 

 

 

Our aspen about a week ago - today half of the leaves are gone already.

 

 

 

 The rowan tree has only its berries left. They can be gone in one day when a flock of waxwings finds them in the winter.

 

This weekend I knitted one more blue and one more grey sock from toe to top. I knitted the first blue and grey sock a year ago when I tried to learn this new method. Now I have two pairs of nice socks for some child with feet this size. I have knitted a few pairs of socks this way, and some the usual way but two at a time on a long circular needle, and I like it. It helps me get the heels the same. And I just noticed this will be another project on my PIPS 2012 list!

TdF day 4 - binding experiences

My Tour de Fibre post has been rescheduled for the next morning because we watch the Tour de France in the evening after work. Preparing for the 4th day I sewed the binding on my SC and thought it looked a little odd.

This was not the first binding I made ever, but someone might think otherwise. Anyway, after unpicking it I had a perfect , endless binding to attach to the right side of my quilt. During the cycling I managed to hand sew it almost all way round, just the corner for the label is waiting for tonight. I remembered to add a sleeve too, as you can see in the top right corner below. The other edge of it needs hand sewing too.

Our pink peonies are in full bloom now, and their scent reminds me of baking.

I have been working on the Helping Hands scarves from Melanie as well. The squares need to be cut to same size now. The scarves had slightly different widths and lengths too.

I have this book by Kaffe Fassett, and my quilt is inspired by the cover of the book.

Knitting and ranting

Almost two weeks have passed and I don't have much craftiness to show. I have been knitting these tiny preemie baby beanies in the evenings. This is my last ball of baby yarn, and I think it will make four little hats as there is over 240 m yarn in the 50 g ball. I almost fainted when I heard the price: 6.75 €, but then I remembered that I had entered Mrs. Greedy's shop again, against my earlier decision. (Back in 2009 she charged me in € the old FIM price of all the old knitting needles I bought from her for charity, which makes it 6 times the correct price, and made me pay for more thimbles than I actually got.) Don't ever go to her shop, and if you do, don't buy anything.

We are approaching the shortest night of the year. Last Thursday night when I had to go in the middle of the night, I saw a funny sight through the round window in our hall. The full moon was shining from a very light blue sky at three in the morning (so it was actually Friday already). For some reason the moon looked a lot bigger than in the picture.

I have made plans for a couple of new quilts waiting in my PIPS box. I found the outer border leftovers from the big Grandmother's Garden quilt, and some sand colour fabric. It is my old safari suit trousers from the time I was young. They will complete the blocks in process.

The second plan includes a chambray all-in-one suit from the early 80's, and some Egyptian scarf halves from Melanie.

These two great black woodpeckers spent a long time on this aspen in our garden. They were playing hide and seek or learning to find food, or then something else. They looked rather small to us so we think they were young ones. It was fun to watch the one on the right shake his head from side to side. Both made quiet noises, maybe they were whispering something about me and my camera. Just when I took a few steps closer to get a better picture of the one on the left, they decided to fly back to the forest where we often hear their calls.

Another PIP, and signs of Spring

It has been over a week since my last post. I have been having a cold and an ear infection and not too much energy. That reminded me of a very relaxing project and a great stash buster: Chenille or slash cut doormats and pot holders. I have two boxes with selected recycled fabrics and knits marked Chenille Blue and Chenille Green/Red. I took the blue box, with two base fabrics already pieced from Mr.K's old chino legs. On top of one of them, on the wrong side, I layered and cut to size my old skirt front of black T-shirt tricot, sleeves and one front half of Mr. K's shirt with stripes, most of one of his father's thin dark blue woollen sweaters ruined in too hot washing, all parts of one dark blue shirt, and the rest of the first stripey shirt, with the biggest pieces for the top layer. It was over 4 metres worth fabrics! I basted the layers together, marked some guide lines at 45 degrees angle and stitched on my machine like this (picture of the reverse):

I used a jeans needle and my walking foot, and relaxed and stitched. After two sessions the stitching was done and the cutting began. This time I only cut the beginnings of each row at both ends and trimmed the edges and added the binding. But after that: cutting and cutting, between the stitched lines. Just remember: never ever cut the backing! I'm happy to own a pair of Fiskars Soft Touch spring action scissors which made the cutting easy. My Clover chenille cutter wasn't sharp enough, it only could do a couple of layers at a time, maybe because of the knits I had used.

With the cutting finished and binding in place, I tossed the doormat in the washing machine. Voilà!

The perfect wavy surface!

I only had to trim some corners pointing up from the uneven layers. I love this way of making use of even the ugliest fabrics and washing catastrophes. It makes a practical doormat, machine washable and soft. Some friends in the sewing class have also made bathroom mats in lovely soft light colours, or mats using almost only old jeans. They fray beautifully. This project is my fourth finished PIP this year. I'm glad Stephanie reminded everyone of those old unfinished projects in process many of us seem to have in our cupboards, bins and boxes. Finishing them frees energy and storage space.

Yesterday morning I noticed the first brave snowdrops had pushed their heads through the snow in my flowerbed! Some day the snow will be gone. I'm waiting.

PIPS 2

This week I was supposed to clean my cutting table so I could start a new project from a clean desk so to say. Instead of cleaning the table like any sensible quilter would do (in 5 minutes, because they are not me), I just took one of the fabric piles there and found a Project in Progress. Oh how nice, Stephanie challenged everyone to finish their PIPS this year! I hurried to find the other pile of fabrics that belonged together with pile number one, to start finishing my PIPS. I found ready cut squares in three sizes, some lonely blocks, long strips of fabric and a large piece of white flannelet. I arranged the big squares first and made this Nine-Patch:

I cut some more of the middle sized squares and they turned into this:

The smallest squares became this:

There were some leftover blocks as well, with pale yellow centres. I used the remaining purple squares and added green borders to make my fourth preemie quilt.

The last one is a tiny quilt for a tiny preemie or a stillborn baby, with super soft bamboo knit backing:

 

When I get my Angel Pods finished I will take all these to the local Maternity ward to be given to the families and their babies. Five PIPS finished in two days! The table is still suffering from restricted access, but at least I put the baby fabrics away where they belong.

Updates on Crumble Quilt and Scandinavian Christmas BOM

This is a crumble quilt I have been making with Jo since last summer, and it was buried under more urgent projects some time in November, when the first deadline was. I waited for a long time for the book Word Play Quilts by Tonya Ricucci with instructions to making letter blocks. I still have to figure out how I can make them more the same size.

I added the sashings today, because I felt I had to tame the wild mess of the crumble blocks. With other fabrics the blocks look great without sashings and form a colourful surface. I have so many colours and checkered fabrics mixed without much thought that they make me feel dizzy. Jo gave a new deadline for March 2nd, and I think I will finish my quilt by then. If you follow the link to Jo's blog, you will find a list of links to other quilters who show their Crumbles.

A small group has been making Lynette Anderson's Scandinavian Christmas quilt BOM together, and today is our first day to show what we have done with the pattern. Melanie started the group, let's see who has managed to keep her time schedule. Here is my first block:

The background is old unbleached linen, and the other fabrics are all from my endless stash. There is a cross stitch border, stitched details and appliquéd reindeers and birds.

First PIP and some Winter fun

The new year began with many good intentions, and joining Stephanie's PIPS 2012 was one of them. Here is my first finish of a Project in Process from last year, two Christmas ornaments with a pattern from Suzie. I'm working on a secret project at the moment so no other crafty pictures yet.

We have snow now, and someone thought the concrete swans at the little playground in the pedestrian area needed something to wear against the cold:

All three of them have traffic cones on their heads. I think they could use warm scarves around their long necks too!

Bullfinches come to our feeder regularly. They change places so quickly that I can't count them, but at least 20 of them have been there at the same time. Today's temperature has dropped to -17C/+1.4F, so the poor things need a lot of sunflower seeds.

In the evenings I have been knitting Angel Pods for stillborn babies using Kaite's pattern. She has just amended the hood to be stitched with 33 to 35 stitches. Here is my first version with the too small hood:

When I have finished some in different sizes I will take them to the local maternity ward. They may only need a few of these in a year, because all risk pregnancies are directed to a bigger hospital.

Final Stash Use Report for 2011 & PIPS 2012

In 2011, like in many years before it, I have been trying to reduce my stash of fabrics by sewing more and buying less new fabrics. After every month I counted how much I had bought after all, and calculated how much I had used. My numbers for December are 4.8 m bought new fabrics, and 3.25 m used. Six months of the whole year were "positive" for me, I used more fabric than I bought. But the closing of my favourite fabric shop meant a disaster for my good intentions: I bought 19 m of fabrics when the discount sale started, and when the prices dropped to 70 % off the original in June, I bought 25.4 m more. No way could I sew so many quilts! In the following five months I controlled myself and only bought 1.85 m in all. Still the final figures for 2011 are

       Bought: 71.7 m

       Used:    66.1 m

Luckily I have decided not to count the fabrics finding their way to me from other sources than shops.

I hope others made better results! Buying new fabrics is fun, but when the stash is growing in an uncontrollable way (fabrics pouring in from other people's cupboards, attics and boxes), all I can do is try to be more productive and find projects where I can use the fabrics hiding in my boxes and containers. Challenges are the best medicine for this problem, and Stephanie from Loft Creations has a very nice challenge called PIPS:

Jump to Stephanie's post about the challenge by clicking the sewing machine and read all about it. No signing in is needed, just join the fun and show your Projects In Process when you have finished them. I can think of a few right now that really needed dusting off, but I have also joined Melanie and others in making Lynette Anderson's Scandinavian Christmas BOM. I hope to find suitable fabrics in my stash for it.

Here is something I made in December:

A light shopping bag for DD, using a bit from the same old curtain I used for my own Bag Club bag in the Autumn:

 

Yesterday we had finally some snow, more than just cover the grass, so it is beginning to look like winter. With the snow missing, I have enjoyed white Christmas flowers, these lovely scented hyacinths

and my first ever Christmas Rose (Helleborus):

With the flowers I wish you all a Happy New Year 2012, filled with energy and good projects!