A finish and a half, and new plans

Usually weeks go by between my blog posts because I haven't done anything new to show you. This time I have been too busy doing things to even write or take photos! First, I have finished the Bear Paw quilt. Men's shirts once again finding a new life as a quilt.

Second, I have crocheted nearly all squares for my cardigan. I needed to buy more green and purple yarn to finish the 3D flower squares, and the Flying Mitten had to place an order for the green. While I'm waiting, I have thousands (almost) of yarn ends to hide and I can start sewing squares together.

Dear Mr. K saw me kneeling on the floor sandwiching the Bear Paw quilt, and heard my funny noises, and noticed my swollen knees after the job, and he borrowed me his knee pads for the next project.

It was this string quilt from last year. The knee pads were good, kneeling on the safety pins occasionally didn't hurt a bit. For some reason the quilt had remained waiting as a top, but today I'm hand sewing the binding on it, finally. A deadline can work wonders! In just a little over a month my old and new quilts will be displayed at the Villa Cooper,

When the weather gets sunny again, I can get a photo of the finished quilt. And guess what? When I was looking for binding fabric, I found another UFO, from years ago, a red and white quilt with 12 finished blocks and all fabrics for the rest of that lap size quilt. I'm already itching to start cutting the pieces!

Old embroideries and UFOs

This weekend has been amazingly warm, and even with some snow still in the garden, Mr. K. has started working there. He went through his shirts to find a suitable one, and gave me these four he no longer will use because the collars are worn out, the sleeves are too short or the shirt is just simply too uncomfortable (the one on the left). I spent a lovely time in the sun on the verandah cutting up the shirts and folding the pieces to add in my stash.

I have sometimes wondered if UFOs are hereditary. I mean the eagerness to start something and then not being able to finish the project? At least in my family it seems to be the case, as I have several UFOs from my grandmother's generation, some of which I have been able to finish. Recently my mother was sorting her stash and she let me have some of her UFO collection. Many of these look like test bits, never meant to be finished projects. I think I could use this one to practice new stitches:

This is obviously a sampler, with different patterns at both ends of the row:

This small placemat looks like something I could try to finish, if I manage to find some matching thread.

This one looks like mother didn't want to do the difficult part at the ends.

One reason for the many UFOs must be that we are also keepers, we don't like to throw things away. This old tablecloth is a perfect example for that. It has been used a lot, so the embroidery has started to fray, and the hemstitch is torn at many places. Still it has been washed and put in storage, and I saved it once again. Maybe I can use some of the good parts of the embroidery, or maybe my daughter will do so.

 
Here is a pattern I would like to copy for future use. The stitches are quite simple, and I can see in my mind a detail of a bag or something like that. I could make the daisies smaller, or bigger.

Vintage UFO finished

This is how close to summer we are today. Birch leaves are "mouse's ears", the size of my pinkie fingernail.

The strangest thing happened. I finished my summer embroidery before the summer even came here. This was an old UFO from my dear Great Auntie Saima, passed down to me by my mother several years ago. It was half done, and some blue perlé thread was wrapped in it. I don't remember whether mother gave me the missing floss from her own stash, maybe I bought the variegated yellow, red and blue when I got the bag with Saima's handicraft things. Anyway, the bar codes show that the floss is newer than the original kit.

Earlier this spring I took the tablecloth kit from the bag and started working on it in the evenings, when I felt like it. Here is where I started:

The stitching was fast and easy, all six strands of the floss were used for the flowers and leaves.

I needed to buy some orange floss for the dots and green for the border pattern.

       

I thought I will sign this for both of us. My mother was almost certain that the kit is from 1920's or 1930's, because she knows her aunt Saima did not embroider things like this in the 1940's or later. So I wrote: SAIMA started around the 1930's, Ulla stitched the other half in 2010.

    

And here is our summer tablecloth, washed (the blue pattern print did not yet come out) and ironed:

All I need now is the summer, a garden table, a patio for it, and sunshine. The tablecloth is waiting! I'm waiting for summer.

Attached Strings and ancient UFO's

Finally my string block quilt is finished! Everything except the batting is from my stash, and please note that I was only digging in the blue box. I used very thick batting so machine quilting was out of the question. I decided to tie this one, and this is how it looks on the flannel backing:

The knots are tied with two shades of blue perlé thread (546 double surgeon's knots, to be precise).

My quilt ended up little oversized, but people are so tall nowadays so it may be a good thing.

 

Making string blocks was fun, and I have seen such lovely projects on other participants' blogs that I think I need to start a smaller string block project in the near future. Stephanie just recently told that there are over 150 finished projects already, and the deadline is at the end of June. Plenty of time to make something nice and fun.

Spring is really on the way here: On April 1st I saw the first finches, not just  one but a group of 10 boys. They normally feed on insects, but because of the snow and cold (not very cold any more) they were looking for the sunflower seeds and peanuts we give our winter birds.

 

Today it has been raining almost all day so there is much less snow left. Under the trees you can already see the ground. The lack of frost and the amount of light make me think of summer, and I wanted to start a summer project. Among many tempting alternatives I picked an UFO of the previous generations. I have told about this treasure here, but when I look closer I can see that there is more than half of the work still to do. The style and colourfullness make me think of dear Great Auntie Saima rather than my Grandmother or my Mother. What do you think of this:

 

The blue circle is finished, with thick perlé thread. The flowers and leaves are sewn with 6 strands of variegated embroidery floss. I finished a set of leaves and two flowers in one group yesterday and managed to make them look like the older ones. Here is a closer look to the edge:

   

(Blogger wants to tilt my pictures today!)

(I'm using the organizer from Anne Marie for this project to keep all the floss in one place)

The table cloth has been bought as a kit with no instructions but with some stitches here and there started so you can figure out what stitches to use and what colours. I need to find solid orange for the little flowers on the edge and the groups of dots in the circle. Other threads are still there. When the embroidery is finished, I will invite you all to the garden for tea and cake!