New baby quilt, and yarn projects

Once I had the box with my father's old shirts out in the daylight when I repaired mother's old quilt, I took a better look at the ready cut 3½" strips and felt like making a little quilt with them.

It needed some more cutting but the 3½" squares for a 90 x 120 cm quilt were easily found. Now I have just the last white shirts left, and some striped squares. The blue fabrics for the star came from another project bag, the Business Class and Stained Glass quilts I made using my son's shirts.

This size is convenient for machine quilting on my domestic machine, so the quilt was finished in no time.

I even had the blue binding left over from some other project, and a light blue flannel with a baby print was in my stash of backings.

Octopus family has five new members!

Here is a closer look at the tubular cast-on I praised in my earlier post. It is easier to make every time I try, this is my third attempt now. I have tried it in a different way earlier, and I'm convinced this new to me way that involves crocheting suits me better.

The new pair of socks. 200 g yarn, two pairs of socks and still some yarn left.

New finishes

Remember the treasures my daughter sent me and I just found recently? The light beige knitting with needles sticking in was a beautiful lace scarf in the making, and the yarn lovely Rowan Kidsilk Haze. The reason it had remained a WIP was the complicated pattern with a hickup neither she or I could trace. I didn't want to waste the beautiful yarn so I unraveled her knitting as far as I could.

Because it is a mohair yarn, it was rather difficult to unravel, and I had to leave some of it as it was. Then I rinsed the skein I had made and dried it, and thinking of cobwebs on grass in an early morning I looked for a lace pattern I could keep track on.

Then I found this pattern, bought a number 4 circular needle that is as smooth as can be, and started knitting. I used all the yarn there was and was surprised to see how big the shawl finally was. light like a cobweb, a little over 60 grams I think it is.

Then I finally quilted the Windy Day quilt I made for our grandson number 2.

Detail of the fabrics.

Today I'm fighting with a puckering backing of the next quilt I'm trying to quilt on my machine. Rip, rip, rip ...

Blogger has stopped sending me the comments by email. It makes answering back more complicated, and I'm trying to change back to receiving them on my email again.

Edit: Now the comments are coming to my email again. Thank you for your help, Radka!

Quilt for a boy

It took me long but the quilt top is finally finished.

This will be big (120 x 150 cm) for our new grandson now but he can use it for years when he has grown a little first. I think he will like to look at the swing and the dog, find the different birds and all the little critters in jars and on leaves.

I'm organizing a Knit in Public event with our Villa Cooper club on the 9th of June, and it has kept me busy. We will be showing ways to knit for different charities, and I knitted this Apupupu bunny for the Finnish Red Cross as one example. These soft toys are added to deliveries of children's clothes sent to different parts of the world where help is needed after catastrophes.

We will also auction crafty materials for mental health work, and have table for yarns and needles and such to bring and take for free. I just hope this warm weather we have had for weeks will also help us then to get many visitors and enable picnic style knitting in the lovely garden. A popup cafe will hopefully also attract visitors.

Plus size quilt top

Finally I have finished a new quilt top! I even managed to make a little dent in my recycled shirt stash with it. I used all kinds of  light greys and creams, and red plaids and one plain red, as this quilt is for the Finnish Red Cross. 

Getting that step out of the way, I can now concentrate on a baby quilt using these fabrics I have cherished for many years. It will be a boy quilt, with worms and bugs but also with some hearts or flower petals.

We have been travelling abroad too, and for the long waiting hours at airports I had of course a book but also a knitting. I knitted the striped chemo caps during the trip and the plain ones at home.

Two new baby hats have been finished too. There is a little yarn left from a 50 g ball in all my baby hat yarns, so I think there will be a pink-blue-and-white striped hat on the needles sooner or later.

The little misses Purple and Yellow spent a fine holiday in Lapland before Easter with their family, and the girls learned to ski, make snow castles, roll in the snow to refresh during a sauna bath, and to have Winter fun like native Finnish children. For this, the socks and mittens I knitted for them were naturally useful, and so they wanted to thank me with this:

100 % Irish wool to knit something for my own use! I think I need to dare take a step into the unknown and learn to knit some Celtic cables in a scarf or something like that.

Weather report: This morning we had -4C, today is sunny but not warm, on Wednesday we had rain for most of the day. The snowdrops and tiny yellow crocuses are the only flowers up in the garden. By the roadside we can see bright yellow coltsfoot dots where the sun has been shining.

This week's rows and other finishes

This week I picked some apples and went zig-zag with my scrappy quilt. I managed to finish two more rows for the Bee in My Bonnet Row-along I'm making at my own pace.

 

My first four rows look like this, and next week I'm making some mugs and flying geese.

 

My blog remote control (DD) helped me find what was suddenly wrong with my pictures: The camera has settings for white balance, and somehow I had managed to change them. It made the pictures all blue, and I only thought it was the spring light, and tried to edit the worst of them. With her help I found the settings and at least the top photo looks OK now. The wind was blowing so much that I couldn't get the four rows lay still but had to take them in for a group photo shoot.

 

I made a little baby quilt for a friend who is going to have a baby next month.

The fabrics are all leftovers from the preemie quilts I have made earlier.

 

In the evenings I have been knitting dishcloths from some lovely cottons and bamboo cotton  blends.

Then I had to try this new to me traditional potholder pattern. I should have used heavier yarn, because the holes are so big you can burn your fingers if you use this for something really hot. This potholder is double-sided, the reverse is black. Can you find the missing stitch? I only noticed it now from the picture. I will go and add it, no problem. This will be my first entry for the Craft Olympics 2013 Special category.

Stash use Report for May

May has gone and it is time to calculate how much fabric I have bought and used during the month. The "bought" part is easy: nothing! The use part was more complicated, but I only finished this dotty quilt:

It took 3.25 m fabrics, all from my stash. I used a red and white small checkered fabric for the binding.

The 11 tissue holders together with a secret project to be revealed next week took 1 m, making a tiny dent in the string and scrap department. Result for May: -4.25 m!

I have started making a bag with strings, but that will be in this month's report. Stephanie's challenge No Strings Attached has a deadline on June 30th, and I think I will make something small that qualifies for the challenge. The challenge projects must be at least 50 % string blocks, and come from stash. The last condition is easy for me!

I hope you have been using your stash for your projects. Buying some new fabric will feel so much nicer when you have.

Stash Use Update

January is over and it is time for me to see how I managed with my own challenge of using my stash.
First the incoming stash: only one plaid shirt for 2 € from the thrift shop, a colour I needed for the Shadow Plaid quilt still on my list. Pretty good, I think.

Fabric used from stash:

1) A Christmas Wish BOM quilt completely from stash, 75 x 75 cm finished size

2) So far 8 pillowcases for the Hole in the Wall Gang's summer camps through Jackie:

3) three blocks for Abbe who is making a purple quilt for a dear friend:

4) by Sunday evening 28 string blocks which also qualify for Stephanie's No Strings Attached challenge:

5) I almost forgot the Country Calendar quilt!

Not too bad at all! February is such a short month so it will be difficult to beat January's results.

It has been snowing again, 8 inches since yesterday. I was clearing the driveway from the snow the snowplowman left there when plowing the street and the cycle path. It took me over an hour, and once I sank in the snow as deep as over my knees when I was taking the snow away from the street. I felt like a little girl when I came back in with my boots full of snow, my hair clinging to my forehead all sweatty, and my cheeks red like tomatoes. I even wanted to drink some cocoa, like when I was little. This time I had to make it myself.

Orphanage Project Finished

This is a project I started last summer, and my faithful readers have been following the progres here. I made it my Brown Owls Community project, and it can be used for gaining the Sewing, Knitting and Crochet badges as well. The church will be sending quilts, blankets and sheets for orphanages in Tanzania, and asked members to donate them. I used my granny squares from Pip's challenge A Granny A Day in May to make two blankets of yarn rests. This is the girly one:


And this one in for a boy (or a girl who likes the same colours as I):

I used an Africa themed fabric to make this window quilt, and added green squares from an old pillow case. The border is my mother's old summer skirt, also used in some windows, and the brown jungle pattern was my summer skirt.

I used the giraffes and lions to make my first strip quilt.

Yesterday I finished the binding of this elephant quilt. The pattern is from Miri, and Eileen made a sweet baby quilt with it last summer. I copied her idea of making some of the elephants face each other and one elephant giving a flower to another. If you click the picture, you can see it is the dark grey elephant with the purple one.

My youngest sister gave me some of her sheets (wrong size for the blankets she has, I think), and I made 8 sheets of them for the project.

This was my pile before the last quilt and the blue sheets.

I also planned to knit one blanket, but I ran out of a) time and b) yarn in the right colour, so I just packed my 16 squares in a plastic bag (recycled, it was used for tomatoes first) with a note asking someone else to finish the blanket for me.

Then I packed the whole stack in a big plastic bag (used, of course, and because I had to leave it there) and asked Mr. K to take me to the parish office. This is me going there. Then I was just asked to leave my bag in someone's empty office, and that was it. I hope the little orphans like the quilts. They are all backed with soft flannel, so I think they will feel warm at night.

Catching up

Let's see if I still know how to do this. Feels like I had been away ages, and I missed reading blog posts. I was in Helsinki for 9 days, and coming home means a lot of laundry and cleaning before there is time for fun. It is only 50 km away, half an hour by train, but the sea makes the city warmer in the autum. They still had so many leaves in the trees!





At home it looked more like this in the swan pond. I think I saw "our" swan family in flight this week, at least it was 7 swans together.



The apple trees are all bare.

Earlier I was busy with secret projects, but now I can reveal at least some of them. Stephanie had her 50th birthday this week, and I made her some kitchen towels. For this one I copied the pattern from my vintage butter crock.

During the course in Helsinki I had time for hand sewing in the evenings, and I managed to finish this little candle mat. It is from a kit Candace sent me early this year, along with fly fishing magazines for Mr. Kontarankki. Don't look too closely, it was my first wool applique ever.

Sweet Melanie wanted to equip me for the visit in Helsinki, but her lavender smellies reached me right after I came back. How did she know I used my last firming cherry mask when I prepared for the hot date with Mr. K. on the Book Fair last Sunday? Well, the follow-up part of my course is in April, so I can use the lavender products then.

After I came home I have been busy working on the last orphanage baby quilt. Machine stitching is done, and I hurried to take the photo while the sun was still up. I haven't decided on the binding yet, but I will need this one finished for Monday. That is when I have a chance to deliver my things to the people who will take them to the Women's Day event on Nov. 14th to be taken to Tanzania soon after that.

That is all for today. For the final picture I want to share with you the clear autumn sky of today. I love autumn days like this.