Bits of knitting and an old project finished

Some people have cold hands, and some other people can knit, and so I knitted hand warmers for those

two who have such cold hands. Little Miss Purple has grown and she is now Miss Black for the time being.

My old project was this doormat, with layers of worn flannel shirts, wool jumper washed in hot water, and some dark T-shirts under the top layer, a rest bit of quilt backing flannel.

I cut between the stitched lines with my normal scissors, added the binding

and washed the new mat in the machine and dried it in the tumbler.

Soft, thick and lovely. It became a bathroom mat.

Naturally I needed to knit in the evenings, and I decided to use up my yarn rests. I almost had enough for this set, but bought more of the light grey that goes with everything. 

We have lots of snow, so I think more sock knitting is on my list.

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.

Giveaway!

Today my little blog has reached its first milestone, 1,000 visitors. To celebrate this I have decided to have a giveaway. On Saturday, 29th of March I will write down all the names who have commented on today's post, and my son will pick up one name. The winner will be given this set of two chenille potholders:

True to my principles the material is recycled, only the bias binding is new. Chenille, because it was fun to make. Potholders, because they are practical and necessary, and I'm a prosaic person.

You may have noticed the new badge on the right. I have found the perfect support group for me in Hanne's Quilt Corner . A fabric diet means to use more fabric than you buy. A perfect way to use the stash which threatens to cover my working area. Announcing the diet in public makes me at least consider every purchase even more closely. If I succeed, there will be many new quilts and children's books and toys, and the stash will not grow too much. I hope to emphasize the using, because it will result in finished projects. No fun in stopping to buy fabric and stopping to sew anything.

Learning to know my limits

The quilting by hand in small portions is a delight. It will take longer but I will be able to do it, if I remember not to try to quilt more than my hands can take. There are no new pictures yet, because it still looks pretty much the same as last week. It is strange how at a more mature age most people will notice that their best by -date has expired a while ago and the guarantee for almost any body part has ended by the 50th birthday. The first sign of this are the sounds I started to make when I pick up something from the floor or put my shoes on. Or reach something from the top shelf. They are not to be found in any dictionary, they don't exist in literature and I have no comics in English, but I trust you have heard (if not made yourself) these sounds and know what I mean. "Ähh" is my favourite in Finnish, and "huh huh" after I climb from the cellar to computer, about 35 steps. Then came the time when I started rubbing my hip or knee in the evenings when watching TV. Now I'm at the point when I have to control the use of my hands; if there has been many household chores, I must choose reading instead of sewing. I'm glad I still have the freedom of choice. And because I got my glasses at the age of 20 to help me stop the right bus instead of every bus, I now can still read and sew without glasses.

To cheer up this ageing whine I'll show you two pictures of one of my favourite techniques nowadays. Here you see the fabric I used as the top layer:

And this is how it looks when stitched and slashed and made to a chenille surface:

The plaid pattern nearly disappears when the bottom layers become visible too. The dark areas especially noticeable on the little rug on the right (once across and the other a curved line from the bottom right corner up to the left corner) show where the pieces of a red cardigan don't meet. When the thick red layer is missing, the dark brown and plum coloured layers are more visible. These two I stitched with a chevron pattern, on the left the points are up and on the right they are down. I just wanted to see if they look the same with different pile directions. I enjoy making chenille pieces, because I never can tell what it will look like after I have finished with the cutting and washing.

Finished at last

This is what my little rug looked like when I finished sewing. And this is what it turned into in the washing machine

The stripes have vanished. I have made other rugs with big plaids on the topmost layer and they look very nice, the pattern becomes a little blurred and beautiful.

I finished the quilted shopping bag as well. Using thick quilting thread caused problems, I had to pick up the top edge because of loops on the reverse. It reminded me of my unfortunate 4th grade apron sewing at school. The school's sewing machines were old fashioned, non-electric monsters which you had to treadle. I still have absolutely no sense of rythm, and that machine was quite impossible for me to use. I treadled and cried and picked up and treadled and so on. I was about 9 years old and had been happily sewing doll's clothes at home with my mother's beautiful green electric Elna for ages. Today I didn't cry, I'm used to picking up already. The loops just looked the same.

Little progress report

Today I finished sewing and cutting my chenille piece. Next I shall bind the edges and it will be ready for the final touch by my washing machine.

Today's picture is another Unicef doll custom made for my sister. This one is called Harri and his shirt is made of my son's old T-shirt and the trousers are a leftover piece of his anorak. The rag dolls are about 45 cm tall, just fine for small children to carry and hold. The idea is to make useful items at low cost, because the person who makes the doll will not be paid anything. The whole adoption fee goes to Unicef. The maker will receive from the buyer the postcard attached to the doll, so she or he will know where the doll has found a home. Usually the dolls are sold to strangers in Unicef campaigns or other occasions.

When you have too much material

Yesterday I finally can began my projects again after Christmas. My 'sewing group' started , so I had to unpack what I cleaned away from the living room tables, chairs and floor, just to find something to take with me there. I decided to finish a quilted shopping bag there, it needed just to be put together, and the lining with a zipper pocket, and the handles. This means I had done the fun part already, the quilted sides and bottom. I had it almost done, but the school's sewing machines are not too sophisticated so I wanted to fasten the zipper at home. The picture shows what was made before Christmas.

My big problem is storaging everything so that I can a) remember b) find what I have. It would be easy enough to pile up neat little folded pieces of cloth on shelves, sorted by color or purpose of use. But my pieces are not usually square but irregular, and they have a tendency to heap up and fall over. There are so many recycled pieces which I never bother to iron unless I choose to use them, and they are impossible to store neatly. I'm the second youngest of six children, and so I'm used to getting handovers. Everyone knows I quilt, and so they ask if I'm interested in some pieces they want to get rid of when clearing their closets. This way they don't need to throw anything away, because of course I take it, and so I have some more material to sort, store, remember, find use for. And I have no way to clear my closets, because I need to use what I have. And usually I have no time or energy.

Last autumn I remembered again a very useful technique to get rid of lots of material, even the ugly ones. It's called chenille or slash cut . I make 5-6 different layers of old shirts, jerseys, bedsheets, whatever, on a bottom layer I have sewn together from old jeans or other heavy material.

Then I paste the layers together. After that I draw some guide lines along the bias for stitching. The whole thing will be stitched in parallel lines about 1,5 - 2 cm apart, an easy way to get rid of useless rests of sewing thread.

Finally all top layers are cut between the stitched lines, the edges finished and the whole thing washed in the machine.

This is how far I made it yesterday. More pictures after the weekend when I have more time to finish this little bedside rug.