A little catch-up

I've been fairly busy. I like to make time for crafts, and my husband has his own hobbies that I don't share, so I can count on time when he's hunting or shooting arrows or hard-core 4-wheeling as time when I can get stuff done. I couldn't count on a last-minute teenager to choose a school project that has me (gladly) providing the content, but that happened. The project was on the creation of preemie quilts for donation and I had some orphaned blocks that I'd already plotted. It didn't take much time to piece them together and then do a bit of piecing on the back, do some straight-line quilting and bind it up.

Eggsrus.wordpress.com is the school blog where you can see the finished video. It's about 3 minutes long.

This is the quilt we ended up with - Free Spirit solids and a Kaufman print on the front and back, striped binding, 50w dove gray 2600 Aurifil for the piecing and quilting, and the back just wonky enough:

Then it was time to get on with making the bunting. A person in my modern quilt guild was selling bias tape for 20 bucks. I jumped on it because you never know when you're going to need bias tape. It turned out to be way more bias tape than I thought, so I was a little dismayed. Then, around the same time, I got my mother-in-law's Christmas fabric scraps. She's not a fan of scraps. I shoved them in the cupboard and when I pulled them out later to plan a project, I saw that the scraps were pretty picked-through. There weren't many straight edges to be seen. What to do? Well, I decided to cut whatever triangle sets I could from them so I could make bunting (for decorating). I was cutting and cutting and cutting for so long.

They aren't all the same size, and I don't have a reliable possible pattern. If I started from yardage, it could have been consistent and planned, but it's scrappy. Some triangles are 8.5in high by 7in wide at the base, which is what I aimed for most often. When I could get a bit more, I went bigger. Most often, I went smaller. I didn't figure out the angle and make sure that all the triangles were the same shape. Wonky.

Then I was sewing and sewing for so long (right sides together). Then I was turning and turning them for so long, and ironing and ironing for less long. Hooray! It's time to sew them together. I shoved them up (gently) into the bias tape with a .5cm gap between the points, which looks like a bigger gap when finished. Why stick with imperial measurements when you can go metric?

All done! 6m of bias tape with room on the ends for hanging.

Purl Soho posted a No Purl Scarf pattern and the smooshiness of it caught my fancy right away. I'm casting on with an alpaca/merino blend that I dyed a while ago. It's sport weight, so I'm holding it double. I'm using 5mm needles. The pattern is written to be knit flat and you couldn't knit it in the round and avoid purls, so I'll stitch the two short ends together at the end. It'll go around at least a couple times so it will become my favourite cowl. Nevermind that I have a cardigan and an angled scarf already on the needles.....

I'm pretty lucky. My mum knits too and she has knit me more socks than I have. I wear a pair every day in the winter. Here they are drying for the coming week.

By the end of this weekend, I'll have this stack turned into about a 13m stretch of bunting.

Then there's this largest stack of the blue triangles that will probably become two strings.

This is turning into the longest post ever, but I'll keep going. On February 11th, I'm doing a workshop with Katie Pederson and these are the fabrics I've picked. I freaking love red and that blue came from my mother-in-law and it's going to give me a good pop of colour. I'll show you when I'm done.

On March 18th, I'm doing a workshop on paper piecing and the pattern is for placemats by Judy Neimeyer. I haven't done any paper piecing really, so it will be good to have a lesson. I'll show you when I'm done.

Happy weekend!



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