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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Happy new year!

Would you look at that? The subject line on these blog posts now defaults to sentence case (capital letter at the start).

I've been busy. Lots of things to report....

I finished this quilt entirely at camp (it was a completed top when I got there) and gave it to my kid for Christmas. She loves it, and she ought to because she picked the fabric, which was bought already cut into tumbler shapes.

And the back, with double-wide fabric that I love love love.

These are two 36" square quilts that I made to donate to the preemie program at the children's hospital. They were supposed to be one quilt for a Riley Blake challenge with the Modern Quilt Guild, but the challenge was really restrictive and I couldn't get the fabrics that I needed.

I sandwiched and quilted those two at quilt camp, and then bound them at home once I received the guild labels.

I made this one entirely at camp, but bound it when I got home. I just ran out of time. It was a panel that I chopped up and redid. It was for my 1.5 year old nephew for Christmas.

On the knitting front, once I had finished a cowl for my kid:

I started a shawl with Caterpillargreen yarn, which is made for shawls and works in such a way that every stripe stays the same height, even though you're increasing every row.

And I also started a Christmas quilt for my neice, using a jelly roll that I picked up in 108 Mile House, close to Sheridan Lake, where we went last summer. 

And I used the leftovers to make this tiny quilt for my neice's cabbage patch kid, which we also got her for Christmas. 

I picked up some 1/8" cotton cording and thought I'd made some bowls or something. That's pretty fine cording and I don't think I'll go that thin again. 

First I made a bowl with some fabric wrapping the cord here and there. Then I made a trivet with different coloured threads.

Today I started cutting up Christmas fabric to make bunting. I'll have more to say on that when it's finished, but to sum it up, I've cut a bunch of triangles in pairs, I'll sew them right sides together, turn them right sides out, and then sew them onto purchased bias tape. I bought some off a guild member and didn't realize it was going to be so much. I also took my mother-in-law's fabric scraps and didn't realize how many Christmas fabrics there would be, nor how oddly shaped the scraps would be. So the triangles for my bunting will not all be the same size, but that's OK. We will call it modern bunting or wonky bunting - your pick.

Happy new year!

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