Friday Finishes

I've wanted to make a picnic quilt for over a year, and had all kinds of designs in mind. Wide canvas in green was purchased for the backing, so there was a target size - 56 x 68. Finally, the utility of the quilt pointed to a simple design, squares cut 4 1/2". The starting fabric was a gifted piece that was challenging to use, it has large white un-finished paint by number bird and flower images (Moda - Lush Uptown 'Paint by Number' by Erin Michael.) I loved the red background, and since there was a lot of green, a red and green checker quilt was the goal. Almost half of the red blocks were able to be cut from the print, and other reds were pulled in.

For the greens, one floral print with white and yellow flowers was the main fabric, and assorted leafy prints rounded out the green blocks. Most of the squares are laid out in diagonal strips of varying lengths. They seem to pull the eye along instead of jumping from print to print. There's a bit of "mushiness" where one floral was almost half-green/half red, but it was a sentimental piece and needed to be included.

Keeping with the no-stress design, straight lines -- two through each square in each direction, were quilted on the longarm. They are equal distant from each seam, and the center opening is slightly larger (4 doesn't divide by 3 easily.) On a domestic machine I continued with stitch-in-the-ditch along all seams.

Also finished is knitted Little Dragon #6, grey with pink accents. I had to figure out how to make the "afterthought" bobbles, where in the pattern they are knit from the main body color.

A Large (small) Stash Project

The latest podcast of Annie's Quilting Stash had some great ideas for using and organizing fabric stash. The idea that hit home with me was placemats for Meals on Wheels - fall colors for Thanksgiving. I have a lot of assorted leafy/fall fabrics that work together in small groups, but not necessarily together for a large project. My local Meals on Wheels sounded receptive to the idea, and they told me the current number of people served is 35, which is reasonable for me to finish by Thanksgiving on my own (if the number was 100-200 I would have asked quilting friends for help). Three placemats are pieced & quilted (not bound), two more tops & battings are ready. The battings are being pieced from the 4" strips leftover from customer quilts that were too small to return and too large to throw away. I will probably finish them with regular quilt bindings rather than the serged finish I saw on some similar projects online. Two fat quarters per placemat, with a bit leftover, are being used (so far Rail Fence and 4" squares, but I may use other patterns.)

In knitting stash reduction, two more charity hats and a scarf have been finished too. A February Baby Sweater (Elizabeth Zimmermann) had been started too, but only after finishing the yoke did I realize that she had assumed we knew to put buttonholes in...and the yarn is quite awful, so I will purchase some nicer yarn and re-start, as this will be a gift. The yarn is splitty and a bit scratchy, so it will be recycled into something more decorative than wearable.

Work into Play

It seemed time for a new spring hat, and a cotton blend matched my optimism that the temperature would eventually start warming. It’s been colder than usual in Seattle, with more days of snow than I can ever remember (another 3” this morning, all gone by late afternoon). The yarn I fell in love with (online, not in person) didn’t seem to be available locally without an expedition, so I settled for my LYS’s Cascade Rio, mainly cotton (robin’s-egg blue) with some slubby rayon bits of color (pink and yellow). The slubs liked to split off, but I finished a simple beret in less than a week. It fits pretty well, covers my ears and doesn’t fall into my eyes constantly.

Some of my projects that felt more like chores are out of the way – finished the dust cover for the tile cutter (drawstring instead of elastic at base), made two more cloth bags for my frequent customer’s quilts, cut sashing and borders for the flower basket quilt, and stitched the binding to the top of the Christmas quilt. Finished a charity scarf using self-patterning sock yarn – doubled (strips came out soft, not too blenderized.) Made a charity baby/child hat from a frogged scarf. Also made a label for a crib quilt made long ago from Australian fabrics, for a gift to friends of my in-laws.

Play has been spinning again. I have two bundles of hand-dyed pencil roving from Crown Mountain Farms purchased at least 1 ½ years ago, that has been waiting until my spinning skills are more consistent. Half of the colonial top that came with my wheel was still waiting to be my practice fiber. I spun half of the 8 oz. last weekend, and finished it up yesterday. I did my first plying with two full bobbins, and was pleased with the result. Plying was SO much fun I went digging for the top that I’d spun last fall, and was aghast at how different (arty? lumpy? ugly?) it looked than the most recent spinning. Still, it is nice wool, I’ll play with dyes sometime soon, and perhaps make some fingerless mitts since it is superwash. It may have to remain singles though, as the twist is very uneven.

I took pictures of the CMF purple/navy/white roving that I will spin this week, and will post the results, assuming I make more time to play.

Old Stuff, New Stuff

This was actually finished before Halloween - and gifted to a friend who had admired it at the retreat. She has a black cat, and wondered if her ginger cat might get jealous now!

Four quilt tops were turned in to Pacific Fabrics for Project Linus, along with six caps and a scarf for their Handmade Hat and Scarf drive. I've since finished another scarf for charity and started a third - several local yarn stores collect them.

The four "Boo the Bat" were finished before Halloween too, one delivered in person and the three others via my brother for his grandsons. I was very tempted to buy some orange yarn to make one for myself after seeing all the cute versions on Ravelry. The designer asked if she could link my picture to her gallery. http://mochimochiland.com/

In other knitting, The Daily Sweater from Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines has been making slow progress. It was re-started once as the cast-on was too loose - the neck fit loosely over 2 turtlenecks! Went down a size (but kept the same needle size), the 2nd try is going much better. Also finally asked very specific questions on the MDK group at Ravelry of people who had finished the sweater. The chart is a bit intimidating, but the conversations about it (hints on how to make sense of it) have encouraged several other people to start one. It was curious before I started to see how few people had started it, compared to some other patterns in the book.

This is a before and after look at yarn recycling. This well-aged wool yarn was once a reindeer sweater (well twice if you count that I ripped

the sleeve caps back and re-knit the reindeer trying to make it fit). Didn't understand gauge at the time, had been told that I was a tight knitter (only a tight cast-on, as it turned out) and the only other knitters I knew at the time thought I had a very strange technique (continental).

Anyway, the sad brown yarn had been sitting around for many years, when suddenly I realized that it could be overdyed! The two bright skeins on the left were the first two dyed, but there was still much dye left in the pot, so the second two were soaked in hot water and added. My dyeing technique is still rather experimental. It looked like more lanolin washed out of the paler yarn, since the first two were soaked in cold water, since they were added to a cold dye pot. I've already started a Felted Tree from MDK 2 and can't wait to play with some carrying yarn and miscellaneous buttons, sequins and threads to embellish them.