The Fudgy Quilt

When you use pins and steam to get quilt pieces or blocks to fit more precisely, you "fudge" them. This little quilt is very fudgy. The checkers are actually printed on the fabric, and are about 1" square. It took careful cutting of the strips and blocks, and then piecing along the printed lines to give the appearance of being more or less square.

This little quilt is only 42" square.

I'm trying to decide if my six inch red and white 9-patch swap blocks want to be a larger version of this quilt. That would require making alternate 9-patches for the center of each "X" block, with 5 white and 4 red squares each. Many of the settings I like for 9-patch blocks require making setting or alternate blocks.

9-patches and hourglass blocks or 9-patches and snowball blocks give the appearance of stars. 9-patches and churndash blocks are also fun. My blue 9-patch blocks will be set on point and offset every other row to give a 3-d effect. I've made some partial blocks for the sides so none of the swap blocks have to be cut in half.

New and Old

I've been doing quilt bindings the same way for a long time, but while doing 28 corners in one day (7 placemats), my corner technique has changed. I used to stop 1/4" (or the seam width) from a corner when turning, but the corner of the backing kept flipping when starting the next seam, making a lump. Sometime ago there had been a quilting demonstration where you would sew off to the corner, making a mitered seam, so I gave that a try, and it really helped. I thought it was Eleanor Burns, but the video showing her technique is slightly different:
http://quiltinaday.com/television/video-binding.asp

You can teach an old quilter new tricks!

With some unexpected free time, I plowed through a lot of projects in the past two weeks, finishing 4 quilts, lots of placemats, some sweater knitting progress, and even some spinning. The current spinning fiber is from a charity auction, it is not as clean as previous fibers I’ve spun (have to stop every foot or so and pick out pieces of grass, and frequently sweep the fiber crumbs off foot pedals). It is soft, a cream with some darker fibers for a heathered look.

I did a small machine digitized embroidery project – changing DS’s beloved hat from a rival school’s logo to his current college, with the help of a small scrap of fake ultrasuede to make a patch. And learned a new crochet technique--Tunisian crochet from a book, 3rd dishrag finished already. The fabric is nice and dense, and so far has been holding up well. The first was Lion Cotton, the others CotLin.

Found two local podcasts – The Manic Purl (Vancouver BC) and Doubleknit. They both do some traveling, but mostly are talking about things closer to home than SoCal or the Eastcoast.

Knot a Problem group on Ravelry – totally cracks me up! There is competition to untangle other knitter’s yarn! Raverly rocks!

Bits and Pieces

Bits and pieces of projects have been worked on in the last few weeks. The green Corriedale spinning has been plied, washed, and measured.

New spinning was started last night - some lovely oatmeal fiber that was purchased from an auction last year. It was wound in a "cone" about the size of an oatmeal can, and the first step was to carefully unwind it into a laundry basket so it would feed without extra twist. It has a lovely crimp and comes off in flat ribbons about an inch wide.

Eleven placemats are finished, two more have binding in progress. They are quite fun to make, as it's so fast to go from selecting several pieces of fabric, cutting one out, cutting other versions from the scraps, piecing and quilting with a simple grid on my sewing machine. Some of the bindings are completely done by machine, and others using narrower strips are hand finished. There are five more fabric bundles stacked and each one will make at least two tops.

The next group will have more oranges and browns. I'm making 4" squares and 4" rail fence blocks from scraps - some with a basketweave pattern and others that resemble pinwheels.

I may work on some Christmas print versions for one or more of the charity shops once this grouping is complete, in sets of two or four.

The Flower Basket Quilt top is finally complete - the borders carefully added, the backing pieced, and it's ready to quilt. A small Wolf Quilt for charity went together with the leftovers from a twin bed quilt made for my son many years ago. The fabrics were from the same line and were not very compatible with any of my other stash. It was also quilted on a sewing machine rather than the longarm. It just needs binding to be complete.

Back on the yarn side, a couple more scarves for charity have been finished, one knit and one crochet. I'll be able to expand my color selection after reading about the Warm for Winter program that Pacific Fabrics supports--last year they indicated the need for darker masculine colors, but they also serve women and children.

The Daily Sweater is moving along again, one half of the lower ribbing is finished and the other halfway done -- then just the sleeves to finish. Even being a cotton blend it is still warm when it has to sit on my lap.

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.

Starts and Stops

It’s been several weeks since I’ve come home from the biannual American Sewing Guild. It took me a week to organize projects to bring with me, twice as long to put things completely away. The two main projects I worked on didn’t come home with me – six dolls destined for Honduras, and nine pillowcases for the local Ronald McDonald House. Both were simple projects, but took a lot of prep work – selecting fabrics and coordinates, cutting out the pieces ahead of time. The projects used cheerful fabrics since they were for kids, and the hair for the dolls was recycled wool that still had kinks from the sweater that was blocked but never worn (and ripped).

I also worked on three quilt tops – one is finished and ready to quilt, consisting of three jungle prints with bright green sashing and orange/yellow batik cornerstones; an “I Spy” quilt needs two more squares to complete the layout before it is assembled, and a fairytale quilt needs some adjustments to get the sashings worked out to convert a soft book into a quilt top.

Spinning is happening several times a week, sometimes just for 30 minutes at a time. The second bobbin of a mostly teal green roving from CMF is almost done. Two bobbins of plied slubby cotton are ready to be cable plied for a 4-strand yarn. I’m learning lots about weights and WPI.

The Christmas quilt is finished, binding is complete. Now it will sit in the closet until December, unless it is gifted before then. Two more simple quilt designs have been drawn up in EQ but not started. Blocks for a group raffle quilt are finished (I made 12 Peaky & Spike blocks), fabrics for the next 3 month’s work of 9-patch swap blocks have been selected but not yet cut and sewn. It’s been harder to select fabrics for another group’s raffle quilt blocks – the fabric guidelines are a bit challenging, and I need to find out what colors have been collected so far, so mine will fit in.

Ply, Ply, Ply

Spinning still feels more like play than work. The natural colored merino that I bought with my spinning wheel is finally finished, and the plying process was even more fun than spinning. It doesn't take quite as much concentration and the result evens out my lumpy singles. After it was finished, the next fiber was 8 ounces of Crown Mountain Farms Superwash Merino, in the colorway Midnight Hour (purple, pink and natural).

Divided into two even lengths, one half showed a lot more of the natural color than the other.

Spun up into singles, the color differences weren’t quite as noticeable, though the bobbin only shows the top layer.

The final yarn, after plying and washing, air dried without any weight on it. It’s very soft, and I might venture a hat for myself, or perhaps fingerless mitts.

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.