What the fade?!

Andrea Mowry's newest pattern is what the fade?! which is being run as a mystery knit along. My so faded sweater also by Andrea is languishing as I made The sections too short so I have run out of colours. It is about to be ripped out.

I have at last chosen my yarns for this mystery fade along and they are as follows:

Lone Star arts arts in an unknown colour

Pinata by stranded dye works

Sun set by Kate Selene

Marie Antoinette by fondant fibre 

Garden party by life in the long grass

I am undecided about colour F which at the moment is purple pop fizzle by Kate Selene

The pattern includes brioche which is new to me and I wonder if that is where the colours transition. More will be revealed on Thursday! And every Thursday thereafter for a couple of months.

Once upon a time August 2017

I realised last month that there was a lot to do on the August block for this Crosstitch sampler. I took it out quite early in the month and this is how it looked.

It's amazing what you can achieve when you focus on only one project. I managed to finish the square in about three days. This block it represents the Bremen town musicians.

The September block represents Rapunzel and is already about 60% complete, so it should be, in theory, a quick finish.

Jungle abstractions 3

After a mild panic where I thought I had lost a page of the pattern I photocopied some extra units that have not come out very well. This means that I have now sewn up units 1 to 36. I think it's looking great already. However I am finding Space the solid fabrics to be a little bit boring. So I feel I need to crack on with this otherwise it will become a UFO.

My progress on this might seem a little déjà vu as The unit that I finish this week is the mirror image of the unit of one of the units that I finished last week. I still need to so this weeks unit to last weeks unit and then to the nose. I will do that when I'm completing the blocks next week. I still need to do some photocopying of a few missing units. However I think progress so far is good and you can all ready see that it is a lion.

The finished quilt is 60 in.² and and I am very pleased that it fits on my design wall as there are over 120 individual units is to complete. For the smaller units I will use my portable design boards. So with 36 units completed out of 120+ I am a quarter of the way down.

Jungle abstractions 2

With my daughter away this week I have been able to complete units 16 to 23 and sew them all together. It is starting to come together. This is the largest portion of the quilt which is vaguely divided up into four portions.

And here are two portions of the quilt sewn together.

Next week I will work on blocks 26 to 36 and finish the  mirror image of this block to the side of the lion's mouth. I have found the wonder clips to be very useful when sewing the units together. Next I need to check what parts of the pattern need to be copied again as it is printed on paper which is slightly larger than A3.

Holly Jolly Santa cross stitch

I am not sure quite why I decided to purchase this pattern as I have several other patterns by the frosted pumpkin stitchery still to complete and several of them are Christmas themed too. I suddenly had a desire to work on this pattern and you can see below that I hadn't actually achieved very much up until last week. However I worked on it for several evenings and it is complete.

I'm shocked too and it just shows that with a little application it is easy to finish some of these UFOs. It has now been dropped off at the framers to have a simple frame added in a glossy red colour which will match another Christmas project that was framed by the same business. What to work on next?

Sew sturdy travel organisers

At the Simply Solids retreat in June there were a lot of everything in its place organisers made for the secret sewer swap. Makers were very generous as it is time heavy and also needs a lot of specialist vinyl, zippers and net. However it did inspire me to have a go myself. I did find out that Craftsy had a class by Annie Unrein which covered both the everything in its place organiser and a cosmetics bag. The cosmetic bag looked like a good place to start though the class started with the organiser.

I also had sufficient Bosal to make the bag. So I loaded the Bosal quilt sandwich onto my machine and quilt two pieces from which to cut the pieces for the bag. I loved the stitch definition of the quilting on the Bosal.

I made a start on this bag at the modern quilt guild sewing weekend. I drove myself bonkers looking for the panel for the zippered lower pocket. I was looking for a cut panel but when I did eventually find it the following day I hadn't yet trimmed the panel to size. So I was looking for the wrong thing. I did get it mostly finished as you can see above apart from the lower pocket and I replaced the middle vnyl pockets with one net pocket which I think was a good choice.

 Having found the quilted panel I completed the lower pocket the following day. My daughter admired the bag and immediately realised it was for her as it used fabric from the quilt I made for her to take to university.

Lizzie soon had the cosmetics bag filled to the brim and ready to take on her next trip. I am off to the Festival of quilts tomorrow and plan to purchase some fabric to make the everything in its place Bach next.

Faded knitting

My find your fade sweater (so faded sweater) has stalled and is about to be ripped back. I have changed the yarn colours too quickly in the three sections that I have knit so far. I found this to be too far out of my comfort zone so I plan to knit a plain sweater with some yarn purchased at Christmas. However I would like to jump on the fade bandwagon and have signed up for the what the fade?! Mystery knit along. I have stash dived and picked out the following yarn. What do you think?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Jungle abstractions 1

This week Lizzie has gone to London to a science fiction convention. Now that Lizzie has gone I can do some early morning stitching as my sewing studio is next door to her bedroom.

It was my birthday on Tuesday and I had planned a day of sewing on the Tula pink butterfly kit that I had specifically requested for my birthday. However it hadn't  turned up and Nick hadn't  chased it. I then chased it only to find that a computer glitch meant it had been marked as sent but not been sent. I cancelled the order as I was not happy as the gnome angel sew along started on 1 August. Instead I have ordered the pattern from Hawthorne threads as they do not charge postage on pattern only purchases. A good deal! Next week I am off to the Festival of quilts so I will plan some fabric purchases for this pattern. The pattern has been dispatched and has got as far as New York. Hopefully it will arrive before I leave on Thursday.

So I had to adjust my sewing plans and have worked on the lion pattern by violet craft. I have finished the first portion of the pattern which is the nose. With Lizzie away I am planning to up my game and sew more pieces each day than the one per day that I had planned.

For once I have been very tidy with my project, the paper pieces are all in a folder and the fabrics are in individual bags in an IKEA box. I have glued the key to the fabrics on the outside of the box for quick reference. I have also glued pieces of each fabric to cards on a ring which is also attached to the box. I'm not sure how often I will actually use the sample cards. I have also cleared the top of my IKEA trolley so that all of the parts of the project are to hand. It's unusual for me to work tidally but I can but try!

Maker pattern

The heart portion of this cute foundation pieced block is a free pattern if you sign up for the newsletter on the designer's website quiet play.com I used up some scraps of Blueberry Park by Karen Lewis, black Kona and an unidentified fat quarter with the pennants, which from the feel of the fabric could be by Art Gallery Fabrics. I think this may have come in a monthly bundle from Westwood Acres. I'm not sure what to do with the block next which is 12 inches square so it will be put aside for now.