Learning new things

I am still a beginner knitter, having only started knitting again a few months ago. I have also become an avid watcher of YouTube knitting videos. One I have been watching is Kristin of Voolenvine and she mentioned that she had a shawl pattern that she would be looking for knitters to test knit the pattern due for release on 1 March.  I offered my services as a beginner knitter and the pattern duly arrived. 

The eyelet section was quick and relatively easy, so long as I remembered to do the increases. Then I had to wait for the beads and crochet hook to arrive for the beaded section. YouTube came to the rescue with a video for doing an applied border. I was really pleased with the mock cables in the border. 

The shawl was knitted in Manos del Uruguay in silk blend fino (30% silk and 70% wool) in the colour flame red. The name is a little ironic as I bought two balls in a fire sale for £5 total. I was a little nervous soaking he project, but it blocked well, but did bleed. All ready now for the Jersey Eisteddfod. I think I wil wear this to the Edinburgh Yarn Festival in March.

February socks

My February socks for the brown bag sock club are done apart from sewing in ends and soaking, but I have to get on with a test knit and another Eisteddfod entry.

These were knit on 2mm Karbonz which like many have observed are not very smooth. I think I want to try some Addi sock rockets next. Perhaps I might be able to pick up a pair at the Edinburgh Yarn Fest in March. The wool is Crazy Zauberball. And I almost forgot, I tried the Fish Lips Kiss heel for the first time. These are half an inch shorter in the foot than my last pair so I am hoping they will fit better after blocking. At the moment they are a snug fit.

When I got home yesterday, a little parcel from Canada was snuggled in the corner of our front door step. It was this gorgeous Bis-sock from biscotte yarns. The draw on their website closed at the end of January and arrived in just two weeks from the draw closing. And it is so soft, on a 85% superwash merino and 15% nylon base. I can't remember the name of the colour way though and it doesn't seem to be on their website.

My Secret Garden BOM

I am a sucker for a good Block of the month (BOM). This year I spotted the Pat Sloan - My secret garden over at Freequiltpatterns.info I jumped in and made the first 16" block last month. I used fabrics from recent I Want her Stash bundles with a dash of red Blueberry Park by Karen Lewis.

Having made good progress on my #craftfor20 tidy up of my craft room, I decided to stitch up a storm yesterday. So I printed off the instructions for February's blocks and stuck down snippets of my fabrics to the instructions. I changed the centre square and eliminated the HSTs.

The blocks look very different from each other at the moment even though I've used the same red Blueberry park print and the dark blue honeycomb print. I have bagged up this month's fabrics along with the blocks ready for March so as to try and tie the colours together. I will also add the January fabrics too.

Craft for 20

A podcast that I watch by Little Paper Foxes has an initiative called Craft for 20 for February. I have decided to take that idea and tidy in my craft room for twenty minutes. I feel that an orderly craft room will be liberating.

Yesterday I started by the door to my room and tidied my cart. I was hoping to find a hexagon die in there but no luck so far. I want to put my pliers and poppers in there but that box hasn't come to light yet either and I had it only a few days ago. Strange.

Today I have tidied my desk. I have two baskets to donate and have kept a third which I use to transport pieces to my ironing board. 

Whilst looking at the next area to tidy - the window sill, I spotted a bag containing two mini quilts to bind. Not a big job, so an hour later and the minis are bound and ready to donate to our local SCBU tomorrow. 

I completed two more at our group's all day sewing day last week so I have four to donate. I am sure many of you will recognise the blocks from the book Patchwork Please! I completed these during the sew along perhaps two years ago?

February goals

 

This month's goal is to finish this cat quilt for a March birthday. The pattern is by Elizabeth Hartman and uses fabrics from the I Want Her Stash programme from Westwood Acres.

This is a very doable goal as I just need to sew down the binding on two sides and it's a perfect project to take with me to my morning Guild.

Where did January go. I completely missed the sign up for the January monthly goal. However I did finish my goal of the cow blanket, more about this later in the week. I broke out my Brown Bag sock club bag 8 yesterday and I have some Crazy Zauberball socks to make. There was also some hand cream and a lipstick to use up this month too. The sock wool is already balled up and ready to cast on.

You can see that my miscellaneous project to complete is my Woodland Sampler which was the 2013 monthly project from The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery. So I dug out the embroidery, an empty floss box and accumulated my supplies. Hmm, for some reason not all of the flosses are there. I will work around that as the month progresses and substitute if necessary. Yesterday I completed the date panel and inserted 2016, so that is a commitment to finish it this year.

January socks - almost a matching pair

Just a basic sock - toe up - the pattern is by Tina Robbins on ravelry. I was very concerned that having washed them and put them on my blockers that they were going to be much too big. Now that they've dried, I have tried them on and they fit, however next time I will use fewer stitches and shorten the sole by 1/2"

I used Knit Picks Felici in Surf's Up which was a  present from my husband at Christmas. I used 2mm Knit Pro Karbonz. I have 30g of wool left which I have combined into one wrapper. I think I have two further balls of this wool, so I might get three projects out of the four balls.

Bankhead hat

Sorry for being so quiet in January. It's not that I haven't been crafting, I just haven't made the time to blog. Whilst my January socks are blocking, I wanted to share this simple knit with you. Inspired by Dan of Bakery Bears podcast who loves this pattern, I decided to distract myself from turning the heel of my socks and print off the Bankhead hat by Susie Gourlay which is a free download on Ravelry.

The pattern calls for worsted weight wool on size 7 needles so I bravely broke out some DK weight yarn by Fondant Fibre on their Yeats base and the colour is called Sonnet. I'm pleased to have finished it ready to start a test knit in February.

I have lots of other finished projects to share next week and I'm excited to see which yarn that I'll be knitting with in February.

Q1 2016 finish along

 

 

It is time to complete entries for the needlework section of the Jersey Eisteddfod , so it's time to list what I want to enter and what I need to finish. In no particular order I have on my first quarter's list:

• Spring Sampler
• Three pairs of socks
• Farm Girl Vintage quilt
• One Siblings Together quilt
• Cat quilt - I'm stuck on the placing of the blocks

 Not for the Eisteddfod:

• Two project bags
• Oven mitts - which should have been completed for Christmas and need to be bound
• Four Bloom mini quilts - orphan blocks to be turned into mini quilts for SCBU
• Scarf that I'm making to practise my continental knitting



 

Vignette project bag

I dug out my old Vignette project which I have had to admIt to myself is never going to be finished. I am going to break up the components of the project and rehome, reuse or sell. 

I used two portions of the embroidered border in this bag and I think it's pretty enough to enter in our local Eisteddfod.

It's plenty big enough for my January sock project. I have since added the January tube of hand cream, some stitch markers (also pink), a notebook and a book ring on the ribbon loop.

I now need to find my new 2mm knitting needles and print off the pattern and recipes that I'm going to use for these docks. Hmm, my sock ruler would also be useful.

First I need to get out the cow blanket.

Happy New Year

My daughter had a New Year's Eve party at home, so we decided to leave for most of the duration. We had dinner, went to see the New Star Wars movie which finished at about 11.30. We then parked up near to where there were fireworks just after midnight. We then went for a walk and enjoyed the display. It was a lovely dry night. 

I have set myself up for the brown bag sock club for 2016. In each bag there is 100g of sock yarn and a tube of hand cream. I have added a postcard to the front of each package with a number and  two sewing projects for the month. Some bags also have a lipstick or lip gloss to finish up.

The Canadian Knitter on YouTube chose 5 to work on this month. 

So this month I will be working on a pair of socks in Knit Picks Felici in Surfs Up, making a project bag and finishing the cow blanket. I will explain the cow blanket later in the month as I need to retrieve it from the top of wardrobe first.

2015 best nine

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Advent crafting

Although my lack of posts might indicate that I'm slacking, nothing could be further from the truth. I have one last pre-Christmas quilt on my machine for a customer. Inspired by the Bakery Bears cosy blanket advent knitalong, I have been cross sticking a Christmas pattern, one square per day and do far I'm keeping up with my expectations.

This is the It's a Kawaii Winter Wonderland from The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery gals. However I have taken out the Kawaii elements. 

I have also been sewing up one kitty a day from Elizabeth Hartman's pattern and again, I'm keeping up. This morning I cut out six more blocks as I have found it's the fabric preparation rather than the sewing that takes the time.

Here's today's block called Daisy in the pattern which I have named Driving Miss Daisy.

Back to some binding on the customer quilt. I have used up all of my 1/4" steam a seam tape do will have to try dome other methods to secure the binding to the back of the quil, before machining down the binding.

Working with scraps

 

My system for sorting my scraps is very basic. I have a basket with bags for each major colour and when I have scraps, I add them to the basket. About one a quarter I take my basket to my morning quilt group and sort any loose scraps into their correct bag.

 

I chose not to cut the scraps into specific sizes like Lori Holt advocates and I do the cutting when I want to make something. We did a scrap swap at the Simply Solids retreat and I came home with more than I took, so I think a bigger basket will soon be needed. what do I consider a scrap? A part strip from a project, odd charm squares, fabrics I no longer love but would use in a scrappy quilt.

 

Also at the Simply Solids retreat, my friend Carol won a copy of Lori's Cozy Cottage 2016 calendar. As Carol already had a copy she was happy to swap with me for my prize of fabric. As part of a blog hop, Lori showcased this mini quilt which uses the cosy cottage pattern from the calendar. I dived into my scrap bags and pulled and cut fabric like a mad woman. The window of the house is some Blueberry Park hand printed fabric which was someone's scrap. I had been looking for just the right project to use it in. The girl with her hula hoop was fussy cut from an older Aneela Hoey print. I'm also pleased with how it turned out.

 

For the quilt backing I used a fat quarter that isn't my cup of tea but it came in a bundle and the off cuts have gone into the scrap basket. The binding also came from my scrap basket and was pieced and ready to go. So remainders of binding also go in my scrap basket.

 

This doughnut pincushion was a kit from Sew and Quilt from our retreat good bags, but paper piecing is always a good use for scraps.

 

And I love the perfect buttons from a friend's mother's button box which I was given last year. Scraps of wadding were used to stuff the pin cushion and that was another scrappy project from last week.

 

 

 

Bee block for Carole - bright birch trees

Carole requested blocks on a bright background using this tutorial.  I enjoyed making the block and it will be a jolly quilt. Here is my block (orange background) along with Jane's block which I'll post tomorrow.

 

 

 

I'm up to date with bee commitments, although I still have more retreat photos to share with blocks made over that weekend. I am the bee mama for the CQ Jersey bee, so get a month off. Beautifully planned by me as Lizzie and I are off to Barcelona to cruise with NCL for the half term week.

On my long arm - boats

A baby quilt for a boy who was expected to be a girl. I quilted this in Frozen Swirls to conjure up a storm at sea.

And a super cute backing.

Simply Solids retreat -.swaps

Are you tiring of my mini reports from the retreat? Sorry there's a few more to come. Next is swaps. As well as the secret sewer swap, there were badge, scraps, name badge and FQ swaps.

 

 

I didn't participate in the name badge swap and I used mine from the first FQR in 2012. I didn't have badges to swap by I did have some badge like zipper pulls and I received the above in return.

 

 

I made up three scrap packs for swapping at the retreat and received some lovely fabrics in my bags including some Summersville and Blueberry Park which are handprinted by Karen Lewis. Jenny brought lots of scraps that she didn't want to take home and Jacqui who is the distributor for Art Gallery Fabrics also added some Art Gallery fabrics onto the table. Even after we all had taken a few extras, there was a huge bag of extras for Justine to take back to the shop. I also picked up a blue checked fabric to use as a backing for a project. A great swap. Thank you Pippa for organising the swaps.

Farm Girl Friday - the final week

I have now finished all of the blocks in the book along with a few of the extra blocks - corn, pig and tomato. This si the Winter Star block which I have made 18" square. It uses some of Katy Jones' map print for the background along with my favourite pearl bracelets.

 

And here's the final block called Woolly Sheep. I will add the legs once I've either quilted it or put the top together. Another cute block.

 

 

Completing this top is my goal for October's ALYOF challenges. First of all I need for my long arm to return from being serviced.