Mini quilts

I'm sharing two mini quilts that I finished at Simply Solids retreat back in July. The first was a planned ginger sh and was cut out ready for the retreat. Bjorn Bear by Elizabeth Hartman is a cute pattern which with an extra border to bring it up to 18" square is perfect for the Chez Soi Christmas challenge. Our challenge is to make an incubator quilt for SCBU. As my son was in SCBU almost 22 years ago, it is a challenge that is close to my heart.

The day I left for retreat, a new subscription box dropped through my letter box with this guts pattern. However I was not piecing thin strips of fabric to make the ball of wool so I dove into my stash to find someone me suitable striped fabric and I am pleased with how it turned out.

This is also the right size for the SVBU challenge and also completed on retreat. Time now to list  my UFOs for the next quarter as Q3 had more starts than finishes.

12 days of Christmas border

Again I'd decided to focus on one project or more specifically one part of one project. I have been working on the 12 days of Christmas sampler by the frosted pumpkin stitchery and had got to a stage where I had completed two sides of the border and two half's half sides of the bowl order. I then decided to focus on only the border. I managed to finish it in one day and it matched up once the two sides met! What a relief. Working over two threads of linen it is very easy to be one thread out. But not this time!

I reckon that if I work one block a week between now and the end of November, the sampler can be framed and ready to display for Christmas.

Block six is almost complete so I will work on that first for an easy finish. I already have five blocks complete as well as the border and the bottom title. The borders dividing the blocks are also finished.

What the fade!? Clue four

Clue four was published last Thursday and I got straight on to knitting the clue. I finished half of the clue on the day of release. I was busy on Friday and Saturday so planned to finish the reminder on Sunday. I managed to knit a few extra rows than planned on both Friday and Saturday so only had six rows left too knit on Sunday morning.

The rows are now getting very long with almost 500 stitches in each row. The next clue is released on Thursday with a bonus clue the following week. We are off to Spain the first weekend in October so I would like to finish the shawl before going on holiday. The shawl is a bit big to fit into my hand luggage. I think a pair of socks would be a better holiday knit.

Time to get out my 12 days of Christmas cross stitch again!

12 Days of Christmas

After I finished clue three of my what the fade shawl, I decided to get out this cross stitch piece out again. I also decided to change to a different frame and make a cover for the frame. I used a 5.5 inch strip of a fabric cut from a fat quarter that I won from Tikki London in a giveaway.

I have made great progress and hopefully in the next week I will be half finished. I hadn't realised there was a title at the bottom of the chart so I have a little more to do than I had at first  anticipated. This will come out again once I have finished clue four of my shawl.

I have just started block six of this pattern which is of swans a swimming.

What at the fade!? Clue three

After a lovely three days in London including a trip to see loose women at ITV studios and a day at Kirstie's handmade fair, I was keen to get home and finish clue three of this shawl.

I have moved yarn B to yarn D. I think this is a big improvement and will mean that yarn C will now be next to yarn A and both contain orange and pink so should fade together better.

I now plan to work on some cross stitch until clue 4 is released on Thursday.

What the fade!? Clue two

It turns out the clue one of this mystery shawlnwas just a warmup. That was probably just as well as I am a beginner brioche knitter. In clue two we have used all six yarn choices. We have also done a lot of brioche knitting.

I have to confess to doing some unpicking however not as much as for clue one. We have now cut yarn C so it looks like we have some garter stitch in the future. Hooray!

I think yarn C would have been a better chance choice as yaron B however it has not being unpicked. Now it's time to cast on a pair of socks for some travel knitting on Friday.

What the fade clue one

The first clue of this mystery Knit along was released last Thursday. I had chosen my yarns from stash but was never entirely happy with yarn six. This clue uses four of the six yarn choices and I swapped out yarn 6.

This shawl was definitely a learning experience. It included brioche stitch and I started the shawl a total  of 10 times. Hopefully I have learnt a lot and the next clue will be less traumatic. Here is the front of the shawl which took me almost 3 days to complete.

And the reverse. I am hoping that the next clue has garter stitch or stocking stitch to make progress quicker.