Quilts

Progress on the Bright Birches has been plodding along:

I started with all scraps, then realized that my yellow fabrics are way outnumbered by other colors.  Road tripped for more yellow and got a nice assortment using some of my gift card AND a nice discount I've been saving up.  

Each color placement is pretty carefully considered - for color distribution and value and size balance.  It occurred to me that I could probably get away with considering less, but I'm enjoying it, so I'll keep on this way.  

Then, yesterday, the need to outfit a new office arose, and I ditched the baby raccoon cross-stitch and the bright birches for something completely different (for the moment).   I want something that won't overwhelm with personality or the bright, saturated, clear colors that I prefer, and I had a vague memory of a "butterfly" quilt that was white squares with colored triangle corners.  Hunting that down was a bit of a task, but I finally found this quilt from 2010, and it's right on the money what I remembered.  

This is how I left it last night, but upon thinking about it, I planned to tone down the busy-ness of the neutrals, replacing several of these with plain white squares.  Then I visited the office, which currently has a beige rug and a forest-green loveseat and matching chair, as well as a kind of seafoam chair.  So I think I'll ditch the blue for the corners and go with a batik that's been in my stash so long you could probably call it vintage, which ranges from a dark green to a light teal and has white-ish, resist-looking flowers.  I think I'll throw in some red and yellow, because that room does need to be livened up a bit.  The walls are a light tan, and there's a lot of wall space.  

I have some crafting time, so there should be good progress on this today.  

Happy crafting!

A little bit of this and that

Hello!

I am doing lots of things.  

Finished the two-color brioche hat:

My gauge was pretty far off, I think - way bigger than called for.  This was a beanie pattern and ended up fitting like a beret.  It's nice and airy and warm and looks great on child #1, so my plan for matchy-matchy winter is a bit derailed at this point.  However!  I have more plans. 

Finished some mittens:

Gryffindooooooor!

Wasn't sure how the Madeline Tosh singles would do, but these came out nice and soft and warm.  Hoping they'll wear well. 


Finished a baby quilt:

Koalalalala!

I'm also working on a cross-stitch of a baby raccoon.  I saw the pattern on Etsy and decided instantly to make it.  I ordered 18 colors of thread.  I quickly realized that the pattern is what they call "confetti" and then resigned myself to spending months on it.  

This picture was taken what feels like a long time ago!

My crafting time::money spent ratio is incredible for this one.  Tedium?  Yes, please!  Really, I think this represents at least a month's work of probably an average of an hour a night.  That could also be way off, I don't know.  I did work on it so much one night in January that I couldn't move my arm for two days.  Have been mixing it up a bit more since then. 

I'm also elbow-deep in my scraps right now, cutting pieces 2"x 1-1.75".  Decided to make a quilt like one I thought I'd seen on crazymomquilts.  Started planning and checked out her site and couldn't find it.  After lots of duckduckgo-ing for scrap quilt images, I found it: Bright Birches, which is in fact by crazymomquilts, but is offered through Connecting Threads.  I thought I remembered one scrap strip through the square, but it looks like she used three, so three it is.  

On the right is my collection of 2" squares, which I'm making into four-patches as a leader/ender.  Don't have an ultimate plan for that quilt - sashing between bigger squares?  Postage stamp all the way?  No idea.  

For my birches quilt, I'm really hoping to find enough solids in my stash for the square backgrounds so that I don't have to buy any more.  This one may be a gift for a long-time childcare provider we had.  I haven't made my way through the yellow or purple scraps yet and need a lot more of those, but the cutting is getting a little old.  Am ready to sew.  Do not have any idea how many scraps the quilt will ultimately use, but I can always either cut more or make three more birch quilts, whichever seems to be required.  

I miss reading quilt blogs.  Back in the day, I had a nice list of bookmarks.  Then some blogs went defunct (nooooooo!  show me more quiltssssss!!) and then I got a new computer that likes to reinstall my browser every time I restart the computer.   That... seems like something that shouldn't happen, but damned if I'm going to spend time figuring out how to make it not do that.  It does somehow save my bookmarks, so I can look at some quilt blogs.  But ever since Finish It Up Friday went away, my quiltblogosphere just hasn't been the same.  But look, I am posting on my blog more than once per year!  That's something!

Happy crafting!

And finally, a quest.

And now here is a blog post I've been writing in my head for 14 months. 

The Yarn Harlot wrote, wisely, several years ago about how you can tell a hand knitter by their utterly mismatched accessories, and until now I have embodied that exactly.  How does a person make 20 projects spanning mittens, neckwear, and hats and have NONE of them match?  Like, at all?  Okay, I have a shawl that looks okay with a pair of mittens, if you don't look too closely. 

Well.  No more.  Because I'm going to make projects that will complete a set with already-existing objects.  It's genius.  (I just misspelled genius on the first try.  Okay, two tries.) 

Contestants:

These mittens.  They are nice and bright without showing all the grime that immediately gets on one's hands as one navigates winter in the snowy North.  They also kind of go with a handspun shawl I made a couple years ago that is screaming pink and orange.  They are also not yet worn through at the thumb, which is more than I could say about SOME mittens (they know who they are).  And I have half a skein of each of these colors left that could make a very nice colorwork hat. 

This hat.  Have I not introduced you to Spooks yet?  Spooks is my head model, so named because the children find her spooky.  That may have had something to do with the fact that their father immediately, upon meeting Spooks, stuck her on a broomstick, turned off all the lights, and lit her from below for the children to come upon after their bath*. 

Anyway, this hat is from my handspun Nest merino something or other, and there's half a ball left that could make some lovely fingerless mitts or part of a cowl, paired with a solid.  That pattern is Norby, which I don't find makes a super-warm hat for the depths of winter, but does make a very nice fall hat.  

Hat not pictured, but if you've spent time on Rav, you'd know it.  It's that Easy Ombre Slouch Hat that fades nicely from one color to the next, and it's in Loden and Neutral Slightly Darker than Off-White, and it is possible to order more.  That was a gift from Mom, and it may be my favorite hat and it's nice and warm and soft.  

And Surprise Mystery Contestant, All New Things!

For Christmas, this happened, this being Ankara Green Malabrigo Rios.  (Thanks, Mom!)  My stars, it is so pretty.  The photo is not exactly correct, it's more of a greeny turquoise, and I love it and my choice is probably going to be something two-color-brioche (is that redundant?) and something necky and maybe some colorwork hand things.  

If I excel in 2020, there will be more than one matching set of things in which I can leave the house not looking like a proficient yet colorblind knitter.  There will also hopefully be more than just two finished quilts, and a bunch of other stuff, too.  

Wishing you the best for 2020.  Happy crafting!




*

Aieeeeee!

More Cross-Stitch

Oh man, I've only finished two quilts this year.  That's way under my normal average.  I've finished other stuff, though, like skeins of handspun:

Corriedale X, I want to say Brown Dog fibers?  Fingering weight 2-ply

Oh, and I accidentally took up needle-felting.  Pictures of that when I make the one series of fourteen posts in a row next December, because maybe it will be finished by then.  

So here are the finished cross-stitches:

All patterns were found on Etsy, and all are Harry Potter-themed.  My surprise favorite ended up being the Luna Lovegood one (which says "Don't worry, you're just as sane as I am").  It was the quickest and simplest, but with the mat of the shiny, different color-reflecting scrapbook paper, it really came together well.  (There's a word for that kind of paper, but I can't retrieve it, the internets were unhelpful, and we shall have to forge ahead.)  

My cross-stitching queue is full of pretty, mostly butterfly-themed projects but I haven't committed to one yet.  I scored some sweet, sweet black Aida cloth over my visit home, and have some ideas for that as well. 

Okay, what else...

Finished baby quilt!  

Orange zig-zags on the back!  Given to the receiving baby in July or so.  Bunny label included. 

Cross-stitch, swearing

Quick little cross-stitch projects are a delight.  This is one that I whipped up and sent off to my friend from college, a fellow linguistics major:

A very interesting conversation about the link between unicorns and rainbows followed. 

FO: The Lion

For a Christmas present, I made my youngest brother The Lion. It was my first English Paper Piecing project.  I replaced the pink with shades of bright blue and stuck with the basic color scheme for the yellows, though I don't think I hit each Kona shade exactly.  

I got a fabric glue stick especially for the purpose and it worked well. I only thread baste under extreme duress. 

The pattern was a birthday present, and I probably got started with the cutting and gluing in August.  By mid-September, the top was complete, though I let it sit for a long time before taking the papers out. 

I did echoing lines over the face and ears and mane-ish loops and spirals in the mane section.  I used yellow thread on the face and it took me awhile to decide to use clear thread in the mane - couldn't find any color that I liked over the very wide range of shades.  

With more (wonky, asymmetrical, please don't look too closely) echo quilting in the gray, it was on its way, and the binding was a snap to hand-finish.  The back is a simple print in a dark teal.  

I like Violet Craft's patterns a lot.  If she ever does a raccoon, I will be all over it.  I also love EPP just as much as I feared I would, and am planning 17 EPP quilts, each of which will take hundreds of hours to complete. 

Thumbs resting

I have been on a wild crafting tear these last several days.  Well into cross-stitching (or rather, blackwork but with color), my left thumb started aching, and now both my thumbs are begging for mercy.  So instead of crafting tonight, I will write a post and show all the reasons that my thumbs hurt.  

I found this pattern on Etsy (Rainbow Blackwork) and stitched it up over the last several weeks.  It called for a single strand of thread, but for each color, I chose two colors that were pretty close together for a slightly deeper color. 

Boy it was a lot of work, but I love how it came out.  Found a frame for it (11x17) and am trying to figure out how to mount it - if I were starting over, I'd leave more space around the bottom and left sides.  

This next one is a Norby hat made from a handspun from TDF last year. 

And speaking of the TDF, here is a lot of spinning that I mostly did before the Tour and then a tiny bit I did on the second to last night of it.  Whoops.  
 

And finally, here is some of the color selection that will become The Lion, a gift for my brother.  Not as spectacular is the Abstraction version, but I don't think he needs five feet of lion in his house.  This as a wallhanging will be more his speed.  

English Paper Piecing is almost certainly addictive, and there is a little niggling piece of me that has latched onto the idea that one could make one's own patterns pretty easily, were one so inclined.  The prep work is a lot, which I think is part of what my thumbs are so pissed off about.  I had to order most of the yellows and a couple grays, so this is not all ready to go yet, but I stitched a few pieces together last night, and yes, this will be good.  

Happy crafting!

Cross stitching

A few months ago, I caught a wild hair to cross stitch a mandala.  After some poking around on Etsy, I bought a pattern (which turned out to be a bigger commitment than I realized at first) and dug out whatever I could find to get started RIGHT THEN.  Rainbow mandala?  Yes, please. 

Rainbow mandala!!

I had some purple and blue on hand, though not the ones called for in the pattern.  No matter, I was starting, so I went with what I had and started. I haven't added up the total number of stitches, but the light orange was the most with 2600-odd, so this is a lot of stitches.  I finally washed it last night and need to frame it.  

This project taught me how much I detest ripping out cross stitches.  Wow, is it not fun.  From now my plan is to just be very, very careful to not make mistakes.  That should work. 

Below is my next cross-stitch project, which is a fabulous little thing that combines unicorns, swearing, and grammar jokes.  It will be a surprise for a friend who likes all three.  Below is one night's work.  I was also unprepared for this one, colors-wise and thread-wise, but I had some sparkly pink on hand and some shiny rayon yellow for the horn.  I may backstitch around the horn with a medium brown so you can see it better.  

This year, instead of training for the Tour de Fleece exclusively by buying large quantities of fiber, I am am buying large quantities of fiber and spinning some of it. 

This is corriedale X from Brown Dog Fiber Arts Studio, which I got at a sheep & wool festival last fall.  It is pretty and will probably turn into a 2-ply. 

With my glorious, glorious few hours to myself today, I rolled up 6 (6!!) quilts' worth of white borders - Kona Snow.  This was going to be a story about how prudent and responsible I am being, but actually most of those stories turn out differently.  This time, I thought very carefully about how wide to cut them and then made the crazy decision to cut them 3" wide, which yields a finished quilt that just barely fits within the backing size I normally get, which is 1 1/4 yd.  So I guess I'm committed to pretty large crib quilts for the forseeable. 

Why did I do that?  Dunno.   The thought of cutting them down and losing all that fabric just doesn't sit right, so big quilts it will be. 

Here is the first one of the large-bordered quilts, all bordered up this morning.  

I held up the intended backing, and phew, it does fit.  I've started another similar top, so the gender-neutral quilt on the docket may end up being orange/blue/green, although the idea of koalas does appeal to me.  Maybe I will make a shop quilt of it instead.  

Happy crafting!

endless winter

I have done stuff, so I should say stuff.  

First (not really first, but the gods of blogger picture upload have decreed it shall be so), panda mittens!  They are cute.  They were not too hard.  I was on a wild corrugated ribbing tear.   

The big panda side is for the back of the hand and the little panda side is for the palm.  I used black Palette and Bare Hare Fingering weight from Knit Picks. 

These were for a panda fan in my life.   

These lovely little mittens are made from Hazelknits superwash sock yarn in signature black and strawberry lemonade, a color I've hoarded for years and just love.  Looking at it actually makes me happy, especially during the grayest winter I can remember. 

Again with the corrugated ribbing.   The pattern used was Plucky Mittens by Virginia Sattler-Reimer, which I bought on Ravelry.  It called for a heavier weight than fingering, but the stitch counts checked out for what I normally use for fingering weight, so I went with it.  This yarn is noticeably soft, so while I'm not at all looking forward to needing mittens again, it will be nice to need these. 

I made a pair of clef mittens for a raffle fundraiser for a youth orchestra: 

Here is my first finished foray into decoupaging.  Decoupage is one of those things that I'm nearly always wishing I were doing.  It's so different from fiber crafting, with the sanding and the painting and the waiting while paint and glue are drying, so it's often hard to switch back and forth.  I should, though, considering what my elbow has to say about three hours of cross stitch a night.   
 

I've gotten two sets of drawers from Ikea (here), little decorative ones that I'm trying to make plans for.  Will I use collaged pictures of yarn?  Will I use this very cool wrapping paper from a gift one of my kids got from a friend?  Will I use cut up crayon drawings that the kids have yet to produce?  

I've also got another drawer set like the one I just finished, as well as a slightly wider and shorter one with four drawers.  

After a spate of friend babies, the baby-having died down for awhile, but now I have friends due soon - one with a boy and one who is not finding out sex before the baby's born.  I have three quilts saved up, but quilting would be a good alternative to cross-stitch right now, so I started another gender-neutral quilt last night.  It's hard to be gender-neutral without being babyish (pastels, yellow ducks, etc.) and I'm nearly out of the many oranges that I got for Love Grows a Grove, so I may need to take a trip to a fabric store soon.  There will likely be one blue-green-orange quilt and another koala quilt, both of which I need a little more variety for.  

Happy crafting!

FO: Penguins and Moonglows quilt

I finished a huge quilt!  This has been in the making for several years - when winter came early and stayed, our house was cold at night and the patchwork of various summer quilts and blankets just wasn't cutting it, especially with the 60-pound dog who somehow ends up where my legs are supposed to be with all the blankets underneath him. 

The initial plan was to make something smaller, and the idea of making it bigger was so compelling and appealing that I put it aside for a couple of years. 

The pattern is based on a "jewel box" block, though the color schemes I found on the internets were different than what I ended up doing - most had lots of variation in each diamond.  I'd say it's my own pattern, but it wasn't really a pattern, just a bunch of math for blocks, then squinting one eye and figuring that it should probably be bigger and therefore needed more blocks, and then, yeah, borders. 

I started with 4-5 green and 4-5 purple fabrics, not wanting them to repeat in the same diamond, and as the plan grew, I threw in more fabrics.  

I was worried that it still wouldn't be big enough, but it finished at 77.5 x 93 (before washing), which is plenty big enough for a full-size bed, even accounting for the snuggly furball.  

I fretted for a long time, block after block, about how to quilt it.  I took it in to my office to wrestle the borders onto it, and after basting it, I decided that stitch-in-the-ditch was it. 

The back is wide fabric from Connecting Threads, and the thread is the 100% poly Connecting Threads in white, with a bit of black handquilting thread (Coats?) to sew the binding down.  Batting is the Hobbs one with wool - Tuscan something? 

Didn't get too fancy with quilting on the borders.  I missed the last really big colds, the ones where there were millions of visible stars in the sky and the bottom dropped out of the thermometer, but there may be more.  

I don't know how people regularly make quilts this big.  They're great to sleep under, but that was... whew.  

Competing with this desperate dash to finish the quilt was my yearly Mitten Fever, which so far has yielded these two:

Above is "Winterland Mittens," and below is "Swedish Fish Mittens" modified to fit a turning-7-year-old.  The turning-5-year-old is persistently demanding purple legwarmers, so that may be next on my to-do list.  

And more mittens, completed earlier as a Christmas present:

They're supposed to look so different.  Yeah. 

I should post more often!  But I probably won't.  Happy crafting!

Koalas!

I finished up the Koala Quilt I'd been working on:

And thanks to some sleuthing on my Mom's part, I now have a ton more koala fabric, which means lots of these little quilts in the future.  It's flipping adorable, with a great color palette and a nice scale for borders.   (It's "Koala Baby" by Maria Kalinowski for Kanvas, specifically "Koala's [sic] in Trees-C 8681.") 

I dug out some of my favorite greens for this one.  

It's posted in my Etsy shop, and I've got backing and borders for the next koala quilt ready to go. 

I picked up the purple and green quilt again, which, checking the blog, I see that I got discouraged about it because I wanted it big and didn't have the uumph to do it.  Well, I'm aiming for full-sized and have 20 squares finished, as well as fabric for borders ready to go.  Here's what my craft area looked like:

Happy crafting!