Quilting saves

Hello, everyone!  Now finds us living in the little windows between Covid scares, and stuck inside even then, because the cold is a kind of cold that you can't really go outside in.  I am tired of talking about Covid, thinking about Covid, adjusting plans because Covid, etc. Covid.  

So today we're not going to!  In my little quilting spaces, I watch shows that (mostly) aren't about the pandemic and make stuff that is distinctly non-pandemic-related.  

 

Scrap Strip Quilt

I did say uncle and dug into the white stash for the rest of the strip blocks, which I finished putting white borders on.  I cut the corners off like so:

And I did that 72 times.  Actually 144.  Then I cut out 144 triangles to go in the corners, then sewed them on, then laid out all the squares on the back of another huge quilt, then put them in piles, and am now sewing rows of squares together.  Very exciting!  I have enough batting for this one, and a plan-ish thing for the backing.  Basting is going to be a Thing, and quilting is going to be an even bigger Thing.  Don't quite have a plan for quilting yet, but it will happen!  Hopefully before this insanely cold weather stops!  

 

Gnomies

Some progress has been made!  The first of the specialized gnomes has been made, which you can't actually tell without a lot of awareness of what qualifies as specialized.  This is a plaid shirt that was a hand-me-down from one of the recipients.  It's pretty darn thin, which probably isn't great, but it's not too much real estate on the top, and I really don't want to make another one.  

I tried hard to match up the plaid:

And it kind of worked:

Not perfect, but good enough.  I have an inkling of a plan to use the brand-new Cricut to cut out the logo of a restaurant that said recipient has on their favorite baseball cap.  That may be a whole lot of work, but it may also be fun?  And I'm not afraid of applique, and it would make the specializedness even clearer, so maybe!  

Nest Fiber

Anywhere between 2-5 years ago, I got as a gift some fiber from Nest and spun it up into a dense chain-ply that came out to be about worsted weight, or maybe aran.  Then Mom knit it into most of a hat!  And then there wasn't enough yarn left to make the rest of a hat!  So patiently, we waited and watched the Nest site to see if Equinox in Superwash Merino was ever available again.  And it wasn't.  

And then, a week or two ago, I sent an e-mail I'd been thinking about sending for anywhere between 2-5 years, that said 'hello, can you please dye some more of this fiber?' and then Nest said 'of course!' and then they did and then I felt silly for waiting 2-5 years.  

Isn't it so pretty?  Such nice colors.  I am not confident about my ability to match the weight, but some wrong yarn is probably better than no yarn.  And I got two more bumps of fiber, so I'll have a second chance if it's too wrong.  

Baby!

It honestly may be true that my joy at hearing about new babies is almost 100% because I want to make a quilt for them, and not, say, the human potential, or the joy of becoming a family, or anything uplifting and positive.  QUILT!  

 

This is the early stage of the next Koala quilt.  It's now a top, ready to be basted, with backing from stash (it hasn't been there super long, but it could have been so still a win!) and I have fabric for binding, too.  

I'm doing the UFO group in the Quilters Knitting group on Ravelry again, for which all three of these will count this quarter, woo!  And I refrained from joining the Unbegun challenge this time around, even though I have more than one t-shirt quilt that could be begun.  Maybe if they do it again.  

I'm also doing a fabric fast, mostly because the shelves that my fabric go on are stuffed, stuffed to the gills, and I filled in the light purples and browns that really rounded out the rainbow.  And there are quarterly buying days, so if I do end up actually needing something in order to finish something, I won't be up a creek.  

 

Squooshy Shawl

The last thing I'm working on that's worth talking about is a squooshy shawl out of the squooshy rambouillet I spun last year.  I'm using the Bramble Shawl pattern from Miriam Felton, and it is huge and squooshy.  I haven't snapped a picture of it so far - and it's just a big pile of garter stitch - but here's the yarn: 

And that's it!  I hope to have more progress to report soon. 

Happy crafting! 

Quilting Bug vs. Holiday Bug

Just in time for the holiday crunch, I am being swept away by a quilt I've had in mind for many years.  I lost the link to the original one I saw, which was purple and green, but I did find the basic pattern elsewhere on the web: scrappy sandwiches.  Not only is this not a holiday gift for anyone, but it's not even on my list of UFOs for the Rav quilting group quarterly UFO challenge, which must be making it extra tempting to work on, because I am in the zone.  

It all started with my scrap bin overflowing.  Couldn't get the lid on, spilling out everywhere, such a mess.  So I dug around on the web and found the pattern I'd had in mind, then got to work cutting 4"x whatever strips, then I pulled out some yardage I don't yet have scraps of.  A major side bonus of this is that my white scrap stash was enormous and annoyingly everywhere, and I've used up every white scrap that was at least 12"x1.5" and was probably not muslin.  I've gone into some leftovers stashed with amounts cut out for standard baby blanket borders and think I'll soon have to say uncle and go into the white stash.  I'm piecing some smaller pieces of white together, too.  

Another side bonus is that the corners from the ends will become another quilt, though I don't have a design in mind yet for that one.  

The centers of the squares will probably be a dark blue, which I have a lot of yardage of, for some reason.  

Gnomes!

The newfound passion for making 4" strip rectangles is unfortunate given the smashing progress I'd been making on the gnome quilt, Norm & Nanette (which was intended to be a gift, though not for Christmas).  Nine Norms and two Nanettes (one missed picture day).  I'll be customizing most of the remaining ones into gnomies who look like the family this will be given to, including using some hand-me-down clothes from them for the gnome clothes.  

 

The backgrounds and collars are cut for the remaining Nanettes, which leaves only faces/hair and clothes to cut out for them, but yeah, I stalled.  Perhaps something even less tangentially related to Christmas and gift-giving imperatives will come along and knock me out of the 4" strip rectangle zone.  

 

Anything else?

Oh, yes.  Kiddo wished out loud that she could take her red baby blanket to school, and when you wish things like that out loud, you're basically ordering a mini quilt STAT, so that happened in an evening:

The back is some leftover flannel from said quilt as well.  It came out about 4"x4". 

Oh, here's an earlier shot of the hexi mini thing that was killing my wrist so badly I had to stop working on it for weeks:

It's bigger now, and there's a separate piece that's growing slowly.  I only work on it a little bit at a time because when my wrist hurts and I contemplate not being able to make stuff, the brain walls start closing in a bit.  

One kid wants socks, one kid got some gauntlets made already, which will be a Christmas gift but possibly an early one.  Should've been really early, because it was a windy 25F today, which is no longer fingerless mitten territory.  

I know, I know, there's an unwoven end.  I already wove it in!  Maybe.  But if I didn't, I really will.  Probably even before the kid unwraps them.  I made these out of Hawthorne kettle dye in Wisp, which is not nearly as teal as that picture would have you believe.  It's just a light blue.  Oh yes, and the pattern is Pyy Mitts.  

Alright, there must be more, but it's not coming to mind.  Here's hoping that you American readers have a lovely Thanksgiving.  

Happy crafting! 

Finishes (from awhile ago!)

Oh, holy cow, I didn't post TWO finishes from July and August.  Oh, wait, including socks there were FOUR finishes: (Updated to add: oh yeah, I finished THREE quilts.)

I took this picture in a car!

And then here is the Ugly Quilt, also known as Bright Birches, which I actually ended up really liking:

The birches backing fabric finally did come, and I ordered a whole heck of a lot of it.  I'm always surprised by how much fabric backs take.  

I machine-quilted "straight" horizontal lines with two different variegated threads that were actually embroidery thread.  Used black embroidery thread for the back.  Everything I found online said it should work, and although it was a bit thinner than thread I normally quilt with, it had a nice sheen and was just the right amount of crazy to put this quilt into the right craziness territory.  

And I don't have a picture of the baby quilt that I was going to show you handy, but then going through the pictures, I realized I haven't even posted this quickie little quilt:

This was made to cheer up a colleague, and it was done in record time.  I explained to the quilt several times that it was supposed to be quick and simple, but it put up a decent fight anyway.  I pulled all the front fabric from stash, and ordered this blinding rainbow backing fabric because it was wide-back and I wanted something quick.  

 

Oh, and here's that baby quilt:

This backing was just a touch too bright, and also I'd just bought it to replace the last yard that I'd bought and ended up using as a backing, but it was the best I had.  There was one Connecting Threads low-volume one that coordinated nicely with the borders of the top, but it seems blurry to me, even though I think that's just the pattern. 

I'll let you know if I remember any other quilt finishes that slipped my mind!  This should be all for now, though.  

Happy crafting!

Another Move

Hey ho, Orooni the Crafter here.  I'm moving crafting spaces again, and that process always takes longer than I expect.  This has meant that I've had to focus on little handwork pieces, rather than anything that takes lots of cutting or space, so I've been utterly crushing my handwork goals recently.  See this shocking development:

This is 25 flowers all sewn up.  I'd stalled in the middle of the 8th one, and then whammo, they're done.  I wish I had more.  The next step is to deal with the big piece of linen that will make up both the background of the quilt top and the middle of each flower.  I have to cut out a bunch of middles, and then, instead of embroidering flowers on them, I plan to embroider the name of a virtue, with some little picture to go along with it.  I'm excited about this, but the amount of energy and focus it will take to get that started is just not happening right now.  

 

I'm also unsure about the directions for putting the flowers together - it says to applique the center of the flower to the petals before taking the papers out of the petals, which sounds like it would be both difficult to do and difficult to make look good.  So I'm thinking about appliqueing them after the flowers are appliqued to the background.  

Next up is the Monkey See, Monkey Applique quilt, and I have either reached or come very, very close to reaching the point where I do not have any other medium/dark fabrics that I haven't already used.  I'm repeating light backgrounds but trying not to repeat the medium/darks.  I need them all spread out to check on the other possible fabrics to use, and my design wall hasn't been moved yet, sooo...

One virtue of my new space is that there is actual sunlight sometimes:

At this moment of the move, I have basic sewing tools and a clear desk, so I jumped at the chance to make my ironing board cover, which recently has been a nice twill piece of fabric haphazardly draped over three layers of batting and the frame.  It is now this:

Pretty and functional!  My last cover literally crumbled into singed dust, so this is a great improvement. 

I'm planning a gnome quilt, which is also very exciting and will take a lot of cutting and planning, which I haven't been up for.  In the meantime, I pulled out a pack of tiny hexagon papers and the enormous stack of scraps and have started basting:

I don't know exactly what this will be, but there are at least two possible plans.  

Happy crafting!

Finishes!

 BooPeeDooPeeDoo

The Irish Chain quilt is finished!  And it got delivered today!  

 

I did a big stipple all over, and I like how the batting shrank in its first wash. 

It is very, very scrappy, and I didn't keep the values perfectly lined up between blocks, so it could probably be Irish-Chain-ie-er, but I'm willing to live with it. 

 

The back is a wide-back fabric from Connecting Threads, with a strategically placed very big label that hides a big tuck that got quilted in.  I went with Warm & Natural batting, and it's bound in some wide-backing green that I used on the back of a previous quilt. 

Deck the Halls

Also finished is this very fun little Christmas cross-stitch, yet another by Satsuma Street.  And just in the nick of time, too, as we're free to leave the state again. 

Repairs

I recently noticed that the Penguins and Moonglows quilt had a couple of spots where the seams had broken, so I spent some time closing those up before they could get caught on something and rip even more.  

A before

A different after

Pouches!

And finally, before our big trip, I spent some time one weekend making non-quilt things other than masks for the first time in a very long time, hurrah! 

These are Open Wide pouches, but with altered dimensions to make them taller. 

Making them taller meant I couldn't get two linings out of one fat quarter, which is all I had of the unicorns, so there's pink on one side. 

Work continues on a baby quilt needed by August and two summer quilts.  I need to pick a new cross-stitch soon, too.

Happy crafting!

I can stipple, yes I can

Quilts

A lot has happened since that last post.  I stuck some stuff in my shoppy shop shop.  I finished a quilt top, decided it was too ugly to give as a gift, decided to make it into a summer quilt and give it instead to the kid who swears she likes it, ordered some seersucker for inside the summer quilt, decided to order enough for the second kid to get a summer quilt, then started piecing together that quilt in an improv process that is meant to mimic the crayon drawing she did for me about 2 years ago.  

This is the ugly quilt.  The red just doesn't work.  I was very faithful and just used stash for this, and really should've just gotten my hands on more purpley blues.  

Needing a backup plan for the gift quilt, which is for a woman who took care of the kids what's turning out to be awhile ago now, I called up all those 2" squares I'd been sewing together as leader/enders.  Yoinked a pattern from someone else in the quilting group on Ravelry, and WHAMMO:

Today I basted this bad boy.  Man, everything looks better in glowing sunlight, doesn't it?  Maybe if I'd taken a picture of the ugly quilt in glowing sunlight, it would be done and given by now.  

To my great joy, the kids have decided that quilting with me (i.e. the big one ironing things for me and enduring frequent lecturing about the Proper Way to Iron, and the little one DJing on my computer) is the most fun thing that can happen.  I blame the pandemic, but in this case it means tons of quilting time, so I'm not and will never complain.  

I'm trying to get up the will to stipple this.  Straight line quilting would be by far the easiest, but I like the way that stippled quilts crinkle up, so stippling it is.  I've changed the foot and tension on my machine, broken open a new spool of thread so I don't have to use two different lots, dropped the feed dogs, and found my quilting gloves.  But I haven't stippled a quilt this big in a long time, and ripping out quilting is even worse than ripping out cross stitch, so the stakes feel high.  

 

Baby Quilt

In other news, a friend of mine from school is having a baby in August, which I'm very excited about for her, and only a little bit more excited that it means that I can make her a quilt, AND she likes lavender/mint/gray, which is the best color combination.  I used my quarterly buying day to get a nice bunch of lavenders, which my stash is terribly lacking in.  Did I take a picture?  I did not, sorry.  But I will.  

 

Fabric Buying

I thought very carefully about it, weighing the pros and cons, then I blew my pledge not to buy any more fabric this quarter, AND I plan to do it again if the world's most perfect backing fabric ever arrives at Hawthorne Supply Company, which it said would happen in late April, and it is now May and I'm still waiting.  Not so patiently, you might have noticed.  Because I won't have to stipple that quilt.  

Cross-Stitch Thing

I finished my cross stitch and I think it looks great.  Folded and sewed it up, have a dowel rod and beads, but haven't found the gray cord I need, so it's stalled waiting to be washed and hung up. 

 

Ummm, what else?

I think that's pretty much it.  Hoping I'll have a finished quilt or four to show the next time I post.  

Happy crafting!

all the things

I am doing a lot of stuff right now.  It involves glue, paint, embroidery thread, Bottom Line thread, Liberty fabrics, hunks of wood, thrifted objects, and lots and lots of sockyarn.  

Folk Flowers

Here is one thing!  Almost done, working on the last motif.  Got a dowel yesterday, need wooden beads for the ends of the dowel, as well as some nice gray cord.   

 

Ruby May Quilt

Here is another thing!  After plowing straight through 300 petals, then organizing them into little petal piles, I plowed through seven flowers and then stalled in the middle of the 8th. 

 

Art!  Or something.

Now I'm using all the little tiny offcuts of the petals to create built-up... paper/media/fabric-but-not-because-of-all-of-the-glue.  Then I'm cutting words out of that.  

Man, my light is so bad.  

So, woo, I like that, but now I need places to put them.  So I got some little canvases and thrifted some frames and a round bamboo coaster thing and this thing: 

which is actually made out of paper glued onto particle board of some sort.  It's pretty awful.  I'd like to find a source for offcut bits of wood that I could use, keeping on the scrap/upcycling theme, but it seems stupid to order $60 worth of wood from across the country.  I'm hoping that paint and glue will be enough to turn this thing into something someone would like to display. 

Here's one little one that's almost finished.  One kid is operating a pop-up braided items shop in our living room occasionally, so I've acquired some long braids of embroidery thread that will be incorporated somehow. 

This one is just a little block of wood that I'll attach a sawtooth hanger to the back of.  

Because I don't need more than about three items with "hope" written on them, I'm planning to open the etsy shop back up.  That will be a good outlet for the flood of finished socks in all the same colorways:

Oh yes, and it was mitten time, so I've started some mittens.  

 

These are Shetland Peerie Mittens, and I'm brazenly stealing the color scheme from another Raveler.  It took the mitten a lot of convincing to get me to realize that I'd neglected to do the increases after the cuff, but I finally got the message and am moving again.  The next round is supposed to be blue and green, but the colors look so close that I'm hesitating to use them together and am therefore a little stuck.  

Happy crafting!

Yammering into the void

Fogski

I finished some mittens!

My friend, who is a Frozen North native, wears big-gauge huge honkin mittens, so I figured I'd give some a shot, too.  These are Fogski, a Knitty pattern.  I used Malabrigo in Mecha and a lightweight merino/acrylic rather than the very beautiful and very, very expensive yarns called for in the pattern.  They're too big, but still soft and warm.  

Folk Flowers

The embroidery is coming along:

I ripped out and re-did the green part of the left flower with red petals because one of my stitches didn't cross all the way and it bugged me and bugged me.  I could have attempted a fix, but redoing was easier.  I usually work so that I don't have to put my hoop over stitches I've already done, but because this one is long and narrow, it's impossible not to.  So I loosen my hoop a lot and then place it and tighten - is that how you're supposed to do it?  I dunno.  Seems to be working.  Haven't made any mistakes that have made me cry yet, that's good.  

Ruby May

Merry Christmas to me!  (Awhile ago.)  I got a quilt kit for the Ruby May quilt and have been working my fingers to the bone covering petal papers.  There are 300 of them, and 50 teeny scraps of Liberty fabric to make them with.  

 

Not wanting my learning curve to show, I traced 6 petals onto some other cardstock and made one flower to see how it would go.  I thought I did a good job of gluing that curve, but it was hard to get the curve to stick around when appliqueing.  

So I make 300 of these petals and am planning a super-fun plan-o-rama where I line up all the pretty little piles and sort them into different flowers and that may end up being the most fun part of this whole thing.  

 

 

Also, I found that I have completely forgotten how to applique.  I mean, this flower isn't going anywhere, but the process for that happening was not clean.  Also, I seem to have started a mini quilt and should probably make a plan for how to finish it.  

The scraps of Liberty are too pretty to throw away, so I'm also hatching a plan for glueing them all down and then cutting out words or something to make some paper art.  

 

Underrainbow

I made a cowl.  If you see any mistakes, please do not tell me.  This is the sort of pattern that makes my brain go "that looks wrong," but then I can't put my finger on how.  It is made from Bare Hare and Felici in Firefighter (both from Knitpicks.  

 

Norby, but a Cowl

I also made another cowl! This matches the Norby hat made for Kid 1 and uses up the rest of that Persephone from Frabjous Fibers 3-ply handspun.

Argh, I don't think I took a picture.  

I'm also working on another Norby, but a Cowl in another handspun for another kid.  Was making great progress, but then it fell under my desk and I kind of forgot it existed until right now typing this but there's still plenty of time before the birthday.  

Fabric Fast

For 2021, I'm participating in the Rav quilting group's fabric fast.  There's a quarterly buying day where you can make purchases, but I haven't used mine yet and am hoping not to, at least this quarter.  (I unilaterally decided that ordering filter fabric for masks doesn't count, because that's not for quilting.)  And given that I'm still at the glueing stage, I sincerely doubt I'll be needing backing fabric for Ruby May anytime soon.  

 

Happy crafting!