Mosaic Quilt, pieced

I finished piecing the center of the Double-Irish-Chain Mosaic quilt this weekend, and it is beautiful! I only have to decide what kind of border I want. I’ve got two top choices: two white strips around a strip of pieced green and brown (and white?) squares, or a wide single white strip with leaves appliquéd around the corners. The leaves would be very nice, but hand-appliqué is pretty tedious and I kind of start hating it about 5 minutes in. So I’m leaning toward the pieced border. Which will also be nice.

I’m not planning to quilt this one for a while, since I’ve got other things on my plate, but it is a relief to have all those little squares in one piece now. For the quilting, I plan to do diagonal lines forming “x” patterns through the white small squares by machine, then some hand-quilted motifs in the large white squares. The example quilt had feathered wreaths, which are a possibility, but I have a much more interesting and challenging idea that I’m not sure I’ll pursue on this one. I need a very white batting for this, so my usual cotton is out. I was thinking of looking into a wool or silk blend. I’m not sure I can quilt it on my current machine, with its really small aperture. Another reason to hold off quilting.

Mosaic Quilt, Step 2

I have put my new sewing room to good use this weekend. I’ve finished piecing the 15 checkerboard blocks for my mosaic double-irish chain quilt. In order to ensure I get a good, scrappy mix of the browns in the other 15 blocks, I laid out the entire center of the quilt. (Minus a few more small white squares I need to cut.) It’s really pretty. From a distance, the lovely scrappy irish chain pattern is stunning. And up close, the beautiful Stonehenge fabric really shines. The border is going to be mostly white, but I’ll either piece more of these squares in the border, or I’ll applique some leafy things on the corners. Even though the remaining squares have few seams, I doubt I’ll finish them tonight because my Dear Husband and I are going to watch a movie this afternoon! Yay!

Past Time to Blog

I tend to not blog enough because I have an “order” of things to blog about, but I’m not ready with the picture or words for whatever is “next”. Rather than let this perfectionism get in my way, I’m going to just blog what I want whenever, even if I never get around to the pictures that I intend to do next.

Over the holidays, my Mom and I finished 5 scarves for Special Olympics which have been donated. I’ve got 4 1/2 more that I’m working on to donate in the next couple of weeks. That’s the project that I am working towards finishing at the moment. I’m crocheting all the scarves from here on out because it’s faster.

The scarf I’m working on now is a pattern derived from a headband in Interweave’s Crochet Accessories. But I may have gotten side-tracked into actually making a lovely, lacey little headband (pictured). I really like this pattern a lot– so much so that I’ve considered opening a headband shop on Etsy! But let’s not go crazy here. My current job is to finish the scarf.

Year of the What Now?

This year, nominally the Year of the Sock, has been a good year, though you might have noticed, Dear Reader, that there have not been so many socks. Some people facing a similar dearth of socks might say that they had failed their Year of the Sock. I look at the beautiful quilts and rug from this year, and I can’t feel like a failure.

I’ve begun to think about what this next year might bring, and I think it’s time I spent effort finishing some projects that have hung around for quite a while. I have more than one sweater languishing at a second sleeve or, even worse, the yoke. How can someone be within inches of a beautiful new sweater and put it down?

I have a soft-sided treasure chest from Ikea that contains mostly projects of this sort, and I endeavor to have it empty this year!

Special Scarf 2

Here is a second scarf for Special Olympics. This one is knitted, following the “Heroic Stripes Scarf” pattern. It features garter stitch stripes interspersed with lace panels. As you can see, I have yet to weave in any of the umpteen-hundred ends. I’ve decided my next scarf will be knit in garter stitch using three skeins of yarn, carrying the yarn up the side as I go so there will only be 6 ends to finish. Or maybe I’ll do like Mom and have a large middle block of a single color with just a couple of stripes of the other color at the edges.

A scarf takes a little more yarn than I expected; after 2 scarves, I have but a little yarn left in two skeins. I estimate I can get a total of 8 scarves out of my 6 skeins of yarn.

Special Scarf 1

I decided not to knit people gifts for Christmas this year, which has really relieved the December pressure. And also: here is a scarf I made last night for the Special Olympics! (See http://www.scarvesforspecialolympics.com ) The yarn is Red Heart Supersaver in the official red and blue colors for this year. I couldn’t find the red in the local mega-store, so I ordered it directly from Red Heart. Not only were these two colors on sale (to support the Special Olympics project), but they had a deal on shipping, so I now have 3 balls of each yarn, and five new sets of double-pointed needles (unrelated). Yay!

I plan to make as many scarves as I can from these 6 balls, in a mix of knitting and crochet. This first scarf was last years’s pattern “Special Olympics Rib Crochet Striped Scarf” from the Red Heart site (http://www.redheart.com ). Done entirely in half-double crochet, it worked up speedily while still having the visual interest of mock ribbing. The main problem with this pattern is that at the end, you have 28 ends to weave in (I’m only half-done with that part).

Mom introduced me to this program. She’s crocheting the “Be Proud Scarf”, and is almost done with it. My plan is to donate any scarves I finish before Christmas to Mom’s local campaign, and any after Christmas to my own local Special Olympics. (The deadlines are early 2012.) I encourage you to join us and make some scarves! The yarn is cheap and patterns are free, but the athletes’ smiles are priceless.

What’s Going On?

Well, I haven’t taken a lot of pictures of crafting lately, but I have been crafting.

In October, I made a small Hello Kitty Halloween quilt for my BFF. It was totally adorable! I had a panel with small rectangles (all of slightly different dimensions) showing Hello Kitty in various Halloween scenes. I picked the three cutest, framed them in black, then sashed the three with a bright orange-and-black polka-dot, which was also the backing. I did some straight-line quilting via machine, then quilted within the panels by hand. It ended up really, super-cute!

I also hand-made some Christmas cards and sent them out. A few were hand-drawn, but the cute paper-cut-out Christmas trees ended up the best.

I’ve spent some time recently hand-quilting the “Home on the Farm” quilt for Mom. I’m about half through another month’s square (I think it is May, but I’m not doing them in order). I switched from quarter-inch to half-inch cross-hatching in the backgrounds, and it looks so much better! (Plus it’s faster.) I’ve misplaced my templates for the sashing, so I’ve been skipping that, but I’m going to just have to give up and make another template soon.

Sewing Expo, Day 2

My second day at the expo was even better than my first! I took a class on altering patterns which was useful to show how you can alter one measurement without changing others. And in my afternoon class, I learned to machine-piece curves and started a small quilt top (which I finished piecing the next day).

I spent some time looking at quilts. There were some amazingly beautiful ones on display, but you weren’t allowed to take pictures, so I went around with my clipboard and jotted down notes on things I liked about them. Then when I’m ready to design another quilt, I can go back and think about these things.

I made a thread bracelet that was simple, but that I like. And I stenciled a hummingbird onto a square of fabric with the iridescent paintsticks that I might make into a pillow or something.

I did end up buying the entire 12-DVD set on sewing and fitting. I got a French curve after the expo, because they were sold out. I bought a small charm square pack of “sophisticated Christmas” fabrics that I liked. And I decided to hold off on buying fabric paint for this year. I plan to go to all three days of next year’s expo, and I might even get a nearby hotel room to make the commute easier. Yay, Expo!

Sewing Expo

Hello from the Sewing Expo! This is my second day at the expo, and I am already looking forward to coming all three days next year! I took three class on Thursday. The first was simply a discussion of how to simplify jacket patterns so that they’re quicker to make, along with a display of some really nice jackets. The second class, on stretchy fabrics– was pretty bad. The instructor wanted no questions, but was very unclear. The third class was totally awesome. The instructor in “Fitting Yourself By Yourself” said such simple things, but they were things that no one had said before. Everything just made such sense; I saw fit with a clarity I had never had before. I’m thinking of buying some (all) of her DVDs.

I’m also thinking of buying some sort of fabric paint. I have three top choices: watercolor pencils, paintsticks, or shaving-cream silk screens. I’m still undecided. All three are lovely. But I’m not entirely ready to branch out into painting fabric yet, so I might end up with none of them.

I bought one jacket pattern, have my eye on another, and am going to buy a skirt pattern. Also, I’m getting a French Curve and maybe a new rotary cutter.

I am looking forward to studying the many quilts on display. I didn’t have a chance on Thursday, with all the classes and shopping.

Rugging

I haven’t posted lately, mostly because I haven’t been knitting or quilting lately. I have cleaned out my craft closet, which led me to try to finish the rug I started latch-hooking five years ago. It’s going pretty well– I have managed to get a lot of it done in just a few weeks. It will be rectangular again this week. If I were willing to have a slightly smaller rug, I could be done with the whole thing this week! (I’d still need to trim it and bind it and paint the backing on it.) It’s a very tempting prospect, but at the same time, I would only have 5 more blocks to do. Even at a very reasonable block-every-4-days pace, that’s just 3 weeks, and it would probably be more like 10 days, since I tend to work a little harder when something is almost complete. Either way, the rug is beautiful and totally lush under my feet.

Here is what I’ve got so far. The darkest blocks are a red that matches the accent paint in our living room. It’s a soft acrylic yarn that is really no good for rugs. The brown yarn and one of the cream yarns are Lion Brand Wool-Ease, which seems a little better for making into a rug. The other cream yarn is Red Heart Super Saver, which is very sturdy and durable, and seems to be best for a rug. I have learned one thing from this– I really don’t love latch-hooking, and as soon as I finish this rug, I am giving up my hook and never doing it again! Yay!