Started Quilting on "Tree of Life"

Hi all -

I've made some good progress in the last 2 weeks. First, Wendy will be happy to hear that I finished the project bag that I had started. 😏

I just love this bag! Every time I look at it, I smile, especially at the side with the butterfly! The motifs on the other side should have been moved up some, but I still love it. Luckily, I have way too many knitting projects in progress so this bag is already in use.

Along with the bag, I've also been working on the Tree of Life wallhanging that inspired the bag. This wallhanging was the project from the Jane Sassaman class I took in Houston last year. It's very unusual for me to finish a class project, especially so close to the class, but this is a quick one and I didn't feel like finding a place to store it. I started by piecing the backing:

I thought it would be fun to use the busy fabrics use to create the top in the backing, but it would be overwhelming to butt them up to each other, so I separated them with the fabric I bought for the binding. To make sure I didn't accidentally use too much of the binding fabric, I prepared the binding first. I had plenty of fabric, but better safe than sorry! Then I sandwiched the quilt and started the quilting. I always start with the structural quilting to make sure everything is secure and flat before I start any detailed quilting. For this quilt, I wanted to quilt around the outside edge of all of the appliques. I noted in class that Jane quilts around her elements using a heavy thread along the edge of the satin stitching, so that's what I decided to do, too. I had picked up several spools of her 12 weight thread from Superior Threads several years ago when it had first come up, but hadn't tried it yet. This was the perfect opportunity to give it a try and I had the right colors! As I was quilting, I realized why she does this. Whenever I looked at the quilt top, I was a bit unhappy with the jaggy edges from the airy satin stitch that she suggests:

Adding the quilting around the edges with the heavy thread cleans that up nicely (only the blue satin stitching as been quilted):

And it would look even better if I was better at keeping my satin stitches right on the edges of the applique. I got all of the blue edges quilted and got a few of the pink-edged appliques in the center quilted:.

It's hard to see from the front, so maybe you can see the quilting a little better on the back:

This part of the quilting is taking a while because I like to bury my threads immediately after I cut them. I can't stand the mess of threads hanging around everywhere! And since I'm using such heavy thread, I don't want to stitch over any lines twice, so there are some pretty short lines of stitching that I'm having to deal with. But it'll be done soon and then I can move on to some more fun quilting.

I've also been doing a little hand embroidery. I finished the embroidery on my Road Runner Needle Roll:

With the embroidery done, I can now assemble the roll and get this project finished. I'm debating about adding a little zippered pocket on the outside of the roll to hold things like a needle threader and a small pair of scissors.

And, as has been the case for a while now, I'm also doing a lot of knitting. This is where most of my crafting time is going. I'm participating in four knit-alongs. Two of them are Jimmy Beans Wool clubs. The first club is a monthly club with a new project every three months. The current project for that is the cowl that I shared last time. Now I'm waiting for the next installment to arrive, which should come on Tuesday. The other club is a year-long shawl project. This is what we received for the first installment of this club (can you see the pretty project bag I'm using for this project???):

 And here is the first installment knitted up:

I've found that I really enjoy these projects that we get in bits and pieces that are easy to finish before the next installment. It's fun getting these little prizes in the mail!

Another knit-along I'm participating in is for the Labadee Cowl. This is a colorwork cowl using the mosaic colorwork technique which uses slipped stitches to achieve the colorwork. I like the cowl and enjoy the mosaic colorwork technique, but what really attracted me to this project was learning this two-color I-cord cast on that the designer came up with:

This cast on takes some time to do (I-cord is always slow), but it creates a really pretty edge on the project. I'm glad I've learned the technique. For this knit-along, the pattern is divided into three parts. The first part included the cast on and the first section of colorwork:

The second part of the pattern added a new colorwork pattern and another section of the first colorwork pattern:

We'll get the third part of the pattern on Feb 18. I look forward to finishing this project. It's an enjoyable knit, but I'm not really liking the designer much. I try not to be negative on my blog, but I also try to be honest. I understand where this designer is coming from, but I don't like her approach for a lot of things. For example, when you buy the pattern, she provides a link where you supposedly can get 20% off of your purchase of the yarn she used for the pattern. But that link just sends you to the online seller who always gives you 20% off if you spend at least $60 on their site, and this yarn is less than that $60 cut-off so you had to buy something else, too, to get the discount. What the link actually did was let the seller know that the purchase came through the designer so that she could get a kickback from the purchase. She admitted that after several people had questions about the 20% discount that they weren't getting. That felt a little dishonest to me. I definitely support designers and have no problem buying yarn either from them or from a retailer who gives them a percentage of the sales. but I think you should be upfront about that and you shouldn't keep pressuring people to buy this yarn, which she is doing a lot of. And there are other things in how she is responding to people that is making this knit-along less enjoyable for me, so I'll finish this one out and probably won't do another one with this designer.

The final knit-along that I'm participating in is Laura Nelkin's knit-along that I described in my last post. This knit-along is for working on any of her patterns. Laura is my favorite designer. She's really laid back and is ultra helpful if you have a question. For this knit-along, I finished up my Lolatude project that I started last fall from one of her kits:

This a little shawlette that is knit from a mini sock blank. For those who haven't heard of a sock blank, this is a pre-knitted piece of yarn that the dyer has dyed in an artistic manner that you then unravel as you knit your project from it. The original sock blank is in this picture:

Pretty cool, huh? The pattern also included instructions and a video for making the Peyote beads that are used as closures:

My next project for Laura's knit-along is her Baby Novus sweater. This is a cool little baby sweater that is knit using her "Novus" construction, where you knit it from the side to the center rather than from the top down or the bottom up. My step-niece has a little boy due in July, so I thought this would be the perfect present for the baby. So far, I've just knit the right arm, which also serves as the gauge swatch:

Actually, this is my first arm/gauge swatch. It came out too small so I ripped it out and tried again with larger needles. That swatch is being blocked and, hopefully, will be big enough for me to continue on with the rest of the sweater.

Finally, I've been working on several projects that aren't a part of these knit-alongs. The first is the scarf that I shared with you in my last blog post. It was a nice, easy knit that didn't require much attention as I watched TV. It's finished now and I really love it!

The color change is funny, but it's soft and squishy and the colors don't bother me at all. Lance likes it, too!

And I finally blocked and put the buttons on a project that's been sitting around for a while. This is the Dissymmetry Cowl by Elizabeth Sullivan.

I originally worked on this to use up some yarn that I had and was intending it for the homeless shelter, but I really like it and am afraid that someone wouldn't be able to figure out how to put it on without the instructions (I certainly couldn't), so I think I'll be keeping this one. Here's what it looks like on:

Well, that's it for now. I hope you're having a great winter!

Nancy