Blossom & Buds Finished

 Hi all -

Summer is here and I'm really enjoying the long days! They'll start getting shorter now but it'll be nice for a long time yet. I've been keeping busy and enjoying my time!

I finished my Blossom & Buds blanket designed by Lindsey Newns just in time for the hot weather to start hitting!

Blossom & Buds

I love how this turned out! I followed the pattern except for the light yellow portion of the outer border. This was supposed to be a crocheted pom pom border, but I didn't like how the pom poms looked in the given yarn so I decided to match the pink scalloped border instead. The way the pom poms were made, the yarn needed to have some body for the pom poms to hold their shape. (They weren't your normal cut yarn pom poms but instead were crocheted circles to make the pom poms.) The light yellow was one of the colors that was thinner and wimpier than the other colors and just couldn't hold up for the pom poms. Of course, this won't be noticed by anyone but me or someone else who made the pattern.

More appropriate for the hotter weather, I've also been working on my Verba Top designed by Victoria Chaplina. I've finished the top back and both shoulders and am working my way down the front. In a couple more rows, I'll be joining the front to the back under the arms and can start knitting around to make the body:

Verba Top

I'm really getting excited to see this top taking shape!

I also cleaned off my sewing machine and started a Mondo Bag designed by Mattie Rhoades. So far, I have the four panels that make up the outer bag sewn together:

Mondo Bag

This bag is made using preprinted lightweight stabilizer. The grid for the fabric squares is printed on the stabilizer. To make the panels, you iron your fabric squares onto the stabilizer, then fold the stabilizer between the fabric squares and sew the seams. This method does keep the sewing of the squares neat and tidy, but I'm finding it cumbersome and I think for me it would be better to sew the fabric squares together without the stabilizer like you do for a quilt, then add stabilizer to the sewn panels to give the needed body for the bag. But the panels are now done and I can more on to the bag construction.

Finally, I took Jane Farrell's "Beyond Hexagons" English paper-piecing class offered by our quilt guild. In this class we learned about Jane's method for paper piecing and started working on a Patchwork of the Crosses block. I bought a fabric kit from Jane and here is the start of my block:

Patchwork of the Crosses block

We started by looking through our fabric to find fine repeating motifs and then basting four matching copies of each chosen motif. We just made four of each fabric to start with so we could experiment with the pieces to decide which one we really wanted for the center of the block. So I still need to baste four more copies of each of the outer two patches. We started putting the patches together so that we could try her technique. Rather than using a whip stitch, Jane uses what she calls a "flat back" stitch. Rather than holding the two pieces with their fronts together, she holds the pieces flat like they'll appear in the final block and stitches behind each seam. This technique seems to work fine for me. I'll have to use it to finish the block and then decide if I like it better than the whip stitch. While we were in class, Grace went to doggie daycare. They had a special foam party that day and took pictures of the dogs for us. I think Grace had a great time!

That's all for us! I hope everyone is having a great summer!!

Nancy

Summer is Coming...

 Hi all -

We're definitely enjoying the beautiful spring weather and seeing signs of summer coming our way. I'm excited because my run-down, squirrel infested shed is finally being replaced. The contractor is coming up this morning to finalize details and get the down payment and work should begin later this week. It will be so nice to have this storage!!

I've been continuing to mostly work on the same projects. My Blossom & Buds blanket designed by Lindsey Newns is getting closer and closer to being done, although I did get a little behind. I have the first panel from week before last finished and attached and am halfway through the second panel. Here is the first panel attached:

Blossom & Buds

That week's panels have been a little more tedious for me. You have to carry yarn throughout the panel, which I'm definitely getting better at. But the yellow yarn is stiffer and thicker than the white yarn and hasn't been a joy to work with. Interestingly, sometimes the yellow yarn is okay to work with and sometimes I don't like it at all. I think part of it is variations within the skein and part of it seems to be the weather. The yellow yarn seems to bother me more when it's hotter and more humid. But the second panel is going more quickly than the first and I should get it finished and attached by the end of the week, and then I can move on to the final borders. We received that part of the pattern last week and I think they'll be fairly quickly to apply. Then I'll have my finished blanket!

When I got fed up with the yellow yarn, I switched to my Summer Blossom Mandala blanket designed by Rohn Strong. The yarn for this blanket is a wool/acrylic mix that is much nicer to work with. I've finished the center portion of this blanket and have started adding the scallops:

Summer Blossom Mandala

There are 21 scallops around the edge of this blanket, so I have a ways to go yet. And then there's a final border around all of the scallops. The scallops are another place where the pattern is a little sloppy. The math doesn't quite work out for the scallops (21 scallops distributed around 606 stitches). The designer not to worry about stitch counts being a bet off because you can fudge it, but doesn't mention that you will have to fudge it even if your stitch count is perfect. I did the math so I know that I need to fudge the position of 3 of the scallops. Knowing this ahead of time allows me to spread the fudging evenly around the blanket rather than getting to the end and fudging 3 stitches in one place. A small detail, but I still consider it sloppy.

I've also made progress on my Festival of Stitches shawl designed by Lisa Hannes:

Festival of Stitches

This has been a nice project to give my hands a break from the non-wool yarns in my other projects. I haven't spent much time on this one, but I'm really enjoying the time that I do spend on it. I took a couple of close-up pictures so you can see the fun textures in this shawl:

Festival of Stitches close-up

Festival of Stitches close-up

Finally, I also started a new project. This one is the Verba Top designed by Victoria Chaplina.  This is a sleeveless top that I'm knitting in a yarn that is an interesting paper/cotton/silk mix. So far, I'm almost done with the top back portion of the top:

Verba Top

It's a bit early to get an idea of what the top will look like. There is some texture on the sides of the piece that are hard to see in the picture, but I think they'll be pretty. The yarn is stiff so harder to work with, but should soften up when the top is finished and blocked and continue to soften up with time. It will be really interesting to see how this top looks when finished with this yarn! It will definitely be a wonderful light weight for hot summer days!

Nancy