Atween Finished

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! We continue to have unusually warm, dry weather. I made an appointment to get my winter tires swapped off, so now our NWS forecast has snow in the forecast for my house every day starting tomorrow. Isn't that always the case? 😆 I guess I'll keep my appointment in place for a couple of days to encourage the snow to really arrive, then reassess whether I should reschedule. If I knew a good snow dance, I'd definitely be out dancing in the yard!!

This week I was able to finish my Atween shawl designed by Laura Nelkin. 

Atween

This ended up being a long shawl! The bottom border (on top in the picture) started at 424 stitches and increased to 638 stitches. I was happy to get through each row!

Atween - Close-up

Atween - Close-up

Atween - Close-up

During the blocking, I found a hole where I had somehow dropped a couple of stitches. This is where the two pieces are grafted. The graft was an interesting one where we knit stitches from each side together along the edge, then ran a length of yarn through those stitches to hold everything in place. I must have somehow knit two stitches together from one side while dropping two stitches from the other since two stitches on one side were dropped.

Atween - Hole From Dropped Stitches

After the shawl dried, I cut a length of the blue yarn and used that to repair the hole.

Atween - Hole Fixed

I rarely have to repair anything so it took me a while to figure out how the stitches went together. It definitely isn't perfect, but I think it looks fine. I ended up liking this shawl more than I thought I would and look forward to using it as a scarf next winter!

I also made progress on Angela Walters' Arcs, Curves & Points With Rulers quilt along (QAL) project. This week I was able to finish the outer border quilting, added some inner border quilting and applied the binding.

Arcs, Curves & Points With Rulers

Arcs, Curves & Points With Rulers - Border Quilting

I don't know how well you can see the quilting in the red border in the picture. I quilted a swirl fill, leaving random triangles unquilted. Since I was working on my swirls, I didn't use the ruler foot so I would have better visibility. This meant I had to freehand quilt the straight lines around the random triangles. There was some wiggling in the lines, but I don't think any of it is noticeable. For the white part of the border, I did use rulers. I also used an air-soluable pen to mark little lines at the places where I had to change direction to make it easier to keep my lines an even distance from the edge of the border. I really like how this part of the border turned out! I might still add background fills to the shapes, but I really like how clean it looks without the fill so that's a decision for later on. Now, I'll go back to finishing up the middle of the quilt.

Since I finished my Atween shawl, I needed to find another project to take to my knitting group. I decided to start a Pluma Morada shawl designed by Joji Locatelli. 

Pluma Morada

I don't know if you can see the stitches in the picture because of the dark color of the yarn, but this is a simple shawl with strips of 2x2 ribbing surrounding strips with a twisting pattern. It can be knit with any weight of yarn, but I'm using a lace weight yarn, like Joji did, to create what will be a light and airy shawl. This should be a good project for knitting group since it is a simple pattern that doesn't require much attention.

While looking for my next knitting group project, I ran across an old work in progress (WIP) from several years ago. This is the Spirits of the Season shawl designed by Amy Gunderson. This was the 2019 Craftvent project from Jimmy Beans Wool. Craftvent were Christmas advent projects where you had a little package to open each day in December until Christmas Eve. The package would either have a part of the pattern and the needed yarn, or a little knitting notion like stitch markers, stickers, needles, etc. It really was fun! I had kept up with this project until the last day, when I put it aside because I needed to pick up a bunch of stitches and I hate picking up stitches. The project ended up in my WIP pile until I found it again this week. I went ahead and picked up the stitches and started knitting the little border.

Spirits of the Season

The right side is where I picked up the stitches and started knitting. This project won't work for knit group because the stitch pattern for the border is complicated and it uses a fuzzy yarn that is harder to knit with. But I can work on it at home and I should have another completed project soon. And the fuzzy yarn is really soft and wonderful!!

Nancy

Arcs, Curves & Points With Rulers Border Quilting Progress

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! The weather here continues to be warm and dry. I'm trying to decide when to get my winter tires taken off. I usually do that in May since March and April are out snowiest months, but it's looking like I should just get it done now. What a strange year! I've also been enjoying March Madness this week. Unfortunately, my team, the Kansas Jayhawks, just lost last night at the buzzer, but there are still other Big 12 teams for me to root for.

In between basketball games, I was able to get some work done on my Angela Walters Arcs, Curves & Points With Rulers Quilt Along (QAL). After watching Angela's video, I decided that I like her idea of quilting the red portion of the border with swirls, leaving random triangles in the border unquilted. You can't see the border quilting in this picture, but here is the entire quilt with that part of the border quilted:

Arcs, Curves & Points With Riulers

And here is a close-up where you can see the quilting:

Arcs, Curves & Points With Rulers - Border Quilting

My swirls are not as smooth and consistent as I would like, but they look really good when they're all put together. I'll put some swirls in the quilt interior, too, to provide some consistency in the quilting. I'm going to quilt straight lines in the white part of the border, again as Anglea suggested. I'll be using a ruler for that so I'll get that done, too, before adding the binding so the binding doesn't get in the way of the ruler.

I also made a lot of progress on my Atween shawl designed by Laura Nelkin. I finally got all of the pieces put together and started on the border. It's starting to look like something now!

Atween

I finished the I-cord edging on the top edge and now I'm working on the bottom border.

Atween - Close-Up

This shawl is LONG! The bottom border is 424 stitches wide. I was careful when picking up stitches to get the right count, but somehow ended up with an extra stitch when I started the patterned rows. I just decreased a stitch in this row and added stitch markers so I should be able to tell if I get off again for any reason and fix the problem as it occurs. That decrease stitch will be invisible in the final shawl, but mistakes like that in the patterned section would cause the pattern to not line up correctly.

Finally, I also did some work on my Pansy Pincushion designed by Sue Spargo. I was able to add the embroidery on Flower #2.

Pansy Pincushion

Pansy Pincushion - Flower #2

I had some trouble getting Bullion Loops (the blue flower petals) to look good, but they turned out fine in the end. I really enjoy doing the embroidery!

Nancy

Pansy Pincushion Started

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! It was another slow week for me, craftwise. We had another long power outage this week -- this time from Thursday morning until Saturday night. This time it wasn't a planned outage so the length of the outage was a surprise. They kept saying the power would be back in a couple of hours, then they would extend it or switch back to "assessing the damage." It was very frustrating! But the power is back now and I didn't have to throw away very much food so things are good.

I decided to make a start on. my Pansy Pincushion designed by Sue Spargo. It was a good hand project to work on in lower light. I got all of the pieces cut out and appliqued to the background.

Pansy Pincushion

Then I got the embroidery done for the first flower.

Pansy Pincushion - Flower #1

This flower has a Bullion Rose stitch in the center. This is my first time trying this stitch. It looks fine, but could be improved. I do love trying new stitches!

I also made some progress on my Atween shawl designed by Laura Nelkin. 

Atween

This week I made a start on the third trapezoid. It wasn't a lot of progress, but any progress is good!

Nancy

Tula Sunrise Progress

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! We're back from Kansas City and my septic line is fixed, so I'm doing great!! The guy who did the work was incredible. He didn't just replace the line, but he saw other problems, like some places where the line went uphill, and fixed those, too. And he jackhammered the rock in places to make sure that the line would be completely buried. I'm so appreciative when someone goes the extra mile for you!! Our weather continues to be unusually warm, but we did have a storm come though last weekend and we got over a foot of snow. It's mostly melted already, but it's great to have the moisture!! I'll just keep hoping for more.....

Before leaving Kansas City, I was able to make some more progress on my Tula Sunrise quilt designed by Tula Pink. I got the first sun finished.

Tula Sunrise - First Sun

These are the largest pieces I've ever used in English Paper Piecing (EPP). I took the paper out from behind the center piece and it made the whole piece wavy, but I think it'll be fine since the fabric for the pieces wasn't pulled too tight across the paper when they were attached. I'll iron the unit the next time I visit to see what I think. I also got the rest of the center pieces basted and ready to be sewn to the triangles.

Tula Sunrise - Basted Pieces

As I prepare a fabric piece, like one of the center pieces, I also prepare any other pieces that are needed from that fabric. So, for example, each fabric used for a center pieces is also used for two of the triangle border pieces. The fabric used for the sun ray triangles is also used in the border, so the orange/white polka dot border pieces were also prepared. I organized all of the fabric to match all of the fabrics with the instructions and found that I'm missing two of the solid fabrics in the kit. I'll check under my cutting table to make sure they didn't slip under there when I was folding the fabric after washing it, but it's not a problem if it wasn't included in the kit. I have a collection of Tula Pink solids that I can pull from so I'll just pick two from there. When I get back to Kansas City, I'll go through all of the fabrics and decide which ones I'll put together for each of the suns. I might choose the combinations that are in the picture of the quilt (the first one matches the example), or I might decide to go my own way. Tula obviously has better color sense than I do, but I might also be using a couple of different solids from what she used. And I might just like something else better.

I've also made some good progress on my Atween shawl designed by Laura Nelkin. 

Atween

I've got the first two sections completed and now just need to make the third section and attach it, and then add the border. 

Atween - Close-Up of Graft

I was looking back at the pictures in the pattern and realized that I mixed up the colors when making the shawl. I had already wound the yarn so didn't have the ball bands connected to each yarn. I went back and forth looking at things and thought I had figured out which was which color name and matching that to the information in the pattern, but, obviously, I screwed that up. Oh, well. I think the color placement in the pattern looks a little better than my color placement, but this will look good, too.

Nancy

Tula Sunrise Started

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! I'm still visiting my family. The excavator called last Monday to let me know that the guy who is going to do the majority of the work on my septic line would be out for a couple of days because his mom had triple bypass surgery. I hope it is all going well for her!! I haven't heard from the excavator again yet so I'm delaying my return home until Thursday. Then, I'll have to go home regardless of the status of the work since my cat is at home alone. Hopefully the weather is reasonable and they are able to get the work done by then!

I brought my Tula Sunrise kit designed by Tula Pink to my sister's house.  This is the kit that I decided to keep here since it is English Paper Piecing (EPP), which is all hand work, so I don't need a sewing machine to work on it. 

Tula Sunrise

I started by organizing the paper pieces. They were all jumbled together in the kit, so I separated them out into baggies along with the cutting template. Then I organized the fabric and figured out how each is used and how to follow the pattern. Finally, I was able to start basting the center pieces and the large triangles for the border. I only have a few more of these pieces to baste, then I can start working on some of the smaller pieces.

I've also been making progress on my Atween shawl designed by Laura Nelkin. 

Atween

This shawl is built as three separate pieces that are grafted together and then a border is added. I've finished the first piece and am almost done with the second. I haven't looked at the grafting instructions yet so that will be and adventure!

Nancy

Patsy Thompson Practice Piece

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! We saw a bit of winter weather last week, which was really appreciated. I also made an unexpected trip to visit my family for this week. I'm having a septic issue at my house and decided to go somewhere else while they hopefully get it fixed this week. So now I'm hoping for nice weather for the week!

I was hoping to share some progress on my quilt for Angela Walters' Arcs, Curves & Points With Rulers quilt along (QAL) this week, but that didn't happen. Angela had said in her live from the prior week that she would talk about possible border treatments in last week's live, but it looks like that live got reschedule for the first week in March. I'm not sure what happened. Hopefully I just misunderstood or Angela forgot to mention that she wouldn't be doing her weekly lives for a couple of weeks. Anyway, I thought about figuring out the border quilting on my own, but I only have the borders on my small panel so I'd really like to see her ideas before I quilt it. And I decided that I really want to finish quilting my small panel before starting on the large panel so I ended up putting this project aside for now.

To get a little bit of sewing in this week, I decided to add binding to a little Patsy Thompson practice piece I quilted years ago. I've always loved Patsy's work and I followed her blog religiously. I had made this piece as just a practice piece and I put it in my pile of little quilt sandwiches that I keep by my sewing machine for doing things like checking my tension and playing with the stitch settings when using a specialty stitch. But every time I pulled out this sandwich, I loved it too much to use it as a scrap and would throw it back into the pile. I finally decided to pull it out and put a binding on it so I could hang it on the wall.

Patsy Thompson Practice Piece

Patsy Thompson Practice Piece - Close-Up 1

Patsy Thompson Practice Piece - Close-Up 2

The color is pretty true in the first and third pictures. I was also playing with quilting on a shot cotton for the first time, and I really love how it turned out! I put quick corners on the back of the quilt for hanging.

Patsy Thompson Practice Piece - Back

I like to hang my small wallhangings using thumb tacks since they are easy to use and don't do much harm to my walls. The quick corners are easier to make than a hanging sleeve and they work well with the thumb tacks. I'll enjoy having this piece on the wall where I can see it regularly!

I also made some good progress on my knitting this week. I was able to finish my read Lemme Cowl designed by Laura Nelkin.

Lemme Cowl

The cowl looks really cute with the matching hat! It was cold this morning so I was able to wear my cowl on our dog walk.

I also finished my Open Minds shawl, also designed by Laura Nelkin.

Open Minds - Center

This shawl is so big that I couldn't take a picture of the whole thing on the blocking boards without a step stool! So, instead, I took pictures of the different sections.

Open Minds - One Side

Open Minds - Center Close-Up

Open Minds - Arm Base

Open Minds - Arm End

The styling of this shawl isn't appealing to me esthetically, but the feel of it is incredible! It will make a wonderful scarf!

Finally, I started a new shawl -- Atween designed by Laura Nelkin.

Atween

The yarn for this shawl is lovely to work with. It feels good in my hands and is easy to use. A nice break from knitting with the mohair which is kind of a pain to work with!

Nancy

Arcs, Curves & Points With Rulers, Week 4 Started

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! The weather here continues to be warmer than usual, but it looks like there might be some real snow in the forecast. We'll see if it comes through.....

Last week was the final week of Angela Walters' Arcs, Curves & Points With Rulers quilt along (QAL). This video covered quilting the background of the panel. I got started on the background quilting.

Arcs, Curves & Points - Background Quilting

Then I decided to move to the border. I wanted to get rid of the safety pins that were used for basting the quilt and I wanted to get the binding put on so I wouldn't have to deal with the fluff from the batting anymore. I did stitch-in-the-ditch (SID) quilting between the red and white areas of the quilt and then I stitched along the outside edge to keep everything in place. I could now remove all of the safety pins!

Arcs, Curves & Points - Border Stitching

Then I was trying to decide what to quilt in the red area. This wasn't covered by Angela in the QAL videos. But then I watched Angela's weekly live and she said that she would talk about possibilities for the border quilting in the upcoming live session, so I decided to wait to see what she suggests.

In the meantime, I continued working on my Open Minds shawl designed by Laura Nelkin.

Open Minds

I got one end of the shawl finished and made good progress on the other end. I hope to finish this this week.

I also made progress on my Lemme Cowl also designed by Laura Nelkin. 

Lemme Cowl

I'm on the last pattern repeat so this should be finished this week, too.

Nancy