Pink and Gray Top Finished

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! We had a beautiful, warm week here, but another little storm is on the horizon. It's supposed to start snowing tonight and should continue for the next couple of days. No word yet on how significant it will be, but crossing my fingers for a good snow!

This week I got the top for my pink and gray quilt finished.

Pink and Gray Quilt

One of the things I did while piecing the top was to twirl the seams at each of the block intersections.

Pink and Gray Quilt - Twirled Seams

If you look at the corner between each block you will see the twirled seam.

Pink and Gray Quilt - Twirled Seam Close-Up

What twirling the seams mean is that the seams are pressed in a circle around the intersection. If you look at the picture, the seam on the left is pressed down, the top seam is pressed to the left, the right seam is pressed up and the bottom seam is pressed to the right. When you do this, you get the mini 4-patch block at each intersection that you can see in the picture above. The reason for doing this is to even out the thickness of the seams. With the twirled seams, you have four layers of fabric in each square around the intersection. If you don't twirl the seam, one of these squares could have as many as eight layers of fabric while another square will only have one layer of fabric. So, the twirled seam will feel flatter and be easier to quilt. It's pretty easy to twirl one seam (although it takes a bit of thought the first couple of times to remember how to do it), but takes careful preparation to twirl all of the seams in a quilt because every other seam has to twirl in the opposite direction. But it really makes a difference in the final quilt top! I was also able to piece the backing for this quilt.

Pink and Gray Quilt - Backing

I like to piece my backings out of leftover blocks and fabric. It adds some interest to the back and keeps me from having all of these miscellaneous blocks sitting around. Some of the fabrics I used on the back weren't used in the front, but were included in the pile of fabrics I collected for this quilt. It was fun to include some of these extras on the back!

I also got a bunch of knitting done this week. First, I finished my Pluma Morada shawl designed by Joji Locatelli.

Pluma Morada

I made my shawl larger than Joji's because I had a bunch of yarn and I want to use this as a scarf.  I also did my normal "lazy" blocking, where I didn't take the time to stretch the shawl out and pin it in place. Doing that can open things up and make lace really pretty, but I'm usually fine with the results I get from a simple block.

Pluma Morada - Close-Up

I finished the edge they same way Joji did in her pattern, She said you could just bind off, but I liked how her couple of extra rows cleaned up the edge of the shawl.

I also went through my stash and pulled out a couple of new projects. First, I knit a Frozen Snowflakes Beanie designed by Deja Joy.

Frozen Snowflakes Beanie

I haven't done much stranded colorwork, so it was good to play around with this. I had trouble deciding which color to use for the background and which to use for the design. I decided to use the blue as the background since that seemed the more classic look for this hat. But when finished, I had enough to make another hat with the colors reversed, so I started that one, too.

Second Frozen Snowflaes Beanie

It'll be fun to see how swapping the colors changes the look.

I also started the Rill Scarf designed by Miriam L. Felton. This is a fun scarf that has a narrow lace band and a wide wavy edge.

Rill Scarf

You can't see the waviness yet, but that will show up on the right side of the scarf. It is achieved by using some thing called short rows, where you knit part way across the row, then turn back around and knit back. This adds extra knitting on one side of the scarf which will cause that edge to wave. There are already a couple of short rows in the piece providing a slight wave to that edge, but it will take a lot more length to make that noticeable. This is a bit of a difficult knit because it is knit with very thin, lace weight yarn on small needles. But the results will be lovely!

Nancy

Wild Women Units Finished

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! We finally had a big "winter" storm last week. It was great! We got about 2 feet of heavy snow! Now we're back to warmer than normal temperatures and most of the snow is gone, but we still got the moisture and I appreciate that.

This week I was able to finish the paper pieced units in my Wild Women Don't Get the Blues quilt designed by Karen K. Stone.

Wild Women Don't Get the Blues

This completes my 100 units required for the 25 blocks in the quilt. Now I need to pick my fabric for the centers. I know that I want a solid and it will probably be a brown (although I could get wild and use another neutral like a red., shoutout to Freddy Moran😉....). One of my quilt guilds is starting a cross-stitch group that will be meeting at one of the local quilt shops that also carries a lot of solids. I'm planning on joining the group so will look at solids when I'm there.

I've also been working on my Pluma Morada shawl designed by Joji Locatelli. 

Pluma Morada

You can really see the pattern now. Maybe it's just the good lighting this morning.....

Pluma Morada - Close-Up

I'm in the last section that I'm going to do so I should have this shawl finished soon. I've been looking at several projects to start next.....

Finally, we had out monthly UFO (UnFinished Object) group meeting yesterday. We meet at the home of one of the ladies in the quilt guild who has a little quilt shop and teaching area in her home.It's a really nice space where we can even bring our sewing machines. I've been going through my stuff and organizing my UFOs. I found one that I could easily take to the UFO meeting, so I resurrected that project. It's a simple block that just has a black or gray frame around a pink and gray fabric. The quilt will just be these blocks, alternating between the black and gray frames. My project box had a bunch of completed blocks and a pile of center fabrics. There wasn't any of the black or the gray framing fabric in the box, so I think I used all of that up. Given that I can't make any more blocks, I now know the size of the finished quilt.  So I brought the completed blocks with me to the group and started putting them together.

Pink and Gray Quilt

The final quilt will be 8 blocks across by 9 blocks down. When the blocks themselves are sewn, you end up with two seams on two sides of the blocks. When sewing them together, I first thought that I would always position the black blocks with the seams on the sides and the gray blocks with the seams on the top and bottom, but then I realized that it would really bother me if the directional fabrics weren't all oriented correctly in the final quilt so I had to sew a bunch of the blocks together with those seams hitting, but they don't seem to be creating much bulk when pressed so I'm okay with this. When I started sewing the blocks into 4-patches, I also realized that I forgot that while the black block is on the left and the gray block is on the right in the top row, the positions are reversed in the bottom row. So, the fabric that was right-side-up when in the top row, became up-side-down in the bottom row. So I had to divide the paired blocks into piles with and without directional fabric, and then use the pairs without directional fabrics as the bottom pair in each 4-patch. Luckily, I had enough of those so I didn't have to do any unstitching! Now that I have the 4-patches, the geometry is such that I don't have to worry about having a block that can't fit into the quilt without a fabric being upside down. That makes things a lot easier! Now I'll put these blocks up on my makeshift design wall (I temporarily hang a picnic table cloth on a photographers quilt stand and stick the blocks to the felt side of the tablecloth), decide on the layout and sew them together. I also need to think about the binding. Since I don't have any of the black or gray fabrics, those obvious choices are out. I could use a different black or gray fabric. Or I could see if I have enough of one of the striped fabrics. Who knows. I have plenty of time to think about that!

Nancy

Lots of Progress on Pluma Morada

 Hi all -

I hope you are doing well! We're starting to get the winter weather here that we missed earlier in the year. We had a bit of snow last week. We expected more than we got, be we still got several inches. This week it looks like we could get as much as a couple of feet of snow. Here's hoping!!

I got a lot of work done on my Pluma Morada shawl, designed by Joji Locatelli, this week. 

Pluma Morada

I'm knitting this bigger than it is in the pattern because I have a lot more yarn than Joji used and I think it'll be wonderful in a larger size. Joji's pattern tells exactly how she made it and encourages you to make it larger if you want to.

I also picked an old quilting project back up again. This one is Wild Women Don't Get the Blues designed by Karen K. Stone. I don't believe the pattern is available anywhere, but it is the cover quilt for this collection of quilts for EQ8. I was able to paper piece nine units this week.

Wild Women Don't Get the Blues

These units are sewn together with a central square to create a block that looks something like this:

Wild Women Don't Get the Blues - Block Layout

I have 19 more of these units to piece before I can start constructing the blocks. These units are a bit slow to make because I make them one at a time and stand up after each seam to iron the piece and cut the fabric to prepare for the next seam. I could streamline this by piecing multiple units at once and putting an iron and rotary cutter next to my sewing machine, but I like to pick the next fabrics after finishing the unit and standing up after each seam to keep from getting stiff. My plan is to use a solid fabric, probably a brown, for the center of each block and then do some hand embroidery in that square. 

I've also continued to play around with EQ8, the quilt design software that I just got access to again. One of the things I've been working on is getting my idea for the backing for my Jungle Magnolia quilt on paper.

Jungle Magnolia Backing

The idea is to have a checkerboard that mirrors the checkerboard on the front, using the same fabric. Then I will scatter stars from the Haystack Cookies pattern from QuiltWx around the back. We were given the Haystack Cookies pattern in our Jungle Magnolia Block of the Month kit so I thought it would be fun to put them here. I'll probably play around with this a little more before piecing it, but this gives me a good idea of what I want.

Nancy

It's a Boy!!

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! I'm visiting family right now, but driving back home tomorrow. My nephew and his wife had their gender reveal party for their new baby and -- it's a boy!! He will be a wonderful addition to his sister and cousin! Now to start thinking about the baby quilt.....

Since I'm visiting family, I didn't do much crafting last week. I just made a little bit of progress on my Tula Sunrise quilt designed by Tula Pink. This is an English Paper Piecing (EPP) kit that I'm leaving at my sister's house. EPP is all done by hand so is the perfect project to work on where I don't have a sewing machine. Last time I was visiting, I started the quilt and found out that the kit was missing a couple of the solid fabrics. I brought some replacement fabrics from home and cut out and basted these pieces so I could take the rest of the fabric back home in case I need it there.

Tula Sunrise - Basted Solid Pieces

I also found that the fabric in the kit that was meant for the corner pieces didn't have what I needed. In the quilt photo, the corner pieces were fussy cut from the monkey fabric, putting a monkey in each corner. This fabric was also fussy cut for one of the sun centers.

Tula Sunrise - Corner Fabric From Kit

The way the piece of fabric in the kit was cut, there weren't the needed five monkey motifs. So I also looked through my stash at home for a replacement. I found a couple that I thought would work, and thought that this would work best:

Tula Sunrise - Corner Pieces

The skunks are from a different line of Tula's fabric, but I think they will still match and they're fun. I also like that there were motifs facing both directions so I don't have to put any of the skunks in the quilt upside-down. Not a lot of progress on the quilt, but I did do everything I needed to do with my stash fabric so I can take all of that back home with me.

Nancy

Malini Shawl Finished

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! We go a little snow last week, which was great! It wasn't as much as was forecast, but every bit is welcome! Because of the snow, I ended up not attending the guild sew day, but the project I prepared will keep for another time. This morning my 18-year-old cat had her semi-annual vet visit. She has the beginnings of a lot of problems -- heart murmur, renal disease, hyperthyroidism. But they are all staying steady and overall she's in incredible shape for her age. Most importantly, she is remaining active and seems happy. The old lady is tough!

This week I got my Malini Shawl, designed by Lisa Hannes, finished.

Malini Shawl

This was a fun shawl to knit. The instructions were great and the yarn felt good in my hands. I decided to add an extra row of the main color at the bottom of the shawl because I thought it made the shawl look more finished. I also used a lace bind off rather than the regular bind off called for in the pattern because I like the look of the lace bind off, it's very easy to do and it has a good amount of stretch.

I also continued to make progress on my Pluma Morada shawl designed by Joji Locatelli. 

Pluma Morada

Pluma Morada - Close Up

I'm to the point where I'm just starting the second cable section. I need to think about how to put the rest of the shawl pattern into knitCompanion, which is the software that I use to step through the pattern while I knit. The pattern basically just says to continue on with the pattern, but I like having each step written out so I can knit without having to read my knitting and figure out where I am. It just helps me to not make mistakes. It probably won't be hard to do the set up, it just will take some time since the number of rows in the cable pattern repeat are different from the number of rows that are knit between places where you add another cable section. I'll sit down and do the work one of these days!

I also started looking at another knitting project to start. I'm always thinking about the next project! While cleaning out a closet, I ran across an old scarf kit I'd purchased a long time ago. I thought about making the scarf, but decided it didn't really appeal to me so I looked for another use for the yarn instead. I came across the Cozy Slipper Socks designed by Churchmouse Yarns and Teas. This pattern appealed to me and it was designed using the yarn from the scarf kit so I decided to knit a gauge swatch.

Cozy Slipper Socks - Gauge Swatch

I don't do any swatching unless I have to, but I felt I needed to swatch for this project. This is a fitted slipper so it won't fit if you don't get gauge and I knew I'd have trouble getting the tight fabric from this yarn that I would need for a slipper. This yarn is beautiful and fluffy, but it really sticks to itself so it's hard to create tight stitches with it. My stitches were definitely too big on the suggested needle, but I also feel like I won't be able to tighten up the stitches on smaller needles with this yarn, so I've decided not to make this pattern with this yarn. I have other, smoother, bulky yarn I can use for these slippers and I can find another project for this yarn. I undid the swatch and will put this project aside for now.

Finally, when I was going through my works in progress (WIPs) last week, looking for something for sew day, I came across an applique project I'd like to work on. I have a lot of WIPs from past years because I would start on something fun, and then get busy with work and with having to work on projects with a deadline like gifts, so things would get put aside and then forgotten about. Now that I'm retired, I'm organizing these old projects and hoping to make progress on them (although it's hard since I'm also always seeing new things I want to do....). For this quilt, I was using the applique leaves from the Indian Summer quilt pattern designed by Cheryl Wittmayer (sorry, I can't find this pattern online). 

Indian Summer Pattern

I really liked the leaves, but wanted to change up the pattern a bit. So I had played with the layout in EQ8. EQ8 is a quilt design application. I had played around with it a bit and came up with this layout and these colors:

Leaves Quilt - Original Design

I didn't have the leaves applique in the application, so I just used a pinecones block that they had available. Anyway, I had completed all of the applique blocks except for sewing around the edges of the green applique shapes. Since sewing around this complicated of a shape requires some care, I decided to do that sewing at home and then this can be another project that I can take to sew days where I can easily work on sewing the rest of the alternating blocks and can sew the blocks together to make the body of the quilt.

Leaves Quilt - Finished Applique Blocks

Leaves Quilt - Partial Layout (with lower left block rotated wrong - oops)

I had printed out the layout and put it in the box with the WIP so I could see what I was doing. For some reason, I found 5 more leaf blocks in the project box that was needed in the included layout. Not sure what I was thinking, but maybe I'll decide to make the quilt a bit bigger. Otherwise, I'll just include the blocks in the quilt backing.

While this project lay in it's box, time had marched on and I had switched from a Windows laptop to a Mac and no longer had EQ8. I had checked some years ago to see if I could get EQ8 on my Mac, but at that point they had just ported the application to the Mac and were charging full price to switch, so I decided to do without it. This project caused me to check again and you can now get the Mac version for just $25 if you already own the Windows version, so I went for it. It's nice to have the application back! The only problem is that it's really easy to change things in your quilt in the application, so it can suck you in to play for hours. I don't really like the border that I had picked out for this quilt years ago, so I started playing! I came up with a couple of other borders that I like for this quilt:

Leaves Quilt - Border Option 1

Leaves Quilt - Border Option 2

I like both of these a lot, but I have plenty of time before I have to worry about the border so I'm sure I'll continue to play around with this!

Nancy

Malini Shawl Progress

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! It was a nice week here. The weather was pleasant -- not too hot, not too cold. We got a tiny bit of rain but nothing significant. I went to the knitting group and english paper piecing (EPP) group meetings this week. It's always nice to get together with friends!

I made a lot of progress on my Malini shawl, designed by Lisa Hannes, this week. I felt driven to get through the mosaic stitch sections. These are the sections with the diamond motifs.

Malini

I didn't quite make it through the last mosaic stitch section, but I'm close. After this, there are some narrow stripes and then the shawl will be complete.

I also made a little progress on my Pluma Morada shawl designed by Joji Locatelli. 

Pluma Morada

It was only about an inch of progress, but every inch counts! 

I made some progress on my Pansy Pincushion designed by Sue Spargo this week. 

Pansy Pincushion

I'm trying to finish a flower each week, although I didn't get to it last week.

Pansy Pincushion - Flower #3

This flower also had a new-to-me stitch: the Raised Cup stitches in the center. My stitches turned out okay, although I had some trouble getting the needle through the spaces where it was supposed to go. They might not be quite right, but they look fine to me.

In our EPP group, I decided to take a different project than the one I usually work on. I felt like working on something smaller than usual, so I took an old project I have sitting around.

EPP Octagons and Squares

For this project, I'm just combining octagons made with Kaffe Fasset fabric with blue squares. These are tiny pieces -- the squares are just 1/2" along each side. I have no idea how big I'll make it or what I'll do with it (could be a quilt; could be a bag; could be a pillow), but I just pull this out and put a few more pieces together every once in a while. Whatever it ends up being, I love how these are looking!

Finally, I was looking through my projects to decide what to take to my sewing groups this week. On Monday, we meet at a friend's house in her classroom space (she has a small fabric store in her house and also teaches classes). We have room to bring our machines, but the space is a bit limited so I wanted to find something that would work well in that space. I decided to start working on my Lilah quilt kit designed by Yellow Cat Quilt Designs. This is one of the kits that I've picked up through the years when Connecting Threads has had deep sales. I decided to cut the fabric for the blocks at home so I would be ready to sew when I got to my friend's house.

Lilah - Fabric Cut For Piecing

I thought this would make the best use of space. I put everything in plastic bags and labelled them so I wouldn't do things like mix up the 3" squares with the 3-1/8" squares. I used a wet erase marker for labeling the bags so I can wipe off the labels when finished and reuse the bags. I used to put post-it notes in the bags for labels, but they would get in the way sometimes so I think this is a better method. Some of these squares will need to be cut into triangles before sewing, but I left them as squares so I wouldn't have the exposed bias edges for longer than needed. After doing the cutting, I found out that our Monday group was canceled because my friend's grandson got sick, but I can still take these to our Friday sew day. We have more room at the Friday sew day so I could also decide to save this project for the next time we meet at my friend's house. We'll see what I decide!

Nancy

Lots of Knitting

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! We are continuing to move into spring here. The weather has been a bit cooler than it had been, but still warm for this time of the year. We only had a dusting of snow last week, so my appointment to swap out the winter tires didn't do the trick. 😂 But it was a good time to get them swapped because my nephew and his wife have scheduled their gender reveal party towards the end of this month and now I'm ready to go! Looks like I'll be starting another baby quilt soon!

For this week, I just did a lot of knitting. First, I finished the border on my Spirits of the Season shawl designed by Amy Gunderson. 

Spirits of the Season

Spirits of the Season - Border

I'm a lazy blocker so I didn't pin the shawl out. If I had, the border would be a lot larger and more open, but I'm fine with it this way. The gray yarn is a fuzzy mohair, making the shawl feel wonderful against your skin.

I also made some progress on my Pluma Morada shawl designed by Joji Locatelli. 

Pluma Morada

Pluma Morada - Close-Up

The color of the yarn is darker, like it appears in the first picture, but the second picture gives you a good look at the patterning of the shawl. This one is knit with a lace weight yarn and so has a very wonderful gauzy feel.

Finally, I got the bug to start yet another shawl. This one is from a kit that I purchased years ago. The pattern is called Malini in the kit, but seems to be called Garlands Around Me now. It is designed by Lisa Hannes.

Malini

Malini - Close-Up

I'm going to continue to call the pattern Malini since I am knitting it from that written pattern rather than purchasing the new version of the pattern and I don't know if there are any differences. This is a good pattern for relaxed knitting because most of it is just simple garter stitch.

Nancy