Sashiko Class Projects Finished

 Hi all -

The weather up here remains beautiful! The temperatures remain mild and we've been getting some good rain. You can feel autumn coming, but I'm sure there'll be more hints of summer along the way!

The sashiko class projects were moving along swiftly so I decided to finish them:

Sashiko class project #1

Sashiko class project #2

I'll put these pieces aside until I figure out what I want to do with them. My feeling is that these will end up in a quilt. I have more shot cotton in my stash, I bought some more sashiko thread and I have lots of stemcils in my stash so there's plenty that I could add to this in the future!

I'm continuing to enjoy handwork so I've made more progress on my hexagon charm quilt. I finished three more of the larger hexagon units:

New hexagon units

That brings my total to 26 of these units. I laid them out to see how far along I'm getting:

All of the hexagon units

It seems like a lot of units in the box, but I still have a long way to go! Since I'm going to end up making a rectangular quilt, I think I'm going to add some hexagons to my units and make them into "squares." I think that'll be easier to put together and visualize.

Finally, I started working on a baby quilt. My nephew and his wife are expecting a little girl in November and they are having a shower in mid-September. I looked through my baby quilt books and found a little quilt in my "Quick Quilts for Kids" book by Elizabeth Keevill. This is a very tiny quilt, only 16.5"x20" finished. It's designed for using in a car seat or carrier, which I thought was a great idea, especially as an early gift so it could be used when taking the baby home from the hospital. And as she gets older, if she is into dolls them it will make a good doll quilt. Here is my version of the "Baby's Love Blanket" from the book:

Baby's Love Blanket

I used the same colors as the example in the book since I really like these colors and I had everything I needed in my stash. Now I just have to decide on the backing. A flannel backing would be nice for comfort, but I don't have much flannel in my stash so it's unlikely I have something that would go with this quilt. I'll look today. A little pieced backing would be pretty and I have an extra heart applique that was too big for the front that would be cute on the back. The book said to enlarge the applique pattern by 200%, but that was too large for the blocks. I didn't notice that until I prepared the first applique and then found that it didn't fit on the block. For this quilt, the applique should really only have been enlarged 150%. Once the backing is prepared, I'll have to figure out the quilting. I know I'll be quilting hearts in the empty green squares, but need to deicde on the rest of the quilting. The quilting will be simple to keep the quilt soft.

Nancy

Sashiko and Mock Molas

 Hi all -

The last couple of weeks have been busy, but not much crafting done. Grace and I went to Kansas City to visit the family. We had a graduation party for my niece who finished her Physicians Associate degree. She had her white coat ceremony last fall, but still had a couple of rotations to complete this summer and then the certification exam. She finished her rotations and passed the exam so is now ready to start work! We're so proud of her!

Our trip was wonderful! Everyone is doing well and Grace had a great time! This is our first visit without a trip to the emergency vet for her, so she got to play with the other dogs in the family and have fun the entire time. She did so much running that even though she ate a lot while we were there, she came back 2 pounds lighter!

Before we left I was able to finish the bag I was making with the English Paper Piecing (EPP) blocks I had made. I used the same construction as the Mondo Bag that I had made earlier this summer,  I had to increase the size of the bag to accommodate the EPP blocks so it ended up being pretty large, but I really like it:

EPP Bag

I sewed randomly spaced straight lines in different colors in the open areas of the bag fabric. It's subtle, but it breaks up the large solid-colored spaces nicely. This bag will be good when I need to carry a bed-sized quilt somewhere.

After getting back from KC, I took the classes offered by this month's presenter at one of my quilt guilds. The presenter was Alice Ridge.  Her husband was in the service and they traveled all around the world. I think she said they lived in 22 countries in 35 years. Something like that. Along the way she explored the fabric arts native to each region. In the guild meeting she shared a bunch of pieces she had acquired in her travels. There was some amazing stuff! The day after the meeting she taught two classes. The morning class was sashiko. We started working on a pre-printed panel. She brought all of the supplies that we would need and we got to pick from 20-30 different panels. Here's the one that I chose:

Sashiko panel

She also supplied the needles and thread. She told us how to start and stop, how to secure the ends, the best way to move around the piece and how to keep from getting the stitches too tight. What she didn't talk about was how to hold the needle when making the stitches. I've taken one or two sashiko classes in the past in Houston and I remember that being a large part of the class and being difficult for me, so I thought this was going to be a short-coming of this class. But while working on the panel I realized that it was better for me that she didn't concentrate on that. Although it was awkward to start, I think it worked better for me to find my own comfortable position for the stitching. Before we finished the panels, she wanted us to move on to our next piece which we would be marking ourselves. She provided shot cotton fat quarters in a bunch of colors so we could choose what we liked and she had a bunch of quilting stencils and marking pencils we could use. I chose this shot cotton and stencil:

Sashiko stencil

If you can't tell from the picture, my chosen stencil was two fish. I got the first fish done and should be able to finish the second fish this week. And I'll have enough shot cotton left over to make some more with some of the many stencils I have in my stash. I'm not sure what I'll do with these, but they're fun to make.

In the afternoon, Alice taught her "mock molas" class. She said she loved the molas she saw in Central America (and she showed us some beautiful examples), but they were too much work for her so she came up with her mock mola technique using felt and flannel. Again, she had all of the supplies for us and we had a lot to choose from. There were 30 or so patterns and then we could choose our own colors of felt and flannel. I choose a simple lamb design in honor of my yarn crafts:

Little Lamb mock mola

I was able to get everything cut out and sewn together in class. Now I need to do all of the embroidery embellishment. I also bought an additional kit of an alpaca to make a wool-inspired set. I would hightly recommend Alice's classes if you ever get a chance to take one. She's a fun teacher, she supplies everything, she gives you a ridiculous amount of choice in what you make and everything is very reasonably priced.

While I was in classes and guild meetings, Grace was in doggy daycare. Our daycare offers "enhancements" that you can buy and I decided to get Grace and individual play time with "thinking" toys and a photo session. Here she is with one of her puzzle games:

Grace working puzzles

And here is one of her camp pictures:

Grace at camp

Oh, the things we put our dogs though for our own amusement!

Nancy