Cowltopus Finished

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well. We're getting ready for winter here. I'm sure it will show up some time soon! Our temperatures have been a bit cooler, but still pretty warm for this time of year. And it's been dry!! But we're supposed to have a cold front come through on Tuesday night to drop a little snow for us. We really need it! 

I was able to finish my Cowltopus designed by Laura Nelkin. This project was a Mystery Knit-Along (MKAL) so we didn't know what we were knitting until the final clue came out. I've finished the last two clues, finishing the cowl, since my last post. In the third clue we joined the bottom of the hood into a circle and started to knit the base of the cowl:

Cowltopus - Clue 3

And, as you probably guessed, we finished up the base cowl with the 4th clue:

Cowltopus - Clue 4 Front View

Cowltopus - Clue 4 Side View

The knitting in clues 3 and 4 use a technique called "brioche" which creates a really fun squishy fabric. I think this cowl will be wonderful on cold winter dog walks!

I also spent a couple of days this week putting the binding on my Baby Elephant quilt from Lickety-Split Quilts for Little Ones written by Laura Bevin:

Baby Elephant

I didn't have enough of the purple fabric from the quilt top to use for the binding, but I was able to find another fabric in my stash that matches the shade of purple perfectly! I like to hand-sew my bindings so it takes a while. The hand sewing is tedious, but I really love how a perfect, full binding looks and feels. The entire time I'm stitching, I'm bitching in my head about how long it takes and how sore my finger gets (I have never been able to use a thimble), but at the same time I'm feeling this intense satisfaction and joy at how wonderful the finished edge looks and feels, and I keep going back and touching the finished edges. Crazy, I know! Now I just need to do the quilting on the elephant and on the background of the quilt. I'm going to be doing simple stippling in the background, so that will be quick. I'm planning to do Angela Walters' meandering flower design in the elephant, to thematically match the roses in the cornerstones. I'll make another ByAnnie bag so I can practice the meandering flowers before I stitch them on the quilt.

Finally, I started working on my Millefiori quilt. I'm making La Passacaglia designed by Willyne Hammerstein using Tula Pink fabrics. This week I finished the first two rounds of the first unit:

La Passacaglia

I have a long way to go, but I'm liking it so far!

Finally, I thought I'd share a picture of our latest visitor:

Visiting Moose

This guy spent the day last Tuesday relaxing in the neighbor's yard, about 15 feet from my fence. Grace was really good! She ran over to him (on her side of the fence) and gave a few barks when she first saw him, but then she just ignored him for the rest of the day. He is so beautiful!!

Nancy

Happy Birthday, Grace!

 Hi all -

It's hard to believe it, but today is Grace's 2nd birthday. Where does the time go! Can I still call her a puppy? I know I can say that she has turned into a very sweet and well behaved dog!

Grace

It's been a very productive week for me. I've had a couple of finishes this week. First, I finished the two smaller Ditty Bags from the ByAnnie pattern to go with the larger one that I made earlier:

Ditty Bags from ByAnnie

I had fun using the same fabrics for all of the bags, but using different quilting and embellishments! The middle-sized. bag has meandering feathers quilting and some cute buttons on it:

Ditty Bag - Medium Size

The small bag has stipple quilting and a cute ribbon embellishment:

Ditty Bag - Small Size

And I remembered to include the lining fabric in the quilted sandwich so the inside is lined!

Ditty Bag - Lining

These bags were fun to make (although the binding in the inside of the smallest bag was pretty fiddly!) and I was able to use them for practicing my rusty quilting and for picking quilting designs for other projects.

My second finish is my Comfort Fade Cardi designed by Andrea Mowry (the colors are brighter than they appear in the photos):

Comfort Fade Cardi - Front

Comfort Fade Cardi - Back

I had started this several years ago, but put it aside before picking up the stitches for the button band/collar. Picking up stitches, especially when there are lots of stitches as in this case, has always been confusing for me. Patterns always seem to give you the number of stitches to pick up, but there are also prescribed ratios of stitches to pick up when picking up along the sides of the knitting (knitting stitches are taller than they are wide so it's not 1 to 1). The problem with this is that you knit a sweater to the length that works for you so you rarely have the same number of rows as the designer had so the number of stitches given in the pattern is different that what you would get using the prescribed ratio. After watching blogs and stuff, I think I understand how this works now. The pattern gives you the number of stitches the designer used, but you should instead pick up stitches using the prescribed ratio (many say to pick up two stitches for every three rows, for example). Then, for a pattern like this one, you have to do some math because this pattern uses what are called "short rows" to build up the collar. To do the short rows, you are told to knit a given number of stitches, then you turn your work and knit in the other direction. And you do that several times to build up the collar. But if you pick up a different number of stitches than the designer, then you have to knit a different number of stitches to start with and you have to figure that out for yourself. But once you understand how it works, it's not difficult. And now I have another fun sweater to wear as the weather cools down!

Another project I did a little work on this was was my "Baby Elephant" quilt from Lickety-Split Quilts for Little Ones by Laura Bevin. One of the things I've been wrestling with was what background quilting to use in the cornerstones (and, to be consistent, behind the elephant). I used the ditty bags above to help me make that decision. I felt like meandering feathers would be a good background because they would represent food for the elephant, but I was afraid that that design would be too thready and would make the quilt a bit stiff. So I used that quilting for my medium ditty bag and I agree with my instinct. Even though the bag doesn't feel stiff, it does feel to thready for my baby quilt. So I decided to use simple stippling and used the small ditty bag to practice my stitching. Here's how the cornerstones turned out:

Baby Elephant - Cornerstone

I generally second-guess myself with stippling because it is so common from past days that it almost seems cliche or something, but I think it ended up working well here and will work well behind the elephant, too. And, as an added benefit, it's very fast at this scale. It only took me about 10 minutes to finish all four cornerstones! Here's what the quilt looks like so far:

Baby Elephant

This afternoon I'll start working on the binding, then I'll finish the rest of the quilting. I still have to figure out how to quilt the elephant itself. My first inclination is to try to do some "realistic" quilting on the elephant where I put some horizontalish lines on the trunk, whorls on the knees and some rounding around the belly, but I would have to figure out something to quilt on the elephant's side so there is enough quilting to hold the quilt together. But I'm afraid any realistic type quilting in this area will just make the elephant look wrinkled and old. So I might just use some general quiltinng pattern that isn't elephant-specific. I have time to think about this as I work on the binding and background quilting.....

Finally, I also went to my first meeting for another small group from my quilt guild on Monday. This group is for working on block of the month quilts or mystery quilts. I have several of those that I've started in the past and would like to finish some day! So I pulled out my Ruffled Roses quilt designed by Sue Garmen. This was the 2011 Block of the Month quilt from The Quilt Show and I started it that year. This is a very detailed, time-consuming quilt, but it is so gorgeous! I just had the first couple of months finished so far:

Ruffled Roses - Front

This quilt is fancy enough that it even includes trapunto:

Ruffled Roses - Back

If I went in order, I would continue working on the applique swag border. But this is hand applique and I'm using different thread for every piece and then I'll have to add trapunto to this border, so I decided I didn't want to continue working on this border at home and move on to the next border in the group meeting. The next border is small four-patch blocks (2.25" finished) on point, which is easier to do away from home than the applique. So I started working on this border:

Ruffled Roses - Strip Sets

It doesn't look like I accomplished much, but there is a lot of pressing and cutting that has to be done before you can do any sewing and we only meet for four hours. That's the difficulty with scrap quilts. But I love the variety that results! It was really nice to see this quilt again, but I won't be working on it outside of the monthly group meeting until I get the elephant quilt and another quilt done that have to be finished for Christmas. After that, I hope to put more time into this one! (Although you never know what might turn my head next...)

Well, that's it for now. I hope everyone is doing well!!

Nancy

Cowltopus Mystery KAL Clues 1 & 2

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! It's hard to believe that we are in mid-October. We are still having warm, dry days. We haven't had any precipitation since our first "snow" a couple of weeks ago. We are so lucky that we haven't had a fire yet! And my well has been stressed for the last couple of weeks so I have to be really careful with my water usage. But it sure does feel good!

Last week was my busy one. I've been joining more of the small groups with my quilt guilds and they all seem to meet around the same time. Last week I had the Longmont guild meeting on Tuesday, then the class from the Longmont speaker on Wednesday. I'll show what I did in class below. Thursday was the Quilts of Valor (QOV) small group, where we spend a day at the church sewing quilts for the QOV organization. Friday was the English Paper Piecing small group where we work on our own EPP projects. In this group, I just continued to work on my hexagon charm quilt. All of these were a lot of fun and Grace got to play with the other dogs at daycare so we were both tired at the end of the day.

Besides the quilt activities, I've spend most of my time since my last post working on Laura Nelkin's Cowltopus Mystery Knit-Along (MKAL) project. Laura likes to celebrate Cowltober with a new cowl pattern and has had a MKAL the last couple of years. This year's pattern is octopus-themed. Even though I have more than enough yarn in my stash, I bought this year's kit because I wanted the extras:

Cowltopus Kit Extras

I hope you can see in the picture that we got two stitch markers (a Sculpey octopus and a metal tentacle) and cute octopus end stoppers. The kit also came with a couple of cute stickers, but I really don't have anywhere to put stickers so I'll probably end up throwing them away. Laura loves to plan here MKALs with weird constructions so we really can't tell what the final project will look like. This year's is no disappointment! The first clue, which came out on October 4, had us use Judy's Magic Cast-on to create a two-sided piece, then we knit back and forth around it in a U-shape to make this:

Cowltopus Clue 1

I don't know if you can tell in the phots, but the bottom edge is a finished edge and the live stitches are in the U around the sides and top. From this angle it looks like we are knitting a jellyfish! The shaping looks like the top of a hood.

Cowltopus Clue 1

It's really had to show this shape in a picture! We got the second clue last Thursday and it continued the hood element:

Cowltopus Clue 2

In this photo, the live stitches are on the bottom and the finished edge is on the right side. Here it is standing up:

Cowltopus Clue 2

It's possible that this is really a snood, but I have a feeling that we are going to fold this in some strange manner and end up with cool-shaped cowl. We only have two clues left so we'll know soon!

As I mentioned above, I also attended the class offered by our quilt guild speaker. This class was on piecing circles using the Cut A Round ruler. If I was in the class to actually learn something, I would have been very disappointed because we basically just had a demonstration of the ruler and then spent the rest of the day (it was a full day class) piecing circles for a table runner. But I was really in the class to be more social so I was okay with that. We started out piecing a practice circle:

Circles Class Practice Circle

Then we worked on the table runner. The table runner was designed as three blocks with circles and then a border around it. But I don't use table runners and don't have any space for another wallhanging so I decided that I will end up making a lap or bed quilt instead and just concentrated on making blocks:

Pieced Circles Quilt Blocks

Since I love scrappy and Kaffe Fassett fabrics, I'll just keep making these blocks until I reach a size where I want to stop, then I'll sew them together and quilt it. I might do some hand embroidery in the solid fabric. I'll decide that later. This project will be set aside for a while since I have other things I need to work on right now, but should be quick to finish when I get back to it since the blocks are 14" square. And I'll probably piece the practice square into the quilt back to keep everything together.

Nancy

A Bunch of Bags

 Hi all -

Wow! Time is flying by! I can't believe it's October already! Looking at the trees, it's obviously October. But you would never know it by the weather. It's been sunny, warm and dry since that little snow storm I mentioned last time. I'm loving it! It's going to be a real shock when the weather turns!

Since my last post, I've taken a break from quilting and have been making bags instead. I started with the "Hands Free Diaper Bag" by Missouri Star:

Hands Free Diaper Bag

This is a small diaper bag designed to be warn cross body.. It has a large main pocket for diapers and supplies and a pocket on the front for the baby wipes that has a flap giving you direct, easy access to the opening in the package:

Hands Free Diaper Bag Opening for Wipes

As you probably guessed, this is for my nephew's baby girl who is due in November. I think it will be useful for those short trips where you don't want to carry a big diaper bag but still need to be prepared for emergencies. Of course I decided to use a directional fabric for the bag so I had to pay close attention to what I was doing to get the print right-side up. And I made a lot of mistakes along the way and had to redo several parts. But I love how it turned out! 

I love to make bags and hadn't made any for a while, so this bag really whet my appetite! I really wanted to make a ByAnnie bag so I looked through my patterns and picked something, but then realized that I didn't have enough Soft & Stable (the stabilizer ByAnnie bags are designed to use) to make the bag. But I was going to Quilt A-Fair last Friday so I decided to look for some there. Quilt A-Fair is the Colorado Quilt Council's annual show. It's kind of a weird show because there are a bunch of vendors on the floor and the quilts are displayed in the rafters. It's really hard to see the quilts and there aren't a lot of them, so I actually didn't even realize it was a quilt show for the first couple of years that I went. I thought it was just a vendor's market. But now I know to look up for the quilts so I can enjoy them as well as the vendors! Anyway, I was able to get some Soft & Stable and I also found a kit to make a couple of ByAnnie bags that I liked and the sale benefitted the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum. So I switched directions and made the bags from the kit:

Renaissance Ribbons Bags

It is a wonderful kit with fun Tula Pink fabrics and ribbons. The pattern is "Renaissance Ribbons Bags" by ByAnnie. I made the big bag first to get a feel for the pattern:

Renaissance Ribbons Bags - Larger Bag

The larger bag is generally the better one to test the instructions with because it's usually less fiddly than the smaller bags. For this one, I originally put the zipper on upside-down and had to take it off and redo it. In this case, it would have been better to have made that mistake on the smaller bag instead since it was tightly stitched and took some effort to remove! But I got the big bag nicely finished and then was able to make the smaller bag with no problems:

Renaissance Ribbons Bags - Smaller Bag

I think these turned out cute and I love the lining fabric as well:

Renaissance Ribbons Bags - Lining Fabric

These are really easy to make and I can see making some more in the future.

Then I went back to the ByAnnie pattern I had picked out before the quilt show. I had picked out all of the fabrics before the show so now I just had to put it all together. I had chosen the "Ditty Bags" pattern (the link is for the 2.0 version of the pattern which looks a little different from the original version that I have) and again started with the largest bag:

Ditty Bag - Largest Version

It's hard to tell, but my main fabric (which is one of my favorite all-time fabrics) is, of course, directional so I had to play with the instructions to get everything in thge right direction. The pattern has you cut a large piece of the main fabric, quilt it and then cut out the needed pieces. And the pattern uses a single large piece for the main body of the bag, which wraps around from one side to the other which would make the pattern upside-down on the back side. Instead, I cut out my main fabric pieces first, cutting the main piece in half (and adding seam allowance) and then piecing it back together to get everything in the right direction. Then I arranged the main piece and the side pieces on the Soft & Stable and quilted everything as directed. Well, almost as directed. I didn't read the directions carefully and the other bags I had just made had the lining sewn separate from the outside of the bag so you quilted the outside fabric without the lining for those. Of course, this bag is made by quilting all three layers (lining, stabilizer and main fabric) into a single piece and then the seams inside the bag are covered with binding. I didn't do that and didn't realize I had done that wrong until I was too far along to fix it, so this bag has the Soft & Stable as the lining. Luckily, that will work just fine and just not be as nice has also having a lining fabric:

Ditty Bag - Lining

I do plan on making matching bags in the smaller sizes, but I'll do those correctly so they will have the lining fabric on the inside! I'm really enjoying the bag making so you'll probably see more scattered in with my other crafts in the future!

I really need to get back to the Baby Elephant quilt. I need to finish it by Christmas. Then I have to get back to a log cabin quilt that I started a couple of years ago that I've decided to finish for my brother-in-law for Christmas this year. Our family is doing Secret Santa this year and I chose his name so that's the only Christmas gift I have to make this year. Then I'll be free to flit between all of my projects and crafts again.....

Nancy