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.
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| 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.
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| 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:
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| 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.
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| 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
