Pieces of Time Blocks

I am pleased to have a storm day to catch up on my blocks of the month.

These are Pieces of Time blocks, they are 7.5" blocks.

This weekend I also machine quilted this Drunkard's Path quilt that my Mother made -

The blocks are13.5" (made up of 3.5" DP blocks), and the quilt is 41" square. She cut out the blocks on her GO! Baby.

This past week I finished knitting an entrelac shawl (more like a scarf, it is ~2m or 79" long).

The pattern is Entrelac Shawl with Tassels by Eva Martinsson. A really lovely, well explained pattern.

I used merino wool and silk that I dyed and spun. I made a few changes to the pattern here is my Ravelry page for this project.

This is a picture of the storm that is keeping me in - high winds.

A couple of years ago I participated in a 365 day photo challenge, this year the same group started up again. There are nine of us from different parts of the world, so it is interesting to see the similarities and differences - it is a fun protect. Mine is Joanne's 365 Snapshots.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

More Pink!

The first quilted finished for 14 in '14.

I made this small quilt using fabric that I had gradationally dyed and snow dyed. It is about 18"x22".

This project has many sources of inspiration, from different blogs for ideas on dyeing fabric, to Craftsy classes for the pieced block (Ann Petersen's Playing with Curves, this is the Twist Tie block), and for the "Cathedral Windows" in the background quilting (Cindy Needham's Design It, Quilt It).

I dyed the fabric almost a year ago, and was just waiting for the right inspiration. It was lots of fun to make, and I am really pleased with the results. 

Because I took the Process Pledge -

The Twist Tie block was made with fabric that was gradationally dyed. It is done by dipping pieces of fabric that have been soaked in a water, salt and soda ash solution into the dye bath. The first dip makes the darkest colour. As the water solution is squeezed out, the dye bath is diluted and each successive dip gets lighter. The pieces of fabric are placed into individual baggies and left to exhaust for 24 hours. 

I appliquéd the block to the background fabric using a small zig-zag, and 100Wt thread. I quilting around the block and the pieces, but left the block puffy to contrast with the background. The batting is one layer of cotton, with half a layer of wool batting on top. All the thread for the quilting is 100Wt Invisafil.

I quilted feathers as if they were coming from the block. I only marked the stems.

Once the feathers were quilted I divided the background into five different areas using a Hera marker tied to a piece of string, to get nice curves.

I used a ruler and the Hera marker to make a half inch grid in two of the sections and added a few straight lines as a guide in the other three section.
In the past I have let the hand dyed fabric dictate the quilting design, but this time I wanted to see what it would look like if I just thought of the fabric as plain cotton.

Yes, everything I dye is shades of pink! My son is so right!

This next picture is of a snow dump that I pass every day. It is hard to tell, but we have had so much snow this year and the hill is really quite big. For those who don't know, they truck the snow from the city out to the dump (I recently saw that on Pinterest as a funny - "Meanwhile in Canada" thing!)

Those little dots are large bulldozers working.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

14 in '14

Happy New Year to everyone!

I like to set myself some kind on challenge for the year, and this year I have decided on the 14 in '14 theme.
My goal is to make 14 quilted (or maybe sewn) items, spin 14 skeins of yarn, and knit 14 items. They are going to be any shape or size to count.

Last year I learned many new things, and this year it is also my goal to improve those techniques.

I have already completed my first skein of yarn -

I will count these as one skein because they are the same colour way. 

They started out as Knit Picks, merino wool and silk, Bare Roving.

That I dyed.

It is much prettier when the process is complete.

I spun a singles yarn, that averages to about a fingering weight. This is my first real attempt at singles - after spinning I plunged the skein into really hot water to relax the twist a bit, it worked well and is easy to knit with. There is 183g (I find that Knit Picks roving is never the full 100g that it is supposed to be (it was 186g total before dyeing), but maybe my scale is off).

I am knitting an Entrelac Shawl with Tassels (a pattern from Ravelry). Entrelac (its the name for this knitting technique with the little squares) is so much fun to knit, and this pattern is very well written.

I also joined a Knit Along (KAL), this is the Downton Abbey Mystery KAL 2014 (we know it will be a shawl), the directions are based to events that happen during the show. It should be interesting, we have only had the set up so far. I am using some merino and alpaca that I dyed and spun.

This is a hat that I finished at the end of 2013 -

It is double knitting, so reversible (and extra warm, perfect for the cold weather we have been having). I designed the pattern (it's hard to see the rose and leaf).

This is how the hat started -

The pink/purple one started out as light grey that I dyed.

It is a 3 ply, worsted weight yarn.

My son pointed out to me that everything I dye is the same colour, and you can really tell in these three projects, so I decided to join a 'Fibre Club' for three months just to have some other colours to spin with.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥