This Week's Blocks

This month for the Westering Women BOM the block was Lone Elm.

It was so much easier than last month's block! I have always loved this block, but never made one before. This BOM is very interesting - Barbara Brackman has tidbits of history and photos to go along with each block.

All four of my blocks so far (12" blocks).

These are last week's and this week's blocks for the Circa 2016 QAL (3" blocks).

I have done some spinning recently -

Last time I showed a photo of this yarn being spun (now it is about 1400m, 450g sport/DK weight, 100% Merino yarn).

It started as this fibre that I dyed (two different colours, one for each of the two plies).

I am making a top-down cardigan (just making it up as I go along - the ribbing is the collar and the start of the front band).

I also spun this fibre - 50% Silk/50% Superwash Merino, that I dyed various shades of green (I am trying to step out of my comfort zone with colours).

Came out to about 360m, 110g fingering weight yarn, this one is 3 ply (I chain plied it to keep the colours).

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

Pineapple Blocks

I pieced a few more Pineapple Blocks -

16 blocks so far, so I am almost a third of the way through (16 of 49 blocks). These are 14" blocks.

This is what is on my needles an Arietta Shawl. I bought the yarn while on holiday in Montreal, it is alpaca and silk, so soft and lovely!

On my wheel is some blue merino that I dyed (I love these 'action shots' of the spinning wheel).

The last of the snow melted.

I am sure the birds should be at the feeder not a squirrel.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!♥

Knitting and More Blocks

 Here are some knitting projects I recently finished - 

A summer sweater made with Optim Merino wool. It is incredibly soft. This is my own pattern - just a top down, raglan cardigan. More details can be found on my Ravelry Project page.

It started out as white Optim fibre that I dyed and spun.

It was interesting fibre to work with. It took the dye differently than regular wool and I was amazed by how much it stretched.

I also finished knitting a pair of socks made with commercial yarn - Tanis Fibre Arts Blue Label, in the colour way Atlantic. This is my favourite yarn for socks. The pattern is Elm from the book 'A Knitter's Book of Socks'. I find that they are a bit too long in the leg and next time I would start in a different spot in the chart.

This is another Mobius cowl that I made - I love Mobius cowls, they are different to make and so easy to wear. The pattern is Viburnum Cowl - a free pattern from Knitty.

I used 100% Cashmere yarn that I spun and dyed - this was the first time that I dyed yarn after spinning (the cashmere was like fluff and I was worried about what would happen if I dyed it before spinning).

Here are some more QAL blocks -

365 Challenge

Circa 2016

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

365 Challenge Blocks

I finished sewing some more 365 Challenge blocks.

I have decided that I will just make the 3" blocks (and only the ones that I think will be enjoyable to sew - no more fiddly little pieces for me). So far I have 77 blocks made.

I have also decided that when I am finished making blocks I will piece them with alternating plain squares, and add some kind of border, probably pieced.

We are having some warm temperatures, so the last of the snow should melt soon.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

More QAL Blocks

This weekend I caught up on a couple of quilt alongs.

The first is Westering Women -

This is Sweet Gum Leaf. I was hesitant about this one because of the Y-seams, and the original pattern involved printing out templates (not my thing). Luckily measurements were added for the dimensions of the parallelograms and it made things a bit easier.

The parallelograms ended up being cut from 3" wide strips using the 45 on the ruler and being 2+3/4" wide - even easier.

For the stem I didn't use the template either but a bias tube made with a 1+1/2" wide bias strip and a 1/2" bias bar.

For the Y-seams I remembered that I had inherited a little tool to mark the seam allowance - how handy!

My Y-seams worked out! I used to pin to match the dots and stitched from the dot to the edge of the fabric (in the past I have tried pivoting at the intersection but that never worked).

The three WW blocks so far (12" blocks, one a month for the year).

Next are the Circa 2016 blocks - 

The ones I made this week (3" blocks, two identical blocks per week),

and all the blocks so far, (the piles of pinwheels, hourglass and nine patches from the beginning make the centre of the quilt - I just have to decide on the fabric I will use).

plus all the squares cut for the 120 1+1/2" half square triangles we will need (we found out the QAL will go until the beginning of October!). I am really enjoying this QAL.

At the beginning of March my husband and I took our first vacation without children (just a few days and tacked on to a business meeting for my husband). We went to visit some my relatives in a small town in Quebec  -

lots of snow

and a few days in Montreal -

Old Montreal

Plateau Mont Royal -

Beautiful spring flowers at the shopping centre in Laval-

I couldn't resist taking a photo of the impressive chocolate selection at the grocery store-

We had a lovely time, and our children managed fine (I knew they would, they are young men now).

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!♥