Week 11 of 2026

This week I made a couple of things that had been planned for a while -

This is a liner for a project basket (I recently learned that the latest term is "analogue bag").

I was given the basket recently and it is perfect for my projects, but the knitting needles kept poking out, and yarn was catching (perfect because it fits under a side table next to the couch and the cats aren't able to get in to sleep).

It is made with all kinds of scraps of mainly linen, also some cotton. The pieced band is stitched on a strip of white cotton for stability. I machine sewed the whole bag (except the hem) before embellishing - crazy quilting, slow stitching, surface embroidery (so many names). I added beads, shisha mirrors, an old piece of tatting that hadn't gone to plan, and a collection of flattened pennies my son had from a trip when he was little (just drilled holes in the ends to stitch them on). The embroidery is mainly with perle cotton, some rayon thread, and a bit of silk buttonhole twist.

After all the embroidery was finished I hand stitched the hem to form a casing for a cotton twill tape and a cord lock to keep it tight (I find elastic gives out over time). I did machine stitch a button hole along the edge before, to be able to insert the twill tape.

I finally got around to sewing a pillow with the needlepoint I finished in January. I had wet blocked it and was worried it would bounce back to the angled state it had when it first came off the stitching frame (it didn't!). The green velveteen was something I inherited and it goes perfectly. I added a zipper on the back as the closer for the first time (usually I use buttons but the fabric was too thick).

Photos from Around (really the cats!) -

GingerSnap decided to bury himself in the pillows on my bed.

Such a sound sleeper!

A cat bunkbed.

All the best!♥︎

Slow Stitching

This week I tried some 'slow stitching'.

Slow stitching is about using needle and thread to create art. It is also about using what you have.

I used remnants from crazy quilt projects I made over 20 years ago

I made some things with embroidered/lace handkerchiefs from various family members (for various family members and a couple of the pieces have come back to me over the years).

Since I only used a corner of the handkerchiefs for the projects there were pieces leftover.

I started by laying remnants over a layer of plain cotton with a layer of thin cotton batting on top.

Raw edges and everything. The layers were basted together (removed as the embroidery progressed).

I used different embroidery threads for the stitching.

Added some old mother of pearl buttons.

I stapled the piece to a stretcher bar frame.

It was lots of fun to stitch. I like how the cotton batting created some nice texture.

I kept the stitching really neutral because I wanted somewhere to keep pins I have collected over the years (also why I mounted it on stretcher bars so there would be room for the pin backs).

The finished piece is 11"x13".

I also made a couple of very tiny quilts using acrylic templates my son cut out for me (using a laser cutter), just to try them out. These two are from the skewed tumbler and tiny equilateral triangle.

Photos from Around

Sunrise this week

Miss Maggie

Miss Molly

All the best!♥︎

Some Storm Projects

We have had three storms in the past two weeks - two Colorado Lows with an Alberta Clipper in between!

So lots of at home time for crafting - I started a few storm projects.

This is another "Easy" scarf by Martina Behm. Made from 56g of handspun.

I love the pattern - it is perfect for small amounts of handspun, it's fun to knit, plus really nice to wear.

This is a piece of crazy quilting inspired by the snippet scrolls I saw in the Summer 2021 issue of Quilting Arts Magazine.

I had a set of door knobs from our first house (padded out the post with some batting).

When rolled, the outside is "plain", but inside I wanted it to be a bit "more".

"There is always more than what we see."

I also finished knitting a pair of socks - this is pair number 6 of my goal to knit 12 pairs of handspun socks this year.

Photos from Around -

The first storm was supposed to be the worst in decades, luckily for us it wasn't too bad (it did last for days and we were snowed in, but we didn't loose power).

Lots more snow (the skies cleared one afternoon for a bit, and I thought it was over - no).

The second storm was mainly high winds, and just a bit more snow - so sparkly though.

The third storm seemed worse than forecast. 

Lots of rain - we were a bit worried about flooding, but just the internet went out.

Then freezing temperatures and more snow (high winds). Highways closed again.

Miss Maggie was happy to stay inside and watch.

Yesterday the winds calmed down and the sun finally came out!

Today lots of the water has gone down, thank goodness because we are expecting more rain this weekend with another Colorado Low in the forecast. At least the snow is melting and maybe winter is coming to an end (probably shouldn't say anything!).

 

All the best!♥︎♥︎

Pincushions

I belong to Kathleen Tracy's (from A Sentimental Quilter) online group called Small Quilt Talk. For Valentine's Day there was a pincushion challenge. I made a little crazy quilt heart out of some leftover French General fabric, and an old key with a heart shaped opening.

I used a piece of wire so that the pincushion could hang up - let's be honest it is more of an ornament than a practical pincushion.

It is an addition to my other pincushions I have made over the years. The oldest one is the felt one with my initials that I made in primary school in England when I was about 10. I only use a couple of them, but they make nice decorations. It seems to be popular now to have bowls of decorative, matching pincushions, maybe that is something to try next.

Photos from around -

 Today was incredibly windy.

 All the blowing snow was something to see.

 I thought the colours were so pretty.

All the best!♥︎

Finished Embroidery

This week I finished off a piece of embroidery I had started a couple of weeks ago.

It was inspired by the Craftsy class 'Fabric Play: Sewing Mojo Minis' with Suzy Williams of Suzy Quilts (part of my Year of Craftsy). It started as a simple free form Log Cabin block, and I knew that I would add embellishments to it to make it my own.

drift wood, feather, tiger eye beads

It includes machine embroidery, fabric painting, lots of hand embroidery for texture.

shisha mirror cut from an old mirror

The centre of the Log Cabin is a scan of an image from a book that I printed on fabric (nothing fancy, I just ironed a piece of fabric to some freezer paper and ran it through the printer). The one thing that this piece doesn't have that I usually attach to my regular Crazy Quilting is buttons - stepping out of my box!

old lace, beads, fabric painted appliqué 

I attached the piece to stretcher bars to hang it - keeping it simple.

This week I also pieced a couple of quilt-along blocks. The large one is Wandering Lover, the first block from the  2018 BOM Antebellum Album by Barbara Brackman over at Civil War Quilts - it is a 12" block. The small one is the first block from the sew along called 1880 Sampler over at the Temecula Quilt Company blog - it is a 4" block.
I don't plan on finishing these blocks as the quilt-along quilts,

I plan on adding the blocks to other leftover blocks that I have to make an Orphan Block quilt (you might recognize some blocks from a couple of quilt alongs last year that I didn't like how they were progressing).

This week I really concentrated on knitting. I finished knitting the body, saddle shoulders and started on the neck band for the Tealeaf Sweater. I will knit the sleeves last because the neck band is quite wide and I want to make sure of the sweater's fit when I am knitting the sleeves (they are knit top down and the sweater has drop shoulders).

All the best!♥︎

Crazy Quilting Pillows

Last post I mentioned that I had spun flax for a little project, and this is it. 

A few weeks ago I was asked to make a pillow for a Singing Bowl. Once I looked up what a Singing Bowl was, I knew what I would make.

The little pillow was part of a retirement gift for the Librarian I have been volunteering for for the past 7 years, so I was thrilled to be asked to make something.
I wanted it to be very natural and 'earthy', so I used neutral colours of linen, cotton and silk fabric for the crazy quilting. I spun the flax for the linen tassels

The pillow is about 6" square (this bowl is about the same size as the singing bowl, which is copper and silver in colour).

For the embroidery I used silk, rayon, and cotton threads, as well as some of my hand spun yarn. There are tiny seed beads and a few garnet chips for embellishment.
The pillow is stuffed with plastic pellets (it is like a bean bag, so the bowl can sink into it).

The final pillow wasn't the first crazy quilting square I made, this one is-

My family and I thought that it was too busy and wouldn't work for a singing bowl.

Crazy Quilting is one of my favourite things to make (and the one craft I have been doing the longest, I made my first piece when I was 13, and I just turned 50!).
I did take pictures as I made the first square, and this is how it came together-

Basic Crazy Quilting (CQ) is about sewing pieces of fabric around an irregularly shaped centre piece, in a log-cabin style way, on a larger piece of foundation cloth (plain cotton fabric in this case)
I like straight lines for CQ, so if a seam is going to be too long I will sew two pieces together, and then add it to the block.

I like to match the seam with an other seam - this intersection then becomes a great place to add buttons to hide it.

Here the piece is the right size. I drew a square,

then stitched around it with a row of straight stitching and a row of zig-zag stitching.

the finished CQ square ready for embellishment

Then trimmed the whole thing. I like to keep the foundation fabric large, so I have somewhere to hold for the embroidery, and if I need to use a hoop for any embroidery.

My favourite piece of quilting I have made is a wall hanging with a square of crazy quilting (shown here), so with this extra square I decided to make something similar.

I bordered the square with raw silk, and had more fun free motion quilting. I chose feathers radiating from the square.

And 'organic straight lines' as a background. To keep the lines kind of parallel I laid down a few strips of masking tape as a guide. The quilting was done with 100Wt Invisafil thread. I used one layer of cotton batting with a full layer of wool batting on top - the feathers came out nice an puffy.

I purposely kept everything a bit skewed, so that I wouldn't have to worry about having to match anything when finishing the square.

I made a pillow with this square - it is about 16".

I finished the cushion like a regular quilt, with binding (a bit wider than normal because there is an extra piece of fabric for the backing), the backing has some buttons for closing.

I also finished a pair of socks this week. This is with hand dyed yarn I bought in Montreal.

As if there wasn't enough pictures in this post! These next photos are for my Mom, who I thought I had died because I didn't phone her this week, because I was busy working outside -

My youngest son and I have been renovating in the back of the yard (taking out more grass and adding a little patio around the fire pit). Hopefully we will be finished this weekend.

Some other garden pictures -

 Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥