October Pieces of Time Blocks

These are my Pieces of Time blocks for October -

Both of them are #12.

This past weekend we went to my parents, it was a beautiful fall day.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.♥

Art Quilts of the Month

I finally got caught up with my Art Quilts of the Month!

This is the August one. We went on a road trip to Alberta at the end of August, and crossed the prairies. This little quilt was inspired by the views from the car.

This is a photo from Saskatchewan.

For September I chose an appliqué of a Gloriosa Daisy - they were blooming beautifully in the garden. It is invisible machine appliqué because I taught a class on it in September.

For October I painted a piece of fabric in fall colours, added leaves with metallic paint, and then stitched falling leaves.

Here are all ten quilts so far - the year is flying by! These are 6" x 8" mini quilts.

I was lucky enough to Skype with a friend this weekend while we sewed, and I made another hexagon.

This is a design by Mickey Depre.

Only three so far. I have no plans for these, I just wanted to try making hexagons.

I finished spinning the skein of wool that I hand dyed. It is almost 200g of fingering weight 100% wool. It is a gift for my Mom.

This was the first ply along with the fibre for the second ply - I love seeing how the dyed fibre spins into yarn.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!♥

October Small Quilt

I haven't been making the small quilts of the month as part of Kathleen Tracy's (A Sentimental Quilter) Small Quilt Talk group on Yahoo!, but I just couldn't resist the October one.

Little tumbling maple leaves - these are 4.5" blocks, and the table runner is 11" x 23". The pattern can now be found here.

Perfect on my coffee table for fall. I quilted an allover oak leaf and double loop design because I wanted the runner to be flat.

I have also started spinning the red wool I dyed earlier in the week.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

Dyeing Wool

 I dyed some wool yesterday for spinning.

I love this kind of dyeing - just pouring different colours on the wet fibre, and then steaming it in plastic wrap (I use Jacquard Acid dyes, with vinegar as the acid).

It is always exciting to see what comes out. For the fibre on the left I used a split complimentary colour scheme - with orange, green and purple. The one on the right is an analogous scheme - with reds and purples.

All dried and ready for spinning (400g total).

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

Back from a Break

I took a "blogger break" for what I thought would be a month and it turned into two months. Thanks to those who wrote and asked me how I was doing. Everything is fine, I just felt that I was wasting too much time on the computer.

I had a wonderful summer and here are some things that I accomplished -

I made myself a robe/housecoat with fabric I bought in Hawaii (less than $20 for 4yards for beautiful cotton!) last Christmas -

I rarely make practical things, so I was thrilled with this. I also made my husband some pyjamas since I was on a roll (no pictures, and not in bright floral fabric, but maybe next time!).

I made some more runners for shelves in my sewing room -

This one is made with little thimbles (about 1") cut from some left over fabric from a quilt I made last year. It was a leader-ender project.

This one was just to practice free motion quilting. They are both about 8" x 26".

Here they are on the shelves -

Can you tell I am running out of ways to use quilts!

I taught a Invisible Machine Appliqué class this summer, and this is what I designed for the class -

It is about 10" x 16". Everyone did wonderfully, and it was lots of fun for me!

I needed to replace some worn cushion covers and I designed another appliqué block -

The fabric I used had a paisley design, so I incorporated that into the appliqué design and the free motion quilting.

I left the appliqué and the borders puffy to accentuate them (it was so tempting to quilt a feather border, although they are only 2" borders, but I wanted to see what it would look like un-quilted, and I am pleased with the results).

I made a coordinating pieced block for the second cushion. This 12" block is "Sea Breeze" from the book 'Knockout Blocks and Sampler Quilts' by Judy Martin.

They are 16" cushions.

I have also been knitting with yarn that I spun -

This one from a pattern - "Lazy Katy" by Brigit Freyer. The yarn is from Merino Silk fibre from SweetGeorgia Yarn, in the colour way 'Maple'.

This scarf is made with Merino (from a good friend) that I dyed (it is spun about a worsted weight, and came out so soft and squishy). The pattern is 'Undulating Scarf' from a 2010 Spin Off magazine, and it is also available free on Ravelry. It is a wonderful pattern because the scarf is reversible. I changed the centre double increase because I couldn't figure out how to make the one described in the pattern (I did 'K1, YO, K1' all in the same stitch).

The next two shawlettes are ones that I designed after taking a couple of Craftsy classes (Lace Shawl Design and Shawlscapes) -

This is a lace one made from Kid Mohair that I bought while on holiday this summer (we went to where we used to live in Alberta and I went back to my old local yarn store - it was so nice!).

It is the first time I have spun mohair and it was lovely to spin.

This one I wanted to be more free form, and I made it up as I knitted, which was fun (this is inspired by the Shawlscapes class). I also spun the yarn without much thought and just enjoyed the process, and it came out really nice too. This is BFL from SGY in the colour way 'Chai Spice'

I completed some Blocks of the Month -

 
The August block for the Ostrich BOM, a Dresden Plate (this is an 18" block),

 
and 9-Patches for September (4.5" blocks).

My Pieces of Time BOM blocks for September (we took August off).

Whew!!

Thank-you so much for stopping by and have a great day!!♥

Craftsy Class Giveaway

I was recently asked by someone at Craftsy if I would be willing to host a giveaway on my blog. Those who know me, know that I am a huge fan of Craftsy, so of course I accepted.

I have been mostly self taught, but ever since taking my first Craftsy class last year - Cindy Needham's Design It, Quilt It, I have been hooked.
The Craftsy platform is a wonderful way to learn. You learn at your own speed, and because you own the class forever, you can view it as many times as you want, and you can go back to it years from now (my first online, and only non-Craftsy class I took, I only owned for 6 months - it was terrible). Also because people are constantly adding projects and asking questions, the classes are constantly evolving and there is always more to learn.

These are some of the things I have made this past year with Craftsy Classes (and one workshop). I have learned new ways to free motion quilt, uses for all my sewing machine stitches that I never used, new concepts in knitting and sweater construction, jewelry making, how to dye fabric (and then in turn wool), how to spin yarn, and the list goes on! Craftsy has fabulous sales that I can't seem to pass up - I only buy classes on sale.

This is what I am currently working on - a shawl I designed with the class Shawlscapes with Stephen West, using wool that I spun with the class Spinning Dyed Fibres with Felicia Lo (this yarn is Fractal Spun, and you can see the effect starting to show).

Onto the Giveaway!

Craftsy is giving away one Craftsy Class each to 5 lucky winners! 

The contest runs from August 1st 2013 to August 14th 2013 (6pm EDT). 

The contest is for people who are already Craftsy members, and for those who want to become members (sign up is easy - you just need an email address and a password).

Just click on this link - Big Craftsy Giveaway to be taken to a new page to enter.

Even if you never want to buy a class, the free classes are fabulous!! I learned so much from watching the lectures from Quilt Con 2013,

and who knew pizza that rivals pizza we had in Italy could come out of my home oven!! This is from the free class Perfect Pizza at Home with Peter Reinhart.

Note - 

I gain nothing by hosting this giveaway. Like you, I will be entered to win a class. The host with the most entries from their site does win a class, so I appreciate it if you chose to use my link. Thanks!!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!♥

July Roundup

This month I managed to finally finish the Rob-Peter-to-Pay-Paul quilt top (Yeah!!).

It is 56"x70". It will stay a top until I am ready to quilt it in the fall.

I spun everyday for 24 days (and then cleaned my spinning wheel and put it away for a while).

This is all that I spun during the 2013 Tour de Fleece - 600g of yarn in total. The brown yarn was fibre from SweetGeorgia yarns, and the rest are my hand dyed fibres. Now I have some knitting projects lined up!

Speaking of knitting, I finished up two pairs of socks this weekend.

The blue ones are my first pair of toe up socks (the pattern can be found here). The grey ones are the July 2013 Mock (mystery socks), from the Ravelry group Sock Knitters Anonymous.

I finished my Blocks of the Month this weekend too -

Pieces of Time BOM blocks.

Ostrich BOM - this month "Seminole" was chosen.

Art Quilt of the Month - the piece of fabric was cut from a piece of sun printing I did last week (it didn't quite work like I thought it would, I think it was too hot and dried too quickly). The quilting is a spinning design, since I did so much spinning this month. I added a painted sun after it was quilted, just to represent summer (it is in contrast to my January art quilt which represents a blizzard).

Last week I spent some time at my parents home, and only went down to the lake once (we were busy working).

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

Tour de Fleece

This month I am participating in an online spinning challenge called Tour de Fleece (it runs the same time as the Tour de France, but a different kind of spinning - I am amazed how many people are participating, every day there are about a thousand posts/pictures on the main thread - we can each post one per day, and there are over 7000 members in the group). 

So I have been spinning everyday for the past two weeks, this is what I have done so far (all 100 gram bundles) -

This is a 75% super wash wool/25% nylon blend for socks that I dyed (after spinning the first bobbin, I re-dyed the second half darker, because I thought it was too light).

I really had to concentrate on spinning even for this skein, which is still a challenge for me.

This is bluefaced leicester wool from SweetGeorgia Yarns in Vancouver.

I didn't stress about spinning this, and it came out to be the thinnest yarn I have ever spun - a lace weight. I really enjoyed spinning this one (BFL is a great fibre to spin). I did "Fractal Spinning" - it will show when it is knitted.

Now I am working on these bundles of Merino wool that I dyed to coordinate with each other.

This will be a thicker yarn. I will ply the two separate colours together.

I dyed some more fibre yesterday - so much fun!

This is such a great challenge, and I will have all kinds of knitting projects lined up for the fall!

Hopefully fall is a long way off, because I have been enjoying summer!

We took out more grass this year, but this time added mulch and trees.

The vegetable garden that went in so late is doing well.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥