Quilt Show

Last week my sister, a couple of friends and I went to a local quilt show in Morden - the Barnswallow Quilt Guild's annual quilt show. We had a lovely day, always well worth the trip.

The feature quilters, a pair of sisters - Lenore Laverty and Kathryn Laverty Luger, put on a stunning display. More photos from the quilt show can be seen on the guild's website - LINK (the blue and white New York Beauty in one of the photos was my favourite - the pieces were so tiny, and such intricate quilting).

I finished spinning the skein of yarn I had started last week. I ended up with 630 yds, 117g of a light fingering weight yarn (it is 20% Silk, 30% Alpaca & 50% Merino wool).

I spun it to try out a crochet pattern (my goal is to always try new things, and I wanted to try my hand at a crochet pattern that didn't involve a Craftsy/Blueprint class to see if I could do it on my own - I am struggling! Yikes!). The pattern is the Falling Blossoms Shawl by Ana D. I must be having trouble counting, because I think my numbers are right, but the stitch pattern doesn't seem to be working out now that I have started the eyelet section. It doesn't seem to really matter at this point. The beauty of crochet is that it is so easy to pull the stitches out.

For other news, our oldest son is an arborist and has just started his own tree care business, so over the winter he bought a chipper and recently a dump truck. Work was done on the chipper and it was tested this weekend - a 10" wide branch turned to dust!

Renovations are still ongoing - this past week a couple of bedrooms have had hardwood floors installed, and kitchen cupboards are going in now. Somehow the little cat manages to sleep through all the power tools, air compressor and nailer, shop-vac etc (but when I pull out the regular vacuum she runs away), plus all of us talking loudly because we are wearing hearing protection.

It has been nice to see ducks swimming on the pond, mainly Mallards but yesterday there was a pair of Blue Winged Teal.

We also saw a couple of Bald Eagles soaring high recently (only one in the photo, they were closer, but by the time I got my camera...).

All the best!♥︎

A Little Crochet Project

A little finished project this week - every time I crochet I remember how much I love it!

The pattern is Easy Peasy Catnip Mouse from Mollie's Blog of Stuff. I made it from some of my first handspun yarn - so it is quite dense with lots of twist, it should hold up quite well. I stuffed it with some leftover wool batting (no catnip). It is a very easy pattern. The tail is the start of the project, with a row of single crochet to give it the twist, and for extra strength (which is good, since Maggie likes to hold the tail with her teeth, and kick it with her back legs).

Although she didn't seem too impressed at first,

She loves it. As I am writing this, she is busy playing with it.

The snow is really melting around here -

early morning ice

snow in the fields is almost gone

lots of water in the yard

All the best!♥︎

The New Year!

Happy New Year!

I don't make resolutions for a new year, but I do like to make 'crafting' plans - usually involving trying something new, a year long project etc. 

For 2018 the plan is to diversify my crafts. 

Lately I have heard of people calling themselves - a quilter with a capital Q, or a knitter with a capital K. I can't say that I am obsessed with one particular creative outlet, I enjoy everything that I do. So for this new year I want to try a larger variety of crafts - lots of old, but hopefully some new ones too.

This plan did start at the end of 2017 when we remodelled our storage room and I now have an area for stained glass (the boxes of glass had been packed since our last move 10 years ago!)

My first piece of stained glass in 10 years - idea from Pinterest

I used to make a lot of stained glass, it was really nice to try it again, and this is what motivated me to expand my crafting experience.

At the same time Craftsy introduced a membership plan. I have been a Craftsy fan for a long time, so signed up for the year with the thought to try as many things as I can.

This is the first project from a Craftsy class - a sampler cowl from 'See It, Crochet It: Reading Diagrams' by Charles Voth. I know how to crochet and made a lot of things when I was young, but I just made things up as I went along. Finally I learned the names of the stitches, new stitches and how to follow a pattern. Now I remember why I enjoyed crochet so much as a child. This cowl is made out of leftover silk and merino, fingering weight handspun.

This is a new project that I started today - the 'Tealeaf Sweater Knit-Along' by Bristol Ivy, another Craftsy class.

I just wanted to show something else new that I tried recently -

Soft and Stable batting to make a bucket bag. This stuff is fabulous.

The bag is lightweight and sturdy.

It is a perfect project bag.

I also tried some cross stitch again. This is a pattern by Veronique Enginger.

Another plan for the new year is to blog more regularly - I'll see how that goes!

All the best!

Spinning Wheel

I got a new spinning wheel - an Ashford Traditional Double Drive.

It is a joy to spin with - I was amazed how different from my other spinning wheel (an Ashford Kiwi - which is a really good wheel too, just different).

I spun my first skein of yarn on the new wheel - it came out very even (the fibre was easy to spin).

This was the fibre - 75% Superwash Merino and 25% Nylon (Bare Stroll Roving from Knit Picks), that I dyed with an odd assortment of colours (I am trying to step out of my 'colour box' when dyeing).

The bobbins before plying.

The colours were beautiful to watch spin, and I look forward to seeing how it knits up. I was hoping to make socks, but (surprisingly for me!) it came out a bit too thin. I might try making gloves with this yarn.

This week I also crocheted something - it has been a long time since I have crocheted anything (when I was young I made a lot of things in crochet), and I really enjoyed it.
I know I have two 'crochet' patterns on Ravelry, but I consider Romanian Point Lace a type of embroidery.

I made a little bag to attach to my spinning wheel, to hold the oil bottle, yarn gauge etc. I felted the bag when it was finished.

The colour is better in the top photo. I used some of my first hand spun yarn from two years ago.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

Keeping Busy

Last week I dyed some more thread - this one started out as white #10 Opera crochet cotton.

Here's How -

I dye thread by tying it into a skein, and soaking it in a solution of water with soda ash and salt (about 2L or 1/2 gallon water with 1/2 cup each soda ash and salt), for about one hour. I then place the wet skein on an old plastic lid (something flat with sides), it is quite damp, but not so much that the liquid is going everywhere (other wise the colours will all get mixed, you can always add more solution if the colours aren't mixing). I use the dye powder straight from container and sprinkle it on the thread, just a bit, and then "mush" it around with my fingers to mix the colours (safety first - I wear a dust mask and gloves). These are proMX dyes for cotton.
I  loosely cover the thread with plastic wrap and leave the lid in a warm spot for 24 hours (I use a heated seed starting mat), I try to make sure that all the plastic wrap is within the lid so that the dye doesn't wick out (this picture was taken before that step). After 24 hours I just rinse and wash it following the dye instructions. When the skein is clean, but damp, find the centre and "snap" the skein around your two hands, to get the skein to go back into shape and straighten all the threads. Hang to dry.

The inspiration for this colour way was a picture from a Telus calendar.

I dyed the thread because I wanted to try some free form crochet - a friend has a great tutorial on her new blog. It was lots of fun to make! I followed the instructions for the first few swirls and then just started trying out different stitch combinations and increases - it was interesting to see how it grew.

It's just tiny.

Thanks for the tutorial Susan!

This weekend I made this month's Ostrich BOM blocks. "Triangles" was the keyword this time - so I chose a star block and a triangle filler piece (cut using a Tri-Recs ruler).

I have also been doing some free motion quilting - I am working on a little project.

Last month I won a $100 gift certificate from Fat Quarter Shop, through the SewCalGal 2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge. I ordered some French General fabric to go with some I have, and also a large piece of 108" wide, plain Moda cotton, to make a whole cloth quilt. Thanks SewCalGal and Fat Quarter Shop!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!♥