Blocks of the Month for May

Once again I waited until the last minute to complete my blocks of the month for this month.

This is the block for the Ostrich BOM - this month it was "Circles", so I made a few different Drunkard's Path blocks to make a circle (these are cut with the GO!). It is a 14" square.

These are the "Pieces of Time" blocks for my online quilt group BOM.

We have had a couple days of rain and wind, but it looks like the sun was attempting to shine this evening.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

Still Here

At the beginning of May I went to a quilt show in Morden (Sorry I no longer show quilt show pictures on my blog because of Pinterest - even though I ask people not to pin them, they still do. I feel it is wrong, because it is not my work. It is a shame because there were some amazing quilts! And great ideas - a couple of quilt tops were dyed after piecing to make the fabric more coordinated - a great way to use mismatched scraps - I see this one in my future.) There are a couple of photos on the Barnswallow website here.

As usual at quilt shows I met some lovely people, and bought some much needed items!

This piece of hand embroidery was made by a woman in South Africa as part of Tambani - each piece comes with a card with a photo of the woman that made it.  The pieces represent folk tales. Be sure to check out the link, it is such a great job creation project - you can also buy them from Canada (shipping to the US too) and Europe).

I turned the piece of embroidery into a little wall hanging - 14.5" x 16.5" (the piece of embroidery is 7" x 8"). I machine quilted in the ditch and around the embroidered figures, but thought that hand stitching would look better than machine quilting, and so I used black pearl cotton for the "big stitch" quilting. I also added some beads.

Each piece also comes with the a pamphlet of the folk tale - this one is The Rejected Wife - a story about how a woman and her five sons overcame adversity and triumphed (Alex Anderson reads the story here).

Since I now spend much less time on the computer, I have more time for other things -

I have been making jewelry.

Spinning is going well. This is 100g silk and merino from SweetGeorgia, in the colour way 'Maple'. It is about a sock weight yarn.

I divided the fibre in half, and spun one half with all the colours randomly (the bobbin on the right), and for the other half I spun all the brown, then all the red and finally all the yellow (the bobbin on the left). Now that it is plied, you can still see the long colour change. I plan on making a shawl with this skein.

I am also trying my first pair of toe-up socks (this is some self-stripping yarn I had). While buying the piece of embroidery, I met Clara (from South Africa, a volunteer with Tambani), who was knitting two at a time, toe-up socks and she kindly sent me the link for the pattern she was using (here is a link to part one). I like socks as a "take-along" project, since it is easy knitting.

My sweater is also coming along, I am up to the hip shaping increases. I have to knit about 7" on the body and then the long sleeves.

It is so nice to see the leaves on the trees after six months! Time to get outside and work in the yard.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

Some Things

Last week we went to see Fleetwood Mac in concert! It was fabulous, and a dream come true for me. 

sorry - not the clearest picture

This month's art quilt has a line from my favourite song - "Landslide".

The fabric is a piece of my hand dyed fabric, that I painted before quilting, and then added some more details with paint, pearl cotton and beads after machine quilting. It is 6" x 8"

The stack of art quilts are growing, and I think I have figured out how to "bind" them together in to a book  - I plan on attaching a couple of metal loops of the side, and stringing a ribbon through them. I will also make a front and back cover for the book.

I also finished a few other things -

This is a scarf from the Craftsy class Explorations in Brioche Knitting. I made it from Merino wool that I spun.

Surprisingly I made something practical too - my youngest asked me to make him a pair of pyjama shorts (made out of leftover quilting flannel though, at least they are just one colour - he was happy).

I have another knitting project on the go - this is a top down seamless sweater - a really lovely way to make a sweater because you can try it on as you go. I am knitting it in the round with interchangeable needles (mine are Addis Turbo), the needle for the right hand is the proper size for gauge, but the needle for the left hand is a smaller size so that the stitches slip over easily as a I knit (I tend to knit tight and this has made a big difference).

Things are finally starting to grow around here - tulips are blooming, trees are budding and hopefully it will get warmer!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

Quilting For Others

I did some machine quilt for others this week.

This is a wallhanging that my Mother made - the pattern is from an older Quilt Mania magazine, but she used her GO! for the smaller appliqué pieces (the Rose of Sharon, and Bird dies).

I quilted swirls and swooshes in the background, I also did some free motion embroidery for the vines, stems and leaves. My Mother will add beads. It is about 40" x 50".

This table runner is one that a friend made. It is a Hunter Star.

I did some pretty simple designs on it. The continuous curves in the stars are quilted with metallic thread by Marathon - a local company - I was told that it was really easy to free motion quilt with, and I was pleasantly surprised. I normally steer clear of metallic thread for FMQ, but this one was great - I didn't change the tension and used a regular universal #80 needle with no problems.

You can see the quilting better from the back, some holly and ribbons because it is for Christmas.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

Blocks of the Month

I finished all my blocks of the month today (nothing like waiting until the end of the month!).

These ones are for my online quilt group - we are working on a quilt called Pieces of Time by Lori Smith.

Here are all my blocks so far.

This block is part of an Ostrich Block of the Month with a local quilt group - this one is a Square in a Square, I chose a 9" block from EQ7.

This BOM is fun because there are no patterns, just an idea every month, so we get to make what we want.

This one is my Art Quilt of the Month. It is supposed to represent the tulips growing before the snow melted in the garden. I tried appliqué this month - I used Glue Baste to attach my pieces before quilting. This one was inspired by a friend who is also working on Art Quilts of the Month, she recently made some beautiful little quilts that can be seen on her blog - thanks for the inspiration Susan!

I was very surprised to see the tulips growing last week, but now the rabbits have eaten them all - I guess they thought it was a pretty long winter too and are glad to have something fresh to eat. 

Here are my four art quilts so far - they are all 6" x 8".

The snow is really melting, just the deep drifts left, but warm days are on the way! As I am writing my husband is taking the snow tires off our cars, another good thing!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

Log Cabin Quilt and Spinning

I finished the log cabin quilt!

I have always wanted to make a log cabin quilt and was so pleased to finally have a large enough variety of coordinating fabrics to make one.
The blocks are 7" square, with a 13 by 13 layout (there are 2197 pieces in this quilt!). The "logs" are 1" wide (cut 1+1/2"). The design is an Off Set Barn Raising. It is 91" square. I used silk batting because I wanted it to have an "old-fashioned" look after washing (silk batting shrinks a bit, and wool batting doesn't).

 I quilted feathers in the light sections, and lines in the dark sections.

I used a walking foot with a guide for the lines - they are 1" apart.

I used Genziana thread for all the quilting. It is an Italian thread, very fine, like Aurifil, but available at a local fabric store (I have to order Aurifil online). I have used it before, but this is the first time I quilted a whole quilt with it and I couldn't believe the amount of lint that it generated. It is still a very nice thread to use.

This quilt is for my son's bed. He has a single mattress on an antique bed frame that is between a single and a double bed in size, so it needs a big quilt to hide the frame (there is a big down duvet under the quilt making the bed look big). I chose an off set layout because I didn't want a large "bull's eye" in the centre of the bed.

Last week I said that I had a choice of things to work on, and I did spin some wool before getting to the quilt.

This was the starting fibre bundle - Merino from SweetGeorgia, in the colour-way Tavern.

I split the fibre across the length, and with one section I split it down the length a few times, so that the colour changes would be short. The other half I spun as is, so the colour changes would be long.

Here are the resulting bobbins - the one on the left has the short colour changes and the one on the right has the long changes.

Here is the wool all plied. It came out to 14 wraps per inch, about a DK weight.

I spun the wool to go with some natural Merino I had spun the week before, to make a scarf. This is the "Alex Scarf" from the Craftsy class Explorations in Brioche Knitting. The pattern is so lovely, and just challenging enough to make it very interesting to knit. You can see more of these scarves on the Craftsy project page.

You can see the colour changes on the back of the scarf.

I have some more Merino of the spinning wheel - for this one I am spinning a lace/fingering weight yarn - it will take a long time to spin. This one is also Merino from SweetGeorgia, in a Pomegranate colour way .

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

Week In Review

The week flew by!

I made a wall hanging from a fat quarter of fabric that I hand dyed (I hated to cut it up, and so used the whole piece). The fabric reminded me of being in the woods on a summer day, and looking up at the sun shining through the leaves. This piece was tray dyed - I packed a piece of dry fabric in a small plastic container and added a different colour dye to each side of the container (in this case yellow mixed with a bit of black on one end, and green with a bit of black on the other end). This is 20" x 22".

I added circles of coordinating hand dyed fabric to represent the spots of sun shining through the leaves, the quilting enhanced that idea.

I stamped some butterfly designs with gold paint.

Also free motion quilted to give the piece a feeling of movement - like the wind through the leaves. I added some beads by hand when all the stitching was complete.

I also did some spinning -  the bottom skein is merino wool for a scarf, and the top is mohair and wool, I was practicing spinning fine for that one -

and I am pleased with how it turned out.

I finished off the practice pieces for the Craftsy Short Rows class - I can see there are lots of possibilities for short rows in knitting that I never knew, like set in sleeves, knit from the top down.

Up next I have a couple of projects I could work on -

I have everything I need to quilt the log cabin quilt or

some beautiful fibres I ordered from SweetGeorgia just arrived! Tough decisions - life is good!!

Other things around here -

The rabbit seemed pleased to have some grass to eat now that the snow is melting,

and the tulips are coming up (even though they are surrounded by snow, and temperatures are well below normal), so nice to see!

Plus we have a new arrival to the driveway - some other members of my family have a new hobby too - they are super excited!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥