On my Needles....

I’m on the home stretch in this sweater. Down to the last half of the textured section on the second sleeve. I stalled for a bit when I hit the textured section, since I found out the hard way that my stitch count was off. It’s supposed to be a multiple of six, and I was supposed to have 66 stitches. Imagine my surprise when I finished the first round of the pattern in the textured section and found that There were three extra stitches. I got all bummed out, and tossed it into its basket and it sat for a while. Last evening, I went over to Gail’s, and I didn’t feel like dragging my sewing machine over, and I did’t feel like doing hand stitching, so I took my sweater. If there is tinking to be done, it’s best done while chatting with someone to take the mind off the fact that the knitting is going backwards. Happily, the tinking went well, and the textured section is now progressing. I only went back to the plain knit section and fixed the too many stitches by decreasing by three in the last plain stitching round. No way was I going all the way back to the beginning of the sleeve. No one but me will know once it’s done.
I’ve spent today doing the last two blocks in the sampler quilt. It takes a lot of stops and starts while sewing these blocks one at a time and taking pictures for the instructions as I go. Therefore, it also takes a lot of leader/ender squares. My box with the supply of 2 1/2 inch squares ran out, so I hauled out my GO cutter and my 2 1/2 inch scrap strips and cut a whole pile more 2 1/2 inch squares. Tomorrow is the guild’s sew-in day, and I plan on doing sewing that involves frequents starts and stops, so my supply of two-sies that will then become three-sies will grow. I love the process of making quilt units for a new piece while working on other quilts. The new one grows almost by magic.
I’m going to link this up to Judy’s On the Needles, and then head off to bed. It’s going to be an early morning tomorrow........

Work in Progress......

I’m back at working at the London Friendship Quilters Guild blog sampler again. In the past week I’ve done up six blocks. There are only 2 left to go, then I can start sewing it together, hopefully at the guild’s sew-in day on Saturday.

These are actually quite fast to do. A little more than an hour for each one. It took me a bit longer since I was taking pictures of each step for writing the instructions. We started this quilt last September at the guild. The instructions for it can be found starting here for the fabric requirements and here for the beginning of the blocks. So far, this has all been made from stash. That is going to change when it comes to the borders. I might have to purchase at least two different fabrics, since I don’t have enough of the right colours in my stash. These current blocks that I just finished won’t actually appear on the guild blog until November and December. I’m working way ahead so that I know everything works and I can get the instructions written up, hopefully with no more errors.
I’m linking up to the Canadian Needles and Thread Network and also to Lorna’s Let’s Bee Social.

Design Wall Monday

My poor design wall has a bad case of quilters A.D.D. I have way too many projects on the go, and way too many things that I want to get finished before the guild’s quilt show in October. I have them up on the wall to think about how to finish them and how to quilt them. The Friendship Stars are for the guild’s Comfort quilt program, for members who need a group hug. The current colours for the quilts are yellow and grey for one quilt, and red and aqua for another. There’s a sew-in day this Saturday, so I wanted to get some done before then. We’re hoping to have enough blocks to be able to put together a couple of quilts that day. Two of the red/aqua ones got muddled during construction, and required ripping. Seeing all this stuff on the wall probably threw my brain into twisting fits or something. After ripping, I put them back together and got them back up on the wall, only to find that I have them spinning the wrong way. They are supposed to be spinning left, not right.When I looked at some of the others, I got them the wrong way, too. Rats..... I’m not ripping them out, either.
So, after all that, I decided to take everything down and get back to work on the sampler quilt for the guild. I put up the 27 blocks that are done so far, and then made up one more. That leaves seven to go. I would love to have them done by Saturday, so I can take this and get the body of the quilt sewn together. Then I have to decide on borders. It’s getting late, and I’m going to link this up to Judy’s Design Wall Monday. Then I think I might partially shut my brain off from its spinning in circles the wrong way, and knit for a while.

Sunday Stash and Stitching Report

It was another glorious summer day here today. A perfect chance to sit out in the relative quiet of the back yard and stitch on my hand project. Relative quiet because there’s always the noise of the neighbourhood air conditioners running. I finally came in about an hour ago because I wasn’t fussy about the neighbours choice of back yard music. But that’s OK, I needed to sit down and figure out my stash numbers and write up this report.
I have decided that this wall hanging is done. I had played around with the idea, suggested by someone last week, of adding in a few smaller hexie flowers in the open background areas in the corners. I made up a couple today, put them in place, immediately said “yuck” and took them back out again. I am declaring it finished as it is now. I’ll fill in the background areas with some quilting, to give it a bit more punch.
I haven’t quite decided what is next after this. So, in order to fill in time until I do, I’m going to make up some hexagon flowers and turn them into pin cushions. We’re looking for articles to sell at the member’s boutique for our upcoming quilt show. I haven’t any pictures of the pin cushions, since I only have 2 hexagon flowers made so far.
I did some major stash addition this past week. I have a new quilt all planned out in Electric Quilt, one that will eventually be published, I hope. I normally make my quilts from stash that I have available here at home, with maybe the small addition as necessary. But this quilt just came to life for me while I was designing it, and it is living in colours that I don’t have a lot of. Hence the purchase of these fabrics. It added a whopping 13 yards to my in numbers.

 
Used this week:                            1.5 yards
Used this year:                         38.85 yards
Added this week:                           13 yards
Added this year:                        45.45 yards
Net stash added:                            8.6 yards

A couple of quilt backs should get me back into positive numbers again. And I am hoping to get some  more of my quilts backed and into the line up soon. I’m linking up to Judy’s Stash Report and Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching. Then it might be time for some Netflix and some knitting.

Finish it Friday...

It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to do a Friday finish post. A very long time. But I have one now...... Woohoo, Yippee and happy dance! Sisters Across the Miles is finished. Here she is in all her wonderfulness. She was originally started way back in November of 2014. I didn’t really know where it was going, other than as a project to use up hundreds of two inch four patches I had left over from making a triple four patch quilt. I’d spent a year doing the Rainbow scrap challenge, and my project was the triple four patches. See that one here. It has yet to be quilted.
This quilt design occupied a lot of hours in the Electric Quilt software. I tried out a lot of alternate arrangements before coming up with what I think is the perfect choice. I love quilts with strong graphic lines and also quilts where the definition between the blocks blur and it becomes hard to tell where the individual blocks actually are. I also love borders..... lots of borders. The finishing touch is a diagonal striped binding with orange faux piping. 
I am so happy and thrilled with this finish. This will eventually be released as a pattern. It is about halfway written. I am still pondering which vehicle on the internet to use for the actual selling part. As soon as all that is done, there will definitely be an announcement here.
I’m linking up to a couple of celebration parties. One at Crazy Mom Quilts and another at Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?

Slow Sunday Stash and Stitching Report

I’m continuing to work on my small hexagon piece. It’s using a combination of fussy cutting and pieced hexagons, a technique that was taught at a workshop at the guild by Karen from Faeries and Fibres. The centre star has 6 inch sides and the hexagons around it have 1 inch sides. As shown it is currently measuring about 22x24.

I am wondering, should I do another border of more pieced hexagons? Does it look finished to you, or does it need more? If I did add more, it would be pieced hexagons the same size as what are in the centre of the piece now. I decided to add some colour onto the points of the star by fussy cutting some 60 degree triangles from the fabric the star was made from. I like the added definition it gives.  Looking at the picture, I’ve decided that the blue rosette on the right doesn’t quite stand out enough, so I’ll be changing that one to a brighter one.

The stash has had some significant reduction in the past week. I finished off some borders for a quilt and made a backing for another one.

Used this week:                                 5.6 yards
Used this year:                                35.35 yards
Added this week:                                   0 yards
Added this year:                              32.45 yards
Net stash busted:                                   2.9 yards

I’m linking up to Judy’s Stash Report and Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching and Angie’s WIPs Be Gone. Then it’s time for a cool drink and some stitching time outside on the swing.

On my needles....

More progress on the Roads End sweater. There is about an inch left of the bottom ribbing and then it will be cast off time for the body of the sweater. Then it’s just the sleeves, which should go fast. Another week or two might see this one done.

This has been such an enjoyable and fast knit. I have other yarns that also are not in quantities enough for a whole sweater, but might work for this. However, I’m not convinced I need another one in the same pattern, or really want to do one in the same pattern. I bought some stuff several years ago for a Hay Cove that I’m kinda itching to do. But then there is also some stuff for Abbie for this fall and winter that I’d like to do, so I’m not quite sure yet what is going to be next. In the meantime, I’ll continue on this, and link up to Judy’s On the needles.