Bitten by the startitis bug

I have been eyeing this lay’s website for several years now... Esther Aliu .... ever since she came out with the Love Entwined pattern with is a redo of an antique applique quilt. Every year she does a free Block of the Month and a paid Block of the Month. I follow her facebook group and have been drooling over this year’s quilts, both the free and the paid, but especially the paid one called Hold Onto Your Heart.  I’ve been giving myself all kinds of talks about how I have way more than enough projects already started, that I don’t need anything more, etcetera, etcetera. Anyone who is prone to this illness knows the drill and the self talk that ends up being of no use. So, I did it. I bought the pattern.... I told myself it was a birthday gift and that starting the new quilt was a birthday gift and the new fabrics that I needed for this quilt were a birthday gift. I have the centre section of it ready for basting and hand stitching. We are going to be heading out for a week’s camping next weekend, so I’m putting a push on to get a bunch of pieces prepped and ready for stitching.

However, I have kinda promised myself that I will keep working on Connections as well. I have the second section half done, so it is making good progress. The pattern for it is almost finished, but I’ll wait to release it after we get home.

So I’m going to link this post up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching and then do some more prep work for this quilt. I’m going to do up a whole pile of 1/4 inch bias stems and then get to working on the pansies for the corner squares in the centre of the quilt.

Slow Sunday Stitching

I took a little break last week from both blogging and  hand stitching to do some intensive knitting. I’m working on a blanket called Sweet Spot.



It takes hand dyed yarn and makes it into a really neat looking design taking advantage of the long colour repeats.
  

The Sweet Spot refers to the number of stitches required to make the yarn pool and pattern the way it does. It’s rather hypnotic, watching the design unfold from the needles.

But I did finally pick up a hand stitching project again - my Connections quilt. I have one section of it done now which currently measures 23 x26 inches.



I’d like to do three more in order to get it up to a usable size for a lap quilt. I’m a good way into the first row of the second section.

But I’ve had to stop and cut more dark grey triangles. So after I finish this post it will be time to get those triangles basted to the papers so I can continue on.
I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

Taking it slowly

We are on vacation at the moment, camping at Wheatly Provincial Park. What a surprise this park has been. I grew up in Windsor Ontario many many years ago, back in the days when Lake Erie was extremely polluted and a place to be avoided. So it became an ingrained thing in my thinking even after the pollution was cleaned up, that we don’t go to anything on Lake Erie but head up to Lake Huron instead. However this time round we wanted to check out Peelee Island since we’d never been there so we elected to use Wheatly Provincial Park as our home base for exploration. I am sure we’ll be coming back. It is a small park with some lovely campsites and overall has been very quiet even over the weekend. The campsite we are in is very private and large but it had the downside of being in the full sun. So we got creative with a tarp at the back of our trailer and rigged up a sun porch of sorts. It’s been a lovely place to rest and read and stitch.
I’ve been able to get lots of hand stitching and knitting done. I don’t have a picture of the knitting but do have pictures of the hand stitching.All the ten pointed stars that go around the centre of my Battle of the Stars by Willyne Hammerstein are done. I had these finished before we left last Sunday. 

The last three have been done this week.



 Now I can start to add them all around the centre. Some of them as you can see, already have their setting dark blue pieces in place. The rest of them I’ll do as I get to them. I laid the whole thing out on the grass in our shady spot to get an idea of where they will all go and what it looks like.


I can reference this picture as I go to remind me of which star goes where.
I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching. Then I think it will be time for some lunch and some more stitching outside. We head home tomorrow, so I want to enjoy as much of this day outside as I can.

Slow Stitching

I’ve pulled my Battle of the Stars found in Willyne Hammerstein’s Millefiori 3 book back out. I went over to Gail’s Thursday evening for a stitching evening and got a star surrounded by the navy pieces and then got to work on a couple more. One regular cut and another fussy cut. I think I have two more stars to do. Although they still need their navy setting pieces before it can start assembling around the centre.
I’ve also been doing some knitting. I found this pattern when looking for a project for Eat Sleep Knit’s 3rd quarter challenge which is to make something by a Canadian designer that was published before 2010. This pattern is called Sweet Spot and uses hand died yarn that has the potential to pool. The pattern caused a really unique and interesting stripe to form. I really like it. It will, some day, be big enough for a blanket or at least a small lap throw.
We are heading out today for a 5 day camping break. These projects are coming along with me. I hope to get lots of relaxing and stitching done.
I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

Slow Sunday Stitching....

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 7 years now that Kathy has been hosting this Slow Sunday Stitching link up party every week. Just out of curiosity I went looking in my blog archives to see when I first linked up with Kathy. It was July 15, 2012. So I’ve been with her almost from the beginning. One of the big bonuses of doing a blog is to be able to look back and find information like that.
This week I’m working on a new project. I know, the last thing I need is yet another new hand work project, but hang on a second while I explain.... I have a good reason, really I do. I’ve been approached by a guild to do a trunk show and a workshop for them in the fall. I sent them information on the workshops I already have organized, but they wanted something a little different. What they asked for was something that in the morning would be a good beginner introduction to English Paper Piecing and then in the afternoon something more advanced. I don’t have anything in my repertoire like that so I did some thinking and came up with an idea. And of course, since it’s a new workshop, it needs a sample for people to see, therefore a new project. The whole thing will be based on Lemoyne Stars which a lot of people find very intimidating to sew, especially by machine with those inset seams. With EPP they are very easy to do. I’m not 100 percent sure just where this is going to go, whether it will be a sampler or what. I’ll decide that later. Right now I’m just making blocks. I accomplished the pieces in the picture last evening, so it shouldn’t take too long to get it done.
Kathy asked us to show our favourite hand stitching project. Mine hands down has to be my La Passacaglia which was the start of this crazy English Paper Piecing addiction.

It was so much fun to do. I had a blast doing all the fussy cutting for it and it resulted in my never looking at a piece of fabric in quite the same way ever again. I still look for fussy cutting possibilities even now when purchasing fabric. 

I’m linking up now with Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching as I have been doing for the last 7 years. Thank you Kathy for all the years of hosting and inspirations.

Connections progress

I haven’t done a Slow Sunday Stitching post in a couple of weeks since I wasn’t making a whole lot of progress and there wasn’t much change in any of my projects. But now I can show a section of the Connections quilt is finished. It measures about 22 inches square right now. I’m planning on working on it in sections this size and see where it goes and how big it gets. The scrappy squares were all gifted to me by friends at the London Friendship Quilters Guild. Here’s a close up of some of the fun squares.

I’ve also finished a sweater in the last week. It is one of the fade projects. It’s a pattern called Spectre by Joji Locatelli. I’ve made a few of her designs now and really like them.  Here’s a close up of the yarns and how they fade together. There are three different coloured yarns in here. I did 3/4 length sleeves on this project. First because I’m always pushing up my sweater sleeves and also because I was running short on the yarns and didn’t want to run out before the second sleeve was finished. I have another of this sweater pattern almost finished, that’s how much I liked it.
I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching before going back to making more Connections blocks.

Itching to get to machine sewing

For the first time in a very long time I’m itching to get to machine sewing on a large quilt project. In fact, there are 2 that I want to do, both from my favourite designer, Judy Martin. I’ve been browsing through one of her books that is devoted entirely to Log Cabin quilts Extraordinary Log Cabin Quilts.  The first is one called Pioneer Log Cabin. 
And the second is called Aspen Log Cabin. 
I  grabbed both of these photos from the page on her website that shows sneak peak pictures of the quilts in this book found at the link here
However, there is a very large problem preventing me from working on either of them. I’m posting a “let’s be real” photo here of the current state of my crafting/knitting/sewing area.
It’s gotten to the point where just about everything has chugged to a halt because I can’t get near the table and am having a hard time finding anything in the mess. It is time to do something about it. But I have this slight problem of other work to get done. What to do, what to do as Winnie the Pooh would say? Little bits at a time is my answer. So my goal for today is to get the customer quilt that is currently on the long arm finished. And then I’ll spend some time tackling the mess and think about how to organize this almost total chaos. I think I need some boxes or totes or laundry baskets or some sort of containers, If you don’t hear from me you’ll know I’ve gotten drowned in the mess.........