A finish....

According to this blog, I started the Stay at Home Round Robin at the end of March when I first saw the posting about it. I put the final border onto it on Tuesday. I think this is probably the fastest that I have ever made a bed sized quilt. It measures 75 x 75 inches.



All fabric used in it came from my stash. Some of it has been residing there for many many years. After finishing the last border I went looking for backing fabrics that fit the mood of the top. I found these two fabrics. I had enough of them to make the backing. The floral fabric has a copyright date of 2005 on the selvage. I suspect the one with the butterflies is even older than that. I’m so glad that fabric doesn’t have an expiration date. The long arm machine is currently without a quilt on it, so I’ll load this one today and get a start on it.
I’m linking up with Mid Week Makers and the Canadian Needle and Thread Network WIP Wednesday. I just discovered that the link to  the blog actually hosting the Round Robin is still live so I’ll link there too. Quilting Gail.

What I’m working on

I’ve got a couple of things going at the same time..... don’t we all? I’ve finished the “squares” round of the Stay at Home Round Robin.



 It now measures 60x60 inches. The next round assigned is stars. I know what I want to do so I’m hoping to get it started this afternoon.

I’m also working on getting all my old UFO quilt tops onto the long arm and quilted up. This one is a 36 patch quilt.



According to my history here on the blog it has been a finished top since July 2013. I’m doing a greek key type thing in each of the squares, so it is fairly dense quilting but it really doesn’t take all that long to go across the quilt.



It should be done by this time next week. By that time I’m hoping to have this Round Robin done and it can go on next for quilting.

I’m linking up to Mid Week Makers and to the Needle and Thread Network WIP Wednesday.

Slow Sunday Stitching

What’s a girl to do while staying home, not going anywhere or even venturing outside because it’s too cold and damp....... knit of course. Consequently I’ve gotten lots done on my Open Skies sweater. Here’s the front.



And the back.



 I love the lace and moss stitch on the back. It’s one of the things that attracted me to this particular pattern.

My new yarns arrived this week and with the exception of one skein, they all work together. I now have four blues that work together.
And three yellows that work together. Three skeins will do a sweater so I’m good with that. And I think I may have a little bit of yarn left from another project that might work with the yellows to stretch it a bit further. Of course, the other option, now that I have the yarns in my possession to see the colours would be to order one that I know would go. I’ll decide later.
In the meantime, I’ll post this, link to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching and then go get some lunch,

What I’m working on

I’ve added the first of the next round to my Stay at Home Round Robin. The prompt for this round was “squares”. After searching around in Electric Quilt 8 I found this block which will end up forming a diagonal design of triangles and squares around the quilt.
 

It’s not the greatest picture, but it is getting too big for the available floor or wall space here. Often when my quilts get this size, I’ll do pictures outside, but the wind is really bad. The other choice is to go upstairs and use their front hall. But due to everybody being home, I didn’t want to go up and disrupt them.
I’m also slowly adding to the large scale floral squares. I now have 11.



This picture was taken before the 11th was finished. I am aiming for 25 squares. I have yet to come up with a name for this quilt.
I also loaded another of my really old tops onto the long arm with the goal of getting the quilting finished on all of my tops. This one was a free pattern called Avignon Picnic from the Moda Bake

Shop. 

It is going to get very simple straight line quilting following the lines of the while background.

I’m going to link up to the Needle and Thread Network WIP Wednesday and to Mid Week Makers

Slow Sunday Stitching

As life goes slowly forward while we all keep our distance from one another in order to keep each other safe, those of us with stitching hobbies are keeping ourselves happily occupied.

I finished my Loeanneth sweater last week.



 It has yet to get all the ends sewn in. I am saving that chore for when I can be outside in the warm sunshine. In the meantime I wound up the new yarn that I bought last week and started a new sweater. This one is called Open Skies. The pattern so far has been enough of a challenge that it requires concentration, which is good thing as it keeps my brain focused on something other than what is going on in the world around us. The neck line had a different stitch to it. Most ribbed necks are a knit 2 purl 2 stitch. This one was a knit 4 through the back loop then purl 4. Knitting through the back loop on freshly cast on stitches is not for the faint of heart.



 But it resulted in a very pretty ribbing. There is lace at the front and back of the neckline, which is also very pretty.



Like most people who are avid stitchers of any kind, I am always thinking at least one or two projects ahead of the one I am currently working on. Back at the beginning of the year I took advantage of a discontinued colours sale of Mad Tosh Vintage sock yarns at Eat Sleep Knit. This was before our dollar tanked in comparison to the US dollar. I had in mind to make some more fade type sweaters, so I ordered single skeins of yarn in colours that I thought would work together. One of the sets works quite well going from light to darks with shades of pinks and greys.



But this second  set does not work together well at all. And of course I can't have yarn sitting here that I can’t use because the colours don’t work together, can I? Go ahead, agree with me please......  thank you! So on Friday I went searching for a local store that carries this particular brand of yarn. None in our area carry it.  So I then went searching for a Canadian online store that carries it. I found one in Toronto called Eweknit that had a really good selection of this brand of yarn. I’ve ordered 4 colours that I hope will work with the yarns I already have. Two of the new ones are blue based and the other are yellow based. I will know more when they arrive.

So now that I’ve rambled on long enough, I think I’ll link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching and check out what all the other slow stitchers are up to.

Round Robin

I’ve been working on my Stay at Home Round Robin off and on for the past week. I’m managing to keep up. The first round was piano keys, which I put on sideways. The second round was pinwheels. The third round was arrows. I used flying geese to form the long arrows.



 The next round was assigned today. It’s squares. I already have an idea for what I plan to do. Right now this piece is measuring 48 x 48 inches square. If I go with the plan I have for the squares round that will take it to 60 x 60 inches. I have no idea at this point how big it will end up. I will likely keep going with adding rounds until it ends up somewhere around 84 inches square. Any bigger than that and it’s too big for the bed. I’m linking up to Quilting Gail who is hosting this round robin and also to Wendy’s Quilts Wendy lives way way far away all the way down in New Zealand.

Slow Sunday Stitching

As I mentioned last week, I was going to run out of royal blue yarn before the sleeves on my sweater were finished and that I needed to figure out a way to transition colours on the sleeves. I took a small portion of the colour work graph and used it to  transition colours.



I’m doing 3/4 length sleeves since I will be running out of the denim blue as well. But as I’m always pushing the sleeves of my sweaters up past my elbows, this makes sense. I have about 3 inches left on the second sleeve and then the ribbing and this sweater will be finished. Other than weaving in all the ends, that is, which is my least favourite thing to do.

I have picked out my next knitting project already. No colour work will be involved in the next one which will be a bit of relief. I’m going to do. It’s called Open Skies. It has some interesting lace work around the neck and hems. I bought some lilac coloured yarn for it. I am deliberately not winding it into balls yet so that I won’t be tempted to start a new project before finishing this one.

I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching before putting an audio book and working on some more knitting. I am a natural introvert and home body. I can happily stay at home away from other people outside the family for days on end. I speak with Gail, the Cozy Quilter, via face time most days and talk to other people I know on facebook chats to stay connected. But overall life under social distancing isn’t too much different than usual for us.

Stay at Home Round Robin

A little over a week ago I came across a blog that was hosting a Stay at Home Round Robin. It sounded like a fun idea. I knew I had all kinds of leftover blocks still remaining in my abandoned projects bin. I thought this would be a good way to use one of them. So I went digging and found this lovely appliqué block that I’d completely forgotten about.



The first round assigned was piano keys.
I put mine on sideways because I didn’t want to overwhelm the centre appliqué.



The second round is pinwheels. I finished them this evening.



The third round is to be arrows. I already know what I’m going to do for those. Stay tuned......
I’m linking up to Quilting Gail who is hosting this fun project.