Slow Sunday Stitching

I’ve had a slight change of plans as far as my knitting goes. I wanted to do the shawl Jacinta as a fade design as part of the Eat Sleep Knit second quarter challenge. I cast it on and started knitting away on the first of the month. I’ve gotten as far as changing to the second colour and that’s where the plans sort of fell apart. There isn’t enough of a contrast between the two yarns to show up as a fade from one colour to the next. And I think the third yarn I chose has too much of a contrast to fade properly. I think it will stripe rather than fade.  This is as far as I’ve gotten.  I kept on knitting for a couple of inches with the second yarn just to make sure that my suspicions that it wasn’t working were correct. Now I have to decide whether to rip back to the first colour. So, there may have been three more skeins of yarn ordered today that might work better......




In the meantime while I wait for the new yarn to arrive, I’ve chosen some different yarns for a different fade project. I’m going to make the sweater Spector out of these three blues. I’ve also been doing a bit of hand stitching on a new project. Judy has reopened her store Cornerstone Quilts and More and has asked if I’d be interested in teaching an English Paper Piecing class. I’m making up a class sample using some of the fabrics she has in her shop. I love the print on the white background. It’s very spring like. As soon as I have more information about times and dates, I’ll post them here and also my Facebook page. I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching

Connections

I’ve been working on my Connections project this past week and am making good progress. I’ve almost double the size of it. Or at least, I have the pieces made to double the size of it but they aren’t all sewn together yet. I’m hoping to get a good way towards that today. That should bring it up to measuring about 24 x 24 inches. The pieces are 1 1/4 inch hexagons, squares and 60 degree triangles. I have no idea how big this is going to get. I have lots of the 2 inch squares left that were gifted to me from friends, so I might just continue until those are gone.
I’ve been having lots of fun this year knitting as well as working on quilts. The store Eat Sleep Knit hosts quarterly knit alongs. The  next quarter challenge which starts tomorrow is to knit a Fade project. I have a couple I want to do. One is a sweater by Joji Locatelli called Spector. And the other is a shawl by Ambah O’Brien called Jacinta. I have one of the hanks of yarn for the Jacinta shawl wound already. I still have to do up the other 2, but I can at least get started on it tomorrow using the yarns shown in this picture. As far as the Spector Sweater, it will be from these colours starting with the lightest at the top of the sweater and progressing to the darkest at the bottom. These fade projects are rather addicting, I think. I have 3 months together them both done.

Of course by then it will be mid summer and way too warm to actually use them, but that is totally beside the point. As in quilting, the fun and challenge are in the making not the using.
I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

Battle of the Stars and Connections

Things have been very slow here in the hand stitching realms. I’ve been doing a lot of knitting.. mindless and repetitive and relaxing. Just what my overwhelmed mind needed this past month. I have made a bit of progress on Battle of the Stars. I went to a hand sewing get together with three friends on Thursday afternoon and got quite a bit accomplished. Unfortunately I left the pieces for the last two units behind, so I can’t finish off this centre. I think I’ll use that as an excuse to go and work on Connections. I have a lot of partial units ready for this one so I may be able to show significant progress by this time next week. It’s quite a lot of fun to work on and requires not a lot of concentration so it should suit my frame of mind these days. I’ll be linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

Battle of the Stars

If you recall, back in January I decided that I wanted to schedule a time period for each of the hand piecing projects I have on the go. Two weeks for Willyne Hammerstein projects, one week for Connections and one week for the pieced hexagon sampler. We are at the beginning of the month which means it is back to my Willyne Hammerstein projects. This one is Battle of the Stars from her third Millefiori book. I have half of the centre sewn together. Now comes the hard part of choosing the rest of the fabrics to complete it. I think this is what I’m going with. The small stars around the centre will continue to be alternating pink and light green.
So today’s job is going to be cutting the pieces I need out of those fabrics and then continue sewing more together. I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching before getting back to these fun fabrics.

Connections

I’m working on the English Paper Piecing quilt that I’m calling Connections this week. I’m having fun playing with the 2 inch scrap squares that friends from the quilt guild brought to me to use in this project. The hexagons are Kona Ash and the triangles are Kona Pepper. It is growing slowly, currently measuring 22 inches by 10 1/2 inches. But that is what stitching by hand is all about - the slow progress with each stitch an enjoyment.  I have no idea at this point how big this will get. I’m just enjoying the process.

We were supposed to be going out for supper today but once again the weather is not cooperating. So instead we are staying home where it is warm and dry and sheltered from the high winds. And that means I can finish this post, link it to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching. and then do some more slow stitching of my own.

Slow Stitching in yellow and purple and blue

I’m doing a little bit of stitching in this month’s colour for the Rainbow scrap Challenge which is yellows. I seem to have quite a lot of that colour although if you had asked me I would have said it isn’t a colour I have a lot of. Who knew? That’s one good thing about this challenge, it gets a quilter motivated to go scrap digging. And in using up yellows I’m also using up a piece of yellow’s complimentary colour which is purple. By the end of the year I’m hoping to have a quilt with all the colours evenly distributed. How it will look is another matter entirely, but I’ll figure that our later.

 I seem to be in the middle of a knitting binge in the last month or two. I finished a shawl on Thursday and even got all the ends sewn in and the shawl blocked. It’s dry now. This is a close up of the end of it. It’s a pattern called Teacup Shawl.It’s made from a double knit yarn, so it is lovely and thick and soft and warm. I’m also working on a couple of sweaters. One of them has a lovely cable design going down the back and also will be on the sleeves. 
This one is a thick and warm worsted weight. It’s a pattern called Bloomsbury Sweater. I haven’t got a recent picture of the other one.
I’m going to link up to the Rainbow Scrappy Saturday today and Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching. tomorrow.

Half hexagon sampler

I found all the parts to the half hexagon sampler I started a few years ago and thought I’d spread them out to see what it looks like.There’s no rhyme or reason to the fabrics or colours other than they are from my scrap bins and 2 1/2 inch strip bin. The braid is probably going to be a border of some sort. There are going to be triangles of a light neutral in between each pieced hexagon. I have yet to determine what will be in between the rows.

It will be laid out in rows as it is in the photo with something in between each row. Any ideas or suggestions for what to put between the rows would be gratefully received. Maybe once I have some of the pieced hexagons together with their triangles I’ll have a better idea of what to do. It’s not like I have to decide in the next day or two.. In the meantime, it is now all packed up back in its project box and it’s time to work on the next time slot project which is my Willyne Hammerstein Battle of the Stars. I have one of the partial rosettes that circle around the centre finished and fabric for another one cut. I need 10 of these in colours that complement the complete one. I think I have what I need in my stash already. All I have to do is dig for it. (grin). I think the background is going to be a dark blue.

And lastly, I finished knitting on a shawl last week. It still needs to be blocked and stretched out to its proper shape. It’s made out of a lovely soft alpaca yarn that will be wonderfully warm and soft wrapped around the neck in the cold arctic vortex weather.

It is super bowl sunday, and since I am not a football fan I’ll be sitting in my comfy recliner away from the TV set, either listening to a book or watching something on the computer and keeping my hands happily occupied by stitching. I’m going to do at least one more of the rosettes and then maybe some more knitting. I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.