Quilt, Knit, Run, Sew

Blooming 9-patch

2012-01-28T06:00:00.002-04:00

Have you ever made a blooming 9 patch quilt? Cecile G. from our guild led us in a workshop last week with her pointers on making the blooming nine patch.

I'm having second thoughts about my colors. I'm not sure what I was thinking!!

Anyway before leaving for Cuba, I had all the larger squares and side setting triangles cut. Also, the binding done and 4 of the 7 sets of nine-patches are done. I plan to get the other 3 sets of 9-patches done the week after we arrive home from Cuba. Then it'll all get stored in a nice kit, and the assembly of these nine-patches and between squares and setting triangles will be a nice little project for me while we are away in South Carolina next month.

My Wool washing experiement.

2012-01-24T06:02:00.005-04:00

Last week I decided to try a different way to knit with Briggs & Little yarn. That is by pre-washing. So here are the simple steps.

Wash skein in mild soapy water. Rinse in clear water, twice.

Hand squeese out water then lay on a towel. Fold the towel over and squeese more water out.

Then hang to air dry.

Well, I had these three skeins washed and hanging in my bathroom for a day before we left for Cuba. They were quite dry and I couldn't quite feel a difference in the texture, but maybe knitting with it will give more of a true test of the feel. I'll be knitting a Rococo Shawl this when we go to South Carolina next month, so I'll update you then.

A Vacation in Cuba

2012-01-21T15:17:00.002-04:00

I'm getting great use out of my double passport holder that I made last summer. My little wallet was made from a free tutorial and every time I use it, I say to myself, "This was a useful little project! Besides my passport, I keep my boarding pass stubs, and my Air Canada Kiosk Cards in it.

Well it's been a few months since we've traveled, so at the last minute we decided to take a little trip to Cuba. We've never been there before but many of my friends have, and we've got lots of advice to relax and enjoy the beautiful resort and beaches.

We leave on the first flight out, tomorrow morning. There is no Internet that I know of at the resort, so no blogging, or email...

We'll be back in a week. See you all then!

Briggs & Little Wool Yarn - To Wash or not to Wash.

2012-01-19T19:58:00.000-04:00

To pre-wash or not to pre-wash, I should say, that is the question?   I love using Briggs & Little yarn. I have a closet full of it.   The problem is that it's coarse texture is so hard on your hands. I was proudly wearing my new shawl today when I visited the St. Dunstan's Quilters.   We got on the topic of knitting and one of the quilters said that all B&L yarn could and should be washed before being used.    What do you think of that? I had never heard of such a thing...

There were a couple of suggestions on how to do it.   Since I really want to make another Rococo Shawl, I decided I would try the pre-washing of the wool. I will use the suggestions of the ladies of course.

It needs to be gently washed/agitated, while still in the skein.   Then roll in a bath towel and squeeze so that the towel takes up most of the moisture.   Then let skein hang over the end of a quilt rack, or ironing board until it's dried.     I will be away for the whole week next week, so it will have a week to dry.

When I'm back I'll report back on what I think of the texture...

My Rocco Shawl

2012-01-18T22:24:00.000-04:00

I finished my Rocco Shawl today and have all the ends woven in. What got my needles clicking so fast to finish it, was that my friend, Donna C. gave me an unexpected gift yesterday!! It is a Shawl Pin. She bought at her local yarn boutique in Bathurst, NB and I love it. It's dark brown and I will have to research ways on how to wear my shawl and pin it closed so that it shows off the pin. It's hard to see in this picture, but look closely, you'll find it.

Many thanks Donna for the pin. Your timing was perfect. And also thanks to my niece Stephanie for the gift of the pattern. It's been so fun to get back into knitting in the past few weeks..... Now I'm thinking... what will I knit next!!

Presenting a Log Cabin for the St. Dunstan's Quilters

2012-01-16T16:28:00.000-04:00

I am pleased to present St. Dunstan's Log Cabin Raffle quilt for 2012. I was so glad to have a guild meeting today, because that was all the motivtion I need to help me get it done a bit early.

I will deliver this and the prepared binding to the ladies of the St. Dunstan's Quilters group on Thursday.

Stitching in the Snow

2012-01-13T06:00:00.002-04:00

Our first big snowstorm of the season has started yesterday afternoon. A snow day is a great day to get lots of sewing work done.

One of the things I did was to lay out the log cabin blocks for St. Dunstan's quilt on the living room floor. It's going to be a large queen size. 10 blocks across by 12 down which will make this about 85" x 100". I like the layout..

Every time I walk by, I move around a couple of blocks... It is supposed to be random... and it is... but every once in a while, I will see two blocks that are butting up against each other, that have the same color... Don't want that, now do we.... This could go on for days. But I'm only giving myself until suppertime on Friday. Then it gets all picked up in order, and on Saturday morning, I start to sew it all together...

Looks like I'll make my personal deadline and will be showing this at guild this coming week!! Yippee...

Then it goes to the St. Dunstan's Quilters for marking and hand quilting.

Rocco Shawl - Ball 2

2012-01-12T06:02:00.000-04:00

I'm really enjoying knitting on my Rocco Shawl. I bought two balls of the Lion Brand Fishermen's wool, and hoped it would be enough.... Now that I'm done ball one, I am confident that I won't need a third ball. I've finished 5 of the 7 pattern repeats. So that means two more repeats, and the long ruffle on the other long side of the shawl... then the ruffle on the two short sides.

With my continued evening knitting, I'm positive that in another week, I will have it done. Now, I need to find a beautiful shawl pin. I've been pinning a few on pinterest. I wonder if they can be bought locally. If you have seen any, will you let me know.

Help - I need knitting needles

2012-01-11T06:00:00.001-04:00

We're all on a knitting kick!!
All 5 of my grand-daughters are knitting!!!   Isn't that heaven.   When Jessica and Emily were here over the Christmas Holidays, we knit!!   Jessica has been knitting since she's a child, but only knitting really good for the last year or two. Recently, she caught the "Big Needle" craze... and Loves how knitting with big needles produces such a fast and soft scarf. Emily just learned when she was here over the holiday. She's a quick learner and she's a fast knitter too. I am so impressed that she caught on so quickly.

Caitlin (in the pink) has been knitting for some time, and we just taught Grace (in the blue) to knit last night. She said.."This is kind of cool!".   So we decided to let Aurora (in the middle) try to knit.    She's got a ways to go, but she seems to have the knitting bug too. We'll let her think that she's knitting with all the big girls for the time being..

Here's my problem. I've run out of needles. I need a variety of knitting needles to cover all my kiddos knitting needs. (and they each have a friend who might want to learn to knit).

Before I go to the Walmart to buy needles...I know many of my local friends have a bundle of needles that they are looking for a new home for.  I'd love to put your old knitting needles to good use... I need double pointed needles (for Caitlin) and regular needles. I'll take circulars too. You'll probably see me at guild next week. Just bring them along... I'll be ever so grateful.

A visit from Aurora

2012-01-10T06:12:00.000-04:00

Aurora is visiting. We're doing lots of things. Coloring, playing barbies, sewing and cooking. We had some dough left over from our Christmas cooking so we made them up today. She's going to take some home today and share them with her best friend Sadie. She loves eating the leftover gingerbread dough after we did all the coutouts.

So, here is our cookie works of art. Aurora did half and I did half. Don't they look yummy!

I'm Hooked on Hook Feathers

2012-01-09T14:06:00.000-04:00

I think I first saw these Sally Terry hook feathers when I read about her classes at Maine Quilts 2011 last summer. I thought they were so nice, and didn't quite understand the hook. I googled her and found that she has a book and I saw her demonstrating her unique feathers in a video. I can't seem to find the video right now to share with you. Well, I think I forgot about these hook feathers until recently. They came to mind when I was deciding how I would quilt my half square triangle practice piece...... I did a little 2 minute sample and they were easier than I thought.... It took less than an hour to quilt up this runner.

When I go to the USA next month, I'll see if I can find her book. These feathers are everything she says they are... quick, easy, and no backtracking. I'm dying to see all the feather formats that are in her book besides these ones.

A New Sizzix fabric cutter

2012-01-08T13:14:00.001-04:00

I have a new fabric cutter.   It's a Sizzix that came from Michaels.   See, a couple of months ago, even though I had no cutter, I won a half square quilting die from a B.C. quilt shop blog give-away (Thanks Stitchintheditch).   I've been looking at the Accuquilt and the Sizzix cutters, trying to see the difference between the two.   I stumbled across this video by Patsy Thompson and loved her explanation of the Sizzix machine and decided to go that route.

So with my friend nearby for confidence (thanks Kathy), we cut out some half square triangles. They were a cinch to cut out... in about 10 seconds flat.

The next thing was, how easy were they to sew together. Half square triangles have been known to be tricky because one of the edges is a bias edge.... (Thanks for the warning Linda H.)

Since we cut two fabrics together, the triangles were layered together, I made sure to sew using my Pfaff with the walking foot. The pairs were very easy to sew together and they came out perfectly. I sewed all my half square samples together with ease. (Now I'm wishing I used nicer fabrics.)

Just the same, I sewed my pieced sample half square together in a pattern that Anne V. designed for a guild project last month.   Check out hers at the bottom of this FQG blog page, hers was smaller triangles and much nicer seasonal colors.

My prototype sample is now layered and pinned.   I will finish this little project by machine quilting using a new feather technique that I saw a while back.

Stay tuned to see my finished project in a couple of days.

St. Dunstan's Log Cabin 88 of 120 blocks done.

2012-01-06T06:00:00.001-04:00

I put some of the blocks on the spare bed to see how the layout was going to look. First thing I thought was that maybe I've made this way too big. It's intended to be a queen size borderless quilt in that it's strictly blocks from edge to edge. With only 32 more blocks to sew together, I'll be moving into the layout phase soon. I enjoy that phase and usually have one of my little helpers to look for places I need to change blocks out.

This is a closeup of one of the blocks. I've used a traditional gold for the center of each block and light cream/tan prints for the light logs. I like how they are all different and the texture it adds.

It's my first time doing a log cabin quilt, but won't be the last. Love the Marti Michel techniques.

Knitting my Rococo Shawl

2012-01-05T08:54:00.000-04:00

I love knitting on my new project in the evenings. It's the Rococo Shawl pattern that my niece gave me for Christmas. When I started last week, the thought of casting on 432 stitches and knitting a dozen rows was a little intimidating. But I got through it, and now that I'm on the main part of the shawl, I'm only dealing with half that amount of stitches. I have the ruffle border done, and one of 7 repeats of the pattern. The repeat is only 12 rows, so a repeat can be easily knit in an evening or two The pattern is starting to emerge and it's so nice.

St. Dunstan's Log Cabin 42 of 120 blocks done.

2012-01-01T18:40:00.000-04:00

Happy New Year everyone. A quiet icy but almost mild day in Freddy Beach. Couldn't do our healthy walk today because the Willie Rink is closed, and it's so icy out, I know I'd fall and break my neck. So today will be a knitting and sewing day.

Progress on my St. Dunstan's Log Cabin is good. I have 42 of 120 blocks done. I'm loving Marti Michel's technique of pre-cutting all the logs.

I know now that sewing 16 blocks takes me about two and a half hours. I can't sew for that long so I usually sit down to sew them in two sessions. I need to do 5 more sets of 16 and then all the blocks will be done. Then I'll need a day to do the layout and sew them together.

My goal is to have the top it done by Monday, Jan 16th so that I can take to my guilds show and tell on the 16th and 17th.

It looks like a quiet week ahead so I should meet my goal comfortably.

Duffle Bag Theatre - Beauty and the Beast (with a twist)

2011-12-30T11:59:00.000-04:00

Here Beauty is teaching the Beast to be nice!

Beauty picks flowers in the Forest!

The old lady is casting her spell over the Beast!

We were thrilled last evening when we went to see the nearly famous Duffle Bag Theatre's redition of Beauty and the Beast. Caitlin was chosen from the audience to be "Beauty" and was part of the hour long hilarious performance.

Do you Swatch?

2011-12-28T12:54:00.000-04:00

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. I can't believe how quick Christmas has come and gone. Seems we spend so long preparing for the big day, then poof, it's over.
Well, I'm excited to start knitting on my Rococo Wrap in the evenings... I opted to use brown Fisherman weight wool instead of my stash Briggs and Little Wool. I like the brown color, and I love how this wool is so soft. I read a comment on Ravelry, that one knitter used a Cable Cast On for this wrap because of the large amount of stitches that needs to be cast on. Hmm... I've never used that type of cast on. I'll have to practice..

Then I wondered if a swatch was necessary.... it's a lose fitting wrap..... is a swatch really necessary? Well I decided to knit one up last night, and after measuring, it was the right length, but not wide enough.... Since this wrap is 70 inches long, I'm afraid that my wrap might be too short by 7 or 8 inches..... So I'm glad I made the swatch and I guess this evening, I'll make another using needles a size larger and I can practice a bit more using the Cable Cast On method.

I'm loving having my Boye needlemaster set... so easy to switch out needle sizes.

A fun gift - all the way from Korea

2011-12-24T06:00:00.002-04:00

My niece saw that I had pinned this great knitted shawl on Pinterest. It didn't have a name... I was so surprised yesterday when I received a gift notification from Ravelry. It was from my niece Stephanie, who is an elementary English teacher in Korea. I was so excited to get this Rococo Wrap pattern as a gift from her, I immediately started to read through the requirements and gather all the things I needed to start this project.

The first thing I read was that I needed a 36" circular needle... Hmm where would I get that?... then it hit me, that I had a Boye Needlemaster kit that I've never even opened yet. Yep... I can string 3 plastic extensions together to make a long circular... And I had this light "Fundy Fog" Briggs & Little Regal yarn in my stash...

Wow, I love it when a plan comes together.

So, over the holidays, I'll knit up a swatch and then gear up to start this great showy shawl..

Thanks for the great gift Stef.. and Merry Christmas in Korea!!

St. Dunstan's Log Cabin

2011-12-23T12:07:00.000-04:00

I'm all set to start sewing on St. Dunstan's Log Cabin Raffle Quilt 2012 after Christmas. This is my first full size log cabin quilt. I did a bit of research, and I've decided to use the techniques of Marti Michel to make this log cabin. The fabric strips are cut long ways and not width ways to avoid bowing, and they will be sub cut cut to the exact size logs. Each of the 120 blocks will be pieced with correct size strips. That means that I have 360 medium strips cut, and 360 white strips cut and 120 gold center blocks. Did you know that traditionally, the log cabin block is made with a gold or red center.

Anyway, all this pre-cutting has allowed me to get a good start on preparing to sew. This quilt has no border. So I figure that if I sew 10 blocks a day, that should give me lots of time to put the blocks together and bring to my guild show and tell on January 16th and 17th. After that, the quilt top will go to the St. Dunstan's ladies for marking and hand-quilting over the winter and spring.

Gingerbread Letters

2011-12-20T16:40:00.000-04:00

A few years back my friend Lee M. gave me a whole set of cookie cutter letters. You would not believe how much we use these letters. Every year, they are the first thing the kids want to do, is to cut out their names, and decorate. So from the picture can you tell who was here today making cookies with me.

Aurora makes gingerbread cookies 2011

2011-12-18T19:16:00.001-04:00

I love love love to make gingerbread cookies with the kids. Aurora dabbled a bit last year... she was almost three then... maybe a bit too young... but not now. She's been practicing rolling dough of various types all year. So yesterday when she came to make our "official" gingerbread cookies yesterday she was prime.

The cookies are baking so let's clean up the flour... or should we say play in the flour...

She loves all the different icing colors.

She's learning to hold the big bag of icing. Grammie, you could have made smaller bags....gesh.

Voila. Cookies are done. And she brought them home in two bags. One for her, and one for her best friend Saddie.

Pure Chocolate Love

2011-12-16T18:54:00.000-04:00

THREE pounds of pure chocolate love that is. A fresh batch of Almond Bark curing..... What is your perfect white chocolate mix? This one is two pounds very dark chocolate, and one pound white.

Tomorrow, we make old fashion cherry balls and peanut butter balls.

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.

A label for Lollipop Garden

2011-12-15T18:51:00.000-04:00

I made this label up after reading how important it is to put details on a label.   I also read that Micron Pens are a great pen to use with pfd (prepared for dying fabric) when making a simple label. I just happen to have some pfd fabric and Micron pens in my stash, so I set out to create a label for Aurora's Lollipop quilt.    I really want to acknowledge the help that my sister Donna and her daughter Michelle gave me while waiting for the arrival of Baby Jack.
They helped me for hours in cutting out all the fusible web and then after ironing the web shapes down onto the many colors of fabric, they cut out the flowers. They took homework home when I was too tired to think...Really, it was a big job.   They also organized the color combinations of the multi-part flowers, and helped layout the placement of all the components for a great overall flow.    By the time I was left to work on my own, all I had to do was fuse the pieces on the white background, layer with batting and backing, then quilt. All the hard brain work was done!! (Thank goodness because it was confusing at times)

So when Aurora is older, and reads the label on her quilt, she'll understand that it wasn't just me who made this quilt for her.   And that her little cousin, baby Jack wasn't even born yet when we started this quilt.

I'll hand stitch this label on this evening..

Jacks friend, Taggie

2011-12-13T09:41:00.000-04:00

A couple of months ago, I made a little tag blankie lion for Jack. I love it when I get a picture of a baby enjoying the things that I make. At just a couple of weeks old, Jack was fascinated with the big nose on taggie and was really focusing on his new friend.

Cute eh!.

Preparing to do new projects

2011-12-11T10:00:00.001-04:00

Grace sorts out my paper piecing parts for Winter Critters

While our grandson Mitchell is out advancing in a hockey tournament early this morning, the Caitlin and Grace, who spent the night here, were helping me doing some preparations for new sewing projects.

I love it that they are good tracers and understand things like paper piecing. They get to do lots of prep work for me now and that helps keep me organized.

Before I start working on my next big project, which is the St. Dunstan's Raffle quilt, I'm going to do a couple of smaller projects. The first is a paper piecing project called Winter Critters. It was in the latest Quiltmaker magazine. It's really cute and caught my eye as soon as I opened the magazine.

Caitlin traces the Holy Family pattern for me.

Caitlin is tracing the Holy Family wall hanging pattern for me. We had lots of people do this in our guild, and I have some beautiful batiks, so this is on my to-do list too. It may not get done for this Christmas, but I'm preparing everything I need in a kit so when I get a day with nothing to do, it'll be all prepared easy to pick up and do.

This afternoon, we're all going to watch Mitchell play hockey since he's in the Finals of his tournament.

Yeahhh, Go Team Go!!!