works in progress

A couple of days ago I was working in my sewing room and thinking about all the different projects I had going on so it seemed time to share them.

I describe a WIP as anything I have worked on in the last three months. With the exception of the Hearts quilt,  every project I will share with you today has been worked on in the last four weeks.

Why don't I start with my knitting projects? That is how this blog started after all!

The older of the two knitting WiPs is a pair of socks I cast on in October. I knitted the first sock to the heel turning then stopped -- turning heels requires concentration which, for me, means solitude. Last weekend, as I waited for the workshop I was tutoring to start, I began turning the heels (and put them away when I got to the part where concentration was really needed). For those who care about such things, I use an hourglass heel (from Lynne Vogel's Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook) as my "go to" heel. It was the first heel I learned to make and, even though it was difficult to teach in my workshop in 2012, is still the heel I prefer to knit.

 

My other knitting project, which was started on Christmas Eve and is now too big to work on in the current hot, humid weather, is my own design. I've called it Nouveaux Log Cabin. It was inspired by the Moderne Baby Blanket (from "Mason-Dixon Knitting" by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne). It is based on Fibonacci numbers, given that each section is based on the numbers 1, 2 or 3 -- 1 being fifteen garter stitch ridges. The finished blanket should be approximately 72" x 42". I have worked the sections out to get these dimensions and have the same number of sections across the blanket as down its length.  I particularly like the look of the one garter ridge done in white at the beginning of each section.

I have worked on three different quilting projects in the past four weeks; four in the past three months.

The Hearts quilt is the only project in this post that I haven't touched in the last four weeks. I need to make a decision about how I'm going to quilt it and get to it! It remains 30 disconnected blocks.

The project that has had the most attention this week is Violet and Friends quilt. I made the crumb blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (SoScrappy blog) during 2011 and 2012 but only started putting the blocks together into a quilt top last month.

This week I have been working on making the backing. It never ceases to amaze me how much time it takes to press fabric, cut strips, join strips, press seams, pin strips to blocks, sew strips to blocks and press seams. It took me all my sewing time on Tuesday (several hours) to do the above (and press the whole flimsy now that I have a new iron which gets hot enough to do the job properly!) and all I added were four 2” white borders to the flimsy seen above, and two long strips to the backing panel.

In class last week, I finished a block for the Sampler Quilt I've been making (on and off) for a year. It took me the better part of three hours to finish about half a block! I'm not the world's fastest patch-worker, that's for sure! This block is called Weathervane. It looks very tricky but really, it's just a fancy nine-patch (as are all the blocks in the sampler some of which you can see here).

My newest project in terms of deciding what to do is really the first of these four to have got started. Back in 2011, before I started classes with my current teacher, DD and I used to attend all-day Saturday classes once a month. At one of these workshops, I learned several ways to make half square triangles (I documented it here and here). when I read about the Relaxing Robin (SewUQuilt2 blog), I decided to make one of these orphan blocks my Relaxing Robin project. I won't go into too much detail here, this will get its own post later this month.

I have one hand-stitching WiP – my Dutch Cap Hexies. This is a very long term project given these are 1.5” hexies and diamonds I’m sewing together. This is what I’ve done so far (not the final layout):

 

I have a pile of “hexie triads” ready to go, and over the last few days have basted all these diamonds (I’ve run out of papers so I have to wait for LQS to get some more). Plenty of sewing to be going on with.

Finally, my newest baby, brought into the world on 12 February: when finished it will be a large pin cushion done in candlewicking using colonial knots and some stem stitch on homespun with perle cotton.

What about you?

What projects are you working on?

Linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced blog and Yarn Along at Small Things blog.

Edited to add that I am also linking up to Hexie Weekend at a Quilting Reader's Garden blog.

I have also joined the EPP QAL group on Flickr. 

Something Old, Something New -- part II (with button and grab code)

Note: This post is almost identical to the information in the tab at the top of this blog so you may have already read it. Please leave a comment if you're thinking of joining the party! ;-)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nearly all the crafts-people I know are like me. We all have UFOs that we "should" be working on but the lure of the new beckons us.

In 2014, I want to concentrate on learning new techniques across many of the crafts in which I am involved. However I also want to get some of those UFOs out of my craft room and into use.

Hence: Something Old, Something New. I am challenging myself to finish (at least) one UFO a month and, at the same time, learn (at least) one new technique a month.

How do I define UFO? Any project I haven't worked on in the last three months is a UFO. If I've done some work on it in the last ninety days, it's a WiP and doesn't really qualify! But that's the boundaries I've set myself. You can set any boundaries/rules/guidelines -- whatever works for you!

Maybe you are unlike me and have no UFOs but would like to learn some new techniques.
Or maybe you've dozens of UFOs and no plan (right now) to learn new techniques -- you just want to get those UFOs done!

You've come to the right place.
For me it will be "old" and "new" but for you it might be either "old" or "new".

Won't you please consider joining me for this year's challenge?   
Any craft, any project, any technique is welcome.

I'll put up a linky party on the second day of each month (there are many other linky parties happening on the first of the month! LOL). In that post, I will share my progress from the previous month and list my goals for the month to come.

There will be no prizes, no give-aways; just the joy of sharing and perhaps meeting some new blog friends. 

I'd love you to join me -- parties are much more fun when other people come along! Here's the button for your blog if you accept my invitation!

<div align="center">
<br /><a href="http://2hot2knit.blogspot.com.au/" title="Never too hot to Stitch!"><img src="http://i1286.photobucket.com/albums/a607/ellebee57/85d98e30-e984-4b34-925f-027fc19b8dc5_zps40bbf708.jpg" alt="Never too hot to Stitch!" style="border:none;" /></a></div>
<br />

other crafts

A long time ago, when I was a "winter" knitter, I decided I had to find a different craft for summer because it was too hot to knit!

I had tried embroidery which I showed you in this post. I enjoyed it and thought I might do some more of it.

We were going away for a few days because our cork floor tiles were being recoated and the smell of polyurethane is unbearable. We had some long-forgotten reason to visit a local store and, though I looked all over their small craft department, I couldn't find an embroidery kit. However, I did find a small cross stitch kit. Ideal! Everything I needed (except scissors and a hoop) was in the package. It was small so I could work on it in the car and it was inexpensive so if I didn't like it, it was no big deal!

I finished that first cross stitch, framed it with the embroidery hoop I had used to stitch it and gave it to my mum for Mothers' Day. It's still on display in her china cabinet.

But I was hooked! I started making people cross-stitch bookmarks. I bought "waste canvas" and began embroidering on tee-shirts and socks. I bought a couple of kits and worked those. I think people even began to expect that they would receive small cross-stitch embroidery from me for presents.

But then came Big Project #1. DD and I still smile at how I finished it and was washing it in the bath while she stood lookout for Daddy coming home from work. It was his Christmas present and I needed to block it! He loved it.Then my sister got engaged and I began a cross stitch of blue and white crockery on a dresser as a wedding gift. I have no photo of that one to show you but I know it still hangs in my sister's dining room (even though that marriage is long over).

DD was given a cross-stitch for Christmas one year but she outgrew it and we had to take it from her room and hang it in the hall. She says she still loves it (or maybe she has renewed her love for it) so maybe, one day, she'll hang it at her place.Mum's 60th birthday came next and what better thing to give a "new Australian " (she had become a citizen just six years before after living here for thirty one years) - Australian wild flowers! I took this photo over the mantlepiece, way above my head so please forgive the funny angle. The photo below shows some detail (if anyone is interested it is 14 count Aida cloth); the big red flower is called a waratah.It is the floral emblem of my state and grows only in sandy soil. We have clay soil so, unfortunately, have not been successful in growing one (WM dislikes pots). You can read more about waratahs here.

Then mum and dad gave me a pattern for a piano done in cross stitch (yes I do play - badly). I never finished it, I think all that cream (on the left) was just too much for me! It has become one of my many UFOs about the place!
What about you, did you once have an obsession with another craft?

one thing at a time

warning: long wordy post!

It has been a long time since I worked on one craft project at a time as my normal modus operandi.

Way back, when I was a child, my mother bought the materials she needed for a project and worked on that project until it was done.

Understandably, that was the way I was with my knitting!

Like mum, I would knit in winter and when the weather started to warn up, finish the project in hand and that was it - until next winter.

Until someone gave me an embroidery kit. I can't remember who or for what reason; but I clearly remember that, although I had never shown the slightest interest in embroidery, I decided to open that kit and give it a go as a summer project.

I didn't know what I was doing and I didn't know about embroidery hoops - I just did what I always do, read a bit (in this case the instructions in the kit) then got started.

It didn't turn out so bad, if I do say so myself. A couple of summers later, we were going away for a week and I wanted a small project to do in the car. Knitting was out because people don't knit in summer, do they?

I bought a cross stitch kit of some violets. Quick and simple, I was hooked! (Oops no, that would be the small "rug" I made from a kit when I was a teenager - I still have the latch hook; I told you I am a hoarder).

Anyway, that kit led to another, then to bookmarks for gifts and finally to the purchase of large patterns. But, I digress... I think I'll save those for another post!

So, in winter I worked on one knitting project (usually it took all winter to knit one jumper anyway) and in summer I worked on my cross-stitch.

Then, in the early years of this decade, I got involved, briefly, in scrapbooking. It didn't take me long to realise that working on, and buying supplies for, one project at a time was very limiting and I began to collect papers, card stock and embellishments. I didn't know the word "stash" back then - but I still have a stash of scrapbooking supplies (you're not surprised, are you?).

In 2004, I was tired of working from other people's patterns in knitting and cross-stitch, some something deep inside me was trying to get out. I was inspired by the knitted works of Kaffe Fassett, so I decided to design and knit my own jumper (sweater). I started collecting yarn; to quote Kaffe: "if in doubt, add more colour". It took me two winters to finish; it used 63 different yarns and weighs a ton!

Inadvertently, I had started a stash - I had left overs of all 63 balls plus the ones I had decided not to use. I immediately went on to plan my next fassettesque project (which has never been started) and began collecting yet more balls of yarn. At that time, I used only natural fibres - wool, mohair and a little alpaca.

In 2007, I was introduced to the world of knitting blogs and, of course, I just had to have one. But my blogging was infrequent and I mostly only wrote about knitting.

By then, I was a member of knit4charities so buying discounted yarn (usually acrylic) seemed sensible given that I was knitting much more - even into summer!

Reading blogs introduced me to the concept of "stash" (up until then I had leftovers and a collection of yarn for the next project plus some discounted acrylic which would be used soon). But, more importantly, reading blogs introduced me to the radical idea that one could work on more than one project at a time!

And so, dear readers, just like every other knitting blogger I know, I almost always have several projects on the needles.

Last year I stumbled into quilting. DD and I bought too much fabric for our first quilt so we made two quilts from the same fabrics. We made the first quilt top and then cut out the pieces for the second! We had already succumbed to polygamous quilting and had only been involved in this fantastic new world for less than a month!

I'm pretty sure everyone who read and comments here works on multiple projects at once, but were you ever a one-project-at-a-time crafter? When, and why, did things change?

hobbies are good for your health - but we already knew that

On Sunday, Alison of Little Island Quilting published a post entitled "Just Because". I left a comment about process v. product which led to Alison sending me this link from the Daily Mail.

It seems that researchers have caught up to what we crafters already know - hobbies are good for our health: they calm us, give us joy, encourage us to play and  promote our well-being in ways that "physical and outdoor activities could not"!

Long live creativity!

DD the enabler

Well, since the excitement of last week's Craft Expo, I have been unable to get to sleep with too many thoughts (aka ideas) whizzing around my mind. I awake to more excited thoughts. But I was keeping myself under control. The carton of long-stashed fabric scraps (and a couple of unused lengths) still remains untouched at  the top of the wardrobe.

Yesterday, around 1pm, DD rang to tell me that our local big box craft store was having a three day sale which finished yesterday. Did I want to go? DD was just leaving home and had to go via SIL's grandmother's place so wasn't likely to get anywhere near my local area in time so I tentatively agreed. DD must have really wanted to go - about two hours before closing time I got another call: "I'm nearly there - please meet me at the store."

How do I let her talk me into these things? And how did all this manage to follow me home? (ETA There are two photos because I couldn't get an accurate purple but adding red to the one on the left messed up the other colours!)

That's right - seven metres of fabric and three reels of cotton. The photo doesn't show the fold-up cutting board that also came out of the store with us (I use them, covered with a disposable plastic tablecloth, for blocking my knitting and occasionally for their original purpose!)

As I said, DD is a great enabler - especially when it's not her money we're spending! LOL

 Delighted Hands and (especially you)  Catsmum, please. stop. smiling! It's not funny!! I don't need another craft in my life! This is a knitting blog!