adding to the stash (again)

I’m still on a yarn and stash diet. I haven’t fallen off the wagon. My rule was that I could buy any yarn or fabric as long as it had a specific (short term) purpose. There should be no adding to the stash just because I love something, or because it’s on sale.

I have not broken the rules with my most recent purchases.

Firstly, there was this fabric for my niece’s baby’s play quilt. All except the solid are from The Very Hungry Caterpillar range of fabrics.

The left photo is a glimpse of the top which I have finished and the right is the backing fabric (to be used in conjunction with the spots and solid).

The green in this photo is the backing and sashing fabric I have chosen to go with my Christmas Tree embroideries and the waves fabric is to be the backing for a cushion/pillow which I’m making as a gift.

I won these two sweet Japanese fabrics in a give-away on Val’s blog.

Val also included this little handbag charm – how cute! I didn’t see it until I went to take the photos today so a special thank you, Val, and please forgive me for not mentioning it in my email to you.

Carol, at FunThreads, sent me this little package of fabric for the I Spy quilt I plan to make for my grandsons. Thank you so much, Carol. It was very kind of you.

This is Older Grandson’s favourite fabric square.

I’d better move that I Spy quilt up the “to do” list, I think!

As for the yarn, I have purchased only two 100g skeins.

Yes, I know it’s acrylic and I said I wasn’t buying any more acrylic but I have a bag full of acrylic yarn to use up and a great idea in mind, so I purchased these two because they were on sale and because they were colours I didn’t already have in my collection.

I didn't buy this yarn but it is now in my stash. It is 100g of Crazy Zauberball – a yarn for making matching socks becasue two strands of yarn are placed alongside each other and dyed together -- giving a perfect match!

This was the prize for the most popular item in the One Skein Challenge at our knitters’ guild meeting last month. Thanks to all the members who voted for my Extended Swallowtail Shawl.

Time to get back to those WIPs  that I mentioned in my last post! One is now finished so there should be a celebratory post soon!

works in progress

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you would know that I have a large number of projects that I've started, many of which have fallen by the wayside.

I have tried to remedy this by determining a finish date for each UFO, and then working on those things which need to be finished first. Sounds logical, I know, but until I put it all in writing, I couldn't see the wood for the trees – or, more truthfully, the projects for the piles!

Since I wrote that first detailed list back in June, some projects have been finished and I've blogged about them. Some new projects have inevitably crept in – nieces have had babies or recently become pregnant, Secret Santa projects were unexpectedly thrust upon me, or I’ve fallen in love with a fabric, yarn or pattern (such as the three bags I've recently finished)!

But, thanks to the organisational skills of this app on my iPad, my WIPs are under control and at the moment there are six that I am actively working on.

In my last post, I showed you the first of two Secret Santa projects and the first of two cloth books which, naturally enough, need to be completed by Christmas.

Here is the second Secret Santa project in progress. Today I will stitch the turnings closed and do the necessary embroidery.

And here is part of the second of the cloth books – cut out, batting fused and pages pinned together. All I need to do is load another bobbin, change to my integrated walking foot and get stitching.

Also to be finished before Christmas, is this – the third embroidered Christmas tree. I plan to finish that before the end of next week because I need to turn the three into a wall hanging which will need to be hung soon!

I mentioned nieces having babies or finding out they were pregnant.

This unblocked lace knitting (still on the needles) is 4ply (fingering) bamboo/acrylic (machine washable – new mums love that); it is for our latest grand-nephew. His mother, our niece, is also our only god-daughter, so she gets something a little bit extra-special. I could have knitted it sooner but I was hoping to use some of the pink baby yarn in my stash!

It’s the Bernat Baby Blanket (Ravelry link) and should be finished in plenty of time to be given to the proud parents at the family Christmas party on 16th December. This baby, by the way, is my MIL’s 13th great-grandchild! (She has sixteen living grandchildren).

And on my side of the family, my eldest niece has just been surprised by an unplanned pregnancy. Her mother, my sister, told me a couple of weeks ago that D. really likes The Very Hungry Caterpillar, so there is a surprise play quilt in progress. Here’s a peek at the top. The spots are part of the VHC range; I can’t quite figure out why!

You may remember that I started an Intarsia Blanket in November 2011. Here it is in July this year.

I have finished the knitting. All that remains is to finish knitting the i-cord edging and sew it on, then secure a few hundred ends (they were woven in while I was knitting but the acrylic yarn slides so they need to be sewn back in the opposite direction).

 I know what you're thinking, why didn't I knit the i-cord on? The answer is simple, it’s too hot to sit under a blanket and knit, plus the weight of the blanket kept dragging on the i-cord, making it difficult to knit. I quite like hand-sewing, so this is the best solution for me. I did knit the i-cord onto the 200 open stitches at the top of the blanket.

Finally, there is a pile of scraps on my ironing board for making more blocks for the rainbow scrap challenge. This pile, as you can see is blue, which was the colour a few months ago – I had so many blue scraps that I could still be sewing with them into 2013. I might put away the blue (again), and get out the brown, which was the colour for October or black which is the colour for this month. My black scraps are few and will be mixed with white.

I hadn’t planned on making blocks but it was hot here yesterday and I already had dark grey thread and my quarter inch foot on my machine – what's a girl to do? 

I'd better go - I have things to do!

Linking up with WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced blog.

Small New Blogs Meet-up

This is far from being a new blog since I have just written my 500th post.

But I do qualify for the "meet up" - I have less than twenty followers.

I would like to meet some new blogging friends so have decided to join the fun.

The creator of this meet-up, Lynne (what a great name! LOL), from Lily's Quilts, has asked that I start by introducing myself and my quilting.

Warning: it's a long introduction and current followers have probably heard it all before!

My name is Lynne. I have been married thirty four years this year. WM ("Wonderful Man") and I live in the metropolitan area of Sydney, NSW, Australia. We have one child, a daughter (DD), who was married in January 2009. She has two sons, one nearly eighteen months old, the other just five weeks old. In this blog I refer to them as Older Grandson (OG) and Younger Grandson (YG).

I have been knitting (on and off) since I was about five years old. I completed my first garment when I was sixteen - a sleeveless sweater with cables on the body and stripes around the lower band and arm holes. I became a serious, every day knitter, some time about 2006 and started this blog in relation to my hobby (hence the title).

My grandmother, who had her own business as an upholsterer/decorator, bought my first sewing machine when I was seventeen. She also taught me to sew because the high school I attended, despite being girls only, did not teach Home Economics! My first garment was a four-gore skirt in floral patterned voile which Nanna made me line for reasons of modesty! I loved that skirt and wore it for many years.

After I was married and working full time, I took "garment assembly" classes one evening a week for four years at the local technical college; so I have been sewing, on and off, for over thirty years.

In March 2010, when OG was just three weeks old, DD and I attended a craft fair. One of the sewing machine companies was running a hands-on workshop, making blocks that were to be turned into quilts for Haiti. DD and I both made one block each and, after a hiatus from sewing for many years, I remembered how much I enjoy the process.

So, DD and I went to our local Big Box Craft Store and bought fabric to make a quilt for OG to lie on the floor - it would keep him warm and protect our beige carpet from baby "spills". We didn't know what we were doing so we followed what we had done at the Craft Fair and chose seven coordinating fabrics. We didn't know how much to buy (I was overwhelmed by too much choice and was therefore not thinking clearly) - one fat quarter didn't seem like enough, so we bought four fat quarters of each!

We made one very wonky quilt. At that time, DD christened us the "Hacky Packy Quilters" (she loves alpacas).

finished size - 30" x 30"

As you can imagine, we had a lot of fabric left. Then we found the Modern Sampler quiltalong on Elizabeth Hartman's blog, Oh Fransson! We needed twelve fabrics so we supplemented the seven with another five. We made thirty of the thirty-six blocks, and ended up leaving five of those blocks out of the quilt because we just couldn't make them work.

finished quilt was 50" x 50"

We ended up using them in a laundry bag instead.

the fifth block is on the other side of the bag

We still have a small amount of those fabrics left but they will get used in scrappy quilts (eventually). This year in March we attended another Craft Fair and met a wonderful lady called Elizabeth, owner of Aussie Patches. Her warehouse,where she holds monthly "Sit and Sew" classes, is an hour and a half's drive from here. We attended three "Sit and Sew" sessions (April - June) but because DD's second baby was due in July we had to stop attending.

While there, I designed and began my Country Houses (applique) quilt. Now I am attending weekly classes in my local area and am finally at the stage of joining the quilted blocks together. I have a few quilts on my "to do" list when this one is finished, plus some other sewing projects.

one block of fifteen - unfinished size of each block 17" square

I look forward to meeting many new bloggers - please feel free to leave a comment; like most bloggers, I love receiving them.

And, if you haven't voted on my 500th post yet, would you please pop over there and vote - it's all for a good cause (or three). Voting will remain open until 8am (Sydney time) Saturday 6th August. Thanks heaps.

ready for blast off

Seventeen month old Older Grandson (OG) doesn't much like having his nappy (diaper) changed. He has long since outgrown the change table and is usually changed on the floor by his parents or WM, or on a bed by me.

OG squirms and wriggles and tries to escape. Usually that's okay, we're bigger and stronger than he is, but there are some nappies (diapers) that need an octopus to change them!

In 2007, long before we thought of our little girl getting married and having children, we bought beige carpet! Yes, that's right, beige! It stains very easily (despite being marketed as "stain resistant"). To protect this expensive (read: not to be replaced for a long time) asset, DD and I made two play quilts, one 36" square and the other 50" square, to catch the dribble, milk-chuck and other stuff that comes out of babies' mouths (and lower ends).

But quilts take a while to line dry so I wanted something that could be laundered more easily. (Yes, we have a dryer but we hardly ever use it; line drying is normal in Australia - this is the land where the rotary clothes hoist was invented!!)

On Saturday I cut some of this flannel

and some of this flannel

and sewed them together to make this

87cm x 55cm (35" x 22")

... the first of two change mats for an active, growing, not-yet-ready-to-be-toilet-trained boy.

I had such fun quilting this using my walking foot and having the machine on very slowly (I got faster as I went on); I also used Jan's ability to drive herself leaving me to concentrate on what my hands were doing!

I only wish I'd used a different coloured thread so I could see my work! LOL

Quilting Adventures in Knitterland sampler quilt finished

finished size 50 inches x 50 inches

DD and I spent some time on Friday and Saturday quilting GS#1's play quilt "in the ditch" (or somewhere near it). This is the same quilt that was formerly called "floor quilt" or "Project 2"; the progress of which can be seen here, here, here, here, here and here. The observant among you will notice the gap of nine months between the first and second post - it takes that long from conception to birth for a baby; why not a quilt? LOL



DD did a better job than I did at staying in the ditch; she is more of a perfectionist than I am and wanted to pull out her less-than-perfect stitches. I reminded her that we were making a quilt that would be dragged around the house, used to build cubby houses and to play peekaboo - we are not making an exhibition piece.



As an experienced knitter, I demand a high standard of myself and will rip out if I'm not satisfied with my own work; but as a novice quilter I think, "Let's just do our best and if it's less than perfect we had fun and learnt something along the way". At no point in the future do I think my grandchildren are going to say: "There are a few stitches out of place here, Grandmum"!

I spent Sunday afternoon cutting the binding strips and sewing them on. Somehow I missed attaching the first strip to the front of the quilt for about four inches - very strange! I also had some issues with puckering on the quilt back when attaching the first strip - so I ended up sewing that strip four times!

I spent Sunday evening in front of the television hand sewing the binding to the back of the quilt. Four hours later I was done.

So, fourteen months after the pieces were cut, GS#1 can build his first cubby house (although he's probably a bit young for that)!

Quilting Adventures in Knitterlandborder and backing

As DD says, we may have "the enthusiasm of beginners" but we are both very happy with the way our Sampler Block floor quilt is coming along.

After we put the blocks together with the navy sashing, we tried the yellow for the border but it didn't work. So, we auditioned all the fabrics we had. Only the navy was suitable for the border. The matter seemed settled but I didn't want to use navy - it would be the same as the sashing, only wider.

On Friday we went to the Big Box Store to buy some more fabric to make a border. We found a few that "might work".

A customer approached us to offer advice: "use only dark colours because the edges get so dirty". That advice seemed logical given that GS#1 loves the finished floor quilt and the finished top. He uses them to play "boo" and drags them around the house. He pushes and parks his car on the finished top like that was its sole purpose. These quilts are floor mats for babies. One of their purposes is to stop Grandbubby the Second (and subsequent Grandbubbies should there be any more) from bringing up milk on the carpet; as well as being somewhere warm and cosy for a Little One to lie.

During their lifetime, the quilts will no doubt be used for many things - capes, playing peek-a-boo, building cubby houses; all the things that young kids' imaginations can make them. And that's just how I want it to be. They certainly are not precious items, to be stored somewhere for the "right time".

But I digress. Back to our shopping expedition...

We had to make our decision and get out of there. GS#1 tried to climb out of the trolley (shopping cart) even though he had the restraint strap done up! He was getting more and more irascible which made it difficult to make a decision. We finally narrowed our options down to three choices and eventually, after much umming and ahhing, chose this: We weren't 100% convinced it was the right choice but, as I said to DD, we can always turn it into drawstring bags if we decide we don't like it.

But we did. I would have liked a wider border but I had bought (precut) cot wadding so needed to keep the finished size to 50 inches. Unfinished, this one measures 50.5 inches so I think I got the maths right! LOL

This is the back we pieced. It's time to move on from these fabrics and work with something else so we used as much as the front fabrics as we could. Unfinished, the back is 54.5 inches. The rest of these blue and purple fabrics will become pieced drawstring bags - no quilting needed!

And what of the yellow blocks, you ask? Stay tuned!