Still Here!

We are by now in the midst of our kitchen renovation...all the contents of the kitchen are placed across the family room and it is very messy indeed. We have set up a tiny coffee station with the microwave on a table, but have no sink or water in the kitchen, hence need to run to the laundry for every little bit. It's interesting to say the least. Dinners are a hassle as we also have no cook top as yet. During last week the work men were in and out so I did not do much at all other than trying to keep the place reasonably clean.

In terms of quilting not much is going on. I almost finished my wholecloth but cannot show any pictures of the whole thing as yet as I am thinking of putting it in the upcoming quilt show. However, here is a little picture of how intense this has become in terms of backfilling

I decided on those tiny echo lines as a backfiller to really flatten out the surrounds. Currently I only have the outside of the last border to do but I reckon that it will take a few more weeks...just in time to put my entry form in for the show. As I need to concentrate in order to quilt this I have not continued on that during the last week.

I did however manage to do one of my fox blocks. I am using up the last of the Dryad fabric from Shannon Brinkley. Just love the colours of that.

Planning to do a couple of those every week once things have settled down a bit.

In the week that the kitchen was demolished and the new cupboards were put in I just sat there knitting one of the socks that I had started earlier. My sock obsession started last year...very enjoyable once you get the hang of it, however it is best to continue to knit socks because it is very easy to forget the intricacies of how to do them as I found out last week. I finished one sock

Looks a bit funny because of the ribbing however looks very nice when put on. this one is for my daughter who has got slightly bigger feet than I have so I just extended the foot a bit more. Am onto the second sock however am trying something new. I got these new knitting needles last year, called the Addi Crasy Trio Needles. Normally you knit socks on DPNs which is ok but takes a bit longer due to the handling of the needles. When I saw the Trio needles I thought that this might be the solutions to go a bit faster. They are developed by a German woman, Sylvia Rasch and there are a few videos on the net on how to use them. So, for the second sock I am knitting with them

You have only three needles which are flexible, two for your stitches and one working needle. My blue stitch markers indicate where there would be a break normally if you would use four needles. Very unusual to knit with as they are very small and I felt at times as if I had two left hands, just could not coordinate myself. However you do get used to them very quickly and the knitting does go quicker as you only have to change needles twice. There is absolutely no way your stitches are going to slip off as they are safely tucked away on the flexible part. Since this photo I had to do it again as I missed a stitch, so got more practice than I wished for. While I was at it also tried the cast on with these needles and must say that that worked incredibly well and was ten times easier than casting on with the DPNs. We will see how the shaping works...in theory this should be easier on these needles as you have got more room to accommodate the increase in stitches. We shall see...

Anyway, for the coming week I will

- continue to knit up this sock

- continue with the backfilling of the wholecloth

- maybe piece another fox which is already cut out and ready to go.

Was going to link up to Quilt Schmilt for the To Do Tuesday #69 however it seems that that linky party has ended. May have to come back tomorrow to have another look. 

Karin

Having a Break

Just checking in for a short post. I have done my shoulder in and am pretty much out of action. Went to the physio but that just seems to make it worse. So have got nothing much to show for.

However, the table runner got finished. Put the binding on and handstitched it to the back. This is the second sample for an upcoming workshop. Should be interesting to see how people go with that.

I did baste my other scrap quilt and made a start on it, however did not take any photos as yet. Am about half way through with an allover Baptist Fan design. This proved a little bit more difficult this time as the quilt is much wider, however I will just muddle my way through that. Have been doing about one row every couple of days so as to not aggravate the shoulder too much.

Will post a picture next week.

Being out of action is incredibly hard for me. I find it quite difficult to do nothing much, so I decided to start my next sock project. 

OMG...still a challenge and a half. This new sock is a mesh up of about three patterns as I could not find one pattern that had the ribbing I wanted in my size. Also did some more experimenting with different cast ons and heel treatment. All was well until I got to the heel and had to do the rounding...I reckon I did this about five times as I kept on ending up with the 'wrong' number of stitches. Somehow I do not get the 'math' around that. Today then I fixed this and was finally able to continue...plain sailing from here.  Just need to knit the length of the foot now and then finish off with the toe. Learning a lot but have to admit, this is also not good for the shoulder. Will go to physio tomorrow and no doubt will get a lecture.

Will be back with some photos of the finished scrap quilt by next week I hope. 

Karin

To Do Tuesday #25

Another week gone! 

My tasks from last week included:

- photographing my panel baby quilt and put it up as a listing on Etsy. I am hoping that that quilt will go fairly fast as I am running out of space✅

- hand stitch the binding on the quilt above and start writing up the pattern. This will take me a couple of weeks, I think, as it is a while since I pieced this together.

- baste one of the charity quilts ready to be quilted. Want to complete at least one as I want to freemotion quilt another table runner for my workshop in September.✅

- continue knitting my sock, hopefully finishing it off. ✅

I did put up my listing for my little quilt but as I am typing this I remembered that I really should do a separate blog post for the listing. A tomorrow task!

Anyway, here is the little quilt

Cute and very cheerful. Love making these little baby quilts.

Did not do the handstitching of my binding on the second quilt - definitely procrastinating!

However I opened my bag of quilts from the charity group and got going on that. Finished a tiny little baby quilt. Very eclectic but the clamshells did pull it all together.

Will also do a separate post on doing the clamshells with a ruler. So enjoyable and so quick to execute and always looks very polished. Also finished the binding on that one as I was on a roll to get things done.

Well, and I am happy to say, I finished my sock.

That was extraordinarily tough, but I made it. Very happy with the sock. Fits like a glove and is very nice to wear. The foot looks sort of huge when laid out like that, but it is a very normal shoe size. I am shoe size 9-1/2 in Australia, so all in all a very average foot. Learned a lot about sock knitting and know now where I might have to make some adjustments, i.e. I think my heel flap is slightly too long and in general I do need to knit a bit looser, but apart from that, it is perfect. Well, spent a very long time again yesterday casting on the next sock. Must say that I am finding the casting on on double pointed needles just horrendous. Took me hours of getting it together, but finally managed and am on my way. Also bought a cheaper yarn to do another pair after that with those minor alterations. Very addictive...

Yep, I then I started another project today...I was wanting to make a string type quilt and had started on an old pattern about a month ago, however that came to an almighty standstill. Just was not feeling it, however the strings are still sitting next to the sewing machine and the whole accumulation of scraps around the place is just out of control and somewhat overwhelming. Today I was talking to a friend about this and she was showing me a quilt she made out of binding leftovers by just sewing the strips together, a bit like a railway quilt. Looked really nice and I think she said she got two quilts out of her binding leftovers from that. This whole conversation got me a bit enthused about using my strips...I also have collected leftover bindings over the years, thinking I might one day use them for a quilt by making a scrappy binding. Can confidently say, that never happened, however they have accumulated over time and I got about a box full of them. So today I decided to change direction on the string quilt and sew two types of strips together, one made from the 2-1/2in binding strips and another from the mountain of 2in strips and just use them up. I have a layout in mind which is based on different tonal values, but we shall see whether that works. The goal however is to use up these strips and leftovers to make a simple quilt out of this (and possibly continuing on the old pattern as well if there are enough strips for two quilts)) and hopefully get a sense of achievement out of this in using what one has lying around and create a bit more space. Done about 10 blocks already, so this should be a nice 'no major thinking' project.

Have several other scrap quilts in mind as well as a number of UFO's, but that will have to wait until I get through this mountain first. Also planning on then using larger fabric pieces to piece the backings together.

So, for the remainder of the week, I would like to

- start my pattern write up for next month's Etsy listing

- write another two blog posts as indicated above

- continue on knitting my second sock which will be an evening TV task

- continue to sew together my strips to make some room around the sewing machine (until they are all gone)

- prepare some fabric for another Wholecloth table runner in preparation for an upcoming workshop

Linking up to To Do Tuesday #25 over at Quilt Schmilt. Seeing some very interesting posts up there and will come back tomorrow to have a bit of a read where other quilters are at.

Karin

To Do Tuesday #24

My list from last week was small and included:

- finish off the ditching around my little baby quilt pattern, then do a little bit of ruler work and hopefully make a start on the binding.✅

- finish off hand stitching the binding on my panel baby quilt and if weather allows to take some photos- partially done!

- drop off all the charity quilts and pick up some new quilts to finish off ✅

- continue plugging away at knitting the sock. ✅

Three out of four things completed...very happy with that!

My little baby quilt went much faster than I expected as it is only small. I was looking forward to do some ruler work and just when I got really into it, it was done. Used my favourite Pro Echo ruler from Lisa Calle which was very enjoyable.

Even managed to put the binding on so all that is left is to handstitch this to the back and then immerse myself in writing up the pattern.

Also finished the hand binding on my other little baby quilt. Need to take some photos and then that can go into the Etsy shop. More computer time coming up for me.

Feeling productive!  Dropped off my charity quilts and picked up four new ones, but have not looked at them yet.

And then came the great sock adventure. So I am knitting some socks because some bright spark in the wool shop said it was really easy once you get the hang of it. While I can knit, this was a huge challenge. Casting on the stitches on those blasted double pointed needles took me most of the day! Lucky for me though I found a really good tutorial on You Tube from Nimble Needles knitting some basic socks. So I took the pattern that I had bought (and which I did not understand at all) and  watched the video from Nimble Needles going through the motions. The pattern was only helpful in that it gave me the number of stitches to cast on for my shoe size, but better than nothing. I followed along on the video and slowly but surely the sock started to emerge.

Doing the heel flap

Managed to do the rounded heel (which appears just like magic) and the gusset and tried them on...the fit is not too bad, I just need to work on maybe easing of my tensioning of the knitting. It seems that when I concentrated really hard I would start to knit very tightly.

I cannot tell you how challenging this was. In parts I would stop the video and rewind it over and over again, looking at what the man in the video explained, then go row by row, stopping, rewinding and so forth. But, thanks to the detailed video I made it! Now it is just a matter of stitching the length of the foot (no idea how long my foot is) and then there is some toe shaping. Theoretically I should be able to finish this which is utterly impressive. Will have to start the second sock straight after, otherwise I will never get this done.

For the remainder of the week there is going to be a fair amount of computer time.

My tasks are:

- photographing my panel baby quilt and put it up as a listing on Etsy. I am hoping that that quilt will go fairly fast as I am running out of space

- hand stitch the binding on the quilt above and start writing up the pattern. This will take me a couple of weeks, I think, as it is a while since I pieced this together.

- baste one of the charity quilts ready to be quilted. Want to complete at least one as I want to freemotion quilt another table runner for my workshop in September.

- continue knitting my sock, hopefully finishing it off.

Linking up to To Do Tuesday #24 over at Quilt Schmilt.

Karin