More non-knit

I am actaully knitting a bit, but it is ugly and the colours are hideous. It was a lovely skein of pink/brown/white variegated, and many of you will know where this is headed - Yes, I wanted to knit a raglan for my Niece that is not yet born, and Yes, it came out pink/brown/white camouflage.


So. My non-knit is (again) quilting - it is hard to resist a craft that is so pretty, can be easy, and that makes really usefull things. I wanted a cover for my bed at my parents house (Yes, I am 24 and still have my own bed at my parents house.), because it so often is dirty and icky when I go there and want to sleep in it - the dog jumps on it, my SIL uses the room (She is living with my Brother on 8 m2 - I have 12 m2 I'm never using). So, she and I bought 4 metres of blue cotton and 2 "Quilt Packs" with 7 colour sorted fabrics in blue and yellow, ½ Fat Quarters. I used 4½ pieces from each of the bundles and the same amount from the blue cotton, made 45 squares from each group, and grouped them as you can see - the easiest way. It is bordered with the blue cotton. There are 6 different prints - Two swirls, roses, random lines, marbles and a spotty fabric. The swirls, Roses, Random lines and Marble is in both colours, since they were from the same line.

I rather like it, but I didnt finish quilting it when I was at my parents last weekend, because

• I had cut it and sewn it within 20 hours.
• I had a church mass in the morning and it was late.
• The back was totally crinckled, and I found myself not caring (!), a warning sign that I was tired and ready to do anything just to be finished.
• I really like it, and dont want to mess it up, seeing as how the piecing it, not flawless, but very very good.
  

The colours washed out. It is a strong, medium blue in reality, and the prints are also darker. I need more natural light, but it is overcastr and rainy.

You can sort of see how I started quiliting it in "blocks" of 3*3 (It is 15*9 blocks, not quite 5" large - 12 cm). I did not photograph the back, it is horrendous and proof that the pins I stuck in (You can see their reflections) did not do their work well enough. Plus the fact that it is horribly hard to quilt a big quilt on a small machine without puckering.

Have a really nice day

/Lene

NOT quilting the blankie!

*Insert evil face here*

I hereby wow NOT to quilt the Wolf Blankie - not under ANY circumstances. It hates me!

You know, when you get really frustrated, sometimes you can happen to say "Bite me"?

It BIT me >:-(

I had been drawing a horse on it, and had a spool of yarn with a needle firmly lodged in it with me, in case I wanted to start sewing. I didnt, because the horse didnt show up. So, I took the spool, blankie etc. away with me and fixed to start vacuuming the whole flat. WHAM - and it hurt in my foot. I found my needle, but it was only half! It was missing a whole chunk of the pointy end and a little of the eye, but I think I found the eye part. My foot HURT.

So I did something I very rarely do, after trying to find the piece of needle I suspected in my foot: I called the doctor *gasp*. He looked at my foot and asked if I was sure there was something in it? Oh yes, quite sure, the road to his office was long enough for me to feel it every mini-second. So he started to inject a local anaestethic, and prodded and searched in my foot to find the "tiny piece of needle". Tiny, my a$$ - when it came out it was over ½ inch - almost 2cm!

The best part was that he thought I was a sissy and constantly talked about pain and hurt and how I should go home and elevate my foot and put ice on it - I said yes yes, walked out of his office with the band-aid and all, but then it started to come off, so I took my sandals off, the band-aid off and walked home, barefoot, over grass and summer-warm pavement. That is the way I prefer life, simple and not so fussy.

I am bathing my foot right now, because he had to make a 1" (2½ cm) cut to find the little bugger, and will put on a good band-aid when I lie down in the couch to knit a little. That's the best part. Relaxing because "Oh, ow, my poor foot, poor me, I must be pampered / pamper me".

Have a really nice day

/Lene

Just a little

It is summer, after all, and my brain is everywhere. I seem to have strayed from the narrow path of knitting and splashed all over the place - it's not just handiwork anymore!

• I bought a (new) bike - so now I have two, but oh, what two! One regular one that was incapable of living out my wishes with me, so I bought the "Black Stallion" (Black, slender, and mean) for bike travelling - also in rough places. It is fully suspended, but otherwise built like a travelling bike. It works well in (less rough) terrain, as well on expanded bike trips.
• I am sewing up a storm, in my own opinion. Until now, I have three butterfly pillows, three cow-pillows (Patchwork body, head and legs, later assembled), and a pig, a cat and a sheep in the same fashion. Pig, Sheep and one Cow are in our summer cottage, replacing the old icky pillows that were there when we bought the place, a Cow and the Cat will reside in my aunts quilt shop as store models, and one Cow went home with me!
• I have also almost sewn a cardigan for me - with princess seams and all, and maybe I will sew another one in another fabric, I like this! Just that I might want to shorten it overall and put the taken-away lenght where my waist is... I am tall.
• "Large Triangle with Clover Pattern" from Victorian Lace Today is stalled, I ran out of yarn. Mother is spinning more. Thankyou mom *blushes*
• My patchwork runner is still disassembled. I dislike it right now. It made me sad ;-)
• As is the large blanket I am sewing. It is, however, now spread out on the floor, ready to have horses painted on it so I can hand-quilt them on. The rest may be machine-quilted straight lines. I am so anxious about "breaking" it - I love it so!

Well, that was it - have a nice summer day.

PS: Oh! My house got painted! And my roof repaired - it only just broke (storm damage) in December! And, my windows will be painted from the outside, too - or even *gasp* replaced! Maybe I can open them, then ;)

Wordy Update

Do, do and do!

My mother and I are knitting along on Mystery Stole 3, and while I am finished with clue 4, Ute is at row 300 - but she is making other fabulous things, too. Like handquilting a runner we are both making. Well, she is quilting and I am ripping - I had quilted mine halfway but then it got wet and somehow the background colour leaked up into the runner!! I was simply devastated, and had to rip all of my quilting out, seperate the three layers and take some pieces of the runner out. Now I must put them back in, since it did not wash out. How unlucky can you be?

Today we have been at a quilt shop - or not, well, because we found the adress in a book from 1999 and called her - she let us come and look, and then told us she did not have a shop anymore, but was teaching weekend - and week - workshops. She did have a lot of fabrics, nevertheless, and we bought fabrics for pillows for the summer cottage, and they will be a sheep, a piggy and a cow. My SIL bought for two wonderfull baby bags with rabbits on them, and I went wild in the Fat Quarter Roll bin, one for 1.80$! They normally retail for double, and there were the most wonderfull old ones among them, too.
Ute is also knitting a beautifull top and spinning along, and I am knitting on an old UFO, namly a handspun shawl from Victorian Lace Today. Everything will come to a close one day, but right now, we are just .. working.

/Lene

DQS II

Here are two quilts!

I am so happy - because I recieved my wonderfull quilt, fullfilling all my wishes, and because I finished mine before the time frame, and will send it off today.

Mine is the narrow, white one, and the colourfull large one is from Texas, from Alice. It is so funny, she lives in a town with a post number only 4 digits different from Channelwiev, where I have spent some time years ago.







I have even made a label as per instructions, and I think it turned out well. I wanted to embroider it, but just wasnt up to the task. It was incredibly hard to get a picture of the label, I think I made 15 pictures and this one was the best.






So, all in all, I am extremely satisfied, and have learned new stuff: Nobody's Perfect - I thought my quilt was lousy, but the one I recieved was just as wonky, so apparently, it is just my perfectionist tendencies that are mucking up. Plus, I learned that stitch used for attatching bindings and used it for the label. I have sewed the binding on with a whip-stitch, very small and close stitches *laugh*

Have a really nice day

/Lene


PS: After I posted this, I went to the post office with my package to send it off - and lo and behold, what do I find as I hurry back home in the rain, over a prohibited green area? A 20-crown-coin! Cool, a 50% rebate on shipping! I debated whether it would be best spent on a fat-quater or... Well, until my horse ate it. (I have a porcelain horse with a hole in the back for savings).

Pitter - pattering around.

These past days, it seems I am just pitter-pattering around. At least I got the camera out now to show what I am doing, which is, after all, the main point of this blog.




Here is a Pinwheel Square out of some of the fabrics I used for the Wolf Blankie. I had just found the leftovers again (They were gone... I had put them on a storage box and placed another one on top of it, oops), and there were 7 triangles that were nor used in the blanket. seven? What can one do with seven triangles? Cut an 8th and make a pinwheel square, for example. In my mind, it is bordered with other scrappy fabrics and made into a pillow case to match the blankie / quilt. It was real quick, didnt take 10 minutes.




This is fun. I called the picture "OceanBag". Havtaske. That's a fish species that tastes quite well, mmmh, and it had me laughing at that brain fart for quite a while. Made out of one of these self-striping yarns (Kauni? Evilla? Dont remember) that I have a few of in stash. It will be felted, and is just a good inbetween project, seeing as how I broke the circular in the Fanakofte *sigh*.





Here I am being all sneaky, can you see? It is the Doll Quilt. Sneaky and thrifty. It is all scrap fabrics, and the binding will be bicoloured. Oh, and speaking of thrifty: The batting is a fleece blanket I am slowly cutting up into small pieces for all kinds of stuff. Who cares? The quilting shows, and it is not like it will have to warm somebody, right? I have also made a whole blankie (quilt) with just fleece as backing - and my SIL thinks that this is such a great idea that she is making one for her son, too!




Mmmhh, yarn! Handdyed in gorgeous greens. Really gorgeous. Can one make a cardigan of sorts with 1400 yards of Sport/DK weight? In a size 12-14? A short-sleeved lacy cardi? (nothing cropped...)
Oh, and I guess that means that your yarn and your books have also arrived mom - sorry for not telling you, but I have not hidden them, and the books are GREAT, you will love them!



The "It pains me to look at you" - Project: Fanakofte.
You are standing still at 45 cm, and I am so sorry for that! I wish I could knit on, but I will offer this excuse: My grandmother is clumsy. She broke your circular :'-( Seriously, this was going so swimmingly, and now my mothers circular is broken. I will pay a new one, of course, but in the meantime I must wait. They are hard to come by.

That's it! (No it isnt. There are things marinating - but I dont talk of them. They'll come out, some time or other, to rip or flourish in the light of my attention and their beauty).

Have a nice day

/Lene

I'll just delete...

... Everything that happened from 7.10 PM yesterday, ok?


... I broke my mothers Ebony needle that I am knitting Fanakofte with. Currently at 12 repeats of 13-14.

... My sisters most beloved Guinea Pig died. Catastrophy!

... My riding club will be closed down, probably :'-( Just because people cannot manage to be nice to one another. I am thinking about *doing* something, but maybe not.

...And it even was my birthday!

Oh, and the Doll Quilt is finished but for the binding, which I will put on today! (and the label). That's nice, and I will send it off July 12, to my Pal, who should have it just a few days later, seeing as how we're on the same continent.

Creative Chaos

Oohh.
Today I have for you, one horrible picture of why I am not updating this blog regularely. I have too many ideas and cannot get them out of my head! I dream of them in the night, I see them when I am awake, but when I touch my fabrics they go.. "poof".

I am a member of the "Doll Quilt Swap II", and I am trying to make something beautifull for a person that likes traditional quilts, primary colours etc.

My mother let me loose in her fabric stash, which contains several nice things, but most of what is in there I have already been through in the past years. Right now I have a white background with red flowers on it (when/if I dare to try sewing them on), and another idea - two hourglass squares (Fabulous green fabric with scenes from india and plain white). Maybe I'll make another two with the white and a most beautifull red with white flowers, and make somethig log-cabin-somthing around them...



Well, here is the picture! It looks less crowded than it really is, because I am standing on my bed :)



The Fanakofte is 34 cm / 13", and I am aiming for 64 cm / 24 " ;) (How funny that those are also the key numbers for the DQSII)

Have a really nice day

/Lene

Knit & Sew: What Is Amiss?

This time, I let my imagination go wild and crazy. It is unlike anything I have done before, I havent even seen stuff like it. Not saying that nobody has done it before, but this is so unique for me that I am utterlay astounded.




I knitted a "piece" out of worsted, handspun wool (singles), one day when I was having a "down" day. I mounted it on natural colour Linen fabric, and backed it with a piece of a torn fleece blanket. The knitted thing is sewn onto the linen and fleece by hand - once around the outline, and outlining some of the largest holes/eyelets (multiple eyelets in many cases) too. It was machine quilted (Rather badly, boo) on my new Husquarna. The thing I like the most is the edging. I sort of unvented the mitered corners, but they do look good. The edging also gave me a feeling for how to attach such a thing, what it depends on and how to make it look good on the backside. All very valuable things to know for the big blankie.


The corners are unruly, but I like them that way.

The only thing I dont like is that it is so.... brown. Even the fleece on the back is brown. I used "what I had", meaning that the edging is a piece of the backing for my large blankie etc. - but it is so brown. I want some colour in there. I have thought of trying to hand-embroider "FLY" in the lower left corner, how would that look?

Have a really nice day'

/Lene

Wash or Not?

Does one wash a finished quilt top? I do not remember doing it with my baby quilt, but it puckers ;-)

Some of the fabrics may be prewashed, some are definitely not.


Just thinking about this to tide me over until I can do some other fun stuff - What batting will I use, what backing (I *want* the Pink Polkadot fabric, yeah! *grins*), binding - a bias tape or my wolf fabric? How should I quilt it? That is probably the hardest part. I have seen some lovely machine quilted pieces with pretty shapes all over, but I also somehow want to *whisper* hand quilt it, to honour the handsewn squares that make up the "Meat" of the blankie. The quilt my mother made me is mostly hand quilted - it is made up of squares and rectangles where each side is 5 cm or multiples thereof,and mostly black-and-white, with musicians, piano keys, notes etc. :-) She quilted notes, C-keys and some other things onto it - it is gorgeous, of course.

So, Handquilting and machine quilting maybe? I could quit little flutterbies all over it.. Or maybe not. Maybe I'll just let my mind flow and imagine, and when the time comes when I will quilt it, I may have *The* idea. Suddenly, the top will speak to me and tell me what it wants to be. (Says she who spent fourhours on the floor arranging squares for a Hourglass Baby Blankie).




The blue fabric is a heavy cotton with little white flowers. I cut up a lot of fat quarters in pink and blue colours (Actually, the pink ones were for a blankie for my sister that got postponed for so long that it disappeared). I had tried out many different arrangements, but none seemed to work until I put the blue squares in one end and the pink in the other, putting all identical squares tip-to-tip (Instead of trying to arrange them so that none would touch). I had at least two, and in one case 8 identical squares because of the piecing method used.

Have a nice day

/Lene

I'm so tired.

Got up very early and went to the Equestrian Games my riding club is arranging this weekend. It was quite good. I'm so tired because I was constantly herding people, horses (catching some too), running from one place to another. Sadly, I wasnt riding, and wont tomorrow either, but it is great fun to see all the great horses all the same.





Here is the finished Patchwork top. The picture is weird. I am too tired to redo it. Isnt it lovely? The pink corners are really nice and bring the blanket from "Tone in Tone with grey background" to "Hey That's a nice blankie!".






Here is also a finished Fana Sleeve. I have cast on for the second now, and may finish the starry cuff band tonight. It is lovely, but heavy - I bet I could take a walk in the snow with in (If we get any snow) without feeling cold. Provided I am wearing other, appropriate clothing, like pants and boots.

Have a really nice day

/Lene

Many Many stitches

My mother rescued me today.

She brought me 1/4 yard of fabric so that I would have enough for sashing (<-- Ha! I learned a new word!) between the two sides of the quilt, freeing up the wide fabric to make a border on top and bottom. There will also be corners in the new fabric - a totally unfitting, yet strangely cool hot pink with light pink polka dots *giggles*.

She did not do my Fana-kofte any good though, because I got on a roll and sewed the whole top together. I cannot decide if I think it is too narrow? It is 55"*82" without the binding. (That is 140 cm * 205 cm) I have a wonderfull quilt that is about 54"*70", and if anything I would wish for it to be wider. But the narrow sashing (in the wonderfully, hideous and gleefull pink-polkadot fabric) looks so good.

I also had a visit by my paternal grandparents, which turned out nicely (They admired my furniture, my quilt, my kitchen and my orderly finances), but kept me from Fana, too. When they left, I got cracking and sewed the whole top even though I only thought I would sew half of it - and by the time I wanted to cast on another sleeve, I left to do some voluntary work. That's it, my day was gone (in a good way), and I may have a nice warm quilt for next winter. If I decide on how it shall be quilted and get it done, that is.

Have a really nice day.

/Lene


PS: Yes, YAY indeed! Just a leeetle different from the picture :-)

Yay or Nay?

For once, this is not about knitting, but if you squint and look through the door to my bedroom, you can kind of see the fana sleeve... heh.

This is a quilt I am making. It will be my first adult size quilt - well, first and first, I did most of the piecing for a quilt my cousin Nehle got a few years ago, because we were on a strict deadline, my grandmother broke her arm, my aunt and mother both were crazily busy - so I was the only one left. I have also sewn a baby quilt for my nephew, and while it is gorgeous it is not ideal because it was only backed with fleece.

My best friend gave me three handsewn pieced blocks with another one on cardboard and ready to go. They were sewn by his late wife around 1989, probably for his daughter, but never got finished. When he moved, he gave them to me because he knew I probably would make something out of them. They are delightfully 80'ish - pink in the gruefully way.
They had an awkward measurement. 50*50 cm. I t made sense, though, when I examined the rest of the fabric that was stashed away with it, because there were strips whose measurements indicated that the finished size would be something along the lines of 115*170 cm - perfect for a petite teen girl. There also was enough fabric to make two more squares.

I sewed the other square together, and let it sit for a while while I was thinking. There was not enough fabric of two kinds to complete two more blocks. But, when I was in Taiwan a while after, I found a bunch of Fat Quarters in delightfully 80'ish pinks! To machine sew the two squares, I tried to take measurements on the paper pieces. They turned out miniscule! It must have had something to do with the extra fabric around the edges of the cardboard. I bordered the blocks with a fantabulous wolf fabric. That was when I tried to find a way to make the squares larger without making them look goofy. My mother and I counted and discussed and drew for a while until we agreed on the 33,33 degree turned angle the squares are in now. We made a few mistakes with the triangles, and will have to cut two more since two were turned the wrong way (You can see how I laid the with the wrong side up).

The red strips are original ones (The fabric also appears in the squares) that I was about to put away, but suddenly thought... Why not see how much there is? If it can work with my idea in some way? (I have enough of the narrow to go between all blocks).




So, what do you think.

Yay or Nay?

Have a nice day

/Lene