Quick Update

Thank you for the kind comments on the sweater from my last post. Chris was indeed very happy to receive it, and well, I'm awfully happy to have it off the needles. It even fit really well.

Tonight, you get a disjointed update on four different projects.

First off, another Trellis baby cardigan. The first one that I made for an expectant mom was a huge hit, so I thought I'd make another to stash away for, well, whoever has the next boy. Alas, my adorable pink and purple JoJo cardigan is still awaiting a new owner, as everyone in my circle of family, friends, and even colleagues seems determined to populate the world with baby boys lately. Nothing against boys - I love my nephews to pieces - it would just be nice to knit something frilly once in a while, ya know?

Trellis, from knitty.com, size 6 months. Knit in Lion Brand CottonEase, on size 3.75 and 4.5 mm circulars.

Anyhow, given that my friends and colleagues are reproducing in record numbers, it seems prudent to have some suitable baby gifts stashed. And Trellis is such a fun pattern to knit! Using only two balls of CottonEase for the smallest size, it's a really reasonable investment in yarn and time. This time around I adapted the pattern to eliminate the side seams, knitting the back and fronts in one piece up to the armholes. This was surprisingly simple to do, and didn't even require me to think about math much.

Also on the needles at the moment is another pair of plain worsted weight men's socks. None of the men in my family can get enough socks, so I just keep knitting them. At least on 4 mm needles, they go quickly, and they make for good senseless knitting in the car.

And then there's my Ivy League vest. Still chugging along - I'm just starting the neck steek. My first steek!

And the latest quilt project? It's a double nine-patch, from an old quilting magazine. The pattern is called "Box of Chocolates", and if you squint, you can see why.


Those are the first 11 of 42 squares, so you can bet it will be a while before you see this one on a finished state! My quilting projects normally run on a scale of years, although I think that my latest productive streak may have a lot to do with the fact that I now have a dedicated studio space, and I don't need to clean everything up and put the sewing machine away between sessions. The colours aren't showing up very well in this photo, but it's all pinks, browns, and beiges. Pink is not normally a colour I go for, but I really like the combination with the brown. The sample in the magazine is absolutely gorgeous.

That's all that my tired brain can manage tonight. It's already a very busy week, and it's only Monday yet. Time for bed.

Again with the Quilts

You may remember that some time ago (January in fact) I started a small lap quilt for my living room.



It's has been all but finished for several weeks, waiting for a trip to the fabric store to purchase binding. I finished off stitching the binding on over the weekend, and the quilt went directly into service.

The block pattern is a traditional one, known as "churn dash", and for the first time, I tried to do a detailed, drawn quilting pattern by machine with my free-motion foot. Still rather wobbly, but you can see the attempt here in the "taffy pull" quilting on the inner border.


I'm not quite happy with my machine quilting skills yet (hand quilting, though incomparably slower, was far easier to control), but I'm working on it.

That makes for three small finished quilts this year. At this rate, my quilt FOs will outnumber the knitted ones! And I have two bed-size quilts in progress too! Nevertheless, I am still giving a chunk of time to Fair Isle and other colourwork knitting lately. I'll give you an update on that next time.

And Another Scrappy Quilt

Another day, another quilt. Well, I wish I could throw them together that quickly! In truth, this is a fairly small project, a baby quilt, so it was not a huge time investment.

(click to embiggen)

My friend Deanne is visiting from Ottawa, and she is expecting a baby later this summer. I found out that she was going to be a mom around the same time that I was organizing my fabric stash and wishing that I could do something fun with all of the little scraps that I've saved and/or inherited over the years. I started to play with different combinations of nine-patch squares, and this is the result.

Some of the fabrics are older than me, and some a very recent leftovers. It's a wild mix of florals, geometrics, and even some kid-friendly novelty fabrics with puppies and kittens.



I bought the grey fabric that I used in the sashings specially for this project to tie it all together. It has an animal print with elephants, zebras, rhinos, etc. which is particularly appropriate since Deanne grew up in South Africa. Of course there are also kangaroos on the print which don't really fit the theme, but I'll take what I can get!

I finished it up last night, and I think the end result is very cheerful. I hope that she likes it, and that the little one on the way gets a lot of use out of it.

At the risk of turning this completely into a quilting blog, I am hoping to have one more small quilt finished up soon to show you. Don't worry, I haven't abandoned my knitting. I'm just at a rather unphotogenic stage with everything right now.

A Little Out of Season...

...but here it is nonetheless. My Christmas quilt:


This quilt was started more than two years ago, when I lived in Ottawa. It was meant to be a "scrap" quilt, and in fact other than the backing fabric, I made it entirely from leftover fabric in my quilting stash.


The pattern, "Scrappy Pines" is from Quilting for Dummies, the first quilt book I ever bought, and still a very handy reference.

There are many firsts for me in this project. It is my first quilt completed entirely by machine (I had previously machine pieced a few projects, but never quilted using the machine. I had to buy a couple of extra do-dads for the machine to expand its capabilities - a walking foot and a free-motion foot). It's also the first time I have done applique by machine, which proved to be a little tricky, but I think it's something that I'll get better at with time.


It is certainly not free from errors - oh there are a lot of them! - but the end result still looks pretty good to the untrained eye, and it will be nice to snuggle with on the couch come next December.

I have been on a bit of a roll with the quilting lately, trying to tackle some of my many half-finished projects. I should have at least one more, maybe two FOs within the next week or so. Stay tuned.

Dabbling

There was a time when I used to do a lot of quilting. I bought a copy of Quilting for Dummies one summer when I was doing field work up North, and read it in a tent in the middle of nowhere. By the end of the summerI was just itching to get back to civilization to buy some fabric and try it out. There's nothing like a good two months stuck out in the bush looking at beautiful scenery to provide inspiration.

I still dabble in quilting from time to time, and actually finished up a long-languishing quilt for my brother for Christmas this year. (Wouldn't you know it, in the rush to get it wrapped, I forgot to take a photo!)

This week has been particularly cold, so a few afghans have appeared on my couch and I have been forced to acknowledge just how ugly some of those blankets are (I won't provide the graphic details, but think polar fleece with loons - pure Canadiana). As long as I've been quilting, I've actually given most of the results away as gifts. It's high time I had my own quilt. Or in this case, a small lap quilt to snuggle under while I knit in front of the tv. (Maybe I'll build toward the larger goal of a big bed quilt soon.)

This is how far I've gotten on the quilt top:


There are still some more border pieces to go on. I'm totally making this up as I go along, pulling out leftovers and scraps in general themes of blue and yellow/brown. The block is a traditional one called "churn dash". I've never made it before this, but it's actually a pretty easy variation on a 9-patch.


At least I have a sewing machine now. Back in my grad school days, I completed my first two full bed-size quilts completely by hand - both were wedding gifts. It's so much faster now. While I really prefer the look of hand quilting over machine, I don't think I'll ever be able to go back!