Happy May day

Happy workers day. May you have the day off to pursue your bliss. I will be quilting, so that is me sorted. The weather is getting a tad nippy. Quilts have been changed and now we are sleeping under my Dear Jane quilt. I batting is 100% cotton which adds extra warmth. 

The summer quilt we use is a 20% polyester 80% cotton mix which interestingly enough makes the quilt a lot lighter. The Dear Jane has so many joins that it is actually a lot heavier than other quilts that I have made of the same size. In preparation of actually using the quilt, I did the first washing of it.

I have been avoiding doing this as I was scared of colour leakage. And sure as anything one of the reds that I used, oozed onto the surrounding white. Luckily I did have a colour catcher box of stuff. It removed most of the free radical/dye blobs and there is only a faint blush left. I need some more, but, this is not something that is readily available in the part of the globe where I live. I did think that I might try and see if I can make some myself. I am sure I read on a blog on how to do it.

Progress is going well on the Granny's garden. Last night I finished quilting flower number 100. There are still 104 flower as well as the border to go. The great thing is that the center is done and I don't have to twirl the quilt around each side of a hexie. I am trying to have fun with the quilting. It looks like I have done a whole lot, and then I fold it up for the night and all I see is the areas that are not quilted. 

We have today off work, so I am going to start stitching. Hope you too are able to have fun today.

Have a good one.

Quilting happening!

I have my voice back. It still a bit skwarky, but on the whole, I am not being answered back by bats. I have been busy doing quilting again. I am about to complete the third circle of flowers. I was taking a photo of each one, but that started getting very boring. 

What I now introduced into my quilting thing is a picture of my quilt on which I am deciding and marking which flower I am doing next. I have quilted 25% of the flowers. This is great except when I think of the border as well. This takes it to about 10% complete. The good thing is that it truly does become easier to quilt the closer you get to the edge. 

We have a three day weekend this week. I think this is how a work week should always be. I need to go and quilt, but, before I go I am going to share something I saw on facebook. I think this could be all quilters "I have a dream" speech. Thanks  QuiltingSewingCreating for this. It is amusing.

The little girl kitten went to the vet this week to be spayed. I feel so sad for the kittens. I know it is the right thing to do, but, it still makes me feel sad for the babies.

Hope you have an amazing Saturday!

Have a good one.

Weekend works.

Been quite busy this weekend. I have made numerous mug rugs as I currently have flu and the idea of slinging a quilt around to do hand quilting on it makes my already achy bones ache some more. These were small enough to do. It is very satisfying finishing an item in such a short time.

I currently have laryngitis and the noises that are coming out of my face are the sounds that a love child of a dolphin and a Wookiee would make. Not only is it extremely high pitched but it also contains a strange warble that should only be found in galaxy far far away... I think that is how it goes.

 I am using up all the the scraps that I have from all of the quilts that I have previously made to make up these creations. It may be due to bad planning, but at the end of each quilt that I have done, I always seem to have the equivalent of spare parts when putting a car back together.

I suppose this is due to the fact that I follow my nose when it comes to planning for quilts. It could be that hand made quilts take such a long time to create. Often I have changed my mind of how all of the bits are going to go together at least twice before I

have actually finished the item. Often I have made a whole lot of what I thought I would need. I have an extremely large tub with quilty bits in it. I have seen all the clever people create quilts out of the spare bits

I tried, it looked too weird. Even weirder than a Woikiee/Dolphin offspring. 

My husband wanted picture for his office and my youngest allowed us to scan some of her pictures. I love the vividness of the colours that she uses. I have been given permission to share them. So here they are:

  Hope you have all had an amazing weekend.

Have a good one!

Update:-

a whizzing week

What a busy week this was. It started last weekend when I gave up quilting the Granny's garden in favor of knitting winter run around socks. Even though we live in Africa and our winters are mild, our houses are set up for summer. 

We leave the windows open throughout the year and we do not have a central air conditioner. We have air au naturel. Fun in summer with a fan blowing, but in winter it can be just a tad nippy. We also have stone floors in most of the house which once again is delightful in summer, but can make you weep in winter. 

We have multiple rugs on the stone floor. The game in winter in to get to wherever you are going on these rugs. One little misstep and your feet get freezing. This is where house socks come in. they allow you to skid around the house and not have freezing toes. The truth be told the study is probably the coldest as there seems to be a sneaky draft that is at toe level. The socks are normally used when playing in the study. It really is not that bad. I have before run in snow without shoes on and that was way worse. That horrid feeling of losing feeling in your toes. I did the soles of the booties in a different colour to the tops. I like the pattern as even though it is crocheted it appears quite solid.

I need to get a second ball of wool for the pink booties. Whilst I was in the shop I spotted some cotton wool/ thread.... you know wool that is cotton.

I had never heard of this before, but the internet has shown me many new and interesting things. One of these were  kitchen towels made out of this stuff. With my theory of trying whatever you see, as not everything will be a disaster I bought some and knitted one.

The pattern is excessively simple, but good enough for a first attempt. Does anyone have a nice pattern for kitchen towels? Please let me know if you do. Cotton is not bad to knit with. I would have thought that it would have been harsher on the fingers. Well what do you think of my attempt?

The next thing I did was make 2 mug rugs. It is so much fun to make this small items. This next week I am going to use some of my stars that never made it into a quilt, and make them into mug rugs.

I did manage to quilt a little after work yesterday. Here are some pictures of the back and the front.
I must say that the silk batting is delightful. The needle just bops in and out and creates a very small stitch. The only thing is that it is a thin batting so it does not have a dramatic loft.

I love the natural battings, but, I have seen quilts that have polyester inners, and the quilting on them pops. Oh well I will have to live with understated stitches. I can almost see a self help group for understated stitches. Let them be a pushy as popping stitches  as well.

Have an amazing weekend, and I hope you all have a fun project to keep you busy.

Have a good one.

Sock it to me

This is what has kept me from quilting this weekend.  The yearly creation of socks has begun. I have completed one pair and still have one to go.

Previously we made Schlocks    We made a dozen pairs out of fleece and gave many pairs away. 

This time I found a cute pattern on the internet and decided to crochet this years socks. As you can see I am wearing a plaster as the constant pressure has made my poor thumb sore.

 My poor quilt sits in a wash basket and feels so forlorn. I may take a break from sock-creation and do a few stitches later on today.  Can you see the quilting? I have quilted about 12 flowers so far. There are 203 flowers in the quilt. *PHEW*

This cat has decided that I am peaceful enough to sit with. This is better than yesterday when I was trying to count the number of stitches and trying to remind myself that I knew how to crochet.

Hope you have an amazingly creative day. All that are in autumn, maybe you need to make some socks and all that are in spring, enjoy getting rid of you socks for 6 months.


Have a good one.