A Quilty Gift

I received the most wonderful gift in the post this week. This beautiful bag was made for me by Jennifer of Glinda Quilts. I feel really guilty actually. She is an online friend that I've recently made through a sewing bee. She had blogged about the Pants Bags she had been making and I commented on the post saying I was really lazy, didn't bother to unpack my case when I went on holiday and just stuffed my pants into the corners of my case. Well, she replied straight away saying she would make me one, and even wanted to know what colours I liked!! You know, quilters are some of the kindest, most generous people I have ever come across.

This bag is so beautifully made! Jennifer's sewing skills put mine to shame !
What is more I am totally in awe of the design of this bag. Don't think old school pump bags that were hard to draw up, this bag glides open and closed with amazing smoothness. It took me a while to understand how it works (yeah, I'm the sort of person that struggles to operate even the simplest of things)

Fortunately my son showed me - it's two separate drawstrings, so that when you pull it closed the fabric doesn't all bunch up at one end. Duh! I guess everybody knew about this except me - well, I know now, and I'm going to have a go at making one.

The other thing I really like, that I wouldn't have thought about doing, is attaching the band in two separate pieces so that there is plenty of room for the strings to move freely.

I really look forward to using this bag next time I go travelling. In the meantime I really wanted to look at it and appreciate it, so,  ....... ooh, Look! some knitting just happened to find it's way inside !!

I'm very pleased to say it makes an excellent knitting bag too !! Thank you so much Jennifer. Your kindness has made me very happy and I'm going to have a go at making one for someone too :)

Talking of knitting, I have been busy trying to catch up on my Greenfields Africa Challenge. I've completed 2 baby cardigans, and another is almost finished.

For this one I used up a couple of balls of Rowan Purelife Revive that I had bought a while back to experiment with. This is an eco friendly yarn as it is made with 36% recycled silk, 36% recycled cotton and 28% recycled viscose. It isn't a baby yarn, but I had played with, decided I didn't like it, so it needed using up. Why didn't I like it? I didn't like the feel of it in my hands as I worked. I love working with cotton, I like using silk when blended with wool, but this? It just didn't feel good. Also it has very little stretch. It will breathe nicely, so it will be good for a little African baby in that respect, but I won't be buying this yarn again.

 

The second cardigan was made with my all time favourite yarn Debbie Bliss Eco Baby. This is sports weight organic cotton, and the only reason I was happy to part with this was because the oddments I had were from old dye lots that didn't match. Some prudent placement of white stripes however meant that you can't tell where one dye lot ends and the next starts.

And finally, the WIP uses another of my favourite yarns - Rowan Belle Organic by Amy Butler.

This is 50% organic cotton, 50% organic wool - BUT, it's been discontinued !! 

I love this yarn. Why did you do this, Rowan ?? Was I the only person in the world who liked and bought it? 

This is made completely of oddments, and I didn't think the lime green would last out to complete the stripes, but it has and I'm very pleased with it.

So, I'm probably still a little behind with my challenge to myself (I want to make 52 items for the charity during the 52 weeks of 2013, but I can always catch up with a few quickly knitted baby hats!

It's been a productive start to September so far.

Have a good weekend, with lots of craftiness!   Julie

In Love With Paper Piecing

 

It's official. I am totally, head over heels in love!!........with paper piecing!
I have been planning my submission for Le Challenge , a new monthly crafting challenge instigated by Nat and Lucy. As well as coming up with an idea for the challenge theme.
I also like to set myself a personal challenge when entering these sorts of things, so I wanted to learn a new technique for this one. I decided to learn to paper piece. I had a very naive impression that it was time consuming, and fiddly. WRONG!! It is quick and precise and I absolutely love it!!!
I'm not going to give anymore away, as I shall be posting in more detail on this next Monday for the challenge, but I have a suspicion that not a lot else other than paper piecing will be happening in this house for the rest of the week.
Now I know that I like it I'm taking the plunge and have pressed the "Buy Now" button on Amazon to get the Farmers Wife quilt book. For those who are not quilters the Farmers Wife quilt is inspired by an arrticle in a magazine in the US.
 The 1922, The Farmer's Wife magazine posed this question to their readers: "If you had a daughter of marriageable age, would you, in light of your own experience, have her marry a farmer?"
The best answers to this question are included in this book, along with the traditional quilt blocks they inspired

 

The quilt can be made to look very different, depending on the fabrics you choose.  This was was made by Lori Holt who blogs at Bee in my Bonnet

I'm thinking of making mine using Liberty prints. I do hope the postie brings it soon, I can't wait to get started.
With all this quilting going on, I haven't forgotten my  Stashbuster project for Greenfields Africa.
I have three new items to show you.
A baby blanket-come-quilt made entirely of scraps. It's not quite a quilt because it has only a front and a back - no wadding, but that is what they need, so the Mum's can tie it around themselves like a sling to carry their little one.

A quick to knit little baby hat.

And finally a little baby cardigan.... I was very lucky with this. I had just enough yarn to finish it, but it was touch and go right until the end. I was sure I was going to have to undo the sleeves and  have a short sleeve version instead.

 

 

I'm linking up to the Let's Get Acqauinted Monday Link Up whih is being hosted by Nat from "Made in Home" this week



Knitted Daffodils

I've been having fun.... playing.... designing a little pattern for daffodils. I started it over a week ago. Spring was, well, not exactly "in the air", but maybe round the corner, and so I felt in the mood to make these. Now we are back in the throws of winter and the real daffodils in my garden, which were just about to burst into bud are now buried beneath drifts of snow.

I have added these to the Etsy and Craftsy shops and hopefully I'll feel inspired to design some more flowers soon.

I've also been busy with my Stahbuster Challenge and have made a couple of hats.

 

 

 

I'm still on target with my 52 items in the 52 weeks of 2013 for Greenfields Africa . I'm sure I will get behind at some point, but I'm nearly a 1/4 of the way there now, so I'm pretty pleased with myself.

On Thursday I went to The Sewing For Pleasure show at the NEC Birmingham. I'm so pleased I chose Thursday - before all the snow came down! It was a lovely day out. So much colourful fabric and scrummy yarn, all under one roof!

I was fairly restrained in my purchases though.

 

 

I bought a dress pattern and some dotty fabric (I hope we get some warm enough weather for me to wear it!) I didn't intend to buy a dress pattern, but they were "Buy 2, Get 1 Free" and as I'd gone with my son's girlfriend, who wants me to teach her to dressmake, we split the pattern deal between us.

I bought both charm squares aand a jelly roll in Sweetwater's Noteworthy line. Although we had made a pact that we "just looked" first time round the hall, and did our buying on the second lap, I'm so glad I broke the rule and bought these first time round. A lot of stallholders were on their second show in two weeks and stock of the really popular pre-cuts was thin on the ground. These would almost certainly have been out of stock by the afternoon. I also bought some of the Clover Soft Touch crochet hooks. Again stock was low and I couldn't get all the sizes I wanted, but these will do me for now. They really are very gentle on your hands. I hat having to go back to a standard hook now.

Overall, it was a good show. I came back with my head spinning with ideas. I was tired, but happy, and now it can snow as much as it wants to. I'm more than happy staying cosy inside, having a battle with my conscience - do I finish the Bee in my Bonnet Row Along quilt that I started late last summer?

 

 Or maybe the charity quilt I've so nearly finished?

Or do I break open that jelly roll and do some more playing!! Decisions.... decision... life is hard!..

 

 

 

Granny Square Blanket

I have so, so enjoyed making this Granny Square blanket as part of my 2013 Stash Buster project for Greenfields Africa It is made entirely of organic cotton, so not only is it going to a good cause, it's good for the environment too.! I often talk about the rhythm of the stitch being just like yoga, and this was so true in this case.
I keep really tiny pieces of cotton yarn - and I mean really tiny!

I'm not totally crackers - being cotton, they are good for little bits of bold embroidery on children's clothes, pencil cases etc where you don't want anything too fine, just some eye catching stitches.

But as this is stash busting time, they were the start of the grannies.

Next came the slighlty bigger oddments, the sort of size that most people hold on to.







and finally the larger balls.

And then of course the large balls become small balls, and the small balls become tiny balls and so the blissful rhythm carries on, and we have have one calm, collected, wonderfully relaxed Julie!

I had great fun experimenting with colours - putting together shades that I wouldn't normally risk putting together, without asking a few people's opinion - red and pink, for instance.....

I played around with the finished squares, seeing which combinations made me happiest (no stressing,... just play!)

The off white that I had for the outer two rows of each granny, wasn't all of the same shade, which is probably a good job as far as Greenfields is concerned, or I would have wanted to keep this blanket for myself.

I struggled to find enough of the same weight cotton for the border, but I'm happy enough with it.

It's one useful, eco friendly blanket that I wouldn't have made if it wasn't for this challenge, and I really want to make another one before the year is up.

 

Onto other things - it was Mother's Day here in the UK, yesterday and we had a lovely family walk in the Lickey Hills

It was cold and snowing slightly, but it was really good to spend some time out of doors.

 

Finally, I want to tell you about a new feature I'm starting here on my blog, this week. I'm calling it Wishful Wednesday and basically it's a round up of what I wish I had time to make in the week, if I had all the time in the world! There will be a bit of knitting, sewing, quilting... anything that I really would like to make. There will be lots of pictures, info on where to get the patterns and what my fabric or colour choices would be. Hopefully a lot of inspiration to get everyone's creativity jump started.

 



 





Stash Buster Baby Socks Knitting Pattern

 

I am really pleased that I found a good use for the 4ply mercerised cotton yarn that needed using up. I pared a bootie pattern down to the very basics to make this a quick to knit baby sock. There is nothing fancy about this - no little cuff, no cute patterning - just a basic sock that, hopefully, will stay on as well as any sock stays on a wriggling, kicking baby!

Once I had the pattern sorted, they took no time at all to knit. I would knit during a coffee break mid morning, one with a cup of tea in the afternnoon and then sew them up in the evening.

They are knit flat. I experimented with finishes. I tried a three needle bind off, kitchener stitch and a regular cast off and seaming.

I went for the regular cast off in the end. It was the quickest to work, and being 4 ply I could get the seam nice and flat. If I was making them for my own grandkids I would probably uses Kitchener stitch (there are plenty of Youtube tutorials out there for this if you've never done it before- it's also called grafting. You can hardly notice the join when it's done, but it does take time and effort)

 

I was really pleased that I mangaed to get 5 little pairs of socks out of the nearly  full ball of 4 ply yarn that I had.

I've written up my pattern for these and you can download the PDF here

 

 

I've also added it to the Knitting Patterns bar at the top of the blog, so you can access it even when this post is well and truly buried under a pile of others.

Happy knitting!



 

Stash Challenge Nos 3, 4 & 5

This crocheted blanket is my third item in my stash buster challenge. It has been a mammoth undertaking. It is made almost entireley from oddments of sock yarn

Now why would I do that, I hear you ask. I seriously asked myself the same question many times during it's creation, especially once at the end of a whole day (yes, a whole day - when I should have been doing a mountain of other things!!) of crocheting squares together and sewing in ends. I got to the end of that day only to find that it still only measured 36" and Greenfields Africa really like thier blankets to be 39". Hence the gold border.

The only reason I made this blanket was because during the stash sort I found about 6 squares already completed from a previous mad moment when I had decided to make something (I have no idea what!) made of sock yarn granny squares.What was I thinking! And so, as someone who hates to throw anything away, I decided it was time those squares grew up and left home as a completed blanket. It is not an experience I shall repeat in a hurry.

I do have a similar few orphan squares that I found , but at least they are double knit yarn so their progression to a completed blanket should be a whole lot quicker!

Lets move onto projects 4 and 5....... These are both baby hats. Both made from some really luxurious 4 ply merino, and both a boring dark colour that needed brightening up with a few stripes.

But that after all is the purpose of my challenge - use what I have, to the best of my ability, so make useful items for Greenfields Africa, so to that end they fit the bill perfectly!

So, it's almost the end of week 5 of 2013 and I have successfully managed to complete 5 stash buster projects (and number 6 only needs sewing up and photographing!) so I'm well on schedule!

 

I must confess to being a little "knitted out" so I think there will be some sewn challenge items appearing in February, especially as I keep thinking about the little children from a photo in my previous post and their worn through jeans!

Stash Challenge No 2

My stash busting challenge that I've set myself is going very well -not especially fast as I'm using up the 4 ply yarn first, so projects are fine, delicate and well, a tad slow to finish! But on the plus side those oddments are no longer sitting unused at the back of a cupboard!

This little cardie was made using half a ball of sock yarn. It should fit a 6 month old, and like all my stash busterr items, is going to Greenfields Africa charity.

For some unknown reason I really enjoy knitting little cardigans. Maybe its because there is a little more to them than baby hats, but they still come together quite quickly or maybe its because I'm a big fan of simple stitches - little sections of garter stitch or rib next to stocking stitch, and this is exactly what you usually see on a fairly plain cardigan.

The Greenfields Africa charity has posted a few photos of people receiving their donated items and they have certainly inspired me to keep on going with my challenge.

 

It is so lovely to see what other people have knit and to see them being received. Some of the families in Africa have such a hard time providing basic neccessities for their children. As well as my stash busting knitting, I'm definitely going to sew some pairs of shorts for little boys such as these and some colourful dresses for some little girls

I'm pleased to say I've already finished my January quota of stash busting knitting and I'll show you more photos in the next few days.