A Little Scrap Busting

We are having the most gorgeous September imaginable ....so far! So a lot of my time has been spent enjoying the sunshine, taking in the subtle changes to autumn colours and making a mental note to treasure these days. These will be the memories to get me through the dark, dreary days of winter. And of course, I've been harvesting. Every day I think I've picked the bulk of the tomatoes and by the next morning there are plenty more saying "I'm ripe. Pick me!" They are mainly being roasted along with onions, garlic and basil and then pureed down into a sort of passata, before being frozen in varying sized portions. They will be used on pizza bases, in pasta sauces and salsas in the coming months. The cucumbers have finished, but courgettes are still going strong and peppers and squashes are just about ready, so sewing and knitting has been mainly an evening activity, but I do have a few small finishes to share.
First up, some scrap busting for a good cause - 2 zippered pouches for a Leukaemia Research coffee morning later in the year.
The navy one is my favourite, and it used up the tiniest of jelly roll scraps.

The back is different to the front. It was made with the quilt as you go method. I even joined some really small pieces of wadding together with iron on tape to get a piece big enough for this pouch, so it really is a true scrapbuster!
I've also been using up some really "What on earth was I thinking!" fabric. I've been buying organic fabrics since they first hit the quilting market a fair few years ago. But designs were limited then and my thirst for organic fabric was great, so I didn't always make good choices.
Actually apart from being rather bright, (you probably need to pop on your sunglasses before viewing the next two photos!) I'm quite pleasantly surprised at how good these fabrics look once they're sewn up.

This one is made entirely from that impulse organic buy all those years ago, and there's enough of the bright pink solid to make an entire wardrobe full of dresses! This will fit a 4 -5 yr old and is the pattern is New Look 6796. It is destined for Greenfields Africa. I'm quite sure the little girl's Mum won't care how bright it is!

This is another fabric that looks a lot better sewn up than it did folded neatly buried in my stash.

It's not organic. I bought it in a January sale several years ago and it was ridiculously cheap, so I feel good now its made into something useful. The pattern is New Look 6718. I made the large baby size and added a fair bit to the length so I think it should a fit a 2 yr old or  thereabouts and again is destined for Greenfields Africa.

All in all, it's been a good week :-)

Looking Back on 2013

I hope everyone had a good Christmas. It flew by way too fast in this household. Time was spent with family and friends, catching up, laughing, enjoying good food and as we were very fortunate with the weather, we enjoyed some good walks too.

At this time we inevitably think back over the last year and look forward to what the next one might have in store.

Once the family festivities were over I spent a cosy afternoon looking back over my blog to see what I had achieved this year.

I made 6 quilts. I'm counting the Swoon (bottom left) even though technically it's still a working progress. It will get it's backing very, very soon!

I made 2 tops for myself. I want to make a lot more of my own clothes next year.

My niece was delighted with the baby bibs and blanket. The bunting and stocking wreath have adorned the house over the last couple of weeks. The circle of flying geese table mat is in constant use, as is the mariner's compass cushion, and the little bird pin cushion sits in my sewing room, keeping an eye on all  the activity.

My challenge to myself to make 52 items for  Greenfields Africa  in 52 weeks was completed ahead of schedule in early December. Not all of them got photographed and I kept adding last minute items to the box, so I'm not sure of the exact statistics, but there were over 52 items and they included blankets, quilts, cardigans, hats and booties and also some shorts and dresses for the older children. 

Looking at the pictures all displayed neatly together, I'm proud of my achievement, but my memories are a little rose tinted. It was an enormous undertaking, and I would have enjoyed the process a lot more  if I hadn't set the bar so high. I shall of course make more items for this wonderful charity next year, but without any pressure. Next year it doesn't matter whether I manage to make 2 or 20 items, it is going to be enjoying it that counts.

And finally, I designed 7 new knitting patterns last year. To be honest, most of the work was done in 2012, but they were finished early in 2103, so that's what counts, right?

I was pleased to be able to include this collage because, in my head, it seemed ages since I'd finished a new knitting design other than the little Christmas stockings.

These three little girls have grown enormously over the last year, but I know the eldest one (top left) is still wearing her hat.

So that was it for 2013 !

I've been thinking for a while that my blog was veering more towards the quilting than the knitting, but I think it may just be that it's easier to show the progress of a quilt than a knitted item. In output the knitting won !

I shall be back in a few days with some thoughts on what I hope to make in 2014.

Have a Happy New Year, everyone !

I'm on a (knitting) Roll !!

I don't know whether it's the darker evenings making me want to curl up on the sofa with my knitting needles in my hands, or the fact that I've got a few knitting projects in my head that I want to get  started on so I can share them with you all, but I have been steaming ahead with my Greenfields Africa Challenge. I set myself a target of knitting 52 items in a year and I'm pleased to report with that with these 9 hats that I've knit this week, I'm very nearly there !!
I now have a grand total of 7 blankets, 10 cardigans and 30 hats, so only 5 more items to go !!

I shall of course continue to knit for this great charity once I've finished the challenge, but at a slightly slower pace. I do feel I've neglected the knitting pattern designing this year. There's a few in various stages of development and a whole bunch more in my head, so watch this space!!

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

How Do You Eat an Elephant?

How do you eat an elephant? The answer is one mouthful at a time, and this has to be my mantra for the next week, month, or more.
I have returned from a wonderful holiday with my family in Cornwall. We had glorious weather and a great time.

We feasted on fresh locally caught fish at idyllic pubs. We sampled the local saffron bread. (I have acquired a recipe, and can't wait to try and re-create it) and relaxed on the wonderful beaches.
If you're wondering why we made a sand turtle, not a sandcastle, it's a Canadian thing apparently - it was a first for me, and just as much fun as a castle!

We were staying on the Lizard and the beaches and scenery were breathtaking. Top left is Lizard Point, the next two are Kynance Cove and the bottom right is Hendra beach. It never ceases to amaze me that if you are just prepared to walk a little way, you can virtually have a beach to yourselves. We swam and fished and generally relaxed, enjoying precious moments of family togetherness.

The villages were so pretty and I love the aqua, red and white splashes of colour in the harbours. And a boat as a flower tub?? I don't think it would have quite the same effect in the Midlands!

So now I'm back home, and my son and daughter-in-law have gone back to Canada. I have a love-hate relationship with airports. They're exciting, bubbly places if I'm there to meet them off an incoming flight, but places of tears and heartache if I'm saying goodbye, especially when I don't know when I'll see them again. But life has to go on, and at least in this day and age we have Skype  and FaceTime, so I should count my blessings.

Inevitably thoughts now turn to tasks that need to be done and works in progress that need to be progressed and that's where the elephant comes in:
I have soooooo many projects to finish, and even more in my head, jostling for first place on the starting line.
I have my Greenfields knitting projects to do....and I'm way behind with those. By my calculation we are 33 weeks into the year, so I should have 33 completed baby items.......I only have 29 and enthusiasm is waning.

Not the enthusiasm for the knitting, just for the yarn that I'm using. I'm left with drab or odd colours that don't make good baby clothes. The point of the exercise is to use up my stash, so I can't justify buying some really cheerful colours to add to it, well, not yet, anyway. I may have to if the finished items start to look really awful!
I have my Swoon quilt to complete - now I don't need any encouragement to work on this, just time.

I need to do a lot more work on my Farmer's Wife quilt. This is supposed to be a quiet moments project, not a "must get done" type, but it keeps getting pushed to the back of the pile.

I have the Rows Quilt Along from Bee in My Bonnet to finish that I started about this time last year, and haven't done any more to since. Ooops!!

I have at least 4 new knitting patterns at various stages of completion for the Etsy and Craftsy shops, and I need to get these done!! Some are so ridiculously close to being finished, I don't know why I haven't done them ages ago.

I have so many ideas for quilty things in my head that it's fit to burst, but I can't start them until I have completed a few of the WIPs, and finally (saving the best till last here) I have a ton of baby knitting, baby sewing and nursery sewing that I want to do because I recently heard that one of my nieces is expecting a baby in February!!! I shall be a great aunt! Yikes, that makes me feel so old!!! My niece is a great photographer too, so maybe, just maybe I shall have a new little model for some of my patterns as well.
I've told myself I can't start any happy, exciting, super special baby projects until some of the WIPs are completed, so in order to stop myself rushing frantically from one half finished project to another, picking them up, putting them down, and generally being in too much of a tizz to finish anything, I have to adopt the "one bite of the elephant at a time" policy and go steadily and methodically through the backlog,  and see if I can get caught up enough to unleash some of the new project ideas buzzing around in my head.
At least it means I don't have too much time to miss my family!
If you have any techniques to help get you through the unfinished projects in your life, please share them with me.

My Social Side

I seem to be flaunting my social side at the moment!

Over the last few weeks I've joined a quilting bee AND a quilt-a-long.

I was thrilled to be invited to join the The Quilting Bee by Maria over at sew love to sew 

and of course said "Yes"

The Bee is made up of 6 of us

Maria @ sew love to sew

Amy @ Cloud CouCou Crafts

Fran @ PatchyRose 

Sarah @ Quilt Candy 

Glinda @ Glinda Quilts 

Me!

and we are making one strip each. The finished quilt will be 40" wide and we can choose to make five 8"blocks or eight 5" blocks or whatever else will fill that width.

This is my finished strip

It's a disappearing pinwheel block using a couple of Amy Butler Soul Blossoms prints that I had in my stash. 

It is refreshingly liberating to start a quilt that you have no pre-conceived ideas about, as to overall colour or what room it is intended for.

My second social venture is a Swoon Along! 

It is being organised by Sarah @ Fairy Face Designs

I watched Katy's Swoon along take the quilt blogging world by storm last year and regretted that I didn't join in then. This time I'm on the ball! It only started yesterday, so if you fancy playing along, follow the link and join us!

Finally, I have some finishes to share with you.

If you are a regular follower, you will know I am stash busting my knitting yarn oddments this year by making baby items for  Greenfields Africa

I challenged myself way back in January to make 52 items (one for each week of the year) using only oddments from my stash (I'm including fabric stash too). well, we are half way through the year at the end of this week, so I should have 26 items. With the 2 fabric blankets I finished yesterday, along with a couple of knitted items from earlier in the month, I've made it - just!

These bring my year total exactly up to 26 items.

Phew! That bundle is quite big! By the time it gets to December this parcel will need a sizeable box indeed! But my otherwise not very useable stash will be zapped and a few more babies will be wrapped in something other than rags.

Right now, I'm off to choose the fabrics for my Swoon.

Have a good week! 

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



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 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!