June wrap up

Let's pretend it is still June, or maybe the first of July.  See, the first of June was rapidly followed by the 30th of June.  Weren't there supposed to be some days between?  Really? Four or five, at least.  Well, time flies.

I did get the borders completed on the holiday quilts.  I did get the Christmas star blocks completed for the exchange.  I swatched for two summer weight cardigans, and knit about half of a mystery shawl out of some recycled cashmere silk blend laceweight yarn.

The yarn for the shawl is black, and the shawl calls for beads.  It starts out at the edge with about a thousand stitches, and after you knit the border including the beads for about 175 rows (actually 361 stitches and 28 rows, but it seemed bigger at the time), then you start the decreases for the middle of the shawl.  I am almost through the border rows, and haven't worked on it since the end of June, but it is two of the four clues in the mystery knit-a-long, so I think halfway.  Really though, once you start decreasing each row gets shorter until you have like seven stitches left, which you graft together (huh? have to see what happens if I ever get there).

I really didn't know about this shawl, as I have never done a "mystery" knit before, and in general don't like the idea.  However, I do like the pattern and I love the way the beads look.  Even though I didn't know to start that I would like them, and used just any old beads.  The bead rows took forever*, until about the third bead row, I started to actually see how to do it, and got better and more efficient at it.  There are three bead rows, by the way.

*I just realized what happened to June.  I was knitting that shawl.  I cast it on on the 2nd,  (the 26th actually but it seemed like the 2nd) and time just flew while I worked on it.

I am thinking that I may STOP when I get the first round of decreases done, decreasing from 361 to 209.  Then I'm going to take it off the needles, and see what it looks like stretched out.  I may even block it then.  And leave it that way.  I don't wear shawls, which is a shame because I love to knit them.  I am trying to find a way to use the shawl/lace knitting mojo to make a wearable garment.  I have seen some I like.  What I'm picturing is a wearable blanket-type thing.

I would actually like to knit this again.  With a yarn which will show off the stitch pattern.  And some changes to the stitch pattern to suit my notions of what "should be".  We are all different and I am entitled to like my ideas and make changes in patterns to suit myself.

Actually I find myself drawn to lace patterns in a "what if" kind of way right now.  I have started my own booklet of lace patterns I like, and I am drawing them out, and trying to knit them to see what they might look like.  It is really fun.  The swatches for the cardigans both included sample lace patterns to see what they looked like in the two yarns.

Hopefully July will be a week or two longer than June, and I will be able to report progress on all fronts then.   Thank you for reading.

Block exchange for Christmas

I really really planned to blog weekly.  When you read this blog though, you get what comes.  Plans change.

Last December, I joined a Christmas quilt block exchange.  Make 14 Christmas quilt blocks, trade them with 14 of your friends, and end up with a 14 block quilt.  Sounds simple, doesn't it.  Except that the first three or four blocks I received (they are not really due until September, but most folks apparently are getting them done early), anyway the first three or four were trees, which was MY IDEA.  Oh well.

I discarded a Santa, a candle, and went with my next idea: a star.  See, I have had in mind to do a star, a five-pointed star, using 10 fabrics.  I thought of this about 2008, and got the fabric then.  So for the exchange, I made a couple of test blocks, then I cut the fabric and made the blocks.  Well, amazingly, they came out pretty cute.

My original idea called for 6 Christmas fabrics, one for the middle, and five points.  But after I got done testing, and tweaking, I ended up with five Christmas fabrics in each star.  And another set of stars with the star in the background fabric, and the Christmas fabrics around the edges.  Each set of six fabrics plus background made 12 blocks.  Since I needed 14, I simply made two sets, and got 24 stars.  So after I give 14 away, I will have 10 left, plus my two test blocks, enough to make myself a star quilt top also.  Bonus!

If I ever find my camera again, I will post pictures.  Hope you can find things more easily than I can at this point.

Borders and more

I had in mind for last week to put borders on four quilt tops which needed them to be finished.  Three of them are Christmas quilts which I made (mostly) in Denver last November, and the last is a Halloween themed one I made accidently.*

*Accidently made projects are those which are started because I want to try out a new technique or idea, and the result looks nice enough to make a completed project.  This one started as a test of some instructions I read on making pieced curves.  The results were nice and the remainder of the quilt just fell into place.  Except for the last sets of borders, which have eluded me until now.  It has been hanging in its incomplete form on the guest room door for months, and now needs to be FINISHED.

Two of the Christmas quilt tops now have borders and are ready for quilting (see next steps).  The third Christmas quilt turned out to need sashing as well as borders, and called for a more complicated sashing than I usually do.  So it was fiddly, and took measuring, and ripping and more measuring and ripping.  It takes about six seconds to sew up a seam, and half an hour to rip it out.  More if you have four of them, which I did. 

The Halloween quilt got inner borders with no problem, but I didn't think I had enough fabric for the outer borders.  However, I took it to my weekly Monday Library Quilters gathering, and the lovely ladies there all agreed that the dark fabric, which I have just barely enough of, would look fine.  So I'm off and running on that again.

This week, I plan to finish, really, the remaining two quilt tops in this set.

I also made a list of 25 things to do this summer.  Seven of them are cleaning/fixing around the house.  Three of them are miscellaneous stuff (organize picture, organize trip souvenirs, and write this blog).  The remainder are craft projects which I would like to accomplish in the near future.  I won't list them all here.

I don't know if making this list will help or hinder my efforts, but I do feel more organized, so perhaps this will be a way to keep on keeping on.  In one way, it feels so overwhelming, but in another, it feels like the list is a way to control my spiralling thoughts.  Also, it gives me something to focus on and I can celebrate my progress by checking off the list, and reporting here. 

I hope you are keeping on keeping on with whatever pleases you.  Thanks for reading.

Wrap up but NOT the end

It has been almost one year to the day that I started this blog, so I thought I would write a summary of what I have done, and learned.

I completed 43 projects, and my goal was 52.  Another 3 are nearing completion.  Although I have only numbered to 46, I did count some sets of things as one project.  If I made the 3 fabric pumpkins into three projects, and the bowl of fruit into two projects (watermelon and grapes), I would then have 49.  So partially, how I count the projects impacts whether or not I can say I have meet my goal.  The stitch markers for example, I counted in sets, but I actually made about 7 stitch markers, in two sets.  So that might add another 5 projects.

On the other hand, I really had only meant to count the fabric stuff, which means I would only have 8 completed quilt projects, 4 quilt tops, 3 unfinished small quilts, 18 fabric postcards, and 3 fabric pumpkins, for a total of 36 projects, of which only 29 were completely finished.

Here are some things I learned, or maybe just affirmed about myself and my working style.

1.  I am not good with goals.  I do stuff, but it seems to happen more easily when I just let it, and don't make a goal.  If I meet or exceed the goal, I feel that I probably didn't set the bar high enough, and if I make it challenging - like this one - I often fail.  It is human nature then, to stress about how I "planned" to make 52 things, and "only" made 46.  I would rather be glad that I did 46, and enjoy some of the yarn I made, or the games I played with the grandkids, and not worry that I didn't make some goal.

2.  I work better with groups of stuff.  I noticed with the postcards that it was nearly impossible to make just one.  I couldn't get started, I didn't have any ideas, I got stuck at the starting line.  But when I made a group, twelve, or even just six, I was able to cut out forms, iron on backing, and deal out fabric until I had some ideas going.  This start got me "into" the postcards, and I made twelve with a Halloween theme.

Later, when I wanted to make a spring postcard for a postcard swap, again, one was almost impossible to make.  But when I got together fabric and trimming for several, I was able to make and mail five postcards, and I kept one for my wall.

At Christmas, I decided to use up some of my Christmas fabric, and again I found that making three Christmas-themed quilt tops was just as easy, if not easier, than making just one.  I had had the idea for one of them for several years, had the fabric, and even started cutting.  However, when I got the fabric out to make several, then the scissors and needles flew, and I have three nearly completed quilt tops (just need borders on them and they are ready to quilt).

It is not my style to work on one thing at a time.  I get stuck, lack ideas, and get bogged down.  Several projects together seem to provide the variety I need to keep my interest up.  I can continue to work even when one project needs a trip to the store or an elusive idea to keep going on it, since another project can be worked on.  Working on one project sometimes even helps generate ideas or overcome problems on another separate project.

3.  I don't want to stop working on projects.  I have decided to continue at least until I have 52 projects completed, and I mean COMPLETE, with labels and ready to hang, or wear, or whatever.

Meanwhile, I finished the Morongo Canyon in Winter landscape.  The quilting really made a difference in that one, taking it from (IMHO) blah to bright.  I enjoyed the planning on that one.  I put together several pictures, as I wanted to show the tree higher above the canyon sides than my pictures showed.  I couldn't get near enough the tree to get the angle I wanted, but I knew that I could make a realistic view of the canyon anyway.

I also started, and finished, the Seasons challenge for the Library Quilters group.  The theme was seasons, and the size had to be no larger than about 100 inches perimeter, as they are to hang above the stacks in the Gig Harbor library.   As soon as I heard the theme, I pictured a quilt with the colors of the four seasons in each corner.  Winter's gray-blues, off-whites, and silver would form the lower right corner.  Springs pastels in the upper right, summer shades of bright red, blue, yellow, and green would occupy the top left, and falls reds, golds, oranges, and greens would finish it in the lower right.  Centered on the quadrants, perhaps, would be a tree, with leaves (and bare branches) showing appropriately for all four seasons.  My vision came to life in fabric, although I might have made the tree too large.  I'm really tempted to make another one, just to test this theory.

4.  Originally, I had thought I would use pieced curves for each quadrant, however, as I went along, I decided to make spring and summer out of straight lines.  I did get it done, just in time to be hung in the library next Monday.  Sometime deadlines do help in completing a project or achieving a goal.  I thought of this quilt, nearly completely planned, last fall, but only started it as the deadline approached, and finished it just in the nick of time.

 This post isn't even in good order.  The numbered paragraphs are interrupted by the two paragraphs about my finished objects.  I'm leaving it this way, in the hope that either you won't read this far, or if you do, you won't care.  It is, after all, my blog  It represents the way I think, it represents me.

Thank you for reading.  Leave a comment if you want.  I'd love to hear from you.

Update: No I haven't disappeared off the face of the earth

It has been two months since I posted.  We returned from one trip (California) and went on another to New Zealand.  My excuse it that I just spent the whole time between trips getting over the first one and preparing for the next.

But then, I got to looking at my picture library, and I realized that I do have SOME works to report, two finished and three more "in process".  I know I took pictures of these projects, but I'll be darned if I can find them on  my computer.  ERG.  I guess that is the major drawback of digital photography, so many images that one or two small ones are hard to find.  I'll keep looking, or just take more to post here.

The Dream Harbor quilt and the Deer Lake quilt are both the kind of project I envisioned when I started this blog.  Small pictures made with pieced and ironed on fabric, embellished to show some detail.  I love them both.  Dream Harbor was a picture I saw in my mind as I was waking up one morning.  Deer Lake is from a photograph I took when Nick and I stayed at Deer Lake one spring.  Both of these are finished, bordered, quilted and ready to hang.  And now I am wondering, did I complete these prior to the beginning of this year, and that is why they are not listed.  The photos are labeled October 2011, so I am including them.

Deer Lake quilted wallhanging

Dream Harbor Wallhanging

Then in California I started several projects.  From Lytle Creek, I took many pictures and came up with this.

 Since I took this picture, I have added striping on the road (white fog lines, and center double yellow line), but it is still not completed.  It is fun though, and even in this incomplete stage, it makes me happy to look at.  I started a similar wallhanging showing Morongo Canyon, with a walking trail and large tree in the center.

I also started a wallhanging based on a picture my grandson sent me of a bonfire on their property.  This one really excites me, and I do hope to have that finished soon.

Another project is a color study, which seems to be part of a series I have been doing using pieced curves.  I saw a wall painted several shades of orange with black silhouettes on it.  I wasn't struck by the picture, but I did like the color scheme.  So I went to a local CA fabric shop and got three oraange fat quarters, dark orande, medium orange, and beigy orange.  In the original the last was beige with just a hint of yellow.  Then I combined these with pieced curves, and came up with something I really like.

I wish I could show it to you.  I saw the picture earlier, but have looked and looked and it has dropped off the face of the earth, or at lease, out of the Pictures file.  It's probably only a temporary condition, and it will reappear when it is good and ready.  Meanwhile, I am going to actually DO some sewing, not just blog about it.  I'll have to post pictures later.

Hope that is okay with you, and I hope you are doing things you really like to do, and not just reading blogs (unless that is a favorite activity of yours).

Still working on them

I am still working on small projects.  Can't even remember whether or not I have put the last bits on the list.  I just almost completed a small (14 by 16 inch) quilt top of Ramona Canyon.  Main fabrics all sewn together.  Ready to square up and add some applique or embroidery details.  Have another two ideas in the hopper, but haven't got to them yet.

Pictures

Flat dolls

Cake and donuts

Donuts

Mugs