Knit One Quilt Too

Amy & Sue & a couple of knits

It's been another busy week here!  On Monday night Chloe and I went to see Amy Butler (on the left with Valerie Wells) talk about her new book, patterns, paper goods and how she got where she is today.  It was very interesting to hear her story.  Chloe was impressed and really wanted her book, so we got that.  Amy was a delightfully warm person as well.  We were tnrilled to find out that the proceeds from the tickets for her talk were donated to the local Spay and Neuter Project- quite a worthy cause!

On Tuesday and Wednesday I got to attend a workshop with Sue Spargo.  What a treat that was!  Sue is so creative and her quilts are full of things to notice.

The best thing about the class was all the tips about embellishing.  We tried couching and various types of embroidery stitches.  It's amazing the difference between a block that's not embellished and one that is.  This next one is one that Sue is working on now.  I like the bright colors!

I had never worked with cotton and wool together so that was a new experience.  I like the variety you get working this way.

Sue's new Folk Art quilt is a favorite of mine for the animals. 

Sue is also currently working on this amazing quilt inspired by her African childhood.

Even though the class was for the Flower Bed design, I couldn't help sneaking in a horse block!  Here are the class blocks. 

If you ever have the chance to see Sue's work in person, it really is worth it.  These photos don't do them justice. 

I have been knitting a bit.  I managed to finish these socks which are not for me, and so don't fit me for a modelled shot.  This is a mishmash of sock parts from Cat's new sock book.  They are knit top down with the sky architecture.  They are made with Lorna's Laces Sock Yarn and Louet Gems (both doubled) on size 4 addis.

Finally, a hat made with Lorna's Laces Shepherd worsted in the leftover bin.  This is the Live Dangerously, Don't Swatch hat.  I added the purl ridge to give it some definition and it has the Half Linen stitch near the bottom.  It's finished off with i Cord.  This hat is knit top down.  It would probably fit a toddler, but since I don't have one I'm not sure who it would fit. This will probably go in the charity pile.

This weekend we are off to Kahneeta to camp and swim.  It's supposed to be in the 90's tomorrow and the 80's over the weekend.  Should be fun!  I'll check in next week before I leave again.

Mother's Day Surprise

Happy Mother's Day!  We had a delightful day with my parents.  We had a delicious brunch made by Chloe and my dad.  Then we played Pictionary and Trivial Pursuit.  The guys won the first one, the gals won the second!  Up above is the Kiri Shawl, finally blocked and presented to my mom for Mother's Day.  I'm glad to see this one finished because the knitting was done last summer!  Remember that? 

And now, because I know there are a few who are curious, I'm finally ready to reveal my new, short, short haircut.  I've actually had one haircut since my hair started growing out.  It's coming in rather unevenly, so I had to have a cut just to make it less shaggy.  I like having short hair right now, though would like it to be a little less boyish.  I haven't had short hair since I was a baby, so this takes some getting used to!

The bag ladies

Sorry for such sporadic posting.  May is turning out to be a crazy month.  This is what I've been doing this past week, having a great time with friends and making these cute bags.  Several of us bought fabric at the Stitchin' Post when we had our Mom's weekend away.  Then we decided to make the bags together.  This next one is Michelle's, which has been seen many times around town in the past week.

This is one of mine.  I liked it so much, I made two more.  I think these will all go into the gift stash.

I also made this one using some of my very favorite fabrics.  This one is the one I'm carrying around my knitting in right now.

Now, it's back to the quilts.  I've got some major work to do here to get ready for the quilt show and not a whole lot of time to do it in.  I'll be traveling quite a bit in the next few weeks, so posts will continue to be sporadic.  This week I'm scheduled to attend a lecture by Amy Butler (by the way, the first two bag styles shown here are from Amy Butler), and then I'll have a class at the Stitchin' Post.  More on that later!

Hooked on spinning

My spinning class last Saturday was incredibly exciting, intense and frustrating all at the same time.  It's been a long time since I've been so challenged with learning a new skill.  I'm so glad I did it though.  I came home thinking about getting a wheel and have been doing internet research all week.  It's even  keeping me up at night!  The last thing I need is a new hobby, but I've wanted to do this for years. 

I spent the days before the class trying out my hand spindle which I've had for 2 years.  I made one long strand of singles and took it with me.  My teacher showed me how to ply it on the wheel.  That's the green one up there made with Romney roving I got at Black Sheep Gathering two years ago.  After plying the green she showed me how to spin with the orange pencil roving.  It was so easy!  The pencil roving is a breeze to use because there's little to no drafting involved.  See how evenly spun it is.

Lastly I spun the white roving and, man, was that a challenge.  It has the inevitable lumpy/bumpy, thick/thin look of yarn made by beginning spinners everywhere.  By the time my two hours were done I was exhausted and really needed a break.  I spent a bit of time outside the store talking to a mom and her daughters who were there to spin in the sunshine.  The store sells yarn on commission and they were creating the most beautiful yarns.  It seemed the whole family had started spinning only recently and they were already making yarns nice enough to sell.  I hope the learning curve is like that for me too!  The mom had a Lendrum folding wheel and that's the one that I've got my eye on.  I really need to try one before buying so I'm going to do that when we're in Portland in a few weeks.  This year's Black Sheep Gathering is on the horizon in June and I hope to be able to make it there for a day.

I spent Sunday spring cleaning and reorganizing our craft storage and my studio.  It was a 10 hour job plus several more hours this week.  I've managed to open up some space in my studio by giving one of my desks to Ryan.  He loves it!  Now, he's spending hours in there drawing to his heart's content.  Meanwhile, I've got space for, *ahem*, a wheel.  Imagine that!  I'm rearranging my yarn storage and hope to also get to the quilting cabinet to reorganize the fabric.  In the past we've always moved every few years and that's how I kept on top of things. I guess spring cleaning is easier than moving, but it's still exhausting and time consuming.  Til next time...

Shop Hop Quilt Show

It's the Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hop and I had the pleasure of selling raffle tickets for our guild's raffle quilt and keeping an eye on the quilts in our mini quilt show.  There were some new ones that I hadn't seen before and some that I had.

This quilt is made totally free form with a technique of laying the strips over other fabric and top stitching.  It's quite striking and I really love the border fabric.

The Last of the Round Abouts.  Love that title!  These circles were leftover from last year's raffle quilt.  Some are raw edge appliqued, some are needle turned.

This is one of the quilts from the class I took with Jean Wells.  I'm totally impressed that the quilter has hers done, and so beautifully too!  Look at the dense quilting on this one. 

The large quilt underneath is the thank you quilt that we made for our guild president last year.  My block is the appliqued flowers right in the center bottom. 

I love this next quilt and the scrappy nature of the fabrics.  I don't think I'll ever try this technique because I can't stand paper piecing.   

I had two quilts in the show, including the one on the right- Moody Greens.

I managed to get Night at the Improv's borders on and the basting done and have started hand quilting it.

Meanwhile, uh oh!  What's this?  I'm heading out for a wheel spinning class right now.  Watch for more.

 

Oh, and while you're waiting skip on over to Chloe's blog and leave her a comment for her 200th post.  She's giving away something and it may very well be one of the glass and silver charms we've been making in our class this month.  Whatever it is, it's sure to be beautiful!

Hospice Quilt

At our last guild meeting we were able to show off the completed top for the hospice quilt.  This quilt is designed to hang on the wall in a meeting room of the hospice.  Hospice specifically asked for a quilt that would appeal to kids from little ones all the way up.  I love all the different themes you see here.  Above is my truck block I forgot to show before.

Here are a few close ups of some of my favorite blocks.

After it is quilted we'll have a reception at hospice to deliver the quilt and I hope to be there to get a finished photo.

Thanks Gwenny!

This is a quilt I started last year for my quilt guild's blue and yellow challenge.  It really was a challenge for me to work with these colors.  It took me a while to figure out what to do.  I ended up getting the quilt basted just days before my diagnosis last July and after that I lost interest for quite a while.  It's just been waiting for me to get my mojo back and I started hand quilting it a few weeks ago.  I do actually plan to add more applique on those blank yellow spaces and I haven't figured out how I want to quilt the border- any ideas?

The inspiration for this quilt came right from Gwen Marston.  Another of my favorites is her book, Classic Four Block Applique Quilts.  I started with the applique center which is my own design and then added borders as they came to me.  It's kind of funny that this year's guild challenge is to use Wild Geese.  Well, since I've got those I guess I could enter this one for that too!  Most of these fabrics came from my stash, though I did buy a few fat quarters and the blue floral in the borders.

If you click on the top photo you can see the extent of the quilting so far.  I will be adding more quilting in the yellow background of the center, so far I've just outlined quilted the shapes.  I may also add a bit more applique there so I went on to quilting the geese while I was thinking about that.  This quilt is just big enough to be entered in the Sisters Quilt show, so I plan to do that.  I'll also show it at my guild's show this August. 

For the past month I've been in my sewing room exactly twice.  The second time was yesterday and I made some good progress.  I am working on a pieced back for the pink string quilt which I did manage to get the batting for at the guild's community quilt day on Wednesday.  I also have all the blocks done for the blue Bento Box quilt.  I need to put them together and then I can't decide if I'm going to machine quilt it myself or send it out.  I also have plans to work on the red crumb quilt.  Life is just so busy right now!  It's hard to find the time for the sewing room.  We'll see what next week brings.  Have a great weekend!

One more

Okay, here's the latest pair of socks and then I promise I'll show you some quilting.  These are the Tibetan Socks from Cat Bordhi's, New Pathways for Sock Knitters.  These are made with Trekking XXL and carried double throughout.  They are a quick knit on 44 stitches.  I made them for me, but they came out a bit small.  Luckily, they do fit Chloe, so they are now hers.  I still have enough of the Trekking to do something else so I've already started a pair that I hope will fit me!  They are the Sunrise socks, from the same book, though I made a mistake, so now I'm winging it.  I'll show you those soon! 

Meanwhile, I took some photos of the quilt I've been hand quilting and will post them tomorrow.  I'm actually going to write that post right now because this weekend I'll be gone on a Mom's Weekend Out!  This is a first with my group of homeschooling mom friends here in Bend.  It's going to be cold (darn that mountain weather), but should be tons of fun. 

Sock it to me

I've been on a sock kick lately.  These are made with some Opal sock yarn I bought many years ago.  I liked it at the time, but decided later I just don't like these self striping yarns.  Luckily, Chloe liked it and it's blue, an added bonus. 

I made these with Wendy's toe up sock pattern, which, I'm happy to say, I can now do in my sleep.  This was the take along project to Seattle and they were finished soon after coming home.  Scrabble wondered what all the fuss was about!

Now, I'm on a Cat Bordhi sock kick so you'll be seeing some of those soon.  Don't despair though if you are here for quilts.  I have been hand quilting and will show you that soon!

Hello... Is this thing on?

Whoa!  That was a long blog break.  I guess I needed one and didn't even know it.  We've been out and about a lot lately and when I've been home I've been relaxing with a book possibly more often than knitting or quilting.  When I got the flu I was reading because that was all I had the energy for.  I forgot how much I loved to curl up with a good book.  Almost all my spare time in the past few years has been spent furiously sewing or knitting.  I used to be such a reader!  I spent my childhood never far from a book and I still read every day, but now it's the newspaper and blogs.  I think I need to get back to the books though.  I've read some good ones lately and one of my favorite authors, Alexander McCall Smith, is so prolific that I realized I had about 8 of his books for his four series that I needed to catch up on.  So, that's where I've been. 

Well, actually, like I said we've been out and about and it all started on Easter when we started talking about getting out of town.  I was dying to go somewhere and we picked Seattle, so that's where we spent spring break, walking all around downtown and sampling food all over the city.  What a treat!  Even thought it was cold and windy most of the time we still had a ball. 

We did lots of touristy things- Pike Place Market (including the shoe museum!), the Underground Tour, a Supersonics game, the Seattle Library, the Science Fiction museum.  We found the best doughnuts anywhere at Top Pot Doughnuts. 

We took the ferry to Bainbridge Island.  I would have loved to say hello to Kathy, but I knew our time was very limited.  I did manage to get to Churchmouse Yarns and Tea which was definitely worth the trip.  I got a couple of skeins of Malabrigo and a Socks that Rock heavyweight.

Seriously, these are the best doughnuts!  You've got to try them when you get to Seattle!  One of the best parts about the trip was seeing some green and plenty of flowers.  It's still pretty brown here in Bend and we've even had snow lately.  It's crazy weather time here in the high desert.  I have done some hand work lately and I'll show you that next time!