Socktoberfest Cometh

Socktoberfest is on it's way. What is Socktoberfest? It is a month-long festival starting October 1 for sock knitters to celebrate sock knitting. It's been about 3 years since I joined in on the festivities but since my current knitting of choice is socks, here I am. I just finished up one sock and the other needs to be cast on. Nothing new there. What is new, is that I am going to take the opportunity of Soctoberfest to learn something new sock knitting-wise.

Did you know there is a Flickr group and a Ravelry Socktoberfest Board . There was even a Sock Summit held recently in Portland, Oregon that was 3 days of socks and sock related items. (propane and propane accessories, as Hank Hill would say). *snort, giggle, smile* I digress, but then I get so easily sidetracked. Anyway. Socks. Yes, that is where I was.

Hi, I'm Paula and I knit socks.

Another Quilt-A-Fair 09 photo

"Grandma's Country Album" by Grace Compestine

I thought I would give equal time to an applique quilt. Yes, this quilt was machine pieced, machine appliqued and machine quilted. Normally, a purple quilt is not interesting to me, but this one is so beautifully executed it was a standout. Enjoy!

Quilt-A-Fair 2009

Relativity by Denise Knapp

Yesterday and today was the annual Colorado Quilting Council's Quilt-A-Fair. My friend, MagicLady, who travels a lot for her job, flew in last night just to go to the show with me -- she flies out again tomorrow. We had a great time! I love to go to shows just to see the quilts. And having the vendors under one roof is an added plus.

The quilts are all hung from the rafters, so taking photos is a bit of a challenge. This year the show was curated from the Steamboat Springs Quilt Guild. It was interesting that of the 56 quilts shown only one was handwork. It was hand embroidered and  hand quilted. I can remember back when there was such an uproar at shows like this when someone entered a quilt that was quilted by a long arm, because hand quilting was the norm. Quilting sure has come a long way. And isn't the quilt pictured a beautiful example of value shading?

Goings On Around La Casa del Quilter

There has been a lot of quilting and knitting related activities around La Casa del Quilter lately. Hmmm... let's see...
• the center quadrants of the Firewood Quilt have been removed from the design wall, pin basted AND  machine quilted in a medium sized meander. Upon laundering, this meander will result in a softer quilt.
• remember the post on the Iris Quilt way back in April? Last Saturday, Quilty Friend and I were in my sewing room and since the Firewood Quilt was no longer on the design wall the whole cloth portion of the Iris Quilt went up. The leaves and stems of the center medallion were pinned on and then the whole thing was removed from the design wall and draped over the basting table. Note to self: buy more 3/4" applique pins.
• did you notice my new signature for posts? I have been having Photoshop fun!
• on the knitting front two (2!) pair of socks have been completed along with one scarf with a second scarf was recently cast on the needles. Here is a funny for you: every other Friday I attend a small group that mainly embroiders or appliques. For the past several meetings, I have been teaching one of the ladies to knit socks. She had to leave early on Friday, but after she left, the leader of the group asked me to teach her to knit socks. It seems I have started to turn this mainly quilting group into a knitting group. O! and I also was able to move 4 skeins of a Merino wool out of the stash via Ravelry. I ♥ Ravelry.
• the leaves are changing in the high country and TheKid said that he drove through a snow storm (with thunder and lightning too) on Cottonwood Pass. Over the Continental Divide. Above treeline. In the dark. I raised a crazy boy; it's a wonder I don't have more gray hair.
• I have also committed to Finn's New Year's Eve challenge over at Pieces from my scrapbag. There seems to be about 3 QOV tops that need quilting and then binding.

The Iris Garden quilt

You have heard mention of this quilt several times here. This is the progress report. Remember how it was initially going to be done using Sharon Schamber's gluing method? This would have worked except for one itty-bitty thing. Look at the photo. Do you see that blue ink on the applique pieces? Putting a hot iron to that is probably not a wise idea because it could very well set the ink. A reversion to handbasted prepared applique pieces insued using water soluble thread. The beauty of this is that nothing has to be removed -- either the applique stablizer or the thread. Check out this Superior Threads post on water soluble thread

O, and see that thimble? It was one of two thimbles that fit from the lot of thimbles won on eBay. On the outside it is either steel or iron because it sticks to a magnet and on the inside it is brass. It is like two thimbles, one inside the other, that have been crimped at the bottom. It was quite rusty, but the shop foreman at work cleaned it up for me and it has seen daily use. Love it!

The Firewood Quilt

This will be the last quilt made as a barter/trade. Unfortunately, it seems the terms of the barter changed without my knowledge. The barter was to include delivery of the firewood. Now, it seems, that delivery is no longer included and since CarGuy can't help because of a bad back, I had to hire some help. I feel like I should just finish the top and hand it to him with a "Here, you need to quilt it." As much as I would love to get this quilt out of my house by either doing the above or sending it to a long arm quilter where the price is way too prohibitive, I won't. I am going to stick to the terms of the agreement.

The quilt, which is approximately 106"x106", will be quilted on my domestic sewing machine. The center portion will be quilted in four sections, then put together, and then the borders will be added. By adding the borders after the central portion is quilted, the borders are the only thing under the sewing machine during the final quilting.

And so, armed with Marti Michell's book Machine Quilting in Sections, I am ready to begin. The quilt is segmented and the backing is cut for each segment. There was just enough batting. I cut out borders first so I could get the length of grain and then was able to get whole pieces for 3 of the 4 segments. Piecing the batting for the fourth segment left just a handful of batting scraps, enough for a couple of thread catchers.

I'll keep you updated.

A Great Big Thank You to Cat Bordhi

I want to publicly thank Cat Bordhi for helping me change the way I knit socks. This woman is a genius! I first ran across references to her sock knitting on Ravelry. Then I found her website and then I found her Youtube videos. I bought her book New Pathways for Sock Knitters Book One.

Let me back up a bit. I basically taught myself to knit socks by reading sock patterns. I used double pointed needles because that is what the pattern told me to do. I also learned to knit 2 socks at the same time on one really long circular needle and then learned how to knit 2 socks at the same time on 2 circular needles. All three of these techniques structure the sock the same way at the heel gusset. On one side, the gusset always had a string of eyelets after the first knit stitch. Trying different things to eliminate the eyelets has resulted in frustration. I was resigned to possibly adding the eyelets to the other side of the gusset as well. One good thing is that non-knitters don't even notice them, but I know they are there.

Back to Cat. I bought another of her books: Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles and my sock knitting life changed! Unlike knitting 2 at a time on two circulars, this is one sock on two circulars and the gussets are worked in profile! Those pesky decreases are nestled in the center of a batch of stitches! It turns out that my problem was caused by the combination of two things: the decreases landing at the end of a needle and that my knitting tends to be a bit looser at the end of a needle. With the decreases surrounded by more stitches the tension is kept even and the eyelets are history. Yay!

Thank you Cat Bordhi.

Quilting Makes the Quilt

Imagine, if you will, five exact copies of the same quilt. Now, quilt each copy differently. This is what Lee Celland, an Australian machine quilter did for her book, Quilting Makes the Quilt. She made 5 copies of 12 different quilts (that is 60 quilts in case you are counting) and then quilted each one differently. It is fascinating to see the same quilt, quilted 5 different ways. You can see how a quilt looks with an all-over pattern, or a curvilinear pattern or straight line quilting.

Not only are there color photographs of all these quilts, but there are priceless instructions on how to make a design fit an area, whether is is a grid pattern, curves or an all over design. This alone is worth the price of the book.

But wait, there's more! She has included patterns for making the 12 quilts plus a pull out section of some of the original quilting designs. What a gem of a book.

In the 1970s during the resurgence of quilt making, quilting vaguely resembled the photo on the left: scattered quilted motifs on a high loft bat that resulted in a poofy look in un-quilted areas. After seeing a couple of Lee's quilts with some areas like that, I wanted to grab the quilt and add more stitches. But Lee anticipated this and shows the different look on several quilts.

Quilting density is all a matter of likes and dislikes. I like an equal amount of quilting overall, it doesn't have to be dense just equal. After showing this photo to CarGuy and asking which one he liked, he said he liked the puffy areas. Go figure.