December 2022

 Last post of the year! We had a wonderful, if late, Christmas celebration. DH and I were both ill with that dreadful head/chest cold and felt it better to postpone until Dec 30. It was a wise decision. It was great to see the kids and grands and exchange gifts.

I've been using my old, faithful serger. I used it so much it had to go into the shop not only for a tuneup but repair on the upper looper post. I found an addition use for a child's car seat. It is great to transport my serger.

Do you save your empty spools? I don't know why I do, but it is satisfying to look at how many are used up. I can now throw them away.

And another Project Linus blanket is ready to go. We have a bit of snow and it was difficult to get a good picture of it. But here you go.

April 2018

It's been a busy month here at Chez Quilter. There's a new grandbaby! So of course I am making quilts and knitting blankets and sewing onsies! Babies are so fun to make things for.

This whole month has also been spent knitting this donation blanket. It's an Ombre blanket that goes from orange to black and then back to orange. It looks a bit like tiger stripes, doesn't it? It's an odd size: 36" x 70". Maybe it will fit a cot?

Quilting? What is that?

It hasn't been all knitting. I swear it hasn't. It just has been so windy around here that I couldn't take and photos of the latest finishes so the color of these is a bit off at the bottom because I had to shoot indoors.

I have found that I really do not like the super dense quilting. Not only does it take absolutely forever to do, it makes the quilt not-quite cuddly. After all, these are charity quilts and should be snuggly.

This quilt is very densely quilted. But because I chose a thin poly thread and a soft batting it isn't as stiff as it could have been. The working title of this quilt was "Boy, Is It Pink!"

I was brave and went with pink thread.

Leftover Yarn Post #2

I have more hats. I'm starting to feel a bit like the mad hatter. But to ease your mind, currently, I only have yarn for two more hats. That is until I start knitting sweaters and shawls and then the bits and bobs will add up again.

Okay, I just scavenged in the yarn bins and found more acrylic yarn. WHERE does this stuff come from? I have enough of it for (gulp) 10 more hats.

Quilting without a Stitch Regulator

The kitchen is to a point where I can relax just a bit. There are still things to do: put up the blinds, install handles on the cupboards, make dividers for some of the drawers, install the hood/microwave over the stove and change out all the old plug-ins.

This past weekend I ended up in the sewing room and quilted a small pin basted charity quilt. This is just one piece of fabric by Marcus Brothers and a blue fleece on the back.

When I bought my Handi Quilter Sweet Sixteen sit-down quilting machine, I wondered if I needed to purchase a stitch regulator. I realized that I had been quilting without one on my domestic sewing machine all along, so why was I considered getting one now? Look at those beautiful stitches! And without a stitch regulator.

Yup, more charity knitting

Over the last several weeks I have been doing a lot of charity knitting. Knitting up the stash! These are all acrylic yarn.

This is a free pattern on Ravelry called Classic World War II Watch Cap. It has various sizes and stitch patterns. I started out trying to find a size to fit my head. Since I had a LOT of yarn I started with the largest which is like an XL. The stitch pattern is a very wide rib. Believe me when I say that this hat is huge.

The next one I knit was the adult large The stitch pattern is a pennant design with the pennants pointing to the left. There was one with the pennants pointing to the right. I was starting to feel a bit like Goldilocks, this hat was too big also.

The next hat was an adult medium with a zigzag stitch pattern done in columns. Eureka! I now know how many stitches to cast on for a perfect fit for my head! Yes, this one fit.

One more size is the adult small/child large. I like the stitch pattern in this one: a spiral inside columns.

I had just a tad bit of yarn left, so I made some bi-color mittens to use up the light blue. Next up, since I got into it, is using up that other blue.

I had a request from my sister for some more fingerless mitts, so I'm knitting up several pair to send to her. It is so nice when your knitting is really appreciated, isn't it?

What's on your needles?

OTN Oct 24, 2014

I haven't done one of these posts in a while. It's not that I haven't been knitting, I have! But I had to take a small hiatus when I burned the index finger and thumb of both hands doing something stupid. As the skin healed, I found that the pointy ends of knitting needles wasn't fun to deal with. But I am making up for lost time now. In fact there are two different pairs of socks in the works, but I don't have photos of them at the moment. I do, however, have photos of two recent finishes.

The mittens are for me. I did a slip stitch on the thumb and hand to make them a bit thicker and, therefore, warmer.

You'll have to pardon the hat, I haven't had time to block it yet. These items were made from the same yarn. This first hat has a doubled brim. I folded a wide brim in half and then picked up the stitches and knit the rest of the hat.

And here is the third skein worked up into another hat. This hat is knit in a K1P1 rib all the way through.

Then I had this somewhat large ball of leftover yarn, so I knit another hat! Don't you love the way the yarn pooled differently in each hat?

The hats are going to the Wounded Knee School in South Dakota. I belong to the For the Children of Pine Ridge group on Ravelry and have found it is a good outlet for my knitting: even the wool items. If you are interested in more information and aren't a member of Ravelry you can email me and I'll fill you in.

I am linking up to Judy at PatchworkTimes for On The Needles Friday.

OTN and Gauge

There are quite a few hats hanging out at Casa del Quilter and they comprise the off the needle items. Charity hats are the best thing to knit when using up acrylic yarn. They are also a good way to practice techniques or stitch patterns. #9 in the mosaic (lower right corner) would be a very good hat for someone with dreadlocks, don't you think?

1. BUN Hat, 2. Fake Isle Hat, 3. Fair Isle Hat, 4. Cathi's Coaster Cap, 5. Lucky 7 Hat, 6. Breakfast Waffles Hat, 7. Horizontal Caterpillars Hat, 8. Striped Textured Hat, 9. Etta Hat, 10. Broken Ribbing Cap


Now. Onward to the On The Needle item. A new sweater is in the planning stages. This blue yarn was purchased at a local thrift store: all 2300 yards of it. A 5 ply sport yarn in a beautiful color, but there is no ball band or label.

And here is a prime example of why one should do a gauge swatch. Since I had no idea what size needle to use with this yarn and a yet to be determined sweater, I grabbed a US#4 29" circular needle and cast on 45 stitches. I knit several rows of garter stitch and then commenced doing a stockinette stitch with 5 stitches at each side in garter for selvages to keep the swatch from rolling. After about 3" I switched to several more rows of garter and also switched to a size US#5 needle. And then a #6 and then a #7. I now know how many stitches and rows to the inch I will get using THIS unknown yarn and different needles.

Now to figure out what sweater to knit. Anyone have a favorite sweater pattern to recommend?
Visit Judy L for more OTN Friday.

Charity Hat Knitting

Some how, I have acquired several skeins of acrylic yarn. How does that happen? The stuff must sneak into the house in the middle of the night. To use it up, I knit hats for charity. I use my own pattern, a recipe actually. The basic pattern is a tutorial up under the FREEBIE tab at the top of this page. Lately, I have started flipping through my old Mon Tricot stitch dictionary for appropriate hat stitches to use. The one on this hat is called Striped Stockinette: 1 row knit, 1 row purl, 2 row knit. Repeat.

Do you like my bookmark? It's a spring loaded clothes pin. 

More On The Needles can be found at Judy's blog PatchworkTimes.

Not an empty design wall

Not much is happening in the way of quilting. Still.

I am currently on a garment sewing jag and as I sew my mind wanders to other projects. I pulled the Laurel Burch panel from stash and added several other coordinating fabrics from stash. What you see here is the start of a jacket.

The fabrics above the Laurel Burch jacket fabrics are the leftovers from this quilt. I have always wanted to try "The 6 Hour Quilt" from Kaye Wood. Note: this link is to the pdf and will automatically download.

If you want to see other design walls you can visit Patchwork Times.

Quilt #3

I've been hiding in the sewing room for the last several days. I turned off the television and turned on the music in the sewing room which made me uber productive. Wanna see?

This is the Harley Davidson bandana quilt. It started with the brand new, but vintage, bandana in the center. After adding some corners to square it up - plus the applique - I just started adding borders. Six borders! This quilt is approximately 62" square and is backed with more of that butterfly fabric. I can't believe how well the butterfly fabric goes with the floral band of the bandana. It IS square, I just had a problem pinning it to the wall.

Thread: Signature 40wt
Quilting: Free motion roses.

Once that was off and folded up I go started on a flannel quilt. This one is for my sister who requested a warm but lightweight quilt. After mulling it over in my mind, I decided to use up some flannel scraps and make a fairly simple quilt top.

 

The squares finish at 7". Can you believe the assortment of flannel? I couldn't either. I am going to tie this because of previous experiences with flannel. No batting but a Minkee backing. This one is going together quickly.

Anything on your design wall?

Progress on the design wall

I did not have enough pink to put in another small border, so in an effort to "get 'er done" I put on a 3" border of the backing fabric. I thought it was done. Not! It still needs a small-ish black stop border on the outside and then black binding. Don't you think so?

I am so bored with this and want to move on to something else. But I made a commitment to have a quilt ready for an auction in October and even though it is only mid-August, I feel like I'm running out of time. After all, this still needs to be quilted.

Judy L is hosting a link up for more design walls.

Hello Monday, we meet again

Design Wall Monday is here again. I spent most of the past weekend in my sewing studio and it shows!

I spent a lot of time this past week canvasing the big box stores and the quilt shops for some go-with black fabric. I was having a hard time because everything was too black. In a Eureka! moment. I remembered that the bandana is a poly/cotton blend. And so, that is what matched the best. Go figure.

The coping strips were added to the bandana to square it up. Looking a bit closer at that silly thing I see that the words and the floral band aren't centered. But then, it is a bandana and if you fold it diagonally (before the coping strips were added) then both the words and flowers would be visible. It is what it is *shrug*.

I drew up a rose to match the ones in the bandana. I had a hand-dyed pink fabric that I dyed a couple of years ago that worked very well as the rose. I fused the rose, leaves and stems using a light weight fusible that I cut into donut type shapes. I don't really like a lot of fusible because it makes the applique too stiff.

This was a very good opportunity to use up bits and bobs of thread in the bobbins as I satin stitched the rose onto the background. If you use this satin stitch applique technique it is very important to use a stabilizer. I use freezer paper as a stabilizer behind the background fabric because it is easy to apply and somewhat easy to remove when done. I thought the rose was a bit 'flat' looking so I added a bit of shading with a dye pen and it sure made it pop.

It will be a couple of weeks before I can work on this again as I will be working my day job for the next eleven days. It is sculpture show time again, so you know where you can find me.

Do you want to see more design walls? Then you need to visit JudyL's Patchwork Times.

The start of another quilt

It's Monday. Yup, it's been Monday all day, too. Here's what is on my design wall.

This 32" (actually it is 30x31.5". I know, right?) Harley Davidson bandana will be the center medallion of a donation quilt. There is a ladies Harley Davidson ride/run in October to benefit breast cancer that I have pledged this quilt for the auction.This bandana is a new but vintage 1980 HD bandana. What I'm thinking about is putting on some black coping strips to make it 32" square and then black corner triangles. I will repeat the pink long-stemmed rose in applique on each of these triangles. The triangles will make it square and easier to size to work.

I'll need to add a series of borders to bring it up to a usable size for a throw quilt. Should I use some of that purple in a border? Ideas?

For more design walls, visit Judy L at Patchwork Times.

Wordless Wednesday - High Fiber Lunch

Drive The Cold Winter Away

This quilt top is the result of participation in the LQS October Mystery Quilt class. Not too bad, eh? The fabrics are all from stash and feature a lot of snowflakes, hence the name of this post. I plan on donating this quilt somewhere, but haven't decided where yet. Over the weekend, I not only finished the top but pieced a heavyweight flannel that been in the stash for years into the backing and also made the binding. It is ready to sandwich and quilt.

2011 Wool-Aid Knitting

I have been doing things, knitting things. I am de-stashing the yarn by knitting for Wool-Aid. Items are being blocked as I type and will soon be boxed up and shipped out.

Squares

Do you remember these quilts I made in the Baby Pinwheels quilt post in June? I was left with a lot of 2.5" squares of 30s reproductions. What to do, what to do? I loved the look of the white with these fabrics so I combined some solid white and these 2.5" squares and this is the result.

This is another of the donation quilts that I sent to that long arm quilter again with disastrous results. I should have quilted it myself.

Real exciting post title, huh?

Confessions of a Preprinted Panel Junkie

Okay, now, admit it. You've got some of those preprinted panels and blocks stashed away now don't you?

I rooted around in the stash and found more than I can remember purchasing. So I've been on a sewing spree to use these stash items. You've already seen the Seashell one in this post but I am putting a photo in here to show you the quilting. Here are two more (a third awaits layering and quilting).

I tried out a new long arm quilter. To say that I am disappointed is an understatement. Because I have a commission quilt in the offing I wanted to find a way to quilt it without breaking either my bank account or my back. The quilting is pantographs, but the spacing where the quilt was rolled is terrible. The quilter also did not take any consideration of the design of the quilt. And each quilt was quilted in white thread, irregardless of the color of the quilt. Thank goodness these are donation quilts and a child will not question it. Am I being too picky?

Click for bigger. I would have quilted this one across following the the strips of fabric.

Click for bigger. The Cowboys. I borrowed an idea from Elaine Adair for the top and bottom borders.

Click for bigger. Moths not Butterflies. My favorite of the lot, but it is too loosely quilted.

Shame on me; I guess I paid for what I got.

Baby Pinwheels

One of the ladies in the Friday Finishing Club recently closed her quilt shop. Several weeks ago she brought in bins full of FQ and told us we could have whatever we wanted, but that we had to make at least one top for her church's charity mission in Africa. Fine by me. I snagged a lot of the 1930s reproductions and was able, with the addition of some white fabric, to make two identical tops from this pattern.

I gave them  to her last Friday. Now her husband, who has the long arm business, will quilt them up.