March Makings

Not an original title, but not sure what to call this post.  This last week has been more about knitting and crochet than sewing.  The little sewing I have done has been to glue and sew more hexies for my Kingfisher quilt now that I have added a border.

 This is the border fabric, bought (and washed) last Friday

I've placed the hexies onto the border to get an idea of how they would look.

I took the hexies to sew together in blocks of four (as you can see above) to a Sewing Saturday to celebrate International Quilting Day.  It was a small gathering but it was celebrated with cake!  This was a lovely decorated cake that one lady brought in which was made by her friend.

On Sunday I finished my jumper!

This is Winter Wine, knitted in Drops Air in Rose.  It was knitted top down, from the neck with raglan increases.  The sleeve stitches were placed on waste yarn while the body was completed, then knitted down afterwards.  I found when doing the ribbing to the sleeves that the smaller circular needle stretched the stitches, so I switched to using a larger circular using the magic loop method which pulled in the stitches.  I am pleased with this, but I have 3 balls of the yarn left!! So the yarn requirements were way out - as Drops Air is a very light yarn there's a lot of meterage than in a heavier weight yarn.

I now have another project on the needles and it is another top down garment, this time a cardigan.  The pattern is one that I bought at Unravel in Farnham, a few weeks back and I bought the yarn (Jarol Heritage Wool Rich DK) in cream from a local wool shop.  This is where I am with this.

There are a LOT of stitches in this and there are still more increases to go until splitting off the stitches for the sleeves!   The pay off will be that there will be no seams to match up but it will take quite a while.

Meanwhile I've done a bit of crochet, having succumbed to buying a magazine yesterday.  Inside Crochet magazine had a supplement of a few cactus patterns from a new book by Emma Varnam.

 I made a start on a String of Pearls and also made the 'soil' to 'plant' the strings into.  Had a go at one.

By yesterday evening there were more strings!!  I got carried away that theres even a red string of bobbles which I attached with double crochet every few stitches on a twiddle muff that I was making for the knit and natter group!

I've been out in the garden today, the weather recently has been really dull and dreary, but there are several signs that Spring is here.  The daffs are passing over now, though they have done well and tulip buds are appearing so they will flower soon.

 This a blue Zebra primrose, but it seems to be losing it's stripes

 The white Stellata Magnolia is starting to blossom

And even David's Gunnera plant (must be all the recent rain) has started sprouting leaves.   Its good to see signs of life in the garden, must get out there when its drier and tidy up.

All About the Finishes

This last week the weather has been a bit up and down so this gave me the opportunity to finish some quilting, knitting and crochet.  I have a thin curtain rod in my room so I can change around wall hangings and give some an airing.  My Dazzling Diamonds quilt is now displayed.

This is alongside a rainbow wallhanging which was in our bedroom but changed for another wallhanging and a small blue bargello quilt which was made for the Quilters' Guild conference back in 2003.

I also finished the blue crosses quilt which I bound last week

That will go to the local Project Linus very soon.

I also finished my toe up socks.  These are my second attempt at toe up socks.  The cast on is easy once I got the hang of it and I also had a go at short row heel turning, which does need some concentration. The only snag with these is that the socks are a bit tight when going over the instep as there are no extra stitches before doing the heel turn, which one would have when making top down socks.  Another thing to watch is the casting off which I did doing a k2p2 rib and adding a yarn over stitch and cast off after each second purl stitch in the rib.  As you can see I didn't match up the yarn repeat, but it now looks as though I have reversed it with the second sock!  Funny how that turned out!

 The first pic was a 'sockfie' as requested by my sister, which I put on Facebook!

I also finished off my Vintage Sweethearts crochet blanket on Saturday evening and shared this photo on Instagram on the (tag)saturdaynightcraftalong which is hosted by a few Instagrammers including Lucy from Charm About You.

 I did change the colour order of the last 4 rows of the border on this as I didn't like the grey suggested in the pattern.  I felt it needed something more defined so I went for the purple colour, which then brought about different colour choices for the rows before it!  The pattern is by Sandra of Cherry Heart which was a crochet a long on Crochet Now magazine.

Both the socks and the blanket will need a wash before using, but I'm pleased to get these two items done.  I'm halfway down the sleeve of the pink jumper so that is in progress, which is just as well as I have bought some yarn for a cardigan!  I'll show that in the next post, but first I've got to do a tension swatch.

I went to West Country Embroiderers on Monday and there was a workshop with quilter Rosemary Yeoman who demonstrated her seasonal wall hangings.  I took my small Janome machine as the Juki I normally use is too heavy.  In spite of the Janome being a simple mechanical machine with not many bells and whistles it is surprising what it can do.  I even attempted to put thick thread in the bobbin case to sew from the back so as the make the bobbin thread feature on the front, which did work for a while!

Here are two of Rosemary's panels (of which we were invited to take photos)

Here are the panels produced that day (mine is the far left, bottom row)

Yesterday was really rainy so what else was I to do but sew.  I got my panel finished!

I was able to add some fancy stitches on my home machine and having added the yellow piping and binding along with the green border it does look spring like as it didn't seem to say it earlier.

Links will be added later to this post.

March Musings

Into March and it seems that the weather has turned a bit colder and wetter, in contrast to the unseasonable warmth at the end of February.

Today we ventured out to the Oceanarium on Bournemouth Seafront, which for this month is offering half price admission for local people.  We saw various sea creatures and animals.

And yesterday while in the kitchen I saw this bird, which I think is a Sparrow Hawk, which sat on the fence for several minutes.  I didn't take much notice to begin with as usually some wood pigeons will perch there but realised it wasn't a pigeon because of it's stillness.  I should think it could be a female looking for food if its nesting nearby.

I managed to do some sewing yesterday afternoon and made this square in a square block for Siblings Together.  I liked how this block went together..

The dark blue that I used was from Janet Clare's Aubade fabric line and I like the selvedge that was cut off from it.

Hope you're having a good weekend.

Furtle Around February

Another month gone in a flash!  Its good to see Spring arriving as things are waking up in the garden - including the weeds.  So a spell of gardening in the unusually warm February sunshine does lift the senses and make me want to get on with everything.

February has been a productive month as I'm finishing of a quilt, just a hanging sleeve and a label to do on the Dazzling Diamonds Quilt

Last week I took the opportunity to get out some block swap blocks from last year and use fabrics that I already had in stash to make a small quilt that will go to Project Linus.  Machine quilting outside the cross shapes and inside the larger squares with some wiggly stitching in the sashing and border.  I took the quilt to Bourne Quilters last night to finish slip stitching the binding.  Now to sew in the ends, so that'll be a quick quilt done.

I also made the February blocks for the Siblings Together quilt bee group I belong too.  I'm usually quick to get started and post off, but I ran late with these and send in the post yesterday!  This is surprising for me as it's such a simple block but I did agonise over the arrangement of the squares - silly really.

With the crochet blanket I have managed to sew all the units together so I now have a blanket.  I have yet to do the border rows around it so this will be done in March.  This is the Vintage Sweethearts blanket which you can read about in my previous posts.

I've also been knitting too, which I usually do in the evenings while watching the tele.  My Winter Wine jumper has now got a sleeve, so its not totally armless!

Since that photo was taken the ribbing cuff has now been done, so my needles are free to pick up the stitches for the other sleeve and I'm pleased that's going well.

And some sock progress too as I'm now got to the point of shaping the heel.  I'm trying toe up socks again which this time is going well.  I've had an issue with trying to find the right point in the yarn at which to start the sock, but as there is a large repeat I decided to go with matching but not matching, if you see what I mean.  I only started the first sock last week so that I have some car knitting for last weekend.

Last weekend I visited Unravel at Farnham Maltings.  I took money with me but of course it doesn't go as far with yarn as it does buying fabric so my purchases were modest.  This was the first time at a yarn show as there aren't many in the South.

 I bought some self striping yarn (the one in the ribbon) some mini balls and the Giddy Aunt Yarns has some sparkle in it and I could not resist buying the Industrial Kingfisher colour of Stranded Dyeworks (which looks even lovelier than on screen).

I bought a cardigan pattern (another top down knit), stitch markers and tin, tension square and rings for Dorset Buttons and a drop spindle.

I took some pictures of other sites around the Maltings. Please excuse the last the photos being at a quirky angle!

So that was my Furtlings in February.  Linking up with Archie the Wonder Dog, have fun seeing what other bloggers have been up to!