Furtling in February

 February has been a month of crochet and hexagons and not much else really.  There is a finish. Only the one, some others are nearly theres. 

I finished a lap sized blanket following the Attic24 Sungold Blanket CAL. I had enough yarn to make a second which is a nearly finish.  The pattern (free) is on Lucy’s blog and the Stylecraft yarn is from Wool Warehouse. 

This is blanket no. 1 (the finished one).  I made 67 stripes of the pattern and followed the colour order for the stripes in the blanket and border.  This measures 54.5” long x 34.5” wide, 138 x 88 cm.

I was also working on the same colour sequence but using the spike stitch pattern from the Dahlia blanket pattern. There was a slight deviation in the colour order as I got the purple-pinks mixed up and tried to get back on course.  This stitch is slightly taller than on the Sungold blanket so I worked 60 stripes. By this time some of the yarns are running low so I’m changing the colour order of the border stripes.

Another nearly finish is the pair of socks.  I’m at the toe of the second sock and should be finished in the next day or two. Having been away last weekend the foot was a good bit of car knitting, but I’ve not done anything to that since. The yarn is hand dyed by Kosy Kitchen Fibres.

Edit to this post - just finished the shops this evening - another finish!

A bit more work has been done to the clown and after the second blanket I will get cracking on that. No pics to show as I left some of the clown knitting at my daughter’s house! 

As for sewing, I’ve made more squares for hexie flowers, which I want to join in columns so I have got to match seams. So far I have 20 squares and 5 flowers waiting to be appliquéd onto squares. I keep finding the odd hexagon, so if I find enough there will be more to add to this number. This has been a lovely bit of hand sewing, either with joining the hexies together or putting them onto squares.

So getting there with those.  I’ve also machine sewn some L blocks, also called Simply Scrappy from Love Patchwork and Quilting magazine on Readly. This might make a smallish 36” Linus Quilt I think.

So that’s my Furtling for February.  There may be some finishes next month (I hope so!). At least the second blanket and socks. The clown should be done in time for a birthday. ‘March’-ing onwards! 

Joining Little Archie’s Furtle Around the Blogosphere 

4th Week of February - a Few Quilts Short of a Quilt Show

 Ever looked forward to something and felt underwhelmed when you’ve got there?  I wanted to go to the South West Quilt Show in Newton Abbott so I booked the tickets and David booked an overnight stay at a Premier Inn that we’ve stayed at previously in Paignton for a quick weekend getaway. So the weather may be wet but that’s ok.  We travelled down to south Devon to go to the show at the race course there.

As soon as we walked in there were traders so had a quick look but I don’t usually buy anything until the end of my visit and going to the end of the hall was a display of journal quilts and some gaudy coloured quilts by Alicia Merrett.   We wondered where the other quilts were, then found a sign that took us outside and into another part of the building.  The space was small and sometimes crowded and there was a small selection of quilts.

The ones above are by members of SAQA, Studio Artists Quilt Association of quilt makers from different countries with the theme of The Orient Express. They are lovely interpretations of the theme but they were near the door of this room so you had to pick your moment to take photos.

I loved this large quilt, by Helen Burnham and a few of her quilts were exhibited.

This Platinum Jubilee Quilt (I can’t remember who made this) which was sold, had a lot of fabrics and machine quilting used to great effect.

Below is a quilt of small scenes by Gillian Travis

I liked the use of African fabrics in this quilt. Again, I didn’t make a note of the quilter,  it it used the method of piecing by Papper, Sax, Sten. 

One of several quilts by Carolyn Forster, which have appeared in Today’s Quilter magazine. 

It was disappointing not to see more local quilters and quilt groups involved as I’ve seen before at Exeter, where previous shows have been.  Perhaps it’s a sign of the times that things may not have returned to what they were before Covid. 

Of the traders, which included Doughty’s and Quilted Bear, there were one or two unusual ones. One being Old Maid New, who produces small embroidery kits, printing stamps and blocks. I bought some fabric and wadding too.

We were there for a couple of hours, so could have done the whole thing there and back in a day, but as we booked the overnight stay we made the most of the rest of the day, going to a very windy Teignmouth 

Then on to Paignton for our stay and a fish and chip tea at a nearby restaurant. Then on Sunday it rained so instead of spending much time around the Torbay area we came home, but not before getting breakfast.

Don’t those lampshades look lovely? We had breakfast at Costero Lounge on the very blustery Paignton sea front and it was quite busy, with people escaping the windy wet weather.

So that was our foray to a quilt show that seemed a bit short on the quilts,

Third Week of February - More of the Same

 This week was the monthly meeting of Dorset Creative Embroiderers and I could stay for the whole session as it was half term.  It was a catch up session and I completed the sewing on my butterfly from the previous month. The picture below shows that I’ve cut around it and I’ll use fuse some felt on the back to make into a brooch.

Tuesday was a day of rain and perfect for sewing so made some more L blocks. I’m arranging these in groups of four and will make a 36” quilt as it is.

Below is a different arrangement of the blocks, in steps this time, which I may look at doing for a future project.

That day after looking at Instagram I had a go at making a fish, bit of a dodgy one. It was based on pictures showing the hashtag ‘shoalsewalong’ designed by Matthew Ball of Quilts From the Attic, although I’ve no instructions, just worked from photos I’ve seen.  It a bad start.

I’m also continuing with putting hexagon flowers onto 6.5” squares and have now amassed  20.  I still have a collection of hexagons and I also found the remains of a mini charm pack which will become hexagons too.

I think I might need some more low volume fabric, which is just as well as I’ve bought tickets (for himself 

and me) to a quilt show in Newton Abbot next Saturday.

I’m currently enjoying the few daffodils flowering in the garden.

It’s lovely to see signs of spring - can’t beat that.

Second Week of February - About the Hexagons

 I’ve been busy this week with some hand sewing and crochet. Last year I took part in 100 hexies 100 days on Instagram, between August through to October. Together with hexagons from a previous challenge in 2019 I have amassed a lot of them.  I’ve sewn together in ‘flower’ clusters and I’m getting to the stage where they need to be put on a backing fabric. I’ve chosen 6.5” squares in low volume creams and whites and I had already made a start earlier.

Y

So there are 10 squares in this little lot and last week I’ve cut out more low volume squares and pinned more flowers ready to sew.

As you will see from the photos I’d like to join in columns and offset them so I won’t have to match up seams.  The photos look a little busy as I’ve done the arrangement on top of my Kingfisher quilt.

Yesterday I went to a cardmaking workshop at the local cardmaking supplies shop Craft Bliss.  I’ve previously made cards there before and it’s a really friendly place.  This was to make a couple of Wigwam cards. The blue one will be a sample, but the pink will be used for a birthday later in the year.

While there I was paying for the workshop on this die cutter was on the counter, which I had to buy 😉

I tried them out today

I think I must be obsessed with hexagons! 

I’m progressing the second lap blanket , but I became a little muddled with the dark red/purple colours so trying to get back on track and I’ve got as far a row 38 (of 66). 

I received an ATC this week in the swap, on the theme of the Solar System, from Sally

This was mine - I made 2 of which one was sent and I kept the other.  I used fabric and free machined the sun and planets.  I used a white Posca pen for the meteors.

So that’s what been happening this week.

First Week of February

 

I’ve used the first page of my stitch book of running stitches for my Monthly Marker.  I’m still working on this and also started a second page which will contain chain stitches.

This week saw us go to Portsmouth for a few hours.  This is about an hour away from home and there is an outlet shopping area called Gunwharf Quays, which is on the site of the old naval docks and there are remnants of this on the site.  It’s home to the Spinnaker Tower, which is a quite a landmark for miles around. The photo is a figurehead (but no signs to say which ship is was from) with the Spinnaker Tower. To the bottom left is the Isle of Wight ferry and the bit of grey ship behind that is the aircraft carrier Prince of Wales.

We also saw the strange sight of a barge with a wind turbine blade being carried on it.  It’s amazing how big those things are.

Although we had lunch and done a little bit of shopping, we were disappointed and it may be a while before we go back there again.

I’ve been following the progress on an Amaryllis that my sister bought me for Christmas and there are 4 blooms from one stalk so far.

The bud on the second stalk is fattening up and will be blooming soon.  It has become top heavy and has now got a supporting stick.

On Monday I made a card as the ATC swap group has a crafty catch up. It needed 12” card, but I only had patterned with white reverse, so used the other way round.

So the pattern was on the back

 But I enjoyed making it. I’ll be going to the local card shop to make another. 

And lastly my second crochet blanket is growing well as it is now covering my lap as I’m working on it

That’s what’s been keeping me busy this week.