Mid-ish April

 I started this post last week, so a bit of catching up to do….

April is flying by and Easter is over. I’ve been keeping busy with some starts and finishes and one start I’ve been working on is a mystery gnome.  This is from Sarah Schira of Imagined Landscapes, who has declared this year the Year of Gnomes. I’ve done a few of her gnome mysteries before and this one has been enjoyable (though I can’t show here until the end of the month). I’ve just finished Professor Fungi and it really has been a lot of fun.

I have a finished and gifted jumper, which I’ve written about before, the school jumper pattern with a cable and bobble pattern in Stylecraft Colourburst and my granddaughter is really pleased with it.

Above is the back view with the smidgeons of yarn that I had left when finished. I think I said it was touch and go whether I’d get it out of two balls of yarn! 

I’ve sewn 2 bed runners to give to the housing association along with the first one I made last month.  I backed with fleece which gives a bit of grip and won’t slide off the bedding. So they will go at the end of this week. They are 18” high x 50” wide.  They were from a quilt top I made years ago that was never made into a quilt and I think they look really jazzy on plain bed linen.

I looked out another project to work on and I came across these Dolly Dress Up squares.  I’ve made a quilt previously using these squares. Somehow I never labelled the quilt or photographed it. So I’ve taken a photo today.

I bought these a long time ago at one of the quilt shows, possibly Sandown and I shared the panels with my Mum, who was quilting at the time.  She never made a quilt from these so I got these to make another quilt. There was also some pink and peach fabrics and a few flying geese, so I made those into two blocks to use all bar one of those flying geese. 

It turned out to be an enjoyable way of spending a rainy Good Friday.

Over the Easter weekend I’ve been cutting out hexagons, large ones, and layering up and hand sewing..

The pile above is just a few as I have over 25 of them.  Goodness knows how big the quilt will be.  I’ve got a Daisy and Grace 2.5” hexagon set and just got going with them.  The set is the smaller hexagon for the inside shapes and wadding, with a larger frame template for the backing fabric to fold over and provide a frame for the top fabric.

On Wednesday last week was my youngest son’s 40th birthday and on the Thursday got together for a family celebration. It’s hard to believe that all three of my children are in their 40’s!  Ah well, can’t stop the march of time. He and his wife have been on holiday this week in Majorca, after their short cruise was cancelled at short notice. There’s been some lovely pictures and wishing we were on holiday, but it’s not long now.

I’ve been writing through the month and today is now Saturday 26 April and I think I ought to wrap up this blog post.  I have been working on layering up the Dolly Dress Up blocks with backings, wadding (as I bought some wadding yesterday) and the tops ready to quilt. They will be quilted as individual blocks and joined together.  After the Bourne Quilters meeting yesterday I gained a cushion cover to quilt and put together (I offered to take one home with me) so that is now being quilted and will be completed next week. More hexagons have gone together and the pile has grown bigger - 31 hexies!! 

 

As for knitting and crochet, I have got out my purple jumper, which has been knitted in a top down, all in one pattern.  I tried it on this morning and have got to the length where I can do a patterned border to finish the body of jumper.   It’s good to know that I’m making progress with this. The yarn is from Attic Spin Dye (on Etsy) and the pattern is by JST Designs.

As you can see, although the blog seems quiet I am still keeping busy.