It’s June

 And has been for the past week!  We went away on holiday last month and had a week of catching up since then.  I’ll do another post about the holiday next time.  Meanwhile I seem to be working on some ‘odds and sods’, using up bits and pieces.

I sometimes get small bundles of mini skeins from dyers when I’ve been to Yarndale or ordered.  I’ve wound them a while ago and keep them in a zipped pouch.  As a patron member of the Bakery Bears podcast I am following The Summer of Stitching which started this month.  There’s a knitting project and a sewing one to follow next month. There’s knitting project is a mitred square blanket, which comes in useful for the minis in making a mini sample.  It started with the purple square in the bottom right (there is a bulb pin in that square to remind me where I started). I don’t think I could make a big blanket in this method as much prefer to crochet, but a sample for the technique is useful as I’ve never made this before.

I like that the decreases go in different directions for a zigzag look. I have also tried a square in double knitting so maybe there’s a chance of using ‘odds and sods’ of DKyarn to make a blanket out of, who knows?

I’m also doing ‘odds and sods’ of embroidery projects.  At the monthly embroidery group there was a Catch Up Day this month and I finished off a Dorset Feather Stitch sample (on the left) to put in my sample book as well as the project last month called Faces so the face made was put into the sample book too (on the right). This was a project taught by Fay Maxwell.

There is also a needle case underway, which was entitled Moon Gazing Hare, even though there are spring flowers and not a moon in sight!! Still adding stitches but I’d like to get it out of the way. Excuse the hoop lines, it will all be ironed out after it’s finished.

I’ve taken to cutting out lots of squares, having been inspired by a a few pieces of Mr Men and Little Misses fabrics, which we part of one of those Hobbycraft fat quarters bundles from a few years ago. I had used some of the fabrics a couple of years ago in book bags for my youngest grand daughters. My thought is to offset each row so that I don’t have to match up the seams. This will become a Project Linus quilt. Starting to put the squares together it seems that the characters are creating their own mischief!

This year I’m taking part in UKQU Facebook group’s Mini Quilt Swap. I know who I’m swapping with so it’ll be a case of finding out clues before I start making.  There was a post asking about quilts made in previous swaps and these where what I received in 2015 from Mary Norman, who now runs a quilting shop in Bodmin called Patchwork Dreamer.

Another in 2017 from Helen Dickson, who very skilfully made a steam engine emerging from a railway tunnel.  I must have posted a lot of heritage railway photos that year! 

In 2017 I sent a quilt but it was the second attempt as it was the wrong size so I remade it and kept the original.

I’m hoping for some inspiration for this years swap and I know one set of colour choices matches mine so that’s a start.