A February Furtle

 After a loooong January, February has disappeared in a flash! Only a couple of posts this month and it’s the end of the month already.  So, what have I been up to to?

There’s not been a great deal of sewing done, which is unusual.  Just a couple of blocks for the ‘Block Mama’ for this month with these cross blocks..

A postcard...

This a swap on UKQU postcard group on the theme of Mardi Gras,

And a badger (yes, that’s right)

For the postcard above, I got out my glittery fabrics from my Unusual Fabrics drawer and did some fabric weaving and reverse appliqué for the black eyes.  I had some sticky gem dots for extra decoration and bound the card with some lace strips.  It was good to make a postcard after a long period of not making any, but I made an error in the measurements, which means it’s slightly too big to go in a cellophane envelope, so it’ll have to go to the recipient in a normal one.

As for the badger,  this is another make from the Autumn Craftpod box and he was really tiny so I took the pattern and scanned it in to make it a bit bigger and expanded by 175%.  There was enough felt to do this and I used all the stuffing that was supplied.   Even so, he is just 4.75” from snout to bum (not counting the tail.  Here he is on top on one of my units.  I think there may a be a problem with scale here.  He is tinier that the knitted blue tit!! And next to the badger is an owl, which I’m sure should be smaller.  And then there’s the giant rabbit and chicken! 

So this month has mainly been knitting.  The cardigan in my last post is coming on nicely. I’ve now made both fronts and and onto the sleeve and ribbing has been done for the second sleeve so that’s good.

I’ve also started a small project last week on the Year of Techniques book and making the wristlets using the helical stripe technique, which has been easier that I thought.  Basically it changes the stripe without having a ‘jog’ so there is no thick bit where the yarns are changed. The wristlets are for an average ladies’ size and my hands are small. Even though I checked my tension the number of stitches turned out a bit baggy for my hand. So for my second wristlet I reduced the number of stitches from 72 to 68 and it’s a better fit, I also made them shorter before the thumb gusset. 

The two yarns used were remnants from previous sock making, the pink/beige is some Stylecraft Head Over Heels Yarn mixed with Strawberry Fields cream with speckles, so two different forms of variegation.  I’ve now frogged the first one to knit up like the second.  

It’s been a lovely time for Spring flowers and although my walks a week or two ago have been chilly ones, the weather the last few days has been a lot brighter and warmer.

Even primroses out in the local woods

Some snowdrops and hellebores

My friend bought me plant display last years and it’s flowering outside out back door

Even a roundabout at the top of our road has a lovely display of daffodils.

Oh yes, I had the jab last week and all went well.  Let’s hope things are looking up.

Keeping Going in February

 

A crochet blanket is just what I need and I’ve been working the last couple of weeks on another Aria blanket but on a smaller scale.  The original, which was a birthday gift in November for my Mum, after it was finished had over 400 grams of yarn left.   Its not enough for another full size blanket but enough for a small lap sized one,  I loved the colours and the granny squares you see above are the middle ones. 

This where I've got to with the what I had left.

I thought I had finished, but it needs to be longer so I will take the red I used for the outer border off and would add granny stitch rows top and bottom with some of the remaining yarns then redo the border.  This is how much yarn I have left.

So I'll use the larger amounts - Sage, Pistachio, Wisteria and Purple.  The balled up red in the top row is the colour used in the border, so I have plenty of that for re crocheting the border afterwards. Other bits and bobs may go into a scrap blanket.  See how it goes.

A finish for this month has been this little embroidery from a Craftpod kit, which I bought back in the Autumn.

This a a 4” hoop and was worked with one strand of embroidery cotton, so it has taken a while, been left a while, and went back to stitching at the end of January. Its effect is lovely although I wouldn’t attempt anything as small again, with needing lots of light to be able to do it.  There is also a badger to make with felt in the kit and I have sized the pattern up a bit more to be able to make this.  The body and the head are sewn together separately and at the point of joining the two together.

I’ve knitted a hat for myself from a pattern I saw in Let’s Knit, issue 167, on the Readly app.

This is mosaic knitting.  Sort of colourwork but instead of working with two yarns at the same time, it’s working one colour for 2 rows, then the other colour for the following 2 rows and alternating with the unworked stitches being slipped (hope that makes sense). Not tried this process before and it does create a dense fabric which will need blocking. It took 4 days to make and finished it on Wednesday.  As it’s got colder there’s been no time for blocking, so I’ve been wearing it and it’s lovely and warm!  I've used double knit yarn from stash, a lilac colour and a multicolour yarn.  This was a selfie I took (my sister called it a 'hatfie').

A new project that I’ve started this week is a ‘coatigan’ for my daughter Sarah.  It's a King Cole pattern in Aran yarn which I purchased and downloaded from Wool Warehouse.  The darker colours have been difficult to get hold of as they were out of stock on the usual online suppliers, but in the end I found a Claret colour in Deramores and the order came really quickly - ordered last Friday and delivered Monday! 

I started on Monday with the left front and I've got to the armhole shaping so far.  I thought it would take ages but it isn't.  That might be a different matter when I come to work on the back!

So this is what is keeping me busy so far in February and its nearly halfway through the month!

A January Furtle

 I survived this month’s lockdown and staying at home with mostly knitting and crochet with a bit of sewing here and there. I caught up with finishing a couple of knitting WIPs which I’m pleased about and made another pair of socks.

Here’s my purple cardigan which was left with the sleeves sewn in and the buttonhole band done.  I cracked on the end of the week before last sewing up the rest of the cardigan and the button band so it was finished last Sunday.  It even has buttons as they were bought before the previous lockdown.

Another finish on my list, just finished yesterday morning is this pink cardigan.  I made this for one of my older granddaughters when she was 5 and she is now getting on for 12 years old!  Fortunately I have 2 younger granddaughters so one of them can fit into it later.  

I think I got fed up with all those flowers as there should have been some on the sleeves but I just did rows  of colour stripes instead.  Only the right front needed to be finished and after the purple cardigan I was on a roll and figured out where I was with the patterning and the snapping of the neckline.  The button band is in moss stitch and starts from the buttonhole side and goes around the neck and down the left front and took a while just knitting on 7 stitches.  Of course there is nowhere open to get buttons, so I dived into my button box to get odd contrasting button instead and they look good.  I have no idea what the yarn is, it’s just acrylic yarn and the pattern was from a Woman’s Weekly knitting magazine.

Oh yes, a pair of socks. I repurposed some Stylecraft Head Over Heels yarn from a pair of toe up socks that didn’t work out and made these. 

They are Easy Cable Socks, a free pattern from Winwick Mum.  Can never have too many socks 🧦.

One the sewing front I was digging through my scrap box and made some strips similar to what I made in 2019 when I had 4 blocks left over from that scrappy quilt.  But I have more blocks left after putting this top together than when I started - argghhhh! So a choice now whether I add to this top or make more to do another - decisions, decisions....

I also made a couple of blocks for this month’s Bee Mama for Sibling Together, but I didn’t take any photos (I thought I had) so I can’t show those here.

I also put the finishing touches to the Sew 4 the Soul book, which I’ve written about here , so pop over and take a look. 

The local West Country Embroiderers group does Zoom meeting once a month with a small project emailed beforehand and a demonstration in the meeting.  This month it was through the trees, using scraps of fabrics onto a stabiliser, like Stitch and Tear and adding free machine to the background and then onto the trees. Here is mine, which I mounted onto black felt, which I think gave it good frame.  I really enjoyed making this little piece.

I’ve sporadically (that’s a big word!) taken part in the 30 day Sketchbook Challenge, this month.  I don’t think it will be a regular habit, but I have enjoyed drawing, colouring and some painting too with the bits and bobs of pencils, pens and paints that I have.  It has been fun but I lost it towards the end, but the prompts have been something to look forward to each day. Here are just a few of my pictures.

Let’s see how February goes. I’m hoping for a bit more stitching, knitting and crochet.  I don’t think there’ll be much out and abouting. I’ve got a new book and will start with some helical knitting.  That’ll be interesting.  

Joining in with Mini Archie’s Furtle Around the Blogosphere.

A January Finish

 Since my post earlier this month about finishes this year. I now have something that I now consider finished.  My Sew 4 the Soul Book, which was started in June last year as a project inspired by Anne Brookes of Hannemade, who is a textile artist and teacher.  This year’s project is 52 tags, but I have decided to sit this one out as I have other things to work on, but I still enjoy her demonstrations on You Tube. The fabrics used in the book were sewn onto wadding pages which used up my scrappy pieces.  I used various pieces of African fabrics, hand dyed and hand painted fabrics all of which were in my stash, as well as button, beads, and ribbons, so no new items were bought for this

Here it is.

This is the cover, which is made from two pieces of African print fabric, some of which also features inside the book. Some sari ribbon on the top and bottom edges and alphabet beads to spell out Sew the soul, with number 4 being embroidered in. 

And the back.

The first 2 pages 

Circles and squares with straight lines.I used a printed fern to do reverse appliqué and added some straight stitches in a grid pattern, a square piece with straight stitch stars.  The next page had square of yellow and blue fabrics and I whip stitched the running stitch surrounding blue square. The circle cut out from the first page was appliquéd along with a Suffolk Puff.

Pages 3 and 4 were crosses and kisses. Page 3 I used a hand printed fabric and added cross stitches to the background and French knots to the flower centres. I coloured the petals with watercolour pencils.  The fourth page has a pocket made from hand printed fabric with ribbon yarn for the cross and lace with crosses in the flower centres. The background fabric also had crosses stitched. I made a linen tag to go in the pocket.

Pages 5 and 6 was strips and Suffolk Puffs. I used strips of silk fabric and some organza and stitched down with various embroidery stitches.  I finished making Facemasks about this time, so I used some of the sheeting fabric that was used and the label from one of the pillowcases as a reminder.  Page 6 had French knots and Suffolk Puffs. In between the pages is a Kumihimo braid to use as a book mark, which I made at a West Country Embroiderers meeting just before the first lockdown.

The next 2 pages are fabric weaving and I used strips of different hand dyed or painted fabrics and added lace, sari ribbon, stitching and buttons to embellish.

Pages 9 and 10 This was a single piece of hand dyed fabric that I had printed quite a while ago and fitted these pages nicely.  Onto this was a cream silk strip that I embroidered onto.  The top right of page 10 had a circle cut out and with wire stitched in place was buttonhole stitched, which leads onto

Pages 11 and 12 and circles (sort of). There’s also a Chinese coin, washers, buttons, another fern print and I found a felt elephant so I put that in too.  The purple circle in the top left of page 11 is the cut out from the previous page. The blue washer on the top right of page 12 could be seen from the cut out circle on page 10. There were also seed stitches and Kantha stitch too.

Pages 13 and 14 were pockets. The background was stitched down with running stitch and has pockets, one was of the same fabric with the addition of ribbon, lace, flower trim sequins; the other with felt and lace.  The is a little book in the fabric pocket - more of that later and a heart, which was a cut out piece of free machine quilting, to which I added more hand stitching.

The last pages 15 and 16 was an ‘index’ of the fabrics used with the additions of ribbon yarn, lace and buttons.  I found a little leaf charm and that got put in too.  But there was something missing I thought and that was a bit of patchwork. I had odd bits of Grunge fabric from making my circular needles holder so that went in.  I stamped the fabric with a flower stamp and gold ink pad.

So that’s the book and now for the little book that was in the pocket of page 13. This is a mini version of the book

Top left is the cover from hand dyed felt (that was used for the pocket on page 14) edged in blanket stitch and used sari ribbon as a with African beads as a tie.  Page 1 (top right) had squares and a strip and edged with lace, page 2 has squares of fabric with buttons and feather stitch. Page 3 (bottom left) has a button with Pistil stitch to look like flower petals and page 4 has couches threads on a sparkly net.  Page 5 (bottom right) has a teeny tiny pocket with a felt tag with alphabet buttons and the last page with lace and the added touch of a dragonfly button.

This project was a joy to make over the latter half of last year.  A chance to dig in to the more unusual fabrics threads and other materials in my stash and just stitch away.  The book is lovely and squishy and very tactile. It’s a good reminder of the strange times of 2020. I can’t resist these photos of the ends of the pages so here they are.

A Blast from the Past

 Though not that long ago in the past -  2015 and 2016 in fact.  I host the weekly Knit and Natter group from my craft room and behind me is a wall hanging that I made in October 2015.  It was made at a workshop at Pauline’s Patchwork in Dorchester, tutored by Kathryn Chambers. My blog post about it is here 

I will get this down from to show a close up of this hanging for the next Knit and Natter chat, however I knew I made a blue version in A4 size, which was part of a Journal quilt challenge back in 2015 during a brief time when I was a member of the Contemporary Quilt subgroup of the Quilters’ Guild.

Now I had a label on this mini quilt, such was my enthusiasm at the time but none of the remaining 11 mini quilts had labels and I spent a bit of time trying to find out when I made each one! 

This is definitely February, featuring the puffed hearts.

These are of indeterminate dates, but one was a sticks and stones pattern with black, white and one colour being purple.  The one on the right is ribbon weaving  using sari silk strips (you can get skeins of silk ribbon along with decorative machine stitches.

Above are a couple of yellow themed quilts. The left is another one that I can’t date, but it is a sew and flip method with some selvedges  and a bit of lace sewn in. I used the bagging out method of finishing.  One the right which I think was made in May used left over pieces from the Dazzling Diamonds quilt that I made that year onto which I inserted and appliquéd circles which again were fabric scraps from the same quilt. This was finished with bringing the excess fabric from the back being brought over to the front.

The next two were made June and July, probably.  Left is an Improv log cabin style with dense stitching and edged just with zigzag.  Right is curved pieced with wavy quilt stitching, couched threads and sequins.

The one on the left is possibly September and is another Improv style Drunkards Path and this had a facing finish on the back.  I’m not sure of the one on the right but it looks like a ‘Chop and Go’ technique finished with zigzag.

The one on the left I did write about and it’s based on Gillian Travis’ book of Interchange Appliqué and M&S selling multicoloured carrots at the time.  On the right is the free form tree technique by Helen Howes.  

That makes the 12 mini journal quilts I made that year and they are a useful size if wanting to try something new.  I tried a variety of techniques, quilting styles and finishes.  But one thing I didn’t do and should have done is making labels!! I sometimes recorded them on the blog, so if you look through the 2016 entries you may see them dotted around, but not all of them.  I did put pictures on the Contemporary Quilters’ Yahoo Group, however the groups facility on Yahoo ended 2 or 3 years ago.

But before I finish this post I have a couple more mini quilts to show.

In the same bag were these two.  On the left is a recent one in 2019 and was based on a design by Jo Avery, which I had a go at myself, which I called Instant Karma. No label as such as the fabric was plain enough to write on.  On the right I made a smaller version to try out the technique that I used for the February quilt above. 

If you like the backs of quilts and seeing the stitches - here’s the back of the piece above

Looking back at the post for the first quilt here is the stitching on the back before being covered up by backing fabric.

It was good to unearth these little treasures and I hope you enjoyed this blog post.