WIP: Bargello Quilt

I have to admit that when the lovely Annie mentioned she was going to make a Bargello quilt, I had to google it. I was really amazed by the results and thought "I have to make one of those". I was given a gorgeous Moda jelly roll (Sophie by Chez Moi) for Christmas from the in-laws that I thought would be great for it. Then I discovered that to make the size I was wanting I'd need two jelly rolls, so I decided instead to use half a jelly roll (20 strips 2.5" wide) to make a wallhanging.

It took me a while to decide on the 20 strips to use and the order to put them in but once that was done it was fairly quick to sew all the strips together. Here they are before I joined them into a big loop.

I'm hoping to cut the strips and start sewing them together this week. Then I'll probably have to look for a fabric for borders.

Crafting In Progress

When getting my stuff together for sewing group last night I pondered taking my crocheted cushion cover. All it needs is 3 buttons sewn on and it will be finished, but I decided against it as it really doesn't take long enough so I'd have had to take another project anyway and I'd rather not have too much stuff to take. So I'm going to share the picture of it with you anyway and you'll have to imagine it has buttons on to fasten it.

This is made from Rowan Handknit Cotton. I had to order more of it and luckily I had an Amazon voucher, so I ordered from the Deramores shop on there. It would have been cheaper to order direct from them because of discount vouchers floating around but I'd have had to part with actual cash and I was struggling to know what to spend my voucher on. I was really impressed to find a dispatched email in my inbox just half an hour later and the package arrived less than 24 hours after ordering. So a definite thumbs up from me!

Originally I was going to say how I wasn't very keen on the Rowan Handknit Cotton. I think I don't often use cotton yarns and so they feel odd in my hands when I do I find I tense up quite a lot when using them. Then I started making an Attic24 Happy Flower Decoration with the leftovers, a deep purple I ordered and some random balls of cotton/mostly cotton yarn I had in my yarn box. This is when I realised the Handknit Cotton is far nicer than other cottons. I'm still pondering whether to redo my flower without the pinky cotton as it seemed thinner than the others. I expect I'll end up just making more flowers and keep it anyway!

I still have the ends to weave in, the stalk/leaves to make and the additional bits but I just love the purples in it, which will go really well with the new colour in the living room. It was inspired by this one (check out the last picture)

Fibreholics!

Well I almost haven't got this done in time but luckily (a) the deadline was put back a month to allow for more contributors to get stuff in and (b) I'm up at this time of night. Ok that second one isn't quite so lucky. Anyway, there will be yarn and fibre samples from me. If you want a sneak peek of the fibre here it is:

Head over to their site to find out how to buy one of their fantastic sample packs of indie dyed yarn or fibre.

WIP Weds: Hexagon Blanket & Granny Square Cushion

Ok, so the Hexagon blanket is a little addictive. Perhaps because it's appealing to the mathematician in me to come up with colour combinations. You see, it's not THAT simple. The pattern calls for 39 hexagons, each consisting of 7 rounds. Now the final round of each is going to be in parchment. That leaves me needing to create 39 hexagons of 6 rounds from 4 colours, so if I exhaust colour combinations there's no way of getting an odd number.

On the other hand the pattern does assume you sew them together as a row of 6 then a row of 5, then 6, then 5, and so on ending on a 6. So I have the option of sewing them all in 6's, which would change the outline of the blanket slightly but in a way that I think would work fine.

The other option would be for me to miss some of the grey combinations as I have two shades of grey in it. I'll carry on with the current combinations and see how I feel when I lay them out to get a better idea of the look.

Since it was pancake day yesterday I just had to take a picture of them like a stack of pancakes! I'm up to 26 but all the ends are still to weave in.

As well as the hexagons i just couldn't resist starting a granny square cushion. This yarn was sent to me in a Christmas Swap on Ravelry and I just couldn't decide what to make with it. It's Rowan Handknit Cotton dk and I'd have probably made lots of little things if I'd bought it myself but as it was a gift I wanted to show it off a bit more. Luckily the colours go really well with the new colour in the living room so a cushion seemed perfect. I'm a little worried I might run out of yarn before it gets big enough to cover the cushion pads I had though so I may have an excuse to buy some more.

FO: Heart Swap Revealed

Way back for Christmas 2010, my sister bought me A Passion For Patchwork by Lise Bergene. It's a fab book with plenty of variety and was my favourite present that year. There's quilts, wall hangings, table runners and various bags. It's one of those books where I could pretty much open it at any page and be happy to make whatever is on that page.

My original plan for the heart swap was to whip up some crocheted heart decorations but my recipient is an excellent knitter so I decided to go down the quilting route. I knew there were a few heart themed projects in the book and eventually settled on a wall hanging. The book had sequins sewn on at each point where the quilting lines crossed but I decided not to add any as I wasn't really keen on them.

So here it is!

It was all made from fabrics from my stash. Most were scraps though the blue batik fabric was a particularly large scrap and I used more of it to back it and make a hanging sleeve.

It didn't take long at all to make. It's hard to estimate how long as I did it in between other things like cooking tea. I'm hoping to make another one to go on our living room wall, which says a lot about how much I liked it cos I don't often make the same pattern twice.

WIP: New Blanket

What can I say? I've got the crocheted blanket bug.

There was a lot of yarn leftover from the Granny Ripple as not only did I guess at how many balls I'd need, I also made the total number of balls I ordered the most I could get in the same postage bracket. So, I thought I'd make another blanket from the spare yarn. I didn't want to make another matching ripple though; I like variety. Off I went to trawl patterns on Ravelry and I settled on this one on the Novamade blog. I'd tried playing around with making hexagons earlier today following the normal granny square method but with 6 sections but of course this gave me too many stitches (duh!) and so a wavy mess went in the bin. I really love the way this simple rework of the usual granny square method works out perfectly.

I've done 3 hexagons so far, except the final 7th round as I'm still pondering whether to join as I go or use my preferred slip stitch in the back loops joining method.

I know they don't look it, but they are the same size. It's just my bad photography

FO: Granny Ripple Blanket

Well, I've finished the Granny Ripple blanket after managing to fit in 11 stripes yesterday and 4 this morning. I then had 110 ends to weave in!

So here it is, 55 stripes of Stylecraft Special DK in parchment, grey, lipstick, teal and graphite. I used 2 balls each of grey, lipstick & teal, a single ball of graphite and a little over a ball of parchment.

I slightly altered the start of the pattern as I found that (a) the stitch count seemed wrong and (b) it looked a little messy just working into every 3rd stitch of the foundation chain so I worked a row of US single crochet first. I also haven't put a border on.

This is a bit longer than I would have made it because I wanted it slightly longer than 5 colour repeats so had to do 6 repeats, it could have done with being 5 1/2 really but it'll just be more snuggly.