Wednesday 26 February 2014

WIP Weds: Jan 12" square and 6" square

I've finally got round to starting the 2014 BAMCAL (that's block a month crochet along, in case you're having difficulty working it out!).

January's main 12" block is the Free SmoothFox's Lemony Lime Citrus Square.

Now I have to admit mine is definitely not citrus colours as I have chosen vintage style colours so the finished block doesn't quite match the name but I really love it. This was a nice block to make, not difficult but interesting throughout.

See those fleece squares in the bottom of the picture? They are a rag quilt gone wrong. It is too bulky to go through my machine so they're currently covering my living room floor until I decide what I'm doing with them.

Each month there is also a 6" square. Originally I wasn't going to make these but I decided I might make some of them and make a cushion to match the blanket. This month it was Mary Ellen's Easy Daisy Granny Square.

The petals were different to any other petals I've made and it was interesting to see how they were formed as it wasn't what I was expecting. Again, it's a fairly simple block. The outer rounds follow a basic granny square pattern - I adjusted this slightly to add chains between the clusters as I find this works best for me and helped the block lie nice and flat.


This block also gave me the chance to try out the honey colour next to the blue I wasn't keen on and I think it works well so I'll stick with these colours.

Wednesday 12 February 2014

WIP Weds: Rag Quilt & Half Square Triangles

I had a large selection of fleece that I wanted to use up and decided that I'd make a rag quilt with it. This involved cutting LOTS of squares, in fact I spent most of yesterday doing it. This morning I layered them up ready for quilting a cross over them. They then get sewn together with the seam allowances to the front and then you snip into the seam allowance to give it a raggy look.

There are 90 'sandwiches' above to give a 9 x 10 layout. I decided to use some wadding between the layers to make it a bit thicker and warmer, so I had to cut 180 fleece squares and 90 wadding squares.

I also have another quilt in progress made from half square triangle blocks. There are 80 blocks and they all need trimmed but I couldn't face any more cutting!


So I spent the afternoon using up some bananas by baking a banana bread and some muffins (and a cake with the leftover mixture)

For a bit of fun after school, I got Orla to help decorate the muffins while her sister was at a club.

Oooh and my yarn arrived today but I'll show that in another post.

Tuesday 11 February 2014

New Project Prep

I'm a little late to the party but I've decided to join in with a Block A Month Crochet Along 2014 over on Ravelry. Each month there are two 12" blocks and a 6" block to make (to create a sampler blanket), though I expect I might stick to just the 12" blocks. Obviously the finished size depends on the yarn & hook used. I might make some blocks from the previous years too as I'm hoping to make a double bed sized blanket.

I really wanted to plan this a little more than I usually do. I've been using the Attic24 Stylecraft pack for most of my projects and I wanted to go for a really different colour palette this time for a bit of a change.

Enter Design Seeds! This is a fantastic site for colour inspiration.

Images are generally broken down into 6 colours, which is a really good number for a sampler crochet blanket. I could have spent hours just browsing the pictures on Design Seeds but I knew I wanted a slighty vintage feel to the colours.

This is the one I finally decided on:

In part this is because I managed to find one yarn that I could produce this palette from.

Lion Brand comes from the US and Vanna's Choice seems to have a good reputation. It's now stocked at Deramores and there are over 40 shades available.

I've ordered (to attempt to match the palette above):
White
Beige
Honey
Colonial Blue
Dusty Blue
Silver Blue

I'm hoping that looks close enough when it arrives. 

Thursday 6 February 2014

Are You An Organised Crafter?

I think I'd *like* to be organised but never quite get there! I often feel a few steps behind on the organising. Since I go to a quilting class (monthly) and a general sewing class (weekly) and my resolution is to do more general sewing at the weekly class I've realised I need to sort out two sets of equipment. I know I don't need as much stuff when I go to quilting and I need things like different pins, different threads, etc.

I had a sort through most of my craft stuff just after Christmas, using my new tins. By far, the sewing stuff is the hardest to sort. My crochet stuff takes up 2 jars, a trinket box plus tubs of yarn. My felting stuff takes up a small tub (mostly of equipment for classes) and two larger tubs of fibre. But there is sooooooo much sewing stuff. I have massive Ikea tubs for some fabric, a storage bench with 3 tubs in for more fabric storage, smaller tubs for FQs and charm pack type of bits, little metal buckets full of thread, jars of buttons and beads.

So, I couldn't resist a new tin (planning on using this for a little sewing kit - maybe my hand sewing bits as I'm using those more often to sew badges on Erin's Beavers/Rainbows uniforms) and a little tin for some pins (I have some in a box that keeps opening and they spill out in my sewing box so I'm forever picking them up). They came from the sale at Laura Lee Designs.


How perfect is that tin design for someone who sews? And the button tin is so cute! There were two postcards included in the parcel too and I'll probably let the kids write and post them.

Speaking of the parcel, I couldn't resist sharing this picture of the packaging as it made me smile thinking of my (slightly grumpy) postman seeing this: