Friday, July 22, 2011

Socks and A New Knitter in the Family

I finished my second pair of socks a few days ago.  Much better the first - they are actually wearable.  Unfortunately, I made them for my daughter, so I have to start again to get my pair!


It seems hard to believe that I can now knit with size 1 needles.


Of course the socks couldn't match - she doesn't have a single plain pair to her name.

The bigger news is that she is now knitting (something she swore she would never do) but the genes caught up with her and since last Saturday she has made great progress on her Tom Baker Doctor Who Scarf.


Hard to believe she has never touch a knitting needle before.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

A Challenging Challenge

Several months ago my fiber art group had a monochromatic challenge for which I chose green and made a piece with 1" squares and applique leaves.  It was quite a challenge as it end up having nearly 900 squares.  Our guild, Cobblestone Quilters, has issued a similar monochromatic challenge and I have begun work on a miniature piece in a color that I don't normally gravitate to - - yellow.

I had yellow fabric pieces left over from a recent quilt I made for a family member and decided I needed to work in a color that is not in my usually palette.  Then I got a little crazy - I decided that if 1 inch squares worked - what about 1/2".  So I started cutting 1 " strips


Of course I soon found out that I did not have enough variety in the color - so back to the paints and the white on white prints.

Then I made nine patches (an improvement on the method I used for my last monochromatic piece)

And then I stitch the nine patches together to make a  13 1/2"  by 10 1/2"piece using lots of pins.  


If you do the math that means 567 individual 1/2" squares. 


I don't learn.

I have started the quilting - using number 8 pearl white cotton that I painted with Setacolor and used in the needle not the bobbin case.  With a large needle and a slow machine pace, it worked great.  With the tone on tone colors the picture I took of the quilting just doesn't show.  I have quilted large circles that will have a trapunto effect when quilting is done, so I just used batting and no backing.  I plan to do a lot of beading in the circles before adding another layer of batting and a backing before finishing the machine quilting.

Luckily the deadline has been extended from August to September, so I might just finish in time.