October finishes

Several projects got out of the way this month so a lot of feelings of accomplishments floating here around.

1) OMG October

My main OMG for this month was to finish a baby quilt for a baby born this month. And the quilt is given to the grandmother so on its way to the baby this weekend.

The new mum loves pink!!! The baby being a girl the quilt just had to be pink, and not any pink .... pastel pink (if that expression even exists in English).

Enough pink fabric in my stash left over from my very pink scull quilt .... just these were very very bright pinks. A trip to a small shop (one of my favourite yarn shops who also happens to sell some baby fabric) and some more fabric buying over summer in the Netherlands and the basics for the quilt were there.

I used the pattern disappearing four patch block from the designer/quilter Material Girl Quilts. I watched her tutorial and started cutting and sewing and more cutting. Once all blocks were done i was not sure on how to best place each block. I tried a few options and ended up making a black and white picture to see how the balance was. After a few try-outs I was happy and started the assembly of the blocks in to a top.

 For the quilting I was not sure what to do and in the end decided to use curvy lines to create soft lines.

Some details: the new mum loves dogs and when I saw the dog-paws fabric I just knew I had to use that also for the binding. And the flamingos are just too cute.

Linking up with Patty's OMG at Elm Street Quilts.

2) Socks

I bought this yarn a few years ago for the colours, I had bought two colour schemes, one more purple and this one with more turquoise. And I don't think I will ever buy this sock yarn again. I don't like the way it knits up. I do love the colours, very warm and rich. I started knitting these a few months ago and was so dissappointed that sock number 2 never got finished. I tried a few times and .... not much progress. This had to change. I got a few knitting sessions going and last week finished these socks. They are too ugly to wear - but in winter I might wear these at home to keep my feet warm.

 

3) Scarf

Last winter bought yarn for a scarf. My youngest already had one, my daughter knitted one for herself, so high time to make one for my eldest. He choose the colours and I knitted. This was my on-the-go project

OMG October

Autumn is here with a lot of rain, perfect crafting weather. School started a month ago and am still running around getting things done, or at least that is how it feels. All three kids started their after school activities and once a week I plan go get some exercise done. I found this great cardio class followed by a one-hour stretching class. Exactly what my muscles need after sitting so much behind my back.

 On the crafting path, I started making a baby quilt, a very very soft pink baby quilt. The little darling was born two days ago and this will keep her warm.

I found the pattern, disappearing four patch block, online a few weeks ago from the designer/quilter Material Girl Quilts.

The new mum loves soft pink, so over summer at different occasions I bought fabric, not sure yet what pattern to make, knowing that the design will show up when I am ready. Which of course happened.

I decided to make the quilt a bit bigger - I do have loads of pink fabric now and a baby quilt does not use up a lot of fabric.

My October OMG is to finish the babyquilt so that i can gift this as soon as possible. Thank you Patty at Elm Street Quilts for organizing

September finishes

 After two months of little crafting I got back in September and finished my July OMG project. 

Early this year I discovered swaps on IG and became a huge fan. I participated in a few between January and March and decided that over summer this was not feasible. I signed up for the Autumn cushion cover/mini quilt swap and the project was due early September.

As the cushion cover that can also be used as a mini quilt arrived at my secret partner's home I can post a picture. 

This was definitely a challenge; my partner wanted a landscape .... and i went back and forth between different ideas. In the end i decided to use applique and make lots of leaves, trees and acorns

 

 

All in autumn colours. The backing was also adapted to the theme.

And ofcourse some African fabric ... I had some delicious orange South African fabric waiting to be used.

 

 

Color Jolt QAL

September was a good crafting month .... and not yet finished ... am on a roll.

 

I finally finished my quilt - binding and all. 

 

This quilt started somewhere Q3 or 4 2020 and the top was finished in November 2020. I sandwiched the top earlier this year and somehow just would not progress. This had to change. I added finishing this batik beauty to my OMG list in the hope that this would push me to finalize. I had to add this to another challenge (the wips-b-gone list - 100 last days of the year challenge) to get going. Having a finished top laying around more than one year seems to be a too long.

I had started with straight (more or less) horizontally accross and then some more vertically across. And then the little block ... no idea what to do with them .... nothing seemed to inspire .... so decided to quilt diagonal lines, using one of the diagonal sashing as the basis and work across.  Up close, the quilting looked awful .. to me and I almost threw the quilt out. Took a deep breath, layed the quilt on the floor and stepped back .... and loved it again ... from 2 meters away the total looked good. 

 With new energy finished the quilting and the binding three evenings later.

 The backing is solid purple and some African batik.

Linking up with September OMG from Elm Street quilts.

OMG September

The weather this week is so good and am enjoying the nice temperatures - not too hot and not too cold in the evenings either so we can still eat outside.

Over lunch spent some 15 minutes cutting branches and was contemplating if I should go back to my blog after two months. Either going back or not all ???? Not going back lost!. Part of the blogging pleasure is boosting myself to finish projects, and to get more ideas for which I have absolutely no time. Only to be sidetracked for more projects calling to me.

 

Some finishes are in order and these are mostly my July goals.

1) Color Jolt QAL quilt top

 I made some progress and FMQ-ed straight lines across and in the length. Next step decide how to quilt the blocks. Am thinking diagonal lines across, maybe in pink. If I would go for white the thread would stand out to much on the red fabric. Red thread would stand out too much on the white sashing. Or maybe I zig-zag across the rows, or in each block.

2) Knitted socks

Both socks are knit and still waiting for the final step. They will be useful this winter, even if I am completely not happy with the result so far.

3) Swap

I love swaps, just don't always have enough time to participate. Making something for someone else is so nice, even if you don't know who the other person is. The challenge is definitely part of this. I have made several things this year - things I would otherwise not have tried. Am now working on an autumn inspired cushion cover. As this is a surprise for my secret partner (or actually I am the secret partner) no pictures until the project is send . Autumn colours for sure.

Linking up with Patty at Elm Street Quilts for the September OMG. Hopefully this month I will finish a few projects.

Sewcialites top

 Not sure what happened to summer. One day she arrived .... only to pay a short visit or so it felt. Not much crafting happened ... all weekends were busy. We managed to go see my family in July so two weekends out, took a week off so another two weekends gone. The ever optimist, I brought some knitting work with me that I started last year, frogged the whole lot and re-started. Not much progress as we were camping and did not have electricity. Looking at the stars was more fun then trying to knit, clearly.

In June I finished all the blocks of my sewcialites blocks and started assembly.

Only to take it out partially in July as one block (the same one each time) had a way of its own and played rebel. 

 

 

So that was my July project ... just waiting to be written about.

 

 

OMG July

July is here and so is summer. My list of projects to be finished is slowly getting shorter .... and my list of new projects and ideas is getting longer and longer.

 

My July projects are:

1) Color Jolt qal quilt top

The quilt top was made end of 2020 and basted earlier this year ... and then no more progress. The basted top was waiting and staring at me asking to be finished. 

 

 

 

 

 2) Knitted socks

Both socks are knit and waiting for the final step of closing the toes.

 

3) Destination quilt along

I so not need a new project .... this one is just to difficult to resist. Last year I participated and had so much fun, so the theme of this year .... different surprise destinations each time. Between each block there is a time span of two weeks ... so this should be feasible

 Slice of Pi Quilts, one of the blogs I follow, is one of the organizers/designers

 

4) Sewcialites qal

36 blocks sewn over a period of 36 weeks. Final assembly to be done this month.

Linking up with Patty's July OMG at Elm Street Quilts

June finishes

Halfway the year 2021 and am making a little dent in my projects to be finished - only to get side tracked by new projects, ideas .....

On the knitting front I almost finished a pair of socks, both are done and the only pending is finishing the toes with the kitchener stitch of both socks. Maybe because I don't really like the yarn ... not difficult to knit - just not what I expected. My favourite sock yarn is definitely West Yorkshire Spinners. And I have some yummy colours waiting for me.

I did finish a scarf for my youngest - he choose the colours .... and that was it ... supposedly he was going to learn how to knit himself .... another day/year ....

I started a scarf for the eldest which progresses nicely, no thinking required and can be done in front of the tv  and this is one of those "no-rush" projects. 

On the quilting front my OMG finishes for the month are:

1) Harmony hand pieced quilt

This wall hanging really turned out nice. My daughter wants it for her room, so this will be either a wall hanging or a sort of curtain. I thought of turning this small quilt in to a sewing machine cover, so will need to make a new one for myself.

2) Catching up with the Sewcialites QAL

I was pretty behind and made 10 blocks this month and worked on the lay out. I managed to do more that planned which is always a bonus. Another month will think about the backing and the quilting, although I definitely want to have a finished top next month. For the FMQ part am thinking of maybe straight lines diagonal across and that will look nice with the diagonal lines of the HST.

 

 

 

 

I cut the grey blocks and the grey/yellow HST and played a bit with the lay-out

I think I like the second layout best - so that will be my finish for next month.

Linking up with Patty's June OMG at Elm Street Quilts.

Harmony hand pieced quilt

 Ta da!!!! My first hand sewn project is finished, what an accomplishment. The good part is that I really enjoyed the slow pace of hand sewing. Still quite a few things to learn, such as precision when using the paper templates - or actually - next time make carton templates for more precision.

We had some nice weather over the weekend so I managed to make some nice pictures.

My cherry tree is a good model for quilts.

For the quilting I tried to be a bit more adventurous and used the design to guide the FMQ and not straight lines or a circle. This is still not my thing .... and a good thing I went for the wall hanging size. Although now that the quilt is finished am very pleased with the result.

Linking up with Patty at Elm Street Quilts and Kristin Esser at Simple Handmade Everyday. Thank you for the lovely pattern, explanations and motivation.

June OMG

June is here with typical May weather, instable ... rain announced and no rain arrives, just clouds and more clouds, some sun and then some more sun, and then rain .... and wind .... and back to sun and clouds ..... Work-wise still hectic, however I manage not to work many hours over the weekend. The pace of last year was not feasible. We are now well over one year in to the Covid-19 pandemic and still new vaccines to be evaluated.

A good day to get some crafting done.

For June my OMG is

1) Harmony handquilted top

I finished the top and officially have a flimsy future wall-hanging. Basting is done so aim is to finish completely this project. Only to make one over summer most likely in different colours as a "take on holiday project" working towards a quilt. Still not sure what this will be when finished. My daughter needs a curtain ... as a wall-hanging would go as well with her room. As a cushion cover is definitely to large.

2) Sewcialites

I am so behind on this project and have quite some catching up to do. Block 34 just came out (the one but last block) and my block number 27 is only cut .... I have some serious cutting and sewing to do here. aim is to have all blocks caught up. And make the HST blocks. 

Linking up with Patty over at Elm Street Quilts