The brightly colored placemats and coasters are finished. These are so bright and cheerful, I envision them being used during the Summer for meals eaten out on the patio. There are a total of 8 placemats and 16 coasters so I may give half of them away.

Pattern: None, just simple stripes to maximize the available fabric.
Fabric: I used fabric from two collections. The stripes are made of fat quarters I picked up during a quilting shop hop. Whenever I go on a shop hop I like to buy something to support the store’s participation in the hop. In this case what I remember most about the store is that it reeked of cat pee. Not exactly a good memory. The backing and binding fabric is by Valori Wells, about the time she published Radiant New York Beauties.
Notes: There’s nothing terribly complex here. The only thing even remotely different from my usual sewing techniques is that, on the coasters, rather than doing a bound edge I cut the backing fabric larger than needed, pressed it under twice, and then machine stitched it down. The goal was to use a quicker method than the normal “sew the binding to the front of the quilt, turn it under, hand stitch it down.” In reality this was a pain to do and didn’t seem any easier or quicker than my normal method. Next time I’ll try sewing the binding to the back of the quilt, turning it to the front, and machine stitching it down.

Last week we were volunteering at the rodeo almost every night and also on the weekend. That’s why I don’t have much progress to show you this week. However, I did finish my previous sewn item (photos tomorrow) and I picked up a new one to be finished.

1. Misti Alpaca Baktus – 50% done. It’s all downhill from here!

2. Blue Flowered Table Runner – the binding is stitched down. Now I need to decide how to finish the center and whether I want to add any decorative stitching to the flowers.

With Vinca done I only have one project on the needles. I’m really torn between starting a smallish project that will use up a stash yarn (still obsessed about lowering my stash count) or starting a Christmas gift project. Hmm…I guess the thing to do is find something that meets both criteria.

I’m also continuing to work on finishing up sewing projects. Guess I may as well put those on this list.

1. Misti Alpaca Baktus – I’m getting a repeat or 2 done at lunch each day, but that’s about it. Hey look, it’s a new photo, but it really doesn’t look much different then last week.

2. Bright Placemats and Coasters – these are almost done. Just one placemat left to stitch the binding down on.

It was way too hot to do much of anything outside or horse related this weekend so I holed up in my craft room. We’re lucky to have air conditioning that does a decent job of cooling the downstairs if you’re not going in/out or cooking too much.

I did a little spinning. It took me a few minutes to get back into the flow as it’s been a long time since I picked up a spindle.

Then, a little sorting through old magazines and pattern books. These were my Grandma Honey’s. It’s been quite interesting to flip through them – there are a number of baby patterns that are just as cute as any you’d find in a Debbie Bliss book today. The adult patterns though? Not so much. There are a few classic sweater patterns that I’m going to keep, but most of the patterns are big boxy, shapeless things. Or really tacky 70′s style.

(1) Here’s a couple of sweaters I liked that would only need basic alterations like shortening the length and adding waist shaping. (2) An example of the baby cuteness. (3) What the ??

Followed by a little machine sewing and some hand finishing. I feel like it’s a dirty word, but I’ve been mulling over Christmas gift ideas. However, before I start anything new I have several half a dozen a dozen (*sigh*) sewing projects that I need to finish up.

I also did some knitting on Vinca. Which I’m not going to show you because it’s the same as last time except for being 1 repeat longer.

All over blogland people are posting about their first quilt. Having just pulled my first quilt out of a suitcase that I had been storing past quilt projects in, I thought I should show mine too.

When I was in high school (or was it junior high? the class was held at the junior high) I took a beginning quilt class with some friends. That marked the beginning of many quilts for all of us who took the class.

Wow, I actually remember walking around the store, selecting the fabric for this quilt. I remember sewing log cabin blocks for the first time, something that is second nature to me now even though I haven’t made a Log Cabin quilt for years.

Pattern: Log Cabin
Size: wall hanging
Year Sewn: You mean you can’t tell by the colors? I believe it was probably 1989. That’s within a year or two anyway.
Notes/What I Learned: It’s interesting to look back at this quilt that started it all. I don’t think it’s horribly ugly, but my taste has certainly changed. I’m not so much into the traditional florals and I also prefer log cabins to be more consistently light/dark rather than the light to dark gradation that was used here. The peach colors aren’t too bad, but the darkest green is not so good.

Here is my most recent quilted object:

I finished it at the beginning of March this year. The full blog post about it is here.

There are a lot of things I’ve learned over the years about quilting. The most important, for me personally, is that I generally like smaller projects like placemats and tablerunners, things that can be completed in a reasonable amount of time.

It’s all back in one place again – not divided between the house in WA and the house in MT. While this is a good thing, I am once again overwhelmed by how much stuff I have and am very motivated to use it before I buy more.

Last week, before the move and before I got overwhelmed again I had placed two Etsy orders. The first is from Beesybee Fibers where, in a moment of weakness, I ordered two handpainted braids that I had my eye on for a while. Here is “Purple Trance” and “Eastern Egg Hunting”. Both are 4.1 ounces of a 60% Merino/40% Bamboo blend. I’m really curious to see how I like this blend since I’ve only worked with wool so far.

My second purchase was from The Wool Peddler (stefknits) for a one pound bag of Wooly Cupcakes. These are leftovers of her handpainted tops. The fiber is mostly wool and wool blends. I’ve found a bit with some sparkle and at least one that has some bamboo. She also sent some superwash in it’s own smaller bag (second photo).

This mixed lot will enable me to experience some variety in fiber and also to experiment with drafting a handpainted top. I’m really curious to see how the colors play out and how the color can be impacted by how you draft it out. I believe there is some discussion on this topic in the Twisted Sisters Sock book (which I have, but have not read since I started spindling).

Current Ravelry Counts:
- Stashed Yarns = 114
- Total Number of Skeins/Hanks = 241.5
- Total Yards of Yarn = 50,573

These are the numbers I need to reduce in terms of yarn. It doesn’t really account for unspun fiber, but I don’t have much of that anyway (3 pounds off the top of my head). It certainly doesn’t account for fabric either. That would probably be best measured in weight. I know it’s not much of a stash at all compared to many people I know, but it is more than enough for me.

I finished up the table runner over the weekend. Hopefully my photos show how nicely coordinated it is with our living/dining area.

As a bonus you get to see my knitting area which is also where the coasters were needed.

Project Notes:
I’m very satisfied with how this project turned out. It used *only* fabric I had in stash, although I did have to buy quilt batting (on sale 40% off) and red thread (used my 40% off coupon). Plus it’s a nice addition to the dining room table and a very useful addition to the side table where I usually have a couple magazine inserts for setting beverages on.

There were two, no three, things I learned.

• the table runner was just big enough that top stitching it was a drag. This wasn’t because it was too big to fit in the machine, but that it got tedious (so maybe it wouldn’t have been tedious if I was sitting at a proper sewing table instead of the tall dining room table)
• nine patch is plenty of detail in something the size of a coaster. A four patch would even be cute.
• even though I haven’t quilted in forever a light bulb went off in my head and said to loosen the pressure on the feed dog before top stitching. While that meant I had to be careful the runner fed through freely, it meant no puckered up fabric. Yippee! I was very pleased with this light bulb moment since I don’t have a walking foot and have had trouble with puckering fabric in the past

I couldn’t leave you with the odd, unattractive photos of this half finished project. Here it is again, finished except for a button. To be honest, it may not ever get the button because it’s plenty cute without it.

Pattern: Tricornu from Knotions Spring 2009
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino
Needles: 3.25 mm Addi Turbo, circular of course
Mods: I used smaller yarn and needles because I wanted the end result to be smaller. Also, if you are going to make this see my notes about how to sew it in the previous post.

A new little project that combines knitting and sewing. Not quite finished. I need to make my fabric portion smaller, then I need some stuffing and two buttons.

It’s a bit odd looking at the moment, but you can go here to see the end result. Or, give me a few days and I’ll get it finished.

A note to anyone making this – the fabric overlapping/sewing instructions aren’t 100% clear. Here are my notes copied/pasted from Ravelry:

Note 1: the overlapping alignment of the fabric as shown in the pattern isn’t quite right. To begin, overlap your fabric an extra 1/4 inch (in other words, if you have your fabric overlapped exactly halfway as the diagram shows, now slide the top fabric UP 1/4 inch). Begin sewing 1/4 inch from the edge of BOTH fabrics. Sew to the cut (halfway point) of the top fabric which will also be 1/4 inch from the edge of the bottom fabric. Continue around as the directions say…

Note 2: my fabric bottom turned out a bit too big. If I had cut the fabric to the size of the slightly stretched knit top, it would have been perfect without adding the seam allowance. Your gauge may vary, but for my knit top in this yarn it measured 5.25 inches square when slightly stretched.

When I started doing Work In Progress Wednesday’s it didn’t occur to me that I may be tracking quilting projects too. Now that I have a quilting project in the works, it only makes sense that it goes on this list.

1. Woodland Shawl – soaking. I’m going to block it and then decide whether to overdye or not. Goal: pin it out and decide whether to call it done or whether to overdye it.

2. Hedera – new this week. This is my small needle project. Yarn is Opal UniSolid. I was a bit concerned about knitting these with only 60 stitches around, but everything has turned out fine. Normally on a 2.5 mm needle I’d knit 68-72 stitches around for a woman’s 9ish foot. Goal: nothing in particular.

3. Rusty Reds Table Runner and Coasters – quilting projects need a name, right? The coasters are half done as seen below. I’m doing 8 total (err….yeah, I guess that was obvious). The others need binding still. The runner is sandwiched with it’s batting and backing, just waiting for me to top stitch it. Goal: finish it all by next Wednesday.

I’m not getting as much knitting done, but I am really enjoying the variety of projects.