Quilt Show!

This weekend was the local guilds Quilt Show. Part of the show was a colour challenge that some guild members took part in. We were given a random colour and then had to make a quilt that read as the colour of our colour card. I guess this was done last year at the Sisters show. I got the colour orange-yellow and had no oranges that would work in my stash. My sister and SIL gave me some oranges from their stash and my mom bought me some for Christmas. We were allowed to use the complimentary colour as well. I used blue thread for the quilting instead of adding blue fabric to the quilt.

I found the orange that is used for the circles, which is almost an exact match, in the remnant bin at JoAnn's near the end of last year. I have enough of all the orange fabrics to make a second quilt for me to keep. I might give the other one away - maybe to a sister that loves orange way more than I do. I have to admit I do love my final quilt and am glad I have enough to make a second.

Every quilt member was asked to bring 2 dozen cookies to share at the show, so here's my little helper monkey helping me make peanut butter, chocolate chip cookies. They are super yummy. 

Here he is with his quilt. He voted for it as his favourite large quilt.

It was placed with another blue and yellow quilt. They looked very good together. ( I spent 3 hours helping set up the show Friday morning and actually spent most of that time up on the ladder hanging quilts. I was unsure of ladders when I started but totally conquered the fear by the end).

I love green and purple together. I have to put a green and purple quilt on my bucket list.

My husband and both kids came to the show this year (my husband didn't go last year, I think he went birding instead). My husband walked around with our son and I walked around with our daughter. My husband and I both voted for this one as our favourite large quilt - but didn't know we both did until we walked by it at the end and he pointed it out. I guess this needs to go on the bucket list too.

This is a wall-hanging and not a bed quilt. Those pieces are really small.

I voted for this one as my favourite medium sized quilt.

Part of the colour challenge series.

Here's mine hanging with its friends.

Purple and green. Love.

It was hard to get a picture of the whole thing, so you will have to imagine. 

My daughter liked this one. It was made by a child and she was unsure if she would be able to make it herself. I took a few minutes and showed her it was just a bunch of squares and rectangles and broke it down by block and row. I think she'd like to attempt something like this for her next quilt.

My son voted for this one as his favourite small quilt.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Oh My Stars!

I finished my Oh My Stars QAL quilt on Tuesday. I rushed it outside for some quick pics before I had to start making supper. I'm going to call it "SuperNova" since I made it for my son, Nova. He has been enjoying it the last few nights and I'll be taking it to the quilt show Friday morning. I also finished my colour challenge quilt but didn't get pictures taken in the daylight. Will try to take some tomorrow before I take it over to the show. Enjoy all the pictures. My son and I are very happy with the quilt.

Since he had space on the front he got earth on the back and I used a lot of the rock fabric I have collected over the years, a big piece of road fabric and some map fabric.

And when I wasn't quilting this week I cast on this pair of socks. Finished the first sock this evening. Using leftover blue from my husbands socks, green from my SIL's socks and the brown from my mom's socks. Should have enough to make its mate.

Still have all the ends to weave in but that can wait for another day.

My favourite finish of 2012

Here it is. My finished February Lady Sweater. In April. I started this July 22, 2011 and had the body done by September. Once I sat down and forced myself to cross this off my list, I was able to finish the sleeves quickly. I finished the second sleeve Friday night and put the buttons on Saturday morning before we went for our weekly trip to the library. I love it and am so happy with how it turned out. This is a free pattern on ravelry and has been cast on by almost 12,000 knitters!

First back shot that my daughter took. I really like this picture for some reason so I thought I'd share it.

The whole back. I haven't blocked it yet and am terrified to wash it. I have 1 skein left of this yarn and am deciding what to do with it. A cowl maybe?

Our local quilt show is this weekend. Quilts need to be turned in by 9am Friday morning. Neither of my quilts are finished and with a sick husband at home last week I didn't get much done. Yesterday was a beautiful day and all I wanted to do was sit outside and knit or read but I knew I had to finish my quilts. I did the next best thing. I brought my sewing machine and projects downstairs, opened the patio door  and started quilting. By 4pm I finished quilting both quilts. I trimmed off the excess back and batting after supper. Hope to bind my Oh My Stars quilt today, or at least get the binding made. 

Lots of stops and starts lead to lots of thread in my little garbage pail.

Peak at my colour challenge quilt. This quilt has to be faced. Have several tutorials on how to do this, just need to do it. It is only 18 x 36 inches. I have enough of the fabric that if I mess up I can quickly make another one.

A couple finishes and an almost finish

Here are a couple pictures of the cowl I finished for my SIL earlier this week. It will probably be a Christmas present or I may give it to her for her birthday in October so she can use it all winter. 

Here it is wrapped around my neck twice. It's still loose enough that I can tuck my chin in or pull it up higher over the bottom half of my face if it was really cold. Hopefully she'll like it.

Another picture.

Detail of the lace pattern. Again, I really like this pattern, easy to memorize and it is free on ravelry.

Made a lot of progress on the February Lady Cardigan that I am making for myself (another free ravelry pattern). I finished the first sleeve Thursday morning and since my husband, whose been home sick all week was still sleeping, I weaved in ends and started the second sleeve instead of trying to find the buttons in our bedroom. I tried the first sleeve on several times and decided to end it around my elbow. 

These are the buttons I wanted to put on the cardigan. I thought all 3 were flower shaped and was disappointed that one was circular. I got these on clearance at JoAnn's over a month ago. I went back to the store yesterday and searched all over but couldn't find any more. 

Luckily I had these 3 sitting at home as a back up plan. Not as interesting but still fun. I've been making such great progress on this cardigan that I am hopeful that it will be done by Monday. I timed myself and it takes about 10 minutes to do 1 pattern repeat and I have 9 more to do on the second sleeve, plus the garter stitch border. 2-3 hours and it should be done. Finally.

I might have finished the cardigan this morning but I opted to finish this novel instead.  "The Wife" by Meg Wolitzer. It was amazing. There's a great little twist near the end that I totally didn't see coming and makes you rethink the entire novel. Highly recommend it if you like Margaret Atwood - reminds me of early Atwood, think "Surfacing" and "Bodily Harm" but written by an American. (And yes, there is a difference between Canadian and American writers. And no, that's not a bad thing. They're just different. As they should be.)

Progress and Change

A lot has been going on around here. On a whim I started this cowl last Thursday. I have about 5 skeins of this sock yarn and have used this brand (different colours) to make socks and noticed it pills badly. I've been trying to decide what to do with it. I would hate to donate it and have someone buy it and discover how badly it pills after they make something. But I can't bring myself to throw it out - 1 skein maybe but not 5.  I wanted to use it but not for socks. I'd been searching scarfs and shawls with lace patterns since I am more likely to hand wash and lay flat to dry lace pieces than put them in the washer and dryer, like I do with my knitted socks. I found this free pattern on ravelry and is actually written by someone I knew in Michigan. It is a really fast knit if you are interested and since I used sock yarn (she used lace) I only needed to do 5 pattern repeats instead of 6. I finished it last night around midnight and have it blocking right now. I'll get better pictures once it is dry - the above picture was taken after completing 3 repeats.

I also took the plunge and started quilting my Oh My Stars quilt. I even registered it in the guild's quilt show on the 14th and 15th so I need to hurry up and finish it. I wanted the white fabric to disappear and so I began by doing a simple meandering stitch on all the white. And after seeing this quilt on flickr I knew I wanted to include spirals and decided to do them on the yellow stars. There is a spiral in the middle square, then I made points going off into the corners. They look like mini suns and I love it.

I was kind of stuck on what to do with the blue stars and tried a couple things that I ended up ripping out. I have finally decided just to outline each with blue thread. I didn't want to do anything to distract from the space fabric in the middle or the yellow stars. The yellow stars make this quilt and I am so happy I ran out of white background. I still need to finish the blue stars than I need to decide what I am going to do with the black spaces. It isn't in any of the pictures above, but if you look at the  quilt top here you will see that I replaced some star blocks with space themed fabric. I don't know what to do with them. And I'm not sure what to do with the border. I thought of straight lines to make the border look like a window frame but I figure the border will tell me what it needs when I get to it. I really want to bind and wash this and then decide how much more quilting it needs but I know I can't.

Been working away on the sleeves for my dad's cardigan. Finished the cuffs and have 13 more inches and 30 more stitches to add to each sleeve before they are ready to attach to the body. It's kind of fun to make two at a time but the yarn tangles are a bit of a headache.

It's been awhile since I posted any progress on this cardigan. I started making this for myself last July as my kids and I travelled across Canada on a train. My goal was to finish it by my birthday last September and I was pretty close. All I had left were the sleeves. I think I am going to only knit vests for the rest of my life. There's something about sleeves that just slow me down. I added a bit to the sleeves in December trying to get it done by the end of 2011 but that didn't happen either. Took it out this morning and got 2 lace repeats done. My biggest problem... I'm not sure how long I want the sleeves to be. There will be 1 1/2 inch garter stitch border at the end of the sleeve and I can't decide between short sleeve, 3/4 sleeve or long sleeve. Thoughts? 

I really do love the pattern and it is easy to memorize. It is a free pattern on ravelry and is quite popular (over 11,000 have been started). I think I need to finish it this month so I can enjoy it this spring (although with the snow we are getting today it doesn't feel much like spring). And what else has got me motivated to finish it? I finally have buttons for it. I told myself once I am done the first sleeve I am going to put the buttons on. I thought I was going to put round, wooden buttons on but I am going a totally different direction and am quite excited. About buttons!?! I amaze myself sometimes.

Now for the change I mentioned in my post title. Maybe some have noticed or maybe you haven't, but things have been disappearing from this blog. The link to my etsy store is gone because I am shutting it down; at least temporarily. I have completely lost all desire to make and sell my work and was more frustrated by the experience than anything. I have also been deleting some of the blogs I follow, not because I don't like them but they were becoming a time sucker. There are some I follow that I don't have listed. That will probably change as I am changing the title of this blog to something that more represents all of me and not just my quilting. The blog started as a place for me to share my quilts instead of doing it on our family blog which is mainly about our kids (and all though it isn't private, it really isn't interesting to anyone other than our family back in Canada). I know that my family are the main readers of this blog but having it separate gives them the option of looking at my quilts and stuff if they want to. 

So I am slowly changing things when I have the time and motivation. I won't say what the blog name will change to since the name which is available today may not be tomorrow or next week. And since I am a little nervous about moving everything I am trying to save it all before I make the move. The new blog will have a slightly different focus. Not only will it include my quilting, knitting and other crafty stuff, but it will include more of me. And I will probably either post less or write shorter posts. It's a lot of work and time to take pictures specifically for blog posts and write about them and sometimes it feels pointless. Personally, I am refocusing on my family and our impending move this summer. I am also focusing on writing. I'm glad that I rediscovered my love of writing last November but sometimes after spending all morning at the computer writing blog posts, reading blogs, updating ravelry and flickr, I don't have the energy to write. I am a great procrastinator so I am also taking myself off of pinterest as well. As much as I love it, I'm sick of the controversy that surrounds it and the people that are abusing it. I have already deleted a lot of my pins and am working on saving or deleting the rest.

To sum up - the blog name and its appearance are changing. Progress may be slow or there will be a lot of change at once. Hopefully you will all come along for the journey but I've realized that blogging, if it's going to take time away from my family and my writing, it needs to be something I enjoy, and feeling like I have to post sucks the enjoyment out of it. Thanks to everyone who reads and comments and to those who read but never comment. It's been an interesting experience and I am looking forward to the changes that the rest of 2012 will bring for me, my family and this blog.