Quilts, knitting and more.

Have you ever used this stuff?

I found it some time ago - probably a couple of years ago on a stall at a show somewhere. I rediscovered it tucked away in the back of a drawer when I came to reorganise my workroom a few weeks back.

All you have to do is stitch it to the back of some fabric,

Use the steam of an iron held just above the "Texture Magic" and this happens...........

The "Texture Magic" scrumples up and you have instant texture. Great fun to play with. The piece above is destined to become part of a Journal Quilt for this year's challenge. More photos when the first four are completed. The challenge this year is based on colour. The first four are to be Shades of Red. It just makes sense in my head to get all four red quilts done together. Yes, I know that is just insane...........

One little challenge I was given lately by my friend Hilary was to make book covers. This is my first cover. It uses some printed fabric I made ages ago. The notebook inside is home-made. Just a few sheets of textured paper held together by ribbon at the moment. I shall be replacing the ribbon with wire shortly so that I can actually use the notebook. The ribbon holds the pages together too tightly for them to be opened easily.

I promised knitting. This first piece has been ongoing for a little while. A fairisle waistcoat in Rowan Cashsoft 4ply. The design is by the wonderful Martin Storey. I do like his designs. This one is "Rosamund" and can be found in the "Rowan Classic 4ply designs for men and women".

This was finished recently too, a lace weight top. No, I don't have a waist like this - Aggie my tailor's dummy likes to think I have. The design is "Tirrold" by by Jen Arnall-Culliford and can be found in "The Scrumptious Collection" Volume 1 published by Fyberspates. The yarn used is Fyberspates Scrumptious Lace weight, a glorious mixture of silk and merino.

I have been making a number of shawls. This is the second of this design, the gorgeous "Holden Shawlette", by Mindy Wilkes. I wear this one a lot around my neck and shoulders. So useful in the chilly weather. I have yet another shawlette on my needles at the moment, a design by Kristin Briney. This is the "Context Scarf", a delightful shawl which is being knitted in sock yarn.

"Blue Eyes" has been languishing in my collection of WIPs for some time. I completed the top recently by adding a few borders. It is now a modest 36 inches square.

The next photo shows the back. As you can see it uses a spare block I had made for the top but didn't use.

At present the quilt has been layered and quilting has started and faltered........... I must admit to getting bored. I had tried to quilt this very simply and I am not entirely happy with it. It sits on top of Aggie taunting me to get back to finishing it off................. It will have to wait until I have finished with my Journal Quilts. I have four on the go at once at the moment.

Making repairs - creatively.

Well, my cardigan got finished this week - Aggie is acting as the model here. The Rowan Tapestry yarn that I used is just so soft and comfortable to wear. The design is "Heath" by Sarah Hatton from the "Tapestry Collection" book.




Sadly, the weather is getting a little warm for wearing this just now, but it will be just right for a cooler evening. I can see myself sitting out in the garden, knitting............ Ooh yes!



This is the start of my new knitting project. I have already ripped this back twice when I got the lace design all scrambled. I resorted to underlining all the instructions I should be reading to make sure I wasn't following the wrong details. The yarn is Jaegar Trinity, which is really soft to knit with. The design is also from the Jaegar book, JB 25 which gives 15 designs by Martin Storey. As you might recall this started out originally as a cardigan.

The rebuilding of my shopping bag has been continuing too. Not sure what Coco is thinking here - probably wondering what these are doing next to her bed. (Well, it was her brother's sleeping place, but now she has claimed it for her own! She does let him share......... sometimes.)

Each of the four sides started off looking a bit like this - a mix of oddments of furnishing fabric and remnants of the jute from the original bag.

Then I added some lettering, first writing it out on some stitch and tear. Then pinning this over the top of some satiny upholstery fabric I found in the stash. Yes, my stash is embarrassing large.

Some free machine embroidery and tearing off the paper later and it turned out like this.

I enjoyed myself messing around with slogans. The 3Rs refer to the recycling mantra: reduce, reuse, recycle. The +1 just refers to my addition of the term "repair". Sometimes needed if you are going to reuse something..... I added the cats and Snoopy, just as a bit of fun. They had been intended for a handbag - but I can always go and get some more.......
A dangerous thought, venturing into my local yarn shop. I seriously doubt if I will be able to come out again with just the replacement motifs...........

Having fun!

The weather is nice this afternoon, although it was raining hard this morning. I just couldn't stay indoors, so I took my feltmaking outside. Its been such fun!

Its the Half Term holiday, so I am able to indulge myself. Trying to fit in as many projects as I can before school starts again on Monday.






This is the feltmaking I took outside. Its the piece of felt I told you about in my last Blog entry. All the felt sections have now been cut up, rearranged, bits added and ready for felting. It was such a lovely change to get outside and work. It wasn't too windy and I was able to enjoy listening to the birds singing. It was so nice to hear children having fun in a nearby garden too. I am lucky to live in a village where there is no main through road, so its really peaceful.






Another project I have been working on today is to rebuild a shopping bag.

I had three of these gorgeous bags. (Coco is sitting beside my remaining two.) I use them for shopping, temporary storage of files and papers and so on. The handles are so well-made and exactly right for holding even when the bag is full and heavy.

One had been lined by me after the plastic casing on the inside failed and the bag started going into holes in rather awkward places. I had added a rather useful zipped pocket in the lining, the only thing I felt the bag design lacked. The fabric I used was a piece of furnishing fabric from my stash. Even the zip was one I found amongst my collection of "useful things".

Sadly, the bag deteriorated even further and I could no longer use it. The handles were really the only useable part - they were still as good as new - so comfy to hold too. I just could not throw it away, so decided to take the bag to pieces and rebuild it around the lining I had taken out.






I kept as much of the jute outer fabric as I could, and pieced it with more furnishing fabric from my stash. To reinforce the resulting pieces, I have sewn them onto some sturdy cotton fabric I had found on sale some months ago. This wonderful fabric was supposed to be a cover sheet for decorating! Why is it that people buy new fabric for this task? I find old almost-worn-out sheets perfectly good enough...................

Ah well, I shall post some more photos when I have got further advanced with this project.

The cardigan is now almost finished. I have started to sew it all up, so should be able to post some pictures of this soon.

Felt and knitting.

Well, I managed to get the felting done - I have now prepared two prefelts ready for tomorrow evening. The third (the darkest one) was prefelted during the course last week.

As you can see from the photos I have added stitching too. Theres a variegated woollen thread which I hope will felt into the background, a metallic thread which might just cockle and a synthetic thread which is very silky - I'm not sure how that will react to the next stage. The prefelts will now be cut up and rearranged, with other bits of wool and prefelts added. The resulting large piece will then be felted. A rather interesting evening to come......... Monday evenings are when I go to the Textiles course. I have been learning a lot about felting, the use of stiffening solution and soluble fabric. As well as playing around with different threads which I had never used before.

The cardigan is now halfway up the first sleeve. Its so useful to have the knitting or some stitching around when waiting for Blogger to upload photos........

This gorgeous Rhododendron is in full flower and is such a joy to see when I'm at the kitchen sink.

Feltmaking and carding.

Two posts so close together? Just feeling so excited, just had to share..........

I had loads of fun last night at the Textile Course. The little bowl got completed, it was first soaked to remove the water soluble fabric, then, whilst still wet, soaked in a solution (half water, half stiffening liquid) of Stiffy.

But then Ruth, our Tutor, surprised me with a give-away comment. "Now what about some beads." She was right, it does need something. Ruth, you have started me thinking. Beads......... now which colours............sparkly or plain.......... Its dangerous, thinking............

Now, not only did we finish those little bowls, we got to do some more feltmaking. This time we were introduced to the pleasures of carding. For me this was a first. I wasn't too keen on the carding itself, but loved the mixtures of colours which could be achieved. Magic...........

This was some of the range of wool colours I had started with. We were asked to find a collection of light, middle and darks.

The piece of prefelt (lightly felted wool) below is the result of felting my carded dark colours. The next stage with this is to introduce some handstitching.

I have some homework to do this week - to get my light and middle collections of carded wool to the prefelt stage. This will be great fun to do, however............... its such a messy process that I might have to set up a table out in the garden and get the work done there. The tiled floor of my kitchen is definitely not the safest place to get any felting done. I'm sure its probably me, but I get water splashed everywhere!

Knitting.

So sorry it has taken me such a time to add another post to my Blog. Since my last post, I have been busily knitting my cardigan. To start with, I ended up unravelling the back - I'd found a really silly mistake! Typical!! I had not started the back as instructed. It should have had four rows of garter stitch, but I had knitted four rows of stocking stitch. So now I have got the back completed once more, finished the left front and started the right front.
The photo shows where I have got to on the right front. The pattern beneath is the cardigan I am making. The design is called "Heath". A rather different style for me, but I am looking forward to being able to wear it.



Getting all this done, I made the decision to rip back all the part-knitted cardigan. It makes far more sense to do this since I cannot see myself actually wearing that cardigan should I ever get round to finishing it. There is a rather nice tunic-style summer top in the Jaegar book, so I shall

start that garment after finishing "Heath".

My knitting bag - a Vogue pattern - V7887, it has been made out of an odd piece of upholstery fabric from my stash. The lining is an offcut of curtain lining again from my fabric stash.The pattern is for a gardeners bag, but it makes for a wonderful knitters bag too! Eight pockets round the outside and oodles of space inside. You can just see the part-knitted cardigan which I still have to rip back. The still unfinished Black, White and Red quilt adorns the back of the chair my bag is sitting on.

Tomorrow evening I shall be able to get on with completing my little bowl. It currently sits on this desk with me. I can barely wait to try adding the stiffening liquid. It will be so interesting to see what happens next..........

Knitting and bowl.

I've been busy doing the Textiles course again. This time I have made a small bowl. This has been made using tiny scraps of fabric held together with dissolvable fabric and plenty of free-machine embroidery.


The bowl started off as a flat circle which, after some stitching, had slits cut from the edge into the centre. This was then pinned with the sides slightly overlapping to form a bowl shape.

This just awaits soaking in water and then in a liquid called "Stiffy" which is a stiffening solution. This will ensure that the bowl remains rigid. Sadly this will have to wait for two weeks since there is a Bank Holiday (National holiday - May Day) on Monday and so the course will not be running that night.


This process is probably one I shall try again, since there are so many possibilities available -forming a wide variety of different stiffened shapes.

This is a view taken of the top surface of the bowl.

This is the upturned bowl - a view of the underside.

The side view - it looks a bit lopsided. Whoops!

I shall wait and see how the bowl turns out before searching out this liquid.

Has any one else had a go with this type of idea? Which stiffeners did you find worked the best? I'd be very interested to hear your suggestions and recommendations.

I managed to get my scarves completed with all the ends sewn in. Then started on the new cardigan. I mentioned buying the wool in my last post. Its Rowan Tapestry. The yarn is gorgeous to knit with. Really soft on the fingers. However, because it is so soft it is a bit of pest to work with when needing to rip back..... But oh, I look forward to being able to wear the finished item. I hope that I can finish it before the weather becomes too hot.

Work on WISPs.

Well, this week I have managed to continue work on the Black, Red and White quilt. This time I have got to the stage of sewing all the twelve blocks together complete with the sashing between them.

The photo above gives an idea of the work so far. I have still to complete all the edging. I have plans for borders in both red and black on this side. This would probably need a thin strip of white otherwise it would look too dark and dull.

This is the reverse side of the quilt, showing the sashing around all the blocks. Here the border will be green and black with a thin strip of a pale colour. At this stage, I am not sure whether the thin strip would look better as a plain colour or as a stripe of the different colours used in the blocks. I need to live with this for a few days before deciding. The green shown in the photo above does not look as if it matches. In life it is really a darker shade of the small pale green square at the top left hand side of each of the blocks.

I fell for this yarn yesterday when I went to get some embroidery cottons for an embroidery project. Its fatal going into a shop which also sells wool, I just can't resist looking at all the yarns available at the moment.

This yarn is interesting, it is one of the Rowan range, and each of the colourways is variegated. It feels gorgeous, slightly fluffy and really soft. What fascinates me is that it is made from a mixture of 70% wool and 30% Soybean protein fibre. This particular colour ranges from a creamy beige to a mid brown. I can hardly wait to get started, but I have decided I really should get the ends on my scarves sewn up first.