Textile fun - printing, knitting and sewing.

I've been printing again. The grey painted fabric was left over from the last session. This time I had made my own little stamps out of cardboard and the expanded polystyrene packaging from a pizza. I went to a meeting of the NWCQ (North West Contemporary Quilt) group yesterday and we were all making printing blocks. Good fun!



This next little stamp has been made out of miracle sponge. I was lucky enough to have been given a small piece to play with since I hadn't seen it before. It starts out looking rather like cardboard, but when it is soaked with water, it becomes a sponge. The fact it is so compressed makes it easy to cut into shape. I used scissors.



I just loved the way the sponge didn't react the same way each time I printed with it. Some images didn't print as clearly as others. Possibly my faulty technique, but I love the result.



I need to add some more printing to this piece when it has dried.

The last piece was just playing around using up the last of the Setacolor Opaque dye I had been using.



I printed using the foam brushes I had been using to spread the dye out on my printing tray. (It used to be the base from something edible I bought years ago.)

A few days ago, I finally got around to finishing off my bag. As you can see from the link, it had been in the UFO pile for almost three years! It just needed sides, handles and pockets. I need to clear more of my UFOs this year.



Continuing with the theme of completing UFOs, I finished knitting Mariah.



I slightly modified the way the neck joins on to the hood, making the hood come close in round my neck.



I also continued the cabling all round the edge of the hood. Next, I am planning to line the jacket with this fabric.



To keep the jacket cosy even with the chill winds we get round here, I shall be quilting the fabric before cutting out the pieces. Luckily I thought to make a pattern for the lining before sewing the jacket together. I bought myself a nice sturdy open-ended zip to complete the jacket.

I also managed to complete the December page for the Traveling Pages project - "The Goddess Within." This one is winging it's way off to Australia. Happily, it is going to someone not directly affected by the dreadful floods afflicting the east coast at present.

I started another pair of socks. These might be for my husband, but I have a horrible feeling they might be a little tight since the cables draw the legs in quite close - more to do with my tension when knitting cables, rather than the design. The pattern came with the sock knitting booklet attached to the September 2010 issue of Knitting Magazine. It is a pattern by Martin Storey.

I had some fun putting this together too. This is based on the delightful weighted pincushion design by Elizabeth of "Oh Fransson". I made the original design some time ago, but gave it to my elder daughter, since she rather liked it. This time I have made the same bag, but made the pocketed area rather bigger. It is joined to a double layer of white heavyweight (pelmet weight) vilene sewn to the top. This is then held in position by standing the sewing machine on top of the vilene. It seems to work quite well. As you can see I have used some of my collection of selvedges to make the bag. I added a couple of silly cat buttons too, just for fun. Elizabeth's excellent instructions make this a very quick item to sew.

Last, but not least. Here are the photos I promised of mum's finished quilt. It is called "Square Dance". There are two reasons for this. Firstly, my mum teaches English Country Dance. Hence the footprints.

Secondly, I was messing around with a square block made up of squares.

This is the back. This is fleece, and yes there are two colours. I didn't have a big enough piece when I had finished messing around with the quilt top. However I did have some large remnants of cream coloured fleece which I was able to piece to the darker light brown backing.

Mum is delighted with her quilt and uses it every day to cover her favourite chair.

A new year and new projects.

Now where can I start? It is such a very long time since I added anything to this blog. Apologies to all. It has been busy here.

First, a very happy New Year to you. I hope the weather is kind to you and everyone you know. A belated Happy Christmas too.

I have been working at completing my mother's quilt, a jumper for Simon, two hats, eight Christmas decorations and four present bags since I last wrote here. Oh yes, there was also the November page, some work on a December page and preparations for the January page of the Traveling Pages project. There was also a pair of dungarees for a neighbours daughter too. I also started a second jumper which now only needs to be sewn together and the v-neck ribbing to be knitted. This last jumper uses yarn left over form the first jumper I knitted for Simon and will be either for my husband, or for myself.

January has started with painted and printed fabric.

The first piece is the result of painting fabric and then overprinting using old cotton reels and various bits and pieces.

This second sheet is my cleaning rag. I think it look even more interesting than the printed piece.

This piece was an experiment using pastel dye sticks. I've never tried using these before. This piece just needs to be ironed to be fixed. It was fun to doodle with these brightly coloured sticks.

Some of this fabric is destined for the January page (Fairy Tales), and the rest just because I felt like having some fun. It is so dull and wet outside. Our beautiful snow has disappeared and been replaced by fog and driving rain. The walk we usually enjoy on New Years Day abandoned because of the weather. Never mind, there is always tomorrow.

Some explanation is probably needed. The decorations were an experiment which came about to solve my quandry over what to make for a challenge laid down by the United Kingdom group on My Sewing Circle. We each had to make something for another member of the group for Christmas. A previous challenge had been to make an apron. I found myself cutting out paper shapes at lunchtime one day. These turned into the decorations. They were good fun to make. Then the latest Selvedge magazine had a delightful pattern inside for a reversible present bag. I made a mistake in cutting out the first one and turned it into a small bag with a handle instead of a small bag with a tie. I made four since they seemed so easy and quick to make whilst being incredibly useful for presents.

This is the reverse of the bag.

One little bag was sent off containing four of the decorations I made. The other decorations became presents, as did the remaining bags. One bag held the completed hats which were a present to Simon and Liz, a secret since the jumper was an expected item. A further little bag held gifts for my younger daughter. The last was given as a gift to my friend Hilary.

The first hat is Hot Cuppa Joe by Jennifer Lacey. The pattern is available on Ravelry here.

The second hat has the wicked (naughty) title of "Ribbed for his pleasure." This pattern, by Tinksdarkerside, is also available on Ravelry here.

I like to think the fabric bags may be used in some way, or given as the container of a gift to further friends. Each little bag is large enough to be a small prject bag - perhaps to hold knitting or an embroidered piece.

The dungarees were an unexpected project. My neighbour became very worried since she was not able to find a suitable costume for her daughter who was taking part in the school play. Time was short. I heard about it and offered to help. A bit of research and a suitable design was decided upon. Eleanor, the eleven year old daughter, and her mother came round to help. Eleanor was delighted to be able to help sew the muslin for her dungarees. She was shown how to use my serger and had a wonderful time sewing a couple of long seams for me. With the muslin completed and altered to fit, they left me to get on with things. Luckily, I had exactly the right fabric in my stash. The following evening I was able to go round and present the completed dungarees to Eleanor and her mum.

I shall have to wait until the Traveling Pages mentioned have been received by their owners. The December and January ones have still to be completed, but hopefully they will be completed within the next few days. All the previous pages I have made for this project can be seen here.

Mum's quilt was finally completed on Thursday 30th December. She was delighted with it. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of her with it before she left to go home. (She had stayed here for the New Year celebrations, coming with Simon and Liz.) I shall take photos later in the week when I go to see mum again.

Thanks for reading this far. I wish you a very happy, enjoyable and creative 2011.

Textile pages and sewing.

I was delighted to hear that latest page for The Traveling Pages group had finally arrived. Above you can see the Lion and the Mouse under way. I am stitching through water soluble fabric here. Such useful stuff. It tears off easily as well as dissolving well. So handy when I wasn't sure how fragile the layers were going to be.
For the differing layers, I used netting, loose woven white cotton and a densely woven fabric I found in my stash. All embellished with FME. (Free Machine Embroidery.) The figures were copied from photographs found on the internet. Sadly, I didn't find one with a lion next to a mouse........ I wonder why...

This is the finished page. The background is painted using colours from a wonderful photograph I found on the internet showing an african sunset. It also had the silhouette of an acacia tree which I used for the back of the page. For this I used sheer brown voile attached using FME.

I sent it off with a simple retelling of this delightful story. The original fable was written by Aesop and is one of my favourites.

As you can see, Gayle's theme was "All creatures great and small".

Oh, I've been busy with mum's quilt. This was the pieces all placed on top of the fleece I shall be using for the backing. Since this time I have been busily piecing the backing for the smaller pieces. I have been having a lot of fun with curved piecing. I'd never tried doing that before. Sorry about the lack of photos - there just has not been enough decent daylight for a good enough photograph.

Knitting in Whitby.

The view from the cottage windows. We could see right across the harbour. A lovely spot.



Can you see the white painted building at the foot of a larger two story house? It has a strange black symbol painted to the right of the front windows. That is Kipper Cottage. It is the bottom floor of a larger building, but is also a completely separate dwelling. The white shape to the left is also part of the cottage - the front bedroom window. Approached down a slope seen to the right of the painted shape, it is a comfy and cosy place to stay. Beautifully set out, it was a delight to be able to stay there for the weekend. Close to everything, we had a wonderful time exploring.



I just loved this delightful building tucked away in one of the streets leading off from the harbour.



There was even a small replica of the Endeavour, one of the ships taken by Captain Cook on his travels. I couldn't resist the reflection of the rigging.



Here you can see the older part of Whitby with the Abbey perched on top of the promontory. The ruins can be seen behind the church. There is a very steep set of steps up to the Abbey and the surrounding buildings. A fascinating place to visit.

All in all, a rather special weekend.



Just before we left we stumbled upon the Charity Market being held in Northwich. I found these lovely books dating from around 1946.





This is the contents list from the Home Needlecraft book. It has really good illustrations showing how to convert older clothing into new......... Fascinating how ideas come round again.

The knitting? Well, I got a lot of knitting done on Simon's jumper. I am making him a second jumper this Christmas. This one is in charcoal. So nice to sit cosily perched on a comfy settee (sofa) after a day spent exploring.

Ongoing projects.

This is the start of a quilt for my mum. The first blocks have all been placed together on top of the fleece I shall be using as the backing. As I mentioned last time, I shall be adding some extra pieces to heighten the colour a little. It all seems a little flat to my taste at present.

I am about to cast on another knitting project. This time it is a second v-necked jumper for Simon. I made him one for last Christmas. This time, the sweater will be charcoal in colour. The yarn will be this lovely shade which the lovely owner of Crafty Stitches (my local yarn shop) got in for me. I'm using the instructions from this rather battered book. It has been much used over the years, having been printed in 1977 - the year I got married. (The 20th edition of this particular publication.)

I am also working on a pair of gloves with fingers. The pattern is "Knotty", by Julia Mueller. I've managed to finish the right glove, and have reached the halfway stage of the cable pattern on the back of the left glove. I'd never knitted gloves before this pair. Luckily, it is an easy pattern to follow. I love the long cuffs.

I did manage to finish one project in the past few days. It was this pair of socks. They were made following the Through the Loops Mystery Sock 2010 clues. Designed by Kirsten Kapur they were a really interesting project to knit. I'm looking forward to the next Mystery Sock.

I received one page from the Traveling Pages this week, and heard that another of my pages had arrived at long last.

The first to arrive was this one, my Shabby Chic page for Debi. You can learn more about this page here.

The next page to arrive was Juliette's November page for me. She has dyed some really interesting fabrics. More details are here. Juliette's Blog can be found here.

One more interesting detail for you. I went to a concert in a rather fascinating building and I only wish I could have taken some photos. However, it was far too dark. I was with the Condate, the choir I sing with in a concert with the Barnton Silver Band. The building we were in is "The Monastery". Do visit the website to see a little of this extraordinary place.

Sewing Adventures

Well, I have finally started mum's quilt. This is the first block. It shows the mix of squares. As a working title, I have called this "Square Dance". After a lot of playing around with blocks, I came up with this:



As you can probably see, I put a series of blocks into the mix in a slightly different colourway. Yes its a much plainer quilt than I had planned. The reason being that mum will be using this quilt to cover her favourite leather chair, a recliner. It seemed pointless to make a more complex quilt which she might not want to use for sitting on.........

The backing will be a light brown fleece fabric which has been in my stash for some time waiting for me to complete mum's quilt.

I plan to make a wall hanging using all the ideas I had put together for Terpsichorean - my first plans for this quilt.

Knitting, sewing, and some more pages.

Things have been rather busy here, hence the lack of posts recently. This knitting yarn was one I fell for when I went to the Northern Quilt Show in Harrogate in September. So I bought it. It is beautifully cosy and I am knitting a pair of long cuffed gloves with it. My first pair of gloves.



The pattern is a lovely one by Julia Mueller (Laris) which you can find on Ravelry. It is called "Knotty". I have nearly finished the right glove, but need to complete the thumb.

Apart from starting these gloves, I have been taking part in Mystery Socks 2010. This is run every year by Kirsten Kapur of Through the Loops. It is good fun too. I started the gloves whilst waiting for clue number 4. Sorry, I can't show you the work in progress photos, but this is the yarn I am using.



I just love the colour. Its a gorgeous rich purple called "Grape".



Well, I went off to Quilt group on the 7th October, fully intending to get on with adding to this quilt top. I'd been busily making additional squares like the one in the centre, planning to add these to the corners with other simpler sections between. Well, disaster struck. I had completely forgotten to take the fabric I needed to make more of the squares. I had enough for some, but not enough for everything I wanted to do. (The completed block is six inches across, so isn't very big.)
So, rooting through the fabric I had brought with me, I found some I liked and started making some log cabin blocks.



This is one of the blocks I finished. Yes, that is a ruler measuring in inches - not, I hasten to add in centimetres.

These are the ones I have completed to date. It has been fun, but I really ought to be getting on with a quilt for my mum.

I have finally decided how to go about it. I shall make her a quilt made from very simple squares in differing sizes. This is to be quilted onto fleece. Then I shall make her a wall quilt using the ideas I have been collecting for some time. I had wanted to make her a really interesting quilt, but since this is to be used to cover a chair, it wouldn't really be practical. Not with the designs I had had in mind............

While mulling over how to make mum's quilt, I have been busy making two more Traveling Pages. I sent one off today, but can only show you a teaser...........

The theme is "All creatures great and small". This was my page for October. The photograph shows some FME onto some fabric which, in turn is hidden under some water-soluble fabric. This is why you can see a muddle of stitching and pen lines waiting to be stitched.

The photo above is also a bit of a teaser. I posted this a couple of weeks ago, but it hasn't arrived yet. The theme here was "Shabby Chic Vintage". This page was late and should have been sent in September.

Posted a week earlier, this page has arrived. You can see more about it here. This page was extremely late and should have been sent in August!

The theme was "Doors", so I started off by painting some fabric and having a lot of fun with dictionaries and a thesaurus to find different words meaning the same as "door". I chose my favourites and wrote them all over the painted fabric using a fabric dye pen.

This was lots of fun.

I then made a door in the front of the page and added this little lock I found in a bead shop.

This is the reverse of that little door.