Green hour-glasses

I take part in several challenges, and they all come together in this week's post!

Firstly, and the longest running on my list: The Rainbow Scrap Challenge, hosted by Angela at Soscrappy blog, for which this month's colour is green.
Secondly the Ad Hoc Improv Quilters online community, for whom the challenge for the first six months of 2020 is Hour Glass blocks.
Thirdly the challenge this quarter of the Dutch MQG (#dutchmqgthemavandemaand) is Improv.

These hour-glass blocks were cut freehand, and then machine stitched with a quarter inch seam. The original squares which I cut into quarters were 2.5", 3.5" and 5.5". I didn't plan them that way, that's just how they came out of my green scrap bag.

I haven't decided on my RSC block for this year, but I don't think I'll be making improv hour-glasses in all colours of the rainbow. These pieces will be going into one of the other two challenges, probably the AHIQ's.

I shall be posting this post on the blog of the AHIQ -  AHIQ: Improvisational Utility Quilts, and linking to the RSC link-up on Saturday.

 

Click on the button above to see more Rainbow fun. 

Happy sewing 

Marly

Rainbow Bow Ties is finished.

             


Click on the buttons above for my posts about these projected finishes.

My third finish for the 2019 Q4 Finish A-Long is Rainbow Bow Ties, my Rainbow Scrap Challenge for 2019. This is also my OMG goal for January 2020.

At something like the eleventh hour I finished sewing the binding down. I spread quilting the swirls over the previous two days. I used the design "swirls" from the book, "Stitching Pathways" by Wendy Sheppard. I found her technique of stitching a short distance and stopping to decide where to go next a real help and an eye-opener: "Why didn't I think of doing that?" instead of just letting the machine run on into increasingly  more hopeless places. This became a relaxed and interesting experience.

Close up of swirls; some more swirly than others, but we're getting there!

The idea for this quilt came from "Make Modern" magazine in 2018.

Fabric from stash, with some new neutral additions

Wadding 100 % cotton

Thread for piecing Aurifil 50 wt assorted colours

Thread for quilting Aurifil 50 wt colour 5011 (light khaki) 

I'm linking to

       

                                    

Click on the buttons to visit the link ups.

Happy sewing

Marly.

My goal for January 2020

is ...

Rainbow Bow Ties, all pinned and ready to quilt.

to have this, my RSC quilt in 2019, quilted and bound. The label is already on the back; I didn't forget this time and had it attached to the backing before I started layering.

The coloured fabrics were all scraps, but I had to add to the neutral stash for the sake of variety. The  squares were cut at 3.5" and the sew and flip triangles at 2" which resulted in 12" blocks. When I first saw this block unit I disliked it, but must say it has grown on me in the last few years, especially when I saw it made up into a quilt like this in the digital magazine "Make Modern". Now I am trying to decide how to quilt it. FMQ still worries me so I'm trying to think up a walking foot design other than straight lines. Whatever I decide I'll be reporting back at the end of the month.

I'm linking up to 

Click on the button to see more handicraft goals for this month.

With best wishes for 2020, and many happy sewing hours

Marly.

Dancing Stars

In November I made a surprise quilt: a surprise both to me and to the recipient. I called it Dancing Stars.

Dancing Stars: about to be rolled up and taken to my friend

I heard in the middle of November that a good friend was to be operated on her back at the end of the month. Knowing that operations to the spine can require a long convalescence I decided to make her a large lap quilt to cheer her up and keep her warm during the process.

Not having much time I decided on a simple repetitive design and went into mass production mode first cutting all the pieces for the stars and then making all the triangle in a square units. Quite an experience for me to see all 64 grey triangles with their accompanying left and right side triangles stacked together to the left of my machine.

Most of the centre squares I cut from a single fabric with a large print to match the star points, but I didn't have large enough pieces of interest fabric in some of the colours, and so there are also 4-patches and hour glass blocks as star centres.

Detail, before washing

After completing the star units I added strips of background fabric to two sides of the units and arranged them as in Bonnie Hunter's pattern "Dancing 9-patches" , giving the stars room to dance while making the quilt big enough! The top was finished within four days of starting cutting! A personal record!

The quilting is straight lines, half a walking-foot's width from the seam lines in both directions. Extremely boring, but effective. This took longer to do than piecing the top, mainly because I didn't want to overburden my shoulders again.

All in all finished within the fifteen days; from buying the background and backing fabric to washing and drying the finished quilt. I gave it to my friend on 7 December which was in time, because her operation had been postponed for two weeks.

dimensions: 145cm x 145cm   (57" x 57")
star fabric: from stash 
background: Kona: Iron
backing: Free Spirit: Wales from Parson Gray World Tour
Quilting thread: Mettler 1358 50 wt.

Although his hasn't been my RSC project for 2019 (that is ready for me to quilt) 

I am linking up this finish using scraps. 

 

Click on the button to see more rainbow finishes.

Happy Sewing

Marly.

Hand-knitted sweater

 

 

        

This is my finish for the two link-up's above. Click on the images (OMG at the end of December, and FAL at the beginning of January) for my goal-setting posts.

Finally all the ends have been darned in (there were a lot!) and my husband's sweater is finished!

The pattern is Evo, by Natasja Hornby of Moonstruck Knits. The sweater is knitted in one piece from top to bottom. There are no seams, and only the stitches for the neck ribbing were picked up right at the end. All that then remained was to darn in the ends. I am trying to use up my wool stash, and this wool was bought by my mother in the UK more than 50 years ago! In those days wool was sold in 1 ounce (oz) balls (roughly 30 g) and there's not much yardage in 30 grams! My mother was always afraid of running out of wool so I've still got loads left. I wonder if my husband would like a matching hat (just plain; no cables!).

The front and back panels are done in a twisted cable. I'm OK with straightforward cables but this was a new stitch combination for me, and I'm sure there must be an easier way. Nevertheless I persevered, and it's now finished, about six months later than I expected. (We just went out for a walk and he assured me that it is very warm: those cables serve their purpose!) The upside of the pattern is that while the side panels and sleeves are in reverse stocking stitch (all purl), the pattern included instructions for turning the work inside out for the sleeves, which were then knitted in stocking stitch (all plain) which I can do much more quickly. This made no difference to their appearance.

I shall be linking up to:

when they come online in the next week or so.

With my best wishes for Christmas and 2020,

Happy sewing

Marly.

 

December's Goal

I'm linking this post to Elm Street Quilts for One Monthly Goal.

Pattern: Evo by Natasja Hornby of Moonstruck Knits.

This sweater for my DH could have been finished three months ago, but wasn't!

All I have had to do is darn in the ends which are everywhere, and not just the two visible in the photo. The others are all on the inside, but nevertheless need to be finished off. The problem is I absolutely loathe darning in the tails in knitting: I've tried three techniques and they all give fiercely ugly results.  I'm sure when I was a teenager I got better results, but maybe I was just less critical! If anyone can point me to a foolproof tutorial I'd be so grateful.

I'm linking this to:

in the hope that DH will be wearing this before the end of the month.

Click on the button to see more goals for December.

Happy sewing

Marly.

 

Overlapping Octagons is finished!

Overlapping Octagons is copied from a photograph of a quilt made around 1950 and featured in the book "Unconventional and Unexpected, American quilts under the radar", by Roderick Kiracofe. Making a replica of a quilt in this book was a challenge issued by Sujata Shah about a year ago.
Unlike the original maker I used the sewing machine throughout, although I now think I would have been faster sewing all those y-seams by hand. I chose to use red to meet the criteria of another challenge; about the same time the Ad Hoc Improv Quilters issued the challenge: "Red is the new Neutral"

The Y-seams are not only at the four corners of the red squares but also at the X joins of the string sections.
In this photo the octagons are maybe easier to identify.

Originally I tried using hourglass blocks as cornerstones in the string sashing. That didn't work as the hourglass blocks became too visible as hourglasses and didn't blend into the octagons. The seams also became very bulky as five fabrics came together at one point, as opposed to just three now. In the original the fabric in the "sashing" continues into the "cornerstone" so I went with that, as you can see in the picture above.

I used fabric scraps throughout. I started with red and blue 19th century reproduction fabrics - the ones that have been hanging around the longest - but soon used up that lot (hooray!!) and moved on to the more recent fabrics. Just two colours - red and blue - became very boring, so quite early in the process I introduced small pieces of other colours among the blue strings.

fabrics: scraps from stash
measurements: 38" x 44"
pieced with Aurifil 50 wt light grey
quilted with Aurifil 40 wt dark blue, dark red and bright red

 Although this was intended as a small lap quilt my DH has claimed it for the wall above his desk! 

Finishing this quilt was my goal of the month this month, (and last, and the one before!) but now it really is bound, labelled and all the threads are buried!
It is also the first item on my Q4 list for the 2019 Finish A-Long, hosted by Sandra at Studio sew of course.

I'm linking to: 

              

Click on the buttons to see more scrappy quilts and goals achieved. 

Happy sewing

Marly.