Micro Petit Point

 

Another project that is close to being taken off my 'to do' list. Just need to finish the blue background on the top one, the center is totally done. Should be able to finish this in the next day or so. Then I'll still have to make the chairs, though I haven't decided if I want to use them as dining chairs and hope that Nicola will design more (don't like stitching the same thing more than once), or if I'll just use them for chairs for a living room.
These are the tapestry chair seats designed by @nicolamascall being stitched on 60 count instead of 56 count which is the reason I had to make the background a bit bigger. I used Au Ver a Soie Soie Surfine silk thread.

More Knitting done

 

Very unusual construction of this sweater. First you knit 2 straps that go across each shoulder and then down the top of the sleeve. Then pick up stitches along one long edge of a strap, start shaping the shoulder and neckline until it gets to the part to add the stitches for the front neck. Then do the same for the other strap and then join by adding stitches for the front neck. But you do short rows all the way down the sleeves to the wrist to shape the sleeves.

It is a dolman sleeve type sweater, so once the sleeves are about the size needed to the underarm seam you start casting off until there are only stitches left for the body of the sweater. You then do the same for the upper back and finally join to knit the body. The pattern is Circe by Natasja Hornby (Moonstruck-knits), and I am using Knitpicks Wool of the Andes DK in the colour Fairy tale. I started in back in Dec 2022, but only got one strap knit before it got put aside.

I have in the meantime gone back to organizing yarn, and while I was going through the bag of striping yarns, I decided that some of that yarn could be designated for skirts. I am going to knit a skirt in worsted weight leftovers of Noro yarns knit in vertical strips with some shaping. And I do have an ice brand yarn that is a fine sport weight in very neutral colours of greys and blues, and found a Drops Designs pattern done in garter stitch triangles for a skirt.

Some day I am going to use up all that yarn in my yarn room, either in knitting or use it in weaving, and I may also sell some, who knows. And maybe some day I'll also finish my WIPS, again who knows.

Getting back to posting

 Well, I think I am again going to try and be more consistent in posting to my blog. Have mostly be posting on Instagram and Facebook in the last couple of years, but since I seem to be talking to thin air there, I might as well talk to thin air on my blog, at least I can write more than on insta or fb.

I have been very busy in the last few weeks trying to sort out all my yarn, both for weaving and knitting, and I have come to the conclusion that I either need to knit faster and get through some of the yarn, or I need to get back to my looms and use up the yarn a bit faster that way. I just need some good inspiration for weaving fabrics for clothing, and most of what I see is people weaving either teatowels, scarves or maybe shawls. I don't need any more teatowels, and I don't do scarves or shawls, and I just can't be bothered with the hassle of selling any, which would mean running to the post office on a regular basis to get things in the mail, and that would be an issue in the winter, since I don't drive on icy or snowy roads.

I have been looking at the patterns that Sarah Howard (Get Weaving, or Wear Your Weaving) has in her Etsy shop, She mostly makes clothes out of fabrics woven on her small table loom, and she does a lot of the weaving with heavier yarns, like knitting yarns, or yarns that she has spun. And that has me now thinking I might get a small table loom that I can use upstairs, but I will think about that some time later this year. I really don't need another loom, but I actually might get more weaving done if I don't have to go downstairs to do it, but who knows.

So, I guess I'd better get working on clearing out the basement/studio so that I can get at my looms, and also have room to wind a warp.

In the meantime I am getting a fair amount of knitting done during my breaks from organizing. This top I just finished, using Butterfly Super 10 cotton, pattern is Moonglow top by Zaneteknits. I just need to finish the ends and block it. Was a fast knit, took less than a week.

Another hexagon quilt

I wonder if anyone ever questions why one started something??? Came across another quilt project that I started back in 2017 or there about. And yes, it is another huge quilt done in 0.5 inch hexagons. The final size will be around 2.5 x 2.5 meters. It is one called La Passion and was designed and made by a someone by the name of Grit in Germany on her blog called Grit’s Life. The quilt was posted in sections as a ‘quilt-along’, though it is now available for sale on her website. Of course when I first saw it I downloaded all the sections, and started it. Though I am using Inklingo instead of paper pieces. I would never have even thought of starting it if the only choice was English Paper Piecing, too much work, considering there are about 17,000 hexagons in this quilt.

 This is what the quilt looks like, though there are many different colour combinations that people have used, and I am using my own colour selections. I have so far done the very center and am working on the section of six hexagon flowers and smaller flowers inside the ring of small flowers. Here is a photo of what I’ve done so far on this quilt.

Oh, and then there is the insanity of having started the Dear Prudence quilt by Linda White from Australia, with uhm, 1/4 inch hexies. And I have the pattern for her Eleanor Jean quilt as well

. Dear Prudence blog.

 

I really am beginning to question what I was thinking when I started these, specially since there are now 4 hexagon quilts in the making, and that is not yet counting all the other quilt projects hiding somewhere. I do think it is about time I started finishing some of these…. I need more hours in the day.

Dollhouse dolls with knitted clothes

Was asked a few days ago to show photos of all the dollhouse dolls I have clothed in knitted outfits. That was easier said than done. So here are 3 photos of the ones that are done so far. Yes, some still need hair, I’ll get to that sometime. Most of the patterns are by Helena Bleeker or Sharon Gail de Vries.

  

 

 

 

 

 

Not all of the dolls show very well in these pictures, I might take some better photos some other time, when I have finished some of the others that have been in the making for the last few years. And I also need to make something to allow some of them to stand by themselves.

Yes, I get easily sidetracked to start new things, which is the reason there are at least another dozen in the works. And right at the moment I am knitting for slightly bigger dolls, and then I have boxes of still bigger ones that need some clothing. I have been fascinated with knitting for dolls for quite a few years, but seem to always end up putting them aside because other things came along….

More quilting

This is another quilt I am working on. This is a photo of a quilt made by Albert Small that I found interesting.

This is what mine is starting to look like. Yes, I started it about 7 years ago, and it got put aside for several years, but I am now in the process of printing and sorting all the pieces for the different motifs and putting each set in a separated zip bag so that I can just grab a bag and start stitching. Even that is a lot of work, there are a lot of 0.5 inch hexagons in this quilt. I am using the Inklingo 0.5 inch hexagon collection to print the cutting and sewing lines on fabric.

The quilt I am actually stitching, besides the Midnight Fireworks one, is this big flower basket quilt. I have done more than what shows on this photo, a large part of the lower left is done, and I am working on the top right part.  I just don’t have the space to spread the whole thing out and then take a picture, it is too big. The hexagons for this quilt are 1 inch ones. I don’t remember when I started this quilt, it is well over 20 years ago. It was started before Inklingo even existed, and even then there was no way I was going to go to the effort of printing (or purchasing) all these pieces of paper for doing English Paper Piecing, so I used a plastic template to cut the pieces and used a smaller template to draw the sewing lines and pieced with the running stitch. But once I got the Inklingo shape collection for this size hexagon I even went so far as to print a page on freezer paper, then ironed the already cut hexagons in place and printed the sewing lines. I figure if I sew at least 10 hexies per day I might get it finished by the end of the year.

 

 

Quilting

This is one of the things I am working on at the moment. It will become a quilt to cover my front door. Block 15 of the 24 needed is almost done. The pattern is Midnight Fireworks from the Millefiori quilts book 1 by Willyne Hammerstein. I am using the Inklingo shape collections to print the cutting and sewing lines on the back of the fabrics for all the pieces.

A lot of you will wonder ‘why make a quilt to cover a door???’

 

Well, that started a few years ago when I started trying to figure out how to cover up the half round upper windows in my bedroom. I have a street light right in front of my bedroom windows. I had mini blinds for the bottom part of the 3 windows, but nothing for the top ones, since at first I figured, no one can see in those. But then I started being bothered by the light shining into the room all night. Yes we could have done the same as some of my neighbours and got specially shaped blinds for those windows, but….. those are boring.

So, one day I thought that maybe it might be a good idea to make something out of fabric to cover those windows, and came up with the idea to make shaped quilts for those. I did some machine embroidery on fabric, made a paper pattern of the window shape, sewed a cotton batting and some fabric for the back, didn’t bother with quilting. At first I tried using some kind of tubing inside the rounded part to fit them to the window, but after a while decided that that wasn’t working. Velcro to the rescue, staple one side to the window frame, sew the other side to the quilt…. bingo, works great.

Then I started noticing that those quilts actually kept out both heat and cold, specially the heat, since my house faces west and is at the top of a hill, so from mid afternoon until the sun disappears behind the mountains, the heat blazes into the house in the summer. So I decided that the mini blinds that kept nosy eyes out of my bedroom (which is on the 2nd floor, so really not a lot), but did nothing for keeping out heat and cold. So in the last few years those were also replaced by quilts.

And of course, since my living room is on the same side of the house, with the same windows, those needed quilts as well. This time they were actually quilts with pieced tops, though the top half round ones I did some ‘stained glass’ type applique.

 This picture doesn’t show them very well, but at least it gives the impression as to what I am talking about. The bottom half of the quilts just have velcro along the top, so I an take them off when needed, and I have  strips of velcro for each of them that will hold the rolled up quilt if I only want to uncover the windows for a short time. And boy, do they ever keep out a lot of heat, al I need to do to find that out is to try and peek out during the afternoon, and feel the heat behind them.

Now I have a front door that has a big window in it, and 2 side windows, and I started noticing in the last couple of years that the reason my AC had a hard time keeping the house cool was because of the amount of heat that those windows let in during the afternoon. Last year during the heat dome when the temps here went up to the mid 40’s Celcius I actually taped some fabric over those windows, and came to the conclusion that I needed to make quilts for those windows as well.

This is the top for one of the side windows, just have to add batting and backing. I have the other one partially done,

Yes I know, they are not done to stop the heat from coming in from the current heat wave, but hopefully they will all be done before the winter and help keep the cold out.