Stitch Night With Carla and Heather

Heather, Carla, and I got together tonight to do some stitchin' and chattin'. Here's the knitted mat that Heather was working on. I really loved this concept, because it seems a perfect blend of knitting and quilting.

Heather knits well without looking - not bad!

Carla brought her hand loom along and showed us how that all worked. She's already made a couple of triangle pieces and plans to create a poncho out of them.

Here she is hard at work on her looom. It looks like a fun project.

Heather and I watched in fascination as Carla showed us how to do a "Russian Join" to splice together two skeins of wool without a knot.


Step one: divide each of the two ends into two parts - about an inch and half long.


Step two: Insert your darning needle into the "fork" of one divided section - also about an inch and a half in.


Step three: Insert half of each divided end into the darning needle.

Step four: pull the inserted ends through the yarn. Repeat on the opposite side.





Step five: smooth it out and pull it taut - VOILA!







One more shot of Carla's loom to get an idea of how the pegs are set up.........


I had fun tonight and gained some good ideas about new knitting projects to make. We'll see if I can manage that Russian Join on my own!

One for Jon too!

Well, I'd been promising Jon a rag quilt for quite a few weeks now, so after Jim's was complete, I decided to tie into Jon's.

This one, again with 12 inch squares, and this time only 4 x 7, only took three days to complete. Jon is thrilled!

I like how the squares-in-a-diagonal-pattern look turned out.......

Next project to complete: BLUESY!

My Mom's Projects

I visited my parents in Vanderhoof today and just had to capture a few of the things that Mom has done over the years. Her current crafty project is to make comfy slippers such as the ones pictured here. Believe it or not, she knitted these 75-80 pairs in about three months of her spare time. I've been the lucky recipient of numerous pairs over the years! She loves to give them to people or donate them to worthy causes.






























Although she has always loved to knit, Mom's other passion has been to do "petit point" embroidery. One of my favorite creations of hers is a replica of Rembrant's Night Watch - in my opinion Mom's chef-d'oeuvre.



It took her more than a weekend to whip this one up - more like 600 hours, in fact.








Here are a few of her other Dutch scenes, stitched up through the years........













....with a couple of close-ups of the stitching.

And I suppose no Dutch immigrant home would be complete without a display of all the famous windmills from the old country.

Finally, here's one of Holland's well-known church towers.

That's a great collection, Mom (but only a sampling, of course, of the many things you've created)!

A Trip Back to the 70s and 80s

I was out at our cabin this weekend, a place which has become a repository for older crafty items, and I just had to take pictures of these projects which took me down memory lane.

My mom got me going with crafts when I was quite young, and the leprechaun pillow was my first cross-stitch creation (completed in 1971-72 when I was 7 years old): it seems to fit well on the 70s-special furniture we have out there!

On the cabin wall is the rug I hooked back in 1982-83, my first year at UVic. I gave this one to Matt as a Christmas present. He even displayed it on the wall in his parents' house for awhile back then; he must have like it!

Rag Quilt Completed!

I think this is officially the fastest I've ever finished a project this big! I started this quilt for my brother-in-law, Jim, on Monday, and by Friday evening it was washed and done. Here's the final product. It's meant for a tall person - 5 feet by 9 feet minus the seams. Guys like Jim who are 6'6" need something long!








After I clipped the seams, but before I washed the quilt, the seams looked like this........














.....but after a wash they really fluffed up to look like this. Matt and Jim are off on a motorbike trip to Washington this morning, so this should keep him warm while they're camping.

Quick Rag Quilt

I'm putting Bluesy on hold for a few days while my brother-in-law, Jim, is up from the States for a visit, and instead I'm going to make him an extra-long rag quilt like I did for Matt recently.

My first step is to cut a whole bunch of 12 x 12 flannel squares. The quilt will be be 5 x 9 squares, and each square will be three flannel layers thick: navy on the bottom, burgandy in the middle, and the "pattern" color on top.

I'm not sure why this picture of the cut squares isn't rotating for me, but oh well.....you can get the idea......




Next I sew diagonally across each set of three. This goes rather quickly!

Here are a few squares already completed, and the pattern is starting to take shape.

We'll see if I can get this done on time!

Section One of Bluesy Complete

Here's the main section of the quilt all finished! I'm looking forward to finding colors to put around the edges to finish it off!

Bluesy Coming Together

Today I finished all of the funky-looking squares and arranged them in a 7 x 9 pattern.........here are the big 63, still unattached........

















A little bit closer shot.....














......and here's the first strip of seven all completed. I'd hoped to get everything sewn together this evening, but alas, I'm too tired. All this relaxing summer holiday time is wearing me out!

Lisa's First Patch

Well, we had another quilting session at Lisa's this evening. She was able to finish all of her regular 9-patches and test out her first "disappearing" patch. Here's the fabulous result:

My blue patches are coming along nicely; I'm hoping to share a picture of the completed 63 very soon!

Quilting is most definitely not for those who are in a hurry....

Quilting Bee #1

Here are Lisa and her sister, Suzanne (foreground) zippin' up those strips on their sewing machines. You can see my "bluesy" project on the middle left.

Lisa has the perfect spot in her basement for the three of us to work at one time - we're going to see how far we get this week!

We are aided here by coffee laced with "Mommy's Helper"........what could that be?







Lisa has chosen some nice blacks, pinks, and greens for her project. By tomorrow they should be in squares......













Suzanne won a jelly roll at her local quilting store and is creating her quilt with these warm-colored strips - a perfect match for her living room.













Each of us has a different approach. Lisa, organizer extraordinaire, carefully laid out her original strips, organized them carefully, and then started sewing. I organized mine somewhat before the machine starting humming, and Suzanne quickly glanced at her strips and started into it. I wonder who will finish first??

The Disappearing Nine Patch

Well, here goes my first blog entry!

I'm a novice quilter making my first "Disappearing Nine Patch" project, and I'd like to document how it's going. My thanks to the directions posted by Quilts & ATCs.

My good friend, Lisa, gave me a "jelly roll"for my birthday recently, so the first step, cutting long 2 1/2" strips, was already done for me. I then sewed together these strips into twelve 3-color strips: eight were dark-light-darks, and four were light-dark-lights.

After this I cut my three-color strips into 2 1/2" sections. It doesn't look like much, but there are a lot of little strips here!

Next, I sewed these strips of three into 9-patches. Each patch required a light-dark-light down the middle.

I then cut each 9-patch vertically and horizontally.......

.......and rearranged them to form some funky looking squares.

I'll be needing 63 of these finished squares to create a 7 x 9 square quilt. Tonight I'll head to Lisa's house to work on this some more (she and her sister are each creating similar quilts). I hope to have more pictures soon.

Phew - that first blog entry was rather fun to create!