Thursday, November 24, 2016

Christmas Cards

Even in the time of modern social media and instant communication around the world, there is something to be said about a real, physical christmas card you can hold in your hand. Even better, if that card is hand-made.
My mom 'orders' a set every year to sent out, and this year it was my turn to make some.
Naturally, they have to be made with fabric.
I chose two different layouts (a bit of variation is always good), but basically they are quite similar in the making.
The first set (I've made six cards each) are christmas tree baubles. I appliqued them onto the background using golden thread (well, golden colored metalic thread). The little bows almost took the most time, but they definetely were worth putting on. I should have sewed them on before sewing the fabric to the card stock, that would have been easier. Live and learn.
Second set are christmas trees. I wrapped the ribbons around the front tree before sewing it to the background and it worked more or less okay. The metalic stars on the tree are simply glued on.

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Summer In The Park

The mom of my oldest best friend has a big birthday coming to her, and as she's already an admirer of my quilting works, I decided to make a quilt for her.
 I decided on the 'Summer in the Park' pattern as I had quite a few jelly rolls sitting around, the patterns itself is quick and easy, and it was on my bucket list. I added Kona Cotton White for the background and the inner border, and used a dark blue for the outer border.
 The quilt is fairly quick to make, from start to finish a bit more than five weeks. I wanted it big enough for a bed cover and so I made it 1,90m by 2,30m (75 x 90 inches)
 For the backside I used an Ikea fabric. I only managed to score 3.5m of it, which was a bit on the short side, but with some creative jigsaw puzzling and the scraps left from the front, I got just enough for a nice sized back.
Most of the quilting is a simple stiple all over in white (and a matching blue for the outer border). For the inner border I quilted a zigzag. According to the packaging the blue marked should disappear after a couple of days, but it's still visible after a week. Hopefully the wash will fix it.
I still need to make a label, but luckily I have a bit time left.

Sunday, November 06, 2016

Restesocken

(aka scrappy socks)
I do have a sock knitting phase (some might call it an obsession). Within the last four weeks I managed to knit four pairs of socks, only using scrappy yarn, which I have left from other projects.
The start were this pair with blue and green yarns. The transition is 4A - 1B - 3A - 2B - 2A - 3B - 1A - 4B - 1C ... and so on.
Sadly for me they turned out a smidgen too big, so they went to a friend of mine.

Next pair is knitted in spirals using three yarns at the same time. It's a bit fiddle to manage all the yarn, but the advantage is that there's not jog when moving from one color to the next.
I then dove into my green scraps and came up with this pair. Love, love, love how they turned out.
The last pair (so far) comes from 14 different yellow, red and purples (plus a wee bit of black). The transition here is 5A - 2 B - 2A - 5B ... I did the math there before hand and with 9 rows of each color I got exactly the length I wanted.
Sigh, the next pair is already in the works.And it will most likely not be the last.