Shades of Blue

Some knitting for a change.
The patten is called 'Shades of Truth' by Laura Aylor. I used Wollmeise Twin in the colors black, nature, 47Ag, Blaue Tinte and Wolke.

However, when I put the finished shawl into the sink for washing, the dark blue bled onto the white. Still wet, I put it then into the washing machine and used a color catching tissue, in the hope it would get the blue spots out. The blue spots are gone now, but the whole white section in now a pale grey (here in comparison with the original yarn)

 It's not super terrible, but at the moment it does annoy me. I'm thinking about riping, but am not there yet.
Basically, I still like the shawl, but it does does look kinda ... dirty, not clean, at the moment.

Important lesson - pre-wash darker shades of hand dyed yarn before knitting. Repeatedly. Especially when mixing it with white.

Partial Eclipse of the Moon

On Thursday night, we had a very lovely moonrise:

But there was still another show in the starting blocks - a partial eclipse of the moon. I admit, as lunar eclipses go it wasn't super impressive - the moon was only for about 2% of it's surface in the Earth's umbra - but as the weather was so nice, I still took a couple of pictures.
The series below was taken between 21:12 and 22:53, one shot roughly every 10 minutes. I used fixed apperture (5.6) and exposure length (1/800) for all pictures.
I plugged the pictures into Photoshop and enventually managed to create this composite.

You can just about see the umbra scraping along the upper edge of the moon.

By the way, did you know that the fact that the Earth's shadow shows up as a circle on the moon (when you have a bit larger coverage of course), was, among other things they observed, proof already for Plato and Aristoteles that the Earth was a sphere.

Big Reveal

Some time ago I gave you a sneak peek of a quilting project I was working on at that time.
Now that the intentend recipient finally received the finished quilt, I can show you what I was doing. It's a scappy nine-patch / hourglass quilt in blues and aqua. The pattern was in a magazine but I would need to search, which one it actually has been.

I used a charm pack and (mostly) farbic from my stash. For the backside I used a lovely blue fabric with little golden dots all over, which I picked up in the closing sale of the patchwork store I just had discovered barely a month before it closed it's doors forever *darn*

The quilting itself was simple straight lines in the diagonal, so nothing fancy, but the pattern didn't need anything fancy and I'm very happy with the outcome.

Making Stars

When I make the stars for the 'Oh My Stars!' quilt, I usually make them in groups.
One 3 1/4" stripe of the white fabric makes for 8 of the small stars, with a 5 1/4" stripe I'm getting enough for 6 middle sized stars and a 7 1/4" wide stripe is good for at least 3 large stars. So, instead of making one star at the time, I'm making 8, 6 or 3 stars in one go.

This is all the material I need for 8 small stars:

I mark the smaller of the blue fabrics on the back side and pin them to the larger of the white squares.

 After sewing along the marked lines, I cut between the two seams. I now have 16 triangles.

 I iron them open and attach the remaining blue squares.

After sewing those, I cut again between the seems, iron them flat and trim them to the correct size (1 1/2" to 2 1/2" in case of the small stars).

In the end all that remains is to sew on the smaller white squares for the corners and the other pieces to the center part and, voilá, 8 stars are done.

Current status: 50 stars are done (large: 4, middle: 15, small 31). Only 61 more to go ....

Oh My Stars!

Okay, there's a new quilting / patchwork project in the works. Officially this is a quilt along, but I'm not going to be too obsessed about that. Anyway, it 'started' in November 2011, so I'm probably way out of the time frame given for the quilt along.
I found the project while I was browsing for quilts with star patterns and came across one that simply blew me away. I searched for the pattern and was overjoyed that it's a freebie - who doesn't love a freebie? Now, of course, I can't find the original quilt, but hey, that's life.

Anyway, I've started with the stars. At the moment I'm planing on doing only the simple basic star pattern and so far I like what I got, but I might change my mind sometime in the future.
Of the 111 stars needed for the smaller of the two quilts (which is what I'm aiming for right now) I've got 28 put together (of which 26 just fit on my table). Main color - obviously - is blue, but I'll throw in a couple of yellow/orange stars in to lighten the whole thing up a bit.

I've also made some prgress on the blackwork chess board. 8 fields done, 24 to go:

Happy Easter 2013

Hard to beleave it's already Easter. The weather certainly hadn't got the memo yet. It snowed on Friday morning!
Well, if the nature doesn't comply, one has to get the spring inside:

I did start a new stitching project. At the moment I'm planing on a chess board layout, using different blackwork pattern in every other square. The fabric is a 36ct antique white linen evenweave I had im my stash. 

The first square is already done:

On my knitting project I finished the first section and am now in the second. 53 rows at 280 stitches. Oh joy!

Scissor Fob

I bought the kit for this some time ago in Scottland, but somehow only got around stitching it up lately.

Love it! No idea why I left it for so long.

Next project in the works is a wrap inspired by the works of Frank Lloyd Wright, the American architect. I did go to visit his home in Chicago a long time ago, when I visited the USA for the very first time. I loved what he did ever since. The wrap also could have been inspired by Piet Mondrian, the painter, as it's very geometrical.

Those are the colors I've picked for the wrap (all of them Wollmeise Twin)

 

 Below the color layout of the wrap:

Three of a Kind

I came across this tutorial for a lunch bag some time ago and always wanted to give it a try. And a try I did give it. Or two. Or three....

Version 1 uses some fabric I picked up at Ikea plus a gray lining and a few red accents. It was from the start a gift for a good friend and moved to its new owner yesterday. I'm sure it will end up with plenty of knitting projects in the future.

Version 2 (aka the Ladybug Lunch Bag) is actually going to be used as a lunch bag by me. The inside is lined with the same plastic fabric I used for the rim, so when I take my lunch to work and something spills it will be easy to wipe down. 

For version 3 (the Scappy Lunch Bag) I used a few scraps I had left from my last couple of projects. I sewed the scraps on some foundation fabric until I had two pieces a little larger than what I needed for the bag. I then cut it down to size and used it for the pattern.

Strangely enough, I have still scraps left (though not that many in blues, now)

This bag is also going to a friend.

And The Winner Is

I know, you all can barely contain your excitement, so, here's the layout for the pillow I decided on:

Sadely, the pillow is about half an inch too big for the inside pillow (inside pillow is 40cm, the pillow itself ended up being 41.5cm), so maybe I'll make another one. I also, possibly would change the beige/brown farbic, as it turns out to be a rather muddy/dirty brown.
Hm, I think I had a car in just that color, once ....

Variations

My friend 'complained' that she only has one pillow when she's visiting me. This was of course something I couldn't let stand, so I had to make a new pillow.
As I have a lot a scraps, I decided to make 36 little squares, with one side a beige farbic, the other side a little scrap of blue. Then I had to decide how to arrange them.
So many possibilities:

So, which one did I pick?

Come on, take a guess.



The Final (Guitar) Frontier

One of Michael's items on his wishlist this year was a book with notes for his guitar.
I got that, but I also wanted to MAKE something for him. I remembered one of the fabrics I picked up on the Creativ Market in Wiesbaden last year.
There was only one fat quarter left at the stall and Michael let me buy it, even though he was interested in it as well. A fat quarter is not much, but it was enough for the idea I had, and so he's now getting a guitar strap with a very spacy theme.

I bought a ready made guitar strap and dismantled it to get to the hardware. Then I sewed a stripe 5cm wide (2"), one side with the space fabric and the other side with some black with golden dots. Worked very well together. Some interfacing inbetween, a bit of quilting and finished.

I hope he likes it.

Sneak Peek

I'm working on something.
But it's going to be a gift.
So I can't show you really.
Only a little peek.

Ich Habe Fertig

I actually finished a big knitting project.

The Austin Hoodie in Wollmeise Pure 'Chim Chim Chimney' and just a little bit of Wollmeise Twin 'Frühling' for the edges. Though I only have a picture of one half of the cardi I promise to you I have also knitted the other half.
Even though I used sock yarn, the cardi is surprisingly warm. And compfy. And it fits. I'd have liked maybe another inch or so in length, but other than that, I'm very happy.

Snow on the Bastei

The Bastei is probably the most famous rock formation in the Saxony Swiss.
Very beautiful normally, it becomes downright stunning when the right conditions come together.
As they did last Wednesday:

Beautyshot

Well, as much as it's possible in this weather (Sunshine? What's that?)
Frontside:

And Backside:

Exercise in Dwarven Design

I may have mentioned that I really like the new Hobbit movie (I just went and saw it again last night).
One of the things I love are the costumes and all the lovely details that go into them. A great book for people like me who love the art and design that goes into the movie is this here: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - CHRONICLES: Art

Anyway, when I saw the celtic knotwork pattern that adores some of Kili's costume (and, as I have found out in the meantime, also can be found on Fili's coat), I though that this could be made into a knitting pattern. Or at least I should be able to work out if this can be tranformed into a cable pattern.
So, here's a close up of the pattern as it is on the costume:

And here's my swatch with the cable pattern (this is like version 3, but finally I'm totally happy with it):

And if you want to try it out on your own, here's a chart:

 

The swatch is three repeats of the chart.

Sadely this is a bit wide to use in a sock (which was my first thought), but it should work fine on the back of a fingerless glove or simply as a band in a sweater or cardigan. Or, maybe as a trim on a hood/scarf combination.

Training

When doing any form of Free Form Quilting (FFQ), it's a VERY good idea to train a bit before heading for the real thing (especially if the real thing is a whoop-ass huge quilt)

So, what are you going to do if you don't want to waste precious pieces of fabric on something you won't be able to use in the end: You (or in this case, I) make placemats.

This also had the added bonus that I didn't just train doing FFQ, I also had a chance to try out two other techniques.

The first one, in the picture on the left and the right side is using 'Quilters Grid', which is a kind of fusible quilting aid with a 1" grid printed on on. Using lots and lots of little 2" squares, you lay them out, fuse them to the quilters grid with you iron and then can sew them easily together without them shifting of flying around.

Second technique to try is some paper piecing using 1.5" hexagons printed on and then cut out of freezer paper. The little hexagons of paper are then ironed on to little pieces of fabric and everything is sewn together by hand.

For the FFQ I drew lines on the farbic using a marking pen that disappears once you iron over it. After those three placemats I felt comfortable enough to not mark the quilt beforehand. 

Rainbow at Midnight

My Rainbow Quilt is done and got this slightly pretentious name:

The free form quilting worked quite well, and eventually I got bold enough to add some more distinct forms. It's actually fun to look at the quilt and start searching for those little hearts. The grey of the backside is in reality a mix between the picture above and the one below. Grey with a touch of blue and a breath of green.

If asked what I like most about the quilt I probably would say the edging. Even though I ignored all the usual rules for making a binding, it worked out exactly as I hoped.

All I need now is to grap a friend, a camera and possible some sunshine to make a proper photoshoot outside.

Quilting

Progress on my Rainbow quilt.

First I had to make the quilt sandwich. I used basting spray to join the three layers, but also added safety pins (just to be sure)

I'm only quilting the dark blue parts, leaving the rainbow colored bits untouched.

The freeform quilting is working okay, the toughest part is actually handling a 1,80 x 1,60 m piece of fabric sandwich around and through the machine. I'm now pretty much at the center of the quilt and for some reasons the thread is breaking every so often. Very annoying this.

2012 - The Works

2012 was a busy years in regards of handicrafts. I've knitted:
10 pairs of socks
3 shawls
2 scarfs
2 cardigans
3 wirstwarmers / fingerless mittens
1 blanket / afghan
1 pillow
2 pairs of potholders

The last (and only) bag I've knitted is this one:

Then I did sew six project bags (of which I gave away three)
I also patchworked / quilted two wallhangings, and work on my first full sized blanket.

I learned to fold Bascetta stars (very cool that).

All in all, I had a lot of fun!

Happy New Year 2013 to all of you. Stay healthy and stay happy.