Shades of Gray

Last week I showed some scrap patches I've made. There are now quite a few more of those patches (48 to be precise).
I have eight each of five different base colors plus some extras, which won't end up in the little quilt I've decided to make. Aren't they pretty (those are obviously only the black/white and the yellows)?

After some deliberation, sketching and throwing out of other ideas, I've decided on this layout below. I've been wanting to do a quilt like this for some time, and as I was looking for ideas I've thought this would work well with the scrap patches.

 This meant I had to do a few more patches in certain colors, and also that I had to cast out a couple patches which were not fitting in with the rest. This also meant I had to do a quick trip to the fabric store for enough white fabric to make 40 6.5inch squares (the white I had here was juuuuuuust not enough - quick note to myself: buy more white!).

 So far I have made HSTs for the black and white stripe and put it together.
Looks like it might be working.

This won't be a large quilt. Just 44" by 55". Depending on were I'm looking this should work out as a lap quilt. All my quilts (except the babies) have been larger than this.
I'll see.

Fabric Scraps

I have a lot of scraps. Some of them are from projects I've done, another part is because I cannot walk past a scrap basket in a fabric store without diving in and pulling stuff out. And then there are the scrap bags. They seem to simply follow me to the checkout, Don't know how they do it.

At home I have a full drawer dedicated to my scraps (by my definition, everything smaller than 5 x 5 inches is a scrap). I've sorted them by color and normally keep them in zip locked plastic bags.

Yesterday I've pulled out some of the bags and started making patches. The patches are 6.5 x 6.5 inches.

I'm not 100% sure yet what I'm going to do with the patches and how far I'm going to go, but I think those are a pretty good start for something bright and colorful.

1080

1080 is the number of stitches I currently have on my needle. Eventually, this is going to be a table cloth (pattern is the Sun Ray Design aka. Heirloom shawl and knitted in an off-white cotton)

London Shopping Bag

Yeah! Another bag.
This shopping bag is about 50cm wide (20'') and 36cm tall (14''). I added a red lining incl. a nice inside pocket for the money.

And if I evey take the bag to London for some shopping, I won't be lost.

Yeah again!

I also made some potholders for a friend with cat's paw prints.

Hundertwasser

The 'Waldspirale' is a building in Darmstadt designed by the famous Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser. Built in 2000 there are no straight lines and the roof is green (as in green stuff grows on the roof)

  According to the internet, none of the over 1000 windows look alike. I'm personally quite fond of the one down here.

Sea Turtle and the Stormlight Archive

It's been a while I did any mayor cross stitching. But currently I'm listening the the two first books in the Stormlight Archive Sage by Brandon Sanderson, and they both are very good, and very long, and excellent to do cross stitching to.

The pattern I'm doing is called 'Honour Diversity' (the link I have in the side bar is not working any longer - sorry about this, but I can't find any place right now that carries the pattern). I've got one of the dolphins done and the two sea turtles and now I am working on the big fish. No back stitching done yet, and there are also a ton of french knots, which will have to wait until the end.

Happy Easter

More eggs. Those are felted. I've got the kit from my sister some times ago and decided to give it a try. They (I've got about 7 of them) looks quite nice in my ficus tree.

 This table runner has been a long time in the making, but is now ready just for spring. The background is made from hexagons I sewed together by hand. The flowers are applique.

A Knitter's Way to Dye Easter Eggs

It's the time of the year again where one is thinking about the way to prepare the Easter meal for the family. But it's also about Easterly decorations. And being a knitter, I just couldn't go and do it the normal way. So instead of dying Easter eggs directly, I dyed the yarn and knitted around an (plastic) egg.
For the yarn dying I used the same method I used in March 2012 (blog post is here)
I measured out the right amount of yarn for three eggs (it's a bit more than 4 gramms - or twice the length from my storage chamber door to my sewing room door). Then I picked three flavours: Lemon Lime (green), Ice Blue Rasberry (light blue) and Cherry (red)

 I put the yarn into a small jar with 100ml of water and put it into the microwave for about 2 min or until all the color was drained from the water.

 After drying the yarn and knitting, the eggs has the perfect Easter Egg colours. The colours are a bit more intense than last time I did it, as I used less yarn and also less water.

 The whole process of the egg knitting is quite addictive and I ended up using quite a few scraps of wollmeise yarn I still have sitting around.

From the top clockwise they are:

- Sonne (sun)

- Campari

- Kool-Aid Cherry

- Sultan

- Pfefferminz Prinz (peppermint prince)

- Kool-Aid Ice Blue Raspberry

- Wolke (cloud)
- Fliederbusch
- Chim Chim Chimney
- No Wahle Watching in Colorado
- Gewitterhimmel (Storm sky) plus Limone
- Tiefer See (deep sea)
- Kool-Aid Lemon-Lime
- Limone
- Küken (chick)

SoFi 2015

This time we got lucky and had a cloudless sky during the Eclips today (SoFi = Sonnenfinsternis = Solar Eclips). The weather during the last one in 1999 was overcast and 't see much.
I have kept my special glasses from last time, and they were quite popular.
A collegue built a small pinhole camera and I tried to take a couple of pictures, but - as expected - they are far from professional.
Here almost at the peak:

 And already mostly over.

Still, pretty cool.
So we only need to wait for the next total one in 2081 ....

Socks Again

I know, socks are not the most exciting thing in the world. But I like them and I like knitting them. So socks it is ...

Those are again made from the Aldi Sockyarn (I still have plenty of that). Pattern is Anni from the book 'Op-Art Socks' by Stephanie van der Linden. Not the first pattern I have knitted from one of Stephanie's pattern, nore will it be the last.

 As a bonus an update on the scappy zigzag blanket:

I've got now 7 stripes and a width of 125cm (to 160cm length). I think I'll do at least one more in medium width (I have widths of 41, 51 and 61 stitches)

Cathedral Window

One thing I really enjoy when patchworking is to try new techniques. Not neccessary because I have a great plan or a finished object in mind, but just because this technique looks interesting and I want to try it.
Case in point: the cathedral window. I followed a tutorial on Moda Bake and this worked pretty well. Astonishing how much of the white fabric is used, really, considering how little is seen in the end (it basically lays four layers deep)

 It was super fun to make, though if I should do it again, I will find a different way to fix the inner fabric as in the ends the points there look pretty crappy:

For this project I ccould still hide those corners by making fabric covered buttons and sew them into each joint. And what I also don't like is that you don't have extra fabric on the outside to attach the borders to and you have to sew over the points of the windows. not sure how to fix this though ....

Look, Socks!

My local discounter had sock yarn on sale. Normally I'm not super thrilled by the quality, but this time I really liked it and also liked the colors on offer.
This pair is for me:

 And this pair is for my mom (as soon as I found some latex for the soles)

Hex Hex

The 'Hexenkissen' (Witches Pillow) is a very clever little pillow, far easier to make than it actually looks. It is a bit fiddle, but mostly because one is working with a million narrow stripes, but the end product is well worth it. It uses 18 different black and white fabrics (ready cut into a narrow jelly roll with 1 1/4 stripe width) plus a tiny bit of red fabric from my stash.
Here's the front:

 And here's the back:

 Last weekend's weaving project turned into a plain table runner. It's all I hoped it to be. I thought about adding a stencil print to it but my friends voted against it.

 The hardest bit has been the tassles, which took almost as long as the actual weaving, but well worth it.

Baskets and Weaving

The fabric cord I made two weeks ago, now has turned into a smallish basket. My first attempt on the sewing machine ended into a rather crooked and strangely shaped object, so I took most of it apart again and sewed up the side walls by hand. 

 The whole thing is still not perfectly straight, but much better than before. After I took the picture, I also added a blue lining to the inside.
I still have quite a bit of cord left over and I'm thinking about braiding more and give the bathroom rug a second chance.
Some day, when I should find time.
Other than knitting socks once again (which I hope to show next time), I also pulled out my loom once again. I have decided I need a long table runner for my dining room table.

 The weaving part is acutally done now, and I'm working on making nice tassles.

Kunterbunt Quilt

This quilt was a bit long in the making. Started last May it sat there waiting to be quilted for a good six month. Part of it was that I was busy with other things, another part was that the actual quilting part is not my favorite part of the whole process.
But finally here it is: Kunterbunt Quilt

I have used mostly scraps for this quilt (and a few meters of white fabric). In the center bit I started with 5'' and 2'' squares, which I first sewed to half square triangles and then added another triangle into one corner. I then made light diamands (with the colors at the edges and the center) and dark diamonds. There are 6 x 7 blocks, framed by a narrow white border and then a colored border using more scraps.

Final size is 170 x 150.

 For the backside I used some more scraps, which I stacked to a long stripe, which went between the main fabric. I never seem to be able to join the back and the front perfectly straight, but well, nobody is perfect.
For the quilting I stipled all over the center and the outer edge, and some wavy lines for the white border.

Finally, the binding is black (as the most neutral color I could think of) with white fake piping. The instructions said to sew the front on using the sewing machine, but that turned out very untidy, so I did unpick and re-sewed by hand. 

I'm super happy with the finished quilt, and not only because this frees me now to start something new.

Upcycling

Last time I cleaned out my wardrobe, I put several t-shirts aside I didn't like to wear anymore, but thought I could use for other things.
The other things, as it turned out, was a braided rug for my bathroom.

The project started out with six t-shirts, which I cut into stripes. It took my up to t-shirt 3 to work out the best way to cut in order to get a long, continues stripe, but once I got it, it's really fast and easy.

Next I braided three t-shirts at a time into a long, long cord (my guestimation is 60m all in all). This is nicely done in front of the tv or while listening to an audiobook.

 On the sewing machine I sewed the cord together using a wide zigzag stitch.

And *tata* a rug for the bathroom:

 (it doesn't lay perfectly flat, but it works, so who cares really)
This one finshed, I started with the next project, this time using some not so much loved cotton fabric I haven't thrown out yet.

 Doesn't that look like it could have a lovely little basket in it's future?

ZigZag Progress

The scrappy blanket is making progress.I've used up about 800g of sockyarn so far. It's still loads of fun to knit, One stripe is about 160cm long, so this should turn out to be a nice big, warm blanket.

As a quick in-between project I've also knitted a hat, just in case it should get colder (my old had doesn't even cover my ears, so something a bit warmer was definitely needed.

I have blocked it over a dinner plate. It came out nice a slouchy, just the way I wanted.

Things I've Been Up To

First of I want to wish you all a Happy New Year.
I've been with friends, eating too much (though not that much drinking other than a sip of champange to greet the new year).
For Chistmas I had made two pairs of socks, which I both forgot to take pictures off before I gave them away. My parents also got potholders (the last one I've made show a little bit of use and a few burn marks, so it was time for a new set)

My sister saw those, and hinted she could use a new pair, too.

Both pairs come from my cotton stash and I have still plenty left for at least another pair.

Speaking of left over yarn. I decided to knit a scrappy blanket using the sock yarn left overs.

The plan is to knit 8 to 10 stripes on the diagonal with different width. I'm holding the yarn double and switch out one color every 6 to 10 rows. Primary I'm going to use blues and greens and some neutrals, with a few dashes of other colors now and then.

If you happen to have some sock yarn in those colors left over, I'm more than happy to take those off your hands.

I'm also back on the sewing machine. For one thing I finally basted the scrappy quilt top I made months ago and which has been sitting in my craft room looking at me accusingly every time I came in. I'm planning on doing the actual quilting this weekend.

I also had a quick sew for a kindle stand.

Basically a kind of sack sewn to give it a triangular shape, then stuffed with fabric sraps and a cup of dry beans (for weight). It's not perfect - to begin with, I stuffed it too tight first time round - but it does it's intented job.

Merry Christmas

To all I wish a Merry Christmas.

 May your tree (if you had one ... I don't) have many ornaments.

 May you have plenty of jummy stuff to eat (and don't forget to not just eat the sweet stuff, but have a bit of healthy food somewhere in there as well)

 And spent time with you loved ones,or reading a good book, or do some knitting ... or all of the above.

'tis The Season

Yesterday, we went to the medieval christmas market at the Ronneburg. I only brough the smartphone alone, so pretty crappy pictures.
Saint Nicholas went around to hand out small gifts to all the kids.

 And in the inner court a huge christmas tree stood.

Not related to the Christmas market. Already a few weeks ago I made this quilted star table topper for my mom.