Saturday, September 29, 2012

Whirlwind - finished

Last night I finally finished Whirlwind, the September installment of the Block of the Month series by Deanne Eisenman of Snuggles Quilts. With just 2 days to spare. :)
 

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Weekly Update

Quilting:

I've almost finished Whirlwind, the September installment of the Block of the Month series by Deanne Eisenman of Snuggles Quilts.  Hopefully I'll be able to get it done in the next day or two.


Pam Buda posted the next part of Forget Me Not, but it wasn't entirely clear to me which fabrics I should use or what the finished size of the blocks should be, so I've decided to wait until she does the big reveal of the entire quilt this Friday to get started on the next bit.

Blackwork:

I'm still working on the same square on the Blackwork Chessboard by Anne MacGregor.


Cross Stitch:
I got a lot done on Elements of Nature I, which is adapted from the artwork of Jennifer Pugh.


Swedish Weaving:

I only did a little on the Feathers To and Fro afghan from Learn to Make Monk’s Cloth Afghans by Marilyn T. Magly. I should get more done this week since there's a lot on TV this weekend and this is my TV-watching project. :)


Crochet:

I finished 5 more leaves for the 2nd panel of the Morning Glory afghan designed by Michele Maks for a total of 11 out of 26 needed. I also wove in the ends on 1 of the squares for the 3rd panel.


Knitting:

I did quite a bit of embroidery on the center panel of the Octopus Garden Blanket by Georgia Vincent.


Finishing:

And, finally, I sewed another border strip onto Tech Support, a design by Linda Connors of Calico Crossroads®, adapted from the artwork of Kathleen Kelly of Kats by Kelly™, and pressed both strips.
 

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Weekly Update

Quilting:

I've been sick this week and didn't have the energy to get the iron out most days, so that's made quilting a bit of a challenge, but I finally finished Parts 11 & 12 of Forget Me Not, a sew-along by Pam Buda of Heartspun Quilts. These are the last 2 blocks in the project. This Friday Pam will give us instructions for the setting.


I also got some work done on Whirlwind, the September installment of the Block of the Month series by Deanne Eisenman of Snuggles Quilts. I had to do some frogging and resewing since I'd assembled some of the pieces in the wrong order, but I still managed to make really good progress on it.


Blackwork:

I got one square about halfway done on the Blackwork Chessboard by Anne MacGregor.

 


Cross Stitch:

Then there's Elements of Nature I, which is adapted from the artwork of Jennifer Pugh.


Swedish Weaving:

And the Feathers To and Fro afghan from Learn to Make Monk’s Cloth Afghans by Marilyn T. Magly.


Crochet:

I finished 1 more blue flower and 5 more leaves for the 2nd panel of the Morning Glory afghan designed by Michele Maks. That makes 7 out of 7 blue flowers, 6 out 6 purple flowers, and 6 out of 26 leaves.


Knitting:

I did a little more embroidery on the center panel of the Octopus Garden Blanket by Georgia Vincent.


Finishing:

And, finally, I sewed one border strip onto Tech Support, a design by Linda Connors of Calico Crossroads®, adapted from the artwork of Kathleen Kelly of Kats by Kelly™.
 

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Weekly Update

There's been yet another change of pace around here...

One of the bloggers I follow has been sewing for a least 15 minutes each day and accomplishing quite a lot. This gave me an idea: I'm going to try spending at least 30 minutes every week on each type of needlework that I do, work on my sew-alongs enough to keep up to date with them, and spend the rest of my stitching time on whichever project has caught my fancy at the moment. We'll see how this works.

Quilting:

Deanne Eisenman of Snuggles Quilts has posted the September installment of her Block of the Month series, Whirlwind. I've cut out all the pieces and made a start on sewing them together.
 

Blackwork:

I've been concentrating on the Blackwork Chessboard by Anne MacGregor this week.

 

 


Cross Stitch:

I did a bit on Elements of Nature I, which is adapted from the artwork of Jennifer Pugh.


Swedish Weaving:

I got some more work done on the Feathers To and Fro afghan from Learn to Make Monk’s Cloth Afghans by Marilyn T. Magly.


Crochet:

So far on the Morning Glory afghan designed by Michele Maks, I have the 1st panel completely done. I still need to embroider the 2nd panel and crochet and attach the applique flowers. This week I crocheted one of the flowers and finished up a square for the 3rd panel.

So, as of this week I have 6 of the 7 blue flowers for the 2nd panel, 6 of the 6 purple flowers for the 2nd panel, 1 of the 26 leaves for the 2nd panel, and 2 of the squares for the 3rd panel.


Finishing:

I started making a mini quilt out of Tech Support, a design by Linda Connors of Calico Crossroads®, adapted from the artwork of Kathleen Kelly of Kats by Kelly™. I washed the design, ironed it, and trimmed the excess fabric. Then I cut out the borders.


Knitting:

Finally, I got a little more embroidery done on the central panel of the Octopus Garden Blanket by Georgia Vincent.
 

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Weekly Update

It's been a busy week.

I finished Parts 7 & 8 of Forget Me Not, a sew-along by Pam Buda of Heartspun Quilts.
 


Part 7 was my first attempt at partial seam construction. It was a breeze: I finished it the same day I started it.

Part 8 was a bit tricky. Since I piece by hand, I draw exact sewing lines and pin match them. This (and other considerations) means that I can't use most of the quick-piecing techniques that machine piecers use. So, I have to figure out what the finished measurements of each patch are and then mark those on my fabric. That's not a problem when the block only includes squares, rectangles, and triangles, but, as you can see, there's a very odd-shaped patch in this block. It took me a couple of tries to get that dark blue patch right. Once I got the patches marked and cut out, the sewing wasn't difficult. It was, however, a bit tedious because there were so many very short seams to match up (the smallest measurement in this block is 9/16").

I also got a bit done on Around the Town by Dawna Baker.
 


Saturday afternoon I got a sudden urge to crochet a tank top. I found a pattern online, and by midnight Sunday I had this:
 

 


It's the Not-Yellow Top-Down Tank by Kristen TenDyke. I made the solid section a bit longer than called for in the pattern for modesty's sake.

Today, I decided I'd had enough of quilting for a while (see, I told you it would happen) and pulled out the Blackwork Chessboard by Anne MacGregor.