Weekly Update

Swedish Weaving:

I finally got around to hemming the ends on the Feathers To and Fro afghan from Learn to Make Monk’s Cloth Afghans by Marilyn T. Magly. It's now finished.

 

I really didn't like working with the monk's cloth. My next afghan will be done on aida with pearl cotton.

In the meantime, I've started a series a towels using huck toweling. I'm finding this fabric to be much more pleasant to work with. I bought a piece long enough to make 8 towels. Since it's got a nice selvedge on each side of the 16" wide fabric and the weave isn't too loose, all I had to do was put Fray Check on the ends and throw it in the washing machine -- no basting. Then I squared off the ends, cut it into 8 roughly equal lengths, and ironed each piece just enough that the fabric laid flat and there were no huge creases. I didn't try to get all the wrinkles out -- these are going to be towels after all. Then I rolled each piece up and put them away until time to use them.

When I was ready to start my first towel, I pulled out 1 piece of fabric, cut the selvedges off, and hemmed the sides. The huck toweling is a lot easier to handle and behaves better than monk's cloth, so this wasn't as arduous a process as it was on the afghan. The hem looks nicer too.

For my first towel, I'm using the Southwest Memory pattern from Learn to Make Monk’s Cloth Afghans by Marilyn T. Magly. (If you've got this book, please note that the center knot mark is in the wrong place: it needs to be shifted 6 squares to the left. Also, pay attention to the horizontal repeat; it does not fall on the edges of the graph.)

 

I'm finding huck toweling to be an absolute dream to stitch on, particularly with pearl cotton. The fabric has a lovely hand, and the floats are very easy to pick up with the needle. Both the fabric and thread have a nice sheen. The huck toweling does have some foreign matter woven into the fabric that needs to be teased out with a needle (apparently this is par for the course with Swedish weaving fabrics; what gives, fabric manufacturers?), but not as much as the monk's cloth did. Overall, I'm pleased with it.

Cross Stitch:

I finished stitching Happy New Year!, a Mini-Kats™ design by Linda Connors of Calico Crossroads®, adapted from the artwork of Kathleen Kelly of Kats by Kelly™.

 

I've already stitched the designs for February and March, so the next one I do will be in April.

Quilting:

I finished quilting the coaster and attached & stitched down the 1st binding strip.

Knitting:

Finally, I did some more work on the back of Soft Shoulders, a sweater designed by Kathy Zimmerman.  For some reason, my camera doesn't like colors in the teal/aqua range, so the colors in this photo are odd, to say the least.