The Last Six Months

Who's got ten fingers and is terrible at blogging?  Yeah.  So I'm going to try something new - a weekly roundup of everything I am working on.  Hopefully that will give me the incentive to get stuff done, rather than having to post it in the WIP section over and over and over :)

But for now, a brief look at what has happened since the last post -

A finished quilt

Several cowls

And a myriad of new handspun yarns

There was also a visit to an Alpaca farm, to learn how the animals are sheared (and pick up a couple of fleeces ;)

 

And perhaps the most exciting project of the last few months - cleaning out our spare room a.k.a. the dumping ground, and turning it into a craft room!  And also a guest room, but whatever.  Craft room!

I've got a few other projects in the works, but this post is getting really long (and super picture heavy!) so I'll wrap it up here and we can talk about them next week. Happy Easter to those who celebrate, and happy weekend to those that don't :)

NaNo...QuiltMo?

Maybe it's the Halloween candy hangover, but flipping the calendar from October to November always has a weight to it that gets to me like no other month.  The weather down here in the South is finally beginning to feel like fall, and it is a lot harder to live in denial about the looming holiday season, what with it being right there on the same page and all.

Don't get me wrong, I adore the holidays - the shopping, the baking, the parties and decorating - but it can be hard to find time to fit it all in.  Which is why all across the nation thousands of people are... setting insanely lofty goals for themselves, haha.

You might be familiar with NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) a challenge to write a 50,000-word novel in one month.  My friends, a writer I am not. Pass.  There is also NaKniSweMo (National Knit a Sweater Month), wherein - you guessed it! - you knit an entire sweater during the month.  This kind of challenge is much more my speed, but I didn't have a sweaters' worth of yarn or a pattern chosen to participate this year.

I do, however, have some fabric for a quilt that I'd like to have done by December.  So I'm striking out on my own this year for NaNoQuiltMo (I'm declaring the No to stand for November).

I'm doing another disappearing 9-patch, but with the more traditional layout this time.  I've since added some pink and green fabric to use for the small squares, to give the top more interest and tie into the backing fabric better.  My goal for this weekend was to get all of the 5" squares cut out, which I just managed:

I'm definitely glad to see the additional color in there.  The goal for this week is to sew them all into the 9-patch blocks, ready to be "disappeared".  We'll see how it's going this time next week!

So.. what crazy goals is everyone else working on this month?

A Quilt for Gracie

Boy, I suck at this blogging thing!  It's only been, what, a year since my last post?  So in the meantime, I've been spinning constantly (of course), knitting a leetle bit, playing with my loom and procrastinating on this quilt.

I told my niece I'd make her a new quilt, because her baby blanket was too worn out to use anymore. Her favorite color is red, and just a couple of weeks after making the offer, Connecting Threads came out with their Rhapsody in Red collection, which was just too perfect!  So I bought several charm packs and then it was just down to choosing a pattern.  I came across the disappearing nine-patch block and thought it seemed like just the thing for a bunch of charm squares, so I started playing around with the layout options in Paint. (that's how most of my projects begin life)

By using the reds in the corner and center, and the white neutral for the sides of the original nine patch, I ended up with four blocks each that had sashing and cornerstones already built in.  Easy peasy!  I rotated them all going the same direction and wound up with a quilt top that looks much more complicated than it actually was.  Oh no, wait - I mean, I'm totally a quilting genius and this was a super finicky pattern ;)

Aaanyway, I finished the top ages ago and just put off and put off working on the quilting.  Finally the guilt started to outweigh the urge to procrastinate (is that a thing?  I don't think that's a thing) so I finished it off with some straight-line quilting and fabulous kitten fabric on the back.  It is on its way to my niece this week!  And now I am addicted to quilting and have already started cutting another.  Finishing a project always does that to me :)

Introducing Freyja!

I learned to spin on a second-(actually I think it was third?)-hand Ashford Kiwi.  I named her Felicity because she made me happy and just so happened to appear at just the right time in my spinning adventure.  And while I think the Kiwi is a great wheel, and everybody always has a special love for their first, I also knew almost from the beginning that it was just a fling.  Someday I was going to move on.  I am a little sad to see her go, but she'll have a new home with a lovely friend who is also just starting out.

Which means I get a new wheel!  I considered many options, and eventually settled on the Schacht Ladybug.    They are a bit unconventional looking, what with the bright red plastic drive wheel, but they spin like a dream, and I like that the parts are compatible with the other Schacht wheels.  Just in case, you know!

I chose the name Freyja for two reasons.  One, it is Norse for "Lady".  Appropriate, no?  Also, Freyja was a Nordic goddess of (among other things) sorcery, and when I was first learning to spin I watched many videos and just marveled at how magical the whole process appeared.  Even now, two years and much technical knowledge later, I still find myself a little bit mesmerized by it sometimes.

So!  Here is my new friend Freyja.

We have been spending a lot of quality time together the past couple of weeks, as I have had to re-learn to spin just a little bit.  And here is the result - the first skein we produced together, Purplemint Swirl - because what else would a gal who goes by Shrieking Violet spin her first time out? ;)

I think it is the start of a beautiful friendship :)

A New Project, Wherein we learn Patience (and several new Swears)

The other day I found some old Lion Brand Homespun yarn that I bought back, oh, around the turn of the century. The nineteenth century, that is. It wasn't as much fun to crochet with as I thought and even worse to knit with. So I shoved it in the back of a closet and wrote the yarn off as a waste of shelf space.

And then, earlier this year, entered the rigid heddle loom. A new toy! And suddenly there were possibilities for all kinds of things I'd always overlooked before- the funky, textured art yarns or the wild variegated ones that look so pretty in the skein and so awful worked up in a pattern- these guys had a new lease on life with weaving.

So for the Homespun, I thought weaving an afghan in panels and sewing them together might be just the thing for it. It took me ALL afternoon to wind the warp and get it on the loom (by which I mean I finally finished about 9:30pm!) This was my first time warping cotton and while it looks ok now, it was quite a challenge and I'm worried what may be in store for me under that roll of paper. It's too soon to tell if it is turning out like my vision, but either way I think I'm getting some valuable insight into weaving with this one. And I do like the way it looks, so far at least. :)

The New Kid on the Block

Oh hi!  Welcome to my blog.  That sounds so weird; I never thought I'd be one of those people who have a blog.  I always hated those assignments in school where you had to keep a journal.  I freely admit that I talk to myself sometimes, but I always felt pretty silly recording it for posterity.  But at least this way I can pretend like I'm talking to someone :)

So, for those of you reading because you already know me - thanks so much for stroking my ego!  If by chance some stranger is reading this, then welcome! Pull up a chair, show me what you're working on, tell me what's on your mind about textiles.  Or whatever.  I promise to stroke your ego a little bit too.