Friday, May 29, 2020

Long Time Gone gets Longer

A while back I finished sewing  my version of  a quilt called "Long Time Gone", a pattern  by Jen Kingwell.

The finished size was a 66" square but I wanted to make it longer so that it would fit a twin sized bed.  My plan was to design an additional strip that would be sewn to the top of what I had so far in order to create a longer, rectangular quilt.

To begin, I created a section of Tumbling Block units (that I wrote about here)  and that was as far as I had gotten.

Here we are in 2020 with plenty of  dedicated stay-at-home time and I knew it was time to get back to work on this.

 I wanted to have a section of little houses so I began with those.  It was fun to choose all the fabrics for the houses, doors and roofs.  These little guys each measure 3 X 4 inches.

The houses unit would be sewn to the left of the tumbling blocks, and I decided on Friendship Stars to go on the right side:


The pinwheel centers of the stars have a finished measurement of only 2".

I needed one more narrow strip of blocks to make the additional section wide enough, and I chose some Card Trick blocks.

These blocks required a good amount of concentration to keep the orientation straight, but I loved the end result.  They measure 3 inches, and made for a darling little filler strip:

As I finished each of the sections, I laid them out on the bed near the previously finished quilt top to see how they would look.  As you can see in the photo below I also added a horizontal filler strip of one inch squares, under the Friendship Stars.

I was pleased that the vertical sashing strip between the Tumbling Blocks and the Friendship Stars would line up directly on top of a vertical sashing strip of the quilt top I had made so far.  This would help keep the newly created strip  from looking like the add-on that it was.


Eventually, it all came together into a new, longer quilt top!

Designing the top row to compliment the rest of the quilt was a challenge, and actually took several days to complete.  The hardest part was coming up with design elements that helped balance the dark and light areas of the rest of the quilt.   I feel good about how it turned out and can't wait to get it quilted.

STATS:
   Number of pieces in the Houses section:  110
   Number of pieces in the Card Trick section:  120
   Number of pieces in the Tumbling Blocks section:  306
   Number of pieces in the Friendship Stars section:  180
   Number of pieces in the previously finished part of the quilt:  2414

  TOTAL number of pieces:  3130

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Sunday, May 24, 2020

Been a while...

Poor little blog has been sadly neglected for a while now.  I've been actively creating and taking photos but I just haven't been good about updating on the blog.

As a start to getting reacquainted, I thought I would write a post documenting the prayer shawls I have made since my last accounting.

First up is this blue and white combination.  This is a pattern I had done once before using just one color all the way through, but I thought I'd mix it up a little bit.


This next pattern was called "Ears of Corn", and the sample was done in all yellow and consisted of uniform rows of little spaces, (which did sort of mimic an ear of corn.)  I started out making mine in all white, but then busted out some periwinkle blue yarn to mix things up a bit.

The "Ears of Corn" pattern turned out to be fast and fun, so I decided to make another.  This time I raided the yarn stash for any leftover skeins in the blue/green family and made each row a different color.  This shawl looks so different from the previous one even though they are the same pattern.


I was really enjoying this easy to memorize pattern, so I decided to make one more.   The multi-toned purple yarn was leftover from a previous shawl, and I got to use most of it up by combining it with white and a darker purple.

Still trying to use up what leftover skeins I had on hand, I chose four shades of teal blue, from dark to light, and returned to one of my favorite patterns to make up this next one:

I also selected a bunch of pink leftovers and, using the same pattern,  combined them with white to make this next one:

Having made the above pattern several times now, and always working along the lengthwise direction, I tried using the pattern  along the short side this time.

This next one is not my favorite, and the picture doesn't do it justice.  I had a couple of skeins of yarn given to me where the colors changed throughout the skein in various shades of blue.  Some of the color changes were very subtle, and others were more defined.  I chose a simple, repetitive stitch pattern and ended up with this one:

At some point, I got the itch to do some knitting, rather than crochet.  I found this beautiful rainbow colored yarn and just went back and forth in garter stitch for a relaxing change:

Back to crochet with a new pattern.  This one created a mosaic kind of design with repeating diamond shapes:

I then used the same pattern in white, but did it in the lengthwise direction:

For my most recent project, I went back once again to the comfort of a familiar pattern and made this light/dark purple shawl:

Shawl making, especially during uncertain times, gives comfort in two ways...once for the maker and once for the recipient.  I'll be getting started on my next one ASAP.
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