And Sewing It Is

Because it is easier for me to take pictures of small flat objects. Here are the last two blocks for my block of the month.

First is December’s.



The only reason this didn’t get made in that month was that I ran out of time. The green is from the fat quarter I bought to make March’s square. It seemed excessive at the time to buy a whole fat quarter for a small requirement but it has been used in many of the blocks. The yellow is from the fabric I purchased for August’s square. All the other fabric is left overs from various projects.

September’s square was delayed as I could not make a decision about which fabric to use. There are small amounts of six different fabrics; the example used plain and print fabrics. I have plenty of prints but hardly any plain fabric but I did not want to buy more fabric as such small amounts were required. In the end I went with a background fabric that showed quite a bit of white.



The theme for December was half square triangles and for September was corner square triangles.

Now I have finished the squares, what to do with them? They are all different sizes ranging from 6 inch square to 13 inch square and some are rectangles. The first thing to do is make them all the same size, so I purchased some plain colour fabric in Jo-Ann’s sale. I had worked out how much I needed and then rounded up to the next yard to allow for any mistakes. The cutting is something I will want to do when I am not going to be interrupted! When I have twelve squares all the same size I can decide on sashing and borders.

Knitting or Sewing?

This is just an interlude until the next post containing photos. Which may be sewing projects or knitting projects as I have finished examples of both.

I have finished the two remaining blocks of my block-a-month project. Now they need to become a quilt. I have some ideas but no fabric, in the meantime I should finish the dress I am making for my granddaughter and the quilt for my nephew’s soon-to-be-baby. I have finished the top and have fabric in my stash for backing and plenty of batting. All that’s missing is the time to do it.

On the knitting front I have finished the Advent shawl that three of us decided to have as our little KAL. I would have finished on time if I hadn’t made it bigger. But now it is waiting for some decent pictures and as our weather is the opposite of decent I don’t know when that will happen. Also I have made a cardigan for the aforementioned baby, it needs buttons so no photos yet.

Despite the recent finished objects my WIPs don’t seem to be going down as I cast on a new project this week. Socks! Yes, everyone was surprised. My last finished pair was 24 December 2016 – Christmas socks for my husband. I did cast on a sock at the beginning of January 2017 but only got as far as the cuff before deciding yarn and pattern did not work together and haven't started any since.

E decided to knit Monkey socks. In the spirit of camaraderie, P and I decided we would knit them too although I have already knit a pair. P has finished hers and E wants to take her time. A quick look at my original project page showed I had started them on 10 February 2008, so the same day but this year seemed an obvious choice and plenty of time to choose (i.e. keep changing my mind) yarn. I thought about frogging the Hitchhiker, but I have plenty of yarn in my stash, so why use that now; then I thought about some yarn E had given me as that seemed appropriate; but I finally chose a dark red tweed yarn and love it. Despite implying at the beginning that there wouldn’t be any photos, this is my progress to date.

A Big One and A Small One

Two projects finished in January - one of my Advent projects and a quick little project for my Granddaughter.

The Advent project finished is the Advent to Epiphany, which I would have finished on time if I had bound off at the end of the pattern. But I had yarn left over and as it was gradient yarn I wanted to use all of it. The shawl was knit in sections of garter stitch and lace, with all the garter sections having the same number of rows and all the lace sections having the same number of rows. The shawl ended with a garter stitch section so I decided to just repeat that but that didn’t use up all the yarn. I pulled out the extra rows and added a lace section. The lace sections had all been a different pattern so I searched my stitch pattern books for a pattern that would fit in with the others and be the right number of rows. This used up most of the yarn and I finished with a few rows of garter stitch before binding off with an Icelandic bind off.

The pattern is Combinatorics by Tetiana Otruta and the yarn is from Alexandra's Crafts that I purchased at Stitches SoCal.

This thing is big!



The other two Advent cast ons are still being worked on. I am managing to work a few rows of the lace mystery nearly every day and the other one would have been finished if I hadn’t decided to use up all the yarn – such a theme of mine.


One day, walking to school, my granddaughter declared that she needed gloves and I could make her some. When I asked her what colour, of course she said pink. I knew I had yarn in stash and it would be a quick project it was a matter of finding time. Ann Budd’s Handy Book of Patterns came in, well, handy. The yarn I used was fingering weight, left over from these socks.

I doubled the yarn which meant few stitches. What a pain. I didn’t have any double pointed needles in the right size but did end up using two circulars. The reaction was worth it.