Oh Dear… I’ve Found Another Squirrel Down a Rabbit Hole

I know, very mixed metaphors….

Yesterday, I stumbled upon a new Quilt Along.  It is the Wensleydale Quilt by Jen Kingwell and is hosted by Quilted Chicken.  I’ve had the book and foundation papers for a few years and this was just the encouragement I needed to make a start.

The Quilted Chicken has a YouTube channel and a few years ago she shared her ingenious method to cut fabric for this quilt that is very efficient.  There are 60 blocks in the quilt and she cuts 60 widths of fabric by 6 1/4” strips.  She then shares how to cut the fabric to make one of each of the five sections of the block.  From those you can get a rather scrappy looking quilt, without having to pull hundreds of different fabrics.  There are 300 fabrics if you were to not repeat any in the quilt.

The Quilt Along only started on 2 November USA time, so I stumbled upon it at just the right time.  It runs for 6 weeks and the first week is to select your fabric.  Week 2 is to cut your fabric. Week 3 is to sort your fabrics into blocks and start sewing.  The next week is Thanksgiving, so a break or keep sewing.  Week 5 is to arrange your completed blocks and the final week is to stitch the quilt top together.  There are already a couple of YouTube posts about it and a PDF with the cutting instructions.  She has also set up a Facebook group to share your progress.

The timeframe sounds a bit ambitious, but will certainly give me the impetus to make some progress on this quilt that I really want to make, but just haven’t made the start to pull fabrics.

Today, I made that start.

And, that is 300 fabrics!!!!!

Why choose just 60 fabrics when you can pull 300?  Hopefully, there are no repeats.  I have removed a couple that snuck in.  Fingers crossed there are no more.

I kind of have it in the back of my head to add an extra column to make the quilt fit our bed a bit better.  That is only an extra ten blocks.  What is another 50 fabrics?  I think I’ll just start with the 60 blocks for now.

The fabrics are mainly reproduction ones, with a scattering of others, but it should still be colourful.  Many have come from a destash I came across a few years ago. Others have been in my stash for a very long time.  There are four I can date back to the 1980s when I first bought some “American Patchwork Fabric” when it was quite a new thing in Australia.

The cutting will probably take quite a bit longer with this variety of fabric, but I’m currently up to date, so I will take that as a win.

I know a few of you have the book and papers.  If you want to have a look or join in here are the details:

Website with link to Wensleydale Quilt along.

YouTube Channel

My Stitching Wishes for November

My goals each month seem to be less and less as the year progresses, especially as the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and the Chookshed Challenge have finished for the year.  This takes some pressure off and anything that is achieved is a bonus.

The main thing that I want to achieve is to finish the knitted top that I am working on.  Since my last post I have completed knitting the body of the garment and just have to knit the bands around the neckline and the armholes.  One armhole was completed this afternoon.  By far the slowest part is picking up the correct number of stitches.  After several attempts and ripping back, the actual knitting took very little time. Hopefully, I will have a finish to report shortly and a garment that I can wear, now that the weather is finally warming up.

I plan to keep working away in the redwork stitcheries that were freebies from Anni Downs over the last few Christmases.  I’m currently working on 2022, then I will have to prep 2024 to stitch.  2021 and 2023 are completed.  There are still no concrete plans on what to do with them, but at least if they are stitched I have something to play with.  Chooky had a Zoom session this morning, so a bit was achieved while chatting away, until my eyes decided that they didn’t want to focus on the work, so I called it quits then.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get all my Chookshed Challenge projects completed during the ten months.  I would like to work some more on the outstanding ones.  They are the Natalie Bird pincushion, then the project using the hexies that I prepped, when it was discovered that the charm squares I had planned to use for a table runner weren’t square.  I’m still not sure what they will become and I really want to get the Sew Together Bag made.  

In addition to all these there is the Anni Downs Pouch we were given at Scrub Stitchin’ 2024.  Fingers crossed, at least one of the above projects will be progressed this month.

If I do any machine stitching there should be some progress on my leader and ender project, Bonnie Lass.

Hopefully, I will have some decent progress on something to report at the end of the month.

October Stitching Update

As you can maybe imagine, I didn’t get a great deal of crafting done during October, seeing as we were busy doing other things.

Here is what I did manage.

I have previously mentioned the Sashiko Bag for the Chookshed Stitchers Challenge.  I was very happy to have that done and it meant that I did at least have one finished project for the month.

I had shared the block I completed early in the month for one of Betty’s group quilts.

Well, I made another one to send down to her for another quilt that has been planned.

In addition, I made two blocks for a group quilt that my Wednesday patchwork quilt are putting together.

While making the blocks I have been adding to the pile of my Bonnie Lass leader and ender blocks.  140 down out of 396.  It is time to get cutting some more.  This is a nice slow bonus project in the background that really is making itself.

I did manage to progress the Christmas redwork stitcheries a little.  They have been good to work on at my stitching mornings.  Nice and mindless.

Finally, I have been slowly working away on my knitted top.  It would have been much quicker if I had just followed the pattern and knitted it flat, but due to the stripes, I made it hard for myself by knitting part of it in the round.  It has also been compounded by me not using the prescribed yarn.  I think (hope) it will all work out.  Anyway, the back is completed and I now just have to knit the two sides of the front v-neck and the ribbing around the armholes and neckline.  It didn’t get completed in October as I’d hoped, but realistically, it shouldn’t take too long to get done.  It doesn’t look much at the moment, but a good blocking at the end should hopefully sort that.

My stats for 15 minutes a day for the last couple of months were:

September = 30/30 (the best for the year)

October = 20/31

Year to Date = 211/273 = 77.29%  

This is way down on last year, but better than nothing.