A Tale of Two Socks

Knitting a pair of socks isn’t really that exciting, but this pair seem to have been around the world and back.

Before we headed off on our most recent trip I had planned to just take my slow stitching pouch to work on, but at the last minute, decided that I needed something a bit more portable.  Being winter, there seems to be a lot of socks being knitted and I decided to join the trend.

Being me, I decided to use what I have to hand and that includes a large collection of sock wool scraps, despite the fact that I had only ever knitted one pair of socks.  You see, back in 2019, we went to the local swap meet and a lady was destashing a lot of wool.  I bought some Bendigo yarn, a few skeins of sock wool, some of which has been used for scarves, and a large bag of scraps.  I seem to be drawn to scraps.

Anyway, I decided to knit some scrappy socks and pulled out what I thought would work together and took them away with us, together with my digital scales so that I could try to get the two socks the same, so I supposed the plan was for controlled scrappy.  This is just a small selection of the scraps.

I made a start while we were at the RSL Club in Trangie to watch the State of Origin Football.

The next day I made a little more progress while sitting in the sun at Byrock.

I continued to do a little each day as we travelled along and by the time we had reached Tambo I had turned the heel and was working on the foot.  My initial plan was to have uneven stripes, depending on the amount of wool I had, but one large scrap was actually self striping, so that made things easy.  It goes from the light blue near the top of the sock to the tealy green, below the peachy/ochre colour down near the heel. I found that the cup holder in my camp chair worked beautifully as a yarn bowl.

I had knitted up to the stage of working on the toe when I received the phone call that had me flying home.  A quick trip to Spotty had me buy an aeroplane safe thread cutter, but I was unsure if I would be allowed to take my knitting needles on the plane.  To my relief I was.  Therefore, while sitting at Gladstone Airport I transferred the first sock onto the DPN needles to free up my little circular needle to start on the second sock, as that would take much less brain power to work on.

As you can see, I didn’t make a great deal of progress, as this was taken on the train travelling from Sydney to Bathurst.  I suppose I was a bit too distracted to knit.

I finished off the toe of the first sock once I returned home.  

Back home, I finished the leg section of the second sock and then put them aside for a little while when it came to knitting the heel flap.  Once again, too much brain power needed at the time.

Gradually, I knitted a bit here and there and finally finished them off today.  They are far from perfect, but they will keep my tootsies nice and toasty.

By the way, do you like my cute little stitch marker?  I found a packet of four of them in a op shop last year for 50c.  They looked like they must have been a freebie on the front of a magazine.  Anyway, I had to use one when I knitted some socks.

Oh, and I still have this much leftover from the socks……and that was just the little bit I pulled out for them.  I have enough to make many pairs of scrappy socks……or maybe scrappy something else.  Time will tell.

Now to find something else to work on….I have plenty of options.

Finding a Squirrel Down a Rabbit Hole - A New Start

Once you finish a project you can start a new one.  That’s how it works, isn’t it?  That should be the Sew Together Bag shouldn’t it?

No, that is not how it works.

I seem to have been seeing lots of slow stitching coming up when scrolling and felt the urge to start something,  I even have a little tub with offcuts from doileys from previous projects that I want to play with.

The Sew Together Bag needs some light wadding, so I pulled out the tub.  There just happened to be a piece that was sort of the size to make a pouch, so I squared it up.  Next to get out my doiley offcuts and a box labelled “Small Scraps” as well as my usual scrap tubs and have a play.

Oh, what a glorious mess I made.  The plan was to have a faded look, but my scraps ended up making it somewhat pretty.  More so than I had originally thought , but it will still be nice……I hope.  I’m not a fan of raw edges, as in a lot of slow stitching, so lots of turning under.  It’s not Kawandi, or Boro, or Kantha, rather making it up as I go along.  My tiny appliqué pins, that I have had for years and never used, came into their own.  It has ended up bigger than I thought I would make, but I just worked with the size of the batting piece.  It will be about the size of an iPad pouch, so quite a large panel to work on.

Once I ran out of pins it was time to find some threads to stitch it all down.  Time to get out the box labelled “Crochet and Pearl Thread”.  Yep, there seems to be boxes of just about everything lurking in the deep dark depths around here……and…..shock horror……most have recently been labelled.  You never know when you may need something.  Thank goodness they don’t go off.

Time to start stitching.  There isn’t a lot of thread on these spools, so we will try to use them up first……more to add to the jar.

A little progress was made on Sunday, while chatting to Lou about her exciting fabric haul.  Just as well slow stitching isn’t required to be perfect, as mine is a bit how’s your uncle.  Having said that, I quite like the texture.  After the first couple of rows of stitching I used the Hera marker to keep my stitching lines somewhat straight.  It will be fun to decide how to stitch the different areas and then to do some embellishing,  There is also still quite a bit of batting to cover with fabric.  This won’t be a quick process, just something to pick up now and again.  Then, it is called “Slow Stitching”.

A New Leader and Ender Project

When there are lots of things that you should be doing, what do you do instead?

Why, start yet another quilt, of course.  However, this is a bit different to the last few.  

I have really missed having a leader and ender project on the go for the last couple of years, so decided to do something about it.  I’ve had a couple of ideas swimming around in my head, but this was going to take the least effort to bring to fruition.

The pattern is “Bonnie Lass” from Jen Kingwell’s book Quilt Lovely.  

As you can see, there are lots of the same sized pieces that will be perfect as leaders and enders.

I got out a couple of tubs labeled “Small Scraps”, as well as the left overs from when I made my Trail Mix quilt and made a beautiful mess.

After a couple of hours of playing in my happy place, I had 80 sets of blocks ready to go.  Now, that isn’t even a quarter of what is required, but should keep me out of trouble at Scrub Stitchin’ and for a bit longer. When these get low, I will have another cutting session. There is no rush for this, so I will just have them sitting beside my machine and one day I will have a bonus quilt top.

Meanwhile, they are tucked away in their pretty little tin.  From memory, I used this tin when I started the hexies and they outgrew it rather quickly.

Another One Kitted Up

I don’t seem to be doing a great deal of stitching in the last week or so, but today I have kitted up another child’s quilt to take to Scrub Stitchin’.

Once again, it is a rather simple quilt.  The pattern is the free One Yard Wonder by Leila Gardunia. I have tweaked the measurements to suit myself again.  Instead of thirty 4 1/2” squares, I am making fifty six 3 1/2” squares, so that I can get more variety.

Here are the fabrics I chose.  Everything is from stash or my scraps. The main fabric is one that I found at a garage sale a year or so back and I think it suits it perfectly.  It will be nice to use some more muted colours in a child’s quilt for a change.

It didn’t take too long to get everything cut, ready to go, including the binding.  I’ll work out the backing once it is pieced.

I think I now have plenty to go on with at Baradine.  If it all gets done I will be surprised, and if not I will have something ready to just pick up and sew when I get home.

I’m On a Roll - Chookshed Challenge Done

I didn’t have anything on today, so it was the perfect chance to play with my new Number 10 from the Chookshed Challenge.

My Number 10 (as switched out) is to MAKE A SEA GLASS MINI QUILT.  I had popped this little collection of crumbs in a container to play with.  Unlike most of my chosen projects, this wasn’t something that had been hanging around in the sewing room, rather something that I had just recently thought of doing.  It would be so nice to get it made while fresh in my mind.

I’ve taken lots of photos along the way, so be prepared, as I talk through the process.

I do love sea glass and have a nice collection that we amassed mainly on the Isle of Man in 2018.  It fits nicely in its pretty jar.

Well, I made a glorious mess.

The plan was to make a mini to fit on my little stand that Santa is displayed on each Christmas.

I figured that the best way to work this out would be to mark out the dimensions on my cutting mat, fiddle around to make a heart template and then fill it up.

Not only do I keep all crazy little crumbs of fabric, I also keep crazy little scraps of appliqué paper. You never know when you can use them for small appliqué shapes.  Well, I made good use of both in this project.  So many of the little pieces had their shape determined by the shapes of those scraps.  Did it make a dent in the scraps?  Yes, for the appliqué paper, as they are all used up.  Definitely not for the fabric crumbs, but that was to be expected.

Lou and I have been having chats about overthinking quilt layouts etc., and I was determined not to overthink this. Having said that, I cut out what I thought would be good colours and laid them out and then decided that there needed to be more contrast and rearranged, and replaced fabrics and generally fiddled around with the placement quite a few times before finally settling on a layout.

Next question was what background fabric to use.  I didn’t want to use white, it would be too stark.  I chose one fabric that I thought looked like sand, but when I placed a few pieces on it, it just looked dull and dirty.  Another looked good, but there wasn’t quite enough.  In the end I settled on a piece of seeded homespun that I had in a box.

Then I taped the heart templates to the fabric and filled it in, and yes, I tweaked it a bit more.

All ready to quilt.  But how? Most sea glass quilts that I have seen have the patches raw edge appliquéd.  But, I had seen one version where there were wavy horizontal lines quilts across it and I really liked that look.  A bit like ripples in the sand.  Besides, that would be much easier and this piece doesn’t exactly have to be durable.

I had great fun doing this and it didn’t take long.  Don’t you love the texture on the back. 

And the front.

Now, how to bind it?  With my Santa mini, I just bagged it out and added triangles to the back corners as I went to clip over the corners of the frame.  That was not going to work on this one, as the quilting goes right to the edge,  However, I didn’t want a normal binding, so it was time to learn how to do a faced binding. 

It wasn’t that bad, and a little different to how I expected.  I love to learn a new techinque when I work on a project.

And, here it is, all done.  A nice neat finish.  I probably don’t need the triangles on the bottom, but I can add a dowel if I choose.

Now for the front.

Ta da!  On my little shelf in the kitchen, together with my jar of sea glass and a framed picture, which is minuscule shells.

Perfect for summer and Valentine’s Day.  I love it.

This was such a fun little make.  Not my normal style of work, but something quick and a bit improv.  There was no stress or pressure to have it made for any purpose, or time frame, or to get a kit or UFO worked on.  So refreshing.

Oh, and it is primarily blue, so also ticks the RSC box.  Bonus.

Off to a Flying Start

After I added my post here yesterday, it was time to make those Rainbow Scrap Challenge Blocks.  

Ta da!  Nice and simple.  Pop over to So Scrappy to see what else has been achieved.

Then, it was time to start making a beautiful mess.  I’m having a lovely time playing with these scraps.

When the weather cooled down in the evening we ventured into the garden.

It was time to dig the potatoes we planted in the tyres back in September.  This was the first time we have grown potatoes, although my Dad always grew them, so I had been involved as a kid.

We filled a bucket with 6.5kgs of potatoes from five seed potatoes.  A lot of them are quite small.  Was it an economical project?  We probably broke even.  I think I paid about $7 for the seed potatoes.  However, we didn’t plant them all and gave some to out neighbour.  It would have been profitable if we had planted them all.  Will we do it again?  Yes, probably, as they are easy to grow and fairly maintenance free.  And of course, it is always nice to have home grown anything.  Now to enjoy eating them.

OK, back to the sewing room to play.

Chookshed Challenge for January

The number selected by Deana for the Chookshed Challenge for January was Number 6.  For me this was:

MAKE SOME CRUMB BLOCKS - No goal as to how many to make.  Just have fun.

That suited me just fine, as I don’t have the headspace for too much just at the moment, and besides, I was having too much fun with my Hexy Flower Quilt.

Looking at the blocks I had already made, I decided that red would be a good colour to work with and I have plenty of scraps in my tub.  It is easier to work on two at a time, as you can chain piece.

A bit later on I decided to get down the blue scrap tub, as it is overflowing.  This is such a fun, messy process.  Not at all quick, as you fiddle around finding the best sized piece to add.

This is what I ended up with.  They all are six and a half inches square.

And that’s all I did.  I had fun, as instructed and there is no project planned for these at the moment, so they will just live in their tin until I feel like having another play.  I may do some as a part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, now that I have belatedly decided to join in.  I just didn’t need any more pink ones at this stage.

I’m linking up with Deana.  Pop over to see what the other girls managed to achieve.

Famous Last Words

Remember back when I wrote my “Looking Forward to 2025” post?

Well, one paragraph read:

“I’m also forgoing the Rainbow Scrap Challenge after several years, as I have lots of blocks made, but no completed projects. This year I would like to focus more on getting those older projects finished.”

That rings true in most parts, but having looked at my Split Nine Patch quilt, that I have also listed as Number 8 in the Chookshed Challenge, I reckon it would benefit from another twenty blocks.  The easiest way to do that is to join in on RSC again this year and make a couple of blocks each month.

The colour for January is Pink.

The only downside, is that unless Number 8 comes up at the very end of the year, I will have to switch it out of the Chookshed Challenge.  Now, that is not exactly a problem, as I have plenty of other projects that I can slot in to replace it.  We will just have to see how things pan out.

Anyway, in the meantime, here are my two pink blocks for January.

I will now also add the RSC logo to my side bar.