Finishing Mum’s UFO

This is a bit of a strange one, as my Mum didn’t have UFOs, she was a finisher.  She would work away on a project, finish it and then move onto the next.  Her daughter did not inherit that trait, and it always surprises me that Mum didn’t encourage me more to finish things off.  

Anyway, I digress.  Back to the UFO.

A couple of years after Mum moved into residential aged care she was looking for a little something to make and we found a cute cross stitch bookmark kit in Big W.  This wasn’t long after she had had a mini stroke and I don’t think any of us realised at the time just how much it was affecting her cognitive functioning.

It never did get finished, and when I started going through her craft tubs I found how far she had got with it.  She had marked the centre line on the pattern and tacked those centre lines on the Aida, although not needed on a project this size.  Then she had threaded a needle with the six strands, rather than the two and progressed no further.  Dear Mum…..  So, is this actually an unfinished object, or an unstarted object?  Who knows.

Well, this serial starter, and often not finisher, of a daughter thought she had better finish off Mum’s bookmark. In the process I tried a few new things.  We recently bought a couple of stable tables at a garage sale and I finally had a brainwave to use it when stitching.  It works really well. Who’d have thought??  I then decided to actually use an embroidery hoop.  I know the centre ring is supposed to be wrapped, but this is just one that will be used for a Christmas decoration.  That worked well too.  Fancy that!!  Then finally, I used my new little magnetic needle minder.  I’m a sucker for green sewing machines.

I started it on Friday at my stitching morning, did a bit more on Saturday and finished it off yesterday.  The weather was even warm enough to sit outside in the sun, down to a t-shirt yesterday, which was rather lovely.

Now, being just a cheapy kit, the Aida band wasn’t as nice as most and the threads, although six stranded, the strands were really thin.  Not as nice as DMC or other well known brands, and there was not felt to back it.  However, I just worked with what there was and found a bit of felt that matched in my stash.  Having said that, the design was super cute.

It’s not the greatest of finish on the back, but I’m going with finished is better than perfect.  The crease in the felt will come out in time.

I’m really pleased to have finished this off for Mum.  Are there any other UFOs?  Yes, just a couple. The only reason these are in existence is that she forgot how to crochet and knit.

While in the nursing home, she crocheted the tops of kitchen towels, while she remembered how to crochet.  There are a couple that have had the row of blanket stitch worked, ready to do the crochet, and a few tea towels, that haven’t been started to be worked on.  There are several tubs of coloured crochet cotton to use on them, so I would like to work them up.  

The other is some knitted squares.  Mum used to knit knee rugs using two strands of wool, one a constant colour and the other all sorts of coloured scraps.  Her last knitted rug ended up rather messy on the second half.  She then tried to just knit ten inch squares using the same colour style.  There are a few squares completed.  I’d like to make some more to make a small knee rug, to honour her last ever knitting.

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.

A Big Fat Fail

I will not get my June Chookshed Challenge met this month.  Insert sad face…..

My goal was to make the Sew Together Bag from pretty Tilda fabrics.  I knew it was a fiddly make, but was ready for the challenge.

To refresh, these are the fabrics I intend to use.  The pale one isn’t Tilda, but works beautifully with the other two.  It will be the inside of the three internal zipper pockets.  The large floral will be the outer and the ditzy daisy the internal section between the pockets.

Now, to select a binding….  This is where I hit a road block.  I just wasn’t feeling it.

Option Number One

The pink works well with the prints, but is a bit too pink for the overall look, in my humble opinion.

Option Number Two 

Once again, the colour co-ordinates well with the large print, but it then looks too brown.  I know, fussy aren’t I.

I kept coming back to the patchwork basket I made with fabrics from this range.  The blue binding worked so well.  

There was no blue similar to this anywhere in town, so I bit the bullet and ordered some online.  While I was at it, I also bought some more pretty fabric.

Resistance was impossible.  This is from the latest Tilda range called “Wallflower”.  When do you ever see a print named “Janice”?  It comes in four colours, blue, red, green and caramel.  The colours being the colour of the leaves.  I thought about buying them all, but that was being a bit silly, so settled on the blue.

I’m much happier with the blue binding.  Isn’t it amazing how the different coloured binding brings out the colours in the large print and gives it a totally different look.  The blue seems much calmer and you really only see the binding fabric next to the large print on the bag.  I think that “Janice” may be one of the internal section colours now, as it fits in so very well, and breaks it up a bit.

Having said all that, I am not going to make a start this month, as I have simply run out of time.  Like a couple of the other challenge projects, I do still hope to have it made by the end of the year.

You see, we are going to be travelling again.  Hopefully, we will get further this time around.

I do have some other projects to work on while away.  As always, it will be interesting to see how much, if any, I get done.

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.

Stitching Wrap Up For March

Blimey, March seems to have vanished in the blink of an eye.  Time to see what I managed to get up to.

I’ll start with  my one completed project for the month.  The knitted scarf, that I started so that I would have something to work on in the train coming home from Sydney at the start of the month, is now completed and ready to wear once the weather turns cold, which will happen before we know it.  That is now four I have knitted using this pattern.  I think I need to find some other simple project to knit in future, as I really don’t need any more of these.  However, they are lovely and snuggly and I wear my others frequently.

This is how much wool I had left at the end of the casting off row.  Phew!  That was close.

This time I decided to model the scarf on Victoria, rather than me.  The colour of this yarn is rather lovely.  It is a Patons Patonyle sock wool.  Maybe I should knit some socks to match?

My Rainbow Scrap Challenge was a couple of simple blocks, so took no time.  Now to wait for April’s colour.

The Chookshed Challenge was to work on the fish blocks and although I haven’t completed a quilt, the next batch of appliqué is all ready to stitch down at Scrub Stitchin’.

Speaking of Scrub Stitchin’, I have kitted up three other quilts to work on up there, if the mood takes me.

Oh, and Raewyn has requested we make a couple of blocks to contribute to a Scrub Stitchin’ charity quilt.  These are my two.

The project that was on my wish list, but not expected to be worked on, was to finish the Blue/Hope Quilt top.  I am so very happy to have managed to get it done.

I’m not sure if I’ve shared this Sashiko panel that I started working on a couple of months ago, as a fill in project for my stitching group days.  Well, I’ve continued to make a little progress this month.  There is no plan for it, but it will be good to have it completed and then work out what I will do with it.

In addition to these, there has been a little secret stitching going on.  

Also, just one solitary cotton reel was emptied, although there are some more that are oh, so close.  It’s going to take a while to fill my big jar at this rate.

As for my 15 minutes a day.  I am still keeping track, but not worrying about it too much.  I managed to meet the goal on 25 days, so not too bad. That works out at 69 days out of 90 with a success rate of 76.67%.  Considering everything else we have been up to, I am happy enough with that.

I must say, that on looking at the month as a whole, I am somewhat surprised about how much I have achieved.  Let’s hope next month is as fruitful.

Oh Dear, I’m At It Again

Yep, another donation quilt cut out.

I was recently gifted a lovely bundle of fabrics.  There are eight cuts 30cm x WOF.  I decided to do something with them straight away.  Strike while the iron is hot, so to speak.

My immediate thought was that they are the equivalent of 32 layer cake squares and then found this simple pattern that requires 30 squares.  When I look at it, it is just a larger version of the baby quilt I have made a few times.  Nice and simple and lets the fabrics shine.

Next, to see what was in the stash that would work for the joining squares, that wasn’t white or cream, and came up with a pale pink with white feathers that is left over wide back and just the right quantity.  Overall, it still looked like it needed something more, so I found this gorgeous greenish fabric that I came across in an op shop in Forbes.  It is an unusual colour, but works perfectly with these fabrics.  I will use it for a border.  Great!  Let’s get cutting.

All done.  Well, 10 inch x WOF strips are cut and 5 inch strips are cut.  That is all I need at this stage, as I will strip piece as much as I can.  Borders can wait until later.

Another one to take to Baradine, but I really doubt if I will get to it while there, so another one done for whenever I feel like making it up.

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.