Crochet Celebration

The edging is done on the little 42" x 42" hexagon blanket. It's definitely the most vivid item in the house!
It was very pleasant to have this project always at-the-ready while watching television or taking a coffee break.

Bento Stats

This Bento Box quilt will be 7' X 7', forty-nine 12" finished blocks. Each block is composed of four quarter-blocks. All 196 quarter-blocks are sewn together and this is a picture of only half of the quarter-blocks, 98.
There are 46 different fabrics, 23 dark and 23 light. Each 12" block contains 82" of 2-1/2" wide strips. That comes to 4,018 total inches of 2-1/2" strips for the entire forty-nine blocks.
Now, I can begin sewing the rows together, seven rows of seven blocks each.

Fall Ahead

These blocks are destined to become a Bento Box quilt. The colors are very autumn-ish, mostly brown, gold, orange, olive and turquoise.
Thanks to Lucy at Attic 24 and the crochet tutorials she's posted on her lovely blog, I've put about a hundred hexagons together this summer. Most of the wool is Cascade 220, twenty different colors. I'm going round and round crocheting a narrow edge on it now to finish it and attempt to fence in all those colors!
I'm so grateful to have learned this new hobby, and Lucy's blog has spread through the internet and inspired hundreds and hundreds of crafty people to put bright happy colors into their lives.

Just in time for dinner!

This Split Nine and one other are finished, and there are four other placemats coming right behind it. The walking foot attachment on my sewing machine made 'stitch in the ditch' quilting and attaching the binding very smooth and easy.

Placemats

These are four placemats I made for my mom, two made with Log Cabin blocks and two based on the Split Nine block with star centers.
Here's the progress on the placemats I'm working on now, they're all sandwiched with batting and backing and will be machine quilted.

The fabric for the backing and binding is a Heidi Grace design from my local JoAnn's, using a guilt-free 40% off coupon.

Nearly Knitted Sock

Wondering if this skein will be enough to finish this sock. If not, with only the skein for the second sock on hand, I'll get a third skein.

I picked up a tiny food scale last week, to compare any remaining yarn to the original weight and yardage of a skein and the weight of the finished item. At least, it sounds like a clever plan.

Six Placemats

This was the big boost to my stash. This Churn Dash placemat is one of my favorites, from a set of six assorted placemats I made at least ten years ago, and a stray Churn Dash pillow.

I washed and ironed all the new fat quarters, and began cutting them up into strips, squares, and triangles - along with other fabrics from the old stash.

The pieces have to be matched up with other pieces that coordinate, even though they're a scrappy jumble of assorted prints. Assembly-line sewing, chaining the smaller pieces together one after the other, goes by quickly.

I made up one block without the checkered four-patch center square, but it just didn't have the same punch, the same zing. They seem to sparkle with the checkered center.These are nine separate Churn Dash blocks. There are nine more blocks to stitch up, for three placemats, six Churn Dash blocks each.

And I'm making eighteen Split Nine blocks for three other placemats. The six new placemats will retire the six old fading ones, whose bindings are fraying. I'll find a way to salvage them, though. I couldn't imagine tossing them out with the trash after all the years they've seen.

Socks and Stash

I wasn't expecting the wool to knit the sock up in a Barber Pole design! I think I'll re-wind the skein for the second sock, hopefully that will make the swirl go in the other direction.
I found a real easy way to stock up my stash with 1930's reproduction fat quarters without scouting all over the internet, locating some here and some there - a lady on eBay was selling eighty fat quarters for an irresistible Buy-it-Now price. That's 20 yards of beauty and cheer. Many are Aunt Grace prints.

Happy Day! New placemats and quilt blocks!

Pretty Pleasant Project Progress

Only about three inches so far, but the wool is nice.

Third Pair of Socks

I'm knitting a swatch to decide what size needles to use to knit a pair of socks with Lanaloft sports weight 100% wool in 'Purple Iris'. There are two skeins, 100 grams total, for the socks, and the needles are size 2.
The color variations are beautiful together, and they change often enough to prevent color-pooling, which would be a big blotch of color ending up in one area.

Warm Blue

Curious about what washable wool would be to work with, I got myself a 100 gram skein of Moda Dea in 'Real Teal' and knitted a simple scarf. No pattern, just a K2, P2 diagonal seed stitch until I ran out of wool.
When the scarf began to 'lean' because of the bias, I thought blocking would solve that problem. But from what I read on the internet, the leaning will continue to be a problem.
The scarf was thick and squooshy, a worthwhile project, and the yarn was easy to work with on bamboo needles. So I bought a second skein and will unravel the scarf to knit it again in a different stitch on larger needles.

The Stripe-itty Bag

This has been a fun project! Still to do: add straps and weave in tail-ends. It's made of cotton, not the gorgeous yarn Lucy used, but I'm still learning.

Lucy's pattern is posted in her blog, Attic 24. (Thank you, Lucy!)

Am I late for Mardi Gras?

As a beginner to crochet, I hooked a dozen hexagons and realized I'd made single crochet on Round 4 instead of slip stitch. The mistake made the 5th and final round on each hex look gappy.

But it was a good mistake, because when I attached the corrected 5th round on a hex, I attached it to another hex at the same time. So instead of a short stack of separate hexes, they were actually coming together in a project.

After connecting seven, I went around with sea-green and then red. It's seriously color-y and bright. It made me think of Mardi Gras and a piñata and the roof of a fabulous merry-go-round. It's about 14 inches wide.

Cotton Dishes?

While practicing round crochet, I realized it was starting to look VERY familiar! The twin to my Fiesta dishes!

I don't know if any dishware match the next practice pieces, though! They resemble little Japanese kites. They're a joy to make, and with a bit more practice, I ought to be able to get one made that's perfect.

Frankie will like these socks

Not being experienced enough yet at knitting to be able to estimate how far the yarn will go, to be safe, I started striping the toe. Then just went with the lime yarn to finish. Of course, the second sock was halted when I got to the lime heel, since there's just the one skein to share between the socks. So I still have to finish the second sock.

March is for Socks! (apparently)

Another pair of Eesti Hiking Socks, and this time I'm knitting both socks at once, and skipping the snowflake border, for lack of wool.