Friday Finish

Today's finish has been lurking in my to-do pile for quite a while now. It started out as this many months ago.

Then it grew a bit bigger and then became the back and front of a cushion and that is where it stopped.

This week when buying fabric for bedroom curtains I finally came across a round cushion pad that was exactly the size needed for these crochet covers, so my excuse for not getting round to finishing the cushion disappeared in the shake of a bank card.

I have never blocked crochet pieces before but just winged it with a bit of a dunk in water, a couple of thick towels and some pins! I am sure there is a more professional way to do it but it worked, although I am not sure I would be so slapdash if it had been anything other than a cushion, which was going to take on the shape of the cushion pad anyway.

Anyhow once the back and front had recovered from their dunking and pinning, some whipstitching with matching wool and this is the result.

The pattern is from Cute and Easy Crochet by Nicki Trench and, like Laura, I have found with this book that the crochet instructions are excellent but beyond that the finishing instructions can only be described as scant!


If you have tried crochet for the first time this month, or indeed any other craft or activity don't forget to link up your posts on March 25th for the next New to Me in 2013 Linky party.

Linking this finish up to




Crazy Mom Quilts

and Sew, love, live for

A jumble of June projects

I am beginning to like putting together a Mosaic at the end of each month, when I think I haven't actually finished much in a month it is a pleasant surprise to find that, actually, I have been busier than I thought!

The makes this month are a motley selection, and probably a good indication of my "butterfly" tendencies of flitting from one project to another :)

Lots of little projects have fitted in with the travelling we have been doing recently, so portable projects like the crochet flowers and Dorset buttons have fitted the bill. I am most pleased with finishing the Campervan doorstop as it has been many months in the making, it is just a pity that the reason for making it, for youngest son's flat at University, has now disappeared with his graduation a couple of weeks ago! Still, a finish is a finish.

We have no travel plans for the next few weeks, so I am hoping to get stuck into some bigger projects and maybe even finish off the NY Beauty QAL blocks that are haunting the cupboard!

If you have missed any posts in the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop check out the great tutorials here This week's posts in the Blog Hop will be from:

July 3

Di from Willowbeck Designs

Jennifer from Knotted Thread

July 5

Sarah from Sarah Lou

Catherine from Knotted Cotton

 

I have seen sneak peeks of a couple of the projects being lined up and can't wait to see them revealed in all their glory. My post for the Blog Hop is due at the end of the month so I need to get cracking on my post and project for that too, so the NYB blocks might not see the light of day after all :)

Linking up to Fresh Sewing Day

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Bee Blocks and Blocking

A couple of weeks ago I signed up for the Sunday Morning Quilts Bee, organised by Grammie Q. The blocks for the Bee are based upon a block in the book, Sunday Morning Quilts by Amanda Jean Nyberg and Cheryl Arkison. I had been eyeing up the book anyway, so was delighted to have a reason to buy it. Although the book was apparently in stock when I ordered it on the Book Depository website (Amazon were showing a 3 week delivery time!) and so, I should have received it before we left the UK to come back to Riga, naturally it didn't turn up until after we had left. Fortunately, our son was able to forward it on to me, so it finally arrived in Riga last week and I was, at last, able to start on my first ever Bee blocks. What a responsibility they are!

The blocks weren't difficult but I was conscious the entire time that the finished block would be subject to the scrutiny of someone who has probably been sewing longer than I have, and is so much more accurate than I am (even although the chosen block does not call for accuracy!). The colour for this month's blocks is yellow, and even that was a cause for anxiety - does yellow with multi-coloured dots count as yellow? As you can see I decided it didn't, but having looked at some of the blocks in the Flickr Group other Bees made a different decision. I am sure that once I have got a few blocks under my belt, I will be more relaxed about the whole thing, at least I hope so!

I have also joined the Star of Africa Bee, where we are producing blocks that represent our country or culture, even more scope for anxiety I suspect :) They are next on my to-do list.

Now that I have mastered (!) crochet flowers, I have been having a go at more of the projects in my "Cute and Easy crochet" book. I have made a start on the stripy cushion with my various shades of pink yarn and have just finished the front, although with all the yarn changes there are an awful lot of ends to be sewn in. In the meantime I tackled the purse project from the book, with a ball of variegated yarn that I had bought for no apparent purpose a while ago. I hope that I am not the only one who does that!

The crochet was mainly straightforward, although the flap front is more uneven than it should be and looks a much smoother curve in the book than mine turned out to be. The pouch was the perfect size for the variegation in the yarn, which was a pleasant surprise, and the actual crochet worked up very quickly.

I had the perfect fabric for the lining in a FQ that I won in Jenna's Sew Happy QAL, so was delighted to find such a good use for it. I have never blocked a piece of crochet before and was surprised to find that even although the book is aimed at beginners and gives comprehensive instructions on crochet stitches, there are no instructions on how to block a crochet piece. Given the nature of several of the projects in the book, cushions, bags, throws, etc., and the fact that the instructions for this project state that the crochet should be blocked, I would have expected some basic instruction at least. Fortunately a quick Internet search provided the necessary information. I get so annoyed when books and patterns for beginners assume a level of knowledge that I don't have!

The Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop organised by Plum and June is really picking up a head of steam now, there have been some great projects already and some great advice for new (and not-so-new!) bloggers. This week's posts will be from 

Tuesday, June 19

    Jennifer from Sewlandia

    Nicole from Mama Love Quilts
Thursday, June 21

    Suzanne from SuzClaas

    Mina from Kindaquilty

Jennifer's Flower Quilt is lovely, Suzanne is hand stitching away like nobody's business and Nicole's EZ Dresden Table Runner is seriously gorgeous, I am really looking forward to seeing what they come up with for the Blog Hop! Mina is a fellow challengee (is that a word?) in the In the Bag Ugly Fabric challenge and I am so pleased to read that she is also still looking for inspiration, I am not alone!

Finally,  I will post more photos of our recent trip soon but just to show that patchwork patterns pop up everywhere, this is one of the roofs on the Church of the Spilled Blood in St Petersburg, I thought you might like it!

I am almost tempted to join in the Hexy MF QAL going on at I'm a Ginger Monkey!

Linking up to Manic Monday, Sew Modern Monday,

Zakka in the pink

With wall to wall sport on the TV over the weekend to keep the husband occupied (think rugby, cricket and football!) it was the perfect opportunity for me to get cracking on some of the Zakka-style SAL projects I have been stockpiling recently.

First up was the organiser, which was the project for the week just gone. I wasn't too sure about this project at first, but as I had some nice, bright pink and white dotty linen/cotton blend that I had already earmarked for this, I decided to go with it. I am so glad that I did, as I really enjoyed putting this together, which is not to say that it all went perfectly but even the mishaps didn't put me off, so my faith in the Zakka-style book was restored.

The cutting instructions were a bit confusing I have to say, I didn't quite get the difference between inner panel and lining, even after several read throughs, and I lost track of the various cutting pieces for all of the different pockets. It wasn't helped by the fact that there were several errors in the instructions, I think 7 out of the 15 cutting instructions were incorrect, so even although I had marked the new measurements in the book, it doesn't exactly fill you with confidence that the rest are right, does it? In the end I managed to cut one of the pockets out wrongly, but, fortunately, too large rather than too small. I was also confused as to where each pocket would end up (I am easily confused as you can tell!) and would have changed the placement around if I had worked it out beforehand, but once the pieces were cut that dictated where half of the pockets would end up. That is not the pattern's fault to be fair, but rather a lack of vision on my part!

As the various branded types of interfacing are not readily available here, as with other projects I end up guessing and using what I think is the nearest equivalent from what I have to hand. So, I backed the exterior of the organiser with a fusible fleece, and re-inforced the centre with a flexible, firm interfacing, which meant that with all the pocket layers there were a lot of layers to sew by the end. My sewing machine coped manfully, thank goodness, which is more than can be said for me as I managed to sew the end of the zip into the binding! It was only when I was hand sewing the binding at the end that I realised what I had done, see what I mean about a lack of vision!

Despite all of this, or maybe because of it, I was really pleased with the organiser and I am already thinking I might make some more to give as presents to my daughter-in-law and son's girlfriends. I will try to remember the next time, though, to keep the zip out of the way when sewing on the binding :)

In a rare burst of productivity I also tackled this week's Zakka-style SAL project, a tweed pouch. I don't know if it was a reaction to the unending sport but this was also a pink project. I had some lovely bright pink wool fabric that I had bought a while ago to make myself a Fashionista Bag from Lisa Lam's Bag-Making Bible book. Whilst I haven't gotten around to making the bag yet, although it is on my to-do list, I could at least make a pouch to fit in the bag in the meantime.

I changed the pattern slightly by using Lisa Lam's method to insert a top zip by adding tabs to the zipper ends, and chose to outline the appliqued hexagons in bright pink rather than the transparent thread recommended. I discovered when I went to unzip the pouch once it was finished that the lining on one side is a tad too close to the zip, so some tugging is required to get past the spot, a lesson learnt for the next time I use the zipper foot!

Just to round off the pinkness of this post, I have been getting more ambitious with the crochet and have purchased these lovely balls of yarn to make a crochet cushion cover.

I shall close this post now before you overdose on pink, normal service will be resumed shortly!

Linking up to Manic Monday , Sew Modern Monday Pieceful Life and Sew Darn Crafty

Ugly Fabric and Flowers

Regular readers will know that I have been trying to make a crochet flower without, it has to be said, a great deal of success. When I was in London recently, however,  I treated myself to a copy of "Cute and Easy Crochet" by Nicki Trench on the basis that it was aimed at beginners and included patterns for crochet flowers. The method used in the book was very different to the method I have been puzzling over in my previous attempts, and to my beginner crochet brain made more sense!  I have been eyeing up crochet projects as the ideal thing for long car journeys so with our recent trip to Tallinn under my belt I am pleased to announce that I have a crochet flower to share! You can relax now Wendy :)

I was very proud of my first crochet flower and of course, once I had started I didn't stop!

The small one is that size because I misread the instructions! Entirely my fault as the instructions were really clear and easy to follow (despite the evidence above!) and I am now enthused to try out more of the projects in the book. I have already hunted out some wool to start on a purse project, but have one question for the crocheters amongst you, how do you hold the yarn in your hand to maintain an even tension? The book instructs you to "Pick up the yarn with your little finger in the opposite hand to your hook, with your palm facing upwards. Turn your hand to face downwards, with the yarn on top of your index finger and under the other two fingers and wrapped tight around the little finger. Keeping your index finger only at a slight curve, hold your work just under the slip knot with the other hand." Well, despite several attempts I cannot do this with any comfort, so how do you hold the yarn?

A few weeks ago I signed up for the In the Bag - Ugly Fabric Challenge and my fabrics arrived today from my swap partner, Mary and I now see just how much of a challenge this is going to be!

The rules of the challenge are "to construct a quilt using 90% of the fabric in your “In The Bag”.
 You may add: Any percentage of fabric from your own stash & you may add 1 yard newly purchased piece of fabric. There is no min. or max. quilt size required. Fabric may be used on front, back & binding of quilt. Quilt size is determined by the amount of fabric you add to the 2 yards you will be sent in your “In The Bag”

So any suggestions as to what to do will be much appreciated.

Cakes, Cards and Cherries

A few weeks ago I signed up for the Novelty and Colors Layer Cake Swap organised by Hilachas where we signed up to send in 12 Layer Cake cuts of a novelty fabric and the same amount of a pre-allocated solid (or a fabric that reads solid) and received in return 24 different Layer Cake cuts back. Well, because I had a bit of indecision about whether my chosen fabrics were suitable or not I ended up sending two lots of each, and so received 48 Layer Cake cuts in the post yesterday!

Here are the Solids I received

And here are the Novelty Layer Cakes. I am delighted with the variety of fabrics I received and can't wait to use them in some of the upcoming Zakka-style SAL projects!

In an earlier post I showed you the plans for my mini for Sew Happy Geek's Play mini quilt challenge, and I am pleased to have some more progress to show on this. Having calculated and cut the pieces for the paper-pieced corners of the playing card, I set to this morning to sew the blocks.

The letter block is from Carol Doak's 300 Paper Pieced blocks book, and has been re sized from the original 3" block to 4" by 3" to fit the planned dimensions of the quilt. The observant amongst you will see that this quilt will be based upon the Ace of Diamonds card, and the really observant amongst you will notice that I am missing a Diamond block! This is why -

When supposedly trimming the last corner I managed to cut off completely the previous corner!!! That will teach me to "just fit in a bit of sewing before breakfast!". Lesson, hopefully, learnt! Next time I am cutting I will not also be working out all the things that I have to do that day.

Having bored you all with my less than stellar attempts at crochet, I am sure you will be as pleased as I am (well maybe not!) that at long last, I have a crochet post that isn't cataloguing my mistakes or pleading for help. Determined that I will master this crochet business, I found a pattern for a Cherry Brooch in an old copy of Making magazine. The pattern was designated for beginners, so couldn't be too taxing I thought, and lo and behold! it wasn't and here is the proof - my very first successful crochet project!

So on that successful  note here is my round-up for this week.

Completed projects

• Shades of Green, Fleur Bleu, Checkered Heart, Orange and Reindeer cushions 
• Orphan Block needle roll, Pieced Arc Tea towel, Purse and Padded Hangers Tutorial
• Sunflower and Sew Happy QAL quilts
• All blocks of FPPFTT   
• First crochet project! 

Ongoing 

• 3 blocks of In Color Order HST BOM (2 blocks behind schedule) 
• (Almost) Irish Chain quilt basted 
• 4 Zakka-style SAL projects completed (1 project behind schedule)
• First border of teatime quilt completed, blocks calculated and fabric cut
• 5 blocks of NY Beauty QAL completed and fabric cut for remaining 5 blocks
• 8 blocks of Craftsy BOM completed (on schedule) 
• Play mini-quilt challenge design finalised and drafted, 3 corners pieced!
• Yellow rainbow cushion waiting to be appliqued

 
Waiting 

• Indigo and violet rainbow cushions
• Last block of Sampler quilt
• Amy Butler bag 
• Bag Making Bible Fashionista Bag 
• Dragon Bag
• Patchwork Block bag
• Christmas mini quilts

 Not much movement on that waiting list, one of these days there will be!

Linking up to Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday and Sew Much Ado We Did it Wednesday and Esther's WOW

Points, Petals and Play

Well, second (or maybe even third) time lucky, I have finally got the points to work out on the Zakka-style SAL tote. They are not perfect by any means, but they are a lot better than the previous attempt so at last I can tick this project off my list! The tote will be a present for my mum's birthday next month, so I am delighted to have got it out of the way early, especially given the angst caused by those zig-zags.

Instead of putting in a magnetic snap closure I used a covered button, and I used a slightly different method to make the handles, so I think they have come out slightly narrower than in the original project. Hopefully, these will be the last linen QST's I ever attempt, although maybe I should check out the Zakka-style book before making such predictions!

I am hoping to fill the bag with some nice yarn, as my mum is a keen knitter, so any recommendations for online yarn retailers would be much appreciated. 

Whilst speaking of yarn, I had (yet another!) go at my crochet flower over the weekend, and I am pleased to report that there has been some progress made! The Crafter's Apprentice will be delighted to hear that, I hope, as she has told me that I will get this flower done even if it kills me (or her!). 

As you can see it is beginning to look like a flower, much to my amazement I must add. Now all I have to do is work out how to do the last row to add the petals, as you will no doubt not be surprised to hear I am again looking for help (sorry Wendy!) The instructions for the last row say "with the WS of the work facing, work out from the centre of the spiral" which, amazingly, I understand BUT I am struggling to see where to make the stitches it all looks the same to me on the back. I am obviously missing something and I am hoping someone can tell me what it is. When this flower is finished I promise never to attempt another crochet pattern unless I have checked that I understand every single instruction at least three times beforehand :)

When not being confused by crochet patterns I have been working on my plans for Sew Happy Geek's Play mini quilt challenge. Quilts in the challenge are to be based upon a playing card and whilst some of the participants were simply leaving the choice of card to the luck of the draw, I am not so sure of my drafting or piecing skills to be that casual so have decided to base my quilt on the Ace of Diamonds, and have even been toying with the idea of creating my own paper piecing pattern! You can see why I was trying out the crochet as a bit of light relief :)

I will need to get a move on though, as the deadline for the challenge is May 21st and I will only have a few days between then and now to get any sewing done. This also means that whilst all of the patches have been cut now for the last remaining NYB blocks I doubt very much whether any further will be done to them until later this month. I am so pleased that I signed up for the NYB QAL (thanks Judy!) as even though I will not get these blocks completed anytime soon, I have learnt so much through both this and the Littlest Thistle's FPPFTT that I will definitely continue to paper piece now that I have caught the paper piecing bug.

With three Bank Holidays last week in Latvia I had to pick my time to venture to the PO, which operates in a time warp normally anyway, but after a couple of attempts managed to send off my blocks for the Siblings Together quilt, so they will, hopefully, arrive before the May 15th deadline. 

Looking forward to seeing what everyone else has been up to and linking up to Manic Monday here, Sew Modern Monday here and Sew Darn Crafty here

Shopping, stitching and sighing!

I realised when looking at my photos that the only photos I have shared of the markets here were of the fish market. Now, whilst we like fish we do buy other things at the market, so this weekend on our weekly shopping trip and walk back through the Old Town I took some photos to give you an idea of the shopping opportunities in Riga!

Now that Spring has (finally) arrived many of the fruit and veg stallholders have moved outside, so the area around the Market pavilions is a riot of colour. Later in the summer small stalls will be set up with people offering produce from their gardens and allotments. Last year we particularly enjoyed the tiny wild strawberries for sale on these stalls, so we are looking forward to trying more of them this summer. The time for fur hats has, thankfully, passed so the ones you see are aimed at tourists, who were out in force this weekend, so the fur lady and her neighbours selling knitted socks and gloves and amber jewellery will have been happy. The handicraft ladies ply their wares all year round so must be a very hardy bunch!

Although it felt like I spent a lot of time sewing over the weekend I don't seem to have much to show for it. I did, however, get last week's project from the Zakka-style SAL completed.

I have been hoarding the fabric and ribbon for a while so it was nice to finally find a use for them. I didn't have the right stuffing so made do with leftover wadding, so it is a bit lumpier than I would have liked. At least, though, it is finished which is more than can be said for the first project in the book, the zig-zag style tote. Having spent what seems like all week on this tote I am still some way from finishing and the photo below shows you why!

When I joined the zig-zag panel to the plain side panels to make up the front of the tote I lost my points on the edges! I was tempted, as you can see, to ignore this and make up the bag anyway, but have decided that this is all character building so am steeling myself to start all over on the zig-zags. I have also discovered (thanks Kirsty QP) that I am not the only one to have trouble with this project, so I don't feel quite so bad :) Check out Finding Fifth's  blog if you are struggling too.

As it is nearly the end of the month I am trying to catch up on my BOM's before I get behind again, so spent again what seemed like many hours hand-piecing hexagons for the Craftsy BOM for April. One down, one to go, hope there is something good on TV this week so that I can get stuck into the second block.

I only realised as I was sewing the last one down that I had intended to have both of the half-hexagons with the blue side on the white background. At 11.00p.m it was definitely not going to be changed!

When we  were in Tallinn a few weeks ago I found a copy of the craft magazine Mollie Makes so naturally snapped it up. The magazine had a pattern for a Crochet Flower Brooch, which caught my eye as it seemed reasonably straightforward for a non-crocheter. However, despite several attempts I have to confess to coming unstuck.

I am hoping the crochet experts amongst you can explain what the following instruction means (or point me in the direction of a good tutorial) as I cannot get my head around it. The pattern says "With RS of the work facing, work in a spiral towards the centre of the base. Work into both loops of Round 4, then into the unused loops of rounds 3, 2 and then 1 of the spiral base, until you have reached the very centre." Sorry, I have no idea what this means!!

We are heading off on a trip next weekend so I was hoping to take the crochet along to do on the plane,  hopefully someone will be able to help me out.

Hope your weekend was more productive than mine.

Linking up to BOM's away here , Freshly Pieced's WIP Wednesday here and Manic Monday here