Author: Laura Kate

One of six children, I was raised by a busy mom, who instilled in me a love of fabric. Though I learned to sew and knit at a young age, it was the arrival of my first grandchild that pushed me into action. A long-time knitter, I am now ready to explore all things fiber.
Posted in knitting

Friday Finish: Adult Balaclava

Posted on by Laura Kate

Here is a follow-up on one of my recent stash-busting projects. My first balaclava was for grand-daughter Lu and was ALL stash-buster.

 https://dailyfiberfun.com/2023/08/18/friday-finish-child-balaclava/

This version actually required new yarn. My daughter wanted one, and her color requirements were vastly different from her daughter’s (no surprise there.)

It is a pure coincidence that the colors my daughter chose are nearly identical to the ones used by designer Gretchen Tracy in her pattern post on Ravelry.

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/kids-dice-check-balaclava

If you would really like to make yourself one of these cold-busting head coverings, I recommend that you knit the child’s version first. For the adult version, I made at least three modifications that will adjust the size. My number of cast-on stitches and my gauge were the same as the pattern. I lengthened the rectangular crown piece to 7 and 1/2 inches and the length before joining in the round to 10 inches, (center of head to chin.) I also made the neck section and cast-off ribbing longer, but you can try the piece on while in process to get the neck edge to your liking.

The gold yarn is Malabrigo Rios. The white is KnitPicks Hawthorne DK in bare and Swish DK in rainforest heather.

Posted in quilting

SAHRR 2024 Challenge 3: Brave World

Posted on by Laura Kate

Our host for the Stay at Home Round Robin challenge this week is The Darling Dogwood. She suggested that we use triangles. That should not be difficult to achieve. Many, many traditional blocks are made of triangular pieces. I decided to browse the very useful Quilter’s Recipe Book, by Celia Eddy to get some ideas that would work well with my design. In addition to using triangles, I needed a pattern that was not too difficult and would work well in a long row.

Here’s a four-square block called Brave World.

Each unit is composed of three triangles and a square and four units make up one block. I have specific plans for the square piece, so I say yes to Brave World. But to make it work for my border, I will only make 2 units. Here are two test blocks:

This photograph gives you a broad hint at the subject matter for this week. I have fabric with some animal silhouettes. These are the creatures of the forest and arctic ice that have been displaced by fire and melt. I also have some beehives. No bees though. They are out of the picture for now.

Bottom edge border

Right-side border

Lower right corner

And here is my quilt at the conclusion of the round.

I like the way that the triangles in round one are in conversation with the triangles in this round. You may notice the white sashing. I am using this design feature to outline the borders like a snail’s trail. My quilt is now 30 inches square.

Thanks for stopping by. If you want to see the work of other quilters who are taking the challenge, enter the linky party HERE.

Posted in quilting

Finished by Friday: SAHRR Border 2

Posted on by Laura Kate

The challenge we received from Anja this week was ideal for my project. She had a very simple directive: Choose two colors for this week’s border. Sew them together in any way that you like.

The plan I made for this project included color assignments for each round. When pulling fabrics, I made a bag of scraps for each color. I quickly pulled out my green and my blue fabrics and spread them out. How will I sew them together this week?

To get me thinking about shapes and lines, I browsed for photographs that illustrated subjects in my theme. For the green border, I wanted to depict the re-planting of a forest after a fire has destroyed it. For the blue border, the subject was to be melting polar icecaps.

Here are my two inspiration photographs:

I started with the green image of young trees planted in orderly rows. To be honest, I don’t think large forests are re-planted in exactly the same manner. I chose the photo for the graphical quality. This representation made it easy for me to see a quilt block pattern “hidden in the trees.” Getting out my sketchbook, I drew a grid and placed the trees within it.

Voila – a nine-patch block made of half-square triangles.

It wasn’t so fast for me to put the squares together. I have very little experience in making most basic quilt blocks. But eventually I had them sewn up into rows.

Here is the green border sewn together and attached to the quilt.

While my back was turned, a few butterflies flitted into view and perched on the border. They are not green, but I hope they will stay.

The blue border is next. In my inspiration photo, the shapes of ice and open water are not regular in the least. But I knew what to do. I will make this border with improvisational piecing, using a “slash and sew” technique.

I topped the ice and water piecing with a sky cut from hand-painted fabric.

And here is my quilt with my blue and green borders.

Now that you’ve seen my challenge completed, have a look around at the other quilters who are playing. You can find their quilts at the Linky party.

Click HERE.

Posted in knitting

Cast-on Monday: Mindless Knitting

Posted on by Laura Kate

Here I am, in a new year dedicated to stash-busting. Opening my yarn closet doors, I see that there are now only two bags of stash yarn projects. That’s good. But it makes me want to get more projects queued up. I’m looking at you, cheap acrylic skeins purchased five years ago! You were rejected by my student knitters.

I pulled out all acrylics that appear to be worsted or bulky weight and assessed their total volume. Hm, looks like it’s enough to knit a lap blanket. Searching through my knitting patterns folder, I found this image plucked off the internet some time ago.

Garn Studio Drops Design offers it patterns for free on Ravelry. Unfortunately, I didn’t download the pattern or the pattern name. Conducting an advanced search on the Ravelry database using all possible combinations of search terms, I failed to find it.

My notes say that the design reminds me of a log cabin quilt block. So, I will improvise a knit pattern, using the log cabin technique of sewing strips around a center block. In this case, the starting block is in the lower corner, not the middle.

I cast on while watching All Creatures Great and Small on PBS. Here is my progress after the first session of mindless knitting. It is a good start.

This mindless project will be ideal for taking on a late winter car trip that Bill and I have planned. It’s impossible to screw it up, even while barreling down the interstate at maximum speed.

Posted in quilting

SAHRR 2024 Border One: Grateful

Posted on by Laura Kate

I’m grateful to Pieceful Wendy for choosing the signature block for the 1st round of this year’s Stay at Home Round Robin. I’m also grateful to myself for pre-planning this project instead of winging it each week. You see above some of the fabrics I have painted (along with a nice purple solid.)

Here’s a few more that I painted. Most are commercially printed fabrics. I just added a few layers of color using Jacquard Dye-Na-Flo fabric paint.

These will soon appear in my SAHRR quilt rounds.

Okay – fabrics are at the ready, time to sew.

In reviewing my project map, I see that the colors purple and red are to dominate the first round, which will be attached to my center panel’s right and bottom sides. The right side will extend the trees of the panel into the border. The bottom will represent the forest fire. 

I started with the trees. They will go in the center strip of the signature blocks. I cut fabrics that looked tree-like and some smokey purple fabric and made a strip set. Then I cut some purple squares to use in the corners.

That’s the right side done. For the bottom, I got out some flame-like fabric that used to be part of a dress that no longer fit. It was cut up a few years ago and saved for just this moment. How fortunate for me.

Do you feel the heat yet?

After making a corner block that integrated the two sides, I sewed the blocks together.

Jan 29: After viewing a photograph of my work, I swapped out one of the fabrics in the corner block. Then I joined up the first round to the center panel. 

I also decided to use white fabric with a marble print as sashing around each group of blocks. SAHHR Round one is made of 4 inch finished blocks. My quilt is now 16″ and ready for the next round.

Be sure to check out all the SAHRR 2024 participants’ projects posted at the Linky party. You can find that HERE.