Posted in quilting

SAHRR 2023 Round 2: Stars

Posted on by Laura Kate

Pieceful Wendy has suggested stars, and I’m tickled about her choice. A star block will fit perfectly at the points between my rows of spools.

SAHRR Border 2

I’ve decided to adopt Wendy’s little four-point star for my own. The yellow batik fabric will form the star body and arms. I’ll vary the construction by using three rectangles and one square with stitch-n-flip triangles sewn on. These pieces are then sewn around the center as in log cabin block construction.

Test Block completed

The result is slightly wonky star arms – a look I find sort of charming.

Stars in the heavens like snowflakes: No two alike.

And here is my quilt with the addition of rounds two and three.

While I’m happy with the result, it’s clear that I will need a plain border to give breathing room to the center. I’ll continue with the little sparks of yellow throughout the design, hoping that this device will create unity and lots of rhythm.

Feb 3 – Border sewn together and added to the center block.

Don’t forget to check out the work of other participants at the InLinkz party.

SAHRR Border 2
Posted in knitting

Monday Blues: Yes, I Still Knit

Posted on by Laura Kate

It’s been almost 2 months since I cast on this lovely blue 4-ply sock yarn by West Yorkshire Spinners.

I’m feeling guilty about my lack of progress since then on socks for my DH. It’s been very cold here and he has nearly worn out all the other socks I’ve knit for him.

In early January I picked this project up again and I hope that they’ll be finished soon.

This photo shows the toe-up method using two size one needles. Gauge is about 12 rows per inch. Because the stitches are so small, I find it difficult to work on this in low light.

But Ta-Da! I have one completed sock.

Today I worked on sock 2 during Westham United’s game against Darby. At the whistle, I had completed another 1 and 1/2 inches on the foot section. I’m hopeful that cast-off will take place before another week has passed by.

What are you knitting this month?

Posted in quilting

SAHRR 2023 Round One: Spool Block

Posted on by Laura Kate

This week’s prompt for the Stay At Home Round Robin quilt challenge comes from Home Sewn By Us and it is the spool block. This is one I haven’t tried yet, I believe it’s one of the easier blocks to make. And I have a good idea for using fabric from my orphaned quilt blocks for this challenge.

Using my seam ripper, I removed the corners from several of the blocks. (Can anyone tell me what this block is called? It’s a sort of square in a square with at least four iterations, but then stripped corner pieces were sewn on.) Anyway, I took these triangles and sewed two of them with long edges together. This gave me a square about 3 and 1/2 inches which formed the “thread” part of my spools.

To support the center pieces, I cut pieces from four dark colors and two shades of the background fabric. Three of the dark colors were left over from my Creation quilt. The brown fabric was used in my Badlands art quilt.

Here is my first block all sewn together.

I like the way the diagonal lines on the spool look like spiraling thread.

Eventually I made four 5-inch blocks in four different colors. My original design would have the spool blocks in a continuous border. When I started positioning the blocks, it became clear that there would be too much visual clutter. I settled on using three blocks on each side, leaving the corner areas available.

I will reserve the corners for the next round, or fashion corner posts using background fabrics.

To learn more about SAHRR 2023 and see what others are making, here is the link to this week’s round.

https://www.homesewnbyus.com/index.php/sahrr2023-prompt-1-spool-block/

Posted in quilting, weaving

WIP Wednesday: Creation Quilt

Posted on by Laura Kate

Today I have a progress report on my quilt inspired by a medieval manuscript.

Here is the center of the quilt. It is formed by the four corners of each four-by-four block. Upon first seeing that blank white diamond, I knew that it would work beautifully for a God’s Eye. After practicing on scrap fabric, I wove the centerpiece design into place. The four arms of the weaving are gold satin cording which I couched into place. The weft yarns are a combination of cotton embroidery twist and wool fingering weight yarn leftover from many a sock project.

I think it balances the four creation paintings beautifully.

Here are the quadrants of the piece at this point.

Now I can begin quilting. To start, I will stitch into the seamlines of all pieces. (AKA stich-in-the-ditch.) Next will come the free motion quilting. I have something special in mind for the light color patches which will involve more colorwork.

Stay tuned……..

Posted in drawing, painting

Sketching Sunday: Inflight Study

Posted on by Laura Kate

This week I practiced drawing and painting sandhill cranes in flight

This study will be part of a larger landscape that I am planning. I used cerulean and phthalo blues, raw sienna, burnt sienna, yellow ochre and a bit of Payne’s gray on Arches cold press paper. My reference photo appeared on the MPR website and was taken by Ben Hovland.

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2022/11/13/record-flock-of-sandhill-cranes-at-sherburne-refuge