Tag: craftsy.com

Posted in knitting

Cast-on Monday – Crescent Shawl

Posted on by Laura Kate

My new project is in keeping with my desire to work with my stash. I have been wanting to make a shawl with this purple yarn, called Leticia, by Bremont.

It is a singles yarn (for you non-knitters, that means it’s not plied.) Three fibers are blended together: wool, alpaca and silk. I own three skeins. Over the past few years, I have tried unsuccessfully to pair it with another yarn, so that I could make a two-color shawl.

Last week, while wasting a lot of time viewing yarns on the Jimmy Beans site (https://www.jimmybeanswool.com/ ) I discovered the perfect match from Malabrigo.

I ordered two skeins lickety-split and they arrived post-haste within three days. This yarn, also a singles, combines silk and merino wool about 50/50. It’s hard to describe the silky sheen of this yarn, (I was almost swooning while casting it on and knitting the first few rows.)

For my pattern, I re-visited a Craftsy tutorial by Laura Nelkin, in which she explains how to design 14 different shawl shapes. It’s fantastic, if you don’t mind doing a little math. I chose the crescent shape.

https://www.craftsy.com/class/knit-shawls-14-ways-exploring-shape-design/

My two-color shawl inspiration comes from Helen Kennedy’s Pale Moon pattern on Ravelry.

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/pale-moon

I love the way the mosaic section bridges the two colors of yarn. But instead of making Pale Moon, I would prefer to use Laura Nelkins’ instructions for the shape and design a mosaic chart of my own.

My first attempt at designing a mosaic pattern, unfortunately, was a failure. Apparently, there are some hard and fast rules about sequencing slipped stitches between the two colors. So back I go to my graph paper for a re-do.

Posted in quilting

SAHRR Round 2: Fire

Posted on by Laura Kate
Photo by EKATERINA BOLOVTSOVA on Pexels.com

No, I’m not burning my quilt. Instead, I have applied this round’s prompt of Diamonds to my Fire block. My logic for this choice is that tongues of flames, such as you see in the image above, can be stylized as acute triangles, with the narrowest point at the top. If one has a more romantic leaning, one might say that diamonds are created by the forces of pressure and HEAT in the bowels of the earth.

The piece of fabric I chose to represent Fire is a beautiful brocade woven on white with a clear orangey-pink thread. The shape can be described as a series of diamonds inside overlapping circles.

I chose these fabrics for the diamond-inspired border:

The yellow and orange print is one of my hand-painted fabrics. I created the circles by stamping red paint using the back end of a Nerf bullet.

Fortunately, I learned how to make triangle shapes out of strip sets from a Craftsy class presented by Joanna Figueroa.

https://www.craftsy.com/class/smarter-strip-quilting/

After sewing a light and a dark strip together, I cut the sets on a 45 degree angle to get diamonds. Then I sewed them into strips and attached the strips to the right and left sides of my brocade fabric.

For the bottom border, I used a strip of the soft coral ombre fabric.

Here is my block so far.

It’s not perfectly square, and I have yet to decide on what fabric to use at the top of the block. I’ll have to let the options stew about in my brain for a while. Once completed, I intend the block to measure about 17″ square.

If you’re interested in seeing more Round Robin projects made by some awesome quilters, check out Emily’s blog and the Linky party invitation embedded in her post.

http://thedarlingdogwood.blogspot.com/