improvising – Daily Fiber

Travel Shawl Finished

Posted on April 2, 2025 by Laura Kate

This week I cast off this shawl, the last stashbuster of 2024. This shawl started life as a hurry-up project to accompany me on our trip to the Canadian Rocky Mountain coach tour in July of 2024. I found the easiest pattern I could lay my hands on quickly, gathered up a bunch of fingering weight leftovers and hit the road.

She was cast on in the Calgary hotel lobby.

Progress happened throughout the trip. I improvised the color and stitch changes.

In late July, the shawl and I were in Northern Wisconsin for a week at the lake.

With the passing of my father in August, we drove to Ohio, the shawl serving as a comforting activity on the long trip to and from.

In December, I sat with my friend who was dying, slowly knitting and listening as she told me what was in her heart.

In January, the shawl came to Iowa, where we signed the papers to purchase our new home. In March we were back in Iowa to visit with family – a joyous occasion.

I haven’t even worn it, but it is embedded with many memories. Memories of all the places where I have knit it, the people who were present and the emotions I felt. Each color change reminds me of the projects that I have made with that specific yarn, and who received the finished project.

This simple little shawl carries a lot of stuff for me. I guess I will keep it.

Linking up with The Unravelers, courtesy of As Kat Knits.

quilting

SAHRR 2025 Round 5 – Daily Fiber

Posted on February 20, 2025February 20, 2025 by Laura Kate

Thank you, Brenda, of Songbird Designs, for choosing log cabin block for this round. It’s just about my favorite block to make, and one of the most beginner-friendly as well. Brenda has chosen to use the quarter log form of the block in her quilt. I like that, and made a few test blocks in this version.

I’ll likely use quarter logs at some point. But for this round, I want to use a Japanese version of the log cabin. My block directory has two to choose from:

Pieced raimon, also known as the spiral block, is interesting. But those are very narrow logs to squeeze into a nine inch square block.

Hiratsume sanmasu is what we in the West might call Courthouse Steps log. I also like that this pattern has one set of strips cut 1 and 1/2 wide, to finish at 1 inch. And I have the perfect fabric to take advantage of the layout:

When I unwrapped this fabric, among the selection I purchased from kimonomomo on Etsy, I knew it would be a good companion for my crane star blocks. So I made three concentric square log cabin blocks. Here they are in place.

And this round finishes out the rows of blocks for the back of my kimono.

Next week will be the last challenge, and I have a whole front side yet to make. I will be repeating some of the block patterns used on the back, especially the blocks that make up the sleeve section. And I will be doing some improvisational design, inspired by Japanese quilts, of course.

To see how other quilters handled this challenge, visit Songbird Designs and click on the InLinz link. Here is the complete list of SAHRR 2025 host sites.

January 13: Center Block Reveal.
January 20: 1^st Round: Kathleen @ Kathleen McMusing
January 27: 2^nd Round: Anja @ Anja Quilts
February 3: 3^rd Round: Gail @ Quilting Gail
February 10: 4^th Round: Wendy @ Pieceful Thoughts
February 17: 5^th Round: Brenda @ Songbird Designs – Link up here this week!
February 24: 6^th Round: Emily @ The Darling Dogwood
March 24: Parade: showing all of your finished SAHRRs!

quilting

SAHRR 2025 Round 2: Japanese style quilt

Posted on January 31, 2025January 31, 2025 by Laura Kate

Before I show my work for this round, I want to share a source for Japanese quilting and sewing supplies.

A few years ago, I was interested in learning about sashiko stitching. When it became clear that the necessary supplies and materials for this craft were not available anywhere in my quad-state area, I turn to Etsy and found kimonomomo. Returning to the site this year, I discovered that she carried hundreds of Japanese fabrics which are available in small amounts – fat eights, fat quarters, etc. I chose eight different fabrics which are presently winging their way to me – should arrive on February 3rd. I can’t wait to get my hands on them.

During my preparation of round two, it became very clear that I didn’t have enough fabric to complete the quilt. So in addition to the Japanese fabrics I ordered from Etsy, I bought three cotton solid colors from Hobby Lobby.

Since the color gold is quite prominent in my center paneI, I chose it as a unifying color that would help marry together the different block patterns.

Now on to Round Two: Turning to the Susan Briscoe’s quilt block directory, I discovered two layouts that feature half-square triangles (aka HST.)

Uroko (scales) is an all-over pattern of the HSTs. Yosegi (check frame) features it as a center square. I decide to make two blocks of each.

Starting with Uroko, I quickly sewed, pressed and trimmed all the little HSTs and then cut out the gold fabric for the setting triangles. Sewing together the first block, it was clearly too small. I removed the gold setting triangles, re-cut each piece 1/4 of an inch larger, and tried again. It measured out perfectly.

Turning to Yosegi, I had much less difficulty. The center HST was edged by four strip pieced squares and cornered by four nine-patch blocks. Easy peasy.

And here is my project at the end of Round Two.

I’m so glad I didn’t start sewing the rows together yet. When I added my newest blocks, it was obvious that I needed to change the layout. Alternating the blocks of Round One with Round Two blocks makes for a more pleasing design, IMHO.

To see the other participants’ round 2 blocks, visit Anja @ Anja Quilts

And here is the line-up for the rest of Stay at Home Round Robin 2025

January 27 – 2nd Round – hosted by Anja @ Anja Quilts
February 3 – 3rd Round – hosted by Gail @ Quilting Gail
February 10 – 4th Round – hosted by Wendy @ Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life
February 17 – 5th Round – hosted by Brenda @ Songbird Designs
February 24 – 6th Round – hosted by Emily @ The Darling Dogwood
March 24 – Quilt/Quilt Top Parade – hosted by Gail @ Quilting Gail

colorwork, knitting

Travel Project Frogged

Posted on July 16, 2024July 15, 2024 by Laura Kate

In my last knitting post, I was starting a pair of socks worked with stash yarn.

https://dailyfiberfun.com/2024/06/25/casting-on-to-travel/

The yarn in question is Roslyn, by Cascade.

Well, the long and short of this story is that Roslyn is unsuited for socks. (Some of my readers tried to tell me that.) When I really paid attention to how the yarn behaved, it told me that it wanted to be a shawl. So, before we left for our trip, I ripped the sock off my needles and cast on a shawl.

I would really like to share the pattern I am using but alas, it eludes me. I remember printing it, using the printout to get started, memorizing the stitch pattern and then putting the paper pattern aside. It’s probably somewhere in Canada.

**Photo taken in my Calgary hotel room.**

The good news is that my stash yielded four coordinating yarns in fingering weight to give color variation to this simple pattern for a point-to-point shawl with picot border. Since I was knitting on the fly, I decided to improvise the color changes.

There is no pattern just some rules. The olive-colored Roslyn will be the background yarn, continued throughout the project. The four colors will rotate in and out at a fairly regular pace. Every so often, I will throw in a ridge of eyelet lace.

Oh, and the bright red yarn will appear only in single ridges, separated by the background yarn. It reminds me of pin striping.

This shawl could easily go on for weeks at this rate. It is a soothing knit.

I reserve the right to change a rule here or there, if it suits me.

quilting

In Progress: Pieced Landscape Art Quilt

Posted on June 6, 2024 by Laura Kate

Today I’m catching up on the abstract landscape quilt that I started in mid-May:

Obsessed by Strips

I would say nothing has changed, but I would be lying. During the planning phase, I started to think about Japanese quilts – most likely because I recently purchased two books on modern Japanese quilting by Susan Briscoe. She is a textile artist who worked in Japan for many years as an English teacher. In her book, Japanese Quilt Blocks to mix and match, she features 125 patchwork, applique and sashiko blocks in a modern style that is inspired by tradition. Textiles recycled from kimonos and other garments give the blocks an Asian look.

Consequently, I decided that my original plan was not abstract enough. I discarded the house block already constructed and made one using the Japanese block called Sunken Hearth.

In fact, I made two hearth blocks – one in bold colors for the middle ground and one in faded pastels for the background. This second block is located half-way up the mountain in the foggy part of the landscape.

I redrew the upper right corner of the design from clouds into a mountain. You could think of it as Mt. Fuji. The fabric is a white-on-white print of spirals, suggestive of clouds to me.

As of today, I am about 2 thirds finished with the piecing phase. I have completed four rows out of seven.

By the way, I have a new favorite tool:

This flexible flat-bottomed shape is a technical drawing tool that belongs to Bill. He got it back in his college days for a class. Using this tool, I can match up a long curve which crosses over two different blocks. I Love it.

One more Japanese touch will be added to the lower right corner. In the reference photograph, there is a group of red-twigged shrubs behind a stone wall. I plan to use the Pieced Ogi, aka Folding Fan, to abstract this feature.