A Previous Quilt

I made this quilt between April and August 2014 for my daughter.  I had a jelly roll that I bought with her in mind and we collaborated on what background colors she wanted.  She decided on the cream and turquoise background fabric for the top and the beige for the backing.  This is a granny square quilt.

The front

The back.

New Yarn For Knitting

  I'm still knitting ear warmers.  I knit up three for dear daughter in the last few weeks (gray, red and teal), but now all the rest will be for me.  I'm doing them in all the colors of acrylic yarn that I have that I like.  I will have a whole wardrobe of ear warmers in different colors.

     I was playing on Amazon one night and found these yarns, so I had to have these to make more ear warmers for me.  I love the idea of the neon colors popping up with the neutral, I just hope it knits up as cute as it looks in the skein.  Of course it's Red Heart, the gray is called Rock Candy and the black is called Licorice.

    I'll let you know how they knit up after I get to them.  I have about three colors in front of them.  I'm knitting up a light blue ear warmer right now.

Need to Baste, Use Needle and Thread or Pins, Not Glue

   I am a member of the Quilting Board which is an on-line quilting community.  I am amazed at the number of people on the board that use Elmers School Glue for basting quilt sandwiches, basting English paper piecing papers to fabric, basting seams, and basting zippers.

    I recently read a post by a person who wanted help because they used too much glue on their English Paper Piecing papers and the fabric was stuck to them and wondered how to fix the over use of glue.   It took all I had not to respond that using glue instead of thread to baste was just not smart.

    I have never used Elmers School Glue in my sewing.  If I want to baste something I get a needle and thread and baste it by hand or by machine.  I use large safety pins to pin baste my quilt sandwiches.  That's what sewing is all about, needle, thread and pins.  Not glue.

    I have used fusible interfacing, fleece, and webbing in my sewing.  I have also been intrigued by the two sided tape used to stabilize zippers (Dritz Wash Away Wonder Tape) but I have never used any.

    I would NEVER take the Elmers to my fabric.  Yes, I understand that the glue washes out, but  I think it's gross and really unnecessary.  It makes me wonder if the folks that are using glue don't really like to sew at all.

Make With Leftover Red Yarn

  I found some leftover red yarn.  It was leftover from my Christmas knitted stocking cap that I made last year.  I made two knitted ribbed ear warmers with some of the leftover yarn.  These ear warmers are knitting up very quickly now.  I'm loving this accessory.

   Here is a picture of one of the red ear warmers that I made in the last 7 days.

 

The Fifth Anniversary

    I started this blog on October 17, 2014 to I can keep track of my crafting projects.  I just recently spent a few hours going back over my old posts to see if I had left anything out.  Nope, it's all there, warts and all.

Here are a few items that I recently completed that I want to show you.

   A proper turquoise ear warmer knit with my original ribbed pattern.

 

  Three new shopping bags made from three yards of home decor fabric.

 

   A couple of crocheted cotton coasters.  The top one was made using Jayda in Stitches YouTube video tutorial.  Link here.

 

    I found some extra fall kitchen towels I bought last year and lots of the black cat fabric in my stash and I made some fall hanging dishtowels and potholders for a friend.

    I made another water bottle carrier.  It's too tall but I don't care.  I was playing with resizing the pattern.

    I also made a lovely find on Amazon.  I found these fun needle threaders.  I love the flowers and the pastel colors.  These came in a pack of 50.  I haven't used any of these yet so I don't know how sturdy they are, but the wire feels like it is secure in the plastic flower.

      No update on the hexagon quilt top.  It's in a state of limbo for a while.  I have been finding all manner of small projects between sewing and knitting to take up my quilting time.  I may not start working on it again until next year.

Three More Ear Warmers Done

   I knitted up three more ear warmers in the last couple of weeks along with the turquoise one from the last post.  I picked out yarn for two more and I'm halfway through the first of those two.    I knitted a white one, a mulberry one and a dark blue one.  I'm really loving how I made these.

Double Yarn, Bigger Needles - A Knitting Experiment

   Okay, so I had to try this out.

    Last week I wondered what the ear warmer would be like with double worsted weight yarn using bigger needles.  I took some lovely turquoise acrylic yarn (I'm pretty sure it's Red Heart Super Saver), wound up two balls of it.  I used size 11 - 16 inch circular needles and I cast on 60 stitches.  This is what I ended up with.

 

      I did not double this up like I did with the other ear warmers I made because the yarn was already doubled, but it's not exactly what I thought it would be or what I want.  Now I wonder if I should do this with my size 8 needles or I may need a size 9.  The size 11 needles made the fabric too loose.  I'm not loving it, but this would be helpful under a hat.

     And I have just the hat.