There's a weekly casual craft group at the local library now and I planned to go yesterday and wanted to take a new crochet project. This baby blanket seemed like a good idea. I got it started Wednesday night and worked on it for 2 hours. At the end of that session my eyes were burning and my sinuses were inflamed. 30 minutes after I stopped everything cleared up. Apparently I'm allergic to this yarn so I stopped this project and will donate this yarn. I still needed a project to work on at the library and I remembered this shawl. I remembered that it was easy and I had the same yarn in a different colorway and could follow the exact same instructions. It goes really fast and I got this much done in 2 hours at the library. In the sewing room I'm steadily working away on the surgery drain bags. It's possible that I get these done this weekend....but not likely. I'm sure I'll find some sort of other distraction!
I finished it! This sweater has been hanging over me for a few months. It's the ubiquitous hexagon sweater and I got the two hexagons done months ago. Then the project stalled while I worked out exactly how I wanted to finish it. I was also held up a bit by the baby quilts in September and hats in November. Finally, over Christmas I buckled down and got it done. I made another version of this sweater last Spring and gave that one to Mom. I wanted to make one for myself that was a little shorter and this is the result. I was going to take a photo of it on but my hair was wet and I had my PJs on so you'll have to take this flat photo along with my witness that it fits PERFECTLY! I will wear this one a lot, probably starting this afternoon when I go out to knit group and to run errands. I really like this pattern by LaDria LaVea. There are dozens of hexi cardigans on the web but I liked the bobble detail around the front edge of this one and her tutorial style is entertaining but also really clear and thorough. The yarn is Lion Brand Heartland in the color New River Gorge. I thought that color was appropriate since the NRG is in Virginia and West Virginia. I used a J hook. I usually keep 3 projects going that require different hook sizes. I alternate them each time I sit to crochet and it seems that changing hook sizes helps to alleviate hand fatigue. With the hats and sweater done I only have the big blanket going so it's time to start 2 new projects. I think they will be projects using these yarns. With the pink variegated Mandala Ombre I think I will make another of these blankets for donation. I loved hos that one turned out and I seem to remember that it worked up pretty quickly. With the Noro yarn I'm thinking of making a shrug and will try out this one that I found on Lovecrafts. I'll start it and see how it goes. Remember all the baby blankets that I made in August, September and October? Here's one of them in use. Isn't she so cute?
I haven't gotten a lot accomplished the past few days because my brother bought my Mom a very cool Christmas gift. I had intended to buy Mom an electronic photo frame for her birthday this year but my brother beat me to it. Saved me some money! All I had to do was load some photos. Being the only girl (with 3 brothers) you can guess that I'm the one with the photo collections. I spent some time each day going through loads of old photos and scanning them into the Aura app for her frame. It's a cool app and it's pretty easy and quick to load a couple hundred photos. Chris and I had fun looking back at some of the old photos. In between I did have some sewing sessions and finished the first batch of the surgery drain bags for donation to From The Heart. I batched them by thread color. I finished all of the ones that required gray thread. This is 42 finished bags! I treaded the serger and sewing machine with black thread and started on the bigger batch. I got all of the first seams done on this group of 59 or 60 bags. Next I'll add the loops and hem the top edge.
I'm trying to work on them an hour or two every day because I also really need to make some pet beds to get rid of 3 bags of batting scraps. Happy New Year! I hope you had a great holiday season and are looking forward to lots of creative time in 2024. I don't set annual resolutions but one of my goals for January and February is to finish a quilt that I started last summer. This is a quilt the I started this summer and it ended 2023 as a UFO. I just got sidetracked on some other projects but it will soon be a queen size quilt. I bring it up today because it was the inspiration for the new Stash Pack available today. This is a scrap quilt and it was perfect for Stash Packs. When I started the quilt I grabbed one of each of the blue Stash Packs that I had along with a lot of my own scraps. I quickly discovered that I was low on light blues and that's brought us to today! New Stash PackNow I have the light blues that I need to finish the quilt. This Pack along with the other three provides a great variety of different values of blues for any project. Stash Packs were originally designed for art quilters and applique artists but I love them for my traditional quilts, especially scrappy quilts. Baby Blues contains 10 fat eighths of very textured fabrics in a variety of shades of pale blue. Each Stash Pack has 5 streaky fabrics and 5 mottled fabrics. Here are larger views of all of them. The fabrics you receive will not look exactly like these but they will be these colors and general textures. Each fat eighth is a gem on it's own. There are so many possibilities for fussy cutting applique or landscape elements. Fabric of the WeekAnother way to get a variety of colors or value is with a Gradient. So to add more blue variety to the week I've made Ebb Tide Gradient the fabric of the week this week. It's 20% off through Sunday.
The last two things I finished in December were a hat for my brother and a dyed quilt back. This quilt back is for my Red Sunset quilt. I hope to get it loaded for quilting soon. I delivered my hat to my brother Saturday and it seemed to fit well. Most of December was all about Christmas. I made 81 Christmas postcards and dyed 10 beach towels for gifts. I enjoyed doing all of them. For my own projects, I finished 3 veterans quilts. The rest of my accomplishments included quilting a quilt for a friend, quilting 7 veterans quilts, 2 crochet shawls for donation and 4 birthday postcards. Here are my stats for all of 2032 and I keep a summary page here for everything I made in 2023. Quilts - 2 Veterans quilts made - 15 Donation lap quilts - 12 Veterans quilts quilted - 41 Fabric Postcards - 105 Pet Beds - 7 Quilted for others - 7 Crochet blankets - 9 Crochet shawls - 2 Crochet/loom knit hats and scarves - 40 Doll outfits - 2 Placemats and Table Runners - 25 Dyed shirts and towels - 18 Other Donated items - 74 Garments (sewn and cochet) - 1 Balls of yarn used or gifted - 89 Other items - 5 As far as the futile attempt to reduce the amount of stuff in my stash, I used or gave away 89 balls of yarn. I did buy some yard but not even half this much. I used 10 spools/cones of thread and I gave away another 7 cones to people quilting donation quilts. I think the only thread I bought this year was 2 spools for my Christmas postcards.
As far as 2024, I don't have any specific goals except to keep making stuff. I do have a few UFO quilts that I'd like to get done or dealt with: Blue Bowtie quilt Vintage Flower applique on white - needs quilting Red Sunset - needs quilting And then I have 2 true UFO projects that I should decide what to do with: Loony Moony - started June 2018 Flora's Stars (8 quilts, 1 project) But just for January I want to: - finish a set of surgery drain bags for donation - make some donation pet beds - load the Red Sunset quilt and start quilting - put the blue bowtie top together - placemats for a brother and nephew - finish my crochet sweater - finish Win's crochet blanket |
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I'm Vicki Welsh and I've been making things as long as I can remember. I used to be a garment maker but transitioned to quilts about 20 years ago. Currently I'm into fabric dyeing, quilting, Zentangle, fabric postcards, fused glass and mosaic. I document my adventures here. Categories
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