Every Day's a School Day - 3

I finished sewing my Granny's knitted squares together!  I am a bit worried about the obvious stitching.  This is due to the amount of wool of each colour available rather than a choice so I hope she likes it.

I'm not sure the decision to crochet around all the squares in order to make the sewing together really worked as easily as I hoped.  As you can see, not all the squares were exactly the same size, and I thought having edges of a consistent wool and easily identifiable loops would help pull it together.  I think the lesson here only used tried and tested techniques on other people's projects!

Potential - 2

Now the Under the Sea Quilt is finished I have been lavishing some attention on some other ongoing projects.

I have been working slowly and steadily through my Granny's knitted squares, until suddenly there were only ten or so more to do!  I got quite excited at the prospect of finishing it and spent the weekend working out how to sew them together through the crochet loops.  Turned out the careful preparation on the squares has meant it takes no time at all to sew the rows together.

This should have been included in last week's Every Day's a School Day post, but I have discovered can crochet in the car.  I start to feel a bit queasy if I do anything in the car, but having read so many blogs where people were able to maximise their car journeys, I thought I would give it a go.  Anyway, this new-found knowledge refers to the second WIP, the Rainbow Granny Square Blanket (s).

Third is the potential to which the title refers, which arrived today.

Other projects currently include finishing my mock cushion cover before being let loose on the real thing which will be gifted to my FMIL, and a bed runner for my sister which is very much still at the idea stage.

Sounds like plenty to be going on with when you also consider I received an email about the Stitch Gathering today indicating we are to make a badge for fellow stitchers and I have not started my ticket....

Linking up:

Projects

I have covered a lot of the things I have been doing in the last year or so in my last two posts, so I wanted to start getting into what I am up to now.

I am excellent at starting things, or more particularly, buying all the things I need to start something.  I am not so good at dedicating regular time to sewing, or to finishing one thing before I start (or shop for) the next.  As a result, I am involved in quite a few projects which I thought I would share.

That's not a quilt?

No, it's not.  My introduction to quilting involved promising myself I would make time to do so, and I tested this with learning to knit and crochet.  My Granny is a wonderful knitter and was quite enthusiastic about helping me.  I remember sitting in her living room when I was little watching her knit and watch telly at the same time.  She's so fast and doesn't even need to look at her work!  Now, that is where 75 years of practice will get you but I'm still  amazed.

When her first Great Grandchild was born (my cousin had a baby in 2009) she made him a blanket.  She also made him hundreds of other little bits and bobs, but the blanket was the thing she specifically told me about because she had crocheted it, which she doesn't normally do.  In fact, her friend had taught her how to do so especially for the blanket.  I really like the idea of the two of them sitting crocheting together and hope my friends and I do things like that when we're 80 odd.  By the time the second Great Grandchild came along, Granny was finding knitting less easy on the hands, but she still made lots of lovely things.  She wanted to make sure he had a blanket too and made 48 squares.  These have been ready for months, but she couldn't muster the enthusiasm to sew them together (she and my Aunt agree knitting is fun, but sewing it together is boring).  Being relatively new to the game, I volunteered to sew them all together for her.

I have had them in my house for about four weeks and made a few attempts to work out the best way to attach the squares, but have not been as dedicated to the task as I should have been.  I have now decided to crochet around each of the squares and attach them in the same way I did my Granny Square blanket.

Baby Quilt 2

The top was made in January,

the quilting was done and the binding was added in February...

.....and now I just need to hand sew the back of the binding in March.  This is for my pal who had her first baby a fortnight ago - if I could only finish this sewing, I could go see them!

Present

My Future Mother In Law decorated her living room just before Christmas.  New curtains, new furniture - the works.  The colours are dark red and grey and I wanted to make her cushion covers to match.  They found some lovely fabric for the curtains and I surreptitiously acquired some for the centre of a cushion cover.

I thought it looked a bit grubby so I washed it, which I think was probably a mistake.  It made the edged fray, and as the top of the flower is near to the edge anyway, I have reduced even further the margins of error.  I will have a go anyway, but this is the only piece I have so I have to practice first.  Any suggestions of patterns/blocks with a central square?  I have some other red and a light and dark grey fabrics to go with it.

Other

I also bought a lot of fabric after a particularly long day at work last week to cheer myself up.  I have bundles of yellow and green to match some aquatic themed fabric for the next baby quilt (the parents are marine biologists and the sex is unknown to me), and some peacock fabric for a runner for my dressing table.  I am going to make myself a present!

I think that sounds like enough to be going on with.  In fact, the sales lady in the shop remarked how busy I was going to be when cutting the metres of fabric I was buying to improve a bad day!

Let's start at the very beginning....

This is the first post in my Blog all about learning to quilt.

Over the last year, I have taken up sewing again following what must be a 20 year gap in sewing for pleasure.  Hems have been altered, buttons have been re-attached, but this has been the extent of my sewing since I was at primary school.

I decided I wanted to learn to quilt but didn't have the first idea about where to start.  So I learned to knit.  This was to make sure I would actually stick with projects and make the time to sit and create.  It turns out knitting is hard and results were not forthcoming, so I moved on to crochet.  I found this to be much quicker and easier (in comparison to knitting).

I set about making my first blanket for my cousin's baby last April (2012).  It took me months to complete what I am sure is not a complicated undertaking to the more experienced crocheters out there. I stuck with it, and have surprised myself with the enthusiasm I have for crocheting and now quilting.  I couldn't wait to get home from work and make a couple of squares.  I would take the project with me on holiday, and found it extremely relaxing and gratifying.

The fruits of my labours are here:

I also hadn't completely abandoned knitting and made this:

Too bad she was born in August and didn't really need a hat, even in Scotland.  She did try it on though and looked incredibly cute.

Having mastered the art of making time for projects, I was feeling pretty chuffed with myself.  My friend, who also fancied learning to quilt, suggested we go to a local class and we went to a one day class at Bear Paw Craft Classes at Avery Homestore in Morningside, Edinburgh.  We spent the day chatting with other sewers of all levels and learned how to make the Log Cabin block for a cushion cover.

The darker cushion you can see to the left of the third image is a purple quilted cushion given to me by my Aunt when I bought my first flat with my boyfriend in September 2011.  It is lovely and became the inspiration for the decoration for the rest of the room.  It was on this basis that I chose the colours for my quilt block to make at the class and you can see I have stuck with purple, grey and black.  The central patch is a fabric which I loved, and also have in darker colours, which with hindsight would have been more appropriate for this cushion.  I am not sure the central fabric matches the rest of it, but it is my first block and I love it.

I also realised that it had taken me about an afternoon to complete and that quilting was MUCH faster than knitting and crochet.  I think I need to see results fairly quickly upon beginning a project and was delighted the quilt block yielded such a great, useful household item quickly.

And so I was hooked!  In this Blog, I intend to keep a diary of my projects, which will also include crochet (and maybe knitting if I ever get the knack and patience for it).