When I started this blog back in 2011, I had high hopes for posting my progress on the “And They Sinned” cross stitch sampler by Vilma Becklin of Exemplar Dames. That didn’t exactly happen, but I’m a firm believer in getting more than once chance in life. So, to start the new year off, I took photos today of a few things I’ve made in the past; one I finished over Christmas. I’ll have more pictures of my completed projects in future posts.
This is my first quilt, which I made in 2004. I took a sampler class at Quiltworks Northwest in Bellevue, Wash., when I used to live in that part of the country. I had a wonderful teacher and fell in love with all the beautiful fabric.
I just used leftover fabrics on the back, plus two paper-pieced basket blocks that I didn’t think turned out very well, but which my teacher insisted were good enough to use.
My next quilt was what I call my first mistake quilt. I bought a bunch of fabric thinking it would all go together, but after I made a few of the stars I just didn’t like them together. One thing I learned with this project is that just because a color is in the fabric that inspired you to make something, it doesn’t mean it will work in large quantities. Now I try to look more carefully at the fabric and see how the designer used it. Is it similar in scale to the other colors or just used as an accent?
Here’s a closeup of that fabric. I call this quilt, “Playing in the Cosmos.” The red on the angel’s lips is wonderful, but I thought it would have been too much used against the blue and gold. Instead, I used it for the binding to give it some pop.
You can see the red is pretty tiny here. I bought fabric in the bluish-green color, too, but when I put it against the gold stars, it looked really terrible. Luckily, I had enough to make a different quilt, this time focusing on the blues and greens together.
Again, just leftover pieces on the back. A couple of months ago, I took the free Craftsy online class “Creative Quilt Backs” with Elizabeth Hartman who is an amazing modern quilter and who taught me to appreciate the back of a quilt as much as the front when it comes to design. Check out her blog, Oh, Fransson!
This is a photo of a sweater I started about eight years ago and finally finished over Christmas. I made the pieces relatively quickly, but as anyone who does intarsia knitting knows, it takes forever to weave in all the strands from changing color. If anyone has a good way to do that, I’d love to hear it!
For the back, I decided not to do the motif the same as the front as on the original pattern, “Fiddler,” by Kim Hargreaves from Rowan Knitting Magazine Number 22. I just thought it would be more interesting this way, and it was certainly easier.
One last photo, a closeup of the bobbles. It took me awhile to get the hang of doing them again, but once I did, they were fun. I decided not to put these on the back also, since I’ve learned from experience that sitting on them would eventually make them dangle from the sweater.
Hope you’ve enjoyed taking a look at my not-so-new projects. I’m so glad you stopped by for a visit!
XOXO,
Sandra
My friend’s wife was very specific that she wanted pink for her daughter (to be named Audrey), so pink it is. I’m using Nancy Wolff’s Kokka Circus and plan to do Amy Smart’s “Chain Linked” pattern. I only bought five fat quarters (the stuff is expensive) so I didn’t want to cut it into small pieces. Amy’s pattern will be perfect to show off these large scale prints.
Surrounding the five-inch finished squares are the fabrics above, I’m using Full Circle by Dorothy Schmitz for Moda (left) and Ramblings by P&B Textiles (right) that I bought today at my local quilt shop. I had originally planned to use solid fabrics, but when I saw these, I thought they’d work even better.
One million stitches ... 