SewWitty » SewWitty

On the Home Stretch (at Least of the First Sock)

SewWitty — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 04:40:42 +0000

I’m onto the leg! There’s a bit of a hole where I rejoined the heel to the instep, so I might need to do something else on sock two.

The pattern on the instep and leg is a cross stitch rib (see below)

Cross Stitch Rib – Multiples of 3 stitches

R1: *Skip 1st stitch, knit into second stitch, knit into skipped stitch and then slip both stitches off the needle, P1, repeat from * to end of round.

R2: *K2, P1, repeat from * to end of round

Dino Cushion

SewWitty — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 03:31:00 +0000

My applifix finally arrived from here, so I’m back onto the dinosaur cushion. Miss P picked the fabric – the ladybird fabric is for the body and the other one for the spiky bits.

It is very humid today and the idea of using an iron is extremely unappealing so I don’t think there will be much progress on this project – maybe some more sock.

More Sock Progress

SewWitty — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 03:03:41 +0000

I’ve turned the heel on my sock and now I’m knitting the heel flap (opposite to when you knit from the cuff down).

So far so good – although I think I am in a bit of denial as to how big this sock is going to be! Also, a fifth needle would be really handy – why don’t they come with a fifth needle bamboo needles do?

Toe Up Sock

SewWitty — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 03:16:19 +0000

I’ve made a bit of progress on my sock.

It is turning out to be quite large, but I think that will be OK. I’m not quite up to the ankle/gusset part yet and I am intrigued as to how that will go.

We went here to escape the heat. We all had a lovely time; collecting shells, swimming in the pool and the Australia Day fireworks were spectacular.

Quilt Top Finished

SewWitty — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 06:40:24 +0000

The quilt top is finished.

It measure 44″ by 24″ – should be a good lap quilt size.

Nothing much is going to happen the next few days – I am just going to try to escape the heat!

Quilt is Coming Together

SewWitty — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 05:30:28 +0000

This quilt is coming together easily (at least so far). The above image is the first row.

I took the girls here today – it is a great place to visit on a hot day (it’s air conditioned) plus they had craft activities.

Quilt Progress

SewWitty — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 06:56:05 +0000

I’ve begun the new quilt.

It has been crazy hot here for the last few days and Miss A has an ear infection, which has ruled out swimming. As you can imagine that has made for a pretty tricky week – there has been movies and shopping (both air conditioned) and play-dates, but finally today she was allowed back into the pool.

A New Quilt Design

SewWitty — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 03:59:29 +0000

I’ve got a few projects on the go, but I am waiting for supplies. This quilt needs wadding, but I don’t want to take Miss A and P to the fabric store – too much nice stuff that they want and it always ends badly, and then this cushion for Miss P needs vliesofix, which I have ordered online.

So while waiting for these supplies I have designed another quilt.

It is going to consist of 12 blocks each 10 inch square. The two edge strips will be white (and will work like sashing). I’ve been inspired by the Fenced In quilt in The Practical Guide to Patchwork (By Elizabeth Hartman). The remaining four pieces will be one of six fat quarters (in the image above).

My plan is to rotate alternate blocks by 90 degrees (as happens in the Fenced In quilt).

The Quilt is Finished!

SewWitty — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 05:02:39 +0000

I finished the quilt!

In the end I machined sewed (not very well) the binding to the back of the quilt. It certainly saved time and I will definitely do it again. However, I need to keep in mind a few things:

Cut the binding strips 2″ wide rather than 2.5″.
Once I’ve attached the binding to the front iron it away from the front.

This should mean that when I stitch in the ditch on the front (made by attaching the binding) I should just catch the binding at the back.

Another Baby Quilt

SewWitty — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 04:38:31 +0000

Another baby is on the way – due at the end of February (not me obviously!).

It is 30 charm squares and a white border. I bought the charm squares ages ago from the Fat Quarter Shop (sorry I can’t remember the name). Everything including the backing and wadding came from my stash (slightly embarrassing that I have so much stock piled).

I just quilted it using my swirly free motion quilting (see picture below).

This time I didn’t lower the feed dogs while doing free motion quilting. I read about it here and thought I would experiment. To be honest I can’t see that it made much difference – I won’t be dropping the feed dogs in future. I did change the stitch length to zero and everything seem to work as normal – there are a few places where my stitches are too big, but that will just get better with practice.

This quilt came together really quickly – about 5 hours so far and all I have left is the binding.