Kärshult. Flying geese.

I decided only to have flying geese on two sides of the quilt (the shorter sides) as it's going to be too big with all the borders. Calculating the measurements worked out I needed 48 flying geese units on each side.

It's been a bit of a pain with them as I bought a Fons and Porter flying geese ruler but just couldn't get nice, flat blocks when I used it. So I used the method whereby you cut a rectangle and 2 squares (see previous post)

 

I have used the light and dark greens, the brown, the light and the dark blue and the orange. The geese part is the white on white fabric. I didn't use the yellow as that will be my border.

 



They still aren't super flat but I'm happier with them than my first lot.

I also had a think about how I want to quilt the blocks. I originally wanted a quilt as you go method; so doing each log cabin 4 square block individually then sewing them together and then adding the borders. Eventually I decided against it as the reason I wanted QAYG was to help with the free motion quilting but I just didn't like the idea of piecing all those blocks together.

I have decided to sew all six log cabin squares together with sashing (the white on white fabric) also putting a sashing border around the circumference of all the blocks. I'll then make up the quilt sandwich, quilt, then do the borders at the end. I may regret it but that's my current plan.

I love the backing fabric I have. It's a lovely blue and busy enough to hide my inevitable fmq errors.

Small Hexagon Quilt

I must think of a better name for this quilt.

I'm getting on quite well. I do enjoy the hand sewing. It's very relaxing to watch TV or a Craftsy class and sew the pieces together.

Here is where I am at with it:

The top row is half completed and I turned it wrong side round to show the paper hexagons.

Fan design scarf

I began this scarf some months ago made from Hjertegarn Kunstgarn, in the Rainbow shade. I bought the wool from Harbour Yarns Seaham and thought it would be perfect for a scarf. I've been doing it as my watch the TV/in the car project. I used up the ball I bought but wasn't happy with the length so bought another ball.

 

I used a fan lace pattern and crocheted extra fans to each end to make it look prettier. The finished scarf is 190cm so it's long enough to double up and knot the way I wanted.

Small hexagon quilt

I started this quilt a while ago after buying some fabric from High Street Quilting. They were in those lovely baskets with juicy bits and pieces you find in fabric shops. I can never resist. At the time I had no ideas or thoughts about what they could become.

That same day I bought a Quilt Now magazine and, by lucky chance, there was a free gift of 250 1 inch hexagon papers. If that's not fate I don't know what is. So I had the idea of making lots of small hexagons in each of the three fabrics and arranging them in a swirling pattern. Sort of more concentrated at the bottom and diffusing out nearer the top. The filler will be white hexagons.

I took it to Denmark when we were there in September and it was very pleasant to sit outside the hotel room in looking out over the Præstø Fjord and sew. The weather was beautiful too. 

EPP is ideal for taking with you as you are out and about, I sew in the car on the way to work sometimes. I'm not sure how many of each colour I have but here are the three lots I sewed up. I also made some white fabric hexagons.

My idea is to have the hexagons 'floating' upwards from an area more concentrated at the base and diluting with white hexagons as they go upwards. I arranged them on a white background to get the shape I wanted.

Once I was happyish with this layout I marked each paper hexagon with a row letter and a place number. So B5 or N12. I gathered them up into piles of rows and clipped them together.

The next step is to sew each row together in the right order then sew all the rows to each other.

Kärshult. Sewing the log cabin blocks.

In my last post about this quilt I said I'd take a photo of one of the log cabin blocks with the blue strips but of course I forgot. And now they are all sewn up together in the larger blocks. No matter. You can still get the gist from this final photo:

So this is four of the log cabin blocks sewn together. Each block was 14.5 inches square, so slightly larger than they should have been. I think I was a bit sparse with my seam allowances. Live and learn. The four blocks sewn together are just short of 29 inches square.

I'll be quilting each 4-block as I go. The designs of with I'm still debating.

The plan is to have them in two rows of three. It's going to be much bigger than I thought it would be though. I've the borders to add now.

The plan with them is to have three borders: the yellow fabric, a flying geese border and a white on white fabric border. My calculations for the sizes are approximately:

Top and bottom borders
- yellow [56 inches x 3.5 inches] x 2
- flying geese [56 inches x 3.5 inches] x 2
- white on white [56 inches x 3.5 inches] x 2

Side borders
- yellow [ 93 inches x 3.5 inches] x 2
- flying geese [93 inches x 3.5 inches] x 2
- white on white [93 inches x 3.5 inches] x 2

I calculated I'd need the 1.5 x 3 inch triangles on the Fons and Porter Flying Geese ruler I bought. That will be the right width but I'm not sure how many I will need to make for the length. I'll just need to sew them up and see.

Plan is to sew the borders together so they fit the Log Cabin centre then do the quilting.

Plarn Shopper

I haven’t been making a note of this project step by step as I started it ages ago. It’s also not on my list of projects as they are all sewing projects and this is crochet (oh yes, I have a separate list of crochet projects!).

My original inspiration was twofold. Firstly I had a huge tangled pile of carrier bags in a cupboard. Secondly I didn’t want to have to pay for carriers when the charge comes in (which is this week I think) so I’ve been collecting bigger shopping bags. I found instructions for making plarn. There are several Youtube clips showing how to do this. Basically you flatten out a carrier bag (the thinner types are best) then fold them up length ways and cut strips. The strips open out into loops which you join together to make plarn (plastic yarn). That is then rolled into a ball and then crocheted like normal yarn. I used a size 5 crochet hook.

I sorted the bags into types so this bag is Tesco and Sainsbury’s. 

Kärshult. Cutting out the strips.

I have cut out all of my strips. They are each 2 inches wide. I used the Log Cabin ruler designed by Marti Michell to do this. I don’t enjoy cutting out fabric at all so the ruler made a bad job slightly less tortuous.

Previously I cut out some test strips just to see what it would look like. I used the yellow fabric on the dark side of the block as the outer strips but when I sewed it up I wasn’t happy with it. The colour wasn’t dark enough; it’s more of a medium tone. Here’s what it looks like:

It looks huge in that photo but is actually approximately 13 by 13 inches.

This time instead of cutting yellow strips I cut the dark blue that I put to one side to use as a border round all the log cabin blocks. I like that much better. I’ll post a pic of it later.