Placemats

Just in time for Christmas, I finished 5 (of my 6) placemats.   Just enough for my small Christmas gathering.  These were so much fun!  I used 3 different weaving patterns, just for some variety, but kept the stripes the same for continuity.

This the first one, just off the loom. I gave it a wash and it tightened up some.  It is far from perfect, but I'm pretty happy with my first attempt.

 

This was the pattern I chose for my second pair of placemats.  I think I saw it called "Cat's Cradle", but I'm probably remembering that wrong.  I can't find it again for the life of me, so, it will remain a mystery :)

 

A New Adventure

 I'm a quilter at heart, and I expect I always will be. But OMG, I've found a new hobby!

Over the summer, I visited my sister and we went to a small fair in her neighborhood.  I saw a weaving demonstration there, and I was entralled. How did she do that?  The weaver had created a sampler that was 2" squares, and every square was a different pattern. I could understand every row (or set of rows) being different, but how did she get the pattern to change ACROSS the row?  My engineering brain latched onto it immediately!  

I chatted with the weaver for a while, and got a general understanding of how it works, but now I wanted to know how to create those designs.  I went home still thinking about it, and not being a very patient person, I found myself trolling Kijiji for looms within a week.  And trolling, and thinking, and missing out...  And then I found one. And my wonderful sister was kind enough to deliver from Prince Edward County all the way to Ottawa.

I of course had to load something up right away.  This was a complete mess - I lost my cross so the threads were a complete mess, but I did my best to turn it into something I could play on.  I broke about 3 warp threads, and learned a whole of what not to do :)

 

 

But I pushed through, played with some different treadle patterns, and got my first "piece" off the loom. then I tossed the rest of the warp threads (all 2 1/2 yards) that were irretrievably tangled.  The weft is some chunky yarn I had on hand - my original plan was to weave all my yarn stash into "something".

 

That's still an option, but...  I needed a few odds and ends (and a few more, and some more) for the loom as it came with no accessories at all.  So, when I ordered my shuttles I added some weaving yarn to the package. I thought I could make some Christmas placemats. For NEXT Christmas, because I'm not completely crazy.  So, the fancy cotton arrived, I found a neat "starter" project from a book that included all the details about how to calculate number of threads, and length, and everything.  Added a bit - because why make 4 placemats when you could make 6.  And, more carefully the time, warped my loom.

And here is some practice with more scrap yarn.

 

 

After which I jumped right in, and voila!  Placemat number 1.  I learned that you can actually unload a piece off the loom, and retie the warp to continue the next project.  A friend - the weaver from way up top and also the previous owner of my loom - suggested taking the opportunity to wash & dry this piece, because I was unhappy with the density (very loose) on the loom. It tightened up nicely, so now I go onward!

And here is the start of placemat #3. A different weaving pattern, because it's important to keep things interesting :)

Wedding Quilt

 My son got married last year, so I asked him and his wife if they would like a quilt. I was fully ready for a "no thank you", because I gave them a quilt at Christmas the year before, and my son has 2 or 3 others from when he was at school/graduation.  But, they said yes!

I don't quilt to order, but I asked what colours they liked, and was told "happy, spring colours" and her favourite colour is yellow.  

The Alaska quilt had been crossing my feed a lot around then, and I really liked it, so I decided that was going to be their quilt.  I changed up the colours from "Alaska Rainbow" to add in more yellow and highlight the center a bit more.  I also needed it bigger, so it would fit their queen size bed, so I designed borders for it.

I started and finished the top (minus the borders) in one weekend at a retreat.  The borders got added at my next retreat. I custom quilted it, because a wedding quilt needed special handling, and here it is, all complete.

I love this backing. When I was making the quilt, I knew exactly what I wanted to use on the back - I put this - in black - on the back of a different quilt about 4-5 years ago.  Which of course means it's likely out of print. But the internet is a wonderful thing. I managed to find a shop, in my province even, that still had some so I ordered immediately.  It's called "Radiance" by Henry Glass, and it's perfect.  I used the leftover to make a storage bag for the quilt.

Catching up

It's been a while since I posted, and my quilt journal is sadly out of date. So here's a quick update of some of the work that happened this year.

This project was a quilt-a-long with Patchwork Times way back in 2014.  The top has been finished for years, but I finally pulled it out as part of my UFO challenge this year, and got it quilted and bound.

Over the summer, I joined a workshop on Pojagi quilting.  This as a lot of fun.  One layer (so not officially a quilt, if you want to enter something in a show), but all finished edges.  Essentially, every seam is a flat-felled seam, so the raw edges are all enclosed.  It's not great for a really accurate quilt top, but something more free-form, where you can avoid a lot of bulk at seam intersections, it is really neat.

For the past few years, I have designed a quilt and offered it as a quilt-along/mystery quilt for a couple of my guilds. This year, I did a "block of the month" instead.   Each month we made between 1-4 blocks of a particular design, and after 8 months, they were assembled into this quilt.

I quilted this with 2 layers of batting (Hobbs 80/20 on the bottom, wool on top). I wanted a "whole-cloth" look on the back, so I quilted with that in mind, rather than sticking to the blocks on the front.  I love the way the back came out, and the texture on the front is fabulous.  I would not do this quite the same way again, as the mistmatch between the quilting and blocks on the front was a bit distracting.

Here is a better view of the front.

And Elsie. I love Elsie.  The pattern is Elephant Abstractions by Violet Craft.  I made a smaller size - about 60% I think - by printing the foundation papers on 8 1/2x11" paper rather than 11x17".  I pulled fabrics entirely from my stash for Elsie. I wanted something other than grey, but not too outlandish. I think the green/brown theme worked well.  The background was interesting. I've had that fabric in my stash for 10 years. It was bought on sale, to be used as backing for something, because it is a lovely brushed cotton.  But it is the ugliest colour, and in 10 years I have never found a quilt that worked with it for backing.

When I went digging for background for Elsie, I tried about 5 different fabrics and narrowed it down to this one and one other.  My quilting group unanimously chose this - and they were absolutely right (I just had to let go of the fabric I loved, which did not work nearly as well when viewed objectively).  I turned the brushed cotton backwards, so that it looks & feels like regular cotton, to match the rest of the quilt.

Woven Quilt

I quilted this design for a few customers, and wanted to try it out. I used ombre fabrics that changed color throughout. An interesting result, but not exactly what I was hoping for. Finished in 2022

 Time for a UFO count. A few of us have challenged each other to end 2023 with fewer UFOs than we started with. This of course requires knowing where I stand today. Turns out things are not nearly as bad as I thought they were.  At a guess, I would have said I had >20 reading for quilting. But I had a productive year in 2022, so that number is way down.  Over the next few days, I'll hopefully catch up on posting my finishes.

Ready for quilting:

1. Block of the Week - started 2014
2. Winding Ways - 2015 KQG Crayola challenge
3. Edge of 17 shop hop - 2015
   
4. Tell it to the Stars - 2014 Judy Laquidara quilt along
   
5. Reflections of the North - 2015
   
6. Paper pieced houses (Downtown) - 2013
   
7. 3-D cubes (Paul Leger class) - 2017
   
8. Improve - Krista Hennebury 2017
   
9. Row by row - Water theme - 2015
   
10. Symmetry in Stars fractal - 2019
    
11. Slow and Steady (2021 mystery)
12. Rainbow Cats - 2019
    
13. Butterfly OBW - 2022
    
14. Starburst - 2018
    
15. OBW stripes - 2019
    
16. Jelly roll quilt - 2022
    

And a few in progress:

1. Chillhowie [at Midnight] - Bonnie Hunter
2. 2022 BOM
3. blue/white One Block Wonder
4. Jacob's ladder leader/ender
5. CQA mystery ($3.31)
6. Star is Born virtual retreat quilt
7. Snowman BOM (2014)
8. Gardener's Alphabet (2013?) 
9. Cathedral Window
10. Apple core
11. mini checkerboard
12. Ombre geese
13. Owl embroidery
14. little bear
15. Fall Foliage
16. Hexi stars
17. Canada Geese
18. Northern Animals
    

Done this year

1. Merry Mayhem Jan 1 mystery
2. Dancing 9-patch
3. Bonnie Hunter Unity