I forgot!!!

 Can't believe I forgot to post about our family reunion in Ohio earlier this month!   My daughter and I drove together from Michigan to Ohio!  We had a good time to and from!!!  And, I got to see my sister as they were in Tenn. so opted to drive to Ohio!  Also got to see all three of my nieces and met my sister's grandson and his wife and baby!  It was a wonderful time and I am actually looking forward to meeting up next year!!!  Bob did great with the girls, which made me feel better!!!  

Here's a video I put together from pictures I took!  

 

Now, let's get into a project that you have to read and think!  Which for some reason, I don't do well when reading a knitting pattern.  Hence, I love charts!  For some reason, that makes sense to me.  Words are easy for me to 'read into them' what I think is happening!  

This is a sweater I want to make for Christmas...I didn't say which Christmas!!!!  Trying to shoot for 2023 but I am realistic!  HA

The pattern is by Hinterm Stein on Ravelry.  I also have another one of her patterns I want to make.

I started this past week  and thought the center pattern was really cool!

But then I ran into some 'issues' I caused myself...yep, not reading correctly...but I struggled through and thought...boy, this is hard!!!  

Just one of the edges didn't look right...of course, I didn't notice until I had knitted about 10 rows!  DUH.

I also noticed I was off ONE stitch!  Grrrrrrrrr

So what's a gal to do but rip/rip!

Started to unknit here and decided it was easier in above pic to wrap the collar area around my coffee cup!  

So now I'll be starting over!  But that's ok...it's a lot of work to knit projects and I'd rather start over and have it correct than get frustrated because it doesn't look right or fit!  So that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Back at it! Well, sorta!

 Before I get into the current knitting project, here is my Dye Dog #3 that I am hand stitching.  Doesn't look so great now but in given time, who knows how long!, it will work out.  I can always cut this piece up for more totes!  HA  I certainly don't need any more wall quilts.  

The white areas are the iron-away white pen I'm using to mark stitching areas.  I really like the heat erasable markers by Madam Sew.  I've used the red and black in my beading, which worked great.  The first white pen I had just didn't mark at all...but the refill worked great.  You just remove the marks with a warm/hot iron.  

It's nice to have a project that is 'mindless' that I can work on while watching a movie or baseball (if I'm not watching a movie on my laptop!  HA).  All you do is stitch around a mark!

And in my next post, you'll see why I need a mindless project to work on in between knitting!  

Quilting Dye Dog #3

 

This was the finished layout of my dye dog #3

I started to play around with how to quilt the piece.  I taped together some tracing paper and laid on top of the quilt.  That gave me some ideas on how to quilt it.  

It's rather hard to see, but after I sandwiched and stitched in the ditch, I started to free motion horizonal lines alternating rose and turquoise threads.

The white circles are a disappearing pen that I used to mark out some circles.  I'm planning on hand stitching quite a lot on this piece....the color and quilt look a tad rough but it does look good in person!  

I was going to try and show a technique for tying threads from the top...I don't remember which quilting professional showed this but I love it.  Hope my pics and explanation make sense.  Keeps those knots from showing up on the back of your quilt and are hidden on the front! 

You need to pull your bobbin thread to your quilt top and tie in a surgeon (over/under).  Or just make a knot!  HA

Taking any size needle and 1 piece of sewing thread, thread your needle and keep a loop at the bottom.  Make sense??

Put your bobbin and top thread through the loop......

Now take your needle back into where your top and bobbin threads are and slip through the batting and backing.....and come back up to the top of your quilt.

Now pull your needle through and both top and bobbin threads will appear!   By having your quilting threads in the loop, you'll pull the threads easily to the top!   All you do is cut the thread....

This is the back of the quilt and you can't see any knots or threads...a little dog hair or is it my hair!  HA

And this is the front...same....no bobbin or top threads show!  Hope this makes sense and if you have seen this and know who has shown this method, please let me know.  Wish I could remember!!!

Stay tuned...I will take this quilt with me  to hand stitch while in Ohio.   My daughter is taking her knitting as is my sister.  I'm still working on a gauge swatch to determine which size needle I'm using on a new project....next post.  Think any of us will get any hand work done with 11 in a household...HA HA HA

Cuttin Time Again!

For Christmas gifts this past year, I made several 'upcycled zippered totes' from cutting up some of my quilts.  This past week I decided to make another six  totes ,so I started cutting up quilts!

These are the pieces cut into rectangles ready to find lining and facing fabrics.  Another good use of clearing out fabric, right!

I was trying to get a production line going but changing threads caused me a little extra work but it all worked out in the end.  I finished all six by Saturday last weekend.

 I'm headed to Ohio this coming Thursday, along with my daughter, to meet up with my sister and three of her daughters and her grandson/his wife/and their son!  Yep, there will be 11 (10 adults) of us in the grandson's home!  Plus 3 dogs (no, I' not taking mine...sniff, sniff).  God Bless Mitchell and Tiffany for having us all stay over!   Anyway, I thought the little totes would be a nice gift for all the women!

This was a large stitched shibori quilt I made in 2013.  I do have some of the quilt left to make another bag or two from! 

A lot of hand stitching on this one!

This was from the practice free motion quilting I was playing with a few weeks ago!  there was quite a bit of stitching so what else to do but make a bag from it!

This was another small quilted piece that I had hand stamped and free motion quilted.  It was the perfect size (8.5"x 6.5")!

The back of the quilted tote above has this orange quilted piece!  This was from another large quilt I made years and years ago.  

I just thought the orange looked really good with the colored leaves on the front!

These three were all made with the same quilt cut up!  I did all the hand stitching on this patchwork quilt and I think looks nice in a tote!

Click to see stitching

This was the finished quilt with all my hand stitching...this was in 2021.  I was going to make a pillow but that never happened so....a good one to cut up too!  HA

So the little totes (finished size is around 8" x 6") are all ready to put in a bag for the family woman to take one!  I made six thinking I would have one leftover so everyone would at least get a choice...turns out one of my nieces is also arriving on Friday from Florida!  Whew!  So now they'll just have to grab!  HA

Playtime with Free Motion Quilting

 Started to play with some free motion quilting.  I have two books from Karlee Porter - Graffiti Quilter.  I love her cool designs.   She has some amazing long arm computer designs that are fantastic!  Makes me want a computerized long arm but that will never happen!  HA

So I started to play with some of her designs on some scrap pieces.....

Back of piece

Always fun to play with free motion....BUT the more I think about it, I'm thinking of doing straight lines on the dye dog #3 quilt...still not sure but leaning that way....horizonal and vertical lines throughout...guess we'll see!  Until then, I'll keep playing with some of Karlee's designs!  

I know our library/MEL system had one of her books...check your library or order.  I'd get her 2nd book if you don't have any of her books.  Gives some good insight on 'how to'.

What a way to make a living! Yikes!

On Thursday this past week, we had a tree service come out to cut down a very large tree due to it dying.  I took the dogs for a car ride while Bob stayed home to watch!  He took several video's but he said they were so fast he had a hard time keeping up with them!  Check it out!

This worker climbs the tree to use a power saw to cut the branches!

This is the tree from our deck.  We have lots of woods area behind us but they are on private property - where the deer live!  HA  along with other wildlife!

Bob said they came in so quick and the fellow climbed up the tree and started to cut limbs!

Ground crews pick up the large limbs as fast as they are cut off.  

Sawing away!

This was the largest branch they carefully dropped!

Hard to see the ropes but safety first!

From here, they drag the limbs up to a chopper they have on site!  

The cleanup was amazing!  You couldn't tell other than the stump that they were working in the yard today!

Poor Tree!  We feel bad as Bob took this tree as a wee one from his daughter's yard!  That was over 25 years ago.  This video is one Bob took of the crew in action!  We would highly recommend Gibb's Tree Service if you're in this area!  Bob is super pleased and thank goodness for that!