patchwork complete...

...and the work has only just begun. Many hours of basting, quilting and finishing remain. I may just pack this away for the next generation to finish.

where the wild things are

Max is Max for Halloween

My first handmade costume for Max...
and maybe my last - that was hard work!

Stoffe, Stoffe, und mehr Stoffe

I remember why I quilt - because fabric is fabulous. I was just browsing this Swiss site, Cotton & Color, and they have the most beautiful collection of prints I've seen in a long time, maybe ever. In the "old" days, I used to frequent the low-end shops like Joann's and Michael's looking for $3/yd bargains and I quickly got bored with the selections. Occasionally, I'd venture into a specialty quilt shop and treat myself to 1/4yd of something fancy that I'd never use, only admire. But after spending an hour browsing this site, I desperately want to buy, buy, buy! I must resist. I absolutely cannot let myself buy any new fabric until I use all the fabric I already have. To this end, I foresee many one patch quilts in my future.

multiplying like rabbits

In an effort to use all this fabric as quickly as possible, I've started more quilting projects, obviously with no hope of ever finishing any of them. And I worry: what if I don't have a child interested in carrying on the tradition? It's sad to think after I'm gone that the remaining 100 kilos of fabric might just be thrown away. That's why I quilt, to keep the chain going.

Anyway, here's my second project, a Card Trick pattern using fabric I bought at least 8 years ago for a quilt that's long since been forgotten. So I had to "make it work" and squeeze every last bit out of that yardage to maintain some cohesiveness. I finished the last square (number 48) two days ago and am desperate to look at new fabric. So instead of sewing it all together, I've pulled more fabric out of the mystery boxes...

48 finished squares ... red, white & blue

I've decided to make a patriotic quilt, to help me remember my homeland. I'll try to have it done for next July 4th. The planning stage is fun, i.e. requires tedious calculation and sketching. I have an Excel spreadsheet to calculate required yardage and adjust sizes. I also scanned all my fabric so I can make quilt diagrams in Powerpoint with the swatches and test out different variations. Here are the final two contenders:

option 1: random placement of reds

option 2: orderly placements of reds

To the untrained eye, these may appear to be exactly the same. OK, they look the same to me too. But there is a subtle difference. In the first, the four red prints are "randomly" placed to give it a more country, scrappy feel (to achieve this "randomness" I spent an hour in Excel figuring out a layout that ensured no print would appear next to itself). In the second, three red prints are used in the same places throughout the quilt, to give a more orderly feel. Option 2 is much easier to construct, but I think I like option 1 better. If anyone actually reads this blog, I'd love to read your opinion.

chaos ensues

As you can see, quilting has overtaken my life and my house. My idle knitting hands dug out boxes and boxes of fabric I inherited from my mother in 1991. As far as I can remember, she only ended up completing one quilt before she died. It was for me, a gorgeous black & white Irish chain (I was really into 2 Tone ska at the time and obsessed with b&w checks - so sweet of her to use this as inspiration). I never use it for fear of ruining it. But when our family went on a road trip after my mom died, my dad used it to make a bed in the back of the van for us kids. When I discovered this several hours into the trip, I had a complete meltdown, sure it would be destroyed by my two brothers over the course of the two week camping trip. Under my careful watch, it survived and now enjoys a quiet life in the linen closet.

my mom's 2 Tone Irish Chain

Anyhoo...my mom left behind 30 scrappy log cabin squares and enough fabric to keep busy several generations to come. She didn't leave any patterns so I have no idea what she intended to make, which makes me little sad. And I hardly know what I'm doing, having only made simple tied quilts and two pieced baby quilts to this point. But the pre-made squares were a good starting point. I don't know the story behind these squares, but they were an absolute mess - weirdo color combinations, the strips all catawampous, the squares all different sizes (I found this strange because my b&w quilt, by extreme contrast, was so precisely made). It was impossible to piece it together without first partially dissembling several squares and adding new fabric in to make them a uniform size. I wish I had taken pictures along the way. Six squares were so small, I couldn't even use them in the quilt. Then only by accident did I properly arrange the squares in the Straight Furrows style.

accidental straight furrows - yea!

My mom had sewn together four of the blocks and I had to guess from there which order to put the rest in. After I sewed it all together, I noticed this cool diagonal effect of light and dark fabric, then learned that part of designing a log cabin quilt is selecting a block variation. This was very satisfying and I took the picture above to commemorate the moment.

all basted & ready to quilt

After figuring out where to buy batting and quilting supplies in Zurich (not an easy task for my pidgeon German), I settled into several nights of endless basting (yuck). Now I'm hand-quilting, which may take the next 100 years, and contemplating why anyone does this and why I continue to do it. Do I even like quilting? This is awful. I quilt while I watch TV and at my current pace, it takes approximately four TIVO'd shows to finish one square. I've finished two, so twenty-two more to go. Meanwhile...

sweater interrupted

Perhaps you thought I had stopping knitting for the summer - too hot, too much traveling and swimming to do. But in fact, my new craft room has exploded and projects have multiplied out of control. It all began with one little piece of paper. As I neared finishing my latest baby sweater, I discovered that I was missing the last page of instructions. So there the unfinished raglan sleeve sat, mocking me, for over two months, waiting for me to find that page. Meanwhile...

spiraling downward

This was so tedious, particularly since I knit as slow as molasses. I almost quit after 30 rows when I realized I was only about 20% done. I let it sit for a few weeks, then knit like mad watching episodes of 24. Now I love it and am so glad I finished.

ski hat

This was a special request from a friend, who has trouble finding hats that fit. She gave me a sample hat that had a pattern she liked and some yarn. I searched for a pattern, but I couldn't find anything remotely similar on the internet, which surprised me because this type of hat is very popular here in Switzerland. I could find patterns with earflaps, patterns with pointed tops (only a couple), patterns with a fair-isle pattern (but mostly only two tone) but none putting all these elements together and certainly none using as big as yarn as I was using (US 10 needle). So I cobbled together several patterns and graphed out a pattern in Excel, which was rather fun. Then hoped for the best as I decreased at the crown, trying to make the pattern not get all goofy as the stitches merged together. I had to undo several rows, several times to make it look right, not so fun. But I'm pretty satisfied. My fair-isle technique is still terrible - I still spend lots of time adjusting the yarn tension after knitting and my stranding and weaving is sooooo messy (pic of inside of hat below). I have a lot to learn.

earflaps

I made this perfectly fitting hat with earflaps (and matching scarf) to keep my small head warm this winter. I love it but I've been told it looks a little like an afro.

"buzy lizzy" sweater

My first fair isle - not fun. My first attempt was so tight that I finally had to cut off the bottom half of the sweater and re-knit it. Now I tend to overcompensate and knit it so loose that I spent more time adjusting the finished stitches then knitting it in the first place. The smocking, on the other hand, was fun and looks beautiful. I learned a lot on this project.

cashmere is my friend

Here is my second sweater, more complicated than the first. I was confused by the pattern, but soldiered on hoping that I had got it right. I continued until just a few rows shy of finishing when I finally figured out what I was doing wrong. So I frogged the whole thing and started over from scratch. It was worth it. The decorative stitching looked like a mess before and now it actually looks decorative. Yea!

The only "problem" is that I was seduced in the yarn store into buying cashmere, which is not particularly baby-friendly when it comes to washing. But it's so soft and yummy.

learning to frog

A couple weeks after learning to knit, I attempted by my first sweater attempt. Unfortunately, I was too lazy to test my gauge, so it predictably ended up too wide and too short. So I contemplated that sweater for 6 months, without knitting anything else. With the encouragement of a knitting mentor, I eventually undid the whole thing and knit a whole new sweater, which is pictured here. I am now so satisfied and not afraid to frog. However, I made this sweater for my son and he cries every time I try to make him wear it. Why?

begin at the beginning

Everyone starts here. Scarves, scarves and more scarves.