I’m Knitting On My Bond Again

I am guessing it is probably 8 years since I did any knitting on my Bond Knitting machine.

I am knitting some scarves to get in practice again.

It took me a while to find all the parts. I then had to read the directions again and follow them as I did a test piece.

It took about 5 false starts before I could make things work the way they were supposed to.

I will be getting the feel for this again by knitting scarves and can progress from there to more complex items.

The Bond is actually considered a knitting frame, rather than a knitting machine.

Once you learn to use it you can do most things you can do knitting by hand.

The advantage is it is much faster. I can probably knit 4 –5 scarves in a day.

I can knit a sweater in a day.

I usually still do the ribbing by hand, even though I have a ribber for it. It gives me the satisfaction of doing hand knitting.

By using the Bond again I will be able to knit up a lot of the yarn I have quicker. And I DO have a good supply of yarn!

I will not be able to use it to knit socks or my bulky afghans, but it will be perfect for knitting sweaters, scarves, vests, hats and other items.

I can convert many hand knit patterns to be knit on the Bond. I’ll be sharing some of these things soon.

It’s Quilted!

I just finished quilting this quilt.

I had the perfect threads to quilt it with. It is hard to see the quilting on this picture since the threads blend into the fabrics. In person the quilting is more easily visible.

You can see the quilting clearly in this closeup. It is also obvious how well the thread blends with the colors in the shibori fabric.

It pays to have a collection of thread in different colors, weights and fibers.

And a puzzle!

Colorful Cuddly Hand Knit Afghan

I don’t do commissions! this is as close as I come – for a special friend.

I only share my decorating skills with my best friends and family now.

But I did knit this afghan twice to decorate their new family room.

It coordinates perfectly with the room and adds just the right accents to the room.

The first time I knit it I knit it quite loosely and didn’t tie the yarns together as securely as I should have.

There was a little accident and my friend had no choice but to throw it in the washer.

It unraveled in several areas.

I though I could just fix those areas, but under closer examination I knew I’d have to unravel it and reknit it.

I had not kept track of the number of stitches nor the needle size.

I only knew I wanted it to be knit tighter and not quite as wide.

It ended up quite a bit narrower and shorter.

It is soft, cuddly and warm.

It is still big enough for one person, but not for two!

It is still just as beautiful as it originally was and I know someone will be using it soon as our temperatures will start to get chilly in the evenings.

“Yellow Quilt”–Broken Star

This is another one of my “soon to be finished” quilts. I would guess I started it over 15 years ago.

It was the first time I had used yellow in a quilt – since yellow was probably my least favorite color.

The inspiration and the starting point was the 8 yellow floral printed squares I cut from a decorator fabric.

I loved this quilt and realized what yellow could do.

From that point on I have used some variation of yellow in a majority of my quilts.

This is only the center section. I have the pieced borders completed and they will come next.

After that I will add a solid border.

Then will come the quilting and the binding and I can add it to my FINISHED list!

I thought you might enjoy a puzzle of this quilt.

eBay Is My Friend!!

In case you haven’t guessed I love decorating. I enjoy finding vintage Scandinavian teak in good condition on eBay.

This draw leaf dining room teak table and chairs was the first furniture I purchased on eBay. We have used it in both the dining room and the breakfast room.

It has been a perfect set as the table is narrow to fit our narrow rooms. It is still in the same excellent condition it was when we purchased it about 10 years ago.

I am thinking about selling this set. It works as well for just 2 people as it does for 6 with the leaves extended.

I am always browsing on eBay and recently found another set.

 

I found this on eBay last week. It was within 15 miles of our house.

It’s a beautiful set in great condition. Since our dining room is small, the glass top works well.

We set it up so we can seat 6 people although there are only 4 chairs. We can use 2 chairs from another room.

Since there are 6 of us I think we will celebrate the birthdays tonight at this table!

Hope you enjoy this puzzle.

Jessica Got A Box Of Special Kleenex For Her Birthday!

Jessica was expecting a yarn ball like her brothers got for their birthday.

Instead I got her a special box of Kleenex!

I sewed a bunch of dollar bills together with water dissolvable thread and rolled them up.

I sewed one Kleenex to the top.

You can see she was enjoying her gift.

This was my own original idea!

Ladies Who Lunch Are Back!

The reason I haven’t had Lunch Ladies posts recently is I forget to take pictures.

Today was a very special day with long time friends.

Bev (in aqua) and I taught together for many years at our local Technical College. I think we started teaching there the same year.

Lyn (in red) is Bev’s daughter and I have known her for years too.

Lorrie (in purple) is someone I have known since I was twice as old as her. I am now only about 1 1/3 times as old as she is.

She was one of my youngest ever students and was definitely one of the best I ever had. She took many classes from me and also worked with me.

We all have sewing and quilting in common.

Before we went for lunch I gave them a tour of my studio and some of my quilts.

We had years to catch up on and we’ll need to get together again before long to do some more catching up.

This definitely was the highlight of my week. There are no friends like long time friends!

More Recent Quilts

This is another grouping of my recent quilts that I pinned to my design wall. I enjoy seeing them hung around the studio. They are in no particular order – just what will fit the space.

This one fits the one blank wall in my studio perfectly!

A little crazy cut for this puzzle!

Recent Quilts

These are some of the quilts that I have completed recently.

I had one section of my design wall empty so I was able to put up these 6 quilts.

The section you see is about 7 x 7 feet which gives you an idea of the size of each quilt.

I wish I had wall space in my studio to hang more of my quilts. I do rotate them from time to time and I will be doing that soon with some of them that are on the stairwell walls.

Can you see my design signature in this group?

Today you get 6 quilts in the puzzle!

Reverse Applique–Channeling Mary Evans

This is a small reverse applique I did years ago. I made it in a class with Charlotte Patera at Quilt Festival in Houston.

Charlotte watched me sew and remarked on the fine quality of my hand sewing.

I had to laugh as I was not known for my handwork – in fact I only did things by hand if there was no other way to accomplish the task.

This is the back of the piece. You can see my tiny stitches.

This is a Baltimore Album quilt that is possibly a Mary Evans quilt.

Earlier in the day I had visited a show of Baltimore Album quilts at the museum with two friends. We played “Let’s Pretend” and picked the block we though we had probably done in a previous life. Since I was the teacher I picked the fantastic large center block which I guessed had possibly been done by Mary Evans. Mary was credited with being the force behind the wonderful Baltimore Album quilts. This is not the exact quilt we were discussing.

When I was working on this small bird piece I guess Mary’s spirit entered my body and I did the quality work she would have done!

From time to time I have done some other fine quality applique, but it is not what I am known for!

Of course I had to use the bird cut for today's puzzle!

Quilts Layered And Ready To Be Quilted

These are three of the four quilts I now have ready to quilt. The fourth is already being quilted.

For small to medium quilts I pin baste with Japanese Flower Pins. For larger quilts I uses small brass safety pins.

The smallest quilt here is about 36" square.

I enjoy the free motion quilting process and these will be quilted that way.

Quilting can make or break a quilt. I like to think my quilting makes the quilt!

Today's puzzle features all three quilts with my favorite cut.

I am adding a second puzzle for you. I did this one and I won't tell you how long it took me. It was a challenge but I did it!

If you do this one please let me know!

More BQ–Needlepoint

I fell in love with this painted needlepoint canvas on our first trip to New Orleans close to 40 years ago.

I started working from the center. I have the background about 3/4’s done and realized they did not give me enough yarn for the background.

When I discovered that I lost my enthusiasm for the piece and it has been languishing in a drawer for probably 39 years. I know I will probably have to take out all the background I have already done and buy more yarn as if I add new yarn it will not match. Will I ever finish this? Who knows.

I made this needlepoint belt somewhere between 30 and 40 years ago.

This is a close up of a section of the belt.

I never made it into a belt. It is not something I would wear as a belt today – even it it fit.I think it could be a great piece to hang on a wall in a very narrow space.

 

My grandsons love frogs. I did this one before I even had grandsons and they have never seen it.

I do love the southwest. I don’t think I had even visited the southwest before I did this one.

I think this might have been one of those needlepoint pieces where the motif is already stitched and all I had to do was cover the background.

It seems like all my needlepoint pieces are still works in progress. I am not sure if I have any more that have been finished.

At least I finish putting the pieces of my puzzles together!

It’s Not Finished Until It’s Blocked

I finished knitting this shawl/scarf over a year and a half ago. I have moved it from place to place waiting to block it.

Last night I picked it up and decided there was no time like the present. I thought I’d pin it to my ironing table and steam it.

It is composed of different yarns of varying fiber contents. It was on of those pricey skeins that I was so attracted to when I saw it at the Yarn Lady.

Through trial and error I came up with my own design to best show off the textures, colors and variety of yarns.

After getting it pinned to the table I got the bright idea to spray it with distilled water. It only took me 15 minutes to find the spray bottle filled with water. It was less than 3 feet from where I was working!

I sprayed it until it was quite wet. I turned on the overhead fans in the studio.

When I woke up this morning it looked great. Even though the yarns were different weight, by blocking the edges were now even and you could see the texture I had created.

You can see the stitches and the open work, and it drapes so much nicer now.

It also increased in size tremendously. Before blocking it was really skimpy in size.

 

I am looking forward to wearing it. It will look great with one of the scarf pins I have.

Putting this puzzle together may be quicker finding my spray bottle of water!

The Cats In My Studio

So many quilters have cats – in their homes and in their studios.

I’ve never shown you mine before.

They are soft and well behaved! I don’t have to worry about them getting into pins, thread or other things they shouldn’t in my studio!

They are another BC quilting project – a theorem painting I did on velvet.

I do think they are so sweet and have such pretty faces.

Another day, another puzzle!

Katy Korkos Prize Winning Potato Chip Quilt

I continue to amazed at the variety of quilts people are creating with my Potato Chip (Sunrise/Sunset) quilt tutorial.

She won a red ribbon at the Los Alamos County fair with this recently. This quilt has been creating a lot of interest on her Facebook page.

Whether they know it or not, I feel everyone has their own color signature.  This definitely has Katy’s signature if you go to her web page and see her other work.

www.katykorkos.com

Here's today's puzzle:

Another Top Ready To Quilt

I dyed the fabrics for the center section of this quilt about 3 years ago and the border a little over two years ago. The other night after finishing all the machine work on a large quilt I was working on I decided to start putting this together.

I worked until after midnight getting just the center 9 strips sewn together.

By the time I woke up the next morning I had formulated a plan to finish it with the remaining orange and blue fabrics.

I added another orange strip to each side in the morning. The orange strips measure 1/2 inch finished.

The next addition was the pieced horizontal strips.

I had to figure out something for borders. I really didn’t think I had anything that would work, but after thinking about the dyed fabrics in the drawer, I came up with a piece of indigo fabric I had dyed.

It was the perfect fabric for the borders.

The only decision I have yet to make is will I leave the borders the size they are, or will I make them slightly narrower?

I already have a pretty good idea how I will quilt this, however everything is open to change if I come up with something better.

As you read this you may be saying that quilt didn’t take long at all to create. It really took me about 3 years as I had this idea in mind from the time those fabrics came out of the dye pot. It just took me this long to resolve how I would do it.

The quilt, as a puzzle!

A “Delicious” Potato Chip Quilt From Australia

I received this picture of this great Potato Chip quilt from my friend Cassandra in Australia this morning.

This is what she had to say: “I spent Friday and Saturday at the Canberra Craft and Quilt Fair. Lots of lovely quilts to admire and time to catch up with fellow quilters. Today four of us met up for tea and chat at my house. We exchanged news and views and showed and told. Kathy Johnson, recently arrived here from the States on a posting, has joined both the local quilt groups and was encouraged by several members of Queanbeyan Quilters to make a simple strip quilt. Today she proudly whipped out the finished top to show us, with the borders on and ready to quilt. We were all suitably impressed with both her industry and once again with how versatile this pattern is.”

Who would have thought when I posted my Potato Chip (Sunrise, Sunset) tutorial the influence it would be making far away in Australia?

When I saw this quilt I loved it. My next thought was it reminds me of candy – Liquorice Allsorts, a very British candy!

Thanks again Cassandra for another great quilt picture and story.

You can find my tutorial for this quilt at:

http://quiltspluscolor.blogspot.com/2011/04/sunrise-sunset-quilt-tutorial.html

And yes, a puzzle today!

Theorem Painting–Another Art BQ

Theorem painting involves cutting multiple stencils and then doing almost dry brush style painting.

This one was done on  osnaburg.

Traditionally this was done on velvet. I have done the same painting on velvet.

As I continue to share things I did BQ, I continue to find more and more things I have that I had forgotten about.

These posts will help jar my memory and prevent that from happening again!

And as promised - another puzzle for you.