I first saw the pattern for the Ice Cream Soda quilt, an english paper pieced (EPP) quilt, last year on Instagram. The artist had used lots of blues and greens on a light background. I decided then and there that I had to try this time-intensive quilting technique. I got the pattern and made see-through templates out of laminated paper so I could fussy cut if I wanted to. Then I spend many mind numbing hours cutting out all the pieces and sorting them. Once I had the paper pieces ready, I did my favorite part of the process. Pulled out all my fabric and made my selections! I wanted to go with a blue/green/grey palette and luckily have lots in my stash. I saw somewhere that instead of basting your fabric over the paper pieces, you could use water-soluble glue. So I just bought a bunch of purple glue sticks (so I could see where my glue was) and got to it! Iron and organized and ready to hand-sew. At first, I made a small bag with a zippered pouch to organize all the tools and pieces. I took it on a trip and things were not organized enough for me, so I designed a custom EPP organizer. It holds all my essentials neatly. Hand-sewing was a challenge. My hands would get sore after 30 minutes, so it's been a super-slow process. So far I have about 25 blocks done. This will definitely be a multiyear project.
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The current project on my cutting table is a half-square triangle quilt for myself. A couple years ago I made a quilt for my daughter with a minky backing and it is super-warm. I concluded that I had to make one for myself.
The original idea was to make this a scrap buster quilt. Then I started piecing my 2.5" squares and realized it would take me forever. And because I want the little blocks to line up perfectly, I am squaring them at at 2". So now I am revamping my design. I will do 12" blocks of the 2" half-square triangles and put them together with bigger half-square triangles. I'm about a quarter of the way done squaring up the blocks, but I still have a small pile of new triangles to make because I ran out of the grey contrasting fabric and had to order more. I can't wait to start piecing these into bigger blocks! It took a 3 months, but I finally finished this sweater. I even blocked it and the fit is a-line. The shoulder shaping is a bit off-center, but hopefully, not noticeable.
Next up, The Twigs sweater by Junko Okamoto. I'm trying to figure out what color combo I want for this and weight of yarn to use. I couldn't wait to start this sweater! And it's been a pretty fun knit. I forced myself to learn how to hold my yarn on my left hand also to make doing the colorwork easier on my hands. I switched out the light grey from my earlier yarn pull to a speckled white/blue. Also not sure why the neckline is so much tighter on my sweater then on the picture. :P
I finally finished mitten 1 of my Hey Bee-otch pattern by Drunk Girls Design. This is a really fun knit and I loved the glittery yellow yarn.
I've been sidelining sewing the last few months because I've started knitting again! My mom first taught me when I was a kid and I will take up the needles and knit a scarf every few years. That was the extent of my skills. Knit, purl, rectangle shape. My eyes were opened this summer and I discovered the lovely world of yarn! Especially, speckled merino. It's almost as satisfying as shopping for fabric. MadTosh is currently my favorite brand of yarn. All Wound Up in Edmonds is my favorite local yarn shop (LYS). I have started branching out and actually following patterns and have started slow knitting projects like a sweater and now I'm kind of obsessed with doing stranded colorwork. A friend told me that I need to start doing double-sided knitting next, so I'll be looking for a cute pattern for a new project. It took a really long time, but I finally buckled down and finished this. The next goldwork piece will probably be a butterfly.
Recently, I have been seeing lots of posts on instagram showcasing goldwork bugs. I looked in to buying supplies to try, but it just seemed too daunting. However, on a recent crafting getaway with some friends, I visited a sweet little quilt shop in Poulsbo, The Quilt Shoppe, and the shop owner had a starter kit! I snatched it up and here's my first project. A goldwork scarab. This is actually my second attempt. The first one was too big, so I picked it apart and started on a more simple design.
I may have to pick out some stitches to make the top of the wings straighter, but otherwise, I'm pretty happy with my first project. A bumblebee is probably next. Or owl. Or stag beetle. Or ladybug. Recently on Instagram, I saw a quilt called the "Glamping Quilt." It's a fairly simple pattern, but I was having trouble making the points look precise, so I decided to try foundation paper piecing in order to get those sharp triangles. I messed up on the first few triangles, but once I watched a few youtube videos, I got the hang of out.
Can't say that I'll be doing foundation paper piecing on such a large scale in the future. This method is more wasteful of fabric since you want to use enough so that you cover all your sections. |
Suong
Crafting and creating keeps me sane and happy. Previous projects listed here. Archives
June 2023
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