A Journey in Turquoise

I have finally finished my sampler quilt for our colour theory class.

You may remember me mentioning it throughout the past year.  We started with our main colour, in my case Turquoise, and each month we met with our very knowledgeable instruct, Karen Mills, and learned more about the colour wheel. 

Our first month was monochromatic and we continued through the months learning about complimentary colours, triads and quadrads and finally finished up using as many colours on the wheel as possible. For my last block I was able to fit in a piece of each colour used in the previous months.

One option in putting the quilt together was to arrange the blocks evenly so it looks cohesive and flows nicely.  I chose instead to place my blocks in the order of the months and what we learned.  I had a reason, I wanted to remember what I learned!!!!  I think that even though I placed mine in order that way, instead of rearranging in a pleasing manner, it came out quite nicely and it feels quite cozy to me.

I have brown flannel for my backing ready to go and I hope to have this quilted up before our fall class signups so that I may bring it in to show Karen that I finished it!

Sorry for the shadows, the trees have gotten quite tall and I didn't realize we were already getting shadows when I took the quilt out for pictures. 

I really had to think hard on how I wanted to finish my borders.  I contemplated just butting the brown right up to the lighter brown but then it was becoming a brown (or actually "orange" as brown is a shade of orange I've learned) quilt.  So I took all my turquoise scraps from the various blocks and did a pieced border.  It was my first time doing this and I learned a lot.  For example, piecing lots of little blocks can get stretchy so I had to do some trimming even though I know I did the math correctly.  Also, in keeping with the half square triangles in my block, giving some of the blocks a more rounded look through the centres, I decided to make the corner pieces rounded out with half square triangles as well.  I really like how it turned out. 

Thanks for looking!

Happy Sunday and yay Canada with a bronze today...WAHOO!!!

Vivian

Olympic Stitching

I've kicked off the London 2012 Olympic Games with hopefully my first of many Olympic stitchings.

In keeping with my Christmas theme this year I chose a pretty little pattern by Nikki Leeman of Country Cottage Needleworks

The pattern is from the 2009 issue of Just Cross Stitch's Christmas ornament issue.  It's called Visions of Sugarplums and features a little boy and a little girl all snug in their beds dreaming of sugarplums.  It's a very delicate and subtle piece and I love it.

This is actually my first Country Cottage Needleworks design, and I'm hoping I have enough patterns in my various ornament issues to stitch only Country Cottage designs for the entire Olympics.

For those that don't know, Nikki is the daughter of Diane Williams (Little House Needleworks), who is one of my favourite designers and I've done many of her designs this year already!  Apparently talent runs in the family.

Will you be doing something crafty while watching the games?  I'd love the hear about it.

BTW, please tell me, was I the only one watching the torch run in and waiting for Dr. Who to jump in and light the cauldron?  LOL, wouldn't that have been fun?

Vivian

A little Christmas Stitching update

Starting to rack up the Christmas finishes!!!

In the past couple of weeks I've finished 3.

I've shown you Sleigh Bells Ring before but here is Ding Dong which I finished about a week ago.

And I finished up 6 Little Cardinals on Tuesday night.

I absolutely love these Little House Needlework ornaments.  6 down, 6 more to go!

Viv

Enjoying my Sunday

It's a beautiful day in the Yukon today.  20 Celcius, partially cloudy and just slightly breezy.  This is one of our warmest days this summer.   We've also had an awful lot of wind this summer, the kind that will blow you off the highway!

The kids are off for the next few weeks to spend time with the extended family (cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents) back in Manitoba.  Where they tell me it's way too hot LOL...the first day they were there it was 39 Celcius. 

You would have thought that during this time I would be cranking out the craftiness.  Not so, I seem to be sleeping a lot and reading (finished two books!).  I think I need that schedule every day and then I try to fit in my fun stuff and just cram my days full...without it I'm just having down time.  Very weird.

So I thought I would try and motivate myself by posting...who knows, it may make me more...well you know, when you say something you then have to do it because you've told everyone you will do it...that, whatever that is.

First here is my Christmas ornament for the month.  It is Little House Needleworks 6th ornament Six Little Cardinals.

 

I just love this little chart, put a red bird on anything and I'm a happy girl.

I'm also working on some knitting.  I stopped in at our local knit shop last week and discovered a brand new (to me) designer.  Never Not Knitting.  Such a cute name and what a great designer.

I tend to avoid patterns, I just can't read them.  They are mostly gibberish to me, I just don't understand them.  I work on simple hats (either a pattern I've learned through visual learning or one I've made up) or scarves (I love making up scarves, who has time to knit the same scarf twice!).  But one look at Never Not Knitting's leaflets and I was hooked.  Such quality, and wonderful photography and quite honestly, I can actually read and understand the pattern!!!!  I've never had that happen, I was positively giddy with excitement.

So I picked up two leaflets, one for a cable knit hat (have I cabled before?  nope, but what the heck) and one for a girls' sweater (have I ever knit a sweater before?  nope, but it's so precious!).

I started the hat and absolutely love it.  I am using a yarn by Aslan Trends, King Baby Llama & Mulberry silk in the colour Cardinal.  (I told you I like red birds).

Just look at the quality of the leaflets, seriously I just love looking at them.

Look at me working a cable!!!!

Once I had this under control I couldn't hold back, I went back to the store and picked up a copy of Coastal Knits - a collaboration of this designer and another.  You think the leaflets are high quality?  The book is amazing!  If I never knit anything from it, having it to just flip through and dream is amazing enough.

The book has the adult version of the girls' sweater pattern I bought.  Also more hats and sweaters and a beautiful fingerless glove.

I have a goal, I'm going to make the girls' sweater for my niece, she stars preschool in a year, and kindergarten the year after.  What do you think?  Possible?  I hope so because I want to make the adult version for my oldest daughter.

I've never made a sweater before LOL...should I be scared?

And back to quilting!!!!

I have some blocks I must get on this week (I was going to say today but honestly, I'm hooked on the Dr. Who back to back episodes on space channel right now) and I really should clean up my design wall.

And there seems to be a book calling my name...

Happy Sunday!

Vivian

Canada Day

Happy Canada Day my fellow Canadians!!!

Stay safe, have fun and share the love.

Vivian