A Ball of Pink Fluff

My New Year's Eve cast on used this gorgeous yarn from la Bien Aimee.

The yarn is Merino Singles and Mohair Silk, both in the colour Highgarden.  It is a gorgeous colour!

The garment I chose to knit with it is The Elton Cardigan by Joji Locatelli.

The garment took 3.5 weeks to knit and 1.5 weeks for me to find some time to block. So it was done by early February right?

Well not quite - I finally sewed the buttons on yesterday (yep I know, a starter not a finisher, lol)!

I did manage to wear it (sans buttons) and it was warm and dreamy.  It's a little pink ball of fluff.  It weighs 175 gms with 6 buttons!









Hello everyone! If anyone is actually still out there.  Yes I know it's been a long time and the world has moved on from blogging. Snapchat, Instagram - so many platforms where people can upload photos.  I have been using Instagram for some time now and it certainly keeps pace with our busy lives: upload a photo and move on.  But in some sense it is unsatisfying, insubstantial, disposable.

Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting a number of lovely women (you know who you are) who asked me about this blog and expressed their sadness at its demise.  I was quite surprised and touched at this and so I have decided to give it another shot. Let's see how it goes.

Of course many things have happened since I last blogged and there is no possible way to catch up. So occasionally I will add some Memories  so I can fill in some gaps.

Memory:  I have made a couple of brief trips to Paris in the last year or so.  I do love Paris and find new things to see and do every time I go.  More on that another day.  But last year I visited la Bien Aimee for the first time and met the lovely Aimee.

It's a gorgeous store and Aimee was very friendly and helpful.  I visited there again just a few weeks ago; for me it was a must visit destination. Just off the plane - booked in to the hotel and then straight to the store since it was the only day it was open during my short trip.

I did some preplanning, so I knew what I wanted to buy.

Nearly done with the yarn I purchased there and very happy with the way it is proceeding. Stay tuned.







I have been playing around with the blog template so this is a work in progress.

That's it for now. I hope you all are well and happy and still making wonderful things.


Until next time,

Deb

I need to get back to work!

You can get into a lot of trouble on the internet if you don't have enough work to do. Seriously. Trust me. I've done it.

So many great projects there, beautiful fabrics and yarns of all kinds, and creative people to follow.  But you need to boost your willpower before you look - so much temptation. Mine goes out the window at this time of year and I get excited about projects that I want to start for the year.

This summer I have been really drawn to some knitting projects.......but more of that in another post.

 For a long time, I have had my eye on this wonderful quilt

 

so I thought I might have this bubbling along  beside the other projects that I have.

 I sort of have an idea of the colours I want to use......starting with these.

GORGEOUS....can't wait to start - but I need to wait for the papers to come.......stay tuned!

Last week I decided that I needed to get out of town for a few days, so we took a short trip to the Goldfields region of Victoria.  We stayed at a lovely B&B called Keebles of Clunes.

 

A beautiful Country House with a glorious garden.

View from the breakfast room.

We had fun exploring Clunes, Creswick, Maryborough, Maldon and Bendigo.

We visited the Museum in Bendigo where they have this gorgeous Leonard French piece.

Lots of great food and wine throughout this region....a great short break if you need one.

And a bonus for me - I discovered that I can knit in the car (provided I don't have to read a pattern or look at my stitches) so I took a project along and got a heap done.

Here is a bit of it. My lovely daughter wanted a plain V-neck and we found this gorgeous Manos del Uruguay yarn last year that has been waiting for me to start. Knitting up so fast and really lovely to work with.

Have a great week. 

Deb

Old dogs.......New tricks!

I've decided this will be the theme for 2017. Fitting in so many ways for me, especially in relation to crafting.

When I first statred this blog, my two main motivations were to keep a record of my ordinary days, what my children were up to, how my garden was progressing, ordinary things, and to keep a record of my handwork, what I was doing, how long it was taking, things that I made that would one day be forgotten. Over the last few years it has been hard to find the time or the space  to keep recording as I might have liked. Now when I look back there are some big gaps; important things that I would have liked to record. So my plan for 2017 is to be a better blogger (aka diarist perhaps) and also to go back and fill in some of the gaps.

 My second motivation was to pass on some of the skills I have learned to a new generation of hand-makers through the wonders of the internet.

  It seems that many bloggers have moved on to instagram and snapchat. For me instagram does not meet my needs. I love to see the photos there, but this old dog likes to write some words too!

It seems too that the young hand-makers have some great new (to me at least) tricks that I can learn from them.

One such new trick, relates to the craft that I know best - knitting!

For some reason, since finishing work just before Christmas, I have been bitten by the knitting bug (remember it is summer here in Melbourne so this is really weird).

We have an interesting yarn shop (Woolarium) close by with many new yarns that I've never seen before. An unplanned visit there on Christmas eve saw me leave with some beautiful Shibui yarn and a shawl pattern which once started I could not put down.

The fabric is beautiful, soft and drapey, but because of the construction, looked a bit like a crumpled mess.  I needed to learn a new trick- blocking.  You can see this above....blocking mats underneath and the shawl pinned out on blocking wires. It worked a treat and the shawl is rather goreous.

For those interested, the yarn is Shibui - Staccato (merino/silk) in two shades of grey and a bronzey green. The pattern is the 3 Colour Cashmere shawl by Joji Locatelli (can be found on Ravelry).

So there you have it, my first new trick for the year successfully learnt. And my first blogpost too.

I hope the New Year has started well for you and gets even better as it goes along.

Deb

This is all

that's left from my latest project!  I would show you a photo of the finished garment, but when the boy child got up last Sunday, I said - "I finished your jumper" and with a big "Thanks Ma" he put it on and hasn't had it off since!  Well that sure is appreciation.  

Apart from that it has been a few slow weeks. Lots of work and things keeping me out at night.

 

 A couple more Caswell blocks have been finished.  The one above has leaves from hell!

And another George III circle made its appearance.

 Oh yes, I decided to make a bag....here's one of the panels......so much work....more later.

So as you can see, I've been flitting around from one thing to another which has been great fun.

I hope you are also having some fun flitting,

Cheers

Deb

Still chugging along

Sorry for being so ...............well, boring is the word that springs to mind!  But in a good way. Everyone here is still getting on with what they have to do, can't ask for more than that.

Two more Caswell blocks down....I'm going to take a little break from this shortly just to catch up on some other projects.  For example, I have a quilt waiting to picked up from Katrina......yes there will soon be a Ta-Dah post, I'm really looking forward to it.  Especially since I have another ready to give Katrina, how exciting.

Thanks Merri for donating the glorious red flower fabric.

 

I have also been doing a little knitting now that the cooler weather has kicked in.  I have to say I'm really enjoying knitting again after I lost the knitting mojo some years ago.  Now that my kids are happy to wear handknits again (and their friends covet them too) I'm finding it great fun.

Here is one of my best creations, wearing my latest creation.

Ain't she sweet? I love you gorgeous girl.

I hope your life is pleasantly normal too,

Deb

Not many words but a few photos

Hello lovely bloggers. Today I had an epiphany.. true....it takes me awhile to remember things I knew once and then promptly forgot.

Nothing earth shattering mind. Only that I can post photos of things that are in progress, rather than things that are finished. It seems that this is better than radio silence for weeks on end.

Seriously, how thick am I? Don't answer......... I know you already know.  So ....here are a few things unfinished.

                                               

 Work in progress on the Antique Wedding Sampler (above and below).

 A couple of weeks ago I attended a quilt show in Melbourne.  Didn't buy too much fabric (just this below)

But I did buy some yarn...I have a hankering (lol) for yarn at the moment! This is a scarf I am making with Noro Sekku.  It is beautiful, but so slow....very fine yarn.

What else is happening?  I'm really looking forward to meeting Sue Spargo at a workshop my friend Ann and I are going to in a couple of weeks.  My sample piece is called Leaf Play Too.  It started off like this

and now looks like this.

Quite a bit of prep for this class but I think it will be really worth it. The first couple of rows look a bit wonky in this photo..........better get the ruler out.

OK, OK, I know you want to see quilts.  Here is one of may faves from the quilt show.

 I think this is quite unusual. I just love it.

Ant the one below, well it is by our lovely friend Helen Hayes, from a pattern by our lovely friend Di Hall.  A beautiful version Helen. You go girl!

Hope you are enjoying whatever  you are working on now!

Deb

It's been such a long time

Doesn't life get busy?  And there is not enough time to do everything. For me it has meant that I have been too overcommitted to think about sewing much, so nothing to show you on the blog. In fact the only sewing I have been doing up to the last couple of weeks has been on my treasured third Saturday of the Month with the SSS. Without them I think I would have imploded!  But things seem to have settled at least for now, and I am trying to get my mojo back.

I have had a problem with my foot, and ended up having a biopsy a couple of weeks ago (which luckily was all fine). However it meant that I spent a weekend not being able to walk much and had a hankering to do some knitting.

This is a Kaffe Fassett pattern. Not too difficult to knit, but the yarn is fine so it grows slowly.  I love the way he uses colour, have done for 30 years!  I will show you when it's done.

Nothing to show you of quilting interest (that I have done), but I have finished panel 7 of Homage to Sallie Ann and started on 8 (of a total of 9) so the end is near.  In the meantime, to keep me motivated - or at least to kick start my interest again, I have been to a couple of shows.  One was the local Essendon quilters show a couple of weeks ago.   A bit of retail therapy cheered me up no end, and a few lovely quilts.

I've always loved the Whig Rose pattern, and this was a really fine version.

 

A lovely quilt by one of our sisters. Nice job Kerry (hope you're feeling well).

Some hexagon madness, which I loved particularly for the fine quilting.

This one appealed to my love of red and the colour saturated Kaffe fabrics.

I liked that this had its main detail in the border rather than the centre!

And this one just appealed

I shall post some photos from AQC shortly, lovely quilts if you can get there tomorrow.

So that's my toe dipped in the water..........I have missed all my blogging friends, and as usual have been lurking to see the gorgeous things you have been making but haven't had time or headspace to leave comments.

A special thank you to Lisa from Stray Threads, who sent me some beautiful fabric, and I thought I had said thanks, but apparently only in my head rather than in the real world!  That about sums it up!

Happy days,

Deb

Inspiration

in book form. I just love these books, two new ones that came a couple of weeks ago.

History repeated is relatively new and it is THE BEST book of pieced quilts that I have ever seen. Quite a few projects in there that I will make. If you haven't got it, trust me , you need it.

What have I been doing? Well working on block 2 of Imperial Blooms

applique done ready for embellishment.

Doing the motherly thing - a warm woolly for NOS who spends too much time out in the cold elements.

Although he is skinny as a rake he is very tall - so knitting a jumper takes a lot longer than it use to due to the length!

And finally, some more photos from the recent Quilts in the Barn.

Linda and Bev both made versions of this quilt. I just love it.

A wall of little quilts - I'm sure Kathie would have swooned!

A real beauty made by our Meghan.

Gorgeous use of border fabrics.

I understand this will be in Jo's new book. It was a lovely exhibition, all the quilts were made predominantly from Jo Morton fabrics and they were just stunning. Thanks to Linda and her team of tireless quilt enthusiasts for arranging such an INSPIRATIONAL show.

PS. On a previous post I showed some photos from a show, and wasn't sure of the makers. I was contacted by one who said this about her quilt:

It is completely hand quilted at 19stitches to the inch. It took year of work and I was absolutely thrilled to win the three ribbons. It was also a thrill to come onto your website and see you had shown it! Thank you! The red border was reverse appliqued and took F O R E V E R !

Regards,

Meredith Nye

Thanks for contacting me Meredith. Your quilt is lovely and worthy of another look!