Craft Projects

Jeanne at A Peaceful Day posted on her current knitting project - which looks very complicated to me but she inspired me to get out my knitting needles. I think my knitting failures in the past were because I was too ambitious. A scarf may be more manageable especially as my downfall seems to occur in the decreasing for sleeves type of instructions.

My current/long term projects are two quilts using the English paper piecing method. What I like about this method of patchwork is its portability. We just had a week's holiday away and I was able to get quite a bit of sewing done in the car trip there and back. The down side is any recipients of my handiwork end up waiting years for the end product.

The first quilt in process is squares of different sizes, sewn into blocks with plain sashing in between each block. I use a square paper template and tack the square of material in large stitches around the paper, then match up the colour scheme I want and then each square is joined to the next with an over hand stitch. When the whole block is complete I remove the paper template.

 This is the Grandmother's Garden pattern. I bought the paper templates - easier than cutting out heaps of same size hexagons -  but I re-use them. When I complete one (it uses 7 hexagons) I take out the centre piece and can use it again right away. Eventually all the paper will be removed. The material I'm using includes leftover material from dresses I've made the three girls over the years.

I made this little quilt out of scraps for my youngest girl for her dolls and she had fun tacking the material onto paper squares to help me out.

I've always tried to have some sort of creative work going even if I only get to it for short bursts of time - cross stitch, crotchet and patchwork mainly. So much of what I do doesn't leave any visible manifestation. Dinner gets eaten, clothes get dirty again, the house needs continual cleaning. I like to look around and see some evidence that I do have creative juices flowing in my veins.