What can you make with wool?

Today I am taking part in the 'Crazy about wool' blog hop organised by Denise from Pieced Brain I love wool  and so I thought it would be fun to take part. I asked Moses if he wished to appear and before I could say baaaa he was posing for his photo.

Moses is a cute soft cuddly sheep made from fleece fabric and sheep's wool. As you can tell he has been very well loved. His fleece is meant to look like the corkscrew fleece of the Wensleydale sheep.

The fleece of most modern sheep is white which makes it easier to dye it any colour that is wanted either for knitting yarn or to be woven into fabric.

Who can resist the adorable wooly lambs in spring. Of course wool doesn't just come from sheep. The definition of wool is; 

'the fine, soft curly or wavy hair forming the coat of a sheep, goat, or similar animal, especially when shorn and prepared for use in making cloth or yarn'

So we get mohair from the hair of the Angora goat and also use the hair from Llamas. Llama fibre is usually mixed with sheep wool to make it easier to handle.

So what have I been making with wool for this hop. Although I love quilting , I also enjoy knitting and dressmaking. I decided I wanted to make a skirt for this hop. In my stash of fabric I have quite a few pieces of wool fabric. I choose a soft fine wool fabric with a check on it for my skirt. When planning the cutting I had to ensure that the checks matched up. Here is a view of the front seam. I am very pleased with how well I matched this seam.

I love the blue, gold and red of the check. I usually hate having my photo taken but I can't make a skirt and not show you what it looks like on. 

The skirt is extremely comfortable sitting just below the waist. I have plans to make a jacket out of this pinky red fabric, again another light weight wool. The colour perfectly matches the red in the check of the skirt (even though it doesn't look like it in the photo.)

This is my goal for next weekend.

As well as sewing I also knit. Not all yarns for knitting are made of wool but I prefer to knit with 100% wool or a blend of wool and other fibres. Recent knitting projects have included  several baby blankets for Project Linus

Although I use different patterns for these blankets I like the basket weave pattern as it is easy to knit and so leaves me free to talk to family and friends or to watch television.

A little cuddle toy for a baby,

A special baby blanket for a friend's baby and Lucy my daughter knitted her boy friend a cuddly elephant.

One of my favourite wooly knitting projects and one I still use is my Christmas cardigan. I knitted this years ago when my children were young and my youngest daughter is now 22. Scamp insisted on trying to get into the corner of the photo. If I've been sewing he always seems to have bits of thread on his paws.

Last week on the Pin it blog hop I made a felt pin cushion mouse. Felt is a great wool fabric to use in projects as it doesn't fray.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing my various wool projects. Now you need to go and visit the rest of today's participants.

Tuesday, September 24

Marla's Crafts

Bird in the Hand Primitives

Secretly Stitching

Marjorie's Busy Corner

Sew Many Yarns

Val Spiers Sews

Quilted Crow Girls Design

I hope you'll come back and visit soon. I'm going to get my machine out and finish my latest quilt top once I've taken Picasso to the vet for his yearly check up and immunisation. 

I have a give away of charm squares I cut from the left over wool fabric I used to make my skirt. It is open until 27th October 2013. If you would like a chance to win click here

Lyndsey

Birthday presents

This weekend I haven't been able to get to my sewing machine because my daughter Lucy has been using it to make a quilt for her boyfriend's birthday. In fact she has also been busy knitting for his birthday as well. Having made the small quilts for Project Linus as part of her Queen's Guide award Lucy was inspired to try making a larger quilt and a birthday quilt seemed perfect. The frog fabric was already in my stash as was some of the green but she had to buy the rest.

Lucy has finished the top.

The photo doesn't show the frogs very well so here is a close up ( opps took the picture on the squiff)

The fabric for the back of the quilt is really fun so we bought a little more than we needed so we could use it on another project.

Elephants are a bit of a theme for this birthday as Lucy's boyfriend saw a pattern for a knitted elephant in Tracy Chapman's book Toys to Knit and asked her if she would make him one. By yesterday morning all the pieces had been knitted.

The body pieces were being sewn at the point the photo was taken. By yesterday evening Loulou the elephant was complete.

Lucy is really pleased with her hard work. This is the first big item she has knitted having only learnt to knit last year. Most of her knitting to date has been sample squares to learn new stitches so this was the first time following a pattern and using increase and decrease. 

Lucy has asked me if I will do the quilting for her as she has run out of time. So this afternoon I will be sorting out the quilt sandwich and will hopefully have it all completed by Thursday. 

Using up fleece

I  had a long strip of fleece left over from the Guide's baby quilts. It wasn't wide enough to back a quilt so I decided to make a rabbit from it. The pattern is a simplicity one and is really easy to make. I am going to make it a waistcoat or dress and then we will use it as a fund raiser at the fair in June. I think guess the name of the rabbit with the rabbit as the prize would be OK. All I need to do now is finish the rabbit. I would also like to make some smaller rabbits from the same pattern so I am going to scale it down.


I also have another quilt top which will go to the Linus project once its quilted. The photo doesn't really show the elephant print or the cat print very well.

The week seems to have flown by with only limited time for stitching. Some of the things I have been doing are linked to my stitching projects but took me away from the fun part of creating. I have heaps of purple bunting in various stages of cutting and sewing but I wasn't sure about how much was needed as the group hadn't decided how to decorate the boats. So Barbara and I went to the boat house armed with a long tape measure to work out the details. There is only one way the boats can be decorated so it doesn't get in the way of the rowers and so the cox has good vision - it would be awful if boats in the pageant crashed. It means about 40 foot of bunting for each boat so I can now complete this task.


Still trying to find the right fabric for the borders on the rainbow quilt top. However in going through my stash looking for fabric to complete that quilt I have also been considering fabric to use to make up some traditional quilt  blocks to make a sample quilt. The problem with this hobby is it is so addictive that you hardly finish one thing before you are rushing on to the next.
Just wish I had made time for it over the last 15 years because I have missed out on a lot of fun.

Where did the week go?

It seems as if this week has raced past in a flash and I seem to have achieved very little. I realised on Tuesday that I was teaching all day today and needed to prepare the classes. I also realised that tomorrow I am running a training session for leaders who run Rainbows ( 5 to 7 year old members of The Guide Association) and this too needed to be organised. So sewing activities have been rather slow this week. However slow doesn't mean I haven't achieved anything.


On Tuesday having gone through all my stash of fabrics and come to the conclusion that I didn't have anything suitable to use as a border for the quilt top made with the left over squares from the Guides I headed to the shops. I found a great mustard coloured fabric that works really well and the border just needs sewing on. At the same time I picked up a couple of remnants of fabric with roses on it for my Grandmother's garden quilt. Whilst travelling I have managed to complete 4 'flowers' although I am not sure if I am going to use the one with the pink outside layer as I think I want more flowers on each piece. I also decided that I would not add another round to each. I have had great fun drawing out different ways of using this design. I haven't finally decided how I am going to piece them together but that doesn't matter as I need to make a lot more.

I said I would post a tutorial on how to do the English paper piecing method of patchwork. This will be completed at the latest by Monday. This really makes a portable project.


As for Yellowy he has a fleece patch on his head as the hole made by Scamp was too big to close. He is also sporting a new ear in fleece with chamois on the inside. The second will be added tomorrow evening. I hope Lucy likes him when he is finished. Since even if I wash him he won't come up yellow I think I will have to make the new fabric look less pristine. I am considering adding embroidered eyes and a nose.

I have completed 5 of the Dresden plate blocks so only 4 more to go, which I aim to do next week. I also have a quilt top waiting to be quilted. I haven't taken a photo yet but will do that next week. I am going to keep the quilting simple and I am going to do it on the machine. The last time I made a quilt many years ago I hand quilted it. I need to practice machine quilting so I can master the beautiful patterns that can be created. At the moment my machine is in control rather than me.


On Wednesday evening the Guides got down to finishing their quilts. Only a few more to go. They really have worked well on this project.

Lots of things to do

Since my last post I have been very busy with work and home but I have still managed to find time for some quilting and knitting. Wednesday was Lucy's birthday but was also our first evening back at Guides so we had a birthday party. Yesterday was spent driving Lucy back to university in Bath for the final term of her second year. By early June she will be back for the long summer break and feeling inspired is hoping to make a comfort quilt for her boyfriends birthday.


I have almost finished the final knitted baby blanket for our Linus project and I have also managed to complete a blanket for a friend of Richard's who is expecting her first child in May. The only problem with them is that they were too large to be very portable so were knitted in the evening whilst watching television. However the hexipuffs are perfect for knitting on my twice weekly train journey to and from Reading.

Having started the new term at Guides it has been a busy time sorting out the quilts the girls are sewing,checking the seams, pressing and cutting out the backing fleece. They are looking really good and all should be finished by the deadline of 30th May. I have just got to order the labels to say made with love by Isleworth Guides. The final job will be hand sewing in the labels. The photo shows some of the quilts with their fleece backing waiting to be sewn.

A friend of mine, Barbara, is a leader with 4th Streatham Sea Scouts and they have 2 boats taking part in the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant on June 3rd. We were considering how to decorate the boats and decided that royal purple bunting, (the groups scarf colour) was needed. We have decided on the size of the bunting but haven't fully worked out how much is needed for decorating as it mustn't get in the way or impede the view of the young scouts who are rowing. However I am about to start the cutting out and will then be stitching two together with heavy duty interfacing in between to give it added body. The aim is to have it all sewn by May 19th.So far I have cut the template and taken the fabric out of the bag!

I am still working on my Dresden plate quilt and waiting for inspiration for the old patchwork quilt I was given. Yesterday I also started a Grandmother's garden quilt, well I've stitched the first 7 hexagons together. I downloaded the hexagon template from moxyideas The templates are available in different sizes but if you want to use them remember to download the file and print from the downloaded version as printing directly from the web doesn't give you the accurate sizes. The hexagons I am using are 1inch and it is a truly portable project so my train journeys will be more interesting from now on as I can alternate activities -the hexipuffs one way and stitching the hexagons the other. I am using the English piecing method for making the quilt, which was my first introduction to patchwork and quilting aged 10. In case you have never tried this before I will post a tutorial when I have time later this week.

One final job added to my list is to make yellowy new ears and repair his face. Yellowy was given to Lucy when she was one day old. He is much loved and very delicate. Unfortunately Scamp got hold of him and played with him rather enthusiastically hence the damage.