Work in Progress -- Postage Stamp Quilt

Just a quick update on the progress of my Postage stamp Quilt.

I bought some fabric!  The purchase of fabric has really become a rarity around here.  It took a fair amount of thought as to colour choice of fabric for the postage stamp quilt.  I definately needed something that would give the impression of "age".  This was not intended to be a MODERN quilt.

My aunt who I am trying to emulate, somewhat with this quilt, used a soft pinky peach as her sashings, but that sort of thing is not my 'cuppa tea'...

As I usually do tho when I saw a fabric that I felt was right, I just went ahead and bought it, even tho I was thinking I should have been carrying some of the postage stamp blocks with me to see how they 'fit' with this colour...

I am wondering if the sashing might be just a little bit dark?  But then I look at it and say "Yes, it does look older than it is!"

At this point the quilt is still in the building stages.   This is 16 of the postage stamp blocks (each is 7.5 inches square) which makes this center area about 38 inches square.  So now the plan is more postage stamps in 4 wide strips on each side -- that makes 100 postage stamps on each side, then again a narrow strip of the grey brown sashing and 'corner stone' postage stamp blocks;  beyond that I haven't planned the effect or what happens with the postage stamp blocks or how to arrange them...  Are you keeping track of how many "postage stamps" there are?

As is usual tho, Walter must poke his little face in to inspect the progress!

Linking up today with the Needle and Thread Network to see what other textile bloggers are playing around with this week!

Successful Copies

Not all of us create original art.  Even tho I consider myself to be a bit of an artist, I still come across alot of things that I create copies of...

The first best copies I made, of course were my sons! The elder is a copy of myself, only better and the younger is a copy of his father, definately better!

Now having said that, I did not ever intend to further improve on those copies by attempting any more of them!

And back to artful copies...

One of my favourite blogs is le monde sucrette.  She creates marvelously bright and cheerful crochet things.  Everything you might think can be crocheted and more...  A week or so ago, I was reading her blog and in the background a granny square covered tissue box caught my eye...  So, I copied it! Not exactly, different colour choice, I am quite happy with the copy, and it was EASY...  I never thought to cover a tissue box with a granny square.

 

Heres the photo blog post that I found the granny crochet covered tissue box.... http://www.lemondedesucrette.com/2013/07/17/a-new-addiction-called-amineko/

 

You will have to look thro her photos to find it and compare to my version...

 

And my third copy is an accidental copy, what they call a happy accident!  My neighbour was a bit ahead of me with planting her container garden (we don't have actual gardens so we have to put the growing things in to big planter type pots)...

We must have gone to the same place to purchase our starter tomatoes, because we both chose Roma tomato -- and they (hers and mine) are doing spectacular!!

Sometimes when I buy starter plants I wonder if it is worth paying the price for a couple of 'fruit' that would have been cheaper to buy in the store!  But then of course, the growing and nurturing is a big part of the satisfaction of planting things!

 

 My Roma Tomatoes

 

My Neighbours Roma Tomatoes

 

Her's are just a bit ahead of mine -- I think she has a  much greener thumb than I do, because she has a windfall of pink petunias that look spectacular on her deck...

 

 

But then, I have strawberries! And even tho I don't get enough for a bowlful of berries every day, I do get enough to slice up and put on my morning cereal...  Tomorrow's berries are almost ready for their morning milk and cereal...

 

 

Making copies, I think is just as satisfying as creating original work, don't you think?  Not all of us are innovators!

 

Have a wonderfully satisfying day, enjoying your particular favourite copy of something!



Old Lace and Edgings

It is so very obvious with the pace of life today why lace trim and the crafting of 'frilly things' has fallen out of favour.

When you go to work for 8 hours a day or even fewer hours it becomes much easier to buy a piece of lace if you need it for a project -- then it became easier to not bother putting lace on things. 

Used to be that lace trim, made by your own hand was the special touch that the lady of the house added to guest towels and the edge of pillow cases.  Lace that you made, either crochet or knitted was even used to pretty up the edges of shelves in cupboards or in your glass door china cabinate...

No more, or so very rare -- maybe in great-gramma's house; or maybe not...

So continuing from last weeks experiments (Hot. Lace. ) with lace, I thought I would work on this piece of lace edging that as shown in the book in the photo suggests that lace be used on one's china shelves!

 

This is quite a wide edging and is the bottom, pink trim shown in the booklet.  This particular photo and pattern is taken from a publication called Crochet Home and was printed in May 1995 -- not so long ago really...

 

I really enjoyed crocheting this piece, although it does take some time and so far I have about 10 of those flared fans done.  I am not sure where I am going to use this bit of lace -- maybe on the top shelf of my computer desk???  In the book it says that the pattern was designed by Lucille Laflamme.

 

Perhaps you would like to give this piece a try for yourself.  I am going to type out the instructions as originally written and if you test it out, please let me know how you liked doing it.

 

In the booklet it is called Pink Edging but perhaps we could find a more appropriate name for it?  Any suggestions?

 

Row 1: Chain 14, dc in 4th ch from hook, dc in next 5 ch, ch 2, skip next 2 chs, dc in each of last 3 chs, turn (10dc, 1ch-2sp)

 

Row 2:  Ch 3 dc in each of next 2 dc, dc in each of next 2 chs, ch 6, skip next 6 dc, dc in last dc, turn

 

Row 3: ch 5, dc in first st, dc in next 6 chs, ch 2, skip next 2 sts, dc in each of las 3 sts, turn

 

Row 4: ch 3 dc in each of next 2 sts, dc in each of next 2 chs, ch 6, skip next 6 sts, dc in next st, (ch1, dc) 9 times in next ch5 space. sl st in bottom of st on row before last. turn.

 

Row 5: (ch 3, sc in next ch 1 sp) 9 times. ch 3 , dc in next dc, dc in next 6 chs, ch 2 skip next 2 st, dc in last 3 sts, turn.

 

Repeat rows 2 to 5 consecutively until you have reached the length of edging that you desire.

 

The pattern suggests using #10 bedspread cotton and thats what I used, with a 2.25 mm hook or the size that is similar...

 

The edging works up to about 2.5 inches wide, but I was thinking that this would be really pretty if added as a border to a crochet baby afghan...

 

Summer contrast

This little 'forest' is part of a local park -- alot of child size feets run between and beneath these lovely conifers...

 

 

The main thoroughfare in my town.  All that space, made just for the tires of cars to roll thro...

Each space has its invaluable purpose...

I know which space I prefer to be in on these especially hot sunny days...

 

How about you?

 

And PS....

This is the 400th entry on The Susan Being Snippy Blog!

Yay!  Happy 400!

 

AND

 

I am linking up with the Needle and Thread Network and they are celebrating the 100th post!

 

Not quite syzygy, but close...

(I had to look this up actually so syzygy means when the at least three planets are aligned in the same gravitational system) 

Hot. Lace.

Three weeks since I have posted on the blog! Not that there has not been things to day and show off, but because I just don't seem to have the motivation...

Hmmmm....

The last few days have been so hot, too hot for me.  I try to do as little as possible because, well, really I like being lazy...  sort of. 

I have been doing a bit of everything lately at least everything that doesn't seem to be too much like work...

I even made pumpkin tarts for an uncle who lives in a care home that is about 100 kms from us, so we only get there about once every 6 weeks.  Anyway, because of the heat, I did not want to use the oven, so had the bright idea to pull out my toaster oven, and put it on a table outside on the deck, where I was able to 'bake' a 1/2 dozen of his favourite tarts without warming up my kitchen to miserable heat levels!

As to the producing something without working, I was experimenting with some crochet lace and lace edgings.  I had #10 crochet cotton, which is not nearly fine enough for these edgings (and I did not even have white to use).  It was an experiment for the most part tho.

 

I had picked up at a garage sale awhile ago a couple of vintage booklets (the green one is copywrite 1942, and the pink one is 1943).  One of the challenging things about these booklets is that the instructions are written somewhat different than what we use now.  In fact a couple of these I could not make heads or tails of...  there were a couple of sets of instructions that seemed to have repeats within repeats -- or maybe it was a series of stitches that I was not quite advance enough to understand.

 

 

The other problem with the experiment was the type of cotton thread, #10 just doesn't make a fine pretty lace, BUT it was excellent for figuring out the instructions for the most part.

 

 

I am not sure how far I will take this experiment as there are about 100 or more different laces in these two booklets that I could try out.  It is satisfying to achieve the proper look to the lace, and with each one that I do succeed at, I am re-writing the instruction to our modern understanding.   I am even thinking I might graph a few of the instructions so that I can easiy go back to a few and work on a length of lace with the proper cotton thread weight.

 

I am still working on and slowly progressing with my postage stamp quilt idea.  The heat does prevent me from spending much time in my second floor sewing room because when it is hot outside it becomes quite oppressive in that room.  Instead of sewing  the tiny squares together, I have been working at adding to the tiny squares pile...

 

 

Even so, the 25 patch blocks are growing.  16 of then now.

 

 

And my final, work in progress for now, is a small crochet bag.  The bag is quite simply done with a crochet icord handle.  I sewed up a watered silk scrap I had as the lining with a inside pocket and put a magnetic snap closure on it, now all that is left is to hand stitch the lining to the crochet bag at the top edge.  I think I may list this bag in the ETSY shop -- I have been ignoring my shop too, so if I want it to be a bit more active I should be updating it with interesting things....

 

 

This week I am too late for the Needle and Thread Network link- up, but these still are my WIP's for now....