Hitchhiking

I started the Hitchhiker by Martina Behm. So far it has been really fun! 

I have been working on it on my lunch breaks. 

The colors are more beautiful in real life of course. It has been fun to work on a knitting project that is simple yet keeps my interest. 

Collaborative Easter Painting

Here is the completed collaborative Easter painting I did with 7 other people from my church. I think it turned out great! Fun to see everyones styles and what they took from the story. 

Here is my final piece. I think it tuned out well. I like the collage parts and the metalics I added. 

It was really fun to join people in this project!

Dark to light

3/21/16

Working on a project...

I am learning how much exactness I need to make things line up right... Carefully trimming things before I sew. It is slow going but rewarding when I get a good corner! 

I have collected and saved (and cut out) black & whites for several years hoping to make a quilt from the book Worth Doing Twice, where women reworked old quilt tops. That pattern basically relied on having 4 values. I got so tired laying it out because the colors were so relative. Put a dark gray here and now the light gray doesnt pop as much as it did before.. Etc. 

Lately I thought a chevron pattern might be more the way to go. http://dustyandmarlina.com/rainbow-chevron-quilt/ there's an example of the style. 

A few months ago when I found out that my brother in law was marrying his awesome girlfriend, I realized these quilt triangles were perfect! To personalize them a little more I embroidered some, created a hand printed fabric about their dog, Chili. Got some chili pepper and St Patricks Day fabric. I got a fabric pen and drew a duck square and a killer whale square. 

More pictures later. I am saving this as a draft and will share this after the wedding!   I do not yet have a backing fabric. It is very true I doubt the whole project will be done before the wedding, but I must try! It was delayed enough by us moving to our new house etc. 

catching up on podcasts while i work! 

3/29

Sewing the last of the quilt top this morning. I bought backing fabric,  batting, binding and thread last night. Hoping to get as far as I can today. I am now wondering if it is still small for a twin size. Sigh! 

Final product! I did go with a border! Bias tape for the binding. 

Here is the back. I bought just enough so had to expand with the gray fabric. 

Close up! So fun! 

They have now received their gift so now I can share photos!

Ripping

Here is a glimpse of the vortex cowl i slowly have worked on for the last months. If you look at the authors pattern she uses 4 colors for the stripes. I had tried to get the same effect by using a varigated yarn. http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/vortex-cowl/slideshow?fullscreen=1&start=29991217 I was also trying to save money and only got two colors. With christmas etc i put it down for a while. Recently i grabbed it and took it to work for lunch break knitting. The colors weren't working for me. It looks cool but is not the effect i wanted. Plus i probably only had 8-10 inches and it is a long cowl!  I believe i heard something on the knitmore girls podcast like " if you don't like it now, you won't like it in x amount of rows". I realized it was probably true. I didnt like it enough to continue working on it and had started thinking socks might be a better use for the two skeins. 

So. Last night I ripped it! I started with the varigated purple to make a hitchhiker shawlette. Martina Behm is the creater. I also like the Trillian pattern she has.  I hope the colors will look okay. So far (I have only done one pattern repeat) it looks good, but time will tell. http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/hitchhiker/slideshow?fullscreen=1&start=14067097

Hopefully this links will work (Blogging on my phone) but you can also just google them for pictures. 

Easter Project

I volunteered to be a part of a Good Friday/ Easter project with my church. I haven't painted a ton lately and was a little nervous. 

The very beginning. There are 8 segments and when joined together will be the shape of a cross. We worked with a color palette and specific passages. I realized the above yellow was not really in the color palette, so I went a different direction.

My passages were of Jesus' resurrection and ascension.  Due to the shape of the canvas I had to rig up a way to attach it to a drawing board as a make-shift easel. (Just a piece of paper taped well to the back of the canvas)

I had the idea of 3 story segments. Hopefully it will come across well enough.  

This is just the bottom segment of the finished painting. It is acrylic paint and some paper collage. I used some silver paint and gold paper accents to try to give it more depth, etc. I will show the full painting later and of course the full cross when it is joined together. I can't wait to see everyone elses paintings! I am so curious what it will look like together. 

Slowly

Slowly getting things a little more organized! Greatful for all the supplies that have been passed down to me or given to me! Hoping to be a resource for friends someday!

Sorting.... I have kept lists of projects etc over the years. Future project ideas... Finished projects. I am trying to focus on the finished peoject list- it is more clear how productive i have been over the year.

Meanwhile taking photos of arts & crafts I did in school & sharing them on facebook. Fun! Trying to not get too distracted! 

New Home

Testing out my New Home machine again. It's been a long time since I have used it and last time I had trouble with thread breaking and bunching up. Today I put in a new needle and tried to find the best tension/ refamiliarize myself with the dials. On the first test run it seems fine. One thing I noticed is its straight stitches are slightly diagonal. 

Just barely, but enough for me to notice. 

Anyway 2 out of 4 machines working is good! My dad got this machine for me at a yard sale, so it has been sentimental to me. Plus it has fun colors! 

Back to sorting and trying to organize!