This was my quilting UFO Challenge for February and, even with a slow start, I was able to finish it with lots of time to spare.
The pattern came from the May pattern in a 2011 Quilt Calendar (thank you Deloise). It required 600 squares and 300 half-square triangles. I collected for a long time before I was anywhere near ready to start piecing. Everything except the neutral colours are from scraps. The earliest photo I have of a pieced block is from January 2021 so a finish a year later is quite something for me!
The quilting (with a light pink thread) is done with straight lines and once I got started it didn’t take very long to finish.
I had some fabric in my stash that was enough (with some left over) for the backing.
I can’t really say it caught me by surprise but I still have a few outstanding projects on the go for February. My quilting UFO was finished with time to spare (I’ll get it posted to my website tomorrow) but I didn’t do so well in some other areas. Oh well, they will get added to my task list and maybe before the end of the year they will get done. If not, they’ll be added to my 2023 UFO Challenge list.
I managed to get a couple of things finished up over the last week. Taylor’s blanket was sent off and apparently she is enjoying it. I also got caught up on my Botanical Garden stitch-along.
Thunderbird is hung
I enjoyed our weekend on Texada. We got my Thunderbird hung in my stitching room.
I finished a couple of books and we did some re-arranging. Now that Pat has moved most of his equipment back to Powell River we were able to expand our living room.
We moved the couch from my sewing area out to the living room
Pat’s reduced desk area
The organ is moved to a different wall
I haven’t been idle today. I dropped off several bags at the thrift shop and finished a long-standing task to get the Guild blogs archived. The posts dated back to 2008 and I finished them up to 2020. I’ll present them to the Guild at our meeting on Thursday; I’m not sorry to see that particular reminder removed from my list.
I didn’t have a lot of sewing time today and I had neither my piecing challenge nor my scrappy challenge done for the month. I thought I might have time to finished my scrappy challenge but I’m quitting now with four small blocks remaining.
I don’t know why I put this book into the donation box. It has been a long time since I read it the first time and I guess I forgot how good it was. My interest in it was revived when we watched a Netflix series based on the book. The series was great and as I read the book this second time I pictured the characters as they appeared on the screen.
Dominick and Thomas are identical twins. They may look alike but Thomas is a schizophrenic and gets himself in all sorts of trouble. Dominick has always looked after Thomas and nothing has changed now that they are adults.
The book is about so much more than the brothers though. There is the story of their less-than-perfect childhood, Dominick’s story and one of the best parts was reading the journal of their grandfather.
This one is staying out of the donation box and going onto “my” bookshelf (where I keep all my favourites).
Taylor saw a photo of a blanket online and wondered if I could make one for her. She had a very specific colour, pattern and size in mind so there was a lot of back and forth before we got it all settled. I wasn’t able to get the yarn that was called for in the pattern so I started looking for substitutions. With each suggestion of a different yarn Taylor (and her Mum and/or Dad) would go to Michael’s to see if it would do. Once she was okay with the yarn I had to translate the pattern so I would know how much yarn I needed. I had never ordered from Michael’s online and although the site wasn’t the easiest to navigate I eventually got my yarn.
I also had to wait a couple of weeks for the right sized needles to arrive from Amazon. I didn’t measure but I think the needles were probably the size of my broom handle.
~ 60″ x 90″
Taylor wanted a blanket that was 60″ x 90″ (she was very precise). I started knitting as soon as I had everything I needed. And I knit and knit and knit. Fortunately the pattern was very simple because I’d never find my way back if I had to start tearing it out. By the time it was finished I’m sure it weighed more than Taylor. The measurements worked out perfectly (more luck than planning) but I thought if it was either too narrow or too wide it could easily be stretched.
It was worth all the effort to see Taylor with the blanket. Christy said she’s been snuggled with it since it arrived in the mail.
