PHLOX BLANKET by RITA TAYLOR

This gorgeous blanket is featured in the latest Mollie Makes mag and is taken from Heirloom Knitting Skills by Rita Taylor.  Fell in love with it as soon as I saw it!
I will be using Jarol Heritage DK as there is such a wide colour range and the perfect silver grey as the base colour.
This is the first square:

Being stocking stitch for the most part, it does curl in on itself as you can see in the picture but blocking / sewing the squares together will get rid of that.
Jarol Heritage is 55% wool and we have it in the shop at £3.69 for 100g.
I'll let you know how many grey squares you get from 1 ball when I get that far!  The centres use very little yarn so you might be able to use up your scraps.
I might crochet round the edge of the squares before sewing them together to make the blanket a little brighter than it's orginal intention.

TWO FROM ONE

I've had this Riley Blake panel fopr a little while now and I don't know if I'm being a bit dim but couldn't quite work out what to do with it.  I love it but wasn't sure how to go about it.
I've always liked doing book panels - mostly because they're done in less than an hour and are super easy and, of course they're childrens designs which I love.
I immediately thought this was a book panel until I counted the pages and realised there weren't enough because they have to be sewn in pairs.

The fog lifted and I decided to use the extra panel top right (not quite big enough to be a 'page') and cut a couple of strips of plain fabric and sewed them on making a pair.  This actually turned out really well because I then used some of our beastie buttons to embellish the picture.

Not good for under threes of course but you could easily embroider instead or leave plain.

With the little panel that was left I made this wallhanging and hand quilted round three of the animals with perle cotton 8.
So, what I used altogether was 1 x Riley Blake panel, 1 x LQ of plain burgundy, 1 x LQ co-ordinating Riley Blake fabric for back of hanging and cotton wadding for the book.  (poly wadding too bulky - your pages won't close and it doesn't give a pleasing finish at all)
Fun to do and quick and easy.  Great for a last minute baby gift.
The panel is £8.99.

LIBERATED FROM DEEP STORAGE

That would be this then.

This project has been in deep storage for quite some time.  It just wasn't working, but a fresh pair of eyes immediately saw that the shade of pink I had in it was really wrong.  I ousted it and now I can live with it.  I know this will be slow but it still eats into the stash! 

THAT'S IT!

I have had the same conversation with so many of my customers these past few weeks I've decided it's time to put my money where my mouth is.
I no longer have the gigantic stash I used to have before I bought the shop as the shop now serves as my 'fix'. (mostly).
I do however have quite some fabric and what I do have is just sitting there.  I have fabric I can't cut into because I love it too much.  I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE! Many of my customers are just the same.
That, my friends, is ridiculous.
Well I've had it.  I am clearing out and I am using what I have.
I have donated my normal scraps to a worthy cause and my lovely scraps to my Mum who has just started English Paper Piecing, hooray!
This is the bulk of the stash. (fabric only, were not even going to talk about the yarn)
Sometimes it's tidy - and then there's now, but I have been clearing out.

Now I don't think that's too bad......
Okay so there is a big old stack of Japanese linens in a cupboard (half yard pieces too, not mere fat quarters) and a sizeable pile of Liberty tana lawn under the bed in a big old storage box, there could be some stuff in the blanket box on the landing too cos I know there ain't any blankets in there.  But this is the bulk of it.  That bottom shelf there is mostly books (we won't talk about the book collection either).
So again I say - not too bad.

Now this is the best of it.  I've started using it up and I can't stop.  I apologise for this picture, not great.

Pre ironing this is a finished top made from a big stack of white with dragonflies on (one of my favourite fabrics of all time) and some fat quarters I brought back from USA 18 months ago.  I have never made a quilt for myself.  This is mine.
I also found a picture I'd pulled out of a damaged magazine forever ago of a 1930's log cabin quilt.

 (I'm sorry I can't reference it, I'll be glad to rectify that if anyone knows where it came from) and I never use blue.  I have never made a blue quilt and since realising a while ago I didn't have any blue at all now have too much.

This is my stack of blue and white:

And these are the blocks I've made so far:

I think I've made a good start!

KNIT NOW JUST IN

This months Knit Now has just arrived.

I particularly like this magazine (which is why I stock it).  We all like the free gifts in these magazines but because they are sealed in you can't see what's in the magazine can you?  Well the clever people at knit now have a printed sheet on the back of the magazine so you can see all that is contained within.  Genius.  This months freebies are a little pattern book of designs for men, a very cute shawl pin and a handy credit card sized yarn info doohickey.  It explains yarn weights, suggested needle size and tension which is really useful to carry around with you.

Perle number 8

I thought I should give this a mention as not everyone realised we had it.  Most of my customers use this for hand quilting and it was used on the cushion cover we did in free motion quilting class.  I'm still waiting on some other colours.

Other things we have that you might not have noticed are different sized rulers including dresden plate, template plastic, curved quilting safety pins, paper backed fusible web and 100% cotton wadding.

 

This is the pansy brooch, a new La Todera pattern.  All the others are back in stock now including the long awaited and ever popular Harlequin Cushion.

Cotton Yarn Galore

Some of you might have been lucky enough to grab some of the 73% linen 27% cotton natural undyed yarn we've had over the last couple of weeks.
Unfortunately this has almost gone now, huge bargain and lovely to work with.  Most people that have taken one lot have come back for more!  No wonder it's almost gone.  But at £1.99 a ball it wasn't going to hang around.
As this was such a lovely yarn I jumped at the chance to have some similar stuff and we have it at the same price!

This is it.  Wool and cotton - the cotton bit is the natural undyed colour and the wool is the thinner coloured strand wrapped around the cotton.  It's lovely stuff in brown, teal, denim, blackcurrant, raspberry, pale grey, olive and black.  I've knitted a tension square (clunk - that's my mother falling off her chair) and I get it to an aran weight, that's 18sts 24rows on a 5mm needle in stocking stitch.

 

I managed to get hold of these last week.  Now I know I've been telling everyone to get it when you see it as alot of fabrics are not being repeated now but these were some short lengths that I grabbed and wouldn't let go of til they were safely on Skep soil.

 

And now to a very pleasant Sunday spent free motion quilting.  I found it pleasant, some of the ladies found it a little stressful but I hope they don't hate me.  Free motion quilting is a slippery little sucker to get the hang of and we didn't want to just spend all day practicing it, we really wanted to make sure it was put into a project.  This was Sarah's which I am informed today is now finished and made into a cushion cover.

 

 

See? No one is assuming tantrum postition.

 

I joke but it is a little tricky at first. Like most things practice makes perfect and this class has encouraged me to get out of my comfort zone (I'm a stipple girl and nothing else) and have a go at another design or ten.

This class was very popular and I know some people were disappointed not to get a place, don't worry we'll be running it again.

I've had some lovely emails thanking  me for running the class and Brioni for teaching it, thank you very much for that.  It's great to get those, really nice.

We're having a break with the Sunday classes until June now as both Brioni and I are away in May.  There are still some spaces on Scrappy Trip available.  (See previous posts for details) so give us a call if you'd like to join us 0113 2362570.