Saturday, March 7, 2020

Knitting, Binding and Cross Stitching

I'm still stitching away on February's cross stitch ornament from Linen and Threads.  I will add some more stitches this weekend for slow Sunday stitching.  I need to buy some extra skeins of these colours so that I can use them for all 12 ornaments. I have a plan in my head for a project which will include all 12...


My friend, Pat, is teaching me to knit.  This week, I made the big leap from working on my red practice sampler to actually starting a real project using a pattern!  We went shopping yesterday at the local knitting store and I purchased knitting needles and stitch markers with a gift certificate that my husband gave me for Christmas.  Pat gave me a pattern for a cotton dish cloth and showed me how to read and follow the pattern as well as do yarn over.  She sat beside me and coached me as I did the first few rows.  The new circular knitting needles are stainless steel and are very slippery, but I am getting the hang of it.  Yesterday, after she left to go home, I knitted for a while and got this far...


This morning, I went to town and got to the point where I had to start reducing the number of stitches on the needles.  She had not shown me how to do this, but I figured it out and now my dish cloth looks like this:


Knitting is obviously addictive!

Earlier in the week, I made a quilt top with the nine patches I showed on my last blogpost.


I only had one yard of the fabric I wanted to use for the backing so I used up the leftovers from the jelly roll and added more length and width to my backing to make it big enough.


The gray fabric has little rabbits on it.  You can see below that I did straight line quilting with my walking foot in a diagonal grid through all of the white squares.


I went searching through my stash for the appropriate fabric for the binding and found this yellow print.


I hand sewed the binding down on Wednesday as I wanted to have the quilt finished in time for show and tell at guild on Thursday morning.


Here is the finished quilt. 


The March pattern for the London Modern Guild HST BOM came out this week so I made my block.   I have 4 blocks done now--there were two in February. 


I am happy to announce that Spring has officially arrived in my back yard.  Our witch hazel bush is in bloom.


Finn continues to offer guidance and assistance as necessary to my daughter on her stitching project.


I will be linking to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching link up in the morning.  One less hour of sleep tonight but one extra glorious hour of daylight after supper from now until the Fall.  Have a great week!

10 comments:

  1. I have been finding knitting addictive and calming! way to go

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  2. Your dishcloth looks great! Your friend found a good pattern for you to learn a few new stitches. This will give you the confidence for other projects. I really like the yellow binding on your quilt. I think it was the perfect choice. Love sunny yellow!

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  3. I love knitting those dish cloths and love using them too! Your really doing well. The nine patch is a winner definitely the kind of quilt I love simple shape and scrappy. The backing is perfect too!

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  4. Looks like you have some lovely projects going on! The quilt is lovely!

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  5. Red and different shades of gray floss look well together. Simple 9-patch quilt with grid quilting mades for for a lovely classic quilt-now and always. I did not know what a witch hazel plant looked like. I love it as a facial toner/refresher. I’m glad you like knitting.

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  6. Knitting is addictive and fun to while away the day. Your nine patch quilt is lovely. Love the backing you came up with. Love the scrappiness of it.

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  7. Your nine patch has turned out great. The grey backing fabric and yellow binding really compliment the quilt. Knitting is coming along and yes it can be addictive! Finns supervising is so cute!

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  8. I find knitting addictive also. Your quilt is very pretty. I really love how that cross-stitch ornament is coming along. I like the floss colors. I have never seen a witch-hazel bush. It is quite interesting.

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  9. I find your witch hazel plant so intriguing. We do not have any such thing here in Wisconsin. Nor do we have any spring plants blooming. Lucky you.
    Love your quilt: the back is so interesting, In some ways I like it better than the front.

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  10. Wow! Your work here is all beautiful! I love your cross stitch work on both the ornament and the feather! I didn't realize witch hazel was an actual plant!! It's so pretty! :)

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