WIPs

I've been steadily stitching in my corner of this beautiful planet...a planet that we are destroying.  Destroying with our greed, our disregard for Nature, our thirst for power, our desire that ALL MUST BE THE SAME.  As quilters, we celebrate creativity. Yes, we like to copy; who amongst us has not seen a quilt and bought the fabric to make one just like it?

I am feeling so sad this week, a week where countries are increasing their involvement in wars, plural, a week where a young aid worker was killed, and a week that today has seen three young people, kids, really, all members of one family, gunned down for, as yet, no reason, other than the obvious.  My uncle has a blog where he shares his poetry.  He is a very talented writer and musician; for those of you Coronation Street fans, he has written the script for a couple of episodes.  Here is a link to his latest poem, a very powerful one, à propos for events of late.

But off my soapbox, and on to the topic of this post.  I've got three things on the go at the moment.  First is the quilt that needs to be done by early next week!  Quilting is progressing albeit slowly, with a couple of ripping out incidents.  Let's just say my serpentine flow, à la Angela Walters' Shape By Shape book looked more like drunken worms, and the first ribbon candy attempt was much too big of a space.  Here it is from yesterday:

Mostly straight line quilting, so I'm using my walking foot a lot.  With all the cornerstones, it's a bit of a pain as I'm having to do a lot of travel stitching as I go from one sashing to the next. I like the ribbon candy scaled down and framed.

I did another motif from Shape By Shape in the coloured 9-patch squares

There are 60 ivory sashing pieces, 20 of which I treated like an inner frame.  These have the 4 lines of quilting that you see in the above picture.  The horizontal 20 now have the framed ribbon candy, and so I just have the 20 vertical pieces which I'm working on, and then the final dark green border where I plan to do a Celtic design.  Aiming to have a finish for Friday!

I ordered some yarn, Karabella Aurora Merino, from Got Yarn! in late December to make fingerless gloves for my daughters.  Although I have knit on 4 needles before, I have never made gloves.  I haven't done cable stitch, nor have I done a picot cast off.  So two new techniques for me.  Here is one done.

There's been some ripping in getting to this point and there very might well be some more, which is why I'm not doing the thumb gusset yet.  See the black yarn holding those stitches together?  This will be yet another new technique for me, making a thumb hole.  I'm starting the second glove from the other end of the ball and will rip back the first glove a couple of rows if need be.  The pattern says you will use every bit of the one ball.

The third WIP is one of my projects from my first quarter list for the 2015 Finish Along.  So far I have just played with layout on the design wall, settling on this one:

And then started to "blow it apart", a highly technical quilt term, to get to my final design.

And just to end on a happy note, since I do have a pretty good sense of humour, aided, as usual, by my fur kids.  This is partly why the quilt is taking a bit longer, (well, that's my excuse and I'm stickin' to it):

Funny, the only evidence that this is MY sewing room is the ironing board!

Took a break to do some much-needed yoga, spread out my mat, turned back to my desk to get the iPad set up for music, turned back to see this! btw, great quilting filler design on that mat! Did not buy it for that reason, as the purchase was pre-Leah Day and pre-Angela Walters!

As those of you who have been reading this blog for a bit know, Bella HAS to get some fur on every new quilt, every new piece of fabric that comes into my/her (our?) sewing room.  She's been quite insistent with her involvement with this latest quilt, to the point where even when I'm trying to quilt it, she badly wants to be ON it.  Maybe she loves the wool batting? I photographed the stages she went through to find the perfect spot the other night: 

Hmm, not quite comfy...

Ah yes, under is better...

How about a bit of under and a bit of on?

I did not touch her or the quilt once during this process.  Much to her chagrin, her success was short-lived; I moved her right after I took this!

And then how can I not take a break and have a love-sesh with him when I look over and this is what I see?!!

Like come on!  What 5 1/2 year old dog lies like this?!  Cuteness personified.

And if you've stayed with me thus far, I have a little announcement.  Thanks to Lara at Buzzin' Bumble, (you need to check out her elephant parade flimsy here) who noted the auspicious number of posts I am approaching, I realized I am headed for a "milestone" of sorts.  This is post #199.  Do the math on the sidebar if you want to know how I figured that out!  My planned finish on Friday post will be my 200th, egad, that's in not quite 1 1/2 years of this blog's existence.  Therefore, I will be doing a giveaway.  Or maybe two.  Hope the Fat Quarter Shop delivers in time.  From my previous experience that will not be a problem.  So remember to come back!

Linking up with WIP Wednesday and Let's Bee Social.