Sew Much Time

With rain and more rain, sewing and knitting projects have filled and brightened the dreary days.  On Friday, the weather was a bit more distracting than endless drips and drizzle bringing hail and a torrential downpour.

Besides the OMG Hoping for Hazel quilt, two shawls, a shawlette, a cowl, and a little zip bag have been added to the pile of completed projects for 2017.

DiL Brittney's Shawl

My Shawl

Shawlette from a Premier Sweet Roll

 

Zippy Strippy Bag by Atkinson Designs

A third shawl is falling off the needles.  The Mandala line of yarn has been enjoyable to use with few or no knots and varying lengths of color in the segments.

DiL Maggie's Shawl

OMG: Hoping for Hazel

Binding is on the baby quilt now known as "Hoping for Hazel" and will be waiting more patiently than I to hear if Hazel will be our next grand-daughter.  Serena and Anna have gone to their forever families and we are still waiting a special little girl that will join our family.

Attaching binding on this quilt is my Elm Street OMG for March.

Got Half Square Triangles?

Frequently, I have been making holiday table runners that result in a scrap pile of 45 degree triangles.

Back Side

But I greatly disliked cutting squares made from half square triangles until I purchased a Bloc Loc ruler for squaring up half square triangle blocks (HST's).

Connecting Threads

Yesterday, armed with a 50% off coupon for our local Craft Warehouse, I made my purchase and now the 6.5 inch ruler has joined my collection of rulers and templates designed for rotary cutting.  The ruler is very expensive, probably due to the groove on back side for lining up the seam.  The groove works like magic to control slippage and create perfectly square blocks with a corner to corner seam as long as you remember to put the logo, Bloc Loc, on the "low" side of the seam.

Bloc Loc: Samples

Now to find all those HST's and piece them for a scrap quilt.

West Side Knitters

Today was out of the ordinary.  A lady in our neighborhood invited knitters to come to her home interested in charity knitting, possibly hats for our homeless community.

It was nice to meet other fiber minded folks and get inspiration to try new techniques and patterns.  Sue was knitting an interesting sweater in the round:

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/wrapped-pullover

I need to get out of my rut.  I am stuck on small projects like cowls, hats, and scarves or if I need a bigger challenge, socks.  Bigger only because they take me a full month to complete.  

Here are the show and tell projects I brought, just some scrap busters. 

March OMG for Elm Street Quilts

March OMG is to get binding on the February OMG and write my post on time.

Elm Street Quilts March OMG

OMG: A Real Challenge

My February OMG was to quilt the 3rd of the baby quilts made from Windham Brights precuts.  It proved to be the greatest challenge I have faced with Patience, my HandiQuilter 16.

February OMG

Mounting the back so it would roll straight was the issue.  I finally got it on satisfactorily and the design is straight but not exactly positioned where I wanted on the back of the quilt.  Adding a label at the center bottom should balance it better.  There is one spot that has some slight rippling but when the quilt is washed, it should be disguised by the crinkles in the cotton batting.

Maybe next time I won't plan such a challenging back to mount and roll straight and I will get my blog post linked on time.  I missed it but will try again.