Find the Narwhals

Today I have a finished quilt to show off, although I started it close to two years ago, and finished it midway through last year. (At this rate I'm never going to get through my stash!)

My inspiration came from a triangle quilt I stumbled across somewhere on teh intarwebs (top left). I absolutely loved the colours: black, white, peach, pink, and watermelon. I was captivated (read: borderline obsessed); it certainly hit my dopamine receptors. I started seeing some similar triangle quilts, in mint and coral, which I also love.

1. modern ombre + b/w triangle quilt tutorial + pattern 2. mint and licorice :: a baby quilt
3. a coral and mint isosceles quilt 4. Isosceles on Point

In short course I started working on my own monochromatic(ish) triangle quilt, using solids in pink, peach, black, and white. I went with equilateral triangles instead of isosceles, leaving me future scope to work another variation on this theme. ;)

Instead of using all solids, I substituted the light pink with "Find The Narwhal in Bloom" from Sarah Jane's collection "Out to Sea". It had all the right colours in it that I wanted for my triangle quilt, and cute little whales and narwhals!

It turns out I struggle to work with mostly solids, so I added a few geometrics in black and white during the many hours of fiddling with my layout.

I pieced the back with "Mermaid Play in Blossom" (also from "Out to Sea") bordered by solids and whatever I had in my stash.

I used solid black for the binding, but added scrappy strips of hot pink, and black and white polka dots.

Upcoming posts:

• I already have another lap quilt finished just after New Years. Based on historical trends I suppose it will be a few months until I get around to photographing and blogging it... :P
• There's a baby quilt currently in progress for another pending human, estimated time to complete about 10 weeks from now.

Double Knitting

The holidays have come and gone, and what began with many intentions to sew up a storm during my break from work, ended with a new layer of dust on the sewing machine. So instead of something new I'm going to post something that I made a few years ago.

After learning some basic Fair Isle knitting I started looking for a cow pattern so I could make something my husband would like. What I came across what a pattern for a knitted cow dishcloth using double knitting, a technique I'd never used before.

Of course, I'm not one to shy away from a challenge. :) As it turned out, double knitting was not all that difficult. If you can knit ribbing, and have some basic Fair Isle experience, you should find double knitting quite manageable.

We use this "dishcloth" as a sort of placemat for protecting our coffee table from our beverages. Double knitting would also be really awesome for making scarves.

While I didn't get up to much on the craft front over Christmas (actually, there is another afghan which is nearly finished...), I did get my hands dirty (sorry) in the garden. I went for a few walks with my sister to offset the Christmas pud, and we *ahem* collected a few cuttings from the neighbourhood.

Succulents are just so easy to grow from cuttings, and I've had real joy watching them all sprout roots and join my starting-to-get-out-of-control collection. I've attempted to offset all the incoming plants by giving a few away (to friends with bigger backyards, ha!). To my friend Matt (Olivia's dad) I wrapped up three aloes and a rose geranium in newspaper. The seedlings can be planted straight into the ground with the newspaper (it's dead plant material after all).

With the new succulents and other plants I'm going to keep I'm cooking up another vertical garden project, using an old wooden door and a bunch of pots I bought from my new favourite shop, The Bower. No doubt there'll be another post once it comes together. :)

Jago's Quilt

My friends James and Sarah, whose beautiful daughter Juliet was the recipient of the first quilt I ever made, had another baby earlier this year. Born back in May they named their little boy Jago (which is the Cornish version of James, and the 'J' is pronounced the same as with James), and it was an irresistible opportunity to make another baby quilt. Can't have siblings fighting over a blankie after all. :3

I really wanted to use my 1001 Peeps from designer Lizzy House in the purple colour-way. Mixed with black sashing I hoped the parents would dig both the palette and the cute little graphics.

I pieced the quilt back with a similar piano key layout used for Juliet's quilt, and made a label with Jago's name and birthday with a grosgrain ribbon. I think some of the black & white scraps from Juliet's quilt went into the pieced back, and if memory serves I even made an effort to have the finished size of both quilts the same (40" x 48"). So, same same but different. :)

Apologies for the worst photos in the world; black quilts are especially hard to photograph well, and I'm working with my phone camera and a desperate lack of skill...

Luckily I've got this great action shot of the gorgeous little guy on his new quilt to make up for it. He looks pretty chuffed about it!

Thanks for the photo, Sarah!

Flying Geese

I'd been wanting to make a flying geese quilt for a while after having seen one of Rita's (I think she's made a few!), and then Jeni's pink monochrome mini quilt gave me the idea to make it black and white.

For the back I tried my hand at paper piecing and made a large circle of flying geese for the centre. Typically these blocks measure about 12.5" square when complete, I enlarged the template to finish with a 16.5" square.

I quilted some diagonal lines inspired by this flying geese quilt I stumbled across, and added the old infallible black and white striped binding.

It's become a favourite and now lives on our couch. I'm actually snuggled under it right now... :3