Crooked Chevron Quilt - A finished Project

This was the first 'proper' quilt I made after jumping in at the deep end with hubby's denim quilt, I love the bright colours in this quilt

The pictures aren't the best quality as they were taken in a rush on Christmas morning last year so that we could gift it!

In my 'wing it' style I started creating half square triangles (HST) and then spent simply hours deciding on a pattern - you are lucky I didn't photograph all of the options. As you can see from the above, it was obvious more HST units were needed!

Of course once I decided on a layout I had to calculate the finished size and just how many more HST units were required.  I ended up drawing it out on squared paper - which also proved useful when piecing it all together

I chose to sandwich this with 100% bamboo batting and a home decor weight cotton, which just seemed to work so well with the brightly coloured top.

I tried hard not to have like fabrics together, but the photo above shows I didn't win on that front, however I don't think anyone else will notice!

I really wish that I had taken pictures of the quilting prior to washing (lesson learned) because I jumped right in at the deep end, on my second quilt EVER I decided to go with free motion quilting (FMQ).  Each white zigzag has a different FMQ pattern - bubbles, feathers, figure eights ... it took nearly as long to decide what I was going to quilt as the quilting itself!!

In the coloured zigzag's I quilted every other one with 5 straight lines following the zigzag from edge to edge.

The numerous quilting patterns used means that this quilt has wonderful texture.

This was gifted to my mother-in-law for Christmas 2013 and it now spends its time sitting on her bed.

Thank you for popping by,

Vicki

Ribbed cable beanie - a finished project

Welcome!

After knitting the simple ribbed beanie, which can be found here, I decided to go for something different.  I was inspired by the knit on a cardigan I have.

Ribbed cable beanie

With all this ribbing it has knitted up quite tightly, but has lots of stretch in it.

Ribbed cable beanie - detail

I tried to work out the decreases as I went at the top, they aren't too bad, but I know what I want to try differently next time.

Ribbed cable beanie - decreases detail

I used 4ply yarn again, but I used wool this time.

Ribbed cable beanie

And finally as a reminder for myself I used:

• 4 ply wool yarn
• 3mm needles
• 19 stitch pattern
• cables every 9th row
• decreasing started after 18cm

I promise that there has been some sewing going on around here too.  I will try and get a progress post up soon

Thank you for popping by

Vicki

Khaki Ribbed Beanie - A finished project

Welcome

Last weekend hubby asked me to knit him a beanie, who am I to disagree?

He requested khaki/olive colour with a cotton thread - natural, warm and soft

As a good wife, I headed straight for the shop and bought a lovely khaki cotton 'wool'.

Of course when I got home the only pattern I could find was for a thicker wool and I didn't have double pointed needles or circular needles in the smaller size I needed.

I haven't knitted a beanie for a few years so needed the security of a pattern, so I knitted it flat in a basic rib and loosely based it on a pattern I had.

The seam didn't look too bad and can be worn either way, which is good as it's long enough for a brim.  

He even requested a label - who am I to disagree?

One week later the finished beanie emerged and he seems happy with it, he put it on straight a way, but I couldn't get him to model it

For my reference I used:
4 ply cotton
size 3 needles
cast on of 159 stitches with a 1x1 rib

Now I've got my beanie rhythm going again I will try and branch out with the pattern on the next one, which is apparantly going to be dark grey!

Thank you for popping by
Vicki