Fair Isle Miniature Knit Christmas Stockings

I have always wanted to try Fair Isle knitting.  The other evening I was surfing the internet and found a pattern for a Miniature Knit Christmas Stocking.  I saved the pattern in my computer, and then showed it to my daughter who is still here for Christmas break.  We both kept thinking about the pattern, so the next day we decided to take some Koigu yarn and give it a try even though neither of us needed to start anything new. 

Really it wasn't quite that simple.  The pattern on the internet was knit as a flat piece and then seamed up the back with the heel knit in two pieces.  We decided that since we have both knit socks (regular people sized) that we could change the pattern and knit this miniature stocking in the round.  You've heard of a quilt-as-you-go project.  Well, this project was a knit-as-you-go.  We just started knitting and then stopped and brainstormed along the way. 

After this little project, I have quite a healthy respect for Fair Isle knitters.  Their end product is always so beautiful and professional looking.  I found it to be kind of fiddly because to do Fair Isle  the correct way you have to knit one color with your left hand and the other with your right.  So you have to be somewhat adept at continental as well as English knitting.  Now having said all that, I like the finished product and we have plans to do a second stocking.  DD just made notes as we knit last night.  She is rewriting the pattern and reworking the chart now. Then we will do a second stocking .My stocking is the green one; DD made the blue one. 

 

I can see some mistakes in my stocking, but I think they look cute on the tree anyway. 

Hope you are finding some time to stitch today!  

My New Christmas Gadget

This is one of my Christmas presents, a Droid Incredible phone.  It definitely lives up to its name and does not disappoint.  I haven't had a new cell phone for a bit over 3 years, and you can imagine how technology has changed in that amount of time.  This phone is like carrying a little computer in your purse.  When you hear those commercials on radio and TV that say, "There's an app for that". well they are right.  You will notice that I found the Starbucks app.  It tracks my location and will map the nearest several Starbucks to where I am located......priceless. 

It also has an app for a knitting counter.  My real knitting counter is keeping track of the heel I am turning on a pair of worsted weight socks right now so this one came in handy.

There is a voice recorder so you can dictate things to yourself that you can't take the time to write at the moment. 

There are free books you can download and read on the phone.  Right now I'm reading Pride and Prejudice.

I can check e-mail and surf the internet.  And, I can even read blogs on this phone. 

I'm still learning what this will do, but so far I've found lots of things that will make life easier and more convenient.  

I also got a couple of yarn and quilty things for Christmas, too.  I'll post them tomorrow after I take photos of them.  I've done some sewing and knitting, but mostly have just been enjoying spending time with family.  Hope you all had a nice Christmas, too!!! 

Merry Christmas to You

Merry Christmas to all of my followers,subscribers, and visitors.  Thank you for stopping by to visit my blog.  I really enjoy all of your visits and comments.   I hope you have had a wonderful holiday.  Here are a few of the photos of Christmas at my house this year. 

These are our dinner napkins.  I bought these at the Kitchen Cupboard in Shipshewana, Indiana. 

 My Mom made these ornaments many years ago.  She loved Christmas.  She passed away in 1996, but she is here with me every year through happy memories. 

This is the dining room tree. 

 The poinsetta that my hubby bought me.

 The tree in our study. 

The family room tree.  This is the one with all of the sentimental ornaments - the ones my Mom made, ornaments from friends, and the ones that the kids made in school. 

 Merry Christmas to all!!!

Christmas Stitchery

I've restarted the stitcheries on the Christmas Hearts tablecloth, and here is the first one done on point like the other one should have been.  The heart stitcheries go on the corners of the pieced table cover, and if I hadn't been so anxious to get started on the project and would have studied the pattern a little bit better beforehand, I would have realized that they should have been done on point.  I've enjoyed doing some redwork again. 

These are some of the fabrics that I plan to use in the tablecloth. My camera is one of my favorite quilting tools. I can tell a lot about the value and shading and how fabrics or blocks will look together by taking a photograph and putting it up on my computer screen. I sometimes use a reducing glass, but to get an overall idea of what a project really looks like, I use a photo.  That way I can back away from the screen and get a much better idea of what a quilt or fabric grouping look like together.

Hope you are all ready for Christmas and can take a break to do a bit of stitching!  

A Little Christmas Shopping

Yesterday I went out to finish a little last minute Christmas shopping.  And, since the weather service was predicting somewhere between 3 and 5 inches of snow overnight, that meant a trip to the grocery store.  I don't know how it is in other parts of the country or the world, but whenever there is a prediction of snow, we need to go to the grocery and get bread and milk.  Now, it doesn't matter whether or not you already have some milk or bread in your refrigerator, you still need to make that one last trip to the grocery store before the storm comes.  I think that mindset is left over from those of us who lived through the Blizzard of 1978 here in the midwest.  It was frightening to say the least.  I have never seen snow drifts so high or heard the wind blow quite the way it did that night.  And, according to news reports the bread and milk quickly disappeared from the grocery shelves. 

Anyway before I could go to the grocery and the post office yesterday, I decided that maybe a trip to one of my favorite quilt shops would help.  So I went down to Greenwood to The Back Door.  I have been looking for this new Edyta Sitar applique' pattern for awhile now, and they had just got these in the store so here it is:

Then I thought that since I had a new pattern, a little stash enhancement was in order.   I'm not sure I have seen this many Jo Morton fabrics in one shop before.  It was hard to choose, but I did my best. 

Hope you are all finding some time to stitch!!!!

Design Wall Dilemma

This is what is on my design wall this Monday morning.  Or maybe I should say what was on my design wall before I did a bit of rearranging.  These are my Dear Jane Christmas Signature Swap Blocks that were on my design wall.  This was the first Siggie block swap done with Christmas fabrics, so I joined.  That was 2008.  Somehow I must have had a weak moment that year, because I've found a baggie of regular signature blocks from 2008.  I still have the blocks from 2003 that I haven't looked at in years.  OK  Back to the problem at hand.......

I had this arrangement up on my design wall since before mid November.  I tried to arrange the blocks in a trip around the world setting with red and green hourglass blocks in between every block.  In a way I like it, but I think it distracts from the signature blocks.  I think the red and green hourglass blocks are a bit "in your face".  I've lived with this arrangement for almost a month now, and I'm just not sure I like it all that much.   

 So yesterday I took all of the blocks down from the design wall and arranged them like this.  I like the colorwash look, and I enjoy playing with the colors used in the blocks.  However, I don't like that center section because I think it is too white and speckled and washed out.  Now I have been known to pick the corners from someone's block where I just couldn't work with their fabrics and add some of my own on the corners saving their signature to still go in my quilt.  I've thought about doing that with some of the center blocks here: 

I do like the hourglass blocks used as a border (or maybe inner border).  As they turn the corner they change from looking like a red square in a square to a green square in a square.  So some of those blocks would still be used.

Here is another arrangement with a tone on tone white as sashing.  The blocks were in no particular order.  I wasn't exactly sure about the plain white sashing either???  

Then I tried to do something between a cross and a star.  But without about the same number of each color (and there are quite a few blue and black blocks), this wouldn't have worked so .....no! 

This is how I did my signature quilt from 2002.  I did a colorwash look, and I like the way it turned out.  I should take a photo now that it has been machine quilted and bound.  But, I would like an opinion on the Christmas blocks.  There are only 150 Christmas blocks so the quilt won't be very large with just the blocks. They finish at 4 1/2".   

So my question to you is, do you like any of the above arrangements or do you have another idea that I could try?  I am probably way over-thinking this since this quilt will only be on display for a month out of the year.  I welcome any ideas that you might have. 

Aren't you glad we have quilts to keep us warm in this cold weather?  Hope you are all keeping warm and finding some time during this busy season to stitch. 

A Stitchery Mistake

One of the first handcrafts I learned as a young girl was embroidery.  I love looking at all of the quilts and projects out in blogland that combine stitchery and piecing.  A few weeks ago, I received the pattern for a Christmas Hearts tablecloth that has both piecing and stitchery from my friend, Roswitha in Germany.  Her quilts are beautiful, and she handquilts them as well.  I love going to her blog to look at her quilts. 

I was excited to get started, so I found my background, traced the design and started stitching.  I finished the first stitchery and rinsed away the blue marks and gave the piece a good pressing.  Then I took a look at the rest of the pattern so I could do the piecing.  I guess I was so anxious to get started on this that I didn't see that the stitchery was to be on point.  Roswitha said she had made the same mistake and has made her first stitchery into a cushion.  So I will either do that or make a small wall hanging. 

Hope you are keeping warm and dry and doing some stitching today.