December Holiday in Review

First of all, I want to say that the Christmas To-Do list posted on the wall was a big hit with family members who visited us this year.

Of the twenty items on the list, all but four were completed – with great enthusiasm, for the most part. We made a few changes: no one was interested in making wreaths, but the fly fishermen among us wanted to tie some flies. So there was that substitution. And since the cars took up the whole driveway, we played sports in the backyard. Many times. The weather was remarkably warm and sunny, hence No Fire in the Fireplace.

I received two fibery gifts. The first was a pair of sock yarns, originating in Wisconsin.

I have worked with Ewetopia sock yarn once before and found it very pleasant – it is round, tightly twisted and produces a sturdy fabric. The swatch of the dark plum gave a deep tonal, slightly shaded fabric. The yellow green color, named Caterpillar, gave a stripey fabric characterized by short repeats.

My second gift was a handful of woven linen swatches, made decades ago by my son in law’s grandmother.

After studying them for a while, I was able to work out which direction were warps and which were wefts. Some of these brocades must have been devilishly difficult to construct. I want to preserve them, but I also want to use them in some way. At the moment, I am considering working the swatches into a stretched canvas piece.

It was a busy and tiring week at chez LauraKate. While I intend to write about my body of work made in 2020, that discourse must wait for tomorrow. Today will be dedicated to tidying the craft room, folding the laundry and roasting a chicken.

Back to the Scrap Heap

I’m taking a break from knitting and painting to do a little sewing.  Some may recall my brief panic the day I realized what happens to my studio as a consequence of quilting.

Crazy Out-of-Control Scrap Heap

After spending time perusing other quilt blogs to find out how other quilters deal with this situation, I found part of the solution in the form of quilted buckets.  This lesson comes to us from Christina Cameli and Bluprint.com.

https://shop.mybluprint.com/quilting/classes/free-motion-quilted-gifts/673670

So yesterday I started on my first of three fabric buckets that (I hope) will contain my fabric-waiting-to-be-used.  This project is also an opportunity for me to practice free motion quilting while adding color and style to my studio. Her are my fabric choices for the first bucket.

Pink for the outside and gray for the lining.

I’m quilting dimensional triangles for this bucket.  Here is the first step done.

I had to use a chalk pencil to keep my row straight.

The next few hours were spent happily quilting.  Eventually the first basket was finished.

Some inch-wide grosgrain ribbon I found became the basket handles.

I have to admit that I sewed up the wrong sides of the baskets, so my basket is actually two inches longer than the one in the lesson. This turned out to be fortunate. The revised dimension held lots of fabric and fit nicely into the allotted space on my shelves.

I used the Kon-Marie method of folding the fabric and filled the bucket with the folded fabric pieces inserted on edge. It was amazing to see how much fabric this little bucket holds.  Each fabric piece remains clearly visible and easy to grab.

So my plan now is to make three more buckets to use in storing 1 yard and fat quarter size pieces, and to make some smaller baskets for the various colors of scraps.

I highly recommend Christina Cameli’s class. She is delightful instructor.  Each of her projects can be made in an afternoon and would make wonderful gifts.

A Hunker-Down kind of day

The wind howled all night and by 8 am this morning, the temperatures were in the lower 30s. I’m told that this is today’s high. The temperature is still dropping and the wind continues to blow. It’s a good thing that I have plenty of fiber objects and other creative endeavors on hand. No need to change out of my comfy yoga pants.

Yesterday I began to learn watercolor painting on paper. It’s been a long-time goal of mine to study this art form. I signed up for Lindsay Weirich’s introductory course Hand-painted Holiday, which can be found at https://lindsayweirich.teachable.com/p/hand-painted-holiday

During an overly-optimistic moment several years ago I had purchased a water color set. I dug it out of a drawer and retrieved several tubes of paint. It took some muttering and a dull yarn needle to pierce some of the foil seals, but eventually I had small quantities of paint laid down onto a cheap plastic palette.

First the tags. Lindsey called these a warm-up exercise. After a few hours I had completed six or so gift tags. Here are some of my favorites:

Next came the cards. I worked the first of the series, stopping when I realized that the afternoon had flown the coop, it was 5 pm and time to cook dinner.

Taking a break from painting, I moved on to knitting. At this point, all of the holiday gifts that I wanted to make were finished and ready to be wrapped. (Mmm maybe I will attach some of those gift tags!) I suddenly remembered that daughter had requested a pair of mittens for her son. She specifically wanted stranded knitting, so the mittens would be extra warm. I found the perfect pattern on Ravelry. It will only require a few adjustments, including the insertion of a thumb gusset for better fit.

Here is my progress so far.

With the weather so brutal outside, there is a chance I can finish these mittens and another watercolor card before the sun comes up tomorrow.

And now for something completely different

The craft of felting has got to be one of the oldest uses of wool. Pretty soon after (or maybe even before) early humans had begun to keep animals for meat and milk, they discovered the warmth of fleece. Early blankets required no manipulation to create – they were just matted, shed hairs of sheep, goats and what-have-you.

We can use of the propensity of wool to felt and make whatever we want. Today I want to make some felt balls to give to my granddaughter for Christmas. She is now walking and very interested in chasing objects across the floor. I read about felting balls in a library book – sorry I don’t remember which one, or I would reference it. The designer started with a jingle bell. I went to the dollar store and bought a bag of cat toys for a dollar. I had some fleece left over from teaching fiber arts.

The tools for this project are readily available in most homes: a plastic placemat, some bubble wrap, a large bowl with a fitted lid and a squeeze of dish soap. Merino wool bats are available from craft stores for a few dollars each. I used four colors of fleece for my balls.

First, separate the fleece into thin strips, then pull the strips apart gently every four inches or so. You want to expose the loose ends of the fibers. Begin wrapping the fleece strips around the ball, overlapping and pressing the fibers down on each other. Continue until the ball is covered with about a one inch layer. Gently roll the covered ball around in your palms, loosely, until the fibers seem to be clinging. When the wool has begun to matt, it will look something like this:

The beginning stage of felting.

Make a few more balls to this point before moving on to the next step.

Add about an inch of soapy water to the bowl. Dip the felt balls into the water, then pick up each and roll it on the bubble wrap until all the fibers are pretty well mashed together. They will look something like this:

Okay, here is the fun part. Put on some lively music. Place balls in bowl with a little soapy water, snap on the lid, pick up bowl and start shaking it around like crazy. The goal is to bounce them together and keep them rolling. This process is called fulling the wool. It will take ten to fifteen minutes.

These balls are pretty well fulled.

The next step is called shocking. The soapy water is rinsed off, then balls are immersed under hot water for about a minute. After the hot water is squeezed out, the balls are immersed in cold water. A few repetitions of this step will shrink and harden the wool. Set balls aside to dry.

You can also put them in the dryer for 15 minutes on medium heat.

Here are my felt balls, ready to be wrapped up for giving:

I was delighted that the felting worked just fine over the plastic cat toys. These balls are now child-safe and ready to roll.

Practical Fiber Fun

To those of you who are still following my blog, thank you! November has arrived and I am back on track with fiber and a plan to make some holiday gifts. This is the first year that I have had plenty of time. It’s gratifying to apply some of the skills I have developed since beginning Daily Fiber! Today I am going to share with you a sweet gift for all the creative types on your giving list. I learned to make this little journal cover in a class at Bluprint.com taught by Christina Cameli. Her craft is quilting, and she excels at working her stitch magic in free motion.

Materials are cheap and readily available: fabric, quilt batting, some foldover elastic and a paper bound journal that you can get at craft, big box, or office supply stores.

Here are the strips I will be using today:

After cutting out all the pieces, the first step is to stitch together enough strips to cover the journal. In this case, I needed a piece that was 9 1/4 in. tall by 13 in. wide. Make it a little bigger than required. Then put together a quilt sandwich with batting and backing (muslin will do.) Using the free-motion technique you like (or one you want to practice) quilt away! I chose to use my walking foot this time.

Pick a lining fabric to go with your theme. It will need to be about eight inches wider than the cover and the same height.

Here’s the lining and journal insert I chose.

Cut to dimension and sew the lining to the cover, right sides together, per the class instructions. The wrap over elastic will be sewn to the back panel with right side down. Trim the corners, turn the piece right side out and press. After you checked that the journal fits inside, top stitch the cover very, very close to the edge. (Be careful to keep the elastic free of top stitching, or it will be too tight.) You’re done.

And here is my finished gift.

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Left to Right: Front Cover showing elastic, Back Cover

Really fun. I’ll be making more of these , and plan to try out some interesting free-motion designs.

Here is Christina’s class. https://shop.mybluprint.com/quilting/classes/free-motion-quilted-gifts/673670

The class also provides instructions for a small basket and zip pouch. Happy quilting!