inspiration – Knit-Spin-Quilt

Knit1Geek2 Swap Package!

I participated in my very first Ravelry swap this fall as part of the Knit1Geek2 podcast group. I’ll link to my swap package later, when my recipient gets their box, but for now I’ll just squee about the box I got in the mail today!

The guidelines were:

Something handmade
Something local
Something geeky

Man, did my swapper do a great job!

Here are the wrapped packages:
Wrapped2

Itemswrapped

Here’s a closeup of the pin she included, which is knitted and embroidered and just knocks my socks off. It’s even more beautiful in real life:
MallornLeaf

Then there are the contents of the packages. Yarn first:

The colorway is “Call me WonderWoman”! It’s Corriedale/nylon sock yarn, and I LOVE it.

Geeky items-wise, this swapper outdid herself. First up, an Avengers Age of Ultron lunchbox, which held all the other items, individually wrapped.

Then a bunch of little geeky owl bookmarks, delicious chocolate, and T-pins and a Captain America tin of candy to use to hold stitch markers!

I just love the Cap owl:

But best last: the handmade item. I got a BEAUTIFUL alpaca lace shawl. Oh my god, the picture does not do this justice. I am SO DELIGHTED, I had to wear it today. It is SO LOVELY. It glitters in the light, and the pattern is just beautiful.

In summary: Thank you, swap partner! You rock!

Signal boosting

Do you like modern, designer quilting fabric? Consider this:

When you sign up for the swap you vote for designers you’d like to see included. Participants will be split into 8 groups of 7 people, and each group will be assigned a designer. You get two yards of different fabrics by that designer, and cut each into 56 charm squares. Collate them AB, AB, AB, etc. and send them in! Get back charm squares representing 14 fabrics each by 8 different designers. This sounds like a win-win scenario to me.

I’ve got my fingers crossed for Lizzy House, Riley Blake or Denyse Schmidt, though I’m also looking forward to discovering new designers!

As of right now, there are 16 open spots. Come join us, and help get this thing going! I can’t wait to get cutting. :)

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And, just in case it’s fallen off your radar:

This past week, we had posts on July 31st from Audrey, of Hot Pink Quilts and M-R from Quilt Matters. On August 2nd, there were posts by Jennifer, of GH Quilting and Danny, of MommyFor Reals.

This week, we can look forward to posts on August 7 from Liz of What I Did On My Summer Vacation and Susan, of Canadian Abroad. On August 9, we get posts from Kirsten of Gemini Stitches and Stephanie of Sewing By Stephanie.

This blog hop is a ton of fun, and a great way to meet new people, find awesome projects and get a ton of inspiration. Drop by their blogs and see what they’re up to! Even better, leave a comment — if they’re anything like me, it’ll make them happy.

I’m not up to bat until the very end of the blog hop, but I’m already thinking about what my project / mini-tutorial is going to be. :)

Nine-Patch Lattice Quilt

This is the Nine-Patch Lattice Quilt from Oh, Fransson!, Elizabeth Hartman’s quilting blog. I stumbled across her tutorial on how to make crazy nine-patch blocks a year or so ago and thought it was genius. So when I got the urge to try my hand at quilting something that actually had a pattern, I thought of the tutorial, visited her blog, and found the Nine-Patch quilt. The practice blocks I did were mock-ups for this project.

I didn’t end up going for crazy blocks, because I preferred the lattice effect of symmetrical squares. I strip-pieced the blocks, which made everything much faster and easier, and aside from learning that I can’t sew a scant 1/4″ seam without a guide of some kind (and even then, I sometimes manage to sew a slightly wider seam, just enough to throw things of a teeny bit overall), it went very smoothly.

I used nine fat quarters I’d picked up at a Joann Fabrics to use together. Originally I was going to use the green sheet I used in the test pillow squares as sashing, but something about it didn’t quite look right to me. So when I went down to Brooklyn General to pick up a 6×24″ quilting ruler, I brought along one of the squares, and laid it against some of the fabrics they had there. This is Kona Cotton in Navy (if I recall the color correctly: a dark blue, in any case) and I really like the way it sets off the greens.

One of my favorite things about this pattern is the back:

The little squares remind me of stained glass windows, glowing in the darker wall of blue fabric.

Where it began

Getting into quilting is largely what made me start this blogging thing up again. And that’s largely because of quilting blogs I was reading that made me think “That’s gorgeous!” and “Hey, maybe I could eventually learn to do something like that!” Besides, it’s not as if I have a dozen knitting and spinning WiPs. I’ve only got, say, eleven or so of those.

The first project I really wanted to try was the Ninepatch Lattice Quilt. Elizabeth Hartman’s blog, Oh, Fransson! is a source of fabulous information and inspiration. Her patterns are clear and easy to follow, and I love the way she thinks.

Of course, I didn’t trust myself to do anything right the first time around, so I made a set of practice nine-patch blocks, and then, when they weren’t disastrous, sewed them together into squares that I’ll probably use as the front and back of a pillow.

The print fabrics are fat quarters I picked up at a Joann Fabrics sometime when I was in Connecticut or Indiana, and the green is from a sheet I picked up at a thrift store in Atlanta for pretty much exactly this kind of project. I don’t think they match perfectly, but for a test swatch, I think it came out okay.