Finished!! Completed!

My goal was to finish two UFOs before I began a new one.  I did It!!

This was Christmas top from Fort Worth Fabric Studio

It was easy to sew along, if you kept up with the steps

which I didn't do!

I found the Santa Southwest fabric in my stash--

Think I'll add a border or two

Just a touch of Santa amongst the sagrillo and pine trees--

much like Arizona

Add the borders and off to the unquilted stash pile it goes!

This top is from 2019 BOM "Out of This World:

Pat Sloan, designer--

I did mine with sunflowers--just needs two borders and a

sunflower larger border--wish I'd added larger borders of sunflowers

Okay, I finished two UFOs so I'm off to begin a new UFO to add to my UFO stash

Block One of Fort Worth Fabric Studio's mystery QAL is on the left and block two on the right Fort Worth Fabric Studio  "Love Supreme" You can also find this on Facebook.

This should wrap up by February 14th!

Another Month Read With Agatha

The following info is thanks to Helena--our Ravelry discussion leader

Check out the group on Ravelry and join us in reading these intriguing books

by Agatha Christie--we watched Acorn version of "The Mysterious

Affair at Styles"

"The story takes place during the First World War, also known as The Great War and is the first novel published by Agatha Christie. We are introduced to Arthur Hastings, Hercule Poirot and Inspector Jappe of Scotland Yard.

A short audio dramatisation is to be found here
The full audio book is here
A free copy of the text is to be found here

Published in 1920--how have things changed in 100 years?

1. In 1914 women worked mostly in the textiles industry. By 1918 almost a million women were employed in some aspect of munitions work.
2. The first women police officers served during the First World War.
3. Even though women formed a large part of the work force, only munitions workers received a partial compensation for childcare.
4. The Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) was established in December 1916. The Women’s Royal Naval Service was formed in November 1917 and the Women’s Royal Air Force was set up on 1 April 1918. In total, over 100,000 women joined Britain’s armed forces during the war.
5. Women’s football became popular. Many munitions factories developed their own ladies’ football teams.The most famous of these teams were Dick, Kerr’s Ladies FC in Preston. Founded in 1917, their matches drew large crowds. They continued to enjoy success until women were banned from playing in Football League grounds in 1921.
6. The suffrage movement fractured as some of their leaders supported the war effort while others opposed the war. Those that supported the war saw their efforts rewarded in February 1918, when the Representation of the People Act gave the vote to all men over 21 years of age and to women over 30. It was another ten years later before this was extended to women over 21.
7. Women serving in the auxiliary services or working in manufacturing, transport and on the land wore a range of uniforms and clothes, sometimes including trousers. Although women’s fashions were already evolving by 1914, the move to more practical clothing during wartime undoubtedly accelerated the pace of change.

Women were encouraged to knit for the troops (comforts for the troops). This included socks, knee  warmers, mittens, rifle mittens, scarves and balaclavas.

After the war, with the start of the “flapper” era, women were ready for something new. Hats (cloches), and sportswear (tennis and golf) became very popular.

Weavers January Gathering

What a great way to begin 2020! Meeting with weavers/fiber artists fellows--

We met at Rosemary's home--her entrance way is truly an introduction to a world

of lovely things--step right in and let's visit........

Rosemary bought this piece of mud cloth at a recent show and sale--she loved it so much that

she had decided to wear it to the Sante Fe Opera this summer 

She plans to take apart the seams and use this a wrap for the cool evening nights--

it will be spectacular!

Rosemary showed off her new fashion accessory (on left) cut from t-shirts!  Absolutely fun, fun, fun!  On the right are folded stars, a gift from a friend--we had no idea what type of paper or technique--very intriguing no less 

Barbara showed her four woven twill towels--a commission--the colors are

interesting--each towel has a different treadling and the colors were the choice

of the client

Diane is showing off her handwork--she is following TAST on FB--

A different stitch each Tuesday--Diane found this base cloth and adds

her stitches each week and by year's end she has a completed cloth with

different unique stitches

Diane also has been experimenting (quite nicely, I'll add) with eco-dyeing--she uses leaves of oak, pecan, chinaberry trees and various other sundry natural ingredients to get these lovely designs on
her hand woven cloth

She combines some stitching to showcase certain elements of her designs--just to think all this color comes nature--mordanted cloth and boiling water!  Lovely!

Valentine's Day Just Ahead

I know--why start Valentine Day items now?!!  It's only a few days away--

I've been thinking that hearts are not just for February 14th.

Hearts can be given to anyone any day of the year--

Give to someone facing a health situation,

or has had a bad day overall.

Diary of a Quilter has a listing of various heart projects--

I collect red and white all the time--never know when it will come

in handy.

Heartbeat--a free pattern using Jelly Rolls--contemporary for sure.

Scrappy Log Cabin on the right  So many more Heart ideas on Pinterest!

More than 35 years ago, our quilt guild exchanged heart blocks--make X number of blocks for the number of those that want to exchange--set a date for the exchange--gather your blocks and assemble your heart quilt!

definitely a quilt filled with lots of "HEART"

Each person chose their own technique and pattern--we each had 20 blocks--This was so much fun and each year I pull out this quilt and remember all my friends from those days.

Least Favorite Color

Least favorite color:  Hardly ever work with purple!!  What is your favorite color?  Least favorite?
What do color do you find that you work more with?

Color Meaning: Meaning of The Color Purple. ... The color purple is often associated with royalty, nobility, luxury, power, and ambition. Purple also represents meanings of wealth, extravagance, creativity, wisdom, dignity, grandeur, devotion, peace, pride, mystery, independence, and magic.

What is close to opposite of purple on the color wheel??

Orange, of course!  Purple is a good accompanying color to

orange--so add a little orange to your purple days and 

see how you feel.

Learning To Applique---BETTER!

I applique--not great--but I've appliqued some!  I love the process

of stitching around perfectly (?) shaped edges--so when this

applique opportunity came up--I jumped on the bandwagon--

I want to learn how to applique much better than I do--

I KNOW--it takes practice, practice, practice.  So, I'm

thinking that this monthly quilt along BOM will be

helpful.  This comes from Erin Russek, who has the

most outstanding patterns in all of internet kingdom as far as I'm concerned.

Today, yes, today, she is giving you the beginnings of this lovely

pattern--she has several tutorials on how to achieve the perfect

pattern piece to applique.  Check it out in her blog--One Piece At A Time--

Breed All ABout It! Calling All Spinners............

Have you wondered about Sheep Breeds and wanted to know more?

Here is your opportunity from Namaste Farms

• Information about the breed
• What to expect from the fleece
  • How it Dyes
  • What the breed standard is
    • colors
    • length
    • micron
• What the fleece is best suited for
• examples of raw and dyed fleece and these tutorials will be interactive where you can ask questions live in chat. There will be a different breed every episode.  
• Every Thursday, beginning January 16 at 1 PM PST, you can tune into Facebook
• free learning experience.

You can find the group on Facebook in groups/redding method

What Fiber Technique Catches Your Fancy?

What fiber technique catches your fancy?

Mine is dyeing!  Natural dyeing is my favorite workshop or class--

if you understand how your fabrics are dyed, then you

are in another world.

Chemical dyeing is interesting but natural dyes--

oh my gosh!  You can hope you get the same color each

time you hit the dyepot, but not always..

there is change in temperature, water or dye stuff,

then you have a variable color on your fabric--

that's what makes natural dyeing the greatest adventure

of all time in my book!

and indigo dyeing--oh my!  This is the way to go!

My goal for 2020 is to do more dyeing--either chemical or

natural dyeing--or maybe some surface design!

Check out Chemknits on you tube!  

Color of the Year!

What is your favorite color?  Did you see the 2020 color forecast from Pantoneview?  This group of designers and colorists hand us the colors for the season every year--This year BLUE!  Who doesn't like Blue!

From inky blues and bio-luminous neons, to summer browns and seaweed greens, colors for Spring/Summer 2020 display depth and complexity. ... Color harmonies and cross-fertilization step forward to display harder color contrasts: turquoise with a lagoon grey or a bright orange with taupe.

Blue Blues the color of the sky and sea. It is often associated with depth and stability. It symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, truth, and heaven. Blue is considered beneficial to the mind and body. It slows human metabolism and produces a calming effect.

But, my favorite color isn't blue, even though I like working with blue--

I like to work with the warm colors--like ORANGE!

Orange, the blend of red and yellow, is a mixture of the energy associated with red and the happiness associated with yellow. Orange is associated with meanings of joy, warmth, heat, sunshine, enthusiasm, creativity, success, encouragement, change, determination, health, stimulation, happiness, fun, enjoyment, balance, sexuality, freedom, expression, and fascination.

Orange is the color of joy and creativity. Orange promotes a sense of general wellness and emotional energy that should be shared, such as compassion, passion, and warmth. Orange will help a person recover from disappointments, a wounded heart, or a blow to one’s pride.

The meaning of the color orange is stimulating, vibrant, and flamboyant. While made up of red and yellow, it carries less aggression and fierceness than the color red due to its combination with the calming color yellow.

More Sew Alongs

If these don't keep you busy during the year--I don't know what will!

Quilt Doodles Doodles will begin the new year on January 15th

with a new Block of  the Month--Grandma's Attic-- traditional

sampler quilt--maybe a stash buster but two colors would be

nice also--a main color and white/cream background.

There will be 12 blocks

Another quilt that begins January 15--Moda Block Heads 3!

It will launch with 14 Block Heads (Designers) and total of 56 blocks.

Take a look at Block Head 2

Make A Scrappy Quilt began January 1-runs through Jan 16

• Jan 1 to Jan 16 we'll make a Scrap Happy Quilt!
• Dig through your fabric
• Decide on Colors
• Get ready to Sew blocks on Jan 1
• Jan 8 we'll sew more blocks 
• Jan 16 show off a top and enter in my quilt show and I'll have a giveaway!! 

Childhood Games Mystery

• Starts Jan 22
• Runs 19 weeks  to May 27
• Several block sizes
• Pieced blocks 
• ALL EASY to do! 
• Fat Quarter Friendly
• Fun and Happy just like a Childhood game should be!

From My Carolina Home   

charm packs and 5" squares will make this delightful quilt

beginning January 17th!

Roc Day--Treadling On!

Distaff Day, also called Roc Day, is 7 January, the day after the feast of the Epiphany. It is also known as Saint Distaff's Day, one of the many unofficial holidays in Catholic nations.
Many St. Distaff's Day gatherings were held, large and small, throughout local fiber community. The distaff, or rock, used in spinning was the medieval symbol of women's work.
In many European cultural traditions, women resumed their household work after the twelve days of Christmas. Women of all classes would spend their evenings spinning on the wheel. During the day, they would carry a drop spindle with them. Spinning was the only means of turning raw wool, cotton or flax into thread, which could then be woven into cloth.
Men have their own way of celebrating this occasion; this is done through Plough Monday. It is the first Monday after Epiphany where men are supposed to get back to work.
Every few years, Distaff Day and Plough Monday falls on the same day. Often the men and women would play pranks on each other during this celebration, as was written by Robert Herrick in his poem "Saint Distaffs day, or the Morrow After Twelfth Day" which appears in his Hesperides.
Some modern craft groups have taken up the celebration of Distaff day as part of their new year celebrations.

And since January 7, 2020 falls on midweek day, our Roc Day celebration will take place the weekend before--January 4 or the weekend following, January 11.  We gather our spindles, our wheels, fibers and food (food is always encouraged!) and meet at a central location.  

luscious fibers to spin.............

a chance to try a new fiber or spinning technique

an opportunity to see how one spinner uses her wheel

questions answered and topics discussed

Oh, yes, a chance to spin on a flax wheel

and see what exactly a distaff is and how it works

Always a spindle or two in sight--this one spinning silk hankies

Ah, yes a chance for the spinners and weavers to get back to their wheels and looms after a long holiday sleep--treadle on!

This is a repeat of post from January, 2014

Twelfth Night Becomes Mardi Gras Season

As the twelfth night of Christmas rolls around, I should be finished with my 12 days of Knitmas--well, not...................I pooped out about 5 days in--it's become another UFO in my stash!

You can bet your bottom dollar, I will participate in Carnival season with King Cake!  Oh yes, the delicious once a year 'bread' that lasts for the whole of Mardi Gras--which means bakeries will be producing lots and lots of King Cakes until Fat Tuesday eve, February 25, 2020.



Here is a video on how to make your own King Cake--but, I'll be visiting many local bakeries to pick one up for our enjoyment.  For our January Spin-in, the person who receives the baby is asked to bring King Cake the next day--as we meet for five days--we have lots of King Cake!!

"Epiphany" or twelfth night is known to Christians--the word comes from Greek that means "To show" just as Jesus showed himself to the three wise men and to the world on this day.

• The king cake is a tradition brought to New Orleans from France in 1870.
• It’s an oval shaped cake that tastes like a cross between a cinnamon roll and a french pastry.
• It is decorated in the colors green, gold and purple. Green is meant to symbolize faith, gold is power and purple which represents justice.
• It is supposed to represent the crown of the three wise men who visited Jesus.
• A plastic baby is hidden in the cake to represent the baby Jesus. Whoever finds the baby in their cake, is named “king for the day” and is supposed to host the party the next year.

Maybe, you'll have King Cake at your festivities this year!  

Book of Psalm 23 in Stitches

What a lovely way to begin January 2020--stitching one of my favorite

Bible verses?  Jenny offers these free patterns to all that would

come to her website and partake.

You have the opportunity to complete all thirteen stitcheries; one on the cover and twelve inside on the pages. Nine of the pages are the complete passages from Psalm 23 and the other three are pretty 'extras' without scripture.

Here is the first page of the book--Jenny has numerous tutorials on her

blog to assist you with your stitching--this stitch along runs from January

to October.  

I'm thinking this will be a great gift for my mother, who is turning 100--

there isn't much you can give her,

but this would little book would be perfect!

Happy stitching!

INside Out--Challenge for 2020!

Happy New Year!  Welcome 2020!  I love the sound of 2020--it means each day is a new adventure--a chance to make a difference in my life or someone else--to be kind--encouraging and feel blessed!
And best of all--to learn new skills--e.g. like:

the challenge of knitting inside out!  Say what??  fascinating knitting term--

This is a mystery sock beginning today!! and it's free!

Designed by KnittyMelissa, who has her own Youtube channel

and you can find the pattern on Ravelry

Below is her instructional video Knitting Inside Out

The name is inspired by the Robert Frost poem “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.” These socks would be perfect to wear as you take a moment to stop and watch the woods fill up with snow.

Materials:

• Fingering weight sock yarn – 48 (52, 56, 60) grams main color (MC) and 38 (40, 42, 44) grams contrast color (CC). The charts are written for a darker MC. It is recommended that MC be solid. The CC can be solid, speckled, tonal, or very lightly variegated. There should be good contrast between the yarns and no overlapping colors. Note that yarn usage is dependent on gauge and foot length. For tighter gauge or longer-than-average feet, you may need more of each color.
• One US size 1 (2.25mm) circular needle, 32” or longer
• One US size 1.5 (2.5mm) circular needle, 32” or longer (optional for colorwork)
• Locking/removable stitch markers & tapestry needle

This pattern is written for magic loop but can be adapted to your preferred needle type.

Four Sizes:
Small - 60 sts (Medium - 68 sts, Large - 76 sts, XL – 84 sts)

Gauge:
8 or 9 spi (stitches per inch) in 2-color stranded colorwork

• At 9 spi, the sock will be 6.7” (7.5”, 8.4”, 9.3”) in circumference.
• At 8 spi, the sock will be 7.5” (8.5”, 9.5”, 10.5”) in circumference.

Preparing for 2020

How do you prepare for a new Year?  Make resolutions?  Goals?  Challenges?

Here is my goal for 2020:  to finish at least two (yes 2) UFO's before I begin a new UFO!

My UFO's are known!  Here is another new UFO to begin--I've gathered my reds, pinks and whites
for this fun sew along.

Fort Worth Fabric Studio has a Valentine adventure beginning 

Monday, January 6--and I love the fabric colors

I have a bunch of reds ready for Valentine hanging--they are

UFO's for another project that I didn't manage to do--I'm covering

two goals with one-- :-)

And to begin the twelve days of Knitmas, I'm knitting along with

Nomadic Knits--they had two choices of yarn groups--naughty or nice--

believe me, I have plenty of those yarns.  

Each day for 12 days after Christmas, we receive a clue--

I'm happy to have something else to work with my hands while i

wait for January to begin....