Tuesday, September 29, 2009

iSo iPod case

Just a quickie, the iPod case I made for Kiddo. It is from Debbie Bliss Rialto, and is all (UK) double crochet. The body was done with the yarn doubled, on a 4.5mm crochet hook, and the flap was a single strand with a 4mm crochet hook. According to my Ravelry notes, I started in March: OTOH, I did frog it and restart, because it was too snug.
square of

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Thame show

When last seen, our heroine (that'll be me) was debating whether to go to the new quilt shop in Buckingham the following day.

I didn't - I went to the Thame show instead.

Several members of our knitting group had entered the domestic items competition - here is the display. display of knitting

The shawl at the back won first prize and was made by Sue. Yvonne won second place, with the dark purple tank top at the front. Also made by members of our group was the red hat and the multi-coloured sweater at the back. (Picture is clicky, if you want more details).

I took a number of other photos of various animals, but you've seen pictures of cows and alpaca and sheep before, so just mentally insert them here:

My favourite sight was the queue through a small wood to the entrance:
queuing through the wood

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Red square again

The red square of fabric now looks like this:
square of red fabric

Not a lot different I'll admit, until you compare the positioning of the bias binding today:
square of red fabric

with yesterday (the green lines show yesterday's positions, the black line as it today):
square of red fabric

At the moment, however, not all the binding goes over-under-over. I might leave it like that, I'll decide tomorrow. I am also debating whether to go to Buckingham and see if I can find the new quilt shop there. There is no street address on their website.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

A morning's work

Producing this took me most of the morning:
square of red material

It is far more complex then just a red square of fabric with a few pins in it.

I took two pieces of red material - the same fabric range, but different dyelots. Following the instructions in Ferreting Around, I made one piece into bias tape. Next I searched through my other books for the right celtic knot for what I had in mind, and marked some of the intersections using pins. Then without marking the whole of the knot, I pinned the bias tape onto the material:
square of red material

The knot shape is a bit lopsided and uneven - due no doubt to not marking the material first. Here, I used the Gimp to draw a line following the lines of the pinned bias tape. I'm still thinking how best to alter the shape so it looks more even.
square of red material

Maybe I'll do that tomorrow.

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Festival of Quilts Photos

A small selection somewhat delayed:

I love these two landscape quilts by Jenny Bowker. I'd seen them in pictures, and it was marvellous to see them in real life.
two pictures of Australian landscape

The colour on this quilt was entirely done by embroidery: it was made by Veronika Chambers.th garden of good and evil
I love the bursts of colour in this panel

detail of quilt panel

several quilt panels
A miniature quilt by Kristien van Schalkwyk: the smallest squares had sides of 1/4 inch.
miniature quilt, pattern snail's trail

My own creativity is taken up with my last bit of Latin coursework, and my crafting by the vast numbers of nametapes associated with a new school.

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Home Again!

At last, I'm home!

Yeah, we've come back from our trip to Kendal, near the Lake District.

OK, I didn't tell you about it in advance: posting to the entire internet that the house is empty for a week or two does not seem a wise thing to do. So I go to the other extreme, although I did let the people I met at the Festival of Quilts know. (That is why DH was such a star - he was incredibly supportive of my decision to abandon him with the children when we were supposed to be on holiday.)

It's also why I could only blog by email: we have a mobile broadband dongle, but our settings were incredibly strict parental, which allowed me to log on to my spare email provider, but not blogger's dashboard.

Over the next few posts, I'll put up some more details of the Festival of Quilts (with photos!), pictures of the house where we stayed and details of our walks.