Quilt in waiting

I've finally finished laying out the Sparkle Punch Quilt.

Took about 3 hours all in all and it's lucky we have a large living room.

The next step was to break it down into manageable sections for sewing up.

Plenty of photos were taken during the bagging up process so hopefully it should all go together the right way.

There is likely to be little sewing going on at my house for a few weeks due to a break out of social events, but as soon as I can I will get back to this quilt.

Snowy Sunday

Even though it was freezing cold and gently snowing last night I hadn't expected to wake up to this ...

Luckily we hadn't got any outdoor activities planned for the day (although some serious pruning and a little planting is on the list of garden jobs) so snow didn't stop play.

In fact it seemed to make us more productive. As well as helping to strip most of the wallpaper in the dining room I also managed to start the layout for the Sparkle Punch Quilt.

I managed to get a little more done by the end of the day but it does take a surprisingly long time and it's amazingly easy to put a square in the wrong way round. I am loving the way it's coming together though, I may even get chance to sew some of it together this week.

The end is in sight!

At least the end of the prep work is in sight.  I have less than 20 sets of squares (five per set but who's really counting) to press and square up (and a few to unpick a little and re-sew but let's brush over that) and then I can figure out the lay out and start sewing the squares together (all 480 ish of them).

I wouldn't say the end is particularly near but at least it's in sight and there's a chance that this quilt will be finished this year!

Read Between the Lines - Week 4

This feels like it's becoming a yarn centric blog; I am still working on the Sparkle Punch Quilt but it's at the trimming and pressing stage so not particularly photogenic!

I'm continuing with the RBTL shawl as it gets wider it grows more slowly.

I was also starting to doubt any colour change was happening but I saw a tip on the make-a-long Facebook page to fold the bottom up to the top...

And hopefully you can see a very subtle change.

New skill - New year aims

I haven't even finished the RBTL yet but I'm making plans to make the crochet version (CBTL). The first step in those plans is to learn how to crochet (luckily that was already one of my aims for the year). In actuality, the first step has been choosing which colour combination to use for another shawl, which I think I've nearly done.

It's not likely that I'll be finishing the RBTL any time soon but I'm not sure how long it'll take me to get good enough at crochet to want to own a shawl I've crocheted so I've started learning now.

With a combination of a nice, clear DK crochet book, YouTube videos and hints from my sister I managed a crochet chain.

It was then suggested, before I tried anything more complex, that starting with sock wool may not be my best move. So some acrylic yarn and larger hooks were purchased and I've continued practising...

...and continued practising...

The increases are intentional

I think I now understand all the stitches I need to make the shawl I just need to continue practising and try using finer yarn.  So far so good and it's quite enjoyable (until the fiddly final stitch), fingers crossed it's still enjoyable when I start a large shawl!