The dye pot had a good workout on Saturday night.  This is the fabric for Tongue and Groove  (at last lol).  The blue is a mix of aquamarine and indigo.  The fabric for the red was a bit of a surprise.  I thought it was plain.  Need to check that from now on.  The color I used was scarlet.  I know scarlet can have an orange tinge, which this fabric has, but it always seems weird.  lol

The blue dye wasn't exhausted, so I threw in a piece for Cutting.  It looks good with the flowers and pot.  A dig through the stash is needed for a green with more contrast.

Threw some 14 count aida scraps (plain and lurex) and indigo into the scarlet pot  after taking out the fabric for Groove and Tongue.  These purples are the result.

Also tea dyed some white 14 count aida, as I've almost run out, including scraps i use for ornaments.  I need some for the Winter Olympics SAL new starts, too.

I've been thoroughly enjoying stitching Love Grows by Melissa.  It's stitched on the back of a scrap of 28 count Vintage Cashel by Zweigart.  The flosses are Paeony by Cottage Garden Threads and DMC 421.

The center of the flower for Cutting.

The back of it.

The outside.

The back of it.  I'm tickled pink with them.  I tried pinning, glueing and using small clips on the ricrac, but found it was easy to sew slowly and position the ricrac as I sewed.

Back to knitting the second vanilla sock.  If I keep going on the moss stitch scarf, I'll have no car knitting.  That just won't do!  lol

Cutting is one of those projects that sits for a while and ferments.  I couldn't put my finger on it.....

......until I pulled out Kim Delhi's Whatnots 2 book to figure out how I'll dye the fabric for Tongue and Groove.  A black background will be perfect for the saturated colors that are in Cutting.  I'm leaning towards a solid black.

BEB says I should stop dithering and over thinking.  She says just dye the fabric for Tongue and Groove, then make a test block.  I think she may be right.

 

Progress on Cutting.  Used Sarah Fielke's foil method for the yellow circle. Here's the YouTube link.  I'll be making another one, as I didn't notice the motif wasn't centered until after I made it.  It will bug me if I don't now I've seen it.  

Used the starch method for the leaves.  Now to see what it's like when I sew it down.  It's the first time I've done it.  

The red circle was nothing fancy.  Just drew around a dinner plate and cut it out.

  When I iron cotton clothing, I spray the garment with water, then throw it in the freezer for a few minutes.  It helps get the wrinkles out.  Last night was the first time I'd tried it on quilting cotton It worked!  The stubborn creases came out easily.  I'm sure it will work with fabric for cross stitch, too.

Cast on the Venezia Shawl by Joji Locateli.  BEB says it's a SCARF, because it's wrapped around the neck.

This is my start.  The yarn is Bullfrog by Miss Babs.  It's fingering weight, 75% superwash merino, 15% nylon, 10% tender.  In other words....sock yarn.  I started knitting a sock with it ages ago, but didn't like the feel of the fabric.  It sat patiently in stash waiting to meet it's destiny as a scarf.  I'll change to the decreases just before halfway through the ball.  The pattern calls for 400g of yarn.  The yarn I have is 500g.  I'd rather have a longer scarf than 100g leftover yarn.

This is the last of the yarn and patterns that are matched up.  Before matching any more, I need to empty some knitting bags.  I cast on projects as I fancy, so long as there's an empty bag.  If there aren't any spare bags, I usually just make one.  I'm not in the mood for bag making just now, therefore things need to be finished.

 

A bit of scarf knitting under my favorite lap quilt.  (William Morris fabrics)  The yarn is all the Noro Silk Garden scraps caked up together.  It's in moss stitch, which is my go to mindless textured stitch.

 

A pic of my practice block  (Rainbow Scrap Challenge) made into a pillow on a patch of ice outside the carport is as close as I'm going to get to pics of Be Kind To All in the snow.  It will do!  Haha!

There's a few tweaks to make, so I can get the blocks as I want them.  I'll post pics when I do it, rather than explain it here.  

Echo quilting and I are not on speaking terms right now.  The first lot made the center bulge.  The second made it look like badly overstuffed trapunto.

I found a quilting pattern in this book that will work.  It's going away for now.  I'll get back to it soon, when I've stopped being cranky with it.

The winter Chookshed pattern isn't calling to me just now.  I'm trying to decide between this one -

and one of these.  I'll keep you posted.

I've started digging into the hunks and chunks scrap bags for the January blocks 2022 Rainbow Scrap Challenge over at So Scrappy (superscrappy.blogspot.com)   

 The little birds from Chirp Crossing by Jen Daly from the July/August 2019 Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting.  The blocks are

 3 1/2 inches square with the seam allowance.  I'd originally thought about making three blocks of each color, but I think four will give me more wiggle room when it's time for the layout.  The beaks will be made from scraps of orange and yellow.  The legs will be dark neutral scraps.  Same for the green.  There's not many neutral scraps for the background, so I'll probably cut into a variety of yardage.  Which will (of course) lead to feeding the neutral scrap bag.  

It snowed last night.  It looks very pretty, but it's laying on ice, so that makes today an official Sew Day. I was up early this morning, sewing strings and hand quilting Crescent Angel.  The batting and backing for that are scraps, too.

 

I've been stuck on the color combo for the wedges on Sprout.   

I cut windows of all the wedge sizes and auditioned all the fabrics.  So, I've decided to use the red fabric for the outside of the flower and the other for the pot.  It will probably be echo quilted to the binding.

Grey said the magic words before we went to the Big Smoke on Wednesday....."why don't you get all the colors you don't have?"  So I did.  Plus three perle cotton for big stitch hand quilting .

I dug out Craft Queen by Janlyn the other day.  It's from deep stash.  It came as a kit with DMC and 14 count Zweigart.

All the colors were on the card already.  I just wrote the DMC numbers on the card, as that's what is on the pattern.

I looped the floss through the holes so I can pull a single thread.  Hopefully that will stop them becoming a tangled mess.  It's the first time I've used this system.  It's not my favorite.  I'm a hard core bobbinator!  lol

Finished the blanket stitch on Crescent Angel.  If I do this again, I'll put fray stop on the edges.  That will hopefully stop getting wobbly edges like on parts of this one.  

Hand quilting is next!  I'm taking a leaf out of The Left Handed Quilter's (link in the blogroll) book and making the binding before I need it.  There should be enough dyed fabric left to do it.  Hope so, as I didn't write down the recipe for the dye.

I'm looking forward to the hand quilting.  Snowmageden turned into Icemageden in the early hours of Monday morning and we're in for some more ice and maybe snow tonight.  So, that is perfect quilting weather!  It's also the reason why there's no Be Kind To All in the snow pics.  The yard is icy and I'm not  taking the chance that I'll become airborne!  The crash landing is the problem. 😉

 

Finished the biscornu yesterday afternoon.

They're a bit fiddly to put together, but worth it.

One of the things I like about making them is they work with any square pattern.  

 Laugh of the day -

Grandma: "in my day, we knit a pair of socks a day."

Me: "Grandma, in your day, soda had cocaine in it."

This is how far I got before realizing the stems on two branches were missing and the stem on another was missing a stitch.  Now I have to figure out which green it was.  

 Quote of the day:  I'm not messy.  I'm marking my territory with crafting supplies.

Bailey thought my yarn made an excellent pillow on Saturday night when he stuck his head out from under my favorite lap quilt.

More knitting yesterday during Snowmageden.  I thought it would be a good idea to work on the blue jumper, since I'd like to wear it while it fits.  It's ready to join the sleeves to the body.

Plus, some progress on putting the biscornu together.

 

Another 2 pounds are gone. 26 to go.  There's a daily bribe of working on the string quilt after exercising.  It's a win/win!

 

I've been running the iron (with steam) up the strips for the string quilt.  I thought for an insane nanosecond about pressing them, came out in a cold sweat at the thought of how long it would take and decided against it.  They're pressed when flipping sewn strings, plus starched and pressed when the block is cut out.

Finally decided on herringbone stitch for the underneath of the robin biscornu.  It should be finished sometime next week.  

I added the Accuweather app to my phone earlier this week.  I've been calling it the Acuquilter... and I don't own one. You can tell where my mind is at!  lol

 

Sunday's forecast is for a winter storm, between 4 and 8 inches.  That's better than the previous forecast, which would have been up to 20 inches...that would have felt like snowmageden. lol  A snow day is a sew day, so, if it happens, I'll be making Cuttings by Sarah Fielke and Amy Lobsiger from the book Little Quilts.

It was started recently and this was as far I got with it.  The leaves will be hand appliqued and the rest is machine sewn.  It's only 20 x 27 inches, so fits right in with my current small/mini quilt obsession. 😁

I thought briefly about machine quilting it in the ditch around the flower and pot.  Seems I'm also obsessed with hand quilting these small quilts, too.

 

 

Pretend this is hanging on the wall, not laying on the kitchen bench.  😉

Binding the quilt is underway.

Stitching the back down is my favorite part of making a small quilt.  Fingers crossed it'll be finished sometime this weekend.

 

 

This is the thread I used for quilting Bee Kind To All.  I wanted it to be subtle, but not cream or beige.

All the info.  I like how the thread feels as it goes through the quilt.

I  think the name of this fabric has Flutterby in it.  Anyway, I had a meter of every color when it came out.  Plus a fee meters each of neutrals.  Every time I think it's all gone, a few more pieces pop up.  There's enough for the Be Kind To All and a bit leftover for the string quilt.  It's one of my favorite non-Civil War reproduction/William Morris fabric lines.  There's still some in the dark neutral box, which I'm happy about.

The quilting that needed frogging is done.  So, it's just the binding to go.  If I don't get distracted by any Squirrels it will be a finish in the next couple of days.  😁

With this many scrap strings pressed and sitting next to the sewing machine.....

All these little scrappy bits and pieces pressed and bagged up, I think it's safe to say the Mile A Minute quilt is the first official Squirrel of the year.

 

More strings.  Pin, sew, press, repeat.  Having a lot of fun with these.  There was less than an inch of snow yesterday, so I had to get in quick for a snowman, sew day.  lol

Thought I could live with the wrinkle at the top.  I can't.  There's no way of fudging it.  Glad I decided before the binding went on!

Can't decide between the top right Winter Welcome and....

.....Old Boiler for the next mini.  I took Bailey out this morning at 5.30am and it was clear with a hard frost.  It was cloudless, with a clear sky and a bright moon.  Everything was sparkling. So, I'm leaning towards Winter Welcome with clear beads for a bit of sparkle.  Closely followed by Old Boiler.