Free Motion Mavericks - Week 231 - The Bare Bones of a Landscape

Funny how the prospect of stitching a few lines has had me frozen in panic for weeks.  It is because this stage calls for precision, and that's not my forte.  Today I gave myself a very stern talking to and finally got this far, to a point where I can get cracking with filling in with colour and building up the picture.  I shall be going away for a few days next week, and have decided that I shall launch into some serious sewing when I come back.  Until then, I shall stick to knitting, which, by comparison, is falling off a log

Here goes for week 231:-

Many thanks to Gail for linking up last time with her Pearl Harbor quilt.  If you haven't seen her blog post yet, nip over now and see more.

If you have no free motion quilting to show, feel free to link up and show any project you like.  Here are the usual rules, but feel free to ignore them.  To keep the original emphasis, however, preference will be given to free motion quilting when featuring projects from the previous week.

If you love free motion quilting, whether you are a beginner just taking the plunge, or you have reached the stage where you can do ostrich feathers with your eyes shut and still achieve perfect symmetry, then please link up.

Remember, FMQ is FMQ, whether your machine was made last week, or it is older than your granny.

Here are the very easy and slightly elastic rules:-

1.  Link up with any recent post, ideally from the last week but within the last month, which features a free motion quilting project, whether it is a work in progress or a finish.

2.  Link back to this post in your own post.

  
3.  Visit as many of the other participants as possible and say hello in the comments box.

4.  The link up will remain open for four days, from midnight to midnight GMT for the long weekend, Friday to Monday.

So far quilters from the USA, England, Wales, Australia, Canada, Germany, Holland, New Zealand, France, Macau, Russia, Ireland and Brazil have taken part.  The first participant from each new country will get a special mention the following week.

A Picture for Sunday - Singing Robin

You may recognise my little friend from a couple of weeks ago.  I managed to get this photo of him in full trill one evening from no more than about five feet away.  It wasn't until enlarging this photo on the computer screen once I was home that I realised how sharp robins' beaks are.  All the better for cracking through earwigs' outer shells.

I think his name might have to be Bob.  Bob the Robin doesn't sound too bad.  Thank you to everyone who made suggestions.  My husband has a favourite robin too, who sings in the tree above his shed.  My robin is Bob and his is Fred.

Slipping Stitches for Neat Edges

All keen knitters have their preferred way of sewing up the seams.  This is the method I shall be recommending in the pattern I shall be posting soon.

Fisherman's rib, because it gives a slightly compressed effect, needing more rows per inch than stocking stitch, calls for slipped stitches at the beginning of each row. 

The little cardigans I have been making have all involved playing with colour, alternating two-row stripes, so these instructions include showing how to change yarn from one colour to the other.

In brief, the last stitch of every row is a knit stitch, and the first stitch of every row is slipped knitwise.

This is the back of the work, and the row where I change colour, in this case from orange to green.

First, insert the needle as if to knit the first stitch.

However, the stitch isn't worked, it is just slipped onto the right hand needle.

The orange yarn is taken round to the back of the stitch, and brought round to the front between the needles, and held in place to the left.  

Then the green yarn is picked up to work the next stitch, which is a purl...

… and the rest of the row is worked in green.  This is a knit one, purl one row, with the last stitch being a knit.

On the next  row, slip the first stitch, and keep the yarn at the back of the work ready to knit the next stitch.

This row is the row where the purl stitches are slipped and the yarn carried over the needle.  The last two stitches of the row are both knit stitches.

This is the edge of the work, seen from the back.  Just inside the edge you can see the two-colour rope effect where the yarns are overlapped (as in the third picture) when changing colour.  Also, the actual edge is consistent with the compressed tension of the fisherman's rib, making it easy to sew the seams and pick up stitches for the button band.  


xxx

Started At Last!

Really not much to look at, just a few lines, but it's a start!

Although they are running from top to bottom, the direction in which I stitched them, on the finished picture they will be horizontal, just above the centre.  I have hand stitched the central vertical and horizontal lines in very pale yellow thread so that I can plot where I need to stitch from the tracing I prepared last week.  The idea is that once I have stitched over them, the hand sewn guidelines will be invisible.  The trouble is that the cotton is such a close match to the fabric that they are pretty well invisible already.

A ridiculous amount of time and agonising has gone into starting this landscape.  Let's hope I soon get into my stride.

Free Motion Mavericks this week is at Andrée's blog Quilting and Learning and I'm linking up!

Toddler Grandad Cardigan

Putting brown and green granddaddy colours together for a baby boy's cardigan has been very entertaining.  One minute you might be thinking the whole effect will be post-war drabness, the next minute you are in fits of giggles imagining a toddler at an agricultural show getting excited at seeing the lambs.  It is definitely the country boy look.

After making the pink V necked cardigan and getting into a slight mess by misplacing the shaping for the neck, this time I decided not to wing it, and plan in advance.   

All went according to plan, and the shaping worked so that I ran out of stitches on the two front pieces when the neck was the right width.

On the back I needed to carry on the raglan shaping through the neck band until casting off.

Old fashioned buttons complete the look.

Now I am ready for either a boy or a girl, with the next baby in the family due next week!

Also, I am well on the way to writing up my first knitting pattern for babies' cardigans, in three sizes, with options for round or V necks.  I just have to finish knitting all six cardies first.

Free Motion Mavericks - Week 229 - Back to the Drawing Board

Not the easiest start to a project I have ever had...

I thought I was about to get started, and then I stalled.  Somehow I wasn't really getting to grips with this landscape, and couldn't fully work out why.  Then last week I was watching TV and stumbled across an art challenge for celebrities.  I got hooked.  If the celebrity wasn't 55 or over I didn't know who they were, but I'm a sucker for competitions and programmes about art, so I had to watch.  Seeing how they had to overcome problems of composition and technique got me thinking.  What really clinched it was when the three competitors who were left were told by the judges that none of them had really grasped the task in hand, and they should all start again.

So I have started again.  I have not changed my mind as to which photo I am using, I have just totally rethought it.  This meant recropping the image, changing the focus of the composition.  I enlarged the photo on the computer screen, and then traced the outlines of the main areas onto greaseproof paper.  This came out at 10 x 10 inches, whereas the finished landscape has to be 12 x 12 inches.  I am enlarging the outline by eye onto another sheet of paper, and I will use the larger sheet as a guide once I actually start the machine stitching.

Why has this one been so difficult to start?  Probably because it has no obvious starting point.  All my early experiments, and my last landscape, started with the horizon, and I worked from there, gradually filling up the fabric from above and below until I had the picture.  This meant that the fabric didn't end up puckering, because I was systematically working away from a definite line.  This picture, however, hasn't got a convenient horizon that runs across its whole width.  Preparing the tracings has helped with visualising how to stitch it, where to start, and how the avoid the dreaded puckering.

Meanwhile, the weather and colours outside have been exactly the same as in the photo.  I really need to get started.  As I have been saying for several weeks (or months?) now... 

Here goes for week 229:-

Because I am a day late posting this linky, it will stay open until midnight on Tuesday.

Many thanks to Sue for showing us Becky's beautiful quilt on week 227 of the linky.  If you haven't seen her blog post yet, nip over now and see more.

If you have no free motion quilting to show, feel free to link up and show any project you like.  Here are the usual rules, but feel free to ignore them.  To keep the original emphasis, however, preference will be given to free motion quilting when featuring projects from the previous week.

If you love free motion quilting, whether you are a beginner just taking the plunge, or you have reached the stage where you can do ostrich feathers with your eyes shut and still achieve perfect symmetry, then please link up.

Remember, FMQ is FMQ, whether your machine was made last week, or it is older than your granny.

Here are the very easy and slightly elastic rules:-

1.  Link up with any recent post, ideally from the last week but within the last month, which features a free motion quilting project, whether it is a work in progress or a finish.

2.  Link back to this post in your own post.

  
3.  Visit as many of the other participants as possible and say hello in the comments box.

4.  The link up will remain open for four days, from midnight to midnight GMT for the long weekend, Friday to Monday.

So far quilters from the USA, England, Wales, Australia, Canada, Germany, Holland, New Zealand, France, Macau, Russia, Ireland and Brazil have taken part.  The first participant from each new country will get a special mention the following week.

A Picture for Sunday on Monday - The Gardener's Friend

If you ever fancy an earwig for tea, my little friend will find one for you.

This is the boldest little robin I have ever known.  He will come within inches of my feet, looking for all the interesting snacks I turn up.  Worms are standard, which he will chop into short lengths for the hatchlings before flying back to the nest.  Fat caterpillars are always appreciated, but the gift he pounced upon with lightning speed was the huge cockchafer grub I dug up for him.  

He will happily chirp while he is eating, and break into full song perched just a few feet from me.  I like to think it his way of showing appreciation.  I know it is all cupboard love on his part, but I'm totally besotted.

I haven't given him a name yet.  Any suggestions?