Long Valley Quilters Op Quilt

Sometime during January I made four blocks for the guild's opportunity quilt. The pattern is called Kwanita.

The day we got together to assemble the blocks, we found many of them weren't true to size, but somehow they went together and the sashing helped it all lay flat.

We made ours king-sized, using primarily batiks in graduating colors. Once it's back from the photographer's, I can add a picture of it.

ETA: Here's our version, hanging at the guild's annual outdoor quilt show.

Denim Project Bag

A new knitting project asks for a new project bag. 😃 Inspired by a picture I saw on Pinterest, I wanted to make this denim bag.

A quilt friend had recently given me two pairs of her husband's blue jeans, so that got me jump started. He's a tall drink of water, so there was lots of fabric. I put it together with the leftover denim from my car quilt.

I had an idea of how to make it, but I went along on intuition a good deal of the time. For example, to make the patchwork fabric, I started by laying it out in rows. It quickly became clear that wasn't the way to go. (Photo bomber)

So I searched the Internet for a pattern to determine the amount of patchwork fabric needed, then laid out an approximation.

From there it went pretty well. Except that the base in the original picture led me to make the fabric long enough to box the bottom, and the pattern I was now working with had a curved bottom with darts for shaping. I have several totes with boxed bottoms, so I cut off a good 6 inches of my carefully pieced fabric and went on.

I added a pocket to the inside, so I have a place for my knitting notions kit. It works great. It's coincidence that the bag and the sweater currently-being knitted are both denim. Ha! I don't match my project bags to my projects.

Every Day Cardigan

Inspired by a picture in a vintage knitting magazine, I decided to try and customize the front of a standard cardigan. While I waited for the LYS's annual sale, I swatched using Cascade 220 (not superwash) in a red I had on hand to determine stitch gauge. The sale was in August and I got the long-sought after heather blue. A great shade to wear with denim and just about everything else.

The cardigan waited while I worked on other projects. I cast on in October, starting with the sleeve, because I was curious to see if my stitch gauge would be different while knitting in the round. The fronts and back are going to be knit flat.

Here's the right front. It has a seed stitch button band and a 3x3 cable on a seed stitch ground. The pattern has slight shaping at the waist, which I like. And I'm enjoying the yarn, which is soft and slightly springy.

The pattern I'm using has a V-neckline, so I'll look at Ann Budd's book on customizing sweaters and see if I can figure out how to make it a crew neck. I used to wonder about design as I struggled with basic patterns. It's fun to see how my knitting skills have improved in six years.