Futurella Quilt

I know it's been the better part of a year since you last laid eyes on the Futurella quilt -- what can I say? Some projects move slower than others, chez crafty.


I had the top sewn together by the summer, but didn't get around to adding the borders until fall, and then a couple of weeks back, I finally laid it all out and basted and quilted it and put the binding on. Finis.

It is already gone to the recipient, or I would have taken some more close up photos, to show the border fabrics (a deep pink animal print, a matching yellow animal print, and a greyish green hexagon print) and the pretty backing fabric (white with little pink polka dots.) It came together pretty well, and fluffed up nicely after a washing.

I'm not completely satisfied with the way the hexagons are laid out, in the end. I think I could have done some more rearranging to improve it. It's my own fault, for not leaving it up for a few days (or a week) while I was in the planning stages. It's always good to mull it over, rather than just deciding it's done. Or maybe I'm just a perfectionist.

Still Casting On

"I can resist anything except temptation."
Oscar Wilde

The other day, as I was walking to work, I thought of what lovely weather we were (finally) having, and how nice it would be to have a new little project to work on as I walk to and fro in the sun. Once I got home, I grabbed up the two balls of Elann sock yarn I had waiting for just such an occasion. I cast on for my go-to Universal Toe-Up Sock, with my usual 3:1 ratio for a striped sock. As you can see, I really shook things up, this time, by making the darker colour the background, with the lighter colour for toe/heel/cuff/stripes. I know, crazy, right? They are flying off the needles -- the first one is past the halfway point, already -- and then I guess I will pick a slightly more challenging pattern for my next pair of walking socks.


In the meantime, I have made some more progress on the little crocheted hexagons. I haven't even made much of a dent in my sock yarn leftovers, and I already have a couple dozen of these little guys done. Not nearly enough to make a blanket, of course, since each one is only a few inches across, but still, a nice start. They are so squishy and soft and colourful -- makes me so happy to look at that bright little stack!

On Infidelity

Before knitting took over my life, I used to have a lot of hobbies -- I used to read a lot more, and you know, even leave the house from time to time. I also spent a lot of time and money on a lot of different crafts: I embroidered and cross-stitched and made Japanese temari balls and sewed a lot of clothes and tried out paper quilling... You name it, I tried it. One thing that I never really took to was crochet.

It's not that I have an inherent bias against crochet -- okay, yeah, I do. It's not stretchy like knitting, which I find is usually a detriment. There are occasions where the stability would be preferable (if you don't see what I mean, just try to knit a corset) but generally I like my projects to have a little give. That, and I've never really learned it beyond the very basics.

So what happened to me, lately? I seem to have caught a crochet bug this week.


I have been sitting on lots of leftover sock yarn (as I'm sure every sock knitter does) and trying to decide what to do with it. I looked at a lot of little projects and various sock blankets on Ravelry, but for some reason the one that really appealed to me was little crocheted hexagons. Maybe it's the hexagon thing: after all, I am only making thousands of them for a quilt -- what's a few hundred more?

I began with a few from some of the leftover orange and brown yarn from the Fisherman socks.


Then I pulled out some leftover Koigu from my Lindsay socks.

I think I like them. I will continue making them, anyway. They are such a quick little thing (maybe 5 minutes a piece?) that it's easy to squeeze one in, if I don't have time for a repeat or two of knitting.


Then I found a really cute pattern for square shell coasters. Since I was already crocheting the hexagons, why not try this on some leftover hemp yarn I had? It is a little sloppy because of my uneven tension (I finally figured out how to tension the yarn without getting finger cramps -- on the next-to-last round) but I think it's still pretty cute. It's a bit big for a coaster, maybe, at about 5ish inches across, but works well for my big mug of iced coffee, this afternoon. Maybe with a little practice, they will even out enough to use them as gifts for someone, sometime.

Or maybe I'll get distracted right away by some more lovely knitting.

An April Fool

I settled on a layout for the Futurella quilt, and yesterday, I spent an hour or two pinning and labelling the strips in order for sewing. Today I even sewed the first few strips together. Pretty exciting stuff, right?

In the meantime, I have been waiting impatiently for the March shipment from the Rockin' Sock Club. I have been haunting the forums, reading many peoples' comments on how lovely the yarn and patterns are, but nothing. Since we are coming up on a holiday weekend, I will likely not see the package until the middle of next week, since it didn't arrive today. I couldn't wait another moment, so I cast on a different pair of socks.


These ones are designed by Star Athena -- they are the second installment of the Socks for All Seasons club, and are called April Fool's Socks (ravelry). So far they are a basic toe-up stockingette sock, but soon enough they will take a very odd turn, indeed. The yarn, by the way, was a gift from a dear knitterly friend -- it is Araucania Multy in a bunch of perfect colours for me. I love how it doesn't really stripe or pool, but is really random. Love.

Into the Future

Having loosely sorted the Futurella hexagons by colour, I began putting them on the design wall, today. (By "design wall" I mean a piece of fabric that I have crookedly hanging from clothes hangers in my bedroom.) This is a photo of the early stages. I'm not sure if it looks like much at this point -- particularly because the fabric they are attached to is uneven and is even hiding some hexagons in the fold -- but I wanted to keep you posted on the progress, so there you have it. I have all the hexagons up and in place, now, but am mulling it over for another day or two, to decide if I want to move any, before I commit to it and sew them together.

These Boots are Made for Spacewalking

My two weeks off from work are almost over, and a part of me feels like I should have gotten more done. Fear not, the other part of me remembers that a vacation should be relaxing.

I have begun knitting a new lace shawl, which I am loving, but mostly I've been occupying my time with quilts. I've gotten another chunk of hexagons made for the Ingalls quilt, and am in the very early stages of two other quilts -- both machine applique quilts (sharp learning curve on that one, since I've barely done any before.)

What I am most excited about right now, though, is turning this fabric
into yet another One Block Wonder quilt. (As always, click photo to embiggen.)

The fabric is called Futurella, and as you can see, it is covered in pinup girls with a sort of 60s sci-fi twist. My favourite is the one with the bouffant, sitting in the chair. The last time I made one of these quilts with pinup fabric, it worked really well, so I thought I would give it another try. This one will be different, since it has more colour variation, although overall the print isn't any busier than the black and pink one was. With this sort of quilt, one never knows what will come of it, however, until you actually cut it up and sew it.

Today I finished sewing up the hexagon halves. (Those of you who have made this journey with me, before, will remember that the halves aren't sewn together until the final layout of the quilt is determined, so you'll have to forgive me the raw edges down the center of the hexagons, that make them seem asymmetrical.)

These are a few of my favourites -- I love the girl in the bottom left, and the one above it (how perfect is it that one of the motifs in the fabric is actually hexagons?) To see the rest of the hexagons (114 in total!) you'll have to wait a while, until I figure out the layout...

Too Darn Hot

No, that isn't a sock darning pun. There was a serious heat wave here in the last week, and once I finished the alpaca shrug, I could hardly bring myself to pick up any knitting. Not only were my hands too sweaty and lethargic to carry on, but remember my current WIP, albeit cotton, is an aran-weight long-sleeved pullover. Ugh.


So I decided to revisit the Ingalls quilt (scroll down), which has been on the back back burner (sort of like Off Off Broadway) for ages now. Making tiny little fabric-on-paper hexagons is pretty effortless, even in unbearable heat, and little bits of progress on this will eventually add up to something pretty amazing. I've made 150 hexagons in the last few days, and this photo shows my next 450 little two and a half inch squares -- when they are finished, that will bring me to the halfway point on hexagons. It's pretty overwhelming when you think of it in those terms, though. Just keep making one at a time and tossing it on the pile.

Words.

Alas, I don't have a photo for you today, and I know how boring it is to read long posts without photos. I promise to get you a pic of my sweet Hallowe'en costume, asap, to make up for it, okay? Okay.

I have actually reached the one-quarter mark on making little tiny hexagons, which is great. I feel like I'm making some real progress on it. That leaves me with... let's see... just under 2000 to go. Hmm... I think I felt better before I'd calculated that.

I also sat down to start the handquilting on the Wiz quilt. I decided to do it freehand, which is a new experience for me. With the other quilts I've done, I've always followed some element of the design with the quilting (i.e. either outlining hexagons for the One Block Wonder quilts, or following around the berries for the whole cloth quilt.) With this one, I thought I would try some sort of freehand design, something that suggests storms and tornadoes. I have learned a few things from this: someone who doesn't consider herself an artist perhaps shouldn't freehand quilt an image without sketching it on first, somehow. Or at least not do it upside down. Also, I've learned that straight lines are a lot easier to freehand than smooth curves are. Luckily, I have learned long ago not to be a perfectionist.

Making Stuff, Baking Breakfast

My days off-work were once again very productive, but I don't have much to show you for it. I finished my Hallowe'en costume and I think it looks awesome, if I do say so myself. There's one more element that I may or may not add to it. It would make the costume better, but it would mean another trip to the fabric store, and lots more fabric... I still have a few days to decide.

I also made another handful of hexagons -- they are going fairly quickly for now, but once I start another project (and believe me, they're lining up to be next) they'll probably fall into the background again. That's sort of how I intended this project to be: something to putter away on whenever I feel like it. If I pushed myself to finish it in a hurry, I might go crazy with the magnitude, and besides, I like the portability of it at this stage. I can grab some paper hexagons and fabric squares and take them with me. It's a good way to people-watch in the coffee house, while nursing a mochaccino.

I also basted the layers of the Wiz together this afternoon, so once I have room to set up my quilting frame, I will start quilting it.


The only thing I have to show for my days off is this beautiful apple pie. That's crust from scratch, people, with McIntosh apples and demerara sugar inside. Yum. I had some for breakfast this morning. Mmm, nothing like having some healthy fruit for breakfast...

A Very Productive Week

Well, the day after that last post, I got the Wiz quilt top put together. There were a few adjustments I had to make in the final moments -- the pattern has a couple of problems that I won't go into. In the end, it all worked out and looks good. Only took a couple of days, since it's much easier than it looks at first glance. My HLM seems happy with it. (That's him behind the quilt top, holding it up. Doesn't he look happy?) Once I get some batting, I will get this one on the frame and start quilting it. After that's finished, maybe I'll finally get around to quilting the Fresh Squeezed quilt.

I also made a pillowcase the other day, and the pants for my Hallowe'en costume... I spent some time trying to get little projects out of the way and to reorganize my craft space (read: kitchen table and most of the space around it.) I was finding that the disorganization of my many projects was frustrating me to the point that I didn't want to go over there for craftiness. I had to sort through the chaos and discard some things, and organize others. What I really need is a space of my own, a room to set up a table and ironing board with ample shelves and a design wall, etc etc. But then, what crafter doesn't dream of that?

Because I was avoiding my craft space, I had to find some way to be productive and crafty while on my sofa. Normally this would be knitting, but in the last few days I really found my groove with making these:

They are little paper hexagons with fabric sewn onto them. It is a process known as English Paper Piecing, where interlocking shapes are made of paper and used as templates. Basically you just fold a seam allowance around the edge and tack the fabric in place with a simple basting stitch. Then you sew the pieces to each other by hand, one by one, and eventually remove the papers. Of course when I saw this technique, I didn't dream of doing something small, like a wall hanging. Immediately I had to make a full sized quilt. And while I didn't intend to choose hexagons quite this small (about an inch and a half across) somehow I didn't have the sense to choose something larger. I have made 360 of them so far (not all in the last couple of days, mind you -- this has been on my back burner for a while already.) That's like a tenth of what I will ultimately need.

You might say that I'm crazy. Perhaps it's all a plan: in conversation with my HLM the other day, I realized that life in a Mental Hospital is really ideal for me -- the free meals, time to watch tv and do puzzles, and all the crafting I want. Where do I find the men in white coats??