Kelly's Kwilts

On the Needles – February 14, 2014

Happy Valentine’s Day!!! We don’t really do much to celebrate, we really just get each other cards. We are going out to dinner tonight with Alex, and I guess we are taking him to Amazone, so he can play with other kids and we can sit and enjoy him having fun.

I have been working VERY hard on the blanket for little girl and I’m happy to say I’m almost halfway done. I just finished the third repeat of the pattern and have 3 to go, plus a half repeat, plus the border. I might decide to make it a little smaller and skip a few of the repeats, I’m not sure yet. We’ll see how big it looks when I get the next repeat completed. I only have 6 weeks until she’s born, and it’s already taken me 6 weeks to get this far! I’m really liking the pattern and it has gotten LOTS easier as I go. I had a problem last week where I was missing a stitch and had done 2 rows, thank goodness I only had to take out 1 row and a little bit of the second row to pick up the dropped stitch. Unfortunately I didn’t see where the dropped stitch was until after I got that first row out. I’m still working on getting my stitches to be uniform in tightness, but it’s really difficult for me.

I still haven’t worked on any quilting in the last few weeks, I’ve just been too busy trying to get this done. I really miss my hexagons and I have a new design I want to do with either 1/2″ or 3/4″ hexies – the pattern calls for 1/2″, but that might be too small for me I need to do some testing first!

Gotta run, time for lunch and get Alex to bed for his nap, or we’ll never be able to go out tonight!

Linking up with Patchwork Times.

On the Needles – January 24, 2014

I totally forgot to post last week!! I haven’t done ANY quilting lately, I’ve been devoting all of my free time to working on the blanket for the baby. I’m making lots of progress, I can get a row done in about 20 minutes now instead of 30. I’ve had some issues along the way with doing wrong stitches and then not being able to work backwards to take them out. I have an entire row that should have been taken out, but the stitches were SO tight that I just decided to leave them in. It was a lot less stressful for me! I’m ok with some flaws in the blanket, I’d rather it be done than be 100% perfect and it’s still something special that I’m making for my baby girl! I added a second skein of yarn the other day, that was WAY easier than I thought it would be. I found this on YouTube and it was quite easy AND you cannot see the knot in the knitting. Since I ran out in the middle of the row, I thought this would be the best way to join the new yarn in. I know there’s a lot more ways to do it, but this was the best for me at this time. I’m proud of how much I’ve finished considering I’ve only been working on it for 3 weeks! I know I’m not going to be doing the whole pattern, this 2nd skein might be enough to make it big enough, we’ll see as I get more repeats completed.

I was at Walmart this week and saw some real cute Caron yarns. I couldn’t help myself and bought them. Have no idea what to do with them, but I bought them! Each of them were under $5 so it’s not like I broke the bank for them!

Linking up with Patchwork Times.

On the Needles – January 10, 2014

2014-01-10 22.52.49 — 26 rows completed!

2014-01-10 22.53.17 — Detail shot – excuse the shadow!!

I am very happy with what I have accomplished on my daughter’s blanket so far. I messed up in a few places on the border, but because I know it would take me forever to get back to where I’m at if I took it all out and started over, I’m leaving it where it’s at. It doesn’t bother me too much, and I’m pretty sure that if I didn’t say anything no one would notice. Well, unless you are a knitter! 🙂 I’m still trying to figure out the best way to keep track of where I’m at on the pattern, I’ve been keeping a paper copy of the pattern on my lap and my iPhone next to it with StitchMinder running to keep track of the repeats in the row and the number of rows I have completed. I’m thinking of installing it on my iPad Mini and see if that helps any. Also, I downloaded an app called KnitCompanion to the iPad, but from what I can tell if I want the row counters, etc to work I need to pay for the full version. Looked like that was on the expensive side, so I’ll have to see if I can find another app or just install StitchMinder on the iPad Mini and keep using the paper pattern. I’m going to keep working on this as much as I can, just because I have a deadline! I really want this done so baby girl can use it on the way home like Alex used his blankie from mommy on the way home.

Linking up with Patchwork Times

On the Needles – January 10, 2014

Linking up with Patchwork Times

On the Needles – January 3rd, 2014

I know I mentioned a couple of months ago that I was beta testing EQ for the Mac. They released a blog post today with more details on the final release. Can I just say that I can’t wait???? 🙂

Anyway, on my needles today I’m happy to say is my first knitting project. I’m making this blanket that is a free download on Ravelry for my coming daughter. I cast on last night and started working on the first row, but didn’t realize what time it was and wasn’t able to finish working on it. I have until mid-March – here’s hoping it’s enough time for a newbie knitter to finish a blanket!

Linking up with Patchworktimes

Almost a finish!

I didn’t have time yesterday to start quilting this, but I did get it all pinned up before we left to go to my mom and dad’s for dinner. I did manage to get it all quilted this afternoon, just simple straight line quilting. I first posted about this on December 23rd, and I will be putting the binding on it tomorrow. At least on the front, I almost always hand stitch bindings to the back, mainly because I like the relaxing hand work.

I did a few more rows on my test piece and now I’m seeing the pattern I should see. The group was right, I was doing just fine – I’m good at second guessing myself! So I unraveled the whole thing and put the yarn away, I think I’m ready to start casting on for the baby’s blanket. I have to cast on 235 stitches, that might be all I get done tonight! Hopefully I’ll be posting soon with another finish!

Goodbye 2013!

I’m sitting on the couch relaxing, or should I say recuperating from my glucose test today. Man did I have a sugar crash!!! Yet another thing I have to worry about being pregnant! So far everything is going well, baby feels like she turned, she is now kicking me much higher! Hope to hear by the end of the week if I passed the test or if I need to do the 3 hour test. Here’s hoping I passed!

I’m listening to Alex and the hubby playing upstairs with trains and airplanes. How I love hearing Alex squeal with laughter while he plays with his daddy! He’s been calling me mommy a lot lately, not sure why it changed from mama, but how I love hearing it!

On to the crafting side! I finished the thousand pyramid top the other day, I was hoping to find batting and backing and get it sandwiched before the end of the year. Obviously that didn’t happen! The boys might be going out to play in the snow tomorrow morning, maybe I can get that done and out of the way. I’m planning on just doing straight line quilting, it is going to be used in the car as a lap quilt for Alex. He has one in my car now, but that will move to daddy’s truck and the new one will be used in my car. He’s been asking for a blankie in the car since it’s been so cold lately!

So I mentioned last week that I am teaching myself to knit so I can make a blanket for baby. I’ve been practicing with some of the stitches I know I’ll need to use in the blanket and didn’t think I was doing it right. I found a group on Facebook that sounded good and they all say that it looks fine I just need to keep going. So I will practice a bit longer before I actually start working on the blanket. Alex and I stopped at Joann’s and I got 4 skeins of yarn to make her blanket. I found this on Ravelry and loved it. It seems to be pretty easy, we’ll see just how easy it is!

I got an Amazon gift card for Xmas from my BIL and decided to buy a yarn winder. I had started crocheting an afghan awhile back and decided to change to a different pattern. I never unraveled it because I hate winding yarn by hand! Didn’t take too long this afternoon to unravel that sucker and get it into a nice yarn ball. I also had a small piece left from a skein and some sock yarn that I had been experimenting with on a loom that needed to be fixed up. All taken care of in no time!

I hope everyone has a fun and safe New Year’s Eve, we are staying home as usual and I can’t drink so have one for me! 🙂

Boxing Day sewing!

Wow what a Christmas! Had a wonderful holiday with family and was very happy that Alex loved his gift from Santa and mommy and daddy. He has spent most of the last 2 days playing with his new train table. I will do another post later with details on presents made and received, but I wanted to mention that hubby got me the learn to knit kit that I asked for. I have spent part of my day today learning how to knit and purl in order to be able to start working on a blanket for the baby. I relearned to crochet and made a blanket before Alex was born, so now it’s time to learn to knit and make one for little girl. 🙂

I had some time this afternoon to participate in some BDSI (Boxing Day Sew In) sewing. I finished putting the center of my pyramid top together and just need to even off the sides and add a border. I’m thinking about using a solid black border so as to not draw anything away from the awesome colors of the center. I ended up with only 2 of the 100 squares not being used from the charm pack. I should be able to finish the top tomorrow, as long as Alex takes a nap!

Going to log off for now, need to practice working on my purl stitch!!

Design Wall Monday – December 23

I did it! I finally got the 2 borders on scrappy 9-patch! Glad to have another quilt off my in process list, especially since Good Night Irene SAL starts in just over a week! Of course I sat the other day and cut out pieces from a charm pack to make a thousand pyramid quilt. I had bought this 100 piece charm pack during a guild meeting when a vendor had come for our program. It’s a Benartex sampler of Fossil Fern (link is NOT where I bought it just the first link I found, but that is a GOOD price!) – which I LOVE! I had been planning to make a thousand pyramid quilt for awhile, so I bought the equilateral triangle to use on my studio, but it is a Go die. I think I can make this big enough to use as a lap quilt, we’ll see how long it takes to put this together. We are heading back to the MIL’s tonight, so I can’t work the rest of the day on this, BUT I can get some done before we have to get ready to leave. Plus I have most of the day tomorrow, the only thing I need to do for Christmas is make the ribbon jello!

I was just designing my thousand pyramid quilt in EQ in order to decide how many rows to make and how many pieces in each row and I have to say that I don’t like how they determine the counts for each row. For example, looking at the triangles, it counts them by one of the patches, not the top and bottom of the row. This gives you a skewed count of the number of patches needed to complete the row. So using the example to the right, it’s set for 2 horizontal and 2 vertical – yet really uses 3 triangles per row (not including those half patches at the end of rows). I’d rather it count and tell me exactly how many full patches I need to complete the row, instead of needing to count them up and make sure I have the number of pieces I need. *sigh* Maybe some day they’ll fix the way these work.

Better get working before Alex gets up from his nap and we need to head out!

Linking up to patchworktimes – Design Wall Monday.

Hexagon Diamonds Update

I think I mentioned recently that I was going to try and work to finish my hexie diamonds quilt top so I can get it quilted to use next year camping. Well, I just finished another row and I only have 2 rows and black fill-in hexies to go! I really do love how it looks, but I might need to put a black border on it to finish the edges off before binding. I’ll have to think about this a little more.

We’ve been pretty busy lately getting ready for the holiday and having fun with the extended family. My brother-in-law and his kids came up for the holiday, so the last 3 days have been spent at the MIL’s with them. It’s been really nice seeing Alex play with his cousins again. He doesn’t want them to leave, and I wish they lived closer too!!!!

Oh well, off the computer and headed to work on my crochet. I’ve asked for a how-to knitting kit for Xmas and I’m pretty sure the hubby got it for me. I’ve always wanted to learn to knit, and now seems the right time. Besides I retaught myself how to crochet before Alex was born so I could make him a blanket. Now I can teach myself how to knit and make baby girl a blanket!