It was a long day of quilting, then a long night of sewing down binding, but….

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My scrappy Leader & Ender quilt is complete! (Now called Queen of the Crossroads).

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It’s a big one, at about 90″ square. As you know, we don’t do a lot of huge quilts, but it was so easy to make these blocks, and I had so many scraps, it would have been a shame to make this one small.

Although you can see it’s more or less the same pattern as Mom’s, how we put the blocks together made a bit of a difference. Mine also doesn’t have any fancy quilting like hers… just my usual loops. Still, I think it’s pretty wonderful

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You all know how I feel about diagonal plaid, and I think it was the perfect thing for border and binding. There was one small hiccup though. You may recall that I planned to use a striped fabric for the backing. Well, it turns out I did my math wrong, and didn’t have quite enough for the back. Mom came to the rescue with this beautiful royal purple fabric.

The aqua stripe would have been nice, but I think this one is pretty grand too.

If you’re interested, this royal beauty is available in the shop now!

Just in time for a serious dip in the temperature, I finished my Winters Frost socks.

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They are an “Almost Vanilla” sock with just a touch of pattern down one side. It’s a style I’m coming to love more and more. They fly almost as fast as vanillas, but have just enough pattern to keep them interesting. In this case, it’s a little bit of vine lace, which is just so elegant.

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The yarn is Paton Kroy FX, colour is Seashell colours. It’s much nicer in person, with shades just like Mother of Pearl – pink, purple, grey, blue and cream. Kroy isn’t the softest sock yarn, but it washes up nicely, and wears well. My only complaint is that the yardage on them seems to have gotten lighter. I had enough to finish this pair, but I have small feet (size 7), and the leg is only five inches long. Were I making a longer pair for one of my friends with bigger feet, I probably would have run out. Mom said she’s found the same thing with the last few Kroy pairs she’s made. If she’s making men’s socks, she always buys three balls now.

Still, they are warm, and pretty, and I’m thrilled to have them done – so I can start something new!

As you may recall… I made my brother a nice flannel quilt for his birthday in December. Or at least I thought I made it for my brother. Someone else had other ideas…

That’s my brother’s cat, Zappa. Zappa thinks the quilt was made just for him. Since I was getting ready to mail all the Christmas gifts to the family, I decided I could sneak an extra present in just for Mr. Z.

Burton helped me pick out enough flannel squares from our scrap basket and decide on a layout.

And then I got to work. It didn’t take long to put the top together. And since it was such a simple, small quilt, I decided to quilt it on my machine – just some nice, plain straight lines. Soon enough I had a finished quilt, fit for a kitty…

And… since Mr. Z. isn’t an only cat, and it was so easy to make….

I made one for his sister Pou’Bella, too!

As you can see, they aren’t fancy.

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Each one measures 27′ x 36″. Just the right-size for a cat nap. I used the same flannel on the back for both of them – simply because it was just enough for the pair. The bindings came from my scrap bin, and I don’t think they could have worked out better.

And…. as you can see, they’ve been thorough inspected and approved,

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So I’m sure Mr. Z. and Bella are going to be very pleased.

With the old Leader/Enders done and sewn into a top. I needed a new L&E project. While the last one wasn’t terribly complicated, I decided to go even simpler this time.

Like many of my fellow quilters, I have a pile of random blocks. They are leftover from other projects where I made too many, or changed my mind about things. I call it my orphan block bucket. In there were several 4.5″ HSTs lefover from a couple different quilts.

They are all light/neutral fabrics on one side, and dark, busy fabrics on the other, so I figured they be a good start to an Around the World quilt.

I went through my scrap bins and pull a bunch of lights and a bunch of darks. Each pair will give me two HSTs.

Because they are only 4.5″, I’m going to need a lot to make a good-sized quilt, so it should be a nice, long satisfying L&E project.

Here’s where my other projects are at:

• Into the Mystic (baby owl quilt) – Four more pinwheel flowers to go, and then I have to decide on a border
• Cluckin’ Eh! – Sewing those adorable chicks
• Shave and a Haircut – Sewing strips, making blocks
• Homecoming quilt – First round done -waiting for round 2!
• L&E quilt – As you see above

This week’s prompt for the Round Robin quilt was piano keys – basically, a simple pieced border. I’ll be honest, while I love how they look, I normally avoid pieced borders like the plague, because they involve doing your own quilt math.

Quilt math is harder than regular math, because it involves cut sizes and finished sizes, and it always gets me confused. But my last year with the Blockheads has helped me improve my quilt math, so I was fairly sure I could tackle this if I kept it simple

I planned for 2.5 x 4.5 strips in four different fabrics, laid out in a repeating sequence, and an alternate 4.5 square for each corner. But once I started getting things together, I decided on something else…

While the centre square on each side looks like a solid square, thanks to the busy print…

… but it’s actually two strips. It wasn’t until I had the four fabrics cut and put together that I decided I liked them mirrored better. Had I thought of this at the start, I would have cut a square. But as I didn’t, I wasn’t about to rip out stitches, and waste fabric.

And I’m pretty pleased with the result. My quilt math worked out and it went together with minimal issues.

Burton inspected every seam after it was finished…

And now we anxiously await the next prompt.

The bold….

…and the Beautiful!

As you know, hot on the heels of finishing Paisley’s cardigan, I cast on a hat for her boyfriend. In just a couple evenings, it was finished.

The pattern is Two by Two. A simple ribbed hat. As I said in my last post about it. I was playing yarn chicken… and I think it was a tie. The hat is supposed to have a folded brim. As I was knitting, it was apparent I wasn’t going to have enough to do that, so I started the decreases earlier for a plain beanie style. I can live with that.

It’s a touch large on me (though the ribbing gives it a secure fit) so it should fit Cameron just fine.

I will make the pattern again – it’s a nice, standard man hat. However, I will change the top a bit – this one, as you can see is a bit pointy. It doesn’t matter much when on, but I’d decrease a little differently to get a rounder top.

I used the Cascade 220 Wave that was leftover from Ray’s socks, and you can see the subtle ombre effect the yarn has. I think it gives an otherwise plain hat just the right amount of interest.

Now… January chill has set in, and my feet are cold. Excuse me while I got finish MY socks!

Once they started matching them up, those Leader & Ender blocks went together pretty quick. It wasn’t too long before all 25 were done!

There was nothing left to do but sew them all together. And that didn’t take very long either.

I added a fun plaid border….

And that was that!

I have more of that plaid for binding, and this pretty aqua stripe for the back.

Hopefully I can get it quilted this weekend. It’s a big one (90″ square) so it’s going to be a long quilting day!

Huzzah!!!

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Paisley’s Bogatell hoodie is blocked, ends are sewn in, buttons are on … it’s 100% complete and I couldn’t be happier! I’m not just happy to have it off my plate – other than dealing will all the ends, it was an enjoyable knit!

But, I’m thrilled with how it looks. I love the colours – the mauve and magenta pin stripes add just the right amount of pop. I love the three different shades of grey. I love the little ribbed details, and the hood. I love it all! It’s all Wollmeise Twin so 100% washable.

Other than the size and colour, there are a few small differences from the one I made her sister.

• To save my time and sanity, I didn’t do twisted rib in this one. An unless you are looking VERY closely, you can’t tell.
• You may notice that the mauve and magenta alternate through the stripe sequence. This is actually the way the pattern is written, but I didn’t do it for Rowan’s because my blue stripe didn’t contrast enough with the green main colour. Having it on the outside of the stripe set would make it get lost.
• I added more buttons to Paisley’s. If there’s one thing I’m tempted to do on Rowan’s, it’s rip out the bands, and add more button holes. The pattern only calls for five, but once I got Rowan’s done, I didn’t think it was enough – so Paisley’s got seven.

And speaking of buttons.

Yep. I Hello Kittied Paisley’s too. The colour was right, so I figured why not! If Pee doesn’t like them, I can always change them out for her.

I really want to make one of these for myself… (I have enough HK buttons left too!!!), but maybe not for a little while. I need something new and refreshing!!!

Although I’ve previously said I’m not really fond of mystery quilt-a-longs (or knit ones), and last year’s blockhead journey made me realize I’m not that into sampler quilts.

But, there’s a 28-day Stay at Home order in our province, so it seemed like a good time to join the Stay-At-Home-Round-Robin ChrisKnitsSews shared last week. While the weekly prompts are a mystery, I like the idea that we have full control over what we do with them!

I had this fat quarter pack sitting around, just waiting to become something awesome.

The collection is called Jane Austen at Home, so it seems appropriate for a stay-at-home quilt-along! And there are so many pretty fabrics in here.

So to join in, I needed to make a centre block. While I’m no longer making the Blockhead blocks… a recent one just published seem perfect.

I up-sized it to 16 inches to make a substantial centre and I’m pretty pleased with it.

Burton is too, and we can’t wait for this week’s prompt to add to it!