Iron Caddies

This post is being written mid October because that is when I made these Christmas gifts.  It will be posted after the recipients have received them.  

I have made four iron caddies to house my friends and my mini irons for traveling on retreats.  

If you don't know what these are, they are a small "origami-type" carrier that holds your mini irons and upon opening them up, they become a small ironing pad.  

This one was made according to the pattern (only enlarged a bit so that my iron would fit), but I am not really happy with the positioning of the buttons and the elastic loops.

I have changed the positioning on the remainder of the caddies.  

This pink one will match my friend's pink iron.  

This one is in blue because my friend is decorating in blue right now.  

Here the caddy is open to reveal the ironing surface.  

Here's the outside.

This picture shows the matching set.  

They were fun and somewhat easy projects to make for yourself or as gifts.  I sure hope the gals like them.  

 

My Reveal.....finally. (photo heavy)

This quilt top has been done for a very long time......years, in fact.  It was first put on the pile to be quilted by someone else and I wanted it to be custom.  

(found my previous post on the finishing this top here. )

Then I got my own long arm back in 2013, so my excuse then was I have to wait until I felt good enough to do a good custom job on this.

If I were to guess, I would have said that it was from 2012; but one of my blocks proved me wrong and you will see why.  

Anyways, custom always feels daunting, but as I do for my customers, you just have to put the quilt on the frame and take it once chunk (or block) at a time.  Below you will see a blow-by-blow for each block.   I do have to say that I feel very proud of myself.  Is it perfect?, probably not; but I am very happy with it.  

Bead board, feathers and free hand for the borders.

I did take it off the frame at one point to turn it to finish the last two borders.  I know many say you can do your borders at any angle, but I felt more comfortable doing them width wise.  

So, all-in-all, this one was on the frame a total of 7 days.....working a couple blocks a day.

Surprisingly, I found the binding that I cut umpteen years ago and applied it machine and hand stitching.  

All loose threads have been trimmed and now I can call this one finished!

This is my 

Home Sweet Home

 

A Visit to Stonehedge Fiber Mill

Recently,  on a glorious Fall day while it was bright and sunny, we took a road trip.  Sister-in-law, brother-in-law, husband and myself.  

Our goal was to go and visit the Stonehedge Fiber Mill in East Jordan , MI and check out their yarn shop.  

As you can imagine, the guys weren't all that enthused about going to a yarn shop with us, but there were farm animals in the pen as we drove up and we told them to go have a look see while we shopped.  We made it just in time, too.  She had her whole little shop packed up to go the Ann Arbor Fiber Festival  this weekend.  

After we made our purchases....oh yes, there was some buying going on, we went out to check on the guys and they had just started a tour of the mill. 

That was so exciting to see the whole process of them getting the wool, cleaning it, combing it, and what all they do to it before it becomes roving or skeins.  Here are some pictures of what we saw.  

Here you see three layers of wool that has been washed and are drying at this point.  The top layer was all alpaca......oh my!  How soft!!

Here the wool gets combed to get rid of all the sticks and burrs that may be in the wool.

These colorful spools make up the Crazy Yarn that they are so well known for.  We were told that they can manage to make up about 100 skeins a day.  

Here is the roving.  

I believe this is where the yarn is plied.  

Here are some hanks getting ready to be twisted up into our skeins

Here's the little shop on the mill grounds

In the shop was a whole tubs worth of Crazy yarn. 

I purchased a sweaters worth of yarn along with some bases for a hat and mitten pattern.  

This is just some of my haul, but isn't it pretty?

All-in-all, it was a fun afternoon for both us gals and the guys.  Heck, when it comes to machinery, the guys are always interested.  

I would highly suggest visiting this mill and get yourself a tour of their workings 

 Stonehedge Fiber Mill

Sweater Weather

 At least it is almost sweater weather, but I have been knitting to be ready for this time of year.  

I went yarn crazy one day and bought enough yarn for two projects.  This is not a "usual" for me.  I do one project and then start another.  These two were bought at the same time and started at the same time.  

I did have to finish the vest first because I ran out of yarn halfway through the project.  Yikes!  That is something you don't want happening, but between me and the yarn shop, we had trouble figuring out a substitute for the particular Norweigian yarn hat was used on the original pattern.   Oh well, it worked out just fine.

This pattern is called the Weekend Slipover and worked up quickly and  is so warm  using the Blue Sky yarn along with mohair.  

It's off the blocking boards and ready to wear.  

The other project I had going at the same time was my Forestland Sweater. 

I had this sweater done through the colorwork before I had to put it down to finish my sweater vest.  

Once I was back at it, it didn't take long to get the rest of it done.  

It, too, is blocked and ready to wear.  

But the cutest little, happy caterpillar is Lucia.  I made this little sleep sack some time ago for a friend who knew she wanted it for one of her "future" grandchildren.  This little gal is just a few weeks old and the sleep sack was ready and waiting for her.  

Knitting season is not over for me.  There are a couple more projects in the work, but no rush.  I have plenty to keep me warm this winter.  

I give up.....

This is why my quilts keep getting put on the back burner.  

I did someone else's quilt today ; Dianne's Elk quilt.   

My longtime friend requested that I teach her how to quilt, so we have spent a couple of weekends showing her the basics of  putting a quilt together.  

She went to her local quilt shop and picked out all the fabrics with the help of the staff and came to me with the fabrics for the top, the back and the batting.  No pattern, just an idea from something she saw in the quilt shop (size of the blocks, 8 1/2"  and number of blocks).  

She chose the Cha Cha pantograph for me to quilt this one for her.

Dark grey Glide thread on top and medium grey pre-wound Fil-Tec bobbins were used to compliment the quilt.  

I used the medium grey bobbin so that it would show somewhat on the black grunge fabric backing.  

The picture does not show just how black the fabric is, but it really shows up the swirls of Cha Cha really well. 

She has the binding made and all ready to be applied at the next lesson.  I think she is really pleased at how well her first attempt turned out.