First Finish of 2011!

I finally finished my 2010 Wool Club rug!  My project for this week will be to decide on a name.  I stink at naming projects!  "Flowers" just doesn't cut it.

I had a fairly productive holiday weekend.  In addition to putting the finishing touches on the rug, I made a cover for my journal (I've been trying to decide what to do ever since Wool Club!) and started on my first new quilting project for the year.  Although I shouldn't have, I committed to a group project through the Primitive Folk Art Yahoo group.  We are doing a quilt inspired by this book:





















There are eleven quilters participating in the project.  We are each supposed to start the project by making an eagle this month.  We will then make a swap block for another member of the group each month.  I selected the cake basket block as my swap pattern.  Each month I will make and sign a cake basket block and send it to one of the other participants.  We can make as many other blocks as we want to complete our quilt.  This is not a pattern book - we are designing our own projects in the tradition of the Miami Valley qlbums.  I started my eagle this weekend and made fairly decent progress.  I am using the new "Piecrust" primitive muslin designed by Lisa Bongean as my background.  I love the color!  I wish I could say the same about the rest of the fabric I am using... it's all quality stuff, but the repro cottons just don't work as well as batiks when needleturning tiny eagle toes and beaks!

Flower Rug Month 2

I completed two more flowers with this month's Wool Club colors. While I am tempted to do more, I have to remember that there are still 37 colors left to use. This month's colors were Tinkerbox Blue, Wash Bluing, Rustic Roost, and Eggplant. The purple-ish flower near the center is Eggplant with a Rustic Roost center, and the blue flower on the right side of the rug is a combination of the blues.












I need to settle on a name for this one... I'm not very creative when it comes to choosing names. I've come up with "Diversity in Bloom", "Blooming Diversity" and "Wool Club Blooms" so far. Perhaps I should keep trying...

Starting to Thaw

It's finally starting to warm up... I think we may actually see temps above freezing tomorrow! Although we didn't even come close to setting a record, it's been bitterly cold for a long time - I can't remember it being like this in the last 10+ years. It would be a good excuse to stay inside and sew or hook, but unfortunately the 'work' thing gets in the way of that.

Wool club was wonderful - lots of fun, very inspiring, and oh-so-tempting! The wool this month was gorgeous. Nola managed to sell almost everything she dyed. I missed out on a couple of pieces that I would have liked, but maybe that's a sign that I should dye some on my own. I haven't done any dyeing in ages.

I decided that my first pattern would be based on an image from "Pattern Motifs" by Graham McCallum. The design was taken from the Japanese section of the book and adapted to fill in a rectangular rug. I didn't get very far on it, but the idea is to work on this one all year, incorporating wool from each month's session. Here's a peek at what I have so far:













I'm already thinking about ideas for next month. Our theme will be "hit or miss". I started sketching out a pattern today that includes five circles - inspired by the Olympic rings, but variable in size and oriented a bit differently. I haven't completely settled on how I will hook it, but I'm thinking of hooking the circles with the Feb wools and doing the background with a straight line hit or miss.

While at Nola's, I fell in love with her sister's latest pattern, "Bird Party". I decided that it would be a perfect project for Toddhall. I need to give it more thought when I talk to Janice Johnson, the teacher, but I am leaning toward doing each bird a little differently. I'd like to represent the variety of birds at our feeders, although I certainly don't want to commit to trying to recreate red-bellied woodpeckers and black-capped chickadees in an 8-cut!



"Bird Party"
www.nolahooks.com






I'm continuing to make progress on the Illinois postcard rug. I finished all of the sky last night. I have a bit of the suit left, and then have to take a stab at making the face look less distorted. I don't enjoy hooking faces!

On the quilting front, I started on my Applique Affair block assignment, and purchased fabric for the Antique Rose quilt I mentioned in a previous post. I think I need to find a different gold - the one I ended up with is a little dead. I'm anxious to get started, but must finish my AA block first. Of course, I should be working on my Baltimore... So many things I want to do!