Bits and Pieces

Now that I have finished the WW1 Memorial Quilt – I seem to be in a reflective mood.  Over the last fortnight I have been trying to finish a jumper that I started earlier in the year.  It is in Noro Shinryoku Colour 2.  It is a mixture of 70% wool and 30% silk.  It is like thick aran or thin chunky.

In order to try to keep the sleeves a similar colour.  I knitted them at the same time.  This does work but means that they seem to take ages to knit.  I used a very simple pattern that I have used before for Noro yarn.  I let the yarn do the talking.

For several months now I have been knitting one thing while thinking about what to knit for my next piece of the quilt – and this week I caught myself doing it – even though it is finished.  The jumper is finished as well now and I can move on to something else.  

On Tuesday I took the quilt to Oxford and left it in the Oxford Yarn Store.  The owner, Karen is going to take charge of it’s promotion.  If it was left to me – you are the only people who would know about it.   Now it is finished I do feel drained.  I had realised that it had affected me so much.

Now I am starting to feel a bit more relaxed and  I am watching the football, tennis or listening to the cricket and have started knitting a sample throw for OYS.  I will try to take a photo of it before I hand it over.  

Otherwise I have been thinking about how many other unfinished items are lurking in bags.  I know that at least 2 of them are very nearly finished.  Why don’t I just get them out and finish them?  Perhaps I will this summer. 

WW1 Memorial Quilt – Finished Version

I spent more than a week finishing this quilt. I decided to pick up a dark brown edge on each piece and so each piece has a border around it rather than being directly joined to the next piece.  I had thought of just doing mattress stitch joins but because the pieces are not all the same size I would have had to make some of them wider somehow.  I could have been more efficient and knitted a border on them as I went along and I could have included a seam allowance on the pieces which needed one.  However, my method of adding edges afterwards seems to have worked.  It has used quite a lot of wool – more than another whole ball of the Treacle shade of Rowan Felted Tweed DK.

I sewed the quilt together by sewing a few pieces to each other.   I was a bit worried that they wouldn’t fit together but they have.  I sewed all the top pieces to each other and sewed the bottom pieces together into 2 large pieces -  a left side and a right side. I then sewed the 2 bottom pieces together.  When I had finished I decided that they didn’t line up very well – so I had to take out my stitches and redo it.  Lastly I sewed the top to the bottom.

When the quilt was in one piece I picked up stitches along each edge – about 350 of them.  I did not count them exactly.  I worked 5 rows of garter stitch in Treacle and then cast of loosely.  I then pick up stitches along the top and the bottom including across the ends of the side edges.  I picked up what looked right and then decreased on the first row by working garter stitch as K1, K2tog.  I then worked 4 more rows of garter stitch and cast off. 

I am now blocking the quilt again in sections.  I have done all the corners and I am now doing the edges.  It is so large I can only do a bit at a time.

The only way I can photograph the whole quilt is by putting it on my bed. As you can see I have taken some photos of it – but the sun is too bright for them to be very good and you can’t see the whole quilt.  On Saturday I took the quilt to Oxford to talk about it at the Knitting and Crochet Guild meeting.  We laid it out on the floor so that everyone could see it.   I should have taken my camera!

I now have several other projects that I have planned it my head – much simpler than this one.  But first I decided to get back to a Noro jumper that I had started knitting – it is far to hot to wear it but when it is finished I can put it in a drawer ready for next winter.

I may do another quilt with meaning.  I do quite like designing from ideas rather than copying something visual.  Perhaps I should start on one for World War 2 but not this year!