rose hip

spring has sprung...

 

 

...in our neck of the woods and I have a feeling it is here to stay, only because we haven't had a winter to speak of this year... Apart from a snowfall at the beginning of December, we've had above normal temperatures in the city of Vancouver, which has led to a shortage of snow in our local mountains and, as a result, a practically non-existent ski season. (Not a good thing for people like me who enjoy getting out to the ski slopes from time to time!) However, since a big chunk of our country and other parts of the world are gripped in the throes of bitterly cold, snowy weather with more of the same on its way (I just checked -- it's -17 in Montreal with snow in the forecast...), I 'd like to dedicate this very flowery post to all of you who are struggling through Mother Nature's latest deep freeze. Hopefully, it will do a teeny bit in warming up your soul with sweet thoughts of lovely balmy spring days....

 

 

I thought I would zoom a little into these cushions which you may recall from here and here, so you can see the floral posies which adorn them from closer up.

 

 

The first cushion I made in the batch on the bed is the one in the foreground in the photo above. The yarn that I used to crochet the front of the cushion is what initially led me to try my hand at making a posy cushion; I first spotted the wool yarn at a local craft store and took an immediate fancy to it... Why? I think because I liked the idea that it could be used to make a mottled, somewhat earthy-coloured background which could contrast nicely to yarn in vivid solid colours... What do I mean by that? Well, it all comes back to this rug...

 

 

When I first saw this rug online a few years ago, it spoke to me right away and I think I put its image in that special corner of my brain where I keep inspiring images to revisit at a future date... So, when I saw the yarn at the store, the image of this rug popped up before my eyes and I guess you can probably understand why, right!?... Of course, at that time (just before Christmas), I also had rugs on my mind because I was trying to find one for our living room; very sadly though for my sake, this one, which by the way is a Dash and Albert rug, had been discontinued since I was first smitten by it...

 

 

So, I purchased two balls of the mottled, woolly yarn in shades of blue, brown, green, yellow, orange and red and along with some pink, red, yellow and green scrap yarn I had lying around, I made my first posy cushion; I was so pleased with the result that I bought the same mottled yarn in the reddish colour stream you can see in the background and made another cushion...

 

 

I then thought that it would be fun to mix them up with the same cushion made with yarn in solid colours, so I found some yummy bulky yarn in a lovely shade of brown and did just that...

 

 

The posies actually make me think of primroses sitting nicely in a pot with their pert faces fully open to embrace the sun... What do you think? And what better flower to be thinking of now since they are such harbingers of spring!

 

 

I hope this post brought you some welcome thoughts of spring, especially if it seems like it will never come when you look out your window right now... I will be back with a few more posies in my next post and then I will share with you some of the other sides to these cushions, so I do hope you will pop by again for a peek! Thanks for the visit and I hope you have a great weekend!

 

 

 

at my desk...

 

 

...I've been spending more time lately, trying to advance some pattern-writing I started a while back... While I certainly don't mind pattern-writing and quite enjoy it once I get into the groove of it, I'm always tempted by my hook, my yarns and my fabric. So to try to keep me focused at my desk on my task at hand, I decided to make my desk more pleasant to work at which, for one, meant getting rid of all the clutter on it. (Our house is one of those houses where any free flat surface gets covered instantly and my desk being no exception...)

 

 

Once the clutter was dealt with, I decided to prettify my desk it with some favourite things such as my maple syrup can (which I like because it always reminds me of childhood sugaring off parties when I look at it) filled with my jumble of colourful pencils and my "Monarch - Female Rulers of the World" calendar; I initially bought the calendar to give as a Christmas gift, but I liked it so much that I just couldn't part with!... I also decided to display some bits of trims I crocheted recently in a lovely hinged shadow box I had lying around...

 

 

I've been fine-tuning this trim, slightly tweaking the pattern and playing around with different colours as I want to use it for a special cushion I'm putting together (more on that in my next posts..). I thought bunches of these trim samplings looked quite yummy together, so why not display them in my pretty but empty shadow box? I did just that and was so pleased with how it looked that I put it right on my desk! And then, I started to play around with the trims in the box and came up with this...

 

 

...and that's why I love shadow boxes -- you can so easily change what you display in them!...

 

 

But enough distractions for now as I must go back to my pattern-writing! However, before I do get back to it, I just wanted to wish you a very happy Valentine's Day and I hope you're enjoying the day with the special people in your life... I will be back next week with my promised post on these cushions, so I hope you pop by again... Thanks for stopping by today!

 

 

 

peace, love and...

 

 

...plaid, that's how I think I'm going to call this new patchwork coverlet... I think it's a fitting name for my most recent sewing project because I only used vintage fabric, probably mostly from the 60's and 70's, for all the floral squares and for a lot of the woolly fabrics such as all the plaids that seem to catch your eye as soon as you first look at the patchwork, don't you think?!...

 

 

The florals are mostly cottons with a few cotton-like blends which probably include polyester (where would the 70's be without polyester?!) and a lot of them are of a heavier weight than quilting cottons; most of them also have a lovely texture and feel to them due to a heavier, coarser, more homespun weave. (The majority of these fabrics would have undoubtedly been used for draperies and upholstery.) Now, I immediately gravitated to these vintage florals of mine (which I've been collecting for quite a while now) when I first started thinking of fabric that would work nicely with patterned woolly fabric in a coverlet; not only are a lot of them comparable in weight, but I think they also complement the woolly look perfectly with all their many yummy homespun textures...

 

 

Now, as far as the "woollies" go, they are of a mixed bag: some squares are definitely 100% pure wool, while others are cut from 100% acrylic fabric, wool blends, as well as fabric wholly made from other unknown synthetic fibers. So as you can see, the coverlet is a real hodgepodge as to fabric types, but I think that's what makes it such a delight to first put together and so much fun to look at when it's all finished. Even though sewing some of the seams for the patchwork top involved sewing two very different types of fabric together, I didn't have too many problems due the two fabrics having a different stretch to them; there might have been one or two seams where I had to stretch the top or bottom fabric a tiny bit while sewing the seam so that the two fabric edges would align at the end of the seam.

 

 

As soon I looked at my squares all laid out on the floor ready to sew together, I knew exactly what fabric I wanted to back the patchwork with. Now, that can be a good thing because it can be very frustrating to finish a patchwork and be totally stumped as to what to back it with, but, on the other hand, having a clear idea of a needed fabric can also lead to frustration when you can't find it anywhere!... Luckily for me, I found exactly what I wanted in the first local fabric shop I walked into: a light brown taupe cotton corduroy in a wide width.

 

 

I  always try to back my patchworks in a colour that isn't dominant in the chosen colour scheme so as not to overemphasize one of the dominant colours over all the others. Basically, I look for that very special colour that weaves subtly throughout the whole patchwork, bringing out each of the dominant colours without upstaging them and, by being a "demure companion" to all the dominant colours, becomes the all important linking colour that makes the dominant colours blend nicely together. (Wow, that was a mouthful -- I hope it's understandable!) As there are hints of browns throughout the patchwork, I thought a relatively neutral colour in the brown family like the light brown taupe colour I ended up choosing would work nicely. I wanted corduroy for the backing because it is soft to the touch which is nice to have on the side of the blanket likely to be close to one's skin and, by being a stiffer fabric especially when new, it gives the whole coverlet a crisp feeling which I love. In keeping with the retro choice of fabric for the patchwork (as well as the retro name I gave it!), corduroy in this particular shade was also a clear favourite because I'm sure I must have had a pair of "slacks"in the 70's made of a very similar fabric!...

 

 

The patchwork top is tied to the other two layers, the cotton batting in the middle and the corduroy backing; I thought a lighter colour for the ties would look good and I decided on using a very soft cotton yarn in what I think of as a "duck egg" colour, or a lovely greenish soft blue colour...

 

 

Because the yarn I used for the ties is very soft and loosely-plied, the ties will soon look like sweet little tassels as all the strands in the yarn start separating from each other...

 

 

Now, I have to tell you that, not only am I sewing with lots of woolly plaids at the moment, but I'm also engrossed by a book that repeatedly makes mention of woolly plaids of the Scottish tartan variety (hint: the photo below)...

 

 

Yes, you've undoubtedly guessed that I'm referring to the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon; I'm past the halfway point of the first book in the series and I'm having a hard time putting it down! Have you read any of the books? I haven't seen the first eight episodes of the TV series as of yet, but I think that I'll have to see them somehow after I finish the first book and before the new episodes air this April! Have any of you watched these first episodes? Did you like them?

 

 

Despite not having seen any of it, I have seen photos from the show and the costumes as well as the locations look absolutely stunning... Judging by the photo above, the creative team behind the costumes have done a delicious job using all sorts of fabulous woolly fabrics in beautiful earthy tones (slightly more muted than my coverlet!!) which seem to match the natural settings perfectly... Happily, I've discovered the blog written by Terry Dresbach who designs all the costumes for the Outlander TV series through Helen who reads my blog and sends me the nicest emails... (Thanks Helen!) If you haven't been by this blog, it's worth taking a peek at it, if only for its great shots of the costumes in all their splendour, showing plenty of their gorgeous, very labour-intensive details... I hope you enjoyed my plaid-filled post and I should be back shortly with some cushion talk... Thanks for popping by!