Siblings Together - The Thread House Retreat Bee April Block

Hello there, this month I am the Mamma for The Thread House Retreat Bee and I thought I would go down the route of a scrap filled block that can be strip pieced.

I spotted this 25 Patch block on Pinterest and the free tutorial is from The Spruce, I'm asking each Bee member to make two blocks, which should each end up at 10.5".
You will need a dark colour and a light colour, I would like you to stick to one colour per block for the dark colour and you can use either low volume or white as the light colour.

The dark colour does NOT have to be dark, but it just helps when referring to the strips to label them dark and light. I'm hoping for really bright colourful blocks.

For each block you will need

3 light colour strips 2.5" x 8"
2 dark colour strips 2.5" x 8"

Sew this together - light, dark, light, dark, light and press.


3 dark colour strips 2.5" x 5.5"
2 light colour strips 2.5" x 5.5"

Sew together - dark, light, dark, light, dark and press.

Trim them into 2.5" strips, three strips from the larger piece, two from the smaller.

Mix the strips around, making a checkerboard pattern.

And sew the strips together, nesting the seams together to align the squares.

Press, and you end up with a 10.5" block.

Here are a couple of blocks I did at The Sewical Retreat to test out the pattern and colours, I'm planning on sashing them and hopefully they will make a colourful rainbow quilt.

Happy making, I can't wait to see the blocks we get and let me know if you have any questions. 

Hello, is there anybody out there!!!!!

It's been two long years that I haven't blogged for and although I may not have documented it here I have still been making, but the time for blogging has completely been lost.

Life, mostly the extra hours I need to spend with my parents and taking over their business full-time  has eaten into any spare time that I had. And with 3 children there wasn't much to start with.
I did share on here, but my lovely Mum was diagnosed with Alzheimers 3 years ago at the age of 65 and to say that is knocked me sideways is an understatement, It took me nearly a full year to be able to tell anyone out of our immediate family that she had it. The word Alzheimer's just stuck in my throat and looking back now I can say that I was very very angry with the world. She was the most active, health conscious, brain active, non drinker and healthy eater you could meet and she was one of the many many unlucky ones to develop the disease. I feel that just three years on she has been robbed of so many parts of her fabulous personality, predominantly her sense of humour, she was always such a joker, but now she feels we are taking fun of her or talking about her.

We also moved into one of the biggest renovation projects we have tackled, it took two long years to complete #renovationtippingpoint and in most of the rooms we still have pictures on the floor leaning against the wall and a massive list of frames I need to order!!! So its still not really finished.

I have also felt that Instagram has really taken over from blogging, it is just so easy to interact with people by posting a photo with a short comment, no need to edit it, sort and wait for photos to upload to iCloud and write a post. I always felt that a blog post needed a decent narrative with it, I'm sure if I posted some of the rubbish I share on Instagram I would have been laughed off of blogger!

But I digress, I'm back because
1. I'm an Bee Mamma in April and I need somewhere to show my fellow bees all about my block!
2. I have a spare evening to write this, as the tv is truly atrocious at the moment and I'm awaiting backing to quilt a quilt! but mostly
3. I actually had the want to blog! So I'm sorry you have me rambling away.

So, in the last two years I have knitted quite a few shawls.

You can see the details for them on my Ravelry. Knitting is just such a transportable thing and instead of pulling out loads of stuff to get sewing (or tackling the mess of the sewing room) I am able to get on with a pattern relatively easily.

Sewing has been slower, but I've made.

Two quilts for Siblings Together, two flimsy tops (one for us one for a present) and a fair few pouches, two of which were for swaps for retreats.

I've also had the luck of going to three sewing retreats, twice to The Threadhouse Retreat and most recently to Purple Stitches Sewical Retreat which was amazing!! It's been so nice to actually sew with people, I don't have anyone close that sews/quilts. So to meet people in real life, that get why I sew and want to talk about fabric is amazing!

That it for now, I'm not promising to be here all the time and I don't want to feel the pressure to make things just to have a blog post. But I have missed this little bit for me on the internet and the friendships that I originally built up on this blog and I will be back next week with my April block for The Threadhouse Retreat Bee for Siblings Together xxx

Woolly and fibre Addictions

So I might not have been blogging so much recently but I thought I'd update you with the newest additions to the wool and fabric stash.

As a little gift to me I signed up to a Valentines Box from A Fine Fish Yarns. I LOVE Terri's yarns and made one of my favourite shawls from her amazing Christmas Tree Lights Yarns a few Christmases ago and was just waiting for the chance to order more.

I went for the 100gms skein of both Kiss Kiss and Bang Bang yarns as I couldn't decide if I was a hater or a lover of Valentines Day ( I think I'm a bit of both!!)

They are just so perfect together, I need a shawl pattern to use them both in.

And then a  good few week back I took advantage of the Simply Solids sale and stocked up on a bit of Cotton + Steel halloween fabric.

They seem to design the loveliest seasonal fabrics and I wish I had bought more of them earlier on, especially the Christmas ones.

And then last week I saw a little IG destash (why does auto correct want to change it to deaths, maybe it is worried by us destashing!!!) of A Stash Addict yarn and I couldn't resist.

This gorgeous skein of Electric Watermelon has been earmarked as a Miss Winkle Shawlette for me, or if you have any other 1 skein shawl ideas let me know please!!!!
I'm off to ponder my makes and get on with my Daybreak Shawl knitting,

Hopefully I'll get back here tomorrow with a sewing update, don't be too shocked but I have actually got to use my sewing machine!!!! 

Cosy Toes: Part 2 ✔️

The next thing to come of my needles are my Christmas Eve Socks, they are a bit of a dazzling rainbow pair of socks!

I cast these on, on Christmas Eve as part of Little Bobbins knit along and with our Christmas being a bit busy I didn't get much done over the holidays but have slowly plodding along of an evening and last week finished them off.
They are a little on the big size (massive under exaggeration!!!)  as I got a little bit carried away one evening knitting the foot of the sock infant of the tv. I really think I need one of these sock rulers, but the seller must be out of the adult ones, I have seen someone on Instagram using a homemade cardboard one, but I can't remember who.

These are a from Socks from the Toe Up just using the basic sock pattern, to show off the amazing colours of the yarn. I did try really hard to start the socks at the same part of the pattern so that they would match and I think I succeeded.

The Details

Pattern - Basic sock from Socks from the Toe Up by Wendy Knits 

Yarn - 0.8 skein of Happy with Sparkle in Surprise by Opal 

Time to knit - About a month, which I don't think is too bad for me!

This is the first thing finished from my 2016 FAL Q1 list and although it was an easy finish I'm just chuffed that I've got something ticked off! 

Cosy Toes: Part 1

I've got a few things off of my knitting needles recently and the first thing to share is my Rose City Roller socks, I am a little bit in love with them.

So much so, that I don't want to wear them incase I ruin them or wear them out!!!
They did take me ages to get finished, as I just let them sit to the side for so long untouched and I think thats because I really don't like knitting socks from the top down, I love the toe up way of knitting them (even though I do get a cleaner heal turn this way).

They fit perfectly and the yarn was as lovely to knit with as it looks, its such a pretty pink.

Details

Pattern - Rose City Rollers by Mara Catherine Bryner ...It's a free pattern on Ravelry 

Yarn - 0.5 skein of Strong Sock by The Wool Barn in Bubble gum 

Time to Knit - Far too long.... I think I started them after the summer!!

As I was taking these photos the eldest has just asked for a pair in a manly colour ( I offered him a pink pair but he wasn't keen) for him to wear around the house, so I might be casting on another pair soon and as I have 50grams left of this yarn, I do actually have enough for a second pair for me. 

But until then I will only be wearing these when I'm sitting on the sofa, to ease wear and tear!