Announcement!

I've got my sweater knitting mojo back.  It vanished last March, but arrived yesterday with a vengeance.  This is a swatch for a sweater for DD#2, she who lives in the frozen northland.  The color of the second pic is closer to the actual yarn.  Sport wt yarn with a #5 needle.  As usual, it will be knit in the round and will be a bit tighter in gauge than the swatch since I knit tighter in the round.  I can still extrapolate the number of stitches needed because I'm very experienced in this.  I don't think I'll use ribbing because I love that wavy edge.  Maybe a couple of rounds of garter to stabilize it.  Neck?  Way too soon to decide.  Long sleeves picked up and knitted from the armholes, with the pattern turned upside down (if I need to do that.)

Socks, of course, are always on needles.  I don't even bother to show them since I just do them automatically.  Total mindless knitting.
And, because the EPP mojo is also still with me, here is the central hexie of rosette #2.

And the first hexie of round 2.  This one will repeat all the way around the central hexie.

And how they will look sewn together.

Finished!

Rosette #1 is done!  Yay!  It's 36" in diameter, so it's a very large rosette. The entire quilt will be about 78 x 78, which is (for me) a huge quilt.  I have no idea where I'll put it, but probably on the bed. 

I've picked out possible fabrics for rosette #2, which is not connected to #1.  These browns and forest greens suggest the trees and parks of the Cape: that scruffy green of the leaves with those warm browns.  I probably won't use all of these.  We'll see.  I'll pick as I go along.

Cape Cod Dreams

Her Name is Cape Cod Dreams, aka The New hexagon Millefiori quilt by Katya Marek.  I'm doing her in colors that echo my love of the Cape.

I had this awful moment yesterday when I realized that I had turned one of the outer blocks in the wrong direction.  Didn't notice it until I started to attach the next hexie.  For those who think that these quilts are easy to rip out: Hah!  Let me tell you about little whip stitches and how they resist frogging.  It is very very easy to make a mistake in placement. So I had better be vigilant because I do not want to rip these babies.  What a misery of a job.  But now she looks just fine.  Yay, CCMillie!

Millefiori again

And again.  This will go on forever!  Here's the first rosette with one more round to go.

The next round consists of 18 hexies, with 12 of one kind and 6 of the other - a total of 108 pieces. 

The one on the left occurs 6 times, and the other, 12 times.

Now I'm beginning to think about the next rosette.  Maybe colors of rose and yellow and green?  Sort of like those Cape Cod roses that hang over wooden fences. 

Here's the back story of this quilt.  We've been going to the Cape for about 19 years, so we know it very well.  We rarely do tourist stuff, but this year we did a tour of an organic cranberry farm.  Very interesting, and no, nobody stands in the middle of a bunch of cranberries in a bog.  Last year we found the library in Provincetown.  Being a retired librarian, I love going into all sorts of libraries, but this one is special.  The library is built around a half-scale model of a Portuguese sailing ship. 

So I thought this quilt would represent all the Cape loveliness that we like so much.  Coastal colors, roses and other flowers, sunrise and sunset, scrubby trees.  You get the picture.

Millefiore

This is the first rosette from the Millefiori Quilt based on Katja Marek's book - The New hexagon - 52 blocks to English paper piece.

I wanted to work on it last week while we were on Cape Cod, and so I chose a sort of sea shell/coastal theme.  This is all worked in English paper piecing, so pretty mindless except when you join the points together.  Then you have to pay a bit of attention. Sometimes my points are perfect or almost so, other times not.  Doesn't much matter to me since I'm interested in the overall look and the interactions of the colors and patterns.

The hexagons, AKA hexies, are about 3" and some of these hexies have 6 pieces (the center shell one) and others have 5 pieces.  The next round will have hexies of 6 pieces.  Needless to say, this takes time, but you can watch TV or listen to the radio and just motor along.  I find that EPP is perfect for places where the light is not great, e.g. our inn on the Cape.  I certainly couldn't embroider in dim light, and even knitting is not easy, but basting shapes or whip stitching is fine.

I think there are 12 rosettes in the entire quilt, with this one being the largest.  I'm not sure about the colorways that I'll use for the others.  I do have some lovely purple/aqua fabrics for someplace.  I'll figure it out when I finish this one.

I began this one on Oct.9, 2015.  I wonder when I'll finish it.

The Castle Wall flimsy is done!

Whoo hoo!  I just finished sewing together the flimsy.  There will be a 1-2" border all around (and then I'll remove the remaining papers along the edges), and then the usual quilty stuff and the binding.  I don't know yet how I'll tie it all together.  Maybe a bit of outline stitches or maybe tying it or possibly even using cross stitch to hold it all together.

I took out one block that I knew wasn't going to look good.  I knew this from the get-go, but sometimes I have to convince myself.  This is the one that I removed.  I t has all the elements of a lot of the blocks, but that red spoke area just was awful with the rest of the quilt.  I'll use it for playing around with the border as well as whatever quilting method I choose.

Here's the one that replaced it.  Much better, I think.

I do love English paper piecing.  Yes, it is very time-consuming, but mindlessly working on it while listening to NPR is a delight.  Now I'm pulling fabrics together for Katja Marek's Hexagon Millefiore quilt.

First row

First row sewn together of Linda's Castle Wall wall hanging.  When I look at it here, I'm starting to notice the secondary patterns where the blocks come together.  Funny how you don't really see them until they are stitched up.  The HSTs will also come together.

Pic is not exactly accurate in color, but it's the best I can do with the light right now.

What do you think?

Here are 5 possible layouts for the Castle Wall wall hanging.  They are photographed top to bottom row.  I can't look at them any more because I've looked at them too long.  So, what do you think?  Any layout better than another?  Any blocks that should be moved?  There are slight differences in each layout.  HELP!