Wednesday, 1 January 2025

2024 Crafting and Reading Year in Review

An Alchemy of Stitches - Block 1

For the first time, at least to my knowledge, I completed 21 quilts in one year. Granted, a lot of those were just snuggle quilts (about 45" x 55"), but they were completed quilts, nonetheless.  And the one I completed yesterday was actually a double bed size. I also arrived at 125 on my Lifetime List of Quilts Made. 
So, here's the list of quilts made in 2024, with links to those I have already blogged about: 

  1. Patches of Blue
  2. La Petite Princesse
  3. Family (Cindy's)
  4. It's a Grey Area
  5. Panda Paradise
  6. Tales of Ireland
  7. Splendour
  8. Fanshawe 40
  9. Run the Race
  10. Family (Therese's)
  11. Northern Star
  12. Christmas Sweaters
  13. Somewhere in Outer Space
  14. Family (Nancy's)
  15. Family (Janet's)
  16. To All the Cats I've Loved Before
  17. Eccentric
  18. Christmas in Bloom
  19. Dancing Snowflakes
  20. I'll Fly Away
  21. Where Thistles Bloom
In addition, I also:
My Good Reads reading goal was 12 books, and I read 14, many of which were not light reading. They were: 
  1. God Spoke Tibetan
  2. Mama and Boris
  3. Being Mortal
  4. The Survivor
  5. Valinda, Our Daughter
  6. Nala's World
  7. Seabiscuit
  8. Old Town in the Green Groves
  9. The Bravest Voices
  10. The Last Rescue
  11. The Parasitic Mind
  12. Social Justice Fallacies (audio book)
  13. Sisters in Arms
  14. Grave Error
I figure this is also a good time to do an update on my tortoise projects. 
Tortoise Project numbers 1 (Variegated Moss Stitch Throw), 3 (The Poet Shawl) and 4 (latch hook wallhanging) are completed. I try to keep 4 projects on the list of Tortoise Projects, so I add a new one as one is completed. 
Tortoise Project #2 is the Shannon afghan. 
I have completed 26 of 48 squares and am working on the 27th. 
Tortoise Project #5 is the needlepoint wallhanging. 
I've made a little progress on this project since the last time I posted about it, but not much.
Tortoise Project #6 is the English Paper Piecing quilt block, Brackman 3806.5. 
I have over half of the block finished!
Tortoise Project #7 is A Blanket of Roses crocheted afghan. 
I have 7 of 24 hexagons completed, and am working on the 8th. 
Now, about the picture at the top of this post. After I said goodbye to my precious Mystery, my niece Julie gave me a crocheting/knitting magazine. 
As I looked through it, I found this knit along (KAL) that intrigued me and I figured that I could use my odd skeins of Red Heart Unforgettable yarn to make it. The designs are modelled after quilt blocks, and the picture is of the first "block". Not that I needed to add another project, but it is using up some of my abundant yarn stash. And I get to learn new stitches. Those "bumps" in the squares on the upper left and lower right of the block are called the Cluster 3 stitch, and it's the worst knitting stitch I have encountered (so far). Let me tell you about it. I start out with all of my stitches on the left needle, knit a few onto my right hand needle, then knit a few onto my cable needle - okay so far, because I do similar stuff when I'm knitting cables - challenging to juggle the three needles, but manageable. But then, I have to take my yarn and wrap it around the stitches on the cable needle 6 times, all without dropping any of my stitches off any of the needles. It's a good thing that I also crochet, because I had to use a crochet hook a couple of times to pick up dropped stitches, and still ended up missing one loop... Then I pulled out my "helping hands" - point protectors for my knitting needles that are shaped like hands (the only ones Walmart had available). The pattern doesn't mention that you need point protectors, but I don't see how I could do this stitch without them. So, it went something like this: Knit the required stitches onto the right needle from the left, put point protector on the end of the right needle. Put point protector on one end of cable needle and knit 3 stitches from the left needle onto the cable needle. Put one point protector on the other (left) end of the cable needle and one on the end of the left needle. Wrap yarn around stitches on cable needle 6 times. Remove point protectors from right end of cable needle and end of right needle. Slide cluster onto right needle. Set cable needle aside, remove point protector from left hand needle and knit 3 more stitches from left needle to right needle. Repeat. 
Maybe knitters who are more coordinated than I am can manage to do it without the point protectors (I watched a YouTube video where the instructor didn't use them), but I don't intend to keep picking up dropped stitches. In one YouTube video, the knitter did it by moving the 3 stitches in the cluster back and forth between left and right needles as she wrapped, so didn't use a third needle at all, but she only did 2 or 3 wraps, not 6. 
I can hardly wait to see what other adventures this KAL has in store...
Just figured I'd also share this.
Recently, someone shared this picture in one of the Facebook quilting groups, of which I am a member. 
She asked if anyone knew what the name of the quilt pattern was. So, I perused Brackman's Encyclopedia and found the Grandmother's Pride block. And then I decided I was going to try it. Not content with just the block, I made one strip of the sashing as well. At one time, one of my goals had been to replicate the quilts from both Little House on the Prairie and The Waltons. But other projects and priorities intervened. Now that I've found out how fiddly the sashing on this quilt is, I'm not sure I would want to do a whole quilt with it. Nevertheless, I think my rendition more closely replicated the original than the other suggestions. 
I still want to make Mary Ellen's quilt from The Waltons.
In conclusion, I'd like to share this reading from a devotional book called Our High Calling by Ellen White. 







 

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