…well, almost.

Just earlier this morning, I decided that it was time to dust off those WIPs in hibernation and put my knitting needles to good use. Nil had remarked that I switch hobbies far too often and bemoaned the status of my non-moving yarn which we paid to move here together with all our stuff. Heh. Okay okay, I get the drift. I need to kick myself in knitting again.

So I took a look at my Rav project page and decided on what WIPs to bring out of hibernation and such. One the list was my Ivy wrap which has been on hibernation for a longgggg time. I managed to make some headway with it towards the end of my pregnancy but alas, fell short of the finish line. So this time, I was determined to finish it by hook or crook.

Now, I was about to start working on my Ivy wrap when a rather large-ish order for crochet booties came in. So once again, it’s KIV…for now. I’m hoping to be able to work in a few rows in the evenings. The plan is to work on the shop items (booties and sewing) while Eva takes her afternoon naps and reserve my evenings for time with Nil and doing my other hobbies like knitting, spinning and sewing up non-shop items like my quilts. Hopefully this plan works out…

*keeps fingers crossed*

Before I get to the real subject at hand, I need to ask – are external (and/or portable) hard disk better than flash memory stores? My external hard disk is nearly full and my flash memory drives are, well, full as well. So which is preferable?

While my current project is in the works – I’m awaiting for some dye-setting solution to come since one of the fabrics bleeds a little and I don’t fancy my ivory borders turning lilac or lavender (light purple) – this came in the mailbox. YAY for the postman! I ordered these a while back since someone on Facebook remarked that I don’t seem to have any fabrics in cold colours. Now I just need to complete my stash with some green! LOL.

The fabrics are one yard each and of course, 100% cotton from a variety of producers/designers. I actually love the Japanese/Asian print even though Nil finds it a bit tad too much – it goes perfectly with the blue and violet co-ordinates. I’m planning to do a strip pattern with these colours but the fabric set isn’t complete – am in the middle of expecting another two to three yards in purple co-ordinates to come in the mail.

Anyway, I won’t get started on these fabrics until I reach Singapore so chances are it’ll just be sitting in my stash till then. Won’t even think about the quilt top pattern in detail and such.

It’s past Week 33 now and I’m almost ready for Eva’s arrival with the purchase of baby items (disposable diapers, baby wipes, stroller, car seat, etc) and nursing items (nursing bra, nursing top, nursing pads, etc) plus hospital stay stuff (nightie, going-home outfit for Eva, etc) completed – well, as complete as you’ll ever get considering that we’ll be moving to Singapore soon after her birth.

Packing-wise, I’ve started packing up my stash or at least organizing them neatly in vacuum-packed ziplock bags to save on the space. I reckon a couple of boxes every few days would suffice. As mentioned earlier, the knitting, crochet and spinning has stopped for now so soon the wheel and loom will be dismantled and packed up for storage.

The only hobby left which doesn’t put a strain on my big belly of 110 cm (and growing) is sewing. I’m awaiting the final addition to my current stash (once it arrives, I’ll grab a pic of it) but just so you know, I’ve already started piecing the blocks for Quilt #4 while watching some good ole’ Murder She Wrote episodes topped off with Mind Your Language – oldies are always goodies! It’s a super fun block really – didn’t know Log Cabin blocks could be such fun.

I’ve taken to putting the reds on one side of the blocks and the tans on another side before surrounding it with a white border. At the moment, I’m stopping at the end of the colour strips because I have yet to cut 160 strips of white cloth. Talk about lack of patience and such. But I’ll surely get to that in time…or when I do finish up these 40 log cabin blocks! *beams*

Quilt #3: Blocks & Squares
Width | Approx 127 cm
Length | Approx 183 cm
Pattern details | Cotton squares & strips from fabric from Mondial Tissue & other sources, alternate colour schematics
Batting | None
Backing | 100% wide width cotton fabric from Textile Ambience
Binding | Single fold tape from leftover fabric used in blocks

Yes, my blankets are getting bigger and bigger…

I love how this turned out – we picked a dark blue border material for the backing as well as the border. For a moment I was apprehensive because of how the red tone seemed more prominent than blue, but after putting on the border strips, everything just fell into place. Add that with the binding – I chose the red multi-coloured fabric my mother-in-law gave me and made the binding with the aid of a binding tape maker – and it turned out just right.

Instead of folding this and using it only as a lap or sofa blanket (I tried napping with this as a blanket and it’s warm enough…so luckily I didn’t put in any batting otherwise I would be steaming underneath it!), Nil thought that we would cover our sofa bed with this, and as you can see, it added plenty of colour and interest to a dull computer room. His inspiration? My mother-in-law. She does this with ALL the patchwork blankets and quilts that she has – covers sofas and chairs with them.

Anyway, now that this is done, I’ll back to cutting up strips for my next quilt. Hopefully I’ll be able to complete the squares before the birth. I plan to finish the whole blanket in Singapore but who knows? If I work fast, I might just be finished with it earlier!

Here’s a look at what’s in store for the next quilt…

I’ve decided to try the Log Cabin pattern in co-ordinating patterns with the Asian print (center square) as the colour base. Nothing fancy actually. I plan to doing 5 x 8 blocks for the whole quilt instead of the 3 x 5 as seen here but that would depend on several factors, namely how big each block is going to be. I reckon 2 1/4″ width as the minimum would give me a pretty good sized quilt.

Anyway, I hope to get started on this after I’m done with the previous quilt – after all, I’m still waiting for two more fabrics for this project to arrive so here’s hoping that the postman will bring them to me over the next few days (I hope the shop doesn’t run out of the fabrics as well!)!

One thing is for sure, this patchwork project is definitely larger than the previous two blankets I did! Just this whole piece of squares is my height (approx over 154 cm) and this excludes the 17 to 18 cm border that we’ll be adding to the sides after Tuesday (it’s a public holiday on Monday so we’ll only be able to go fabric shopping on Tuesday for the border and backing).

Do bear in mind that I didn’t exactly pick the colours – if you hadn’t noticed, I’m more of a “complimentary and mute and pleasant, nothing too bright” sort of person (see my latest fabric stash?) whereas Nil is all about bright, bright, bright colours. He hates browns, pastels and well, he hates anything that looks ‘too similar’ to each other! (It’s the same with my dyeing as well – he loves the bright colours and I just like the ones that blend in well with each other – a good mix for the shop, if you ask me.)

I am wondering though if I would like to add a thin layer of batting – nothing too thick and such but the trouble is, am not too sure how to go about getting one and all. Maybe I’ll ask around and see what comes up. In the meantime, it’s time to start planning the next project! *beams*

This arrived a couple of days ago from a shop here in Switzerland called Cotton & Color (I have another four meters or more coming in from the US – hopefully, I won’t get taxed for them (I shouldn’t because it costs less than the CHF65 tax-free threshold)). I picked about six different co-ordinating fabrics for my next project which will feature a log cabin pattern but one of the problems about buying fabric from a store via the Net, especially fabric on sale is that the said fabric could run out before the person reaches your order.

So I end up missing out on one of the fabrics – a dark plum red – but these five are still do-able. I placed another order to replace the missing colour and this time, decided to pick two hues from the same group. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the store will have them in stock AND they’ll go well with these.

In the meantime, I’ve started piecing fabrics for Quilt #3 and with any luck, I should be done with the entire 40 blocks by this weekend! Wahou!

…is coming mostly from my rotary blade!

Am working on Quilt #3 and I must say that it’s tedious work when you buy fabric by the meter then cut it up into rectangles, squares and such. I ran into some issues because of one mistake – I cut width-wise instead of length-wise. This basically means instead of getting strips of 6.25 cm by 105 cm, I got 6.25 cm by 45-50 cm.

Aiiiii…that basically threw a spanner into the whole thing. I had to go back to the board and recalculate stuff, cut additional strips and still, as I’m left with half more to cut down into size, I’m wondering if I’ve got enough strips, rectangles and squares prepared.

O’well, we’ll find out soon enough when the piecing part kicks in.