November 2019 – Thimbleanna

The Merriment Cardigans

15 Comments / November 8, 2019 November 8, 2019 / Knitting

Oooh, look — I’m going to have two posts this month LOL. Maybe I’ll get crazy and go for even more — who knows what will happen?

I finished the little sweaters that I’ve been working on for the grandbabies. The pattern is the Merriment Cardigan by Melynda Bernardi of French Press Knits. Oh, how I love this sweet little pattern. It has great, easy-to-read instructions.

The yarn is For Better or Worsted by Anzula in worsted weight. The yarn is pretty expensive, but what a dream it was to knit! It’s 80% superwash merino, 10% nylon, and 10% cashmere. {Swoon} (I’d like to knit a sweater for me out of this yarn, but an adult size would be expennnnnsive!) The colors are Storm, Raspberry and Saffron. I had to order the Saffron from a color card, and I’m a little disappointed in the way it turned out — I was hoping for a less-bright yellow — something a little more mustardy. Oh well, as long as there was some pink in there — FinallyAGirl loooooves her some Pink!

I knit these in sizes 12 mos. and 3 because that’s what their measurements told me to do. And coincidentally, that just happens to be their ages. (Well, the baby is 14 months, but I followed the measurement suggestions on the pattern.)

Knitting and sewing for the girls is so tricky for me. I’m never really sure how long it will take me to make something (I thought these would have been done a month ago), and when children are growing so quickly, the size can make a difference. It seems like most things I make for them turn out a little big, so this time I decided to stick with their measurements now, so they could wear these little sweaters this fall.

I lucked out on the size 3 and it’s a perfect fit. But the 12 mos. size is small. The sleeves are really too small and she’ll be lucky if she gets another week’s wear out of it LOL.

Oh well, luckily, we have another little girl on the way. And she’ll be about 9/10 months old next fall, so the smaller sweater should be a perfect fit for her!
On to the next project — Happy Fall!

XOXO,
Anna

Quilt Festival Quilts

8 Comments / November 1, 2019 November 1, 2019 / Quilt Market Report

Well, here we are, flying into November already! I thought, for the first time in quite awhile that I’d have two posts in October, but I didn’t manage to make it. Anyway, I went to quilt market last week and my tradition has been to post pictures of market, but, to be honest, market wasn’t terribly exciting this year. (I did post a few pictures over on my Instagram account.) Maybe it’s because I missed the Aussie twins so much, who knows. But for sure, market was smaller than I remember it in the past. And Sample Spree was definitely a bust — there were several vendors who didn’t even bother to have booths. Sample Spree used to be one of my favorite things about market, but I doubt I’ll spend the money to go again.

Luckily, the week after quilt market is the big International Quilt Festival in Houston and the quilts from the quilt show are all set up during quilt market. The quilt show seemed much bigger than I remember them this year and there were lots of beautiful quilts, so I thought I’d show you a few here. This is the 40th year of Quilt Festival and they celebrated by having a beautiful display of blue and white quilts. You’ve probably seen lots of pictures of the quilts on Instagram and other blogs, but here are a few that caught my eye.

The blue and white exhibit was so big, I couldn’t get a picture showing the whole display.

Note the Girl in the Pearl Earring quilt — top row, second from the left. I love the diamonds and what a fun idea — I wish I had taken a better picture.

After I looked at the Blue and White quilts, I seemed to migrate to the applique quilts. This is Sophie’s August Morning by Lynne S. Dahllmeyer-Hartman. It looks a lot like the Love Entwined quilt-a-long that was online a few years ago from a free pattern, but the card with the quilt said this quilt was from a pattern by Michelle Hill.

When This You See Remember Me by Donna Gilbert.

Joy in the Journey by Lahala Phelps.

Look at ALL those appliqued circles!

This next display was several quilts by Yukiko Hirano and they were gorgeous and all hand appliqued and hand quilted. I’d be happy if I could make one quilt this beautiful in a lifetime!

I loved the colors on this one.

Bouquet of My Gratitude by Midori Horie.

Promised Season by Sachiko Chiba.

LOOK at all those little appliqued pieces! And hand quilting!

Past and Future Meet by Noriko Kido.

This is Crazy for Ewe by Janet Stone. I saw somewhere that it received a well-deserved award. It’s an alphabet quilt and many of the fabrics are flannel. The applique pieces were raw edge and sewn down with a blanket stitch. I LOVED all the fun ideas for each letter of the alphabet.

Here are a few other random quilts that caught my eye. The Performance by Linda K. Ainsworth. A fun use of bear paw blocks!

Momotaro, The Peach Boy by Keiko Aso.

Baskets by Susan K. Haslett-Scholfield.

Color My World by Sue Bleiweiss.

These next two quilts were from a challenge of quilts with a total of 100,000 pieces. I didn’t realize it until I was looking at these pictures that they were all made by the same quilter — Amy Pabst. Now I wish I’d taken pictures of all the other quilts that gave her a total of 100,000 pieces.

Stars and Stripes – 5480 pieces.

Sawtooth Star – 3600 pieces.

Facing the Future by Kat Gay. I don’t usually like pixelated quilts, but this was just pretty. It has 8,000 half inch finished squares.

There was also a small exhibit of some quilts from the collection of Joe and Mary Koval.

Isn’t this one interesting without a side border? I’ve seen them without a top or bottom border, but I don’t remember seeing one without a side border before.

And this one is a 1976 Bicentennial Folk Art quilt. Above the elephant it says I’ll Try and above the donkey it says Let’s Be Friends. As the sign says, the workmanship isn’t that great, but the content says it all. Very appropriate almost 50 years later!

There were so many beautiful quilts at the quilt show and this is just a small sampling. Thanks for sticking it out to the end!

XOXO,
Anna

Month: November 2019