Something Different (Wandering Camera and OMG)

September 6, 2018September 7, 20188 Comments

With the evenings, drawing in, the leaves beginning to turn and the fruits and berries ripening, I can feel the great wheel of the year driving us steadily into Autumn – whether we are ready or not – and, although I should probably be finishing up my Summer Stitching, the pervasive sense of change in the air and the sky and the fields and the woods makes everything I’ve been doing these past few months seem, suddenly, a bit samey and dull. And I just been wanting to do something different. No grand plan. No specific different thing. Just anything different!

So, whilst I was taking some flowery garden photos for Wool on Sundays, I decided to take photos, too, of the things I never take photos of and I was surprised at the variety of pattern and texture we have about the place. Instead of trying to take ‘good’ or ‘nice’ photos, I just took honest photos. Clips of things just as they are. It was more an interesting thing to do than a great result but I put them into this mosaic, which I quite like, as my offering for this month’s Wandering Camera with Soma at Whims and Fancies. Should you be curious, you can click through the mosaic to see the individual photos, though I should mention that to see the mosaic you need to view my actual blog. If you are seeing this post in an email, I’m sorry, the photos will just be dumped anywhere in a big mess because that’s what happens to blog mosaics in emails :(

In the Makery, also, I’ve been switching things up a bit. After my little Improv Horse, last month, I thought I might make a sort of improv sampler and, to start, I tried using some improv curves to make tessellating fish – I can think of no end of uses for tessellating fish! They were not a huge success. Horribly baggy in places, though I think it could work with gentler curves or, maybe just more practice.

But I decided, instead, to make some with a seam allowance and to sketch up a rough plan for a wall hanging incorporating some improv elements but focused more on doing something different with simple shapes. So for my OMG this month…

…I’m going to try making blocks and setting them into the layout of the squares and rectangles underlying a Golden Spiral.

In case you want to draw a Fibonacci spiral, the youtube video below has an excellent tutorial.

I am not planning, at the stage, to make the actual spiral in my quilt – just to make blocks in the proportion and layout of the ‘background squares. I will complete eight blocks (equating to 1,2.3,5,8,13,21 in the diagram above) and inspired by the sketch below but subject to variation.

If I have time, I might sew them together or even make more but my monthly goal is just to make the eight blocks.

Good luck with your goals this month.

Janine @ Rainbow Hare

Wool on Sundays 156 – (unknitting)

September 2, 201810 Comments

Welcome to another Wool on Sundays!

This month my only woolliness has been confined to a little unknitting, by which I don’t mean not knitting although I’ve been doing that as well…

After some consideration, I decided to unknit this cardigan.

Although so short a time ago I thought this was set to be my best cardigan ever (as the one on the needles always is!) the fact is that I don’t wear it. I wanted something a little shorter but this is really too wide to be short so I washed and stretched it several times but if anything it just gets shorter and wider :(

So I decided I’d rather have the wool back and use it to make something else – something longer and narrower perhaps…

In the meantime, Peter Mouse has gone off to Poland.

I travelled with him feeling quite certain that my garden would be completely parched and dead when I got back. But after only a couple of days rain whilst we were away, I came back to find it green again and, if anything, a touch overgrown with everything sprawling about the place in a fairly drunken and disorderly fashion, which is just as it should be at this time of year.

It really is a wonder what even a little rain can do!

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And every evening the sun swings himself down behind the trees further and further to the south. The other night he called out to me saying, “I’ll be off taking Summer to your friend, Kim, in Australia soon. Do you want me to give her a message?” And I said, “Just take her flowers. She likes flowers”. And I’m going to miss these sunny days but now the evenings are getting darker and a little chilly, I can feel knitting weather just around the corner…

If you have any yarn themed posts, I’d love you to link up. The rules, as usual, are: 1). Posts must include some content – makes or musings or photos – related to knitting, crochet, felting, spinning or yarn. 2). Projects sewn from felt or wool fabric or stitchery using wool are also welcome but please don’t link posts that are exclusively about sewing, quilting and fabrics. 3). Posts don’t have to be from the past week but please put a link to WOOL ON SUNDAYS or grab the button from my sidebar and include it in or at the bottom of any posts you link up. 4). MOST IMPORTANT visit anyone else who links. The next Wool on Sundays will be on Sunday 7th October.

Janine @ Rainbow Hare

OMG – an improv horse

August 29, 2018August 31, 201815 Comments

Well, my goal this month was to make an improv quilt with any or all of the fabrics in this box…

…and it’s not the greatest quilt or the most exciting improv but a finish, as they say, is better than perfect!

After going away for a week I caught some kind of flu-like virus and I couldn’t muster the energy or enthusiasm to sew for a further week – I’ve never had such an illness before and I hope I won’t catch it again! Luckily, I’m just left with a cough now and I’m glad I linked up with OMG or I don’t think I’d have sewn anything this month.

The main challenge I found was that my coloured scraps were 1 1/2″ squares and 2″ x 1″ strips, which didn’t give me much leeway on cutting them and I only really managed a couple of strips and a block that I didn’t like much.

Then I thought perhaps the block would make a good horse blanket and I started enjoying the process a lot more once I felt I was aiming towards something, rather than joining pieces randomly.

And, in the end, it turned into quite a fun little project even if my horse has ended up looking more like a donkey!

Happy Sewing!

Janine @ Rainbow Hare

I’m also linking this post with TGIFF at Anja Quilts