SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS ARE MADE ON

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Slowly and intermittently, over this long time that I’ve been gardening, I have been pondering (and very occasionally working on) a new project and, at last, the nuts and bolts of it are starting to come together.

This is a smallish double-side quit. The dark blue is a fairly improv sewing together of night-coloured scraps, embellished with running stitch, darning and some buttonhole edged squares to created a patched together and mended look and the lighter side is a collection of vintage doilies hand stitched to an ivory background

And yesterday, since it was pouring with rain and I had an unusual and very welcome time at home alone, I made a similar sized quilt with light brown linen on one side and a grungy blue sort of fabric on the other. For the sake of speed and simplicity, I machine quilted with organic straight lines.

I’m thinking of these as backgrounds to display other sewn items and perhaps story scenes that could enable me to make something like the ABOUT TIME book but with reusable pages…

ABOUT TIME (blogged here) 2018

I really enjoyed making the fabric book and I love the idea of making quilts that do something more dynamic than lying in bed all day but, being so constrained by time, accomplishing that is a hard task. Since starting this blog, I think I’ve made two!

THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH (blogged here) 2017

EAT, SLEEP, SEW (blogged here) 2013

So the new venture I’m pondering will, I hope, be a sort of hybrid art quilt/book/puppet show. I found a cheap extending curtain rod, which fits in the alcove next the fireplace in the Makery and I’m planning to hang up the backgrounds and attach or hang or somehow or other display other sewings in front of them.

Mrs Hare and Fiona have kindly agreed to relocate their reading group.

Fiona reading (sideways as cats do) with Mrs Hare

Whether this will all work out, of course, is yet to be seen and I wonder if it’s quite sensible to blog about something that might well fail spectacularly but, as Mrs Hare often says, ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained’.

I hope you you are having a good week :)

Janine @ Rainbow Hare

A Walk in the Park

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 “Let us to go for a walk in the park”, she said.
 “We will take some bread for the ducks
 And jam jars to catch fishes in
 And, maybe, a skipping rope…”
  
 “The blackbird is sure to be singing,” she said,
 “And children will be flying kites,
 Making castles in the sandpit,
 And throwing balls for their dogs”.
  
 “You can watch the butterflies dancing,” she said.
 And I’ll see how high I can swing…
 Then, perhaps, you will buy ice creams
 To eat on the bus back home”.

August 1st was a Reveal Day for The Endeavourers. If you haven’t already, I hope you will visit to see the wonderful collection of quilts everyone has made in response to this quarter’s theme – A Walk in the Park.

I struggled for a long time to find inspiration for this theme and, even when I eventually remembered how enthusiastic my pre-school self was about visiting our local park and how my brothers and I used to beg my mother to take us there, my thoughts ended up coming in words rather than pictures. I have been too long away from a needle and thread!

For a long time I have thought about having a traditional quilt block as a background for a picture and it’s something I’ve never tried so I made a QAYG block in Summer colours. I bagged it and then I appliqued images onto it to illustrate the poem.

I attached the bird and kite overlapping the edge of the quilt, which is something I’ve not done before and I like the effect of that but I think the general arrangement would definitely have benefitted from having a clearer concept or more time to experiment with the scale and placement of the various elements.

I used to be very last minute with these sorts of challenges but this is the first time in a couple of years that I’ve rushed to put something together at the eleventh hour and it has made me realise how much I prefer the leisurely approach of starting early and having plenty of time to experiment and let a quilt evolve as it grows.

I hope you are finding time to craft at a speed that suits you :)

Janine @ Rainbow Hare

Wool on Sundays – 164 (A Little Ice Cream)

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Welcome to the August edition of Wool on Sundays!

It has been very hot here, lately. Much too hot for knitting really but I did make a couple of small ice creams. I made them for my Endeavourers quilt but then decided it already had too much going on.

Should you happen to want to make some ice cream appliques, though, or join a few into an ice cream bunting they are made very simply and quickly as follows:

Cones – cast on 11st and work top down in garter stitch.

Row 1: knit to end

Row 2: knit to end

Row 3: k2tog, knit to last 2 st, k2tog

Repeat these three rows until 3st remain. Knit two more rows and k3tog. Fasten off by passing yarn through remaining st.

Ice Cream – Join yarn to first cast on stitch (top of cone). Insert crochet hook into this stitch and make a loop. Work 12 dtr (2 wraps round hook) into centre stitch (6th) of cone top, insert hook into last cast on stitch of cone top, pull though a loop and fasten off.

My garden, alas, continues to be an endless endeavour but the nights are slowly drawing in and surely we are due some rainy days soon, and I will be less a stranger to my Makery and blog. I wish you the happiest of weeks wherever you are : )

Janine @ Rainbow Hare

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 non-woollen fabrics. 3). Posts don’t have to be from the past week but please put a link to WOOL ON SUNDAYS 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 1st September 2019.

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