Tuesday tallies...Guess where we are?

Notice anything different in the photo? I am posting my Tuesday tallies from Bad Bentheim, Germany. This is the view early morning from the balcony of our pension. We can see the castle in the distance.

Can you see it now with the close up?

It is all lit up at night.

So off we walked to go visit it this morning. For we people from Dutch pancake country, this is quite a walk all up steep hills. It is worth it as the castle is beautiful to see.

So I am not working at my normal tempo but still have done well this past week. I have made a further 59 little grannies for my autumn throw. I now have 121 completed of the 125. I wish I could add another row but this is all the yarn I have left and would need to make 13 blocks but only have enough for 9 I think.

It will become longer and wider though when I start on the edging. I am using a double strand of a dark brown yarn from my stash to do the edges. I have used 17 skeins of yarn so far for the grannies and almost used all of each of the last skeins.

One of the things I am working on is trying to understand how to figure how much yarn is needed for an afghan. Any tips? After two years of making many afghans already, I have still not quite gotten the hang out of judging the amounts.

This afghan will have a few memories hooked into it with today being here in Germany celebrating Jos' birthday. Off home tomorrow morning early though as my monthly quilt group meets on Wednesday evening.

I am linking to Carole's Tuesday Tallies.

Heidi

Have you seen a UFO fly by?

The UFOs are flying around here as yet another old project has been completed. I was able to get another one finished yesterday bringing me to 3 UFOs completed in August. Big smiles all around!

Some time ago, I had admired some pillows that a quilting friend had made. They were made from a pretty woven fabric. She had some left and gave it to me. I could also make pillows but decided to do something unusual with the shapes of the various motifs. I cut them out in various shapes...

Sewed them (this was last year but they did not get farther than sewing them together) and stuffed them...

Then thread a long piece of jute through them with beads between the pillows to create my Alpine Christmas hanger...

Maybe it is having the name Heidi but I love the country mountain look. *grins*

Heidi

Pink witches?

No...not pink witches but pink and witches. *grins*

A friend comes regularly to crochet with me. She showed me some quilt fabric she had bought on her day out to a shop where she also received these charms from the shop. I offered to make her a scissor fob with them as she likes mine. I asked her what color beads she would like and her choice was pink so here is the finished fob along with a pair of scissors for her...

I can't wait to give it to her when I see her next week! Hope she likes it.

And the witch? She has been flying around my studio for some time waiting to be finished after being stitched. I would hate to admit that it has been almost two years...enter the evil witch's laugh. *wink* She just needed finishing. I already had bought a little bread board that Jos stained black for me but my witch still had to wait. She is one of the UFO challenge projects and I wanted to have her done well before the witching hour on Halloween.

Today I needed to stitched the black trim on to edge the piece. I have been gluing the trim lately but decided this one would work better if I stitched it onto the laced piece. I worked so much better. No movement of the trim while being glued so it is  right where it should be positioned since this is a scalloped trim.

I then glued the piece to the bread board and Witchypoo is ready for Halloween...

I am going to do my best to finish another UFO challenge project by this time tomorrow. Wish me luck?!?

Heidi

Tuesday's Tallies - Celebrate!

It is time to celebrate for this Tuesday's tallies. You see I finished my African flower blanket. 58 flowers all put together to come into this blanket...

Yes...I have been working very hard on this during the past week. I am so happy to have a finish that is also part of my UFO challenge for 2012. This has been one of the first projects I listed that I wanted to get finished. WooHoo! I love the jewel tones of the Drops Paris cotton yarn that I used for this blanket. They look really nice against our cocoa powder brown couch.

When I found out I was running out of some of the colors, I had to make a decision about how I wanted to finish off the blanket. I worked with the hexagon shape and created a shape that we can use as a throw on a chilly day but also looks really nice just laid over the back of the couch. To edge the blanket, I crocheted two rows of double crochet in the brown then a third row of double crochet in beige finally creating a scallop by doing a single crochet in the previous row of double crochet followed by 3 chains. Skip one dc and sc in the next dc followed again by 3 ch. Simple but really effective.

I love the fact that after crocheting for two years, I finally feel I can really play with stitches and create a look I like. I have developed some crochet courage. *grins*

Stop by Carole's blog for more One A Day projects!

Heidi

Tuesday's Tallies...Boy...it's hot outside!

Well...maybe it is the heat here in Holland lately but my computer just does not want to cooperate! I was about to just give up but here I am. My latest One a Day update is a little sad to say the least. I have done nothing on my African Flower Blanket since last week. Instead I have worked on the autumn throw, my Christmas gift afghan (which I am not going to show just in case my brother does look at my blog) which is double in size since last week and my advent quilt.

I am linking to Carole's One A Day project. See her blog for more lovely projects.....

I have been able to get up to 62 blocks now on the autumn throw. That means I made 30 since last week. It has given me hope that fall will come soon and I can be out walking in the autumn chill.

To spite the temperatures reaching 38C (100F) this past weekend, I am really making progress on my advent quilt. I bought a tray table at Blokker and it has been wonderful to work with. I keep the weight on the quilt which normally I do with my legs as I do hoopless quilting. I can sit at the correct height so get much less tired while also having a nice big surface to work on before having to shift it. 

To while away the time as I quilt, I am listening to A Vintage Affair on my Kindle. I became a member of Audible and have not regretted it. It is nice to have someone read to me as I quilt since I am otherwise torn between wanting to do my handwork or read. Now I can do both!

I have not forgotten to share more about my advent quilt. I am hoping that it will be quilted in the coming week and I can reveal more about it. So back to work for me.....

Heidi

One a Day Project - Tuesday's Tallies

Why is it that a week passes so quickly when you are having fun??? My one a day projects are growing in more ways than one. I have found this is really working well to help me work a little on a number of projects which means I am going to have 4 things done much sooner since I am committing myself to one a day on each...

Last week, I showed you my 35 African flower hexies. I decided I better stop and spend a week joining as I crocheted the last edge on them. My blanket is growing nicely. I crocheted 20 of the flowers I had ready onto the blanket over the last week.

My autumn granny throw is also growing. I think I need to try taking a photo of this outdoors as the colors are still not coming across quite right. I am up to 34 squares completed so far. I want to have this finished by September 21st since that is the first day of autumn.

I was a little sneaky adding a quilt project into this one a day but it works well for me to keep it up. I have to quilt only 5 more squares and then I can start on quilting the borders. This is my advent quilt which I still promise to share more of very soon.

And if you are named Bill please look away NOW.....

*grins* My mother said she thought it would be okay to share this as my brothers do not look at my blog normally unless they are told to look. I will not share this each week though since I do not want to chance fate. I decided this year to crochet a throw for each of my brothers. I have to get them in the mail well on time so I started them now. I am making them each a granny ripple. Bill's is a beige tweed yarn mixed with aubergine. I work on this now each day when I Skype with my mother which means I get in a couple of rows each day. This is less than one week's progress. I just love this pattern as it is one you can do without really thinking about it.

See more One a Day projects at Carole's blog...

Heidi

One a Day Project - Tuesday's Tallies

Tuesday has rolled around once again and I am sharing my progress on my One a Day project which is turning out to be at least two a day for me.

I have been working away at my African flower hexies and just love them! In fact, I love them so much that I sometimes cannot stop. I have 35 made and decided that the coming week is going to be concentrating on adding the last row while joining as I go using Heidi Bear's tutorial.

But I also decided that since I have been so longing for autumn that I wanted to start on my autumn granny blanket. I am using 5 autumn shades...burnt orange, heather lilac, brown, olive green and beige. I pulled a burnt red yarn from my stash and will add a block just here and there. I only have one skein of this yarn so will use the blocks  sporadically to give it a little zing. My colors are not coming out well on the photo unfortunately. They are warm and look like the colors of leaves in the fall but the photo shows them much brighter with the beige looking cream. Humm.....

This block also is hard to stop at just one. I just started it two days ago and it is already at 12 blocks being together.

In the meantime, my quilting is suffering with all this crochet fun so I decided that I need to add my attic window which I am making for my advent quilt to be part of the one a day...hand quilt a window a day. I have 10 of the 25 quilted. I will share more on this quilt later. It is the theme for my quilt group this year and has been great fun to do. I can't wait to show you more...

If you want to see more goodness, be sure to stop over at Carole's blog to see more participating in the One a Day project. And as of me? Back to my quilt needle.....

Heidi