Finished projects

For Bethany's baby shower
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.

I found this simple pattern in Quiltmaker, March/April '08, and thought it might be a quick piecing pattern to put together for a baby shower I'm attending in June. The designer, Fran Morgan of Tyler, Texas, called her design Warm Embrace. She included two versions - one with Chenille by the Inch between soft, pastel squares, and one with rickrack between brightly colored squares. Both were beautiful and caught my eye immediately.

I didn't want to go to the expense of purchasing Chenille by the Inch or rickrack, so I used sashing between the squares - not as novel, but equally pleasing, I thought. My version of her quilt is called Sing a new song, from Psalms 96 and 98. The color combination, from fabric I had on hand, looked so joyful to me.

I cut out the pieces on Friday and finished the quilt Tuesday afternoon, just before we went to see Prince Caspian (which I liked!), so it was a pretty quick quilt by my standards. The quilting is simple, and that shortened the time considerably. As a rule, I like heavy quilting because I like the small crinkles after I've washed it; but heavy quilting stiffens a piece (so much unyielding thread) and takes a lot of time, and I wanted something soft for a baby and I wanted to finish the piece fairly quickly.

The outer squares have a wavy quilting line cross-hatching the squares, the inner squares have a diagonal line radiating from the center, the inner sashing is moderately stippled, and the outer sashing is more or less scribbled.

I hope Bethany, the intended "mom-to-be," enjoys the brightness of the quilt. My idea is that it should attract the attention of the baby and keep him (yes, it's a him) occupied for long periods of time (is that possible for a baby?).



Two baby sweaters, bottom up
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.

Having gotten the quilt off my machine, with a couple days to spare before we take our sometimes annual vacation to Pagosa Springs, I decided to bite the bullet and do the finishing work on two baby sweaters that have had gaping holes under the arms, incomplete work around the neck opening (thanks, Donna - I didn't think I could pull off that neck opening, but it works well!), and threads hanging out that needed to be woven in, so I sat myself down in front of the TV (which I listen to like a radio), hunted up the right needles and made myself do it.

For my first completed sweaters using this method (Jacqueline Fee's Sweater Workshop book), I'm not displeased, although it's hard to be satisfied with much, if any, of my work. I have another one on the needles, completed from the bottom through the joining of the sleeves while I waited to see if I could handle the neck opening to my satisfaction.

With this neck opening at the raglan seam (with basic instructions from Jacqueline Fee's book), I cast on and added a six-stitch extension under the overlap to give the opening a little more substance. On the beige sweater, I carried the extension only through the sweater body, but with the gold sweater, which I did last, I continued the extension through the ribbing. I think I like the latter method best, and that's what I'll use for the sweater currently on my needles.

The buttons are 1/2", and they have shanks at the back. It's hard to find kid-like buttons with shanks, but I'm not sure if flat buttons would work well. There's a lot more choice in flat buttons - lots of nice soft colors. I guess I could make a thread shank, and maybe I'll finally get to that when I use up the buttons I purchased.

Jacqueline Fee suggests you crochet the button loops, but I just made a loop and then wrapped it with a blanket-stitch, and I like the looks of that a lot. Either way would work, I'm sure.

Because we're going to be away next week, I'm getting another sweater on the needles to take with us. That should give my fingers plenty to do, I hope, while we're gone. I'll make it the larger size, like the beige one. The gold one, while very stretchy because it's made using a slip-stitch pattern, is still small, and while working these two sweaters, I've decided that it would be safer to make these sweaters just a bit large. Babies come in all sizes, and we saw some pretty big ones while we were in the U.K.

All these sweaters, by the way, are for a Lydia Circle project, not (yet) for anyone I know.