Green Ocean Waves

 Half square triangles.  A "bazillion" of them, or so it seemed at the time.  Over the years, I had been cutting up left over pieces of green from my quilt making into 3.5in squares and then turning them into half square triangles (hsts).

Counting the hsts.

The white fabric was a reject from another project, where it appeared to be "too white" but worked perfectly in this project.  After making and trimming to size all of the hsts, I then had to find pieces of green to make up the bigger plain squares.

Selecting the fabrics for the plain squares.

In an Ocean Waves quilt there are 3 block types:  A, B and C.  It's all about the directions of the triangles in the blocks.  So row 1 is A, C, A, C and then row 2 is C, B, C, B and so-on until the whole quilt top is laid out.

Laying out the quilt top.

I pieced all the A blocks first, then the B and finally the C.  That was fine.  The tricky bit was the layout and keeping the triangles going the 'correct' way with the block placement.  It did play tricks with my eyes and thankfully I pieced the top at a Retreat, so there many opinions in the room!  I found it interesting by the divide of opinion in the room.  It was like or dislike!  Having so much green was quite polarising for some.

Then came the pressing before quilting.  All those seams!  I pressed a bit, took a break, pressed a bit more.

I quilted Green Ocean Waves with a wave design and used a khaki coloured thread which blended beautifully with both the white and the green  

More green for the backing, with the meandering line and dots, I really liked how it set off  and complimented the colours on the front.

The first whole quilt photo was taken indoors and it glows.

And.... here is the whole quilt photo, taken outdoors in the late afternoon dappled sunlight.  Awesome!

I gifted this quilt to my 15yr old nephew K for Christmas 2020.  As soon as unwrapped the gift, he wrapped himself up in it, then opened it up and spread it across the couch, covering up his Nana and Dad at the same time.  He was very, very happy.  Being a teenager, I wasn't quite sure how the quilt would be received.

The next morning, he asked me a whole lot of questions about how I made the quilt, did I cut out all the triangles individually, how did I put it together for quilting......  My Sister (his Mum) said to me later that he had been complaining about all the "blankies" being too small to cover him while watching tv or lounging around and he had been asking for a bigger one.  She was happy too.  

I am happy.  The response from K was far better than I could have imagined.

Easy Street

This was a big quilt and a lot of fabric!  Easy Street has been a wonderful journey of stretching myself with the use of colours.  I wouldn't normally make a quilt in this combination, but for some reason when Bonnie Hunter first shared her mystery quilt from 2012, I knew way back then that I needed to make it.

As luck would have it, I had all of the necessary fabrics in my stash, except for the green, which was purpose bought for this quilt.  

Block Set 1

The black on white prints, I had most of them left over from other quilts, and my friend Jo provided me with some extras from her stash to make sure I had enough.  

Block Set 2

There are many parts to the Easy Street Quilt and there is an absolute mountain load of cutting to be done, but each part was well stepped out and so it was easy to cut and then chain sew parts together.  One step at a time makes it super easy and not at all daunting.

Corner Setting Triangles

Even the side and corner setting triangles had lots of piecing in them.

Side Setting Triangles

I didn't start straight away on this quilt when the clues were first posted.  I collected all of the clues as they were issued because I liked the colours she was using and then when the final reveal was shown on the Quiltville blog, I fell in love with it.  I really liked the symmetry and movement in the quilt.

So much piecing in the blocks!

For the quilting, I simply quilted in the ditch along each seam line.  The patchwork was so busy that I chose keep the quilting minimal.  I quilted a cable pattern on the final border.

Backing onto front peak.

I chose a black/dark grey tone-on-tone stripe for the border and the same green as in the quilt for the binding.

The whole quilt with all of the wonderful movement showing.

 A wonderful quilt to make and one I would consider making again because I thoroughly enjoyed it!

This quilt was completed in December 2020 gifted to my nephew for Christmas 2020.

Tidal Waves

Super soft and scrummy, this yarn felt so wonderful in my hands.  Pure Merino Superwash Wool, combined with an interesting pattern made for great knitting!  You could say, all things came together perfectly.

Ready to start knitting!

The yarn colours I chose are 033 Cereza (red) and 139 Pocion (dark charcoal with reddish highlights) from the Malabrigo Rios 10ply range.  Perfect colours for my SIL.

A fun pattern with lots of leeway to be “organic” with the knitting.  I learned some new skills with the German Short Rows and Double Stitch methods.

Completed scarf.

Using garter stitch throughout means that the scarf is soft and will 'give' to fit the wearer.

The effect is amazing and I love it.  I also enjoyed the WOW factor from my SIL when she unwrapped this scarf at Christmas.

Blurry detail shot of the fringe

A well written pattern which uses up every single bit of yarn when you include the fringe.  No leftovers!

So much movement in the pattern.

Pattern used:  Moving Tides Scarf by Karen Dettering at Stitches'n'Things.

Yarn used:  Malabrigo Rios 10ply