Purple Passion

I described the start of this quilt ten days ago. Here’s the quilt top completed.

Purple Passion, Top

Turned out to be a real challenge to distribute the colour when I tried laying out the blocks! Because I had decided to use three different fabrics in each block, that meant I was continually running up against the same fabrics when I juxtaposed blocks in a row and across rows. I did a ton of swapping around to little avail because I would find that same fabric in an adjacent block. Also I wanted to alternate the diagonal blocks with fat pointed ends coming together in sets of four at the same time I was trying to distribute the solid blocks. In the end, I just started adding the contrasting turquoise sashing and stitching the blocks together in rows! That’s what you get when you’re not working from a pattern or a set of instructions but trying to improvise as you go along. The result is OK but not spectacular – I’ve ended up with clumps of colour rather than it being distributed more evenly. The problem would have been less severe had I elected to use fewer fabrics – twelve turned out to be too many.

Now on to the back. I picked up more purple grunge fabric yesterday. I will need to create some kind of insert to widen the length of backing. I will have to look through my Pinterest collection of quilt back photos for ideas.

I came across another face the other day:

“Face”

It was sitting on a friend’s kitchen table. A rather scary face – mask-like – with big eyes and a grimacing mouth. I also saw an ad recently (can’t remember what it was for) that subtly used sink faucets as faces in the background. I’ll have to keep an eye open for it – not great advertising if I can’t remember who was doing the advertising!

Sparkle Socks & Danish Paper Stars

You can’t really see the sparkle in the photo but there’s a polyester strand in the yarn that glitters. Click on the photo and you can see the sparkle.

Finished these socks last evening. The pattern was interesting enough that the knitting went reasonably fast. When the pattern changes in short intervals the knitting always seems to go faster – probably doesn’t but I feel I’m making progress more quickly.

Sparkle Socks

Danish Paper Stars

Years ago I used to make Danish Paper Stars for tree ornaments and give them as gifts. Haven’t done them for ages but I thought they’d be a good addition to the silk scarves I’ve done for the knitting ladies.

I tried remembering but the critical part is getting the initial intersecting of the strips going in the right direction and in the end I had to find instructions online.

Danish Paper Stars

After three stars my hands have recovered the moves – particularly the twist needed for the 3-D points on each side. My intention is to make about 20 stars but in years past I often made as many as 50+. I’ll add string to them so they can hang.