Basket

Charise has the last month in 318 Patchwork Bee and she chose baskets.  I restrained myself from making the sewing basket, I am designing a sewing basket block for Sew Out Loud quilt-a long so I went for knitting, just in case Charise feels she wishes to take up a new hobby.

This is 6.5" with tricksy Y seams to make the handle at the top.  I used my new favourite tiny ruler to add a generous 1/4 inch to my freezer paper pieces, the block is template style piecing rather than foundation.  

I do love the designs in this book, the simplicity and boldness of them is a constant reminder to me to keep it simple, less is more.  The basket is made with Kumiko Fujita fabric, possibly my favourite all time text fabric as there are so many great words and motifs to fussy cut.

The blue yarn is Suzuko Koseki fabric- currently available at Kit's shop The Happy Elephant on Etsy, an excellent source of text, Japanese fabrics and general loveliness.  The needles were bias strips and the tops are buttons cut from a Kaufman print 'Vintage Couturier' all sewn on with needle turn applique.  I used to be a ferocious knitter.  When Lula was born I made her cardigans, hats, jumpers all from beautiful yarns.  Moderation is not in my vocabulary, all or nothing and I did way too much!  My hands and wrists can't take that any more and I sold all my knitting supplies a few years ago but I do love seeing yarn projects pop up over Flickr and Twitter and a small part of me aches just a little to be able to knit again.

Now, back to completing a quilt, I am trying a quilt-as-you-go technique and will share next week.   At the moment it is proving to be tedious but effective.

 Meanwhile the Sew Out Loud QAL starts tomorrow at Julianna's blog!  Details of the final block competition can be found here- start preparing now, the judge is Suzuko Koseki, yes I know, I can't believe it either!