December

Mid-december? Really?
It's time to share a small mosaic of what I've been doing in the studio these last weeks...

Weaving cotton and paper yarns (with dyeing in mind), choosing some rusted fabrics for a new quilt, blocking crochet squares, making Christmas cards, and playing with sumi ink.
The shibori quilt is finished. Actually, I didn't really quilt it. I simply stitched it on a heavy fabric background.

Apart from this, I've been studying Japanese, of course.
Yesterday, we've decorated the Christmas tree, and today, I'm baking gingerbread biscuits. But there isn't any snow in sight yet.

Fabric scraps and yarn play

I've been sewing fabric scraps again. Japanese fabrics mainly. Here's a picture of my design wall today...

Each block is a 4''x4'' square. The idea is to make a quilt for the sofa. Yes, I need to make many more blocks, but I'm going slowly... One hour of Japanese, 15 minutes of sewing, one hour of Japanese, etc..

During the summer, I started crocheting a ripple blanket, inspired by the lovely Lucy at Attic24. (Please have a look at her beautiful blog!)
I just wanted to finish up all my yarn leftovers, but of course I ended up buying some new yarn...

And now, I've got more leftovers, so I've been making these little granny squares...

I don't know yet what I'll do with them. Maybe a little blanket for my GD's doll.

Next are a few pictures of my GD's first try at counted-thread embroidery. First, she did straight stitches...

Then, half stitches...

I think she's almost ready for cross stitch.

A doll quilt and a new love

I've been sneezing and coughing and hibernating for almost two weeks now, but yesterday afternoon I decided it was enough and I needed to shake myself.
I picked some fabric scraps from my boxes and I quickly sewed a little doll quilt.
I am so in love with this sweet colour scheme that I had to take a picture of the tiny leftovers.
I have so much hand-dyed fabric left over from my Twelve by Twelve Colorplay projects that I really need to use it. And I like how I'm now using colours that I would never have thought of, like this light green for example.
While spending too much time on the sofa drinking hot tea and feeling just too tired for sewing, I suddenly felt the urge to do some crochet... (Don't ask me why.)
It's not really a new love, as I can't even remember who taught me how to crochet, I guess it was my mom or my grandma. Anyway, I made a small granny square blanket, and it was so much fun that I will do more.
This square didn't make it into the blanket...