Any how we stopped off today at Walmart and they had some in as well unfortunately not the colours I’d wanted but I bought some more balls anyway since this stuff seems to be selling like hotcakes. The yarn is Red Heart Sashay. When this yarn first came out it was under a different brand name and was about $14 a ball. Now Red Heart has a clone and they charge $6.99 ($5.99 at Walmart).

Red Heart Sashay.

It takes about 2-3 hours to knit one ball up and after you get used to handling the yarn it’s not bad. Kind of fun project and the scarf is neat. Anyhow I have 4 more balls and intend to give them away as gifts.

Colourway Jive. It looks blue but is more of a turquoise colour.

Karen

Largest Priority Box that you can ship from the United States to Canada – $33, yikes this fabric better be good.

Opening the box, the anticipation…

The goodies pulled out and beginning to sort to see what I have.

Turns out there is more than Border Blast material in this shipment. Most of this is from the Autumn Sunset line (never heard of it).

Smaller cuts of the Border Blast materials. The smallest cuts of all the fabric sent were 9″x45″ in other words a quarter yard of fabric.

Larger pieces of Border Blast.

All the fabric stacked together.

And for anyone that’s done a search for these fabric grab bags (I have) and wants to know the statistics here we go.
12- pound grab bag
- minimum cut is 9″x45″, maximum cut was 2-yards 28″.
- There were a total of 56 pieces of fabric of that 11 pieces were a quarter yard and 14 pieces were well over a yard in length.
- the total amount of fabric was 38.26 yards. The Fat Quarter Shop will tell you that on average you will get 2.25 – 2.5 yards of fabric per pound, it all depends on what the weave of the fabric is as some are heavier than others. I’ve ordered these grab bags before and I’m usually over this estimate but I have been bang on as well.
-cost without shipping in U.S. dollars worked out for my order $1.31/yard.
-cost for myself with the whopping $33 shipping fee, exchange rate, visa fee, worked out to $2.28/yard.

It’s not bad $2.28/yard if you’re willing to work around what you’ve been given. I have to admit that this colourway was more of an autumn/winter set so there is a lot of browns, rusts, greens in this mix and I’m not really fond of those colours but then again that’s Thimbleberries for you. Lynette Jensen usually goes for the country feel.

I was surprised at how many big pieces of fabric that I got. I don’t think that this is typical although I will admit that the Fat Quarter Shop usually sends at least a couple of larger pieces with the smaller ones. I’m pretty sure they do this so that you can use the fabric for borders. It’s almost like getting a quilt kit the only difference being that you have to come up with the quilt pattern – 38.26 yards I should be able to fudge something up.

The pieces of fabric were also uniform in cut. For example I received three pieces of “rust scattered flower buds” at 48.5 inches. Another example was an off-white, again three pieces all 22.5 inches. I know that the store was trying to sell some block of the month kits and I’m wondering if they gave up and broke the kits down and made grab bags out of the components, clever.

When I’m looking at a sale on the site I type in an amount in the order column to see how much of one item is on sale. If there are a lot on sale then I know I have time to sit and think about the item before buying it. This helps me to cut down on impulse buying. I know there were well over 30 of these fabric grab bags. Normally Thimbleberries or any other name brand designer grab bags retail over $100 for the 12-pound size. This bag was $50 so it was a very good deal. The bags sold out in a day and a half.

Sorry if this is boring but as I mentioned I’ve done Internet searches on what comes in these bags so thought I’d share.

Karen

This is what I ended up making hopefully they will fit, if not I have more yarn leftover to try again.

Chase’s rainbow slippers. Yarn discontinued Bernat Sayelle.

Couple more photos after adding pompoms.

Very quick about two hours for the pair.

The pattern is Parkspin Slippers courtesy of Joan Janes on Ravelry. A very quick knit using two strands of worsted weight yarn.

Karen

This square is called Drop in the Bucket, created by Janie Herrin. I almost had it finished and then decided it was too ripply so I ripped it back to the centre medallion.

I recalled reading one of the moderator’s posts on Ravelry about how she modified the square to cut back on the ripple effect so I followed her suggestions. LOL, then I ended up steam-blocking the square to get it to 12 inches and because it was too tight, never win but it’s okay now

Karen

I’ve had some yarn in my stash for a couple of years now (seems just like yesterday, I swear) that I bought while visiting our friends at their cottage, which just happens to be 10 minutes down the road from the Listowel Yarn Factory. Needless to say I like seeing them at their cottage.

To get the deals you usually have to buy by the bag or in multiples of three. I bought four bags of Paton Decor in Country Blue and Sweet Country Varigation.

Paton’s Decor Country Blue: 75% Acrylic / 25% Wool 100 gram ball, 192m/210yards.

Paton’s Decor Sweet Country Varigation: 75% Acrylic / 25% Wool 100 gram ball, 192m/210yards.

I have 12 balls of the blue and 12 balls of the varigated. I’m wishing I had some matching darker blue to go with it for a focal point but that would mean spending more money and buying more yarn and the idea is to use up yarn not buy more so I’ll stick with what I’ve got for now. I might go with another colour to join the squares we’ll see how it works out.

Anyhow the first 12-inch square is Pretty Petals by Melinda Miller, this is a variation on a square I did myself (quite common square) that I made into a full sized afghan and gave to Jen. Jen’s Afghan

Pretty Petals.

For some reason this square turned out wonky. It’s almost like the spiral effect you get in knitting when you’re knitting a tube. I don’t know why unless I needed to square up the flower petals somehow. The square actually sits perfectly flat and is square if you can avoid thinking it’s off kilter from the colours. Oh well three hours later I’m not ripping it out and it won’t be noticable when put in the afghan anyhow.

One more square and I’m done for the month. I’ve done not to badly to date. I finished Chase another earflap hat exactly the same as the previous one I made him. Apparently Jen says he will not wear anything else so I had left-over yarn so just knit another in a bigger size. 

Today I also managed to get some strips sewn for a quilt I am making for myself so three things in one day is pretty good. Now if I can only be this righteous every day I might get somewhere (or not vbg).

Karen

I’ve joined a stashdown group on Ravelry that has an Excel sheet that tracks purchases going in and yardage going out. The idea being that you end up at year’s end being in the green – in other words knitting more yards than adding to your stash. I have one big project planned for purchase as a birthday gift in February but aside from that wish me luck on restraint, I do so like a bargin.

I’m hoping the idea will carry over for fabric purchases as well. I’ve done well so far by resisting year end sales and some of them were very good ones. I have enough stash that I dare say it could keep me going for a few years and I’ve been having those paranoid thoughts about something happening to me, dying and then I’ve got all this lovely stuff and nothing to show for it so here’s my New Year’s resolution:

USE THE STASH!!!

Karen

I finally finished up a Fair Isle hat today and have a couple of pictures of Dan and I wearing it. It’s actually Dan’s hat but we all had a go trying it on.

Dan wearing Nuthatch ski hat from the book ‘Colorwork Creations’ by Susan Anderson-Freed.

Yarn from KnitPicks – Palette in the colours: Marine Heather, Black, Natural (Bare), Mist, Asphalt Heather, and Pimento.

I didn’t block the hat before taking the pictures and although you’re supposed to I’m not inclined to bother since the hat looks okay on anyway. It’s possible blocking it would hide a bit of the red under the grey but I’m not sure it’s worth the effort.

I have a couple other hats to make from this book so I’m hoping my technique will improve as I go on. I’ve knit Fair Isle yoked sweaters before but this was different for me because the yarn was so fine. I really liked working with it because it made the details in the colorwork more crisp and defined.

Karen

Not much happening around here except my son Jonathan and his new wife Corina were married last Saturday. I’d post a few pictures but I don’t have any so that will have to wait until they get back from Mexico.

Take care and happy crafting in 2012.

Some photos but given the overcast day they aren’t that good. I tried to show the quilting but it was hard.

Quilt on double bed. I couldn’t back up far enough to get it all in.

Border shot to show the binding. This stripe really brightened the quilt especially in the border against the navy.

One shot trying to show the stitching. I used thread to blend in with the background so it’s hard to pick out.

Another block showing the quilting.

I’m so glad this is finally over. I angsted over what thread to use but ended up just doing a meandering stitch with a background colour trying not to stitch over the drawings in the main blocks but quilting around the pictures. I used matching thread in the bobbin because I didn’t want any darker colour coming up and showing through on the top. The back isn’t pretty but it doesn’t look that bad either. First I used navy thread to quilt around all of the blocks to anchor them down before doing the quilting inside the blocks.

Karen

Each year Toronto has a big craft show called “The Creativ’ Festival” and vendors from all over Canada and the States attend this show as the turnout really is phenominal. JoAnn and I have been going for the last couple of years and each year we visit the Len Mills fabric booth. This year I didn’t buy anything but I helped JoAnn pick out some fabric that she wanted to make into pillowcases for gifts for her daughter and son-in-law.

Some of the pillowcases were ones that she designed herself but some ideas she got from the One Million Pillowcase Challenge website.

JoAnn has an beautiful sewing machine that allows her to do all the fancy stitches and has software that you can use to create your own designs as well.

The pillowcases are longer than this but it was easier to take the photos with them folded in half.

Closeup of one of the pillowcases, beautiful patchwork set off by the embroidered initial and ribbon.

My favourite of course because it’s “purple”.

Two more pillowcases with some cutwork.

Closeup of the cutwork. JoAnn designed this one herself and her machine has the ability to not only do the satin stitch but cut away the material at the same time. JoAnn did the cutwork and then put the green fabric underneath it and then did some more embroidery to hold the two pieces together.

Some fun pillowcases – pirate and princess themed. The princess pillowcase has a tiara embroidered above the lettering and the pirate pillowcase has the little pirate embroidered on it. Also notice the little patchwork points along the inside border.

These are really nice and look fun to do so I might just have a go at trying some myself. One tip JoAnn pointed out is that if you do make a set of these make sure to have them mirror-imaged so they go on either side of the bed, something I wouldn’t have thought of myself.

Karen