England Swings

A friend recently popped in with fat quarters of every print in the new line of fabric, England Swings, by Rebekah Merkle. I was so excited to see them in person! Here is the blue collection - don't you think they're lovely? The pop of orange and yellow amidst the blues is so refreshing.

Each of us are going to sew a patchwork purse for ourselves from this line, hers from the reds, mine from the blues. There's a tutorial here at Mad Quilter for this charm square pattern. Here's the initial layout for my bag - I can't wait to finish it! Although looking at it now I see two squares that I'd like to rip out and switch. The striped fabric in the photo above is for the lining.

I was starting to think all new designer fabrics were going to feature aqua! Seriously, there are so many beautiful designs out there, but so few that could be used for boys, older boys especially. I can find plenty of cutesy animals and such, but what 8 yr old boy wants something like that? I appreciated the ideas over at Made by Rae's Celebrate the Boy 2011 posts. Good fabric ideas there, along with a lot of other boy-themed projects, but mostly geared toward the younger guys. The England Swing line offers some solid dots and stripes that I think could be manly enough for my guys along with lots of other choices for my girl.

There's been some knitting in the works too. This week I finished this cabled hat, which will end up being a baby gift soon. It's too big for a newborn, maybe more in the 6-18 month range, depending on baby's head. This project made me realize I really don't like knitting cables. A few are ok, but every 2 rounds is too much for me.

Color Burst

Things have been quiet on the blog, mostly due to a last push on schoolwork before the spring/summer break. After that wrapped up, we headed out to the beach for a nice vacation. I think we all needed to get away for awhile!

The kids were begging me to do some tie-dyed tshirts, so we managed to get everyone in the family a shirt dyed before we hit the beach. Traveling with "matching" shirts sure draws attention! The kids love these shirts; I can hardly get them to wear anything else lately. We used a kit with 3 basic color dyes from Michaels. There was just enough dye to get 4 kids and 2 adult shirts done. Aren't they nice and bright for summer?
My mind must be on loud color combinations. This shawl sort of just appeared on my knitting needles. I had no plan to make it like this. My original intent was to make a small cowl/neckerchief using up the leftover aqua yarn from my February Lady Sweater. After a bit I could clearly see I didn't have enough, so I rooted around in my stash and found some other colors to put with it. I changed colors whenever I felt like it....what a wonderful way to knit! Now that it's finished, I can see I really got carried away! It's huge!! 66" wide and 40" down the center spine. I can just barely stretch my arms wide enough to reach from tip to tip. I love it!