Friday Night with Friends...

The first Friday of the month in Blogland, is Friday Night with Friends or FNwF. Despite different time zones, participants from all over the world sign up to spend an evening doing some sort of crafting and then write about what they did on their blog. Other bloggers then 'visit' to find out what wonderful items were worked on during the previous evening. Now this all takes organisation and we have an Aussie blogger, Cheryll of Gone stitchin' blog, to thank for organising this monthly event.  

Last night I thought that I might like to do some tracing using the lightbox, but ended up using a crochet hook and yarn instead of a tracing pen and lightbox! lol

The story about what I worked on starts a few months back... 2 ladies at my Sisters of Stitch group have been giving me 3-4 knitted squares each fortnight. 

Disclaimer: I can take no credit for the squares that you see in the photos. They have all been made by others. I'm just the 'joiner-up er'...

Stephanie went out and bought variegated yarns especially for this project and many of the squares were knitted on the diagonal. This looks particularly effective when joined into a rug... 

Julie embroidered on one of the squares that she knitted; a lovely gesture for the recipient...

The squares are to make blankets for Knitting for Brisbane's Needy. By the beginning of October I had joined 4 rows of 5 squares each and just needed another 4 squares to complete another row. Stephanie handed over 4 squares the last time I went to SoS. In all the 'excitement' of my hospital visit, I had not got around to completing that final row. 

Stephanie and Julie had lots of fun experimenting with designs for the squares...

So last night I did that. I also started crocheting a border around the finished blanket but didn't get very far with that because weariness overtook my enthusiasm. 

Still the border to do and some general neatening up; then it's all ready to be handed in.

 Some of the bright/cheerful colours of the row over the back of the chairs.

These days most of the donated squares that I join up into blankets are joined just by crocheting. It's quicker than stitching each of the rows using mattress stitch because unfortunately it has come down to speed of output, rather than the luxury of taking hours/days to put a number of squares together. 

If you use the link to Cheryll's blog that I inserted in the first paragraph, you will be able to visit other bloggers who took part in this month's FNwF. I guarantee you will see some 'top stuff'! lol

FNSI...

Last night was once again, Friday night sew in and I worked on two projects.
Firstly I finished off a dog jacket to give to the 'Animal Angels Refuge'. I had planned to try to complete 3 of them but 8.30 arrived rather quickly. That meant I wanted to be in the lounge-room then so that I could watch an episode of 'Silent Witness' on TV :-). My sewing room (aka 3rd bedroom) is the furtherest room from the television.

The dog jacket sewn in polar fleece

So from 8.30 I moved on to a project that could be done in front of the TV. I tacked all the 'intersections' of some of the donated squares that I picked up last Tuesday and brought home to sew into blankets. I sew a few stitches at each end of the squares to join them, and continued until I had a column of 6 joined squares. Then I joined the columns; again just a few stitches at the intersections.

I sew a few stitches (tack) squares together in a long strip, then join the strips by tacking at the intersections

To make joining easier, I have done a row of double crochet (SC in US terms) in black around the squares. I had only crocheted around 26 squares so need to do another 4 to get another row of 6 to make a decent sized blanket. Later last night I started sewing the seams for real; with the tacking holding everything in place it's a quick and easy task. So far I've done 2 of the long vertical seams. Should have the extra row done and all the seams sewn up by next Wednesday's Knit and Natter. :-)

The 4 rows by 6 isn't quite big enough so I will add another  strip of 6 squares