When Crafts Collide
Do you know anyone that does just one, single craft? It seems to me that most creative people do multiple crafts--sometimes simultaneously. If you're a needleworker you can switch from cross stitch to needlepoint to embroidery effortlessly, just as quilters sew costumes and knitters also do crochet. Multi-crafting seems to be the rule more than the exception!
It comes as no surprise then that while perusing knitting charts on one of my favorite sites, I decided to use that knitting chart to make a quilted wall hanging for our entry hall.
The chart I chose is called The Crooked Rose (number 8 in the series) and it was designed by Arne and Carlos. Arne and Carlos are designers living in Norway with a fun lifestyle channel on YouTube. This past spring they began a free quarantine knit-a-long on their site, ultimately ending this fall with 42 free knitting charts. As someone who writes patterns, let me tell you, that's a very generous gift to send out to the universe!
Here's the episode that started it all:
You can find the download links in their blog here:
If you enjoy your free gifts, be a kind soul and be sure to do all those things that make free patterns possible: subscribe to their channel, thumbs up what you enjoy, turn on notifications, even sign up for their newsletter (hint: we got free mitten patterns when we signed up!)
You'll notice the knitting charts are 39 blocks square but I got a rectangle sized quilt, not a square. That's because an actual knit stitch is not a square and a GOOD pattern writer will compensate for that. Each individual stitch on the chart will be a rectangle that is wider than it is tall. When the block is knit it will become a square shape.
To translate this all to quilting: I correlated each block of the pattern to a 1" square of fabric, knowing I would end up with a piece taller than it is wide, which is what most quilts tend to be.
We used a white leaf texture from Wilmington Prints for the background and a red texture for the rose. A candy cane stripe cut on the diagonal made a fun binding. This was a quick weekend project that really cheered up our front hall.
Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year!
Stay inspired,
Aunt Henri