Finishing the Jumping Jax Flash Quilt

Posted on December 9, 2025 by Deborah Cooke

Jumping Jax Flash quilt designed by Judy Niemeyer

One more quilt has made its way to the shop with the long arm quilting machine and come home to be finished. This is Jumping Jax Flash, a Judy Neidemeyer design that I pieced at least twenty years ago.

Here’s the pattern envelope at right – the pattern is discontinued. This link will take you to the Quiltworx page for this design. There are still some paper copies of the pattern around – I found one at Etsy and one in a US quilt store when I was looking for an image. If you want to make one, you can find the pattern!

Obviously, I made mine bigger, with 25 blocks instead of 12. I’m not sure whether I bought more paper piecing templates, or whether I traced them out myself. It’s been a loooooooong time since this one was pieced!

Here’s what it looked like when it went to the shop. Lots and lots of paper piecing for this one.

Jumping Jack Flash quilt by Judy Neidemeyer pieced by Deborah Cooke

I’m so chuffed that this one is finally finished. Here it is now – yes, another kitchen shot because the snow just keeps on coming.

Jumping Jax Flash quilt designed by Judy Niemeyer and made by Deborah Cooke

As you can see, I inverted the colours for five squares, giving them black stars instead of black backgrounds. Four have green backgrounds and the central one has a peach background. I wanted it to be a focal point, that looked illuminated compared to the others. I’m not sure that was successful, but it is what it is at this point. I am glad that I broke up the rhythm of the colours a bit.

I don’t have the highest level of restraint with colours and fabric selection, and this quilt proves it. There’s a lot of range in my definition of peach/orange and even more in my definition of turquoise. The blacks are pretty consistent (esp for me.) The smaller stars are all half-yellow, although the intensity of the yellow varies greatly, and the second colour in each one, which started out as a bright, ended up becoming just about anything not-solid-yellow.

The other day, I told you how I’d already sewn on the prairie points and wasn’t sure how the binding would work out. In the end, I sewed on the binding just the way I always would, but instead of enclosing the seam allowance, I pressed the binding flat on the back. It’s more of a facing than a binding, though it’s doing the same thing. That peach French shirting (that I used for the bias binding) has a woven windowpane design and I did use it on the top, so it brings it all together. I might even have enough of it left for a short-sleeved shirt.

The machine quilting is in a meander pattern. Though it looks like white thread here, it’s actually a peachy pink that coordinates quite well. I decided against adding more quilting, as the binding is sewn down almost halfway through that unquilted border.

I’m SO excited to have this one finally finished!

And now, of course, I’m thinking about what’s next. I have unfinished projects calling my name but am still tempted by this Judy Niemeyer pattern. It’s called Crimson Poppy and that link will take you to the pattern page at Quiltworx.

Crimson Poppy quilt design by Judy Niemeyer Quiltworx

Hmm. Not just paper piecing but curvy bits. I may have to hunt down a workshop for this one, as I’m not sure how you (I) would even begin to choose fabrics for it.

Chullo Hats

Posted on November 13, 2025 by Deborah Cooke

Here’s another UFO found in that stash – an unfinished chullo hat.

chullo hat knit by Deborah Cooke in Knitpicks Palette

This hat is knit of Knitpicks Palette and was a kit. Here’s the Rav page for the Andean Chullo Hat pattern, which is still available. Here it is at Knitpicks. The kit, which isn’t available any longer, came with several balls of Palette – I’m thinking maybe 8 colours. Palette is a fingering weight wool, which comes in a lot of colours.

I remember the pattern being a bit of fun, as there were numerous motifs that you could place on any of the sections and knit in any combination of the colours to make your hat your own. Have a peek at the projects on Rav to see the many variations. Of course, I had to march the llamas around the hat, though they might have shown up better if I’d knit them in the white in the kit. It’s also possible I mucked up the decreases at the crown because the circumference does diminish very quickly. (?)

This hat stalled without the tassels, partly because of the chullo hat shown below. I didn’t knit this one – I bought it at the Mountain Equipment Co-op a billion years ago (give or take). (In the 90s there were a lot of South American knits available for sale.)

South American chullo hat from the Mountain Equipment Coop

It’s knit of a yarn that seems a lot like Lopi Alafoss – but its special magic is that it’s lined with polar fleece. The mister grabs this hat whenever it’s really cold.

inside of South American chullo hat bought at the Mountain Equipment Coop

I meant to do the same with my chullo hat, but was stymied as to what shape to cut the pieces for the crown. Now I realize that the creator of this hat avoided that challenge by only lining the main part of the hat and the flaps. I’ll do that with mine.

We also have a couple of chullo hats from one of the mister’s trips to South America. He hiked the Inca Trail back in the day (to end up at Machu Picchu at dawn) and it was so cold that he bought two hats from the local knitters. Both are chullos. He wore this navy one.

He bought this second hat just because, and I’m glad he did. It’s so beautiful.

The wool is so fine, it’s almost thread. Look at the detail.

Someone had a very fine set of needles! I love that the colour placement is apparently random. It’s such a lovely piece of work – and very inspiring.

And here, finally, is my own lined and finished chullo.

Audrey is Done

Posted on February 15, 2023 by Deborah Cooke

This year, I have a plan to finish up some of the projects that are on my needles. Some of them have been waiting for my attention for a while. (Sleeve Island is a precarious location for me. Sweaters can be marooned there for years!) I had a look through all the project bags at the first of the year and chose this one to finish up first.

Audrey is a cardigan designed by Martin Storey in Rowan Angora Haze. It’s on the cover of the pattern book, Rowan Angora Haze, which is now discontinued. (That’s a Ravelry link for the pattern book.) The yarn is also discontinued. Here’s the Ravelry link for Rowan Angora Haze yarn and here’s the Ravelry link for Audrey.

Audrey, a cardigan designed by Martin Storey in Rowan Angora Haze, photo by Rowan

It’s a pretty cardigan in a very fuzzy soft yarn. I’ve blogged about this one before, since it’s been SEVEN years since I cast it on. Gah. It’s ten years since I bought the yarn and the pattern, which means it aged in the stash even before I cast on. (This little summary and a birthday on the horizon makes me give my stash a side-eye.)

Let’s look at those blog posts before we explore the why of the timeline. Here’s the first one, and there’s a mention of my Audrey in this post, then here’s the most recent post about (ha) the plan to finish it, dating from two years ago.

The big issue with this knit was that I didn’t like the shape of the sweater as designed. It’s kind of an 80’s shape, with wide shoulders and a narrow waist, an inverted triangle. I didn’t originally realize that from the pictures – I saw it in the schematics and instructions. As a pear-shaped individual myself, I knew this wouldn’t work. I eliminated the increases in the upper body, which then meant that the armhole decreases and the shoulder cap had to be recalculated. I also changed the neck, so that there’s another button there instead of a ribbon threaded through a casing. Then I discovered that the sleeve instructions made a sleeve that was far wider than I wanted, so I frogged the sleeves back and started them again. Finally, the dark fuzzy wool was tough to read in the cable and eyelet pattern. This wasn’t television knitting at all, even though I soon memorized the pattern stitch.

This project was castaway on Sleeve Island twice – once for the recalculation of the sleeve cap and once for ennui – as well as having an earlier time-out or two. The yarn shed like mad at first, even after being put in the freezer (that’s an old tip for sheddy yarn) but when I picked it up this last time, it seemed to be shedding less. That’s a good sign for actually wearing the sweater and not having everything I own covered in purple fuzz.

Here are some in-progress pix of the body of the sweater from those older posts, one with a test button. I’m going with those faceted clear ones – they’re pretty but not too fussy. A plain button wouldn’t be right with this sweater IMO.

Audrey by Martin Storey knit in Rowan Angora Haze by Deborah Cooke

Now it’s done (finally!) and I love it. It’s very soft and fits exactly as I’d planned (yay), and oh, it’s warm!

And here it is FINISHED!

Audrey, designed by Martin Storey, knit by Deborah Cooke in Rowan Angora Haze

I bought 12 balls of yarn and used almost 10.5 of them, which means the sweater took 1438 m or 1573 yards. (I don’t even want to think about how many of them I knit twice.) Here’s my Ravelry project page.

If I knit it again (not a chance!) I’d make the armhole a little more shallow, maybe even an inch. I’d add that length into the body so the sweater overall was the same length. I bought 12 balls of black Angora Haze way back in 2013, enough to make this sweater, but I think I’ll knit it into something more plain than this cardigan.

Felix #4 Finished

Posted on November 17, 2021 by Deborah Cooke

I finished my most recent Felix cardigan over the weekend, so wanted to show you. I just love how this sweater came out!

Felix cardigan knit by Deborah Cooke in the Loving Path Fiber Arts Aura Lace and High Twist Sock — **Felix** by Amy Christophers knit in the **Loving Path Aura Lace** and **High Twist Sock**

The colour is the most true in this image – you can see all the wonderful little flickies of colour in the yarn. This sweater is very soft and drapey. Even though I made the same size as my other Felix sweaters on the same needles, this one is a bit smaller. It took about 750m of each yarn, and they were held together. Here’s my Ravelry project page with details. I think I’m going to get a lot of wear from this one!

It did jump queue because I loved the yarn so much. I’ve picked up my Cheater Stripes pullover again. It looked like this the last time I posted about it:

Andrea Mowry's Stripes top-down pullover knit in SugarBush Motley by Deborah Cooke — **STRIPES!** by Andrea Mowry knit in **Sugar Bush Yarns Motley**

I just have one sleeve to finish so will probably be able to show you that one next week.

The Final Navelli

Posted on July 9, 2021 by Deborah Cooke

I finally finished my teal Navelli, and it’s actually the season I could wear it!

You might remember that this top (which has been a cursed project) was a bit too short for my liking. Here it is alongside the red version of Navelli that I knit (and love):

I had knit the teal one first, in a larger size. I thought it was done and blogged about it here. For the red one, I went down a size, then discovered that I’d measured incorrectly while knitting the teal one. Here’s the post on the red one. I wasn’t really looking forward to ripping out the sleeves, neck and top of the sweater to fix it. It sat for a while, then I had an idea.

I picked out a row below the split for the sleeves at the underarm, putting the live stitches from the lower part of the sweater on one needle and the bottom loops from the live stitches on the top of the sweater on another. I knit two more inches onto the bottom of the sweater, then grafted the two pieces back together. The grafting took ages because of the number of stitches, but I kept reminding myself that I hadn’t had to reknit the top of the sweater.

Here’s the result:

In this picture, you can see the newly knitted band. I wasn’t sure whether there was a difference in colour between skeins (it’s all the same dye lot, but Koigu sometimes varies anyway) or whether it would vanish when the sweater is washed. Those stitches look crisper and more tightly twisted than the rest. It turned out to be a bit of both – the stitches relaxed so they look like the ones that had already been washed, but there is a teensy bit of colour difference due to variation within the dye lot. There are a couple of lighter zones on the back and the front, but overall, I’m happy.

This one is FINALLY done!

Navelli – Finished!

Posted on March 18, 2020 by Deborah Cooke

It’s done! Here’s my finished Navelli:

Navelli knit in Koigu KPPPM and Shibui Sock by Deborah Cooke There are some previous posts about this sweater – Navelli is the main post, which talks about the challenges (and shortcomings) of my first choice of yarn colour; Update on Navelli is about my progress in the new main colour.

I didn’t knit the sleeves as specified. They’re supposed to have essentially a contrast facing – mine would have been purple – but instead I did five rows of 1/1 ribbing in purple and cast them off.

I made the fifth size, which gives me 11″ of positive ease. (The pattern suggests 4 – 15″ of positive ease.) It is a fun boxy fit, but I’m narrow in the shoulders. After blocking, I felt that I was losing the sweater, so I frogged back and changed the neck to be the smallest size. That made the shoulder seam a little bigger, but it’s a more comfortable fit.

This is a better shot of the colours.

Koigu KPPM I had been a little concerned that the fair isle section was narrower than the body of the sweater, even though I knit it on larger needles. That was all fixed in the blocking. My gauge is dead-on with this one – it’s EXACTLY the measurements of the schematic. Ha.

I love this sweater so much that I want to cast on another one. I dipped into the stash over the weekend and discovered some Madeline Tosh Merino Light, in Red Phoenix and Spicewood, plus Malabrigo Sock in black. I think I’ll go down a size and cast on the fourth size, but I’ll keep the neck in the smallest size. I have a plan, but I want to finish another project that’s already on the needls before I cast on a new sweater…we’ll see how that plan goes!

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