Bunnies & Berries.

March 7, 20213 Comments

Not much intro today – I finished it! Year of minis #2 is all done – Bunnies & Berries Mini Quilt:

I’m pretty darned proud of this one. This has been a idea that’s been kicking around in my head for years. I fell in love with soft colors and sweet bunnies in the feature fabric by Lauren Nahs and picked up a few different fabrics from the her other collections. I thought they would be perfect for a little mini quilt featuring tiny dresden plates.

It’s just so cute! I’m glad that I went with the hand quilting, although it was a huge pain. I will think twice before using this white fabric for background or backing when I’m planning to hand quilt. Here’s a peek at the rather boring back, but the texture shows pretty nicely:

Once I finished binding the quilt, I decided it was high time I started hanging these up. I put up my first mini from this year and then hung the Berries & Bunnies mini too. My sewing room is starting to look pretty crafty!

Happy making!

In no particular order.

March 2, 20211 Comment

Sometimes I struggle with writing a blog post. A crafty blog is an interesting thing – sometimes I have a finished object to talk about, sometimes I have a theme or idea that has been popping up in my making, and then, sometimes not. Sometimes I’m just putiting time into projects and there’s no take home message, no nugget of wisdom, just some stitches of this variety or that with pretty (or not) pictures. This is one of those times.

It took me a single night’s sleep after finishing my crochet blanket to want to cast on another one. I swatched a few different patterns and even cast on a different one before settling with this one. I’m still a crochet newbie and really just wanted another fairly rhythmic, easy pattern. This is the Hydrangea Stripe Blanket, a free pattern by Attic24. It hasn’t seen a ton of love yet, but it will get there.

I’m almost done hand quilting my latest mini quilt. I can’t say that I’ve really enjoyed the process. I used some white fabric that I had lying around for the background and the backing, since this will just be hanging on the wall. It turns out that something about the weave, or thread count, or whatever, makes it really difficult to hand quilt. Of course, I’ve chose to only quilt in the background, so you can imagine how fun that’s been.

I was so frustrated that I actually wound up going back to youtube looking for any tips or tricks to make it easier. I happened on a video that suggested using a silicon grippy on your pointer finger to help pull the needle – that made a world of differenc! I still can’t work on it for long periods, but I can’t recommend this enough. They’re very inexpensive, I’m using one on both hands to help with hand fatigue.

In other news – I finished a pair of socks! It’s been quite a hot minute since I last had a pair to share. These were my de-stress Christmas socks, cast on at the end of October, finished on Sunday. The yarn is from A Homespun House in the Holly Jolly Christmas colorway. My skein is quite different from other dye lots, it would seem. I’m not overly in love with the finished pair – I like the lighter sections much more than the dark. But that’s ok, I’ll wear them next holiday season with joy. At least they’re off the needles.

I was primarily motivated to finish the Holly Jolly socks becasue my oldest requested a pair of socks. Now, the teenager has been quite against handknits for some time, so I jumped at the chance to clad my child in wool once again. The kid has good taste too, this is a long hoarded skein of Hedgehog Fibres in Teacup. Even that little bit of cuff is just so sweet and pretty.

The last, barely started, project going now is this little basket. The Thimble Basket, from Rainy Day Sewing by Amy Sinibaldi, is a precious, teeny little basket that I’ve had my eye on for quite some time. The straw that finally broke the camel’s back has been this hand quilting project. It’s such a mess to move all my accroutement from desk to chair to couch… you get the idea. Plus it’s so cute! I’ve spent little bits of time all week pulling various teeny scraps and hopefully will get to putting it together soon.

Well that’s it for the current state of affairs, thank you for hanging out with me for today’s ramble!

Happy making!

Making my way out of the haze.

February 18, 2021February 18, 20213 Comments

Well, I’ve finally come out of the fog that has been the start of 2021. This is no coincidence, of course, I wrapped up a big conference at work Saturday before last. I honestly spent most of the next day napping and then sleeping. I had decided to take off the following Monday and Tuesday and that turned out to be fantastic idea for the ole creativity.

I woke up early to get the kids going for school and decided to have a good look at the afghan progress. Kevin thought I was getting close so I laid it out on our bed and to see:

I was actually amazed at how much I had done! I measured and figured that another 14″ inches or so would do the trick. After that, I spent my two days off devouring an audio book and hooking away. I’ve mostly worked on the afghan ever since, though once I finished the stripes, I stalled a bit on weaving in all the ends. Hot tip: dont’ wait till the end to weave in ends on 70ish stripes. It takes forever. While I was trying to muster myself to the task, I had a look around the sewing room.

It’s kind of been a mess in there all year. I had started a few secret projects and finally just decided to finish them and get them mailed out. First up is a bag I made for my sister-in-law, Madelyn. She’s been knitting a (gorgeous) blanket for a while and I heard through the grapevine that she’d outgrown her project bag. I decided to make up the Take Along Tote for her, in some lovely Rifle Paper Co. canvas.

It’s a sweet, fully lined bucket tote bag with a roomy pocket inside. This is the large size and is pretty roomy. I’ve made one before for my friend Hannah. I cut another one out for myself, but I’ve run out of the interfacing for the lining so now it’s on hold. I also finished up a super secret quit that I can’t share yet, but I’ve got a few sneaky peaks for you. The quilt is destined for my oldest, so the fabrics are quite a bit out of my personal comfort zone. We went with a cool, moody palate of neutral and blue batiks with a solid grey background.

I’ve finished the top and sent it off to be quilted, I can’t wait to see the finished quilt and share it with you when the pattern releases. In case you hadn’t guessed, this is part of a sewalong with my fave pals, Fat Quarter Shop. Once I had those two all wrapped up and mailed out, I still was in a sewing mood.

A few years ago, I got sucked into the rabbit hole that is #tinydresdenparty on instagram and wound up making a few itty bitty dresden projects. One was a wee little bunny dresden that wound up growing up to be a mug rug. Ever since that project, I’ve had the idea to make a little mini quilt up with dresden plates and that super sweet bunny fabric. Well, I finally decided that my year of minis would be the perfect time to make that idea a reality. Last weekend, I had a little fabric pull and got to work.

I just love the sweet and soft pastel pallete. I did a bit of brainstorming and settled on a simple design that would mix dresden plates and nine patch blocks. I used the template in this pinnie tutorial on Quilty Obession’s blog, the finished dresden comes out at about 4.5″ and oh so cute. The little chain of blades is even sweet.

I went pretty simple on these just mixing up the colors on the blades. Once I had the blades all sewn together, I just used straight pins to baste them to the background and hand appliqued them down. When I have multiple different colors like this and am not over concerned, I usually use a soft pink thread – I think it blends a bit better with different colors than a beige.

Next came the centers and then we were done with the dresdens. I made up the nine patch blocks pretty quickly and sewed the whole thing up into a fnished quilt top! I’m planning to hand quilt the whole thing and can’t wait to get started.

In the midst of all this sewing, I did manage to finish up weaving in the ends of the afghan. I’m on the fourth of five border rows now, so the end is actually in sight. Hard to believe this mammoth is coming to a close. Honestly, I’m already looking forward to another crochet project, it’s taken forever but I’ve enjoyed this one so much.

Well, I’ve got plenty to keep my hands busy but I am thrilled to be on the cusp of finishing not only another mini but one of my big 3 projects for the year! It feels awfully good. Soon I’ll get to decide which big 3 project gets love next, if the hand quilting goes well on the mini, I’m thinking about diving into the Norah quilt.

It’s been such a welcome reprieve to come out of the stress haze and get back to making. I’ve got a lot of joy and rest wrapped in these makes over the last week and a half and it feels glorious.

Happy making!

The final score: WIP Wipeout 2019

December 31, 20194 Comments

Way back in June, I took a long hard look at all of my works in progress. I pulled them all out, posted them on the blog, and challenged myself to finish them off by the end of the year. Well, friends, the end of the year is here. How’d I do?

Completely, totally, all finished:

Jelly Roll Twist Quilt

Dresden Mini #1

Layer Cake Pop Quilt

Lumen

Quilted Notions Pouch

Overdyed Mathilde

Dresden Mini #2

4-Patch Hearts Mini Quilt

Rose City Rollers

Ugly Christmas Sweater Socks

No Frills Sweater

Circular Sock Machine Socks #2

Circular Sock Machine Socks #3

Divi Divi Shawlette – after a coffee incident on a plane, this baby got frogged

Kinda finished: (Off my mental list, but something still needs to be done with them in the physical world, i.e. these need to be frogged)

Dammejaka Lopa – The verdict is in, we’re going to frog this one. It’s way too big for me and I even sent it to a knitty friend and it wasn’t right for her either. I don’t know if I’ll knit the same thing with the same colors, but I do need to reclaim the yarn.

Circular Sock Machine Socks #4 – The orange/yellow/black/green tube is very, very wonky. Not sure what happened, but I’m going to try to reclaim the yarn.

Swirl Dress – This version is just going to have to be scrapped. I’m going to toile the bodice but haven’t. I had thought I could salvage this version, but I don’t think that will work. The fabric can be used for something else, but probably not just to redo this dress.

Axed projects – yep, I still didn’t frog this yarn. One day, probably.

Unfinished, not touched, not no how, not no way:

Julgran – To be quite honest, I have not been taking great care of myself and the result of that is a definite lack of enthusiasm for knitting a fitted sweater.

Beauty School Top – ditto to the Julgran. The yarn is frogged and ready to go, but I haven’t cast it back on for the same reason.

Ok, so all in total, thats 14 out of 20 finished. If I were in school, I’d be passing, but barely. Add in the “not frogged” items and that get’s me up to a respectable 18 of 20. Not too shabby. I also started 16 new projects and finished 9 of them. That makes my net progress for the second half of the year 27/36 = 75%. Not too shabby.

I listened to a podcast recently about embracing your WIPs as creative opportunities. One thing I learned over the course of this challenge is that starting something new can be daunting. I don’t love the mental clutter of having tons of stuff hanging around, but it’s also fun to be able to pick among things to work on. As they say, balance is key.

With that, we’ll wrap up the year. Happy New Year’s Eve to you all! I can’t wait to see what creativity blossoms in 2020.

Happy making!

Off the list, one way or another.

July 21, 20197 Comments

Do you ever notice how life just seems to get slowly, inexorably busier all the time? At least that’s how it seems. Somehow, I am making progress on projects. I have crossed some more things off my list–four!–all in the last few days. Last week, I wanted to finish my 4-patch heart mini quilt and get my No Frills Sweater past the split for the sleeves. I knew that I was headed on a work trip and that the sweater would provide all of the endless, mindless knitting I would need.

First, I started quilting the mini quilt. I decided to try something new, and not do all over quilting. It was really all going well until I thought I would try a bit of free motion quilting around the hearts. Hard nope. It took me about 2 hours to pick it all out, but I finally did. I wound up going with a very nice grid instead.

On Sunday last, I finally gave up the dream of finishing the mini and got back to the sweater. The rows had gotten long and felt like they took forever so I tried to just plow through. I finally got to the split on Sunday night. I wound up more yarn to take with me on the trip and… decided not to take the sweater. It was just too much bulk with the extra yarn. I had to carry on my luggage–which I hate–and it seemed like I should just take something else.

Enter the Divi Divi Shawlette. This is one on the list that I have been hemming and hawing about. I thought this would give me a chance to really put a dent in it and try to just get it off the needles, even though I wasn’t sure that I even wanted to knit it. I don’t think I did really want to knit it, I was trying to slog through, but it was a struggle.

And then, about 2 minutes after this picture, the lady in front of me dropped something behind her and proceeded to swat around and spill this cup of coffee all over me and the shawl. Decision made. The yarn got soaked pretty good with coffee and we were early in the day of travel, so it dried on. I will try to save the yarn but I’m done with the shawl. Cross it off the list, it’s out of my mental space now. Thank goodness that wasn’t my sweater! I’d probably have cried.

With the rest of my plane trip there and back again, I worked on socks. I’ve not had much sock mojo, as we know, but it was good to just kick back with a good book and put some rows down on a vanilla sock. I finished that first sock and pulled out my rose city rollers. I knit and knit on them and… ran out of yarn.

On the plane, I cast on the second sock for the other pair. When I got home that night, I pulled out a mini and knit the last threeish rows in pink and finished up my shortie socks.

These are Rose City Rollers, a free pattern by Mara Catherine Bryner. I used the last of some Tempting Ewe Yarns in the colorway Saftayy. The mini is from Miss Babs, in the color Hot Shot. I didn’t bring scissors or neeedles on the flight, so I also kitchenered the toe of the holiday socks once I was home.

Once the socks were in order, I went straight back to binding that mini quilt and managed to finish it up. This is the 4-Patch Hearts Mini Quilt by Jedi Craft Girl . I used the same fabric as the pattern, but I had a charm pack instead of a jelly roll. It worked out, although I didn’t have as much red in my quilt.

I love it so much! I am pretty proud of this one. It’s been tucked away in a box for about a year and half because the first block I made came out super wonky. Now my blocks and points are much better. I used some yardage of the same fabric line for the backing. I just can’t get enough of this print.

I also really went out of my comfort zone for the quilting. I really like the effect. I even washed this one to make the quilting stand out. I usually don’t wash minis, but this one was just begging to crinkle up!

Once on the binding train, I couldn’t really get off. I pulled out my bunny mini dresden and finally got it all bound and finished off. This was my first try at binding a circle. It’s a wee bit poofy but overall pretty good. I think it is adorable.

I had made the whole thing strawberry themed, inspired by how much the bunny loves his strawberry. I think this one will be a mug rug for my desk at work. I just love seeing this bunny hanging out. The back is a pretty little strawberry print.

I think that’s it for now. I’m working on my sweater and contemplating a few new sewing projects. I’m down to 8 WIPs and I have been feeling pretty diligent so I’m ready for a bit of freshness.

One other thing, in completely un-crafty news, I saw the pacific ocean! I worked a lot on this trip, but did manage to walk out to the water a couple of times. I’m a mountain girl at heart, but the ocean is just so peaceful.

Happy making!

The end of the line.

June 27, 20192 Comments

Welp, I’ve done it. We’ve finally come to the end of my storage space on the blog. Two and a half years of craft blogging really does a number on the old photo uploads. While I figure out what I’m going to do, let’s talk quilts.

I came to a bit of a frustration point with Lumen, so I decided to step back into the sewing room. I pulled out those sewing WIPs and that kitten dresden was calling my name. I finally bit the bullet and just quilted the thing. I finished the binding the same day and lo’ and behold, a mini quilt:

It’s so precious! I did pretty simple quilting and I think it turned out very nice. It measures about 8″ x 8″ so it’s a generous mug rug size, but it’s just hanging on my wall for the moment.

After that, I was in a bit of a binding mood, so I went ahead and tackled my last full size quilt WIP. It took me a couple of nights to get the hand stitching done, but now it’s finished and it’s my favorite by far.

This is Layer Cake Pop – another free shortcut quilt pattern from Fat Quarter Shop. I used a 1930’s reproduction style layer cake from Lecien. I love the old fashioned looking prints in bright, fresh colors. I quilted it on a long arm at a local quilt shop.

That’s two sewing projects off the list! It’s back to the drawing board on this blog thing, we’ll see where we come out. I’ll just be over here plugging away (hopefully) on Lumen.

Happy making!

Knit 1, Make 2

Tag: mini dresden

Bunnies & Berries.

In no particular order.

Making my way out of the haze.

The final score: WIP Wipeout 2019

Off the list, one way or another.

The end of the line.