Tag: yearofminis

Heavens to Betsy.

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I have a confession to make: I’ve been hoarding some fabric. Shocker, I know. In particular, I’ve been squirreling away my Liberty stash waiting for the day to come. You know the day. The when I’m A Better Sewist. The day when I find The Perfect Project. Well, that day has yet to arrive and so I’ve stashed. I’ve been doing the Ava & Neve Liberty Society for quite a while, so I get my little bundles each month and I look at them, ooh and ah over them, and put them away.

So pretty, aren’t they? Ok, I’ll level with you. I did something similar with knitting, hoarding my special skeins until I was A Better Knitter. As the story goes, one day I decided to just take the plunge and use The Good Stuff, and you know what? I didn’t hurt the yarn, ruin it, disgrace it, or any of those things. I knit it into something. You’d think, or at least I would think, that I could extrapolate from yarn to fabric. Now, not to say that I’m completely shy about fabric, I’ve gotten over this hurdle in some ways but not completely.

After I finished my Bunnies & Berries mini quilt, I spent a bit of time digging around for inspiration for my next mini. I came across the Cinque Terre pattern and it really seemed to fit the bill. After the fiddly work of those tiny dresdens and hand quilting, I was ready for something simple. The pattern uses Liberty fabric for the wow factor, letting the fabric do all the work in a sweet play on the 9-patch. I decided it was time to bite the bullet. I got out the Liberty bin.

I finally decided to just double down. Go big or go home, as they say. I decided to make the whole mini out of Betsy.

This is Besty – she is one of my all time favorite Liberty patterns. This colorway has metallic accents which just… gah, I love it. I found that I had a good varitey of colorways, so I pulled, arranged…

And sat. Since we’re having a heart-to-heart today, it still took me a week to cut into them. But once I did… I was off to the races. The pattern is straightfoward and lends itself nicely to chain piecing. I don’t think it even took 2 hours to make up the blocks.

This. This was the point in the process where the clouds parted and the sun rose over my sewing room, and I knew I was on to something. Another hour or so and the top was done, basted, quilted, and bound. I used some Liberty quilters cotton from my stash for the back and quilted it with simple straight lines a bit over 1/2″ apart.

To no one’s surprise, I’m sure, I am completely enamoured. One thing I am really learning so far in my year of minis is the joy of immortalizing a beloved print or motif in a little piece that can hang on my wall for as long as I want it to. A little goes a long way in these bite sized quilts. This project has inspired me to really stop stashing (so much) and start sewing (even more). I might even have my sights set on another Liberty stash quilt!

Happy making!

Bunnies & Berries.

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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.

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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.

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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!

Wherefore art thou, mojo?

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Is it just me or has January been a bit of a blur? I’ve had quite the perfect storm of work stress, video game addiction, and just all around lack of mojo. I’ve not really felt like crafting most days and so have fallen back into a certain game over and over. I’ll confess, I do love of Stardew Valley and I’ve appreciated the distraction.

I’ve certainly piddled around the sewing room, both Josehphine (sewing machine) and Paggy (serger) got a serious cleaning. I even rethreaded Peggy from scratch — for the first time… it wasn’t as bad as I expected. And then one evening after supper, Astra asked if we could do a little sewing because she had an idea. Tough to say no to that. So we lit a candle, turned on some tunes, and got down to business. She wanted to cut the fabric this time, so I cut strips and she cut the squares. A bit harrowing, but we made it out alive. While she sewed, I decided to play around with some scraps and see if I had what I wanted for a cool mini quilt tutorial I had come across.

The kids were a bit horrified at this scene, but I love it. I have tons of strips of all sizes leftover from my Norah quilt, ends of fat quarters, and even the packaging from some fabric orders! I had decided to try out this tutorial for a mini scrap quilt by Amy Smart. It’s foundation paper pieced and pretty darned fun. It took me far longer to arrange the scraps than to sew them down.

I fussed around with this for quite a while before I started sewing. I finished my first block right as Astra finished her quilt top. She likes to sew fast, wonder where she learned that? Anyway, this was her idea: a checkerboard table topper for the cats to sit on.

I kept on sewing; the cats had already settled into little scrap nests so there was no way I could leave that mess laying around for another night. By the time I was ready to turn in, I had all four blocks complete.

Cute, huh? Gosh I love a good pastel. Well, so this tutorial has you make these blocks, then cut them apart, rearrange, and sew them back together. Classic quilter stuff, there. Cut it up and sew it back together differently! Anyway, the effect is just darling, and much, much easier than making 16 little blocks!

Astra and I found a half yard of some soft pink fabric in my stash, so we split it into fat quarters to use for the backing for our quilts. She’s still working on quilting hers, but I went ahead and did a 1″ diagonal grid for mine. I’m really pleased with how the quilting turned out. I also machine bound it, which I think I’m getting better at.

Voila! There she is, the first mini of the #yearofminis. I love how it turned out and I’m especially pleased to have a few favorite fabrics included. I’m sometimes hesitant to use up scraps like those honey bears, but just a little 4″ piece and I get to look at them on my wall as long as I want. This honestly makes me want to dive into more scrap quilting. I’m trying to resist starting any more long-term projects, so be on the lookout for more scrappy minis this year!

In other news, I’ve been doing teensy bits on other things. The crochet blanket has seen a few stripes and I’m trying to spend a bit of time here and there prepping applique pieces. I really like the applique technique that Lori Holt uses, it makes it pretty easy to get the shapes right — but the prep is kind of a beast. It takes me quite a while and that’s been part of my stumbling block on this project. So I’m trying to eat the frog first on this one and get all the applique prepped so I can just stitch stitch stitch on it once I’m done.

Well, dear reader, that is that. Not much going on around here, but that’s ok. Sometimes I get a bit overly productivity minded with crafting, so I’m working on being kind to myself about just not feeling like it lately. The mojo always comes back and I’ll be here when she does.

Happy making!

Bait and switch: 2021 Year of …

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So here we are, 2020 is in the books and we have a fresh and shiny new year ready for the taking. After I wrapped up my Year of Christmas last week, my thoughts turned to my next “year.” I’ve been mulling over ideas for a while, looking at stash and around the house for inspiration. I took stock of my current works in progress, and a few stood out to me.

I don’t usually have projects that languish around for very long. A couple of years at most and I will either finish or frog. I work on socks continuously, and my other projects–both quilts and bigger kntting projects–tend to just get finished up when I decide to really put the time in and concentrate on them. Recently though, in the last couple of years, I’ve started some bigger, longer projects.

These three projects are quite a bit more time consuming than my usual project choice. Let’s have a quick tour of these and talk about where they are and what they need.

My Granny’s Garden Quilt (whew my old phone took bad pictures!) has been going since 2019 and is my oldest WIP. I have about 16 blocks completed at this point, so we need another 26 blocks plus all the border applique before we can put this quilt top together.

Next up is my Granny Stripe afghan. This beauty was cast on last January and I’m over halfway done the stripes, then it will just be the border. Though, I guess “just the border” is a bit misleading since the thing is so darned big.

Finally, my Norah Quilt. Ugh, I love it everytime I look at it. I made the quilt top in pretty short order last spring, but stalled on the hand quilting. We need to quilt and bind this one.

I adore all three of these projects and really want to give myself the space to show them the love they deserve. Are you ready for the twist? Ok, so if you’re like Kevin you might be thinking that I’m gearing up to tell you that my goal this year is to finish these projects. But no! Well, sort of. One of my dilemnas with these projects is that the bulk of the creative energy is already spent. The idea has been had, the project commenced, much of the learning curve surmounted. They are all fully at the process stage, which is a bit of a challenge for me.

I love to finish things. If we’re really honest, a lot of my making comes in smaller or faster projects. Socks are a big part of that but also mug rugs and short cut quilts. I love the start and the finish, but that in-between part sometimes gets me hung up. So I started thinking of my “year of” in these terms – how do I keep the creative energy going with some finishes to keep me satisfied, but still have the time to work on the big guys?

Well, this year at least, the answer is mini quilts! In my ideal state of home decor, there are quilts everywhere–including the walls! I think this year will be the perfect time to boost the quilt to wall space ratio around here. My thinking is these smaller projects will provide the variety and gratification I know I need while also giving me the opportunity to try new ideas and new techniques. The bite size, low investment nature of minis can also leave time to put effort into the big 3.

Think about it – a whole year of minis! Mini quilts here, there, and everywhere! So here we go, a Year of Minis: 12 mini quilts in 2021. I’m not going to worry about monthly goals, that always goes awry for me. The only rule here is size – mug rugs don’t count and neither does anything I can cuddle under.

For a little nostalgic reference point, here’s a throwback to my very first mini quilt back in 2017! I’ve come a long way since and I am looking forward to seeing where this year takes me. This idea has me pretty excited and inspired. I know it was a little bit of a convuluted thought process to get here so thanks for sticking with me. I’m looking forward to sharing my progress on the long-term projects as well as all of the fun for the upcoming Year of Minis!

Happy {mini} making!