Hello 2010!

Oh my poor neglected blog!  I hope you forgive me... I'll give you lots of photos!  I have been really busy, but I have been sewing!  I knitted a  blanket for Chris' parents, and my sister and I sewed placemats and napkins for my mom.  Both were very well received. 

Lucy made it through Christmas with minimal torture from her human parents and received lots of toys and kisses.  Lets just say she was pooped.

      

I've also been sewing all the quilting bee blocks:



But perhaps most exciting of all, Chris' mom's friend's friend had an unfinished cathedral window quilt that needed a home, and I am the lucky one who received the box!  Look at all these goodies:



Recently I have been trying to catch up on my Green Tea and Sweet Beans block of the month.  I will update with photos of those blocks soon!

Monster Post

Alright, apparently I did not want to post for an entire month after NaBloPoMo. Here is a mosaic of what happened in the month of December.

Lets see, included in there is the Christmas Tree, Napa, Corgi Faire (where Lucy won 3rd place in corgi limbo), stuffed animal, graduation from Puppy 2, Birthday cake, Freddy's visit and Lucy's new water bowl.

Yesterday I worked on a couple projects, the quilt top you see above, and my clapotis. I finished it! Here is a photo with half dropped stitches and some that still need dropping. I still need to weave in the ends. I'll take proper photos in the new year.

Have a safe New Year's Eve!

NaBloPoMo: Day 20

Working on a new project...

But did you know that Erin Michaels has a new fabric line coming out for Moda? I'm so excited!!

Half Square Triangle MADNESS!!!

Oh Half Square Triangles, how I used to hate you. Then I discovered triangles on a roll, and thangles, and I liked you a little better, but I was too lazy to go out and buy rolls for all the different sizes. Then I read this post by Kathy Mack of Pink Chalk Studio about the Angler 2, and I made plans to try it out. Then my LQS sent out a newsletter about a new tool from Quilt Market, Clearly Perfect Angles. And I have now good-enough-ly conquered the half square triangles. Finally.

Ok, so my angles are not PERFECT, but good enough for me. As Brenda says, finished is better than perfect! Clearly Perfect Angles does take some getting used to, but it's really not that bad. It's a window cling, unlike the Angler 2, which is a thin sheet of plastic. The window cling is nice because it's much easier to cut it and customize it to your machine. I used my seam ripper to cut the holes. Another point my friend Cheri noticed was that Clearly Perfect angles is longer, so you can line up your squares for a longer period of time. I love it, and I have used it quite a bit since I bought it.

Now, the reason why I bought it was for the mystery quilt I posted about oh, half a month ago. Here are the squares I ended up with! (please ignore the incorrectly sewn one, I will fix it eventually!)

It was a fun quilt, and I'm trying to decide if I want to make more blocks, add sashing, add a border, or just keep it as a small quilt. We'll see. The pattern is by Constantine Quilts, and it was super fun. Here is the link in case you want to do it too!

After this quilt, my parents asked me to make a baby quilt for them. Still on my half square triangle high, I decided on this pattern (which thankfully is still offered free, even though not on the bhg site anymore). I added a couple columns to the side and used charm squares instead of whatever they asked for. The fabric is Little Lady by Lakehouse Fabrics, and was fun, but I have discovered that these are NOT my colors.

I had to ask multiple people if they thought the quilt was ok, because I do not like it. I am not a purple person. I do love the pattern though, and am planning on making another one with the Oh Boy fabric, also from Lakehouse. I think I will like this one much more. Hurray.

Play with ME!

Last night I picked up my second CSA bunch, and I am very excited. I also have to say that the radishes (not beets, doh) from last week were delicious! They taste like daikon (japanese white radish) and I definitely had a light bulb moment there... Oh and I had the collard greens the way Jan suggested, fried in bacon fat with more bacon. SO GOOD. Now that I'm not scared of them, maybe this week I'll try a healthier option. Or not. :) Here is this week's haul:

Thankfully the only think I really don't know what to do with is the kale. I'm sad there's not cauliflower this week though, I had wanted to make cauliflower gratin!

Here are my mystery quilt squares all cut up. Actually, I had run out of the super dark fabrics, so I'm visiting the quilt shop today. And here is how Lucy reacts to my taking photos of things on the floor...

Tonal Mystery

Ok I'll admit it. I don't really like mystery quilts. They never turn out like I want them to. The idea is fun. Getting fabric and then chopping it up into a surprise pattern... but something always isn't quite right.

My friend Cheri is hosting a mystery quilt, and I'm pretty excited for it. Instead of choosing a few main fabrics, this one has you pick 6 fabrics from each of 5 tonal groups, clear light, medium light, medium, medium dark and deep dark. These fabrics are all from my stash, which makes me very very happy. I think I will be replacing at least 3 of the fabrics with something else. Now I just have to do the pre-cutting and I'll be all set! Hurray!

Leap Year!

Happy February 29th! When I was growing up, I always wished that I was born on Feb. 29th. How cool would that be! I also feel like Feb. 29th should be a holiday. I feel like I'm getting away with an extra day!

In any case, here are my promised blocks... Please ignore the wrinkly-ness. The little drunkards path blocks are not perfectly square (due to my lack of experience with curved piecing), so when I pieced them together, I decided that I'd rather have the points match up and that I would live with the wrinkles. Hopefully it will be better after I quilt it. In any case, I fell in love with the lighter blue in the last block, with the dandelions in it. The other colors stemmed from there. They also look a little more wonky than they do in real life, thanks to my laziness when it comes to taking photos.

In Lucy news, we played ball today! Looks like she's going to be a ball corgi after all!

Lucy Update: 3 months

Isn't this crazy? My little puphead is 3 months old already!

She is such a good dog. Everything I had hoped for in a corgi and more. Today she figured out how to jump onto the sofa. Or I guess I should say she finally grew big enough so she could.

Because of this sweetie pie, I have not had much time to craft, but my friend and I found this quilt that we both LOVE, and I had to get started on it right away. I have 2 blocks finished, plus 3 blocks halfway finished, and 2 more blocks cut out. There are 12 blocks in all, and when I finally get off my peegu and stop being lazy, I'll take some better photos to show you. Above is a mock up of two of the blocks... It's based on the drunkard's path block, and it is FABULOUS. There are many firsts for this quilt... first batik quilt, first curved piecing.. I'm so excited!

First New Project of 2008

Ok, so I have a lot of unfinished projects left over from 2007, but why should that start me from a new project? I went to Joann's yesterday and got these fabrics to start a new one...

I'm VERY happy with my fabric choices, and I hope it comes out as cute as I'm imagining it.

Also, on a separate note, today seems like it's going to be an off day. This morning, I went into the shower with my glasses on. Whoops!

the wheels on the bus go round and round....

Inspired by this post awhile ago (who am I kidding, I am always inspired by Kelli), I decided to start taking the bus at least once a week. It probably more than doubles my commute time, but it's been pretty fun. I take my knitting with me, and it's fairly productive. Look what I got done today on the ride there and back!!

Please ignore the fuzziness. I don't like flash, and well, it was dark by the time I get back. That's almost a whole square for this blanket! I'm so excited. Can't wait to see how much I get done tomorrow.

WIP: Sampler Blanket

I started this blanket about 2 years ago, and it's still being knitted. It's nice because it's knit in small squares, and it's easy to carry around. My knitting group has seen parts of this blanket many many times. Pattern is from Debbie Abrahams 100 Afghan Squares to Knit. I think right now I have about 68 of 99 blocks completed.

One thing that bothers me about this blanket is that I used Knit Picks Merino Style. Perfect match for the called for yarn, but it's not washable! Stupid me. Good thing that Soak exists now! Has anyone tried it yet?

Simple Quilts are so hard!!

So with making a quilt in mind, I had bought 1 meter of 6 different, coordinating fabrics. Since some of these fabrics are pretty large scale, I wanted to do a simple quilt pattern that would allow you to see the fabrics. Well playing around with Microsoft Photo Editor and Powerpoint (my computer is having trouble running Photoshop) here is what I got.

We'll call this #1. Based on one of Maritza's doll quilts

#2 - Loosely based on the Half Moon Bay quilt I did

#3 - Who doesn't like squares and linen? I guess like looks like another one of Maritza's too!

#4 - similar pattern found here by googling "simple japanese quilt". Actually, I like their original pattern quilt a bit...

#5 added on after I added the link for #4

So what do you think?

And the countdown for June starts.... NOW!

I can't believe it's the end of June already. Here are the things I need to get done before the end of June: Super Secret Project #1, Amy Butler Placemats and Napkins and hopefully Doll Quilt Swap #2 quilt. It's very do-able. Well, except that I do not have all the fabric for the napkins yet, but oh well. Or thread for topstitching. But who's counting?

I finally figured out what I am going to do for my doll quilt, and I'm super super excited. It will be pretty plain, but I hope that it turns out as well as I'm imagining it and I hope that my partner likes it! Here are the fabrics I chose (all from my stash):

Most Boring Post Ever.

So let me start out by apologizing for the most boring post ever, but I am SO happy with my new bobbin holder. Tada!

I didn't get as much sewing done over the weekend as I would have liked, but I am almost done with Super Secret Project #1. Unfortunately because it is a Super Secret Project, I can't show you photos, but let me tell you, it's exciting.

I've received 3 books from Amazon in the past couple of days. Angry Chicken's Bend the Rules Sewing, The Crafter's Companion (finally), and Knit 2 Together. The first two are written by fellow bloggers, and raving reviews are all over the blogosphere. They're as beautiful as everyone says.

However the last book, Knit 2 Together, was an iffy one for me. This is the one with Tracy Ullman and Mel Clark in a two person sweater on the front. Anyway, the reason why I got this book was because it was only $3.99 or something ridiculous like that on Amazon. Amazing. So I took the plunge and got it. Let me tell you, the patterns in here are gorgeous (minus the two person sweater). I will definitely be knitting some things from this book. But really, couldn't they have picked a better photo for the cover? Who wants to knit a two person sweater anyway?

Wow! Long time no post!

I've been reminded by a few people that I haven't posted in a couple of weeks, so here goes. I don't have any finished objects, and really, do you want to see my WIPs? Too bad, cause here they are! A couple things have happened in the last couple of weeks. I think the most exciting is the Tea Towel Swap! Here is what I made:

Here is what I received:

Better photos can be found here and here. Laura was so nice and sent me two (!) tea towels. The one with the rick rack, and she made the one on the right into a super cute banana bread recipe apron. LOVE them.

And here are a couple WIPs (they're really stacking up!):


Hopefully I will be able to finish something this weekend!!