It's done!!
I'm wicked excited about how this turned out. I made two major modifications to the color scheme, namely using a lighter yellow for the background and substituting a plain white for the "cream" color used in the tusks. I did use cream for the toenails as called for in the pattern.
Here it is before a wash (and well after dark, on the floor):
As you can see, there's not a lot of contrast where the white bits in the ears meet the yellow; that would have looked better with the gold background.
Here it is after a wash, nicely wrinkly:
For about every 3rd or so line of quilting, I switched directions and quilted back the other way, to prevent too much biasing. You can tell there's some pulling if you look at the yellow sections, but I didn't think it looked too bad.
Here's the very boring back:
I had enough of the gold to cover the whole back, so I took the easy option. You can see in this picture how non-straight the quilting lines get about a third of the way from the bottom - it's not super-noticeable on the front.
The pattern is here, and I got a quilt kit for it (that had the original fabric selections) from Hawthorne Threads - an awesome birthday present. Overall, this was actually a pretty good project to learn paper piecing on, because it's all solids.
My backing fabric for Plinko Patchwork has arrived, as has fabric for skirts for each of my little ones, as has a fq stack of shot cottons for a custom quilt that I'm going to trade for a handmade spinning wheel:
Though these aren't in the color range I usually favor, I can certainly see the appeal. The yellows/oranges/reds form a really pretty gradient. The people I making the quilt for liked my weathervane island quilt, so I'm going to design a bigger one for this project.
And, because two projects I am champing at the bit to get started on aren't enough, there are now two little teeny tiny preemie babies in the NICU who I thought I had a lot more time to quilt for. But, no, I didn't, so that's on the list as well.
I cashed it in super early last night, and will probably do the same tonight, because I'm tired. I have quilts to design, fabric to iron, backings to make, and several things to knit, but I'm tired. Sometimes you just have to sleep instead of make stuff.
Linking to Finish it Up Friday over at crazymomquilts.
Happy crafting!
Finally finished up the three pairs that had stalled inches from the finish line:
The hardest part was finding them. These are pairs 95, 96, and 97, and pairs 98, 99, and 100 are on the needles.
My secret quilt project was busted about immediately, but it was met with approval, so that's good. Here's the original design:
And here's the finished top:
It's easy to write something like 72" on the paper, but that's actually a pretty big quilt. I'm happy with the size, though - it will be big enough to be a "real" quilt rather than just a snuggle quilt.
I've got backing (and a bunch of other stuff) on order, and I hope to get this one done pretty soon. Also progressing nicely is the Elephant Abstraction quilt, which has binding attached and is about to get a hanging sleeve before the binding is sewn down. Plugging along.
Happy crafting!
So, it turns out that it's hard to make a surprise quilt for someone you share a dining room with, when the dining room is also your quilting area. Today, a very rare day off alone, is dedicated to secret quilting.
I would be a little further along on this, but for the past few days all I've been able to do is knit little kid mittens and stare off into space. I'm really trying to get the top done before people get home.
I wanted to do something more interesting than plain patchwork, and am working with a slightly weird assortment of solids that I'd like to stick to.
Here's the shawl that I picked back up a few weeks ago and then spent hours messing up and frogging:
I'll spare you the details of all the frogging and mind-changing. Long story short, I was delighted to find that the original dyer is close by and still stocking what looked like the same yarn, then disappointed to find that it's a lot darker than the original skein. It's probably going to just mean that the edge ruffle is going to be a little darker than the rest of the shawl, which I'm prepared to call a design element so I can just be done.
Happy Veterans' Day, to those of you in the US. Lots to think about today.
The quilting is done on Elephant Abstraction.
This got put aside for Halloween costumes (cow ears are hard, yo), and today I became convinced that the thing I simply must do NOW is finish a shawl that I love but that I put down, oh, 4-5 years ago because the contrasting yarn I'd picked wasn't contrast-y enough and I didn't know which direction to go. So I tore apart everything to find the shawl, decided on a plan, tore apart everything to find the contrasting yarn (where, oh where did my bare hare... go) but have failed, so I'm stealing an undyed yarn from another stalled project.
And it's taken me years of knitting and then quilting and then back again, and house moves, and children-having, but I finally find myself relating to the Yarn Harlot, with the half-memories of special yarn squirreled away somewhere, stuff I don't remember the name of or where it came from, and stuff I could swear I ordered at the same time as this yarn right here, but where did I put it? Where would I even have put it?
Oh well, off to frog a section that I want in contrast color and finish up this shawl.
Happy crafting!
