Quilts

Progress on the Bright Birches has been plodding along:

I started with all scraps, then realized that my yellow fabrics are way outnumbered by other colors.  Road tripped for more yellow and got a nice assortment using some of my gift card AND a nice discount I've been saving up.  

Each color placement is pretty carefully considered - for color distribution and value and size balance.  It occurred to me that I could probably get away with considering less, but I'm enjoying it, so I'll keep on this way.  

Then, yesterday, the need to outfit a new office arose, and I ditched the baby raccoon cross-stitch and the bright birches for something completely different (for the moment).   I want something that won't overwhelm with personality or the bright, saturated, clear colors that I prefer, and I had a vague memory of a "butterfly" quilt that was white squares with colored triangle corners.  Hunting that down was a bit of a task, but I finally found this quilt from 2010, and it's right on the money what I remembered.  

This is how I left it last night, but upon thinking about it, I planned to tone down the busy-ness of the neutrals, replacing several of these with plain white squares.  Then I visited the office, which currently has a beige rug and a forest-green loveseat and matching chair, as well as a kind of seafoam chair.  So I think I'll ditch the blue for the corners and go with a batik that's been in my stash so long you could probably call it vintage, which ranges from a dark green to a light teal and has white-ish, resist-looking flowers.  I think I'll throw in some red and yellow, because that room does need to be livened up a bit.  The walls are a light tan, and there's a lot of wall space.  

I have some crafting time, so there should be good progress on this today.  

Happy crafting!

A little bit of this and that

Hello!

I am doing lots of things.  

Finished the two-color brioche hat:

My gauge was pretty far off, I think - way bigger than called for.  This was a beanie pattern and ended up fitting like a beret.  It's nice and airy and warm and looks great on child #1, so my plan for matchy-matchy winter is a bit derailed at this point.  However!  I have more plans. 

Finished some mittens:

Gryffindooooooor!

Wasn't sure how the Madeline Tosh singles would do, but these came out nice and soft and warm.  Hoping they'll wear well. 


Finished a baby quilt:

Koalalalala!

I'm also working on a cross-stitch of a baby raccoon.  I saw the pattern on Etsy and decided instantly to make it.  I ordered 18 colors of thread.  I quickly realized that the pattern is what they call "confetti" and then resigned myself to spending months on it.  

This picture was taken what feels like a long time ago!

My crafting time::money spent ratio is incredible for this one.  Tedium?  Yes, please!  Really, I think this represents at least a month's work of probably an average of an hour a night.  That could also be way off, I don't know.  I did work on it so much one night in January that I couldn't move my arm for two days.  Have been mixing it up a bit more since then. 

I'm also elbow-deep in my scraps right now, cutting pieces 2"x 1-1.75".  Decided to make a quilt like one I thought I'd seen on crazymomquilts.  Started planning and checked out her site and couldn't find it.  After lots of duckduckgo-ing for scrap quilt images, I found it: Bright Birches, which is in fact by crazymomquilts, but is offered through Connecting Threads.  I thought I remembered one scrap strip through the square, but it looks like she used three, so three it is.  

On the right is my collection of 2" squares, which I'm making into four-patches as a leader/ender.  Don't have an ultimate plan for that quilt - sashing between bigger squares?  Postage stamp all the way?  No idea.  

For my birches quilt, I'm really hoping to find enough solids in my stash for the square backgrounds so that I don't have to buy any more.  This one may be a gift for a long-time childcare provider we had.  I haven't made my way through the yellow or purple scraps yet and need a lot more of those, but the cutting is getting a little old.  Am ready to sew.  Do not have any idea how many scraps the quilt will ultimately use, but I can always either cut more or make three more birch quilts, whichever seems to be required.  

I miss reading quilt blogs.  Back in the day, I had a nice list of bookmarks.  Then some blogs went defunct (nooooooo!  show me more quiltssssss!!) and then I got a new computer that likes to reinstall my browser every time I restart the computer.   That... seems like something that shouldn't happen, but damned if I'm going to spend time figuring out how to make it not do that.  It does somehow save my bookmarks, so I can look at some quilt blogs.  But ever since Finish It Up Friday went away, my quiltblogosphere just hasn't been the same.  But look, I am posting on my blog more than once per year!  That's something!

Happy crafting!