Crayon Drawing Summer Quilt!

I finished Summer Quilt yesterday!  Tomorrow is the start of school, so I made it by ONE DAY, even if I had to fish it out of the dryer and put it on the kid while kid was already sleeping.  Still made it!  

It's one of my weirder ones, but I really like it.  I quilted simple horizontal lines across in white, pretty far apart - 4-8", usually, because the seersucker in place of the batting isn't likely to shift around much.  Oh, and I threw in a couple lines of dark purple embroidery thread quilting just for the fun of it.  I considered doing a lot more, but my aim was for a light quilt and everything I thought about doing would just have added weight. 

 

 

I lost some white on the bottom left because I didn't estimate the width well.  That was a bummer, but if I'd slowed down to add some more in, I would've lost some big opportunities for time and space to work on this - done is better than perfect, right?  

 

The binding was mostly oranges and pinks from the jelly roll. 

Kiddo picked out the backing fabric.  Not what I would have chosen in a million years, but it kind of matches and kiddo is very happy with it, so that's a win.  

An enormous wave of activities and busy-ness is about to crest over us, but there will be another baby in February, so I started another Koala baby quilt today.  And measured carefully and calculated that I have just enough fabric for two more koala quilts.  Five total seems like enough, but it's also just such a great gender-neutral fabric and the scale is so nice, and it's my favorite colors.  But there will always be other fabric, I know, I know.  

I also don't have a plan for backing fabric, but something will turn up!  Haha.  

Happy crafting!

Here!

Months of crickets notwithstanding, I have been doing some things!  Not a whole ton of things, but not nothing, either.  

So, "agonize" is too strong a word, but whatever word that's approximately two ticks less than agonize on a scale of ten, that's what I do when choosing fabric for boys/men. Is it too busy?  Too pink?  How masculine are bunnies?  

If it were up to me, everyone would just do whatever they liked and there wouldn't be gender-based strictures on people's use of color, but it is decidedly not up to me, so I try to respect target giftees' assumed internal regulations for colors they will and will not use.  

So it was with much amusement that I found out recently that my dad has been using a pouch that I made for my mom a billion years ago to hold all his cords.  

This pouch:

 

This purple-ass floral pouch is considered perfect, and he ordered another one approximately the size displayed in the photo, preferably with a pocket to hold a driver's license.  

Et voila:

A bold but potentially masculine green (idek, help) pattern with a driver's license pocket:

that I winged.  Wung.  Pictured with a real driver's license!  Hopefully they are a standard size state-to-state!  We'll find out soon, I suppose.  

 

Summer Quilt: I don't have enough backing fabric, Part How Many Quilts Have I Made?

I have been sitting on the backing fabric for this quilt for years.  YEARS.  So it's probably nearly impossible to source at this point and of course, of course, of course there's not enough.  Why did I think there was enough?  At some point in every quilt project I do, there's a point where I wave my hand dismissively, blow a raspberry, and say, "Oh, I'm all set for backing fabric." 

SELF.  YOU ARE NOT.  AT LEAST CHECK, PLEASE.  (While we are reminding ourselves of things, you should also know that the way that you get pictures onto this blog involves texting them to your e-mail address.) 

Years ago, younger child declared that they needed this quilt:  

Uhhhh... right.  One jelly roll, many stash fabrics, and even more full-width seams later, we have a top.  The liberty I took was mostly to decide that there would not be much angling of seams.   Horizontal seams means the quilt is done before kiddo moves out.  

Fun story: the day after I took the picture of the drawing that I managed to keep track of for probably 4-5 years, the wind blew it off my table and the dog soaked it in pee.  So this is the only extant version of the initial vision for the quilt.  

I have yet to piece the seersucker that will replace the batting in this quilt and that's not seeming like any kind of enjoyable picnic, so hopefully that will happen soon, although we just are wrapping up a free summer weekend and it didn't happen, sooooo.  

Oh!  Spinning!

A fitting title, because I nearly forgot to post about it and did forget to do it yesterday, the day that Tour de Fleece started.  But today I remembered, and spun some:

 

I have to hide the spinning wheel from the dog, so I may forget that this exists.  My plan for this yarn is to have one ply of this delightful multicolor and one ply of natural and then do something exciting with it, in terms of knittingness.  

 OH!  Baby quilt!

 

I also made this baby quilt, for a baby who has arrived and is truly delightful.  Fun fact: it is the first of my baby quilts to feature an appliqued badger.  Can you find the badger?  It is not hard! (Are badgers masculine?)

Happy crafting!

Plants need water, man.

 Mittens!

 It's all about mittens these days.  These are un-blocked as of yet:

They are one of four pairs I'll be making for the menfolk of the family.  I do love making mittens, and now that it's finally gotten cold, I realized the other day that wearing mittens when it's very cold outside helps keep your hands warm.  Maybe I forget that over the summer?  

Many mittens in this book start with purl braids, which take me flipping forever.  They're supposed to keep the edge from rolling - perhaps after blocking?  

Baby Quilt!

 Y'all.  There's another baby coming.  It's a boy, so I can't unload the enormous pile of baby girl family clothes quite yet, but I remain ever hopeful.  I'm also very excited to have a new quilt to make.  

This is all-stash.  There should be a badger appliqué, if that goes well.  I wanted a new color scheme, one I hadn't made a boy quilt from before, so three nice bold ones are a choice that makes me happy.  Backing will be a bit more of a challenge, though I remembered I have a nice yellow with stars and moons on it.  Is it bad if it doesn't match the front at all?  

 

Summer Quilt!

This quilt is just going to be weird, okay?  (And this is a sideways view - the stripes will be horizontal.)  It's based off a crayon drawing one kid did a couple of years ago.  I got a bargain on seersucker awhile ago too, to use in the middle instead of batting, but the quilt that I made like that before ended up a little heavier than I would have liked.  I suppose I could just use it as a backing, because the seersucker might do a good job of camouflaging the texture of the seams on the back of the top, but this seersucker happens to be white, and I haven't got enough illusions about our ability to keep a white-backed quilt looking clean.  

Long seams aren't my forte, but I think I'm getting better at them!  The walking foot helps.  I'm sewing two together, then four, then eight, which I think also helps.  Design wall space is at a premium right now, so I've got the top half all sewn together and probably about half of the bottom half stripes prepared.  There's a jelly roll involved, so that has been a nice shortcut.  

Happy crafting!

That's what you get for putting your craft area in a flood plain.

I've been doing some things!  Mostly non-crafty, but in small windows of time, I've been able to do some mending that has been on the pile for awhile.  The pile grew significantly, as I have children who wear skirts/children who leave dog treats in the pockets of raincoats that they then leave on the floor AND a puppy. 

Here's some mending I've done:

This skirt has some sashiko-ish embroidery on a weirdly-shaped patch.  I was lucky to have one fabric in the stash that matched the edging of the skirt perfectly.  The tear went right up to the bobbly edge, so the appliqué was fiddly, but I think I like the skirt better with the patch than without.  The sashiko stitches are done in dark purple and white, and I like how they go with the pattern of the original skirt. 

This is a raincoat - a hand-me-down that we immediately put two big holes in, when the puppy went for the treats.  The pocket is now a pocket to nowhere, but the raggedy holes are covered, and it's not terribly obtrusive. 

 

I used some leftover fabric that at least used to be waterproof - it may not be anymore, but it's still probably better than quilting cotton.  

And here's some good burying the lede: the Gnome Quilt is finished!!

The back is one fabric, with little woodland images and creatures.  

Here are some of my favorite blocks (pre-first wash):

The "love" patch is made with reverse appliqué of yellow over red, with black and red embroidery over it.  

 

And this block is one of the ones I used the cricut for - the glasses are from a file I bought off of Etsy.  Instead of piecing this face, I used a full rectangle of the background fabric and appliquéd eyes and a mouth on, because I didn't think fusing the glasses over seams would work well.  

I was planning to embroider a book under this one's arm, because it's a representation of our favorite librarian, but I decided at the last minute to go with the card catalog fabric instead. 

There are a couple of hats personalized with the cricut as well, and the blonde in blue has an asymmetrical haircut.  

I'm also knitting stuff - Christmas gifts, mostly.  This is a men's mitten.  

Happy crafting! 

FO: Stash Sandwich

 

I'm excited!  This big old quilt is finished - and I still haven't measured it.  But the lid of my scrap bin closes easily and I have only about 4 4" strips left over, so that's a big win.  

Here's a closeup of the back:

The back was made from a length of fabric I bought specially, plus a bunch of leftover strips, plus a big length of fabric I bought a couple of years ago from someone destashing yardage at the LQS, plus some leftover wide backing from Penguins and Moonglows.  

The back was a whole heck of a lot of work, but I ended up really liking it. 

I longarmed the quilting at a store where you can rent time on the machines, and while I don't think it looks particularly great, the effect overall is nice, and it is nice and flat.  When I was leaving, I made another appointment near the end of June to quilt the next one, which is not even close to being done.  I have 5.8 gnomes to go, several of which need redesigns or major decisions.  Maybe a deadline will help. 

Happy crafting! 

Life with a Pickle

 Exciting things have happened!  First, the cutest thing:

We think he's going to be one of those couch potato Australian Shepherds, as he is generally mellow and calm, unless it's midnight and you're trying to sleep.  He's getting better at sleeping through the night, albeit on my head, and is generally interfering with Crafting Time less and less.  

The next exciting thing is that I've now longarmed for the first time!

I attempted "dwirling," although the result was not really identifiable as such.  The free-motion was really all over the place, and I didn't feel good about it as I was doing it, but it's not obviously horrible on the finished quilt.  Plus, I'm going to wash the finished quilt for maximum shrinkage, which should hide the stitching a bit.  I do love how even the stitches are, I loved getting the whole thing quilted in one (long) go, I loved not having to wrestle it through my machine.  And the place I'm using has really, really good rates.  

In the future I should definitely measure both the top and back.  I rarely measure when working with a whole quilt, because I don't really have room to spread out a big quilt flat at home.  I do all measurements relative to the quilt itself, i.e. laying the back down on the bed and laying the top on top of it and seeing if there are at least 4" around the edges. 

Piecing the back was a chore - I sewed together the remaining 4" strips, first in random order, then ripped a bunch of that out and pooled into warms/cools and sewed those together.  I had a lot left over after making the top and bottom borders for the quilt top, so I pieced those into the back in such a way that they wouldn't mostly get cut off.  Will take a picture once the whole thing is bound, but you can see the warm strip in the pic above, which is between two much bigger chunks of fabric on the back.  

For binding, I planned to use more Kona Navy, which is what the triangle squares are on the top.  I'm very low on the Kona Navy I've had on hand forever, so I was glum about ordering some more even though I've used my quarterly buying day for the Fabric Fast I'm doing with the Quilters Knitting group on Rav.  Couldn't find another fabric I'd have enough of to do the whole binding and that looked as good as the Navy would, but then I realized that the super bright rainbow wide backing I'd gotten last year would go well enough with the rainbow-y-ness of the top.  It's not my favorite fabric, but so little of it ends up showing that I decided to go with it, rather than wait.  

 Finally, I've gone back to cross-stitching:

It was a bit accidental - I downloaded some patterns to support Ukrainian designers and then just happened to have some dark blue embroidery fabric on hand and then this kind of started and then kept going.  The pattern is here.  I definitely started it too close to the top, but with careful finishing it should be fine. 

So that's what I'm up to!  Hopefully I'll have a finished quilt to post soon.  

Happy crafting!

The koalas that keep on koalaing

 Another baby blanket is finished:

This one seems to have a slightly different color palate than previous koalas. 

Stash effectively busted for the back - this was a good score on sale, and I got a yard and a quarter and used up all but the very edges.  Not even enough left for 2" squares, which is great, because I need shelf space back.  I got some as backing for a koala quilt, even though as it turns out there's actually very little color overlap between the two.  They're all in the same color ballpark, though, so I'm not going to fret about it. 

 

Leetle bunny label. 

Welcome to the family, little quilt!

 

A nice wash with the previous quilts.  I hope to pass it off tomorrow, unless I forget or covid ruins all plans again. 

Quilting saves

Hello, everyone!  Now finds us living in the little windows between Covid scares, and stuck inside even then, because the cold is a kind of cold that you can't really go outside in.  I am tired of talking about Covid, thinking about Covid, adjusting plans because Covid, etc. Covid.  

So today we're not going to!  In my little quilting spaces, I watch shows that (mostly) aren't about the pandemic and make stuff that is distinctly non-pandemic-related.  

 

Scrap Strip Quilt

I did say uncle and dug into the white stash for the rest of the strip blocks, which I finished putting white borders on.  I cut the corners off like so:

And I did that 72 times.  Actually 144.  Then I cut out 144 triangles to go in the corners, then sewed them on, then laid out all the squares on the back of another huge quilt, then put them in piles, and am now sewing rows of squares together.  Very exciting!  I have enough batting for this one, and a plan-ish thing for the backing.  Basting is going to be a Thing, and quilting is going to be an even bigger Thing.  Don't quite have a plan for quilting yet, but it will happen!  Hopefully before this insanely cold weather stops!  

 

Gnomies

Some progress has been made!  The first of the specialized gnomes has been made, which you can't actually tell without a lot of awareness of what qualifies as specialized.  This is a plaid shirt that was a hand-me-down from one of the recipients.  It's pretty darn thin, which probably isn't great, but it's not too much real estate on the top, and I really don't want to make another one.  

I tried hard to match up the plaid:

And it kind of worked:

Not perfect, but good enough.  I have an inkling of a plan to use the brand-new Cricut to cut out the logo of a restaurant that said recipient has on their favorite baseball cap.  That may be a whole lot of work, but it may also be fun?  And I'm not afraid of applique, and it would make the specializedness even clearer, so maybe!  

Nest Fiber

Anywhere between 2-5 years ago, I got as a gift some fiber from Nest and spun it up into a dense chain-ply that came out to be about worsted weight, or maybe aran.  Then Mom knit it into most of a hat!  And then there wasn't enough yarn left to make the rest of a hat!  So patiently, we waited and watched the Nest site to see if Equinox in Superwash Merino was ever available again.  And it wasn't.  

And then, a week or two ago, I sent an e-mail I'd been thinking about sending for anywhere between 2-5 years, that said 'hello, can you please dye some more of this fiber?' and then Nest said 'of course!' and then they did and then I felt silly for waiting 2-5 years.  

Isn't it so pretty?  Such nice colors.  I am not confident about my ability to match the weight, but some wrong yarn is probably better than no yarn.  And I got two more bumps of fiber, so I'll have a second chance if it's too wrong.  

Baby!

It honestly may be true that my joy at hearing about new babies is almost 100% because I want to make a quilt for them, and not, say, the human potential, or the joy of becoming a family, or anything uplifting and positive.  QUILT!  

 

This is the early stage of the next Koala quilt.  It's now a top, ready to be basted, with backing from stash (it hasn't been there super long, but it could have been so still a win!) and I have fabric for binding, too.  

I'm doing the UFO group in the Quilters Knitting group on Ravelry again, for which all three of these will count this quarter, woo!  And I refrained from joining the Unbegun challenge this time around, even though I have more than one t-shirt quilt that could be begun.  Maybe if they do it again.  

I'm also doing a fabric fast, mostly because the shelves that my fabric go on are stuffed, stuffed to the gills, and I filled in the light purples and browns that really rounded out the rainbow.  And there are quarterly buying days, so if I do end up actually needing something in order to finish something, I won't be up a creek.  

 

Squooshy Shawl

The last thing I'm working on that's worth talking about is a squooshy shawl out of the squooshy rambouillet I spun last year.  I'm using the Bramble Shawl pattern from Miriam Felton, and it is huge and squooshy.  I haven't snapped a picture of it so far - and it's just a big pile of garter stitch - but here's the yarn: 

And that's it!  I hope to have more progress to report soon. 

Happy crafting! 

Quilting Bug vs. Holiday Bug

Just in time for the holiday crunch, I am being swept away by a quilt I've had in mind for many years.  I lost the link to the original one I saw, which was purple and green, but I did find the basic pattern elsewhere on the web: scrappy sandwiches.  Not only is this not a holiday gift for anyone, but it's not even on my list of UFOs for the Rav quilting group quarterly UFO challenge, which must be making it extra tempting to work on, because I am in the zone.  

It all started with my scrap bin overflowing.  Couldn't get the lid on, spilling out everywhere, such a mess.  So I dug around on the web and found the pattern I'd had in mind, then got to work cutting 4"x whatever strips, then I pulled out some yardage I don't yet have scraps of.  A major side bonus of this is that my white scrap stash was enormous and annoyingly everywhere, and I've used up every white scrap that was at least 12"x1.5" and was probably not muslin.  I've gone into some leftovers stashed with amounts cut out for standard baby blanket borders and think I'll soon have to say uncle and go into the white stash.  I'm piecing some smaller pieces of white together, too.  

Another side bonus is that the corners from the ends will become another quilt, though I don't have a design in mind yet for that one.  

The centers of the squares will probably be a dark blue, which I have a lot of yardage of, for some reason.  

Gnomes!

The newfound passion for making 4" strip rectangles is unfortunate given the smashing progress I'd been making on the gnome quilt, Norm & Nanette (which was intended to be a gift, though not for Christmas).  Nine Norms and two Nanettes (one missed picture day).  I'll be customizing most of the remaining ones into gnomies who look like the family this will be given to, including using some hand-me-down clothes from them for the gnome clothes.  

 

The backgrounds and collars are cut for the remaining Nanettes, which leaves only faces/hair and clothes to cut out for them, but yeah, I stalled.  Perhaps something even less tangentially related to Christmas and gift-giving imperatives will come along and knock me out of the 4" strip rectangle zone.  

 

Anything else?

Oh, yes.  Kiddo wished out loud that she could take her red baby blanket to school, and when you wish things like that out loud, you're basically ordering a mini quilt STAT, so that happened in an evening:

The back is some leftover flannel from said quilt as well.  It came out about 4"x4". 

Oh, here's an earlier shot of the hexi mini thing that was killing my wrist so badly I had to stop working on it for weeks:

It's bigger now, and there's a separate piece that's growing slowly.  I only work on it a little bit at a time because when my wrist hurts and I contemplate not being able to make stuff, the brain walls start closing in a bit.  

One kid wants socks, one kid got some gauntlets made already, which will be a Christmas gift but possibly an early one.  Should've been really early, because it was a windy 25F today, which is no longer fingerless mitten territory.  

I know, I know, there's an unwoven end.  I already wove it in!  Maybe.  But if I didn't, I really will.  Probably even before the kid unwraps them.  I made these out of Hawthorne kettle dye in Wisp, which is not nearly as teal as that picture would have you believe.  It's just a light blue.  Oh yes, and the pattern is Pyy Mitts.  

Alright, there must be more, but it's not coming to mind.  Here's hoping that you American readers have a lovely Thanksgiving.  

Happy crafting! 

Finishes (from awhile ago!)

Oh, holy cow, I didn't post TWO finishes from July and August.  Oh, wait, including socks there were FOUR finishes: (Updated to add: oh yeah, I finished THREE quilts.)

I took this picture in a car!

And then here is the Ugly Quilt, also known as Bright Birches, which I actually ended up really liking:

The birches backing fabric finally did come, and I ordered a whole heck of a lot of it.  I'm always surprised by how much fabric backs take.  

I machine-quilted "straight" horizontal lines with two different variegated threads that were actually embroidery thread.  Used black embroidery thread for the back.  Everything I found online said it should work, and although it was a bit thinner than thread I normally quilt with, it had a nice sheen and was just the right amount of crazy to put this quilt into the right craziness territory.  

And I don't have a picture of the baby quilt that I was going to show you handy, but then going through the pictures, I realized I haven't even posted this quickie little quilt:

This was made to cheer up a colleague, and it was done in record time.  I explained to the quilt several times that it was supposed to be quick and simple, but it put up a decent fight anyway.  I pulled all the front fabric from stash, and ordered this blinding rainbow backing fabric because it was wide-back and I wanted something quick.  

 

Oh, and here's that baby quilt:

This backing was just a touch too bright, and also I'd just bought it to replace the last yard that I'd bought and ended up using as a backing, but it was the best I had.  There was one Connecting Threads low-volume one that coordinated nicely with the borders of the top, but it seems blurry to me, even though I think that's just the pattern. 

I'll let you know if I remember any other quilt finishes that slipped my mind!  This should be all for now, though.  

Happy crafting!

Another Move

Hey ho, Orooni the Crafter here.  I'm moving crafting spaces again, and that process always takes longer than I expect.  This has meant that I've had to focus on little handwork pieces, rather than anything that takes lots of cutting or space, so I've been utterly crushing my handwork goals recently.  See this shocking development:

This is 25 flowers all sewn up.  I'd stalled in the middle of the 8th one, and then whammo, they're done.  I wish I had more.  The next step is to deal with the big piece of linen that will make up both the background of the quilt top and the middle of each flower.  I have to cut out a bunch of middles, and then, instead of embroidering flowers on them, I plan to embroider the name of a virtue, with some little picture to go along with it.  I'm excited about this, but the amount of energy and focus it will take to get that started is just not happening right now.  

 

I'm also unsure about the directions for putting the flowers together - it says to applique the center of the flower to the petals before taking the papers out of the petals, which sounds like it would be both difficult to do and difficult to make look good.  So I'm thinking about appliqueing them after the flowers are appliqued to the background.  

Next up is the Monkey See, Monkey Applique quilt, and I have either reached or come very, very close to reaching the point where I do not have any other medium/dark fabrics that I haven't already used.  I'm repeating light backgrounds but trying not to repeat the medium/darks.  I need them all spread out to check on the other possible fabrics to use, and my design wall hasn't been moved yet, sooo...

One virtue of my new space is that there is actual sunlight sometimes:

At this moment of the move, I have basic sewing tools and a clear desk, so I jumped at the chance to make my ironing board cover, which recently has been a nice twill piece of fabric haphazardly draped over three layers of batting and the frame.  It is now this:

Pretty and functional!  My last cover literally crumbled into singed dust, so this is a great improvement. 

I'm planning a gnome quilt, which is also very exciting and will take a lot of cutting and planning, which I haven't been up for.  In the meantime, I pulled out a pack of tiny hexagon papers and the enormous stack of scraps and have started basting:

I don't know exactly what this will be, but there are at least two possible plans.  

Happy crafting!