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| Before grid was removed |
Woohoo!!
Happy crafting!
6.30.2020
Something is done!
The baby raccoon is done!
Tomorrow I'll soak and iron it.
Woohoo!!
Happy crafting!
Woohoo!!
Happy crafting!
5.23.2020
Ever closer and further
The urge to finish something burns stronger than ever, and yet I have started more projects. This one can't be helped, though, because it is Time To Spin, and when it is Time To Spin, you spin. Simple as that.
This little beauty is Fiber Romance on merino/baby camel from Allons-y Fibers. I got it last year, along with another nice one, of which I spun two plies - well, I divided for three plies, quite unevenly in fact, and decided oh, it's cool, I'll just spin one super-thin, one in between, and one super-thick! Which I realized was probably pretty dumb, and it's time to spin the third chunk, and I deeply suspect that it's not going to turn out well. But that's no reason to avoid spinning - it's just reason to avoid spinning that particular project.
Come for the disjointed rambling, stay for the helpful life-hacks and abrupt transitions.
Raccoon
So, all the colors of the raccoon have been used. Not completed, which is why there are still what look, depressingly, like hundreds of little spaces that still need thread. You know how you reach the end of a pregnancy, and you're like, whew, that's over, and then an eighth of a second later you realize that, actually, now you need to parent for the next 18 years? Finishing the last color was a teeny bit like that.
With spinning, I can make yarn. With cross-stitch, I can make the final product look like the picture. Eventually. I think there are strategies for this type of intense full-coverage work - I know there are, in fact, have heard tell of them on faraway message boards, and even seen pictures. Seems that some people do one square at a time, and some people "park" threads and move along a solid line diagonally (-ish) through the picture. If people do "cross country," that is, doing one color at a time, they have a way of making sure that they're getting every stitch in each box of 100 stitches.
That skill continues to elude me. I pick a color and follow a path through that color, and when I can't be bothered to find any more of that color, I pick a new color. Until now, of course - now I've got 17 needles threaded and am finishing square-by-square.
This one time, a couple days ago, I shook my craft room like a Boggle game, really got those letters mixed up, looking for the "/" color, which had been an early one and which - shockingly - I had missed a dozen hundred of here and there. Looked and looked, then gave up and ordered more because surely any day now, that little color will be all I have left.
Aaand, of course, the next day I found it in with this little project:
Aquarius
which of course does not actually use that color, but it also involves embroidery thread, so.
This is the Satsuma Street Aquarius stitch, and I love the colors on the black. The black is harder to work with than white, but it's coming along okay. The middle water curl on the left is missing a layer, but it doesn't affect the scaling of the rest of the piece, so I'm leaving it.
I am writing this post now because I need to get this picture off of my camera because the little spy has probably already seen it. That kid can sniff out a present at 50 paces.
Bag
Every once in awhile, I add some stitches to the bag.
There is a lot of space to cover. The bag does not feel pressing, because we are in the After Times, wherein we do not need to leave the house carrying bags. At some point I suppose that will probably change, so I continue to work on the bag. It involves lots of decisions, so there are times when I decide to work on the bag, stare at it for 11 minutes, and then decide to work on something else.
Lion
Progress on the lion is slow and steady. The lion is looking a little weird to me these days. Definitely occupying the "what was I thinking, again?" spot in the lineup. However, it is easy to work on this a tiny bit at a time, so I do at least a little on it most days.
Bright Birches
...are not even close to being finished, or progressing at all. My desk is like a beach, and when the tide is in, you can't lay a cutting mat down on the sand and cut stuff. Well, people, the tide is in. No telling when it will go out. Hopefully once one of the darn above things is finished.
Happy crafting!
This little beauty is Fiber Romance on merino/baby camel from Allons-y Fibers. I got it last year, along with another nice one, of which I spun two plies - well, I divided for three plies, quite unevenly in fact, and decided oh, it's cool, I'll just spin one super-thin, one in between, and one super-thick! Which I realized was probably pretty dumb, and it's time to spin the third chunk, and I deeply suspect that it's not going to turn out well. But that's no reason to avoid spinning - it's just reason to avoid spinning that particular project.
Come for the disjointed rambling, stay for the helpful life-hacks and abrupt transitions.
Raccoon
So, all the colors of the raccoon have been used. Not completed, which is why there are still what look, depressingly, like hundreds of little spaces that still need thread. You know how you reach the end of a pregnancy, and you're like, whew, that's over, and then an eighth of a second later you realize that, actually, now you need to parent for the next 18 years? Finishing the last color was a teeny bit like that.
With spinning, I can make yarn. With cross-stitch, I can make the final product look like the picture. Eventually. I think there are strategies for this type of intense full-coverage work - I know there are, in fact, have heard tell of them on faraway message boards, and even seen pictures. Seems that some people do one square at a time, and some people "park" threads and move along a solid line diagonally (-ish) through the picture. If people do "cross country," that is, doing one color at a time, they have a way of making sure that they're getting every stitch in each box of 100 stitches.
That skill continues to elude me. I pick a color and follow a path through that color, and when I can't be bothered to find any more of that color, I pick a new color. Until now, of course - now I've got 17 needles threaded and am finishing square-by-square.
This one time, a couple days ago, I shook my craft room like a Boggle game, really got those letters mixed up, looking for the "/" color, which had been an early one and which - shockingly - I had missed a dozen hundred of here and there. Looked and looked, then gave up and ordered more because surely any day now, that little color will be all I have left.
Aaand, of course, the next day I found it in with this little project:
Aquarius
which of course does not actually use that color, but it also involves embroidery thread, so.
This is the Satsuma Street Aquarius stitch, and I love the colors on the black. The black is harder to work with than white, but it's coming along okay. The middle water curl on the left is missing a layer, but it doesn't affect the scaling of the rest of the piece, so I'm leaving it.
I am writing this post now because I need to get this picture off of my camera because the little spy has probably already seen it. That kid can sniff out a present at 50 paces.
Bag
Every once in awhile, I add some stitches to the bag.
There is a lot of space to cover. The bag does not feel pressing, because we are in the After Times, wherein we do not need to leave the house carrying bags. At some point I suppose that will probably change, so I continue to work on the bag. It involves lots of decisions, so there are times when I decide to work on the bag, stare at it for 11 minutes, and then decide to work on something else.
Lion
Progress on the lion is slow and steady. The lion is looking a little weird to me these days. Definitely occupying the "what was I thinking, again?" spot in the lineup. However, it is easy to work on this a tiny bit at a time, so I do at least a little on it most days.
Bright Birches
...are not even close to being finished, or progressing at all. My desk is like a beach, and when the tide is in, you can't lay a cutting mat down on the sand and cut stuff. Well, people, the tide is in. No telling when it will go out. Hopefully once one of the darn above things is finished.
Happy crafting!
5.09.2020
Thoughts and feelings about this bag
Hello! Perhaps you, too, are currently crafting in a sea of uncertainty. I find myself desperate to finish something, but starting lots of other things as well, which is clearly not helping with the finishing things thing.
Awhile ago, who knows how long, I saw someone talking about using sashiko to patch or repair fabric that was torn or worn, oh, and I saw a bag someone posted using boro stitching techniques, and it stuck around and I really wanted to make myself a bag. Not a Japanese knot bag, but a bag approximating the shape of one I got a little over a year ago that seems to be disintegrating.
I could swear I had busted jeans - piles, even, jeans from myself and others - around here somewhere, but I can't find them. I have three old pairs of khakis, the kind before those devious manufacturers figured out they could put lycra in the fabric and have it be better in some sense, and a fabric stash to rival... other people's moderately-sized fabric stashes, so I dove in.
I quickly found that one of the pockets of one of the khakis is a lovely not-denim woven material - that's the upper left. Bottom right is a thin linen-y fabric I got when I was making my own wedding dress (a project I came close to completing!). The foundation fabric is from deep stash, unobtrusive but not too wimpy to hold everything together.
And so now I find myself using a technique for scarcity in a time of abundance. This doesn't need any more patches (well, okay, there's a spot in the upper blue that was where a button had been sewn on that is a little torn). Oh, and the bottom left, with the new blue patch, is covering a spot where I was cutting something on top of that and snipped right through the khaki. Whoops. Good thing I'm using a patch-based approach.
I didn't know what to do with the expanse of tan there. Patching for the sake of patching seems silly, and I don't have a wide variety of other materials to choose from. Then I thought about adding a pocket. I didn't need an outside pocket, but one might be useful and it would spare me having to stitch just lots and lots of stitches across there.
So I found on the internet a picture of a fetching pocket and am going to try my hand at making one. This should be interesting.
It would be very easy to add a tiny bit of my beautiful, delightful quilting fabric to the outside, as a patch or a pocket, but I'm resisting the urge, because for anything I choose it will be come the that-thing bag. If I use yellow flowers, it will be the yellow flowers bag. But I want it to be the blue and tan patchy bag.
Baby Raccoon
I am down to two colors remaining on the Baby Raccoon, and then an unknown but not-insubstantial amount of filling in stitches that I missed, probably in every single one of the 16 other colors.
I've also started an Aquarius cross-stitch (from Satsuma Street), which will be a gift for my kiddo at her next birthday, and which she immediately sniffed out, and which I now have to hide faithfully and only work on at about after 10:30pm. For SOME reason, it's not done yet.
I finished the first teeny beech strip quilt and started another. It doesn't feel like a finish yet, because I'm totally going to wash it, but it's already stuck to the wall, soooo.
No more masks, because I'm pretending we'll be done with them soon.
I try to do a bit of the elephant every day, so it is inching forward. Everything is inching forward.
Happy crafting!
Awhile ago, who knows how long, I saw someone talking about using sashiko to patch or repair fabric that was torn or worn, oh, and I saw a bag someone posted using boro stitching techniques, and it stuck around and I really wanted to make myself a bag. Not a Japanese knot bag, but a bag approximating the shape of one I got a little over a year ago that seems to be disintegrating.
I could swear I had busted jeans - piles, even, jeans from myself and others - around here somewhere, but I can't find them. I have three old pairs of khakis, the kind before those devious manufacturers figured out they could put lycra in the fabric and have it be better in some sense, and a fabric stash to rival... other people's moderately-sized fabric stashes, so I dove in.
I quickly found that one of the pockets of one of the khakis is a lovely not-denim woven material - that's the upper left. Bottom right is a thin linen-y fabric I got when I was making my own wedding dress (a project I came close to completing!). The foundation fabric is from deep stash, unobtrusive but not too wimpy to hold everything together.
 |
| Initial fabric placement |
And so now I find myself using a technique for scarcity in a time of abundance. This doesn't need any more patches (well, okay, there's a spot in the upper blue that was where a button had been sewn on that is a little torn). Oh, and the bottom left, with the new blue patch, is covering a spot where I was cutting something on top of that and snipped right through the khaki. Whoops. Good thing I'm using a patch-based approach.
I didn't know what to do with the expanse of tan there. Patching for the sake of patching seems silly, and I don't have a wide variety of other materials to choose from. Then I thought about adding a pocket. I didn't need an outside pocket, but one might be useful and it would spare me having to stitch just lots and lots of stitches across there.
So I found on the internet a picture of a fetching pocket and am going to try my hand at making one. This should be interesting.
It would be very easy to add a tiny bit of my beautiful, delightful quilting fabric to the outside, as a patch or a pocket, but I'm resisting the urge, because for anything I choose it will be come the that-thing bag. If I use yellow flowers, it will be the yellow flowers bag. But I want it to be the blue and tan patchy bag.
Baby Raccoon
I am down to two colors remaining on the Baby Raccoon, and then an unknown but not-insubstantial amount of filling in stitches that I missed, probably in every single one of the 16 other colors.
I've also started an Aquarius cross-stitch (from Satsuma Street), which will be a gift for my kiddo at her next birthday, and which she immediately sniffed out, and which I now have to hide faithfully and only work on at about after 10:30pm. For SOME reason, it's not done yet.
I finished the first teeny beech strip quilt and started another. It doesn't feel like a finish yet, because I'm totally going to wash it, but it's already stuck to the wall, soooo.
No more masks, because I'm pretending we'll be done with them soon.
I try to do a bit of the elephant every day, so it is inching forward. Everything is inching forward.
Happy crafting!
4.18.2020
The raccoon and the lion
Lion
Here is the progress on the lion quilt, shot at a weird angle and with weird light. As I finished up the first one, with a mane of various shades of blue, I dreamed of one with bold colors, which I think will set off the face a little bit more.
I haven't put the papers into the background fabric yet. Pulled out a little 4x4" ruler I got to square up 4" squares and used it to cut straight edges for the mane pieces, and it worked really well. The purpley-red pieces are super-directional, so I paired each symmetrical set and cut them out at the same angles. Not sure what the effect will be in the final piece.
This is the second time around, and I can't remember at all how I put this all together the first time. I'd like to do it with minimal bending of pieces and starting with the longest straight seams possible, so I'm winging it (again?) with those guidelines.
Raccoon
Here is the raccoon, picture with the 7 (!) colors I have not yet used. This one is like walking along a road toward the mountain. It seems like you're almost there... you can see the mountain right there... and yet you're not even close.
Still not.
Etc.
Socks!
I made these RPM socks out of Socks that Rock Lightweight in Lemongrass. They strike me as really, really thick and unwieldy, but I suppose I haven't worn STR socks in a really long time. They will be nice and warm.
Teeny quilt
My teeny quilt only needs a few more little teeny scraps for the teeniest strip to be completed. Because the point of this one is to use up those teeny scraps that are too teeny to even go through the machine, cutting teeny scraps on purpose seems like a rather silly thing to do, but that may need to be how this one gets finished.
Then there are the masks. I made two masks, then three more, then cranked out 5 today. Getting faster! But I ran out of blue polyester ribbon, and the alternatives are getting zanier by the day.
Happy crafting!
Here is the progress on the lion quilt, shot at a weird angle and with weird light. As I finished up the first one, with a mane of various shades of blue, I dreamed of one with bold colors, which I think will set off the face a little bit more.
I haven't put the papers into the background fabric yet. Pulled out a little 4x4" ruler I got to square up 4" squares and used it to cut straight edges for the mane pieces, and it worked really well. The purpley-red pieces are super-directional, so I paired each symmetrical set and cut them out at the same angles. Not sure what the effect will be in the final piece.
This is the second time around, and I can't remember at all how I put this all together the first time. I'd like to do it with minimal bending of pieces and starting with the longest straight seams possible, so I'm winging it (again?) with those guidelines.
Raccoon
Here is the raccoon, picture with the 7 (!) colors I have not yet used. This one is like walking along a road toward the mountain. It seems like you're almost there... you can see the mountain right there... and yet you're not even close.
Still not.
Etc.
Socks!
I made these RPM socks out of Socks that Rock Lightweight in Lemongrass. They strike me as really, really thick and unwieldy, but I suppose I haven't worn STR socks in a really long time. They will be nice and warm.
Teeny quilt
My teeny quilt only needs a few more little teeny scraps for the teeniest strip to be completed. Because the point of this one is to use up those teeny scraps that are too teeny to even go through the machine, cutting teeny scraps on purpose seems like a rather silly thing to do, but that may need to be how this one gets finished.
Then there are the masks. I made two masks, then three more, then cranked out 5 today. Getting faster! But I ran out of blue polyester ribbon, and the alternatives are getting zanier by the day.
Happy crafting!
4.04.2020
3.22.2020
And now for the only thing on anyone's mind...
HOW is that quilt coming along?
Bright birches is moving along. I decided that the squares really need to finish at 16x16, then made the first square exactly the right size if I perfectly lined up the background fabric, which is to say that I made it about an inch too short. So that's not super-great. There's a decent chance I'll just make the top row squares a titch shorter than the others, probably won't even be noticeable, but there's an outside chance I'll forget all about it and it will mess things up when I'm trying to put it all together.
I am continuing to give a non-negligible amount of thought to every single fabric placement, but at this point I think I have all the needed strips started, and am plodding through piecing them together. The background fabric coming all from stash is a stretch, but it could still happen.
Baby Raccoon
Or perhaps that thing you just can't get off of your mind is this little delightful baby raccoon.
At this point, there are like, hand to God, 9 colors I haven't broken into yet. It is sheer insanity. There are two creams that I wouldn't feel confident staking anything on being able to tell apart, and the two browns I KNOW I can't tell apart. And yet I cannot bring myself to substitute one for the other or deviate in any way from the pattern, although last night for the first time I found a color where it wasn't supposed to be and didn't give it a second thought. One misplaced stitch in the melange of light and lighter gray, medium and mediumer green, and brown/brown will not affect anything.
So far, in the New World we've found ourselves in, my bit of crafting time in the evening feels exactly the same as it had before, so it's a really nice comfort. While everything else is falling apart, I can count on half my ass falling asleep while I make tiny medium green stitches across an expanse of raccoon fur.
Happy crafting!
Bright birches is moving along. I decided that the squares really need to finish at 16x16, then made the first square exactly the right size if I perfectly lined up the background fabric, which is to say that I made it about an inch too short. So that's not super-great. There's a decent chance I'll just make the top row squares a titch shorter than the others, probably won't even be noticeable, but there's an outside chance I'll forget all about it and it will mess things up when I'm trying to put it all together.
I am continuing to give a non-negligible amount of thought to every single fabric placement, but at this point I think I have all the needed strips started, and am plodding through piecing them together. The background fabric coming all from stash is a stretch, but it could still happen.
Baby Raccoon
Or perhaps that thing you just can't get off of your mind is this little delightful baby raccoon.
At this point, there are like, hand to God, 9 colors I haven't broken into yet. It is sheer insanity. There are two creams that I wouldn't feel confident staking anything on being able to tell apart, and the two browns I KNOW I can't tell apart. And yet I cannot bring myself to substitute one for the other or deviate in any way from the pattern, although last night for the first time I found a color where it wasn't supposed to be and didn't give it a second thought. One misplaced stitch in the melange of light and lighter gray, medium and mediumer green, and brown/brown will not affect anything.
So far, in the New World we've found ourselves in, my bit of crafting time in the evening feels exactly the same as it had before, so it's a really nice comfort. While everything else is falling apart, I can count on half my ass falling asleep while I make tiny medium green stitches across an expanse of raccoon fur.
Happy crafting!
3.01.2020
Not quite butterflies
The quilt is done and hung:
Overall, I find it hard to look at, to reconcile as a single object in one's mind. In person, I see more slanted stars than flying farfalle or butterflies. The quilt I linked last post used rectangles, rather than squares, and I definitely should have done that. I used 5" charms, raiding a pack of neutrals I've been sitting on for baby quilts. This quilt came 100% from stash, which I'm very happy about. The backing is a pretty neutral large-scale print that I got at a local fabric store from someone else's deep-discount destash, which I was happy to put to use.
Quilting-wise, I only outlined the farfalles - we can agree, yes, that the neutrals needed more? I didn't know what to do, so I left it.
The binding got the fancy treatment that Stolen Quilt also got - I machine-stitched a fancy zig-zag on the front with the binding folded around to the back instead of hand-stitching it down.
The only real success I see here is how nicely the batik worked to pull the forest green and seafoam together. I like that. Otherwise, it feels weird and too personal and awkward. BUT! It's probably better than a bare wall.
More on the decorating front is this first attempt at Sashiko:
Traced a pattern, stitched a pattern, in the aforementioned forest green. I used this heavier-weight fabric I bought for pincushions, which is kind of a looser weave. Now I don't know how to finish it to hang in the same office - Sashiko pieces, if the internet is to be believed, tend to be made into useful objects, rather than just decorations on the wall. I don't want to quilt it, so that leaves framing it or finishing it as a hanging somehow. One of those floating frames might be nice, or a $0 option that has yet to occur to me.
If you have any ideas, drop me a line.
Happy crafting!
Overall, I find it hard to look at, to reconcile as a single object in one's mind. In person, I see more slanted stars than flying farfalle or butterflies. The quilt I linked last post used rectangles, rather than squares, and I definitely should have done that. I used 5" charms, raiding a pack of neutrals I've been sitting on for baby quilts. This quilt came 100% from stash, which I'm very happy about. The backing is a pretty neutral large-scale print that I got at a local fabric store from someone else's deep-discount destash, which I was happy to put to use.
 |
| Does it tie the whole room together? |
The binding got the fancy treatment that Stolen Quilt also got - I machine-stitched a fancy zig-zag on the front with the binding folded around to the back instead of hand-stitching it down.
The only real success I see here is how nicely the batik worked to pull the forest green and seafoam together. I like that. Otherwise, it feels weird and too personal and awkward. BUT! It's probably better than a bare wall.
More on the decorating front is this first attempt at Sashiko:
 |
| Before washing out the pen |
Traced a pattern, stitched a pattern, in the aforementioned forest green. I used this heavier-weight fabric I bought for pincushions, which is kind of a looser weave. Now I don't know how to finish it to hang in the same office - Sashiko pieces, if the internet is to be believed, tend to be made into useful objects, rather than just decorations on the wall. I don't want to quilt it, so that leaves framing it or finishing it as a hanging somehow. One of those floating frames might be nice, or a $0 option that has yet to occur to me.
If you have any ideas, drop me a line.
Happy crafting!
2.16.2020
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!
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!
2.07.2020
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:
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:
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.
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!
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:
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| Gryffindooooooor! |
Finished a baby quilt:
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| 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.
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| 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!
12.28.2019
And finally, a quest.
And now here is a blog post I've been writing in my head for 14 months.
The Yarn Harlot wrote, wisely, several years ago about how you can tell a hand knitter by their utterly mismatched accessories, and until now I have embodied that exactly. How does a person make 20 projects spanning mittens, neckwear, and hats and have NONE of them match? Like, at all? Okay, I have a shawl that looks okay with a pair of mittens, if you don't look too closely.
Well. No more. Because I'm going to make projects that will complete a set with already-existing objects. It's genius. (I just misspelled genius on the first try. Okay, two tries.)
Contestants:
These mittens. They are nice and bright without showing all the grime that immediately gets on one's hands as one navigates winter in the snowy North. They also kind of go with a handspun shawl I made a couple years ago that is screaming pink and orange. They are also not yet worn through at the thumb, which is more than I could say about SOME mittens (they know who they are). And I have half a skein of each of these colors left that could make a very nice colorwork hat.
This hat. Have I not introduced you to Spooks yet? Spooks is my head model, so named because the children find her spooky. That may have had something to do with the fact that their father immediately, upon meeting Spooks, stuck her on a broomstick, turned off all the lights, and lit her from below for the children to come upon after their bath*.
Anyway, this hat is from my handspun Nest merino something or other, and there's half a ball left that could make some lovely fingerless mitts or part of a cowl, paired with a solid. That pattern is Norby, which I don't find makes a super-warm hat for the depths of winter, but does make a very nice fall hat.
Hat not pictured, but if you've spent time on Rav, you'd know it. It's that Easy Ombre Slouch Hat that fades nicely from one color to the next, and it's in Loden and Neutral Slightly Darker than Off-White, and it is possible to order more. That was a gift from Mom, and it may be my favorite hat and it's nice and warm and soft.
And Surprise Mystery Contestant, All New Things!
For Christmas, this happened, this being Ankara Green Malabrigo Rios. (Thanks, Mom!) My stars, it is so pretty. The photo is not exactly correct, it's more of a greeny turquoise, and I love it and my choice is probably going to be something two-color-brioche (is that redundant?) and something necky and maybe some colorwork hand things.
If I excel in 2020, there will be more than one matching set of things in which I can leave the house not looking like a proficient yet colorblind knitter. There will also hopefully be more than just two finished quilts, and a bunch of other stuff, too.
Wishing you the best for 2020. Happy crafting!
*
The Yarn Harlot wrote, wisely, several years ago about how you can tell a hand knitter by their utterly mismatched accessories, and until now I have embodied that exactly. How does a person make 20 projects spanning mittens, neckwear, and hats and have NONE of them match? Like, at all? Okay, I have a shawl that looks okay with a pair of mittens, if you don't look too closely.
Well. No more. Because I'm going to make projects that will complete a set with already-existing objects. It's genius. (I just misspelled genius on the first try. Okay, two tries.)
Contestants:
These mittens. They are nice and bright without showing all the grime that immediately gets on one's hands as one navigates winter in the snowy North. They also kind of go with a handspun shawl I made a couple years ago that is screaming pink and orange. They are also not yet worn through at the thumb, which is more than I could say about SOME mittens (they know who they are). And I have half a skein of each of these colors left that could make a very nice colorwork hat.
This hat. Have I not introduced you to Spooks yet? Spooks is my head model, so named because the children find her spooky. That may have had something to do with the fact that their father immediately, upon meeting Spooks, stuck her on a broomstick, turned off all the lights, and lit her from below for the children to come upon after their bath*.
Hat not pictured, but if you've spent time on Rav, you'd know it. It's that Easy Ombre Slouch Hat that fades nicely from one color to the next, and it's in Loden and Neutral Slightly Darker than Off-White, and it is possible to order more. That was a gift from Mom, and it may be my favorite hat and it's nice and warm and soft.
And Surprise Mystery Contestant, All New Things!
For Christmas, this happened, this being Ankara Green Malabrigo Rios. (Thanks, Mom!) My stars, it is so pretty. The photo is not exactly correct, it's more of a greeny turquoise, and I love it and my choice is probably going to be something two-color-brioche (is that redundant?) and something necky and maybe some colorwork hand things.
If I excel in 2020, there will be more than one matching set of things in which I can leave the house not looking like a proficient yet colorblind knitter. There will also hopefully be more than just two finished quilts, and a bunch of other stuff, too.
Wishing you the best for 2020. Happy crafting!
*
 |
| Aieeeeee! |
More Cross-Stitch
Oh man, I've only finished two quilts this year. That's way under my normal average. I've finished other stuff, though, like skeins of handspun:
Oh, and I accidentally took up needle-felting. Pictures of that when I make the one series of fourteen posts in a row next December, because maybe it will be finished by then.
So here are the finished cross-stitches:
All patterns were found on Etsy, and all are Harry Potter-themed. My surprise favorite ended up being the Luna Lovegood one (which says "Don't worry, you're just as sane as I am"). It was the quickest and simplest, but with the mat of the shiny, different color-reflecting scrapbook paper, it really came together well. (There's a word for that kind of paper, but I can't retrieve it, the internets were unhelpful, and we shall have to forge ahead.)
My cross-stitching queue is full of pretty, mostly butterfly-themed projects but I haven't committed to one yet. I scored some sweet, sweet black Aida cloth over my visit home, and have some ideas for that as well.
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| Corriedale X, I want to say Brown Dog fibers? Fingering weight 2-ply |
Oh, and I accidentally took up needle-felting. Pictures of that when I make the one series of fourteen posts in a row next December, because maybe it will be finished by then.
So here are the finished cross-stitches:
All patterns were found on Etsy, and all are Harry Potter-themed. My surprise favorite ended up being the Luna Lovegood one (which says "Don't worry, you're just as sane as I am"). It was the quickest and simplest, but with the mat of the shiny, different color-reflecting scrapbook paper, it really came together well. (There's a word for that kind of paper, but I can't retrieve it, the internets were unhelpful, and we shall have to forge ahead.)
My cross-stitching queue is full of pretty, mostly butterfly-themed projects but I haven't committed to one yet. I scored some sweet, sweet black Aida cloth over my visit home, and have some ideas for that as well.
Okay, what else...
Finished baby quilt!
Orange zig-zags on the back! Given to the receiving baby in July or so. Bunny label included.
Cross-stitch, swearing
Quick little cross-stitch projects are a delight. This is one that I whipped up and sent off to my friend from college, a fellow linguistics major:
A very interesting conversation about the link between unicorns and rainbows followed.
A very interesting conversation about the link between unicorns and rainbows followed.
FO: The Lion
For a Christmas present, I made my youngest brother The Lion. It was my first English Paper Piecing project. I replaced the pink with shades of bright blue and stuck with the basic color scheme for the yellows, though I don't think I hit each Kona shade exactly.
I got a fabric glue stick especially for the purpose and it worked well. I only thread baste under extreme duress.
The pattern was a birthday present, and I probably got started with the cutting and gluing in August. By mid-September, the top was complete, though I let it sit for a long time before taking the papers out.
I did echoing lines over the face and ears and mane-ish loops and spirals in the mane section. I used yellow thread on the face and it took me awhile to decide to use clear thread in the mane - couldn't find any color that I liked over the very wide range of shades.
With more (wonky, asymmetrical, please don't look too closely) echo quilting in the gray, it was on its way, and the binding was a snap to hand-finish. The back is a simple print in a dark teal.
I like Violet Craft's patterns a lot. If she ever does a raccoon, I will be all over it. I also love EPP just as much as I feared I would, and am planning 17 EPP quilts, each of which will take hundreds of hours to complete.
I got a fabric glue stick especially for the purpose and it worked well. I only thread baste under extreme duress.
The pattern was a birthday present, and I probably got started with the cutting and gluing in August. By mid-September, the top was complete, though I let it sit for a long time before taking the papers out.
I did echoing lines over the face and ears and mane-ish loops and spirals in the mane section. I used yellow thread on the face and it took me awhile to decide to use clear thread in the mane - couldn't find any color that I liked over the very wide range of shades.
With more (wonky, asymmetrical, please don't look too closely) echo quilting in the gray, it was on its way, and the binding was a snap to hand-finish. The back is a simple print in a dark teal.
I like Violet Craft's patterns a lot. If she ever does a raccoon, I will be all over it. I also love EPP just as much as I feared I would, and am planning 17 EPP quilts, each of which will take hundreds of hours to complete.
7.28.2019
Thumbs resting
I have been on a wild crafting tear these last several days. Well into cross-stitching (or rather, blackwork but with color), my left thumb started aching, and now both my thumbs are begging for mercy. So instead of crafting tonight, I will write a post and show all the reasons that my thumbs hurt.
I found this pattern on Etsy (Rainbow Blackwork) and stitched it up over the last several weeks. It called for a single strand of thread, but for each color, I chose two colors that were pretty close together for a slightly deeper color.
Boy it was a lot of work, but I love how it came out. Found a frame for it (11x17) and am trying to figure out how to mount it - if I were starting over, I'd leave more space around the bottom and left sides.
This next one is a Norby hat made from a handspun from TDF last year.
And speaking of the TDF, here is a lot of spinning that I mostly did before the Tour and then a tiny bit I did on the second to last night of it. Whoops.
And finally, here is some of the color selection that will become The Lion, a gift for my brother. Not as spectacular is the Abstraction version, but I don't think he needs five feet of lion in his house. This as a wallhanging will be more his speed.
English Paper Piecing is almost certainly addictive, and there is a little niggling piece of me that has latched onto the idea that one could make one's own patterns pretty easily, were one so inclined. The prep work is a lot, which I think is part of what my thumbs are so pissed off about. I had to order most of the yellows and a couple grays, so this is not all ready to go yet, but I stitched a few pieces together last night, and yes, this will be good.
Happy crafting!
I found this pattern on Etsy (Rainbow Blackwork) and stitched it up over the last several weeks. It called for a single strand of thread, but for each color, I chose two colors that were pretty close together for a slightly deeper color.
Boy it was a lot of work, but I love how it came out. Found a frame for it (11x17) and am trying to figure out how to mount it - if I were starting over, I'd leave more space around the bottom and left sides.
This next one is a Norby hat made from a handspun from TDF last year.
And speaking of the TDF, here is a lot of spinning that I mostly did before the Tour and then a tiny bit I did on the second to last night of it. Whoops.
And finally, here is some of the color selection that will become The Lion, a gift for my brother. Not as spectacular is the Abstraction version, but I don't think he needs five feet of lion in his house. This as a wallhanging will be more his speed.
English Paper Piecing is almost certainly addictive, and there is a little niggling piece of me that has latched onto the idea that one could make one's own patterns pretty easily, were one so inclined. The prep work is a lot, which I think is part of what my thumbs are so pissed off about. I had to order most of the yellows and a couple grays, so this is not all ready to go yet, but I stitched a few pieces together last night, and yes, this will be good.
Happy crafting!
5.19.2019
Cross stitching
A few months ago, I caught a wild hair to cross stitch a mandala. After some poking around on Etsy, I bought a pattern (which turned out to be a bigger commitment than I realized at first) and dug out whatever I could find to get started RIGHT THEN. Rainbow mandala? Yes, please.
I had some purple and blue on hand, though not the ones called for in the pattern. No matter, I was starting, so I went with what I had and started. I haven't added up the total number of stitches, but the light orange was the most with 2600-odd, so this is a lot of stitches. I finally washed it last night and need to frame it.
This project taught me how much I detest ripping out cross stitches. Wow, is it not fun. From now my plan is to just be very, very careful to not make mistakes. That should work.
Below is my next cross-stitch project, which is a fabulous little thing that combines unicorns, swearing, and grammar jokes. It will be a surprise for a friend who likes all three. Below is one night's work. I was also unprepared for this one, colors-wise and thread-wise, but I had some sparkly pink on hand and some shiny rayon yellow for the horn. I may backstitch around the horn with a medium brown so you can see it better.
This year, instead of training for the Tour de Fleece exclusively by buying large quantities of fiber, I am am buying large quantities of fiber and spinning some of it.
This is corriedale X from Brown Dog Fiber Arts Studio, which I got at a sheep & wool festival last fall. It is pretty and will probably turn into a 2-ply.
With my glorious, glorious few hours to myself today, I rolled up 6 (6!!) quilts' worth of white borders - Kona Snow. This was going to be a story about how prudent and responsible I am being, but actually most of those stories turn out differently. This time, I thought very carefully about how wide to cut them and then made the crazy decision to cut them 3" wide, which yields a finished quilt that just barely fits within the backing size I normally get, which is 1 1/4 yd. So I guess I'm committed to pretty large crib quilts for the forseeable.
Why did I do that? Dunno. The thought of cutting them down and losing all that fabric just doesn't sit right, so big quilts it will be.
Here is the first one of the large-bordered quilts, all bordered up this morning.
I held up the intended backing, and phew, it does fit. I've started another similar top, so the gender-neutral quilt on the docket may end up being orange/blue/green, although the idea of koalas does appeal to me. Maybe I will make a shop quilt of it instead.
Happy crafting!
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| Rainbow mandala!! |
I had some purple and blue on hand, though not the ones called for in the pattern. No matter, I was starting, so I went with what I had and started. I haven't added up the total number of stitches, but the light orange was the most with 2600-odd, so this is a lot of stitches. I finally washed it last night and need to frame it.
This project taught me how much I detest ripping out cross stitches. Wow, is it not fun. From now my plan is to just be very, very careful to not make mistakes. That should work.
Below is my next cross-stitch project, which is a fabulous little thing that combines unicorns, swearing, and grammar jokes. It will be a surprise for a friend who likes all three. Below is one night's work. I was also unprepared for this one, colors-wise and thread-wise, but I had some sparkly pink on hand and some shiny rayon yellow for the horn. I may backstitch around the horn with a medium brown so you can see it better.
This year, instead of training for the Tour de Fleece exclusively by buying large quantities of fiber, I am am buying large quantities of fiber and spinning some of it.
This is corriedale X from Brown Dog Fiber Arts Studio, which I got at a sheep & wool festival last fall. It is pretty and will probably turn into a 2-ply.
With my glorious, glorious few hours to myself today, I rolled up 6 (6!!) quilts' worth of white borders - Kona Snow. This was going to be a story about how prudent and responsible I am being, but actually most of those stories turn out differently. This time, I thought very carefully about how wide to cut them and then made the crazy decision to cut them 3" wide, which yields a finished quilt that just barely fits within the backing size I normally get, which is 1 1/4 yd. So I guess I'm committed to pretty large crib quilts for the forseeable.
Why did I do that? Dunno. The thought of cutting them down and losing all that fabric just doesn't sit right, so big quilts it will be.
Here is the first one of the large-bordered quilts, all bordered up this morning.
I held up the intended backing, and phew, it does fit. I've started another similar top, so the gender-neutral quilt on the docket may end up being orange/blue/green, although the idea of koalas does appeal to me. Maybe I will make a shop quilt of it instead.
Happy crafting!
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