Guest Quilts: Mom's New York Beauty

My friend Kristin gave me Karen Stone's New York Beauty book a few years back, and though I loved the pattern, I don't do much piecing anymore.  My mom is a big piecer though, in her art quilts and bed quilts, and asked if she could have it.  She's now been piecing scrappy New York Beauty blocks for the last three years or so.  It's her travel project and she works on them in their 5th wheel whenever she and my dad travel together.  Over Thanksgiving she thought she finally had almost enough blocks so we got them out to start auditioning layouts and to determine what colors she might need more of.  It was pretty fun to put them all up, they really are pretty much every color, and I love love love the bright scrappy look.

It's really big, it'll finish at a generous king size, so I couldn't even get far enough back to get all the blocks in one picture.  She had the most greenish ones so we started with that in the middle and worked out.  It was fun to move them around and play with the organization.  I think she needs about 14 or 15 more blocks and then has to piece the large borders, so it won't be finished any time soon, but it was great to see it coming together!

Crochet Shawl

The road trip to my family's home in New Mexico is about 500 miles and though I used to be a car reader, I find myself frequently getting carsick on the trip now if I read too long.  So it turns out that crocheting is a great way to fill the long drive.  Having seen a couple of beautiful small shawls/triangular scarves (not sure where the crossover line is), I decided to crochet one.

I dyed some of my fabulous white alpaca yarn (thanks Aunt Susan!) and started to look for a pattern.  I love searching on ravelry, and selected this one for purchase from the interweave store.  I love all the free patterns on ravelry, and many thanks to those who post their work for use by others, but most of the free patterns don't have diagrams.  I have a really hard time crocheting from the written instructions, and do much better from the stitch diagram.  Anyway, I really loved the snowflaky edging on this pattern and figured I'd just make it smaller.  

It called for lace weight yarn, but really I'm terrible about following instructions directly and usually just use whatever yarn I'd planned on and one of my two favorite crochet hooks and hope for the best.  I think my alpaca is a DK or Sport weight, but luckily this pattern had some tips for using a bulkier yarn.  Unfortunately, I ran out of yarn about 6 rows from the end of the beautiful border, so I had to just finish it off with some scallops since there was no way I was going to be able to replicate that dye lot even if I'd wanted to.  I love the way it turned out, and it's fabulously soft and warm and light.

Please pardon the fact that my hair is sticking up weirdly.

In other yarn news- my dear friend Kristin sent me some handknitted fingerless gloves for Christmas- she's such a great knitter and of course I love the pink yarn and the beautiful cabling.  What a great Christmas present!!!

And finally, a bit of snowy goodness-  we got 13-16" (depending on where you measured) at my parents' house, and enjoyed much sledding in their yard with my mom and sister and niece and nephew.  The dogs had a blast....

Even though it isn't an art quilt, I'm linking up with Nina-Marie.  Hopefully soon I'll be back with more on my current art projects!

Sweater for Missy

Missy is a fairly grouchy dog and does not like to be brushed, so we keep her hair cut pretty short.  Sometimes she's awfully shivery in the days after a haircut, and since it's winter anyway, Mike asked me to make her a sweater.  I had no idea whether she'd even wear it, so I didn't want to put too much time into a crocheted one.  And given the way she's especially grouchy about her head, it couldn't be a pullover.

With that in mind, I trawled the internet for dog sweater tutorials, and found this tutorial/pattern on Mimi and Tara.  I didn't need a hood or a santa costume, but it had the requisite front closure, so using the pattern pieces as a base, I whipped up this little fleece number for Missy.

Overall it fit remarkably well for a first try.  There are a couple of areas that I'd like to change next time, yes, some tailoring for dogs, but it went pretty well.  She didn't like it at first, but she seems to like it fine now.  Unfortunately, about three days after I made it, Mike accidentally put it inside a box containing a jacket he'd sold online and shipped it off across the country.  Luckily the kind recipient sent it back to us, but for several days we could not figure out what happened to it.

I was always one of those people who couldn't understand why dogs needed clothes, but she does seem to get chilly in the winter, and she does look pretty cute.  :)

Have you ever sewed clothes for your pets?

Christmas Presents

Well now that everything has been opened, it's time for a roundup of crafty presents for the year.  I love making things for my family and friends and it's one reason why progress on my big quilt was slow this past couple of months, but for me it's worth it.

First up are the annual ornaments for Mike.  I realized when I decorated the tree this year that this marks our 7th Christmas together, and it was fun to look back at past ornaments, most a snapshot of something he was into that year (and in many cases still).

This year I made a camera for him, specifically a Ricoh GR, which is what he often uses for street photography. It's a fairly understated camera, but I think that's kind of the point. Unfortunately since it was black-on-black, it was fairly hard to photograph, but you get the idea.

For Anna and Alex, I went the hand embroidery/bead route.  These were just about the only good thing to come out of the dreadful OSU-Baylor football game...  You'll see the chi-rho again, but on these I used some larger rock beads to fill the shape.  I was not pleased with how visible the thread was when I sewed on the large beads, but they were all very awkwardly shaped and I couldn't seem to find away around it.  I suppose it would have helped a bunch if I'd used a matching color of thread, but I'm no expert beader, so if anyone has any tips, please share!

While home at Thanksgiving, Becky said she really liked my daisy cross-body bag, so I made her one exactly like it (though with a different petal repeat).  She asked for inside pockets big enough to hold sippy cups, so I made up something I think will work (in that first picture below).  Between all the petal repeats on both bags and the bag linings, I've pretty much used up all my precious Jane Sassaman fabric.  It makes me happy to use it, but a bit sad that it's gone.

And finally, Raegan is very into American Girl dolls, so for Christmas her mom and dad made her a set of bunkbeds and asked if I'd make bedding inspired by this.  So I made two little doll quilts (both backed with minky) with matching pillows as well as mattresses.

Did you make or get handmade gifts this year?   I'm looking forward now to getting back to my art-  there are several show deadlines coming up, so hopefully I can make some progress on my big quilt.

Guest Quilt: Barb

Hi everybody,  I hope the weather is ok where all of you are and there's not too much overwhelming winterness happening.  I wanted to stop in today to share a quilt a friend of mine just finished.  Her name's Barb and she's an outstanding microscopist by profession.  She's the one that took the electron micrographs that this quilt is based on.  She's pretty crafty, (this is the same Barb that made my beautiful rainbow crochet lace table mat), and has recently started quilting.  I'm so excited (new converts always made me happy), and shortly before Christmas she sent pictures of the quilt she recently finished for her 10 year old niece.

I was so excited to see it, and am really looking forward to seeing more of her quilts as she makes progress!  I love the pink scrappy look.  This one is machine quilted, but she hand quilts as well, something I've still not learned.

Hooray! 

Happy New Year everybody!

Christmas Ornaments

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday and that as many of you as possible are enjoying some time off to be creative!!

The last few years I've made Christmas ornaments for my friends, and this year I did two separate batches.  The first were done using my embroidery machine.  There are so many cute embroidery patterns and I hardly ever use  my embroidery set up, so I had some fun making these.  Luckily the stitch outs went fine and my machine ran smoothly.  I think my tension is still off, but since I matched the bobbin and top thread it isn't too obvious.  The pattern is from urban threads (my favorite).  To give you an idea of scale, they're about 2.5-3" wide.

These next ones are hand embroidered and beaded.  I've been on a chi-rho kick lately  (I did several ornaments with that symbol this year), I think as a result of just finishing a really superb podcast on the history of the Roman empire.  You should definitely check it out, it's fabulous to listen to in the car or while sewing.  I did most of the beading/embroidery in the car, and they're about 4" across.  

I really had a great time making all of these, and I hope my friends like them!

Merry Christmas

Wishing you and your loved ones a joyful Christmas and a fabulous 2016!

Kids and Crafts

I love Christmas crafts (duh to anyone who's known me longer than about three minutes), and it so fun that Mike's grandkids love crafts too.  They're the perfect age for all kinds of things (7 and 9), and we were lucky to get to have them over last weekend.

We started with sock snowmen, using this good tutorial.  They were easy and fun to make, and the kids had fun picking out their buttons and eyes/sequins, scarfs, etc.  We didn't even spill too much rice :).  I made one too, but didn't manage to get a picture of it.

Then we moved on to Christmas cookies.  I don't think they'd made cookies from scratch like this before and really got a kick out of licking the beaters.  Raegan and I were sad that Mike frosted all his cookies white and Walker did all his red.  She was really into the rainbow and made some awesome multi-colored ones.  Of course they all taste the same (and super yummy).  I had them pick which cookie cutters they wanted to use from my fairly random selection, and we got some traditional Christmassy ones like the candy cane and the tree, and then a couple of slightly less traditional selections like the dog bone and the dragonfly.

You can see Bentley there lurking around the edges-  we discovered too late that his tongue was just the right height to slurp around the edge of the table and sneak cookies off.

And finally we made Borax crystal snowflakes.  I'd never done crystals like this before and it worked great.  After they left I tried several more shapes, but didn't get pictures of those either.  The snowflakes were much sturdier than I thought they'd be.  They were a bit hard to photograph, but in person they're very sparkly, especially when hanging next to lights on the tree.  I think Walker was a bit disappointed that his red one came out more pink, but it was ok.

In the evening we went out and looked at the Christmas lights, and sang songs and played games in the car.  I love having them over, they're really wonderfully behaved and so much fun.  They make me laugh and forget my pre-occupations for a while.  It definitely got me in the Christmas spirit.  Hope you all are having fun preparing!

Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Winners

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway!

I "drew" two names using Random.org and winners are Claire Sutherland, and Veronique.  Congratulaitons! Check your e-mails ladies and thanks to everyone else who entered.

And, just so the post won't be completely empty, I'll leave you with an in progress pic of my latest illuminated quilt.

Boxy Bags

Today I have some more bags from earlier this year. This summer I made several boxy bags to give away, and the last one was finally gifted in mid-November, so I thought I'd go ahead and share them.  I'd made one of these before  and it was the perfect size for an on-the-go crochet project.  I love the shape, and the tutorial I follow results in no unfinished interior edges (a must for me).  Unfortunately, I didn't use enough interfacing this time, so they're a little soft, but useful all the same!

Here they are with my old one.

Also last summer Mike got me a new camera right before our trip to Alaska.  I decided to make a camera bag for it using the train case pattern from Sew Sweetness.  I love her patterns for slightly more complicated bags, and this one was fun.  It's the smallest size in the pattern, and was a bit fiddly, but came out nice.  I made a shoulder strap to carry it and left off the top handle, but otherwise followed the pattern.

That little zip pocket in the top is the perfect size for a spare battery and SD card.  The camera was a perfect fit inside, so I was pleased about that, but unfortunately Mike has gotten me some sort of protective lens cover filter thing so now I don't think it will fit anymore!  Fun bag all the same though, and sometime I'll make the larger sized ones from the pattern.