Friday, January 31, 2014

End of January

This new month of the new year has flown by, so this little flying fairy I made is very appropriate.  She's my January finish for the Smalls Stitchalong.  I'm well underway on my small February piece, which will be an ornament for Christmas.

I failed completely to have a finish for my Lovely Year of Finishes!  Next month I hope to do better.

I did contribute to my scrap jar for Daffycat's Totally Useless Stitchalong.  I saved the papers from a handful of floss I purchased, and there is some wool mixed in with the floss from a needlepoint project I've been working on.  I'll post pictures on Tuesday.

The kids all went to the high school Winter formal last week.  I didn't get pictures of the girls but I did get a quick not-so-great picture of Jungle Boy with his cute girlfriend.

I'm still in denial that everybody's growing up, but I do think he's a handsome young man.  I treasure the interesting conversations we have.  He is thoughtful and philosophical and can be very interesting to talk with. 

Since the twins had to take a "practice" Preliminary SAT (PPSAT?), they are already starting to get mail from colleges.  Just as the mail for Drama girl is finally starting to taper off.  Our dining table often looks like a high school guidance office.  I tell the kids to look at each one so they can start to figure out what they might want in a college.  I can't believe this whole cycle is starting up again.  I'm finding everything about this process stressful. There will be a day in the not-to-distant future when I will have three kids in college. 

I call it...new sewing room day.



Wednesday, January 22, 2014

I'm ready for next Christmas

It's hard to describe how happy this makes me.  I've picked up one of these Playmobil advent calendars almost every year.  This year it was nowhere to be found.  Every store sold out before I could get my hands on one.

But today, as I strolled through a bookstore there it was!  A whole stack.  75% off!  And it's the forest animals one!  It's going to be hard to wait 11 months to play with the little bunnies and hedgehogs.

I'm worse than the kids.  Don't judge.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Benjamin Biggs block 1 Complete!

I'm happy with how my first block turned out.  I used Kaffe Fassett fabric for the main section.  It took me a while to figure out the color I wanted for the contrasting spots.  My brain really wanted to try orange, but the lavender seemed happier.  I wanted to line them up symmetrically, but I followed the vintage pattern exactly, which has them a little wonky.

I made the corner roses three dimensional, with folded centers.  These roses are going to be repeated in every block.


I'm a little bothered that the leaves don't look like rose leaves.  They're a bit blobbish, but they go with the overall feel of the quilt, which is slightly primitive.

This quiltalong is sponsored by Sentimental Stitches and you can still get the pattern for this first block for free.

Friday, January 10, 2014

Do Not Disturb - I'm reading

It's been a while since I've been so lost in a book that I couldn't put it down.  My life pulls me in a lot of directions.  Today I'm so engrossed in this one though, that I'm not sure the laundry is going to get done at all.

I  haven't read much Stephen King before but I might read more after I finish this.  I do enjoy time travel stories and this one has me hooked.

What are you reading right now?  Do you have a favorite Stephen King (that's not too scary for me?)


Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Showing up


The new year is a time for new goals but this year I read an article that really resonated with me.  Forget Setting Goals, Focus on This Instead.

It got me thinking about the process of creating.  I let so many things in day-to-day life get in the way of the creative process.  I would get a lot done if I would just get my hands on something and do a little work on it every day.  I'm going to try to build in a more consistent routine.

One of the goals that has been on my list for years is to put sleeves on some of my older quilts so they can go up on the wall.  It really doesn't take that long to do and I can finally admire some of these quilts from this vertical perspective.

So today I took the time to attach the sleeve on this while I drank my morning coffee.  It reminded me of how much I love this quilt.  I quilted it in a class taught by Kathy Sandbach, a very dear, wonderful woman who died last year after being diagnosed with frontal temporal dementia.  I cherish the time I got to spend with her.


The blocks in this quilt are actually snowball blocks on point.  I spent a long time trying to match up the different bits of toile I had to give the illusion that the blocks were a single piece.  If you look carefully you can see the four corners around the central picture. 

So that's my goal - a little bit each day. 

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Needlework Tuesday: Benjamin Biggs quilt block 1 progress.

I wasn't going to get started with too many new projects this year, but I couldn't resist this big long quiltalong that is hosted by Sentimental Stitches and Dear Jane.  Not sure if I'll stick with it but I'll get at least a few of the blocks done.

Pictured above is just the first layer of the first block.  I decided to go with Kaffe fabrics instead of the more traditional red and green.  The historic quilt that this is based on looks like this:



Just Takes 2
Here's the link if you're interested in collecting the patterns and getting started.

I'm linking up today with Heather at Books and Quilts.

Monday, January 6, 2014

Happy Back-to-Reality Day!

I'll be honest.  For the past two weeks at least I have had no idea what day of the week it was.  Kids have been in and out of the house and sleeping over and having others over and I lost all concept of weekends.  Even my husband had a weird, fractured work schedule.

The kids still don't go back to school until Wednesday, but at least today I have a firm idea of when Wednesday is.  My husband went to work today - a good clue that it's not a weekend.  And everyone on facebook last night was talking about this, so it must have been Sunday:

We don't have cable so the kids and I will be watching it this morning via Amazon.

The house is so bare now that the Christmas decorations are down that it echoes.  A bit more needle cleanup today and then I'll start hanging a new season of quilts on the walls.

I'm sorry that so much of the country is suffering with dreadful weather right now.  We've had the windows open every day because it's been so mild here.

The New Year's small at the top of the page is a free pattern from Brookes Books Publishing.  The Downton chart is a free pattern from The Sampler Girl.

Thursday, January 2, 2014

New Goals for 2014

A Lovely Year of Finishes 
This year I'm joining in "A Lovely Year of Finishes" hosted by Shanna of Fiber of All Sorts and Melissa of Sew Bittersweet Designs.  The plan is to post one goal a month, and then check back at the end of the month to see the finished result.  

I'm going to try to keep my goals rather small, while I work on some larger projects at the same time.  I still have a stack of quilt tops that need to be basted and finished.

January goal:  Baby quilt for a friend.  She just had a little boy.  It's been a while since I've made a baby quilt so this will be fun.  Not sure what fabrics I might have in my stash that will work.

December was so busy with parties and performances and this:

that not a lot of crafting got done.  That's my goose Christmas dinner.  It was all divine.  I'm still exhausted from all the preparation that went into the holiday.

Here are the three bookmarks I made for my kids:

Drama Girl got a dragon.

Wasabi Girl got a treble clef.

Jungle Boy got this nod to his love of video games.  Notice that it's being used in a big fat book though.  Everyone got books for Christmas and they've spent a good part of vacation reading them.  That makes me happy.  You can find links to these patterns on my Pinterest boards.

I'm also going to try to keep up with Daffycat's Totally Useless Stitchalong.  Each month we show the snippets of threads we've saved from our projects.  This was due on the 1st, so I'm late, but I do have some threads to show from some work yesterday.

That was hours of work.  I hope to finish the piece today and show it to you.  It's pretty cute.  Which brings me to my next Stitchalong:

http://stitchinglotus.ca/2013/11/2014-smalls-sal/

The 2014 Smalls Stitchalong is hosted by Stitching Lotus.  Very easy - one small project a month.

We still have Christmas up around here.  The season was over so quickly this year that I'm still enjoying the last bit of it.  The poor tree needs to go soon though.  Probably a project for Sunday.

I hope your New Year brings new exciting goals and projects.  Now that I've finished that epic Santa's Village from last year I feel like I can tackle anything. 

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