Snowflakes

One of the gals on our Quilting Post yahoo group posted a link to these great fabric snowflakes.  I definitely will be needing to make some.  They are just so pretty.  I’ve seen them made out of paper before but never though of fabric – and they look more substantial out of the fabrics.

Check out the Shabby Fabrics video to see how easy they are to make.

That  lone plant hook in my living room ceiling left from the last tenant (or maybe it was for hanging light) which I’ve never hung anything on – heck it may need a snowflake to hang on it.  It would make a great winter decoration for the outside of my parents condo door since it’s in an inner hallway so not exposed to outside weather.   And my sister has a sunporch where they would look great hanging in the windows.

I’m planning on going to my parents after Christmas so I may just have to  get the fabric pieces all fused and the cuts made (since my Mom and my sister are not quilters so I wouldn’t be trusting them with doing the rotary cutter part) 🙂  but if I got them ready that far,  the three of us could then do the gluing and put them all together while visiting.

I have also been wanting to make some of this style of snowflakes as tree ornaments.   This video shows how to make them with two sided printed paper but I’d do the same thing except with double sided fused fabrics as well.

I found a great deal on Amazon for the type of Heat N Bond needed – much cheaper in bulk  and since the large flakes are double fused they will of course take twice as much of the norm —  so have a bolt of that ordered and since I won an Amazon gift card at our office party this past week, it’s a “free” deal at that.  And there are of course all kinds of fabrics in the stash that would be perfect for these – bunches with gold metallic or silver metallic accents to sparkle, batiks would be lovely – lots to choose from.   Yes, I’m very excited about trying some of these out.

But – on a different note – I have been busy.  About 8 pm I finally finished all the quilting on the deer quilt.

It’s tossed over the couch for the time being.  Tomorrow it will get trimmed up and the binding added.  A long day of quilting but I’m glad it’s done.

I have one other Christmas gift to make – a set of pillowcases for someone else and hopefully tomorrow I’ll get those whipped out too.

 

Coffee break / shoulder break

Yep time for a break.   Large meandering free motion quilting is much more tiring on the shoulders than closer quilting – at least for  me.  I’m covering more space and must shift the quilt differently.  But quilting progress has  been made.

Found some wide backing left over from another project -just a brown/cream print.  Layered (note to self – you opened the last package of batting so put it on the shopping list!)

The quilt has been signed – my first name and year quilted into the lower plain border.

 

 

 

I just love all these fabrics together.  I’m close to about 1/2 done with the center of the quilt.  The outer border will get some other quilting design in it I think.

 

On the Needles – 12/12/15

I’ve been knitting right along on my Charlie’s Cardigan and am making great progress.

The right front is now just past the armhole bind offs.  I was about 3″ farther but then realized I had  goofed up one of the lace repeats and left two rows out of it — it was a very skinny chevron.  So ripped that back since the chevrons wouldn’t have lined up across the front of the sweater.

 

I would the bulky project I had bought to make Olethea but since I wanted to make it a bit larger and longer, I realized I didn’t have enough yarn.  So have relegated that yarn to a different Laura Aylor pattern since she recently released several bulky knit patterns and I want to make them all.

This was the yarn I original got for Olethea — I was going to use it for the  bulky knit Just for You Two MKAL that she’s also doing which starts next week.  I like the way it’s set up – broken down into seven clues with about an hour’s worth of knitting each clue — that sounds very doable to sneak in some selfish knitting the week before Christmas.  I was going to use the Malabrigo Mecha for that but it’s a bit more variegated than may be good for the project so I think I will try either Shoji  or Oppose out of this yarn.

 So I had to find some other bulky yarns to use for the other projects I wanted to make and for the MKAL. Since I wanted to make several bulky projects and had absolutely no bulky yarn, I’ve got these coming … yes I absolutely HAD to buy yarn. 🙂

This is Tiara Tweed in the color Rose.  I love the specks of colors in it.  It’s a wool, llama and silk blend – and was even half price so I couldn’t pass it up.

I will use this for one of the Olethea.

 

 

This is Berroco Ultra Alpaca in blueberry mix – love the different shades in this one.

And another Ultra Alpaca in berry pie mix  (maybe I was just hungry when I was ordering and the “pie” names got me.)

I think the Berry will be used for the MKAL which hopefully it will arrive in time for — it starts the end of next week.

Now as for today’s happenings …. I need to stop dilly dallying.   There’s a lap quilt to be layered and quilted – after I clear away the stuff on the sewing table (which may mean just dump it all in the laundry basket to get it out of the way quickly and deal with putting it all away later).   It’s another dreary day (it’s been sunless all week I think) and the fog is jus starting to lift outside – maybe before it rains I’ll get some outside lights up but I need to get in that sewing room first.

It’s amazing – here is what it looks like outside my door on December 12 — no snow (not complaining) – you can see the fog of in the trees which is finally starting to lighten up.  The hillside still looks green (weeds in Wisconsin are very hearty) and I think in the last two months I may have turned my heat on once or twice.

I was looking back to see what the weather was last year at around this time — we had had some cold weather but  also with some similar weather to today – for instance last year on this weekend here’s how my blog post started out.   Pretty much what’s going on this weekend.  LOL

 

 

 

Coffee break and cookies

8 p.m. and coffee break time as I clear away the last of my fabric scraps.  Yum the cookies turned out just the way I like them – crispy outside and bendy inside – and I had to taste test them before taking them in to the office.

The final border is on the quilt so I accomplished pretty much all I set out to do today.

  Hopefully this week I can find some backing to use for this in the stash.

 

Whew! Now that was a busy afternoon…

Funny how much I can get done if I just get started on something.

The last of the cookies are cooling.

The applesauce – about 10 cups of it – are in the freezer  with this one left out in the fridge and my two veggie drawers in the fridge are now finally free of apples.  And the apartment has a wonderful cinnamon smell.

The pasty is baking and is smelling pretty darn good too — note the use of the swirly edge picture frame which effective blocks the inside of my oven from view since it’s in dire need of cleaning. 😉  Another 10 minutes and it should be perfect.

The Christmas tree storage tub is pulled out of the closet but I think I’ve done way too much work today to bother pulling it out tonight but we’ll see how I feel after dinner.  I may just go for  some quality knitting time after dinner.

And the first border is on the quilt I need to finish so I just took a break to stare at it on the floor a while to try to decide which  fabric I want to use for the border..  One more border to add and hopefully I’ll get it layered one night this week so I can start quilting next weekend.

Now to figure out what else is for dinner.

I couldn’t help myself

I had to fill in just the basic spaces around the trees and mess with the trees a bit.  And yes – I am still working on all those other things I said I wanted to get done today – but it was lunch break time (and warm applesauce was ready just in time for a lunch taste test)  🙂

 

Goodness when I opened my email after posting the first preliminary drawing, there were 9 or 10 emails asking if I’d share the pattern.  I glad people like it but you do realize don’t you that just because I had a partial drawing does not mean it miraculously becomes a pattern all on its own and  asking for it so you can make it for Christmas, well yes I was laughing out loud and feel free to call me Scrooge, but you have to realize that simply won’t happen.   Right now it won’t even print as a paper piecing pattern because although you can’t tell in this image, the lines are not all in the right places to allow it to do that.

Will it ever be a pattern?  I don’t know at this point since it’s fighting me trying to correct the lines.  I haven’t decided what next year’s free project on the blog will be yet – maybe I’ll incorporate one of these trees if I can get them to play nicely into it and do a winter or Christmas themed project – only time will tell.

Lunch break is over.  No rest for the wicked.  Applesauce is done and just needs to be packaged up after it cools and stuck in the freezer.  Gingersnaps are mixed and have chilled so I can bake them now.  Mexican Wedding Cakes are waiting for another weekend since they’re not worth making if I can’t make at least a double batch for the office and not enough butter here.  So change a load of laundry, put away a few dishes and time to get my quilt borders cut.

Happy St. Nicholas Day

Did you celebrate St. Nicholas Day growing up.  We did.

We always seemed to just miss the seeing him – he was just too quick.  There would be a knock at our front door, which we never used in the winter time because the porch floor got too slippery with snow, so we always knew it wasn’t one of the usual friends or neighbors coming to call if the front door was used since they all used the back door.

Anyway, there’d be a knock on the door and by the time we’d get it unlocked there would be nothing there but footprints in the snow and goodies left for us.  Usually some candy and just for good measure, to make sure we were on our best behavior leading up to Christmas, a stick or piece of coal (charcoal briquette) to keep the four of us in line. 🙂  Of course it was many years before any of us realized that Dad was no where to be seen when St. Nicholas happened to be knocking at the door. 🙂  Good memories.

 

Yesterday I spent doing some boring cleaning (and taking more and longer breaks as the day went on) and a long time staring at my living room in preparation for cleaning and moving furniture to try to decide what needed to get moved in order to make room for me to put up the Christmas tree.  Thank goodness I got a really skinny tree last year so it does not involve having to move furniture to a different room anymore.

In the process tho, I cleaned out one of my bit knitting baskets and the cabinet where all manner of knitting and sewing tools just get swept into a drawer when I’m done with them.  At least one little cabinet is reorganized.  I also found the Holiday DVDs that had been stashed away so my plan was to get up early, do some baking, and get the tree out and work on that quilt I need to get finished.

Well, I did get up early, I’ve been sipping coffee and been on the computer ever since.   I needed to look up in EQ the border sizes for my quilt and of course had an idea for a holiday quilt and just wanted to try drawing the tree.  Yes, you know I tend to get lost in EQ once I open it up.

It’s just a partial design.  The trees are quite large and since I don’t love doing paperpiecing, making three of them would be a bit of a stretch but I may fill in the rest of the blank spots of the design and it would be cute printed on blank greeting cards to make my own Christmas cards.

But, I have my border measurements for the quilt I need to work on so no more EQ for today.

It’s a bit chilly in the apt today (tho it’s warmer in here than the temp I usually keep the thermostat at) but the air feels damp outside.  But, that will be cured soon once I turn the oven on which will warm up the kitchen and living room.  I’ve got some Mexican Wedding Cake cookies to get mixed up and maybe some Gingersnaps.   I decided it was a comfort food kind of day so in addition to making those cookies, I’ve got hamburger defrosting to make Cornish Pasty for dinner tonight and when I’m making pie crust for that, I may have to make a bit extra since there’s fruit in the freezer that I could use to make a little pie.  Also, time to use up the last of my apple supply from my Aunt’s apples so I think I will make applesauce with them to stick in the freezer.

My apt should be smelling good and toasty warm by the time I get done with all this.  So time to get some baking started so I can get to the quilt sewing (and hopefully get the Christmas tree up and I’ll enjoy it for a few days with just the lights on it before I get around to decorating.)

 

On the Needles – 12/5/15

I still need to seam my Loopy Legend Gannets yarn sweater.  The side seams are all clipped together so maybe this evening I’ll get that done so I can wear it.

In the meantime, I started a new sweater – CustomFit Charlie’s Cardigan.   My yarn arrived on Monday (my Black Friday purchase) so got busy swatching.

It’s Cascade 220 (nonsuperwash) and the color is Opal.  The swatch is true to color on my monitor – sort of a slightly pinkish tank.   So Tuesday night I cast on and here’s my progress so far.  I’ve got about 12″ – 14″ knit already.   This is knitting up really quickly so far, but then of course my last two sweaters were fingering weight.

 

 

The other yarn I had ordered was originally for Olethea but I wasn’t thinking correctly when I ordered it because I need to make it larger and longer and didn’t order the extra yarn to do so.  But it all worked out well since Laura Aylor is running another holiday MKAL that uses the same weight (bulky) and I’ll have enough to make the MKAL project for me and enough leftover to make Oppose as a gift for someone else.   That’s my favorite kind of gift giving — one for you; one for me. 🙂  Plus I love the colors of this yarn (which are a bit darker/richer looking that my photo) and Malabrigo Mecha is so soft.  The color is Solis.

So that’s what’s in the works at the moment.  Today, once I convince myself I really should get dressed, I think will be spent doing a bit of cleaning and pulling out the Christmas Tree and setting it up even if I don’t decorate it yet.  And maybe tomorrow putting up the lights outside since it’s supposed to be a fairly nice day  (39 degrees and not windy on  December 6 is pretty good – and no snow on the ground).    But then I also have a quilt I really need to finish so I’d better get busy around here!

Socktoberfest Sock Knitting Challenge

The Socktoberfest Crocodylia  KAL has officially ended.  You can see my single sock at the link ..yes, I know.. only single so far but I have extenuating circumstances excuses.  These were my bus ride knitting project and as I was finishing up the first sock, daylight savings time changed and dark yarn, dark needles are not conducive knitting for the bus ride when the lighting on most buses is this weird bluish light that is not very bright — if you happen to get a seat on the side of the bus that is truly lit.  And I was busy on a sweater at home – but the sweater is nearly complete and the second sock has been cast on so I can work on it at home.

But check out these lovely socks that were completed by those who were up to the challenge and succeeded beautifully!

Karen Petersen

Shirley Soellner

Priscilla Benson

June Canders-Cloutier

 

 

 

 

Thank you ladies for playing along with me (and surpassing me with completing your pair).  June said this was her first pair of knit socks ever – excellent!!

And now to the random number generator (I’ve numbered them 1 thru 4 in the order shown here) and the winner of a hank of Wollmeise sock yarn is:

Priscilla is the lucky winner.  I believe she was also the first person to email me a photo of her lovely red socks which show off the stitch pattern so well.   Priscilla please email me with your mailing address.

Congratulations to all you ladies who now have a cozy pair of socks to wear.