Cluttering or Cleaning?

  From this photo it’s a toss up as to which of those I’m doing but really I’m cleaning.  That basket had been piled with quilt magazines, knitting magazines, quilting and knitting printouts from the web, my own pattern drafts, some in final, etc. Plus I had a couple piles of all those things on the breakfast bar and in the sewing room.  So I gathered them up – one pile is junk, one EQ Boutique stuff I need to organize, large pile of knitting patterns that are now all in plastic sheet protectors to put into binders, and a pile of papers for the recycling bin.  The floor is now clean.  The basket however is not empty.  It still holds just the quilt magazines that I need to go through to see if there’s any I want to keep and then the rest will hit the recycling bin too.  But I’ll save that for another day.

I just need to organize all the knitting patterns into sections as I put them in the binders – hats, scarves, shawls, mittens, sweaters, etc. so it will be easier to find what I need.  And I finally found a couple of the sock patterns I need that I have made one sock from so need them in order to make the mate!  This is a good thing that they have been found.   So it is a job well done.

There’s still a stack of quilting magazines on the sewing room bookshelf to toss in the basket and some evening I’ll sort through them.  I mostly keep the actual machine quilting design ideas rather than quilt patterns so will spend some night pulling out what I want to keep for ideas.

While sorting all that stuff I did also manage to make these.

The two small ones will go in the freezer and since I’m not having company for Thanksgiving or having anyone in, there was nothing to stop me from cutting into that big one this afternoon for a taste test. Yum.  I needed that coffee break – especially since coffee was all I had had all day.  The little one in the back looks a bit odd since I over filled it and had to dump a bit of filling out – hence the dark crust.

And I managed to get a few more photos with the dying camera (yes had to turn the lights off to do so) LOL but

here’s the finished mittens

         I did think about trying to get the color shading to line up in the same places on the second mitten but decided I didn’t really care so they are “striped” a bit different but I like them.

Also got a picture of the shawlette/scarf to go with my coat.  It hasn’t been blocked yet and needs to be stretched out a bit bigger as it is blocked but here it is without any threads buried yet.

 

 

 And here’s the recent yarn purchases.  They are all Sanguine Gryphon yarns – some Bugga (the multicolored one is called Smiley Faced Spider – too funny) and some of their other dk weights.  I may make some more scarfs using two different yarns out of the Smiley Face Spider – it would look good combined with the the red and also the brown.  The blue I may make into a cowl.

So once I get the rest of the patterns put away, I’m headed to the stash to check for some fabrics for a new quilt and will wind some of this yarn so I have something to knit on later tonight (not that there aren’t several things in progress I could pick up) 🙂 and finally find something to eat.  But all in all, a productive day so far and things are looking much tider in my living room and kitchen.

OH and many people have written they were unable to download the Nov. Granny’s Hankie pattern.  Try again later.  WordPress has been having some kind of issue the past couple of days.  Those who were unable to download when they first tried have gotten it later and everytime I click on it it works fine.  Sorry but I can’t do anything if you get the error code.  Just try, try again. 🙂

 

Indian Summer

The weather has turned to Indian Summer here.  It had been in the 50’s – 60’s for a week or two and all of a sudden, today we are up to 80.  The warmer temps could hang around a bit longer if it were up to me but I’ll enjoy the lovely fall, near summerish days, as long as they last.  Makes it hard to figure out if you need a coat or not tho.

I hope to get to some sewing this weekend.  Need to cut out some more applique blocks so they are ready to stitch on. But I also have a couple patterns to get ready and written up.  Tho looking around me, someone (hmmm… guess that’s me) really needs to clean up the disaster in this apartment.  So I may have to spend some time cleaning.  I also want to get the sewing table cleaned off (I never quite completed that and have piled more stuff on it) so I can pull another quilt top from the crate and get it layered for quilting.  But first I guess I’d better check for batting since I’m no so sure there’s any here.

This months’ Granny’s Hankie instructions are now posted.  And I’ve got several new photos to get added to the blog readers’ blocks page when I get time.  If that page is any indication, there will be some lovely Granny’s Hankie quilts.

I’m still knitting along on the Minimalist cardigan on my ride to and from work.  Back is done, have started on one of the fronts.  But I also need to get started on some Socktoberfest socks! before October is over.  I’ve got several new patterns I want to make but I think first I’ll make some out of the free Wollmeise yarn I got from Camp Loopy.  I was going to use it for a different pattern but then found this Tumbling Blocks pattern.  Every quilter should have a pair of tumbling blocks socks, don’t ya think?  The Wollmeise is a dark brown with only a little shading variation in it so I think it will show off the stitch pattern that makes the tumbling blocks even better than the yarn used in the pattern.  I’ll be making the legs of them a bit longer than the pattern tho.

Other than writing up the Granny’s Hanking instructions tonight to get them posted, I’ve also been searching through some old EQ files, tweaking here and there.  But the I made a few changes to a block in one design and came up with an entirely different looking design.  It’s amazing some times what deleting a line or two in the pattern can create.

  I love this design and even tho I don’t particular like to do paperpiecing myself, this is a super easy one so I’ll even tackle it myself.  Fabrics for this quilt are definitely on my next shopping list.  There’s a slightly grayish line aroud the colored pieces that won’t be there in the final version – I’ve got to delete a few more lines.

It reminds me of those potholders I used to weave out of those little stretchy loops on the metal frame.  But “Potholder” is not a great name for a quilt design.  Any suggestions for a name?  It’s 1:30 a.m. and my brain can’t think of catch quilt names. LOL  So, think I’ll just go knit awhile and maybe come up with a plan of attack for cleaning this place up.

 

Quilt Show fun

First – the Granny’s Hankie block for September has been loaded.  I was up early this morning before the quilt show and got it ready and now that I’ve returned, it’s added to its page.  This is the last of the main quilt blocks!  We’ll be on to starting to set things together next month.

In looking at all the photos in the Granny’s Hankie reader blocks page, I’m so loving all those bright batik colors some of you are using.  I’m not thrilled with my red and green blocks anymore — which may be why I haven’t been working on them. 😦  Although I like the bright colors on dark backgrounds – I’ve made tons of them with black backgrounds and am kind of burnt out.  Today at the quilt show I saw some of the loveliest pale shades of batiks and kept thinking – wouldn’t Granny’s Hankie be lovely and delicate in those shades.  So now I’m thinking the blocks I have done – which I think are only three – may become separate little wallhangings that I may end up selling and I shall start again on this quilt in different fabrics.  Now did I buy any of those lovely pale shaded batiks at the show – no.  But I’ll save that shopping for some other day perhaps.  I did buy some neutral ones tho with a project in mind – lots of creamy to tanny backgrounds with real subtle coloring/designs in them.

 Here you can see those neutral batiks.  There’s also a stack of sort of landscape fabrics – skies – all kinds of skies – summery skies, blue whispy skies, and cold winter skies.  All these were bought with a plan in mind — tho sometimes the plan does change before I get around to using the fabrics.  Now that mushroom print on the far left — there was no plan.  It just has some really neat looking mushrooms on it and some lovely fally brown and gold shades so I simply had to have it.

Of course that’s not all I ended up coming home with…..

 Yes I’ve gone from neutral to bright.  My splurge was the case of Aurifil thread – my favorite for quilting.  But it was $30 off at the quilt show so how can you pass up a bargain like that!  It will be perfect to quilt the project that I bought all those bright fabrics for (yes there is a plan for them – actually more than one plan) and will be great to quilt Frozen Delights with.  One of the two projects these fabrics will be used for is another version of Frozen Delights, with some new block designs added, and all will be applique.  But I plan to make it in a much smaller format than the lap quilt size. I especially like that one that changes colors – I can see a long multicolored popsicle out of that. 🙂  I really only walked up and down less than half of the vendor area and decided I had purchased enough and didn’t even bother to check out the rest.  I also bought something else that’s really neat but I think it may be used for Christmas gifts so can’t show it and give away the surprise.

And congratulations to Kathleen Trimberger – her Crop Circles quilt (the blog BOM from 2010) was juried into the Wisconsin Quilt Expo.  It was even more lovely in person than the photo she sent – alot of those soft batik colors recently drawn to.  Kathleen – If you’re out there – I’d love to share the photo I took of it on the blog.  Let me know if that’s okay. 🙂  Again, congrats — too fun walking around the corner and seeing something I recognized.

And I just remembered – I need to get my Camp Loopy 3 shawl blocked and get the picture loaded since the deadline is coming up — don’t want to miss out on the prizes for completing all three projects on time! So that’s first on the agenda so have to go clear a spot on the sewing room floor to lay it out.

And remember – the deadline for entry into the EQ Boutique $10 gift certificate giveaway is Sept. 12 which is quickly approaching.  Be sure you leave your comment on the blog post that announces the contest and how to enter — comments left on other blog posts will not be included in the drawing. 🙂

Denise — who’s stashbusting report on Monday will NOT be good due to the recent shopping spree!

Now my messy kitchen counters and breakfast bar (that catches everything I just plop there) needs a bit of cleaning.  Then I think I’ll go back to sewing HSTs for those pinwheel border blocks to Frozen Delights.

A little eye candy – and update on Granny’s Hankie and cupcake swap

First for the eye candy – check out Janet P’s June Year of Wallhanging project.  It turned out so cute!

As for Granny’s Hankie – which the new block is set to be released tomorrow – it will probably be a day or two late.  I haven’t pdf’d it yet (still having to switch between computers to do that) and it’s been a long week and I’m just too tired to do it tonight. But look for it on Sunday or Monday – I’ll get it posted as soon as I can.  I’ve got a quilt show to go to tomorrow so have to concentrate on checking out the map of where my favorite vendors are. 🙂

I’m still waiting for one Cupcake swap package that must be taking the long route through the postal service to reach me.  I’m hoping it shows up in my mailbox tomorrow so I can get the packages swapped and back out.

Now just a bit of a rant about swap ettiquette — if you sign up for a swap, all the others involved are depending on you to come through and send swap blocks in.  The  more blocks, the better the swap.  Life can get in the way, I realize that.  But if you’re ever involved in a swap and you can’t follow through on your commitment, please be sure to let the swap hostess know.  A simple little email is all it takes.  One swapper was kind enough to let me know she wasn’t able to participate afterall which I really appreciate.  However about six or so other people who signed up through the blog have not sent anything in and have not bothered to let me know they couldn’t do so.  It frustrates the swap hostess (me) and having six people not follow through can make what should have been a great swap turn into a bad one from lack of participation. After everyone’s put all that work into their blocks – they want them swapped and not to receive their own blocks back again because there are not enough others to swap them with.

Luckily, there were a good turnout of people who signed up through The Quilting Post and their blocks came pouring in. I haven’t even had time to peek in the packages but there will be plenty of blocks to swap. It simply means I probably won’t offer another swap through the blog but stick to The Quilting Post ladies to run swaps.  Did they forget they signed up? Did they just sign up to get the pattern that was only available to swappers? Who knows.

I turned off the comments on this post – no need to post comments about the swap issue.  It happens; it’s just frustrating.

Denise

Frozen Delights Progress

Over the weekend I did manage to get the first plain border on Frozen Delights.

There’s also a few lone pinwheels in one corner but I’ve got the rest of the cut out and so I can get stitching on them.

Also, check out Sigrid’s ( in Germany) latest block finished for Granny’s Hankie.  It’s lovely!

 

Happy 4th of July!

 

A safe holiday to you all.  And to those in the service and in harms way, a prayer for safety for you all and your families and for those who have sacrificed to protect our freedom.

I’ve been busy working on some designs in EQ and just realized it IS actully the 4th now (after 1 a.m.) and in the neighborhood here was some early celebration going on a few hours ago as I could hear fireworks being shot off.

And what was I working on – not this one,  This is one I drew a while ago but haven’t done anything with yet but I like the way it sort of resembles the flag.

I was busy working on the July Granny’s Hankie block and also the July Year of Wallhanging project which have taken several hours to finalize and load. 

I made a few changes to the July Year of Wallhanging from the blog post yesterday – I like this one much better.

I call it “Fudgsicle Please!” – my favorite ice cream treat.  I added in another tasty treat compared to the prior image and rearranged the salt water taffy border.  I’m going to be busy and on vacation for a while in July so both this design and the new Granny’s Hankie block have already been loaded to box.net (with a minimum of swearing) and are now available for download.  The June designs are still up and will be removed the end of the month, and the July designs will remain up until the August ones are loaded.

Now to go put my feet up and knit for a while before I finally head off to bed.

Denise

Eye Candy to view

Joanne in Canada sent a photo of her most recent Granny’s Hankie block finish

Isn’t it lovely.  It’s going to be  a pretty quilt.

And Janet P sent in a photo of her May Year of Wallhangings top.

  I love all the bright, clear colors.

Do I have either of thse projects done yet myself – heck no – I’ve fallen way behind working on other things.

My  Pinwheel Posies is still on the design wall while I’m trying to decide what borders to add to it.  I need to figure it out those if I plan to offer the Quilting Post gals a border option.  We’re going to make Pinwheel Posies as our special 12th birthday celebration – celebrating the birthday of our quilting group later this month.  If I don’t come up with something soon, they may be on their own to figure out what kind of borders they want to add. 🙂

I’ve been sidetracked the last couple of nights on a new knitting project.  With the large shawl I just finished and I’ve got another knit on in the works that is sort of slow going and too bulky to carry back and forth on the bus to work on, I decided I needed a smaller project and wasn’t in the sock making mood.  So since I liked the scarfs I made last Christmas using two different sock yarns together, I started another one – just changed to a different stitch pattern from the past ones I made.  Aren’t these yarns lovely together. I love the little hints of color.

Denise

A Little Eye Candy for you from blog readers

   Janet P sent a photo of her April Showers top.

(at left).     Sheila sent her version with

lovely tulips added to the bottom (right)

And Joanne sent photo of two of her Granny’s Hankie blocks made into pillows.  She decided she wanted to switch her background fabric so turned the two blocks she had done into these lovely pillows.

The are all gorgeous ladies.  Thanks for sharing the pics.  I’ll get them added to their respective pages soon.

Now I think I may delve once again to the UFO boxes and see what I might want to finish up next……

Denise

Time for a coffee break

I got up and headed into the sewing room.  Sheesh what a mess.  Normally I wouldn’t show you my disaster zone but I’m hoping to have some impressive “after” photos so here are the “befores”.

Yes, the laundry rack in the middle of the room is a nice touch don’t you think? 🙂  Along with some of the finished tops and  UFO boxes that I’ve been rifling through.  Then there’s the table with the printer and tv on it which is piled with the fabrics I had pulled to make cupcakes and another stock of fqs that had fallen off the end of  one of the stash shelves and of course the scrap bin on the floor.

So I got busy.  The table with the printer is actual my slate topped table that goes out on my patio and behind the banquet table that is folded up are the two chairs that go with that table.  I’m hoping we are done with snow (it’s supposed to be 80 tomorrow – which I will believe when I see it since its not 50 yet today) but I pulled the table outside and moved the chairs out too.  Got rid of the laundry rack and set up the banquet table in front of my design wall so I can pile the fabrics I take off the stash shelves onto the table so I can move the shelves out of the closet.  Hmm…. wonder how much fabric weight that table can withstand!

I decided I deserved a coffee break and here’s the progress so far – a bit of an improvement already.

 And I stuck all the cupcakes I had made so far up on the design wall.  The ones on the white background on the left are ones I made – I need to pull out and set aside the ones for the swap and then decide how many more I need to make for the other project I’m making with them.  The smaller group on the far right on creamy background are the ones the gals at the office made for the auction quilt – still more of those they will finish this week.  And some of my miniature ones in between.  The table is set – ready to be piled with fabric.

  I also finished the red scarf I was knitting last night.  Next to bury the ends and then block it.  I love this pattern and am contemplating the stitch pattern to a really basic sort of boxy cardigan pattern I had seen.  I think it would be very lovely in cotton yarn with maybe 3/4 length sleeves for a springy/summery little sweater.

And last – before this coffee break gets too long and I lose momentum — a reader asked how I hand my quilts if I don’t use quilt sleeves (I hate making the sleeves). I use wooden clip style hangers for many projects.  Like the Year of Wallhanging projects – they are all designed the same width so I can just swap them out without repositioning the hangers.

These are what mine look like but I’ve seen many various sizes and shapes that are similar at quilt stores and on line if you do a search for wooden quilt hangers.  These were actually made by a friend’s brother who is a woodworker and made me a supply of them.  I use a couple across the top of the quilt – the number you need depends on your quilt size.  I also have some minis – about an inch and a half in size for miniature quilts.  The screw tightens to hold the two sections of the hanger together and “pinches” the quilt in between.

Now back to work – coffee break is over.  Oh yes, and April Granny’s Hankie block is now available for download.

Denise

The Weekend!

Hooray for the weekend!  I’ve been busy tonight cleaning the kitchen. That task is done.  Tomorrow I tackle the sewing room – unless I lose momentum by then. 🙂  I have to be in the right mood to start ripping it apart and move furniture, etc. around.  But that’s my plan at least.

More cupcakes made last night but I haven’t taken a photo of them yet.  I need to put them all up on the design wall to see how many I have, separate the ones I want to use for the swap, and see if I need anymore for the other quilt I want to make.  The gals at the office still have a few to finish so their goal is the end of next week so I can get going on that project too.

There may be a little yarn shopping involved sometime this weekend. I found a knitted cotton vest I want to make called knitted patchwork vest on the Lion Brand site.  The pattern has different square type sections in a couple different patterns.  What could be more perfect for a quilter. 🙂  I’m anxious to get started on it.

In the meantime, you eye candy for today is Joanne in Manitoba’s March Granny’s Hankie block.  The colors really pop.

        Denise