Category Archives: Quilting

Starting the Spring Garden Tee

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Now that I’ve finished three(!) knitting projects, I needed to make something a little more challenging than a rectangle (even if that rectangle turned into an infinite loop). I’ve spent a LOT of time on Ravelry (and any knitter or crocheter would probably attest to the fact that you can spend a lot of time on there) looking for my next project. I settled on the Spring Garden Tee–it looks like a fairly simple stockinette stitch t-shirt with a cute lace pattern on the cap sleeves.

I’m using CotLin (cotton/linen blend) from KnitPicks in Harbor for my shirt.

Three Skeins of Spring Garden Tee

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That’s Not a Moon, It’s a Quilt!

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Because I was being a pansy about how I wanted the Star Wars quilt to be quilted, mom offered to do it for me. On Saturday, we went over to my parents’ house to borrow their truck so we could do some shopping at Ikea and get rid of some furniture out of my crafting room. So when we got there, I dropped off the assembled quilt with her to work on while we were out running errands. She suggested doing an all-over stipple pattern that wouldn’t go over the top of the faces of the characters, and that sounded good to me.  When we got home that night, we assembled all the furniture we got at Ikea and I finally had a proper place to sew. (Still need to do some organization in the room, but for the most part, it’s a lot better than my previous set-up.)

This morning, I finished attaching the binding to the quilt, and hope to stick it in the mail tomorrow!

Finished Star Wars Baby Quilt

Also, here’s a pic of my new sewing area. So happy and comfortable with it now!

Proper sewing area

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Red 5, Standing By

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Completed quilt top

One of my girlfriends from grade school loves Star Wars and is having a son this May, so what’s a better gift than a Star Wars baby quilt?

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Quilting and Knitting Progress Report

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I got all my blocks done by my self-imposed deadline! Here’s a pre-stitched preview of the last handful of them:

Block M

Block M

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Knitting: Challenge Accepted

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After I finished my crochet project, I told mom I wanted to learn to knit. I had a couple ideas from Pinterest I wanted to try, but she vetoed all of them and said, “You should do a scarf.”

*sigh* Fine.

Oh, but wait, I wanted to make a scarf after all. An 11-foot long scarf, to be exact. Yep, I’m making the Fourth Doctor’s scarf as worn by Tom Baker in the television series, Doctor Who. I ordered all the yarn I’d need (hopefully) from KnitPicks.com, and even got my sister-in-law to pitch in a few balls of yarn so I could get free shipping. I was so excited when I opened the box (but probably not as excited as my cats were).

Yarn delivery from KnitPicks.com

Yarn delivery from KnitPicks.com

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Nerding Out and Block #16

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I recently had a smidgen of down-time at work due to the holiday that just occurred, so I took some advice my lead gave our team a while back and borrowed a copy of “C# in Depth” by Jon Skeet from a co-worker and started reading. (For those of you just tuning in, I’m a software developer by profession.)

Since I need a little bit of wait time (for some reason, I cannot start using my recently-fused applique pieces without the fusing removing itself from the fabric when I take the paper backing off, so I need to give it a little bit of time to “rest”) and I wanted to read the book rather quickly, I gave myself some added pressure to the 10 Quilt Block Deadline I have by December 15: read a chapter of the aforementioned book between each quilt block (well, more like finish half a block and start half a block).

So far, I’m halfway through the fourth chapter after I finished fusing the applique pieces to Block #16. You can see from the pattern on the right that there will be a lot of embellishments from the stitching mom will do when I give her this. So the count now is three blocks done, seven to go in 20 days. Even with the reading (should make it through two-thirds of the book by the time I finish the blocks), I WILL have the blocks done in time!

Also, I have yarn arriving on Tuesday for my First Knitting Project Ever and my very own copy of “C# in Depth” should be arriving then too! Two packages will make this nerdy-crafty girl happy :)

Completed applique on Block #16

Completed applique on Block #16

 

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W is for Wren: In Progress

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I have 10 blocks remaining in the “U is for Unicorn” quilt I’ve been working on with my mom. My personal goal is to have all 10 of them done by December 15, so I can give them to her before they move.

I think I can do it.

Also, I misplaced my camera, so the iPhone camera will have to do for now.

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Quilt Block in Progress

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Defeated by Crochet, Redeemed by Quilting

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I haven’t been crafting as much as I would have liked, but I started something and I finished something this past week. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the same project, so…

Over the weekend, one of my girl friends came over and we watched some Audrey Hepburn and she taught me to crochet. I tried to figure some of it out on my own, but my tension was all wrong and I had no clue what I was doing. Even though I had to restart my project a couple times (and a couple more after she left), I think I have somewhat of a clue. It’s still not perfect, and despite yarn craft being “in my blood” (according to my mom), I think this is going to take a while to master.

Eventually, I’m trying to make this:

Breda's Cowl

Breda’s Cowl

I picked up some yarn from a local yarn shop–not the same kind used in the pattern, but it’s alpaca and silk and feels super nice.

Despite my defeat by crochet, I completed my niece’s quilt this weekend. My mom did a beautiful job with the quilting, and all I had to do to finish was the binding. The binding didn’t want to go on easily, since I managed to maim myself a couple times with the pins. But I finally figured out how to join the ends of the binding to make it look like one fluid piece!

Quilting by mom

Quilting by mom

It went into the mail this evening, so she’ll probably get it in a couple weeks!

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Crafting This Week

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Tuesday

Didn’t have a whole lot of time to do anything Tuesday evening, so I didn’t. I looked at my crochet book, though.

Wednesday

Found sometime while tidying up to cut and sew together the binding for India’s quilt. But that’s about as far as I got before I had to tidy-up my craft room and head to bed.

Thursday

I got my fabric in the mail! I ordered some lace and cotton for my first fall dress and some twill to make some slacks for Richard. I’m so excited about this lace!

This color is a very bold choice, especially with the sparkles.

This color is a very bold choice, especially with the sparkles.

It’s coral, and I got some light pink cotton for underlining/lining to make Vogue 8766.

Vogue 8766

Vogue 8766

But aside from loving on my fabric for a couple minutes, I didn’t have much time to work on anything else.

Friday

It’s hot again today. I thought it would have started cooling off around here, but apparently it was about 85 today, which means it was even hotter in the house. And I already wasn’t feeling too awesome to begin with. Bleh. So again, no actual crafting done, but I picked up working on the PatternSquirrel website. Trying to knock off a few items off my To-Do list for this application. Feel free to sign up and try it out if you haven’t already. Any and all feedback is welcome!

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National Sewing Month

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September marks “National Sewing Month” in the United States. As motivation to make some progress on my various projects, I’ve decided I need to do something crafty every day of this month, even if it’s as small as washing fabric for an upcoming project, or ripping out some seams. Hopefully, it will motivate me to return to multi-tasking while catching up on my DVR’d shows (such as the new season of Doctor Who). And, I’ll be making more blog posts. As much as I don’t like making posts without pictures, I probably will make a few update-like posts, similar to this one.

Today I:

  • Sewed the seams on the skirt of the Yellow Dress (next, sewing the skirt to the bodice, inserting zipper, hemming).
  • Received India’s quilted quilt from mom (next, binding and labeling).
  • Worked on the Fortunate Traveler cross-stitch.
  • Picked up a few patterns (including this gem) at Hancock Fabrics and some notions for the slacks my husband wants me to make him.
  • Thought about practicing crocheting again, then decided not to.

Now, off to work on the Yellow Dress and finish Downton Abbey Season 2!

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