Well, That Didn’t Go As Planned…

December 13, 2021December 11, 2021Leave a comment

Oh my goodness, you guys, THIS MONTH. I thought I’d head into December all sparkly-eyed about my crafty goals and Christmas, but on November 30 I started getting a headache around lunch, and by dinner I was nauseous and gross, which continued for the rest of the week. It cleared up over the weekend, but meant I was behind on my December plan of action. I redrew my plan, squared my shoulders, and set off into the new week. “So I lost a week,” I told myself, “In ten years it won’t matter, so I’m not going to worry about it anymore.” Woo-hoo to practical reasoning abilities.

*In-progress shot of the quilting on the Holiday Patchwork Forest quilt*

I hit the ground running on Monday and killed it. I killed Tuesday. Wednesday morning started off with killing it again, but in the hour leading up to lunch my muscles started to ache as I stood to quilt the Holiday Patchwork Forest quilt, which I dismissed as post-workout soreness. I sat down to eat lunch. I realized I was too tired to eat lunch, so I thought I’d just keel over onto the couch and rest for a few minutes. When I woke up twenty minutes later, my face was congested and my throat was scratchy. Michael was working from home that day and he walked into the living room. I looked up at him and said, “I think I’m sick?”

“Congestion and a sore throat?” he asked.

I nodded my head.

“Yeah,” he said, “that’s what I had last week.”

Awesome.

And, whoa, I must have gotten the Super Version of this germ because it knocked me onto my butt and I’ve been in bed all week. I think it’s starting to let up a little, but it also feels like it’s going to take a few days to start feeling totally human again.

So, in the spirit of sanity, I’m going to be missing from the online world a little bit this week. When a mom of four spends two weeks being sick, it really destroys the house, the laundry, the groceries, and the Christmas logistic schedule. I’m going to need this next week to catch up and then I’ll be back.

Wash your hands! Cough into your elbow! Merry Christmas!

#craftygoals: December 2021

December 1, 2021December 1, 2021Leave a comment

A new month means some new goals!

I’m hoping to finish the Holiday Patchwork Forest quilt, the Christmas Sew Many Stars quilt, and three secret knitting projects this month, which I will lovingly refer to as “Secret Knitting No. 2: Stripes,” “Secret Knitting No. 3: The Pattern I Don’t Like,” and “Secret Knitting No. 4: Fair Isle.” I probably can’t even show you the yarn for Nos. 2 and 3 because the intended recipients would probably figure them out, but I think I can get away with showing you mystery shots of No. 4 once I get going on it.

November’s #craftygoals were a success! I finished the Fresh Cut Pines quilt for Nathaniel’s bed, finished the Yuletide Botanica orange peel quilt for Emms’ bed (but haven’t done the photo shoot yet, so no finished pictures just yet), and finished up Secret Knitting No. 1: “Rainbow Ombre”.

Whew! Christmas season is always a whirlwind of projects, and I’m thankful for the focus they’re giving me this year while things still feel a little unsettled. It’s good to have projects and it’s good to have goals. I hope you have great success with your goals this month!

Quilting the Fresh Cut Pines quilt

November 15, 2021November 13, 2021Leave a comment

Alright, then, crafty friends, we’re at the end of the first week of reinstituting crafty goals and WOW did I get stuff done this week. All hail the power of setting goals!

I had to rip and re-sew on the top border of the Fresh Cut Pines quilt because I originally sewed it on upside down, and then it needed one more solid border all the way around. I basted the quilt sandwich on Tuesday, and would have started quilting it too, but the power went out at my kids’ school and I had to go pick them up and deal with the aftermath of all that.

So I started quilting it Thursday while my kids baked and giggled downstairs, and it was a great, warm and fuzzy kind of day. I’m shaking my head over how fast this quilting is going now that I finally just started doing it. You ever just psych yourself out about even starting a task? Quilting is one of those things for me. Sewing in sleeves is another. And then one day you just start doing the work and voila, you’re done in a fraction of the time that you thought it was going to take to do it all. Sigh. Oh, Anxiety, you relentless liar.

Nathaniel is really excited about his Christmas quilt! Despite telling him quite a few times that I’m making it for him, he keeps forgetting that it’s for him, so I’ve been able to witness him go through “initial” excitement over this quilt a number of times, which is very heartwarming. It’s going to look so great in his room during the Christmas season!

The secret knitting is coming along nicely as well. (I totally want to keep this project for myself.) I finished up the first half of the project and am starting work on the second half today. This project/gift should be done by the middle of next week, easy. Yay!

I’ve got more secret knitting to do after that, and I’m trying to decide if I use a stash yarn that…will suffice, or order new yarn that will elicit feelings of perfection. I’m leaning towards sufficing because I’m apparently super jazzed over finishing UFOs and using up stash right now, and it’s probably best to capitalize on that feeling. The new yarn I want to order will probably happen eventually anyway (like for next year’s version of this project), so it’s not like I’d miss out on that yarn in the long run. I’m strung out on the feeling of being responsible, y’all…it’s been a long time since I felt like I was on top of things and it’s nice to experience this again!

How are your holiday crafting goals coming along?

Crafty Goals: November 2021

November 8, 2021November 7, 20212 Comments

I’m resurrecting the idea of monthly crafty goals because ever since I stopped making them, my crafting performance has plummeted. Let’s hope this little bit of effort gets me back on track. (Although, to be fair, the last couple of years have been kind of crazy and full of obstacles that massively hampered consistent ANYTHING.)

Alright friends, it’s November, and the Christmas bug is biting hard. For years I’ve outlawed Christmas sewing this late in the year because of how stressful it can be, but I’m throwing that out the window this year because…I’m a grown woman and I can do what I want.

With all the slowdowns in shipping happening, I made the decision to not wait for Black Friday sales to order my kids’ gifts, which meant I needed to access my gift list that I update throughout the year. Whenever a gift idea pops into my head, I just jot it down in my little gift app, and come holiday gifting season I have a ton of ideas. And, shocker, there’s a lot of handmade gift ideas on that list. Many of those handmade gifts are already in-progress but living in some “time-out” pile in a shadowy corner of the craft room.

Well…the more I read through my gift lists, the more I liked the idea of checking some of those projects off, which has stoked the fires of Mt. Mojo and has me pretty excited to start working on them again.

November’s list is big, but most of these things are almost done, so I’m hoping they’ll go quickly?

Fresh Cut Pines quilt: One of my Blank Quilting projects from last year, it just needs to be quilted and bound. I keep hoping that I can send out my quilts to be long-arm quilted, but they’ve now been sitting for over a year. That means it’s time to just suck it up and quilt them myself, even if it’s just straight line or serpentine quilting. Done is better than perfect. This is Nathaniel’s Christmas quilt for his bed, and I still haven’t made him a regular day-to-day quilt, so his Christmas quilt is the first on the list so that he can have some sort of quilt to his name!

Yuletide Botanica Orange Peel quilt: Another Blank Quilting project, needs borders, quilting and binding. This is Emms’ Christmas quilt, and seeing how the kid is a senior in high school, it’d be nice for them to have their Christmas quilt done before they graduate.

Some secret Christmas knitting: A little gift for a special someone, and that’s all I can tell you at the moment.

If I’m going to limit myself to “practical goals,” I think I can feasibly get those three done this month. However, we all know I like to plan big, so there is hope that I’ll…somehow…magically…also be able to finish:

Patchwork Forest quilt: aka The “Hipster Christmas Tree Quilt.” I can’t believe I made this two years ago. Remember life before COVID-19? Those were the days. Anyway, I was going to hand quilt this one, but I really disliked the process and ripped out the hand quilting. It’s got a beautifully thick Mammoth flannel backing that makes it an incredibly heavy quilt that I cannot wait to snuggle under…the quilting is going to have to be extremely simple on this one because it’s a beefy blanket! I think I added borders to it to make it twin-sized, but none of my kids has claimed it for their own. It might live on Renaissance’s or Rachel’s bed until I finish up their requested Christmas quilts. And if not, it will make an excellent living room quilt.

Sew Many Stars Christmas quilt: Remember how I designed a whole quilt along last year? Geez, I kept myself busy! (Probably too busy, though…hence the almost zero amount of quiltiness that happened this year…oi.) It needs quilting and binding, too.

So yeah, it’s a big list, and I’ve still got to be careful to not overdo stuff with my healing foot. I’ve got the Fresh Cut Pines quilt up on my quilt wall as I type, and I’m already lamenting the supremely simple quilting I’m going to have to do to get it done. BUT…I wanna use this quilt, and if I wait for perfect conditions to finally get it sent out, I’ll be waiting a long time. There will be time for better-looking quilting in the future, but there’s not a lot of years left with my kids being at home and it’s important to me for them to have Christmas quilts on their beds. I don’t know why, but it is. Straight-line quilting will accomplish that, and someday, when I have my own long-arm quilting machine, I’ll do fancier quilting and we’ll wax poetic about the early quilts and their simple quilting designs.

Onwards!

What are your crafty goals for November? Are you doing any holiday crafting, too? Let me know and we can cheer each other on!

Half Yard Jam Quilt

October 8, 2020March 14, 20251 Comment

Fat Quarter Shop contacted me a while ago about sewing up one of their new patterns, the Half Yard Jam Quilt. Seeing that I’d like to redecorate my bedroom, and the quilt is queen-sized, I jumped at the opportunity.

It’s an easy pattern–simple seams and BIG blocks. I got it done really fast once I got through the headache of starching my fabrics.

The pattern uses eighteen half yard cuts and I decided to make mine out of two boxes of those beautiful Art Gallery Color Master collections that always get me dreaming whenever I scroll past them on Fat Quarter Shop’s website. I decided to use the Fresh Waters and Coraline collections.

I think this will be a GREAT pattern for wedding and gift quilts–fast, modern, and you can definitely showcase the personalities of recipients. And, obviously, it will work well for indulging one’s desire to redecorate without going overboard with an overly-complicated new quilt.

You can download the pattern here.

And Fat Quarter Shop has a quilt kit available, that you can look at here: https://www.fatquartershop.com/half-yard-jam-quilt-kit

And you can visit the Fat Quarter Shop’s blog to learn more about the quilt, too: https://blog.fatquartershop.com/shortcut-quilt-half-yard-jam

Thank you, Fat Quarter Shop, for inviting me to join you on this new pattern’s release! I really love this quilt and can’t wait to finish redecorating so I can start using it!

Nature Trail Quilt for Blank Quilting

July 31, 2020July 31, 2020Leave a comment

I was beyond thrilled to open my July box from Blank Quilting and find the Nature Trail fabric collection within! It’s a woodsy collection filled with all the cute, scurrying things in the forest, along with colorful mushrooms and bugs. I’d been stalking the potential choices for July, and had already decided that if I received Nature Trail I’d use it to make some sort of quilt that featured Maple Leaf blocks. Because, hello, Canadian.

You know how you get about halfway through a project and start to second-guess yourself like crazy? I did that with this quilt so hard, and now, as I look at it in its completed form, I have no idea why that even happened. I absolutely love it, and it’s going to look fantastic with my autumn decor, which is super heavy on aqua and teal. (Well, let’s be honest, almost everything in my house is heavy on aqua and teal. Why would autumn be an exception?)

The collection is designed by Ingrid Slyder of Nutshell Designs and it’s a lovely mix of forest things. The scraps are dear to me and will be used very carefully because I love them so. There’s also two panels that come with this collection, and I have an idea stewing in my mind for one of them, and a general idea with no specifics for the other. Maybe I can get to those after I get through with mask-sewing. Because, hello, masks. *grumble, grumble*

Thank you again to Blank Quilting Corporation for this truly enjoyable opportunity to make beautiful things from fun collections.

A quick internet search shows that you can pre-order this fabric from Bug Fabrics here in Washington State (who I’ve ordered from in the past and they’re quick with shipping!), and it looks like Eclectic Maker in the UK will also carry the collection at some point.

CRYSTAL QUILTERS BLOCK OF THE MONTH: SEW MANY STARS! Block #1: Sarah’s Choice

May 1, 2020May 1, 20204 Comments

Hello friends, and welcome to the first block of our quilt along!

Our first block is called “Sarah’s Choice”:

UPDATE: There was an error in the pattern when first published. Fabric C square should be 7 3/4″, NOT 7 1/4″. I apologize for the typo.
Download the updated pattern here: Sew Many Stars BOM Pattern_Block 1 Sarah’s Choice

If you’re posting your block to Instagram, please make sure to tag it with #crystalquiltersbom (if you’re a member of the guild) and #sewmanystarsquilt so we can find your blocks!

Happy Sewing!

Face Masks sewn by Cara Brooke of That Crafty Cara in March 2020

At the End of Week #2 of COVID-19 School Closures

March 27, 2020March 27, 2020Leave a comment

We are now 1/3 of the way through the initial school closures here in Washington State, and are now enjoying the escalated “Stay Home” measures that were announced this week by the governor, dictating that we not leave our houses unless there’s an essential need (groceries, medical, etc.).

The kids are doing really great with their online learning, and I actually learned that their school district is one of TWO that made the immediate jump to online learning for the school closures. Cue the “I’m so glad we moved into this particular house” gratitude. We get to walk down to the bus stop each morning to pick up the school lunch deliveries (practicing safe social distancing of course), and I get to have a quick chat with some of my neighborhood mom friends, so we don’t feel completely socially isolated. It’s not that bad, actually.

Crafting-wise, I basically just sewed up medical masks this week. Not exciting at all, and a little anger-inducing because all I can think about while I’m sewing these up is how frustrating it is that we don’t have enough medical supplies on-hand for something of this nature, despite the fact that scientists have been warning us for years that we were historically due for a pandemic of some sort. And then my thoughts wander down more angry roads, and I just end up steaming mad about lots of things. So…no, I don’t like making medical masks AT ALL. BUT, I have friends who work in the medical field and one of them texted yesterday asking if I had made any because her hospital really needs some, so I drove the twenty I’d made over to her house and left them on her doorstep. I guess I’ll need to make more, but I need a break before I go back to them.

I’m going to use my “break from the masks” to attach the binding to my March Blank Quilting project, which just arrived back from the quilter this week; and I’m starting to work with the “Best Friends Farm” fabric that Jaftex/Henry Glass Fabrics sent me as a bonus for April; and I did my part to support a small business by buying up some yardage of an absolutely gorgeous floral print from Style Maker Fabrics that I’m hoping to turn into a dress by Easter.

So, because goals are my self-love love language, I’ll end this with a “Goals for the Next Week” list:

Finish the Florabelle Hexie Stripes quilt. Photograph it and share it online.
Finish piecing the individual blocks for the Best Friends Farm quilt.
Finish the muslin for my Blue Floral Easter dress.
Photograph and share the dress I finished for Renaissance a couple of weeks ago.
Move forward in some meaningful way with my sewing pattern database/spreadsheet. The plan, pre-COVID-19, was to have it completed by the end of the next week or so, but things got way too crazy to keep up with it, so it’s a minor project that’s limping along at the moment. I’ll worry about it more once things calm down in the future.

The week after next is Spring Break, which means there will be no online learning and schoolwork to keep the kids entertained throughout the day, AND we’ll still be mandated to stay home, so…I guess I should come up with some ideas for that as well. Any suggestions?

Oh, my darling Clementine

March 20, 2018December 24, 20213 Comments

It’s the twentieth of the month, and, if you’re one of the Clementine Quilt Along contributors, that’s the deadline for submitting photos of this month’s block so that they can be posted on the Fat Quarter Shop’s blog when they do the official release of the new pattern for the month. Come this month’s release, you will not find my name on the list of bloggers sewing along.

If you’ve been following me on Instagram, I announced that I’m no longer a part of the quilt along due to my husband’s employment relocation that then fell through–we got word we were heading to North Carolina, and a few days later were told, “Yeah, never mind.” But, the damage had been done: I had submitted my temporary withdrawal from the quilt along, we’d talked to a realtor and started prepping the house to sell, AND, worst of all, I started packing up my craft room. So when we got the whiplash announcement that the job was not going to happen, it was just more than I could do to unpack everything and reset my craft room.

I will, once everything calms down/we’re settled wherever we’re going to end up, finish the quilt along. I hope that I can jump back onboard before its official end because it’s a very fun thing to be a part of. But, if life works out that I finally get to sew again after the quilt along is finished, then I’ll do it then. It will still be cute even after the official ending date.

My kids are NOT happy about this, but it’s because I said I’d sew up the little cat and dog stuffies that come with the Woof Woof Meow fat quarter bundle once I was FINISHED with the Clementine Quilt. (Apparently they don’t care about childhood cancer research, meaning that I’ve apparently failed as a parent…although they do think we should donate the one extra stuffed animal to a children’s hospital, so that makes me feel a little better.)

Obviously, things might get super quiet on the blog, but I do plan to come back after all this craziness subsides. Any guesses where we’ll end up? There’s been nothing local (except for, you know, that one job that wanted to pay him the same wage he made fifteen years ago when he was freshly out of college…um, no), so all his interviews have been out-of-state, which is…nerve-wracking, exciting, and dreadful all at the same time, ha ha. It won’t matter much in the long run where we end up–we made Australia work, so we can make staying-in-the-same-country work rather nicely, too, I’m thinking.

I just hope our next house has enough room for a dedicated craft room.

Because I don’t think I can make anything work if I don’t have that.

(First world problem.)

(Whatever; I use my craft room to help raise money for childhood cancer research, yo–I’ll pine for a craft room all I want.)

Hopefully I’ll see you again soon with a new Clementine block, because that would mean we’re settled and all this craziness is done. Let’s hope extra hard RIGHT NOW. 😉

Clementine Quilt Along Block #2

February 25, 2018February 24, 20181 Comment

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It’s Clementine time again! Woo-hoo!

This month’s block is called “Broken Berries,” and it boasts the nice little perk of using up any accidentally-made flying geese blocks from last month:

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It’s not too late to join up with this fun sew along that will benefit childhood cancer research at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

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There’s a lot of us quilty bloggers participating in the Clementine Quilt Along, and you can check out their second blocks as well:

APRIL OF APRIL ROSENTHAL (@AMROSENTHAL)
BONNIE OF SUNSET FAMILY LIVING (@SUNSETFAMILYLIVING)
CARA OF THAT CRAFTY CARA (@THATCRAFTYCARA) <—THAT’S ME!
CARRIE OF MODA CUTTING TABLE (@MODAFABRICS)
DENISE OF PIECED BRAIN (@PIECEDBRAIN)
ELISE OF ELISE AND EMELIE (@ELISEANDEMELIE)
GINA OF CARPE QUILTIN (@GINA_TELL_CARPEQUILTIN)
HEATHER OF A CREATIVE PURSUIT (@ACREATIVEMAMA)
HILARY OF BY HILARY JORDAN (@BYHILARYJORDAN)
JAN OF COCOA QUILTS (@COCOAQUILTS)
JEN OF HERITAGE THREADS (@HERITAGE.THREADS)
JOANNE OF QUILTS BY JOANNE (@TURTLEQUILTERJO)
KAIRLE OF KAIRLE OAKS HANDCRAFTED GOODNESS (@KAIRLEOAKS)
KENDRA OF GOOD STARTER (@GOOD_STARTER)
KRISTEN OF 3 IN THE NEST (@THREEINTHENESTRALEIGH)
KRISTINA OF CENTER STREET QUILTS (@CENTERSTREETQUILTS)
LEAH OF PONDERINGS FROM MY HEART (@PONDERINGSFROMMYHEART)
MELANIE OF A BIT OF SCRAP STUFF (@MELLIERC)
MELISSA OF HAPPY QUILTING (@HAPPYQUILTINGMC)
PAT OF PAT SLOAN (@QUILTERPATSLOAN)
PAT B. OF LIFE IN THE SCRAPATCH (@SCRAPATCHES)
PATTY OF ELM STREET QUILTS (@ELMSTREETQUILTS)
REBECCA OF ONE WEE BIRD (@ONEWEEBIRD)
SARAH OF 123 QUILT (@123QUILT)
SEEMA OF SSK CRAFT SHOP (@SSKCRAFTSHOP)
SHERRI OF A QUILTING LIFE (@AQUILTINGLIFE)
SONDRA OF OUT OF THE BLUE QUILTS (@SONDRADAVISON)
STEPHANIE OF QUILT ‘N PARTY (@QUILTNPARTY)
TANYA OF TANYA QUILTS IN CO (@TANYAQUILTSINCO)
TERESA OF AUREA’S KITCHEN (@AUREASKITCHEN)
VICKIE OF CROCHETING VIXEN (@CROCHETINGVIXEN)

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Fat Quarter Shop has kitted up fabric for both the top and also for the backing, in April Rosenthal’s newest fabric collection, Mama’s Cottage.

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For more information about the sew along, including this month’s pattern download, you can check Fat Quarter Shop’s Clementine Sew Along landing page.

If you’d like to sew along, Fat Quarter Shop is asking for a $5 donation for each block pattern download, which you can donate here, to help them reach their goal of $40,000 raised to help in the battle against childhood cancers.