Fresh Start Monday/Tuesday

February 6, 2024Leave a comment

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Happy Monday/Tuesday, friend! I had planned to post this yesterday, but my Monday turned into a very long day with no time for blogging, so a Tuesday post it is!

What are your plans for this week? How are you faring with the weather and the season? I’m seeing a lot of evidence of the February blahs all around me here, so I hope you’re doing what you need to do in order to feel as well as you can during this time of year.

We were blessed with an unusual bout of mild weather last week and I made a point of going out into my garden and getting some sunshine. I didn’t accomplish much out there; I mostly just looked at what sort of work was in store for me in a few weeks, but it felt good to connect with that space and allow myself to do some dreaming about what spring and summer holds in store. The rhubarb is starting to grow, and I was excited to create my first recurring garden reminder of 2024 to check the garden for some homegrown produce in the weeks ahead. I normally just make rhubarb crisp—do you have any great ideas or recipes for rhubarb? This plant is prolific and I do not use as much of it as I could, which I’d like to improve upon this year.

We celebrated Emily’s 20^th birthday over the weekend with too much food and, at her request, a big bunch of Dungeons & Dragons, so I didn’t make much progress on crafty things, which is totally fine: People are what matter more! She created a quick-play campaign based on Greek mythology, and it was the first time I’d play the game since I was in elementary school, so I was agonizingly slow at understanding what was going on, but we were having a grand ol’ time by the finish. My character is Penelope O’Paca, a Tyrian purple llama centaur cleric who is a member of the weaving guild. I had a blast healing everyone, using my downtime to collect plants for dyes, and weaving magical garments for my party of warriors.

The Baa-ble Hat is coming along quickly. It’s become my watching-TV knit, and it’s February, so there’s many moments to work on it, even with the unexpected milder weather. I’ve mostly just been making socks in recent years, so it’s nice to zip ahead with such a small project.

I’m a little leery about whether or not it’s going to actually fit me, because 1) The circumference of my head is 2 inches larger than the average 21 inches that most adult hat patterns strive to fit, and 2) It’s stranded color work, which, even though it’s my favorite thing to knit, is usually less stretchy because of the carried strands. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever made myself a stranded colorwork hat that ever fit. I’m trying to keep the floats loose, but…you know, it usually isn’t enough. This is such an easy knit, however, that I would be willing to re-knit it on bigger needles if it doesn’t turn out the size I need it to be.

I’m not sure if I love how the white and blue yarn are creating a wispy cloud effect, or if I don’t like the lack of contrast between the sky and the clouds.

Looking at the week ahead, I’m hoping to:

Finish the Baa-ble Hat
Start or pick up another knitting project for on-the-go crafting—there’s a lot of dental check-ups this week, which means a lot of sitting around in waiting rooms. Knit Picks has a sale on their Swish yarn this month over at crochet.com, so I’m thinking about starting a project with that yarn because it’s machine washable and easy to care for.
Make a dent in the quilting of the Rainbow Coin Strip quilt, and maybe even finish the quilting—I think I only have the borders left to do, which is quite possibly my least favorite part of quilting a quilt, and I’m really stuck as to what I should quilt in the borders.
Put some time in on the Chatsworth Block of the Month. The fabric is almost prepped, so it should be easy to pick up and start.
Start prepping fabric for Nathaniel’s birthday quilt.
Start working on a new pattern from Fat Quarter Shop.

There’s so much more I’d like to be able to say I’m going to do, but that list alone feels like too much, so I’ll stop there.

I hope you’re able to find time this week to pursue some creativity and restore your spirits! We’re beyond the halfway point between the darkest day of the year and the Spring Equinox (when the days become longer than the nights), so we’re almost back into Sunshine Time. You can do it! February isn’t forever!

“Introducing” the Rainbow Coin Strip Quilt

February 7, 2022February 5, 2022Leave a comment

Since I never formally introduced you, let me redress my errors: Meet the Rainbow Coin Strip quilt:

You all know that I’ve been more than a little obsessed with working through my scrap bins for quite a few years now, and this was an effort to push forward on that goal back in 2019. I came across a quilt block in Electric Quilt that just erupted into a full quilt in my mind’s eye and looked like it would do a very good job at handling the little skinny strips of leftover fabric/strings that I found myself drowning in at that moment. So I went ahead and got pretty far on the quilt before 2020 arrived and everything went off the rails.

But it’s back, and I’m making good progress. This is a great quilt for using up pieces of fabric that you just can’t seem to use in anything else, especially those white backgrounds with colored designs prints. I’ve been specifically targeting the fabrics in my bins that I’ve hand on-hand for a long time because they’re tough to fit into quilts due to various issues, and man, does it feel good to use ’em up!

A sweet moment happened Friday evening: Emms came through the craft room and noticed the quilt on my cutting table, and squealed, “It’s the shower curtain fabric!” I laughed and said yes it was, and how fun it was sewing up all the little scraps and bits from so many projects I’d worked on in years past. Emms then took about five minutes looking at all the blocks and pointing out all the fabrics they remembered from the various things I’d made for them over the years and reminiscing about wearing and playing with said handcrafted items. Oh, it made my mama heart happy. Emms celebrated their 18th birthday this last week, and goodness is my heart sore with the pangs of knowing they’re going to be heading on out into the world soon. It was nice to hear of some of the small joys of their childhood for a few minutes. Made me feel like I’d done some things well.

I had been stewing over what to do with this quilt once it was finished; I honesty thought I was going to give it away up until Emms’ nostalgic perusal. Not anymore, this sucker is staying in the house. (Maybe it’ll need to head off to a certain college dorm room in the autumn?)

I’m hoping to get this quilted this week, we shall see…

FINISHED: Cat Lady Quilt (Em will have to fight Quesnel for it, though…)

January 21, 2022March 14, 20255 Comments

This quilt has been a long time comin’…

I think Em asked for this Cotton + Steel Cat Lady fabric for their…twelfth birthday? They were into quilting at the time, but the interest waned soon after. So it sat on my fabric shelf for years upon years until I decided to make it up into a quilt for Em’s sixteenth birthday two years ago. I only got the top finished and presented that to the birthday kid with the promise to get it completely finished soon after. BUT…it was 2020, I had just started my Blank Quilting ambassadorship and…it was 2020.

So the Cat Lady quilt went into the hibernation pile and did not come back out until this month. Em will turn eighteen next month (!) and it just started bugging me that this quilt wasn’t done, so I made a goal to finish it before their birthday. Ta da!

Details:

Pattern: Layers of Charm, by Fat Quarter Shop. I’ve made this pattern before and really love it for those prints you just don’t want to cut up too much. C+S prints are generally super cute and I like to keep them as intact as possible, so this was a good pattern for that.

Modifications: I went with a 6×8 layout for a bigger throw quilt ~57 x 76″.

Fabric: “Cat Lady” collection, by Sarah Watts for Cotton + Steel, ca. 2015. I also added in various other Cotton + Steel scraps I had in my stash that I thought Em would like.

Backing: “Cuddly Kittens Flannel Sorbet Kitten Faces #18119” by Wendy Kendall for Robert Kaufman Fabrics, 4.75 yards, pieced vertically.

Quilting: Aurifil 40 wt. in top and bobbin, #2021. I asked Em what they wanted for the quilting and they said, “That wavy line quilting,” so I stipple-stitched it. It’s been a long time since I’ve done free-motion quilting of any kind, and I think this is the biggest project I’ve ever free-motion quilted.

Binding: Scraps of the C+S Bluebird print I had from my friend making a dress from it.

Dates: Pieced January 27-30, 2020; Quilted January 4-7, 2022

Cat Lady Quilt in-progress, January 2020

I was so excited to get this done, and asked Em to do a photoshoot with it, but when it came time to do it, they were taking a nap. Undaunted, I decided to just do a one-woman shoot with the couch to help me out because…want to be done. But, weirdly, our cat Quesnel became OBSESSED with getting in my face while I tried to take pictures of this quilt, and the resulting photos are…well:

Mercifully, Em stumbled into the room after hearing me asking Quesnel to please stop getting in my shots, and Quesnel was momentarily distracted.

I asked Em if they’d help me out with some more photos, and they were less than enthusiastic about the task.

So I made it work.

All while being supervised by the true overlord of this house:

I’m surrounded by crazy children and cats all the time, and I’m loving the photographic evidence that I acquire when they’re being especially difficult.

The First Monday in January

January 3, 2022January 2, 20221 Comment

CW: Injured cat

I am perpetually in love with new beginnings, and January is the month of new beginnings. Whether you do resolutions or not, there is something motivating and optimistic about the first week of the new year. There’s usually something motivating and optimistic about Mondays as well: What will this new week hold for me? What projects will I make progress on this week? Will I improve this week? Monday is the great big beginning. So the first Monday of the year…very pregnant with possibility.

Em & Nathaniel decided to dye their hair on NYE.

My kids head back to school today, and I head back to normal crafty hours. There’s so much that is great about December and all the Christmas festivities, BUT…they deviate from the normal schedule, and man, have I missed my normal, quiet schedule. I’m really looking forward to getting back into the craft room uninterrupted.

I shared my plans for January in my last post, and today sees me jump into that plan with all my first-Monday-of-the-year enthusiasm. I’ll be dragging out Em’s Cat Lady quilt that I pieced for their sixteenth birthday and then never got around to quilting. My plan is to finish this up before their birthday at the beginning of February, but not give it as a present because you can’t give something as a birthday present twice. My kid is going to be a legal adult in a month. How did we get here? I’ll wax poetic about that closer to their birthday. Hopefully I can get this quilt completely done this week? That’d be great.

This week marks the re-introduction of Scrappy Thursdays into my routine, and I’m excited to finally start working on my #brickhousequilt blocks. I’m aiming to make up the first four of sixteen blocks. I’m really optimistic about my Scrappy Thursdays plan and this pattern; hopefully I can do some epic scrapbusting this year–the situation is getting dire!

As far as handstitching projects go, I’m still slogging away on past due Christmas gifts I didn’t finish up and still can’t show you. (Side note: I’m thinking that if one misses the Christmas deadline for making a gift, that perhaps one should post about said items because secret crafting gets old after a while, and if one posts about the items, there’s a little more peer pressure to finish…but that may just be my thinking…)

I did, however, get a lot of work done on my “car knitting” project because one of my cats, Marshmallow, went to stand up last week and I’m guessing he pinched a nerve in his hips or something, because his back legs suddenly slumped out from beneath him and he started yelling. It was a long day at the curbside emergency veterinarian, and I alternated holding his head in my hand so he’d stay calm, and knitting while he slept or was inside the vet’s office. He was given a diagnosis of severe arthritis, which is very common for the Scottish Fold breed, but I think I’m going to get a second opinion because I don’t think partially-paralyzed hind legs are something you just treat with anti-inflammatories. (I had a partially paralyzed leg for about a week before my back surgery–it’s horrifically painful.) He’s really struggling, and I think he’s going blind, too. He’s a grandpa of a cat, probably about fifteen years old or so, so it’s getting to be that time where we might need to make some sad plans for him.

Nathaniel is pretty upset, and has taken on the role of permanent cat whisperer; he carries Marsh around and helps reset his legs into a standing position so he doesn’t have to drag them behind him. Sigh. Loving another creature sure is painful when it gets near the end of their life. One would almost be tempted to not engage in the practice, were it not for all the funny little memories and cute moments we’ve had over the years.

Not the most uplifting end to a “motivating & optimistic” Monday post, but it’s what’s going on around here and I try to document the whole story. I’ve got a lot of work to do this week, and also try to find a vet that can squeeze Marsh in for a consult. Wish me luck! And I wish you luck with your week and your goals, and I hope all your pets are in splendid health.

Sew little time…

November 22, 2021Leave a comment

Em & Renaissance with Nathaniel after his band concert! (Rachel was at her own rehearsal and had to miss it.)

Last week was a doozy! Nathaniel had his first band concert and Rachel was in four showings of our school district’s drama production, complete with rehearsals from 4:00-7:30 pm on the days leading up to the shows, and then she had to be at the theatre from 5:30-10:00 pm Thursday and Friday for their first two shows, and from 12:30-10:00 pm on Saturday because they did a matinee and evening show. I drove back and forth from the school 3-5 times each day! But she had a blast and it was a great show, and hey, that’s parenting.

Which meant not a lot of crafty times, but I did finish the Fresh Cut Pines quilt, label and all. I don’t have pictures of it yet because it’s been really rainy and a disc in my upper back went out Saturday morning, which incapacitated me for the entire weekend. Sigh. I have plans to take the quilt’s beauty shots over Thanksgiving Break while I have helpers available during the day.

I pulled out the Yuletide Botanica orange peel quilt this morning to start working on it, and after having a bit of a lazy crafter hesitation, decided to go forward with attaching a border because it will look better with a border, even though I didn’t want to take the time to do it. (And yes, I’m glad I did…it really does look better with the border…) I also basted this bad boy and now have the aching back to prove it. I’m hoping to get going on the quilting tomorrow, as long as everything goes as it should during the day.

I am so ready for the Thanksgiving holiday. Hopefully I don’t have to go anywhere Friday and Saturday so I can just plough through all my wonderful Christmas prep activities! I just want to be at home, sewing all the Christmas things!

The 2021 Halloween Costume Chronicles: Emms

October 27, 2021October 18, 20212 Comments

Me: “Emms, what do you want to be for Halloween?”

Emms: “The same thing I always am.”

Me: “Do you want me to make any extra accessories for your costume?”

Emms: [left the room while I was talking]

Finished: The Amethyst Fair Isle Sweater

February 17, 2017February 14, 20174 Comments

It’s been finished for a couple of weeks, but it’s also birthday season here in Brooketopia, so I’ve just been too busy for blogging while finishing up birthday presents and the inevitable Valentine’s Day stuff that moms of school-aged kids deal with.

But, yes, the big purple sweater is complete, she loves it, and I thought I’d share some more photos of it outside of Instagram.

I loved sketching out the fair isle designs, my cat got in the way constantly, and the long expanse of purple body knitting was something I really enjoyed–so mindless and soothing.

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But the best part, ALWAYS, of knitting fair isle anythings is the actual fair isle knitting. People, I had a fabulous January, even in spite of a really mean chest cold that I caught from my kids. Who cares if you’re sick and can barely breathe when you can just weather it out in bed watching Netflix and knitting away on a big, beautiful bunch of colors?!?! Best bout of sickness EVAH.

I had the goal of finishing it up before my girl’s birthday at the beginning of February, and I’m pleased to say that it was blocked by her birthday, but still needed its underarm seams and end-weaving, so not completely finished, but definitely finished enough!

I got those last bits out of the way over the next few days, and she was able to wear it to church the following Sunday.

Yes, I’m monstrously pleased with how it turned out. I did a little bit of shaping in the waist, and the fit was just so good! Pre-blocking, the neck was really wonky and caused me a great deal of worry, so I blocked it rather aggressively and the photo shows that it turned out just fine.

I haven’t done a whole lot of knitting in the past few years, so this was a bit of a crazy undertaking, but I’m so glad I went through with it–it’s very beautiful, and I got a bit of a “Heck yeah, I can still do this!” ego boost from it, ha ha.

I don’t really see any knitting in my immediate crafty future, but I’m sure the bug will bite again come autumn and its chilly air. I heart fair isle knitting so much!

It Begins: Journal Covers for my Activity Days Girls

January 23, 2016January 28, 20166 Comments

I serve as a leader for my church’s Activity Days program, which is basically our version of Girl Scouts for girls ages 8-11 years old. When they turn twelve years old, they advance into the Young Women’s program, and we say good-bye.

I started serving in this position last spring, and we haven’t had any of the girls turn twelve in that time until now…and it just so happens that it is my very own daughter who is advancing.

Serving as Activity Days leader when my girl is moving up is interesting because I have firsthand observations as to what would actually be valuable to her at this point in her life, and then I can apply that knowledge to the other girls as they reach this age. And since you really do fall in love with these girls as you teach them and spend time with them, you want to give something to them when they leave, and the Young Women’s organization seems to be pretty big on keeping a journal, so I decided to go with making journal covers for my advancing twelve year olds.

This week was my daughter’s last Activity Days meeting, as she turns twelve in February, so we said our good-byes and presented her with her journal cover that will hopefully see her through to adulthood and beyond.

I used Lori Holt’s journal cover pattern that can be found over at AllPeopleQuilt.com. I’m planning on making a lot of these over the next few years (seven alone this year), so I think in the future I’m going to size it down to fit a composition book–this particular pattern fits your basic full page journal ($15 +/-), which my Activity Days budget cannot handle purchasing for each advancing girl. But a $2 composition book for each girl? You betcha, and it will be so easy to replace those journals as the girls fill them up during their angst-filled teenage years of seeking solitude in writing their emotions.

I used a lot of fabric from a fat quarter bundle of Wee Wander fabrics that I bought specifically for my daughter a year or two ago. She’s big into blues and greens and absolutely loved the collection, but then I gifted her the “Locket” quilt for Christmas, so I probably won’t be making a Wee Wander quilt for her anymore. Which means I can start using it in other projects, and what better project than one meant for her?

The gingham is from Tasha Noel’s “The Simple Life” collection, and the other three non-Wee Wander prints inside the journal cover are from the years when I wasn’t paying attention to the names of fabric collections, and were conveniently missing their selvages, so I don’t know their names. (That hexagon one, though…it’s on the tip of my tongue…Riley Blake?) And the coral tile-looking print…I think it had something to do with Ty Pennington.)

Front inside pocket

Back inside pocket

Back outside cover

The navy strip on the top of the cover is from Pat Bravo’s “Dare” collection, leftover from binding the “Locket” quilt, and used when I cut my cover fabric the wrong size…good thing we quilters aren’t scared by that sort of mistake, eh?

The “e” on the front cover was cut with my Silhouette Cameo (font = Garamond), and then I just slowly machine straight-stitched it onto the pocket. We’ll see how it stands up to wear-and-tear; it is backed with some fusible webbing to try to avoid fraying.

It’s a cute little thing, and I hope it gets a lot of use!

I’m going to be the mother of a twelve year old in a matter of weeks. Goodness me. Hopefully she’ll have journals filled with happy memories and wise lessons…