gifts

Rainy day quilt, finished

March 12, 2017 Marie Leave a Comment

It took me longer to quilt than I expected, and I didn’t cut my binding wide enough so it’s not perfect at all… but I’m not sure the recipient is even going to notice that. I need to run over the quilt lines with some water to remove the mark up I did as my quilting guides, but other than that it’s done and ready to gift later this week. That is, if I can bear to part with it. Not that I have a need for a baby-sized quilt, mind you – Declan’s getting too big for his fox quilt and is asking for one for his big boy bed, so that really should be the next thing I work on. Baby quilts are just so sweet and small and quick!

Next up – the backing for my picnic quilt. I ordered this lovely tulip print from Fabric.com, which I think will go lovely with the brightness of that quilt. I need to stitch that “twenty seventeen” between the two pieces, but then it’s just figuring out how I want to quilt it (assuming I don’t just go for the easy way and follow the rows/lines on the triangles out of simplicity).

Rainy Day quilt progress

February 26, 2017 Marie 2 Comments

This morning I attached the last two white sashes to give a bit of a buffer around the star when I go to attach the binding. I think I’ll leave it hanging there until my backing arrives – it’s too pretty to take down, unfinished and all.

More quilting

July 16, 2016 Marie Leave a Comment

harry-potter-quilt-web hp-quilt-detail1 hp-quilt-detail2

This season of motherhood… this not-quite-2 year old is so challenging. And so frustrating. And making it impossible to get anything done for more than 20 minutes, 30 max. But he’s so stinking adorable with how he tries to copy me. He tries to knit on his little dishcloth and he plays with the fabric and yarn and knitting needles and wants to touch the buttons on my sewing machine. He attempts to copy the noises it makes as I push the pedal. He spins my wheel (and I’ve learned to just leave the drive band off so he doesn’t ruin my yarn in progress). And he’s basically claimed my old Canon PowerShot for his own, grabbing it and turning it on and trying to take pictures of whatever I’m taking pictures of.

Pictures have been few and far between lately, it seems. We keep everything nice put up out of his reach, which means I don’t see my camera out and don’t tend to think about it. I’m missing out on some priceless moments and I need to rectify that. He’s growing up way too quickly – he always has. I feel like we never got that “baby” stage – it seems like he has gone from newborn to toddler in minutes. Sigh. I need to get behind my camera more. I need to get back in the habit of taking photographic evidence of all this. I know I’ll regret it if I don’t, but sometimes finding the energy to fight with a toddler over why he can’t touch the Big Kid camera is just too much.

I’ve been sewing more quilts. A baby one for a coworker, and another hexie one at that. As soon as I found out she was doing her nursery in Harry Potter I had to make one. Had to. I wasn’t planning on making her anything – I feel like I haven’t worked there long enough to really get to know her and, besides, time is limited these days and I’d really like to dedicate my time to making things for the Little Mr. But she had me at Harry Potter – it was fate or something. I found some awesome Gryffindor fabric at Joanns, and I carried the bolt around with me to find matches to make the quilt. I snagged some grey with white triangles (to symbolize horcruxes), some burgundy and gold, and some really amazing grey with silver deer heads on it to symbolize Harry’s patronus. This is what happens when you have quilting skills and you’re a Harry Potter nerd, too. :)

I have some more fabric I picked up Wednesday for a picnic blanket I want to make for myself/my family. I’ll write more on that later.

New year, new finished knits

January 3, 2016 Marie Leave a Comment

fightin-words slippers

The upside to all this time off from the holidays has meant lots of extra knitting time I otherwise never get. I’m a little worried by how spoiled I’m becoming about it – next week we go back to Real Life, which means back to our normal schedules and normal stresses and, sadly, back to less knitting time.

First up, we have some mitts. The husband’s job has a fundraiser auction each year, and the theme the last few years has been Super Heroes. I’ve wanted to make a pair for the auction for a while now but baby knits took up most of my time, so I made a point to cast these on and get them done while I was in a lull of knitting before I jump head-first back into kid knits. Yarn is Knit Picks Palette, and the size I made was the larger one (given that I don’t know who will be receiving these, I opted for the larger size to fit a man’s hands – I might have enough yarn to knit a second set in opposite coloring for a woman, though, so that may be next year’s project).

Second, some slipper socks in gorgeous Madelintosh tosh chunky (color is Robin Red Breast). I knit these for the very sweet woman who spent the last few years coming to visit my grandfather every day. She’d take him out to eat, take him shopping, and when he could still get around they’d even go dancing together. ♥ With death in families there’s always drama that pops up, and this sweet lady has been severely under-appreciated for all that she did. I wanted to do something nice for her, and since handmade gifts are how I show my love, I decided to order this gorgeous yarn and make her some slippers to help keep her feet warm this winter. I can’t wait to pop them in the mail tomorrow and surprise her!

Next up… toddler sweaters. All from the stash, thankfully. 2016 is going to be the Year of the Stash. For real. Please stop laughing. I really mean it! Ok, well, maybe most of the year? If I actually make a good dent in my stash I’m totally okay to buy yarn come November’s yarn sales, right? Maybe I should just make a goal… say, if I get through 3,500 yards of yarn? My total 2015 numbers with destashing and then my new purchases ended up with a total overall of about 3,200 yards out, so if I can get through 3,500 that puts me over 2015 AND makes a large dent in the stash, yes?

Atwood, finished.

January 2, 2016 Marie Leave a Comment

atwood-finished1

Well, it’s done! It was all finished before the end of December, so it still counts as a holiday gift. All in all, knitting a sweater for the husband wasn’t a horrible undertaking, but in the future I’ll definitely choose my patterns a bit differently. Preferably the top-down variety that requires less seaming, plus the benefit of being able to have him try it on. The sleeves are a tad long, you see. But it’s done and waiting for him to wear it (at which point I’ll try to get a proper in-action photo – the lighting today really is pretty horrible so I had to make do with close by windows). I picked up buttons for it from Knitting Temptations, where I originally told myself I was going in for buttons only and then came home with 3 skeins of yarn plus buttons. Oops. I really am trying to go “cold sheep” (meaning no new yarn purchases) this year so at least those 3 came in on NYE?