Along with the quilt, I sent a little sweater dress I knit.  The pattern was super easy, although I made some modifications based on feedback from other Ravelry users.  (Here’s the ravelry info.)  I used some leftover Sundara yarn which is super soft.  The only downside is that it’s hand wash, but hopefully that isn’t a big deal.

I also sent a little elephant which I made from the book Last Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts.  The elephant was relatively easy to make and I think it turned out well.  In fact, I made two of them.  One is for another friend who is having a baby in a few weeks.  I think the hardest part of the elephant was stuffing it.  I took my time doing it, and once it was done, it looked like I should have stuffed it some more.  My only complaint with the finished product is that they are hard to photograph.  It doesn’t help that in both cases, I was in a hurry too.

The last thing I included in the box for Julia was a cotton hat.  A basic roll brimmed hat, but with nice soft Blue Sky Organic Cotton Yarn.

It’s a big relief to get those things out to Julia.  She received the box and was very happy with how her quilt turned out and she like the gifts.  Yay!  Now I can focus on packing which is good, because we are moving in about 10 days.  Ack!

Bill walked through the door on Sunday morning with this super cheerful bouquet of sunflowers.  I have been enjoying them all week.  Sunflowers make me smile.  This morning I moved them into my craft room to make me happy while I persevered through my mystery quilt sawtooth star squares.  I thought I had finished these squares last week but when I looked at them, they were terrible.  They weren’t the right measurements and they were messy and after mulling it over for a couple of days, I decided to make a new set of them.  I saw them making my life difficult as I tried to put the quilt together.  It’s totally my choice to redo them, but it also kinda sucks.  They are the hardest, most time consuming part of the quilt.  The good news is that the second set is looking much better.  I am using my wing clipper ruler (which I forgot I had the first time around) and this batch is actually coming out square and they are the right size.  So while it’s tedious and boring, it was the right decision and my sunflowers make it a wee bit less painful.  I’m also going to do something with my reject squares, I’m just not sure what.

The other thing that makes my resewing less painful is this little kitty.  She makes me laugh ever day, if not multiple times a day.  She’s just so darn cute.  Gracie loves to stretch out on her back and show me her belly.  The best thing is that she lets me rub it.  I love the belly.

This summer has been the summer of lemonade.  I’ve pretty much cut out all soda (diet and regular) from my diet.  I kinda miss it because I do enjoy an ice cold Pepsi every now and then, but I know it’s not good for me.  And actually, I’ve gotten to the point where regular Pepsi is just too sweet for me.  Weird.  So this summer, my drink of choice has been lemonade.  And really only at dinner time.  But sometimes we go out, and an extra special treat is a strawberry lemonade.  Panera has a very delicious frozen strawberry lemonade.  We had some strawberries in the fridge and I decided to make my own strawberry lemonade.  I blended up a pint of very ripe strawberries with about 2 teaspoons sugar and ended up with strawberry puree which I poured over a glass of iced Simply Lemonade.  That pint of strawberries made about 4 or 5 glasses of strawberry lemonade, and I stored the puree in the fridge in a covered container.  I might also try it without the sugar; it all depends on how sweet the strawberries are and your sweet to tart preference.  Yum!

There’s lots of other things that make me happy, but I don’t have any more photographs of them.  I’ll have to work on that.

Here’s my finished Innocent Crush quilt top, in the Fenced In pattern.  I like how it turned out but my big dilemma is how to quilt it.  My comfort level lies with straight lines, but the quilt is dominated by straight lines.  I am considering trying to free motion it but that has me a wee bit nervous. I really want to do the quilting myself but all that fabric has me concerned about my ability to maneuver the fabric.  We will see.

Gracie is enjoying the quilt.  First she played in her fort and then she rolled around on it after I spread it on the bed.  Gracie tested, Gracie approved.

This is what we accomplished today.  Mine is on top,  Julia’s is the second photo.

I am exhausted.

I have cut enough fabric to last me awhile.  My first priority was cutting the fabric for my mystery quilt weekend which is coming up.  I’m excited and nervous!  I took my time cutting but was able to finish it in two afternoons and one marathon afternoon and evening session.  It wasn’t as tedious as I thought it would be and it went quickly.  What surprised me was how much fun I had playing with the fabrics.  It was fun to see them all spread out and then see them in little pieces.  Some of the fabrics are so beautiful. That’s an Amy Butler Soul Blossoms fabric above and I just love it!  I love it so much it will be in my quilt three times in three different colorways.

I’ve never done a mystery quilt.  The instructions have you cut each piece of fabric into a certain sizes.  All my different cuts are organized in ziploc bags.  I’m so curious to see how this comes together.

I’m ready for my quilting weekend!  I packed up everything right away so that I wouldn’t lose track of anything.

And then, because I hadn’t spent enough time cutting fabric, I cut fabric for another quilt.  I’m going to make the Fenced In quilt from The Practical Guide to Patchwork.  It’s going to be for our guest bedroom and I’m using the entire collection of Anna Maria Horner’s Innocent Crush Line.  I made throw pillows out of one of Ms. Horner’s other lines of fabric (Good Folks)and I was thinking I would have to remake all those pillows (and I really like them so this was not a happy thought).  Thank goodness for Bill who helped me realize the pillows would work with the new quilt I’m making.  The existing fabrics compliment the ones I’m going to use. That was a huge relief.  He’s pretty handy to keep around and helps me when I want to make more work for myself. Anyhoo, back to the quilt.  I’m deviating from the instructions a bit because I’m using 22 different prints instead of the 9 suggested in the books, but I’ve got a plan.  And have I mentioned this is going to be a *King* size quilt?!?

I also cut fabric for a new top which is on my to do list for the month.  Now that all this fabric is cut, I better spend some quality time in front of my machine.  I think it will be a miracle if I finish both these quilt this year though, based on how long Amy’s quilt took.  Thankfully, I believe in miracles.

Here is my final finished “creation” for February.  I thought I was done with it last night when it looked like this.  It felt kinda blah to me.  But now, I’m super happy with it.  I filled in the “white” space and now it looks finished.

It was a fun project.  And now here’s what I hope to accomplish this March:

1.  Make new pillows for the living room.

2.  Finish my basketweave afghan.

3.  Finish mohair scarf (so that the cat stops pulling it out of my knitting basket during the night).

4.  Cut Innocent Crush Fabric for a new quilt.

5.  Make a top.

6.  Knit a sweater.

7.  Keep my schedule at the gym.

8.  Read 3 books.

9.  Finish Valentine socks.

10.  Make some tablet pouches.

We’ll see how I do.  I’ve got other things that I have to do, like cut fabric for my mystery quilt weekend.  And I will be out of town for a few days.  But the point of this exercise isn’t meant for me to accomplish everything, it’s to keep me focused.  So I’ll be like a laser beam this month.  Happy March!

I finished Amy’s quilt yesterday and wrapped it up to mail today. I originally started this project in June and it took me until yesterday to finish.  First emotion:  embarrassment.

I knew it would take me awhile because it was the first “real” quilt project I had done in a long time.  I warmed up with a lap-sized zig zag quilt and then jumped straight into a twin size bed project.  The pattern was easier and yet it wasn’t.  The pattern was also an original idea though you can find a similar one in the book The Practical Guide to Patchwork (Snapshots).

I got frustrated in August because my corners weren’t lining up and it wasn’t turning out as nicely (ie perfectly) as I had hoped. Second emotion:  frustration.

I thought about working on the quilt all through the fall and then I got caught up in other things, but started thinking about it a lot in December.  Finally, in January I pulled it out again.  I think about 1/8th of it was put together and it was seeming too wide to me.  I measured it, compared it to another quilt and decided I didn’t need two columns and I cut them off.  Just took the scissors and got rid of them.  I added on a few more rows and a couple of days later, started wondering about how wide the quilt really needed to be.  I re-did research on quilt sizes and realized that indeed, I needed those two columns.  Third emotion:  intense frustration at own stupidity and rashness.

I fixed my “mistake” and in doing so, I realized that I had done a horrible job of planning.  I had no idea how many squares of each print I had, how often I was using them, if I had enough…  I got organized.  I created this crazy spreadsheet where I named each print, figured out how many I had already used, how many I had, how many total squares I needed, then how many more of each fabric I needed and then I was a little more systematic when I laid it out.  Probably a bit of overkill, but the project started humming along after that.  I’d lay out three or four rows at a time, take a picture (because once I started sewing I’d get confused) and then add it to the body of the quilt.  It took me about a five days to get the quilt top done.  I already had a plan for the quilt back and that was an evening and morning’s worth of work.  Then I made my sandwich which went a lot more quickly than I expected.  Except that once I had the quilt back taped to the floor I realized that my batting was in a closet that was inaccessible because all the furniture in the room was pushed up against the door.  Brilliant!  I managed to get it out, which entailed quite a bit of swearing. That roadblock notwithstanding, the sandwiching went well and then it was on to the quilting.

I wish that I could undo the early passes I made on the quilt. About a quarter of the way through the first round of quilting, I started to get the hang of it.  Fourth emotion:  joy!

The quilting took me two days.  That went a lot faster than I anticipated.  I did a relatively simple lattice design.  Interesting without being too difficult or too busy.  Next up was the binding which also went well.  I machine sewed it on, and then finished it by hand.  I thought it would take me a week to do the binding, but that took less than two days.  The next day I made a simple quilt label and sewed it on and she was done.  But she wasn’t feeling exactly done to me.

She needed a pillow.  An embroidered pillow.  I went to bed making up the design in my head, and in two days, the pillow was done.  Then the project felt complete.  Fifth emotion: contentment.

I’m always super critical of myself and my work.  Could my corners have lined up better?  Yes.  Could I have quilted straighter lines?  Yes.  Will anyone notice the imperfections? Only experienced quilters and me.  Could this project have been made with more love?  No.  I am truly proud of this project.  It is one of the nicest things I have made.  It has been a roller coaster of a journey, but I learned so much through my many, many mistakes.  And in the end, when I looked at it, I don’t think I could have done a better job.

P.S.  I used 5 – 6 squares of 44 different prints.  Finished size is approximate 68 x 100 inches.

I wish there was a way to take a picture of me, huddled in the corner of my craft room, tucked in by the garage door and laundry room, waiting for my floor to dry.  At least I’m in my comfy chair.  I moved the furniture and washed the floor in preparation for laying out Amy’s Quilt!  YAY!!  It’s a Mir-acle! I started this bad boy in August and am just now finishing it. Shame on me.  Truth be told, I got a little frustrated with it when I was having trouble with my corners lining up.  When I picked it up again it started to go a little better and I powered through. And now, here I am waiting to lay the whole thing out.  I’m a little nervous to be starting the quilting part, so if you can, please send positive thoughts my way.

While I’m here waiting, I thought I would let you know how I did with my January goals and set February’s.

So for January:

1.  Lose five pounds.  Not so successful.  I’ve neglected my cardio even though I’ve gotten back into the gym routine, and my birthday was more like a birth-ten-days which included Margaritas and cupcakes and all the yummy food I could get my hands on.  But I am down a pound so that’s better than nothing.

2.  Figure out how many skeins of yarn I currently have.  Yeeesh…a lot.  364, and that number has gone up by a few.

3.  Finish Amy’s quilt.  Not done, but I have made so much progress on this one!

4.  Finish Bill’s mittens.  They are done, but I fear they are a little too tight.  I just don’t have it in me to knit another pair right now, but I have enough yarn and might do so in the future.  He insists they are fine, but he knows I’m burnt out on the pattern.

5.  Finish green apple cardi.  Yay!  It turned out ok, but wearable.  It’s a little too big, and I even made a size smaller than I am.

6.  Read 2 books.  I actually finished 5, one I started in November, No Plot, No Problem by Chris Baty (it’s about NaNoWriMo), and another I started in December, Becoming Jane Eyre by Sheila Kohler.  The other books were Winter Study by Nevada Barr, Trixie Belden and the Secret of the Mansion by Julie Campbell (a book from my childhood), The Game by Laurie R King.

7.  Finish ‘75 and ‘76 photo albums.  Didn’t even touch ‘em.  But I did think about what I need to do and and how to do it.

8.  Clean out closet in Bill’s room.

9.  Get to halfway point on basketweave afghan.  - Didn’t get to work on it because I started a baby blanket for a friend and I’m ok with that.

10.  Make master bedroom valances.  They are so cute!

So I accomplished 6 out of 10, made serious progress on another and one goal was swapped out for another more important project.

For February I want to:

1.  Finish Amy’s Quilt

2.  Sew Mom’s Bag and mail out her goodies.  The Fabric is already cut, just waiting to be put together.

3.  Get to halfway point on Basketweave afghan.

4.  Create something.

5.  Lose 5 pounds.

6.  Finish ’75 and’76 photo albums.

7.  Read 3 books.

I feel like I am missing something on this list, but I can’t think of what it is.  Since February is a short month, I’ll keep my list short. And I’m sure other projects will pop up.  I even got started on those 5 lbs.  I took the photo above on my walk this morning.  I found the little burst of yellow to be quite cheery.

Here’s to a productive February!

1. forest love…, 2. Whooooos this wise guy?, 3. Half Square Triangle Quilt, 4. Felt embroidery, 5. Rainbow Mini Quilt , 6. flower4, 7. friends, 8. Hexillow, 9. rlynn

I started last night.  Inspired by this image, I decided to try and create a new throw pillow cover.  I’ve never done anything like it. I dug threw my scraps, cut strips, cut triangles, found some linen, and then sewed.  And sewed.  And sewed.  And voilà.

I’m really quite pleased with how the pillow top has turned out.  I cut the fabric for the back, and I know how I’m going to finish it, something I will hopefully get to today.

For my first foray into “creating” I think I did ok.  It’s not something that comes easy to me, but I’m going to work at it.  I think I’ve found another goal for the year…

I cut up most of it to make some tablet cases.

And then I cut the fabric for my new bedroom valances.  The fabric part was easy, the trim part gave me fits.  I was originally going to do some fancier kind of valance, like a bubble valance.  The more I thought about it, the more complicated it was getting, so I decided to do a plain old gathered kind of valance.  When I had bought the trim (about a week ago) I was only going to do 3 panels, but then I decided to make 4.  Back to Joann, where apparently everyone needed brown ball trim.  There was a little over a yard left, so I took it.  As it turns out, I was 4 (four!) inches short.  Ugh.  So after the gym on Thursday, Bill kindly detoured to another Joann to get the rest of my trim.  What should have been an easy trip took twice as long since Google Maps misdirected us.  In the end, it worked out because I was able to get a yard of the fabric at 70% off since it had already been cut.  That meant that I got 9 times what I needed for only twice what my 4 inches would have cost.  I was able to finish my curtains and I have a little left over trim.

This article on Apartment Therapy distracted me on Thursday.  I ended up tidying up my “junk” drawer.  It’s not really a junk drawer since it contains mainly office supplies, but I made a little more room for the hammer and scissors I keep in there which have been getting in the way.

The weather is beautiful so I have my sheets hanging on the line, and I turned off the heat and opened some windows.  Ahhh… fresh air.  I see a nice walk for CJ in our future.  I have my quilting class today, and then Bill and I are going to watch some football, and work on our bedroom.  Now that I have my curtains done, we’re going to hang those and pick up and reorganize a little.  I need to re-hang some pictures and just make it look a bit more inviting.  I’m changing the colors from black-white-pink to blue and brown, a transition that has been in progress for many months.  The junk drawer article has motivated me to clean out our bed side tables which have become catch-alls.  That’s what’s on tap for me.  I hope you all have some fun stuff planned for the weekend!  Or if not fun, at least productive.