Is January Over Yet?

I’m not trying to wish my life away, but this has been one long, blah month. 

I’ve been on a mission to get some quilts that are in various stages of completion finished.  Here’s my first finish of 2012.

 

I quilted this using the Circle Lord Seven Treasures of Buddha template.

I’m trying to sell this one, just to recoup my costs.  I donate a lot of my quilts to various charities and give a lot away as gifts, but what do you do with the rest?  I want to continue to quilt, but my pile of completed quilts is getting bigger and I don’t know what to do with them.  Whenever I start a new quilt, the question I’m always asked is – who is is for?  Usually I don’t have a clue – it’s just a pattern or fabric that I like and I want to make it.  What do you do with all your quilts?

I started this one before Christmas.  It’s made completely from my scrap bin, other than the borders.  I got the backing for it cut today and maybe it will get quilted this weekend….maybe.

There’s also been a lot of knitting going on, but I don’t have anything completed to show you – no surprise there!  I was delighted to win the book, Sweet Shawletts from Julie at The Needle Emporium.   I haven’t received it yet, but I’m looking forward to getting it in the mail shortly.

If you live locally and haven’t been to this store, you don’t know what you’re missing.  She has the most beautiful collection of wool that I’ve ever seen in one place.  Unfortunately, some of it isn’t there any longer as it came home with me  

I also got a nice surprise from A Quilters Dream.  They sent me a gusseted quilted bag pattern to try and they included these gorgeous fat quarters to make it with! 

 

My friend Onalee sent me a link to this tutorial for a very easy, no-sew pet bed.  I just had to try it, so I made a couple last weekend and took one over for my grandkitties.  Abby just loved it and apparently she has been inseparable from it ever since.

It’s a tough life, isn’t it!

Normal is Still Good

I still haven’t figured out how to fix the font on my posts.  Every day is a new challenge with this computer – software isn’t Leo’s strong point and I know next to nothing about it, so I just get frustrated.  It’s taken me weeks to figure out Outlook as we used Outlook Express.  Enough moaning – well, for now anyway.

Some members of our Guild get together once a month to work on Cuddle Quilts to give to those less fortunate in the community.  My friend Lee and I took a bunch home before Christmas to quilt.  I didn’t get pictures of the first 2, but I did manage to remember to snap these two that I finished this weekend.  Doing these gives me a whole new respect for those who quilt for others.  Some of the seams have pleats, some seams were coming undone and they had pieced the batting, but rather than butting it together and zigzag stitching it, they put the two layers together, making it really bulky to quilt through.  I also have trouble working on something I don’t like.

 

Add cropping to the things I no longer know how to do with this new program

I have quite a number of finished tops waiting to be quilted and I’ve promised myself that I won’t start any new projects until I’ve quilted a couple of those tops.  This is the next one on the list – I’m piecing the backing for it now. 

 

I made a different version of this quilt several years ago – it just had a different border.  Actually, I got carried away when I started cutting and ended up with enough blocks for 2 quilts.

 

Needless to say, I liked the other version better which explains why it got finished and this one didn’t!

I’m so happy with my orchid – there are 4 glorious blooms on it!

 

Ahhhhh…..back to normal

What a wonderful feeling to be back to normal, or at least my version of it.  Leo's back to work, laundry is caught up, ironing is done, sewing room is clean - bliss!  Not even the fact that it was -13 degrees could dampen my spirits this morning.  It's a snow free minus 13 so all is good.

I wish I could figure out how to change the font and keep it changed on this post.  It keeps reverting to some blinding teeny tiny font that even with a magnifying glass would be hard to read! 

I did get some more pictures to share.  This is the Hitchhiker Scarf that I finished before Christmas, but just got the ends sewn in this morning.  It still isn’t blocked, but I’m not convinced it needs to be.



Here’s my favourite model, Bruno, showing it off:


I even had enough left over to knit a pair of socks.



I used Madeleintosh Sock wool for these and this wool is quickly becoming my favourite.  It’s so nice to work with and has great stitch definition.

I got inspired last night to clean up my knitting supplies.  All my long needles are in an old tennis ball container and it serves the purpose very well.  However, my circular needles were a different story and I needed somewhere to keep everything together and handy.  Enter the Yazzi bag that I bought in Houston. 



A lot of people use these for keeping their applique and sewing supplies, but I found it was perfect for all my knitting paraphernalia. 



It has lots of zippered compartments and I can keep everything in one little bag.

Still on the knitting topic, Sandra gave me a yarn bowl for Christmas.   I only heard about these recently from a girl in my Knitting Group, but if you live in a house with a cat, or are sick of picking your wool up off the floor, this is the answer!


There are two ‘holes’ in this one, the small round hole is if you are working with really fine yarn so the hole helps keep it in the bowl.  I’m probably the last knitter on the planet to hear about this, but I just love it and I’m no longer down on my hands and knees trying to find where my wool has rolled to!

Just in case you think I’ve forgotten how to quilt, I have been working on a penguin log cabin quilt.  I saw this idea at our Guild’s Show & Tell and thought it was a great way to use up novelty fabric that you have no idea what to do with.



Since I’ve taken this picture, all the blocks are sewn together and there is a narrow black border on it.  I’m going to finish it off with a wider red border.  This whole top was done from scraps from my strip bins.  Unfortunately, it didn’t even make a dent!

I’m off to try and figure out how to ‘fix’ the font on this post as every time I start a new paragraph it reverts to the small font.  I just love technology .

Another Year Bites the Dust

It's hard to believe that another year has come and gone, and harder still to believe that a week ago we were all waiting for Christmas.


We got a new computer, out of necessity, a couple of weeks ago and I’m still trying to get used to it.  Everything I go to do is different, including my blog post.  I use Windows Live Writer for my blog and it is all different.  I don’t like change which I guess is a sure sign I’m getting old!

I have to share the most amazing gift I received from Sandra.  She always puts so much thought and effort into her gift giving and I can only imagine the hours she must have spent putting this together.  She copied pictures from my blog and Facebook and made this mosaic picture of my baby.  I hope you can click on it and make it bigger and you’ll see that each square is made up of one of, or parts of, my quilts.  Best Christmas gift ever!!!!




I finished up a baby quilt yesterday for Darren & Sandra to give to one of their friends who just had a baby.  I had the top finished ages ago, but it still needed to be quilted, bound and a label made and sewn on.  It will be given to the recipient tonight.












I completed a couple of knitting projects over the holidays, but I haven’t got around to blocking them yet, so I don’t have pictures. 

You might recall I was waiting for my orchid to bloom and it didn’t disappoint.  There are 4 gorgeous blooms on it and I hope they last a long time as 4 years was a long time to wait for the blooms!

An Apology

In my attempt to ‘keep it real’, I may have been a bit harsh in my last post.  I received a very nice e-mail from the designer of the bag pattern I was bitching about from A Quilter’s Dream.  She was sincerely interested to learn how she could make the pattern better and also offered to send me a pattern of one of her gusseted bags to see if I liked it.  Now that’s customer service and I appreciate the time she took to contact me and try and make things right! 

I’ve had another busy week, but at least I have some things to show for it.  I finished these socks:

The lighter ones are Knitpicks Stroll hand painted sock yarn, and the darker ones are Madelinetosh Tosh Sock.   I love working with the Madelinetosh yarn and I’m anxious to see how it wears.  I find the Knitpicks is very soft, but pills quickly. 

I made this little Santa bag – it’s wired around the top and can be used to hold cards, candy canes, chocolates, you name it.

Since I was starting to get into the Christmas spirit, I made this little doorhanger kit that had been lying around here for about 5 years!

My Aunt asked if I’d make her a couple of these to give to her neighbours.

With all this Christmas going on, we Leo put up the tree today.  This is the first time in 3 years it’s seen the light of day – poor little Molly’s never seen it.  I had a light bulb moment when I went to inspect his work.  Every one of the ornaments holds a special memory and a lot of those memories include people no longer with us.  Maybe that’s why I haven’t been so enthusiastic about Christmas lately.

Finally, I am thrilled to show you this next picture.

My orchid is going to bloom!!!!!  I’ve had this for 4 years – I know it’s been 4 years as my sister-in-law gave it to me when we hosted Sandra & Darren’s engagement party over 4 years ago.  I made the mistake of cutting off the dead blooms and you can see the dried up stalk towards the back.  I was just about ready to give it the old heave-ho, when I noticed a new stalk growing and then the buds appeared!  I can hardly wait until it blooms as I can’t remember what colour it was.

This is more exciting than an Advent Calendar – I check the progress every day to see if the bloom is opening.

Ahhhhhhhhhh

This is the first weekend in a month that I’ve slept in my own bed and it feels great.  I don’t have any plans for the weekend and I intend to keep it that way.
Last weekend at Retreat I made this bag.

While the finished product isn’t bad, the pattern was awful.  Here’s a link which I provide only so you WON’T buy it.  I’ve made quite a few bags, but the instructions for this one have so much waste and the way they get you to put it together is not easy and could be done so much better.
I also got all these strips cut out to make a miniature log cabin wallhanging.

I read in one of Judy Martin’s books that an organizer like this one is a good idea to keep all your strips of the same size together.  Now that this is all cut, I think I’ll just put it away and I’ll have my next Retreat project all ready to go!
I’ve made one of these before, so I' know what I’m in for.  The blocks finish at 4”.

Our Guild does a secret Santa exchange and each year we pick a letter and the gift must start with that letter.  This year it was D, so I stitched out these little fingertip towels yesterday:

The meeting isn’t until December 14th, so I’m actually ahead of the game for once!  Now if I could only get my act together and get some Christmas shopping done…

The Merry Go Round Still Hasn’t Stopped

I had a great time in Houston and showed amazing restraint with my purchases. To be honest, I really didn’t see anything I ‘had’ to have.   My friends, however, did more than their part to boost the Houston economy.  The quilts were amazing and I got to meet Debra who lives just north of Houston.  We had a lot of fun critiquing the quilts and were on the same wave length about most of the techniques.

One thing we just didn’t understand was the abundance of thread painting.  You take a coloured photograph, then thread paint over it.  I can appreciate the time it takes, but the hardest part, as one of the artists explained, was finding the right colour of thread.  What’s the point?  Yes the finished product looks nice, but so did the picture and I just don’t understand the need to do it.

We also visited the fourth largest mall in the U.S. – The Galleria.  It is a beautiful mall with 3 levels and I managed to do some damage there. 

I didn’t take any pictures when I was away.  I didn’t want to lug my heavy camera around and there were a lot of areas where pictures weren’t allowed anyway, so I don’t regret my decision.

My baby had a benign tumor on his back paw and had to have surgery.  He wore this lampshade for almost 2 weeks, but he got his stitches out yesterday and the vet is really pleased with the surgery.

Doesn’t he look pathetic.  It really didn’t seem to bother him other than he couldn’t scratch his ears, so we obliged.

Sandra & I went to Buffalo last weekend for our annual Christmas shopping trip.  She got almost all her Christmas shopping done – I didn’t!

Tomorrow morning I leave for Retreat.  I don’t have a clue what I’m going to take to work on, so I took a vacation day today to try and figure it out.  If you don’t go prepared you aren’t productive. 

I swear I am not making any more plans to go anywhere for a while.  I’m all ‘showed’ out and I’m totally exhausted.  Today is the first day in over a month that I don’t have some kind of commitment – it feels great!

Ian must have been playing around with my camera while I was gone and here is a picture he took of Molly – can’t show one baby without the other!

It’s Been a While

Life has been like a merry go round here lately and I’m ready for it to stop and let me off and rest for a while.  That isn’t looking too promising though, as I’m leaving on Wednesday for Houston.  I committed to this trip a long time ago and I’m now wishing the timing were different.  Oh, well, c’est la vie!

My dear son-in-law Darren’s Dad has been battling another round of chemo so I wanted to make him a comfort quilt.  I had a panel with cottage scenes which was really appropriate as Jack loves going to his cottage.  I think it took me longer to find the panel than it did to make the quilt.  I spent days looking for it and almost had myself convinced I didn’t buy it after all, when I finally found it.

I also got my woven look scarf finished.  Boy, there was a lot of knitting in that thing.  I took me almost half an hour to do a row!

I’m really happy with it.  I used 3 balls of Koigu, a light purple, dark purple and the burgundy. 

Now I can get busy and knit myself some socks.  I’m anxious to try the new yarn by Lorna’s Laces called Solemate.  It’s supposed to have built in climate control so your feet don’t get too hot or too cold.  If it works, I need to knit something for my whole body in that stuff!!!!

Lancaster

I’ve been trying to recover from our trip to Lancaster all week.  It was a lot of driving and since I get motion sickness, I had to do all of it.  We did 18, yes 18 stores in 2 days – no wonder I’m tired!

I had the pleasure of meeting Suzan, from The Reluctant Quilter and she is every bit as nice and bubbly in person as she comes across on her blog.  I called her on Saturday morning and she told us The Hayloft were closing and had 25% off everything, so it was a no brainer where we would meet!  She also brought the antique quilt she has been working on to let me see it.  Kudos to her for fixing it all and getting it into a finished quilt.  I wouldn’t have had the patience.

Here we are, surrounded by the things we love :-)

My friend Joan (the smartass one) wanted to see a picture of what I didn’t buy.  I think I showed amazing restraint.

I bought yardage of the 3 on the left for backings and the rest were just small pieces of things I liked. 

While I was busy patting myself on the back for my restraint in the fabric stores, we happened on a wool shop.  I didn’t show quite as much restraint there, but I love what I bought!

I need to get busy and knit myself some more socks.  My friend Ursula asked me if I would knit a pair for her and her Mum.  I took 3 new pairs to bowling to let her take home and try on for size.  She came back the next week, minus the socks and wanted to buy them all.  I told her they weren’t for sale and she said, too bad, here’s some money, I love them and I want them all!!!  Now I have no socks left :-(

I’m trying to get this scarf finished before I start my socks.  I was working on this when we were away and since my roommates are used to much later nights than I am, I was up way past my bedtime and managed to drop a stitch.  We all tried to fix it, but the pattern isn’t an easy one to pick up a dropped stitch, so I ended up ripping it all out and starting over. 

I’m not sure which I’m better at – ripping out knitting or frogging!  I seem to do a lot of both.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends.

Go Ahead….Make My Day!

When I went to visit my Mum today, her nurse asked me if I was her younger sister!!!!!  My Mum wasn’t even in the room, so it wasn’t said for her benefit.  There are days when I feel 89, but that comment bothered me more than I’d like to admit!  I’m going in tomorrow to ask for her resignation :-)

I forgot to show you a knitted beaded necklace I made.  I saw the pattern on Ravelry and thought I’d give it a go.  I’d never knit with beads before, so it was a learning experience.  It takes very little yarn and I thought it would be great for using up all the little bits of fingering weight sock yarn I always have left over.

There are two sizes of beads in this one, but when I make another, I’ll just use one size (the bigger ones) to give it a bit more weight.

Every year I attend the Quilt Seminar at the Amherst Quilt Guild in Amherst, NY.  This year Sharon Schamber and Karla Alexander were the national teachers.  I took two of Sharon’s classes and I am happy to say I can now draw feathers!!!!!  I think I have bought every book on the market on feathers and I’ve taken more than a few classes.  We spent all day drawing on freezer paper and I now have the confidence to try them on Tillie.

Of course, drawing them on paper and stitching them out are two different things, so stay tuned!

As some of you may know, Sharon sees auras.  She read my aura and was right on the money.  I never really believed much in that stuff even though Leo is somewhat psychic – or is that pshycho – but I can’t deny everything she told me is true.

We also had the opportunity to see two of her Best of Show Quilts from Houston – Mystique and Spirit of Mother Earth.  She also shared with us that she just got a call on Tuesday night telling her that she has won another major award at Houston this year, but she won’t find out which one until the Show.

Karla gave a lecture and trunk show on Wednesday night and she was highly entertaining.  She told the story of her friend who had been burglarized.  When she came home from a night out with Karla, the police were going through her house with her husband listing all the damage but wouldn’t let her in.  All she could think of was her expensive sewing machine she had recently purchased and hoped it hadn’t been stolen.  When the police finally let her in, they told her everything that was missing but said, ‘wait until you see the mess they left in your sewing room’.  When she walked into her studio, she exclaimed with relief ‘oh, it’s exactly how I left it!!!!’. 

Finally, these pictures are for Rian, because she loves to see pictures of my baby, and I’m only too happy to oblige.

Here he is getting all ready for Halloween.

It’s September Already?

I remember being told the older you get, the quicker time flies by and I must be ancient as I just don’t know where the time has gone.

I’ve been really busy, but I’m not sure what I’ve been busy doing.  I do have some things to show (finally).  I’ve been working on these socks all summer, and now that summer is almost over, they are finally finished.

They have a bit of stretch to them – the yarn is called Lanna Grossa and it’s a cotton/wool/polyamide/elite blend.  I’m not sure if the stretch comes from the polyamide or the elite as I don’t have a clue what either one are.

After I finished these, I cast on this baby blanket.  I’m not sure who this is going to yet, but it’s nice to have a knitted blanket on hand for a gift or for donation.

There is really only one row to the pattern but if you drop a stitch, it’s impossible to pick up and I wouldn’t like to admit to how many times I’ve had to take it back a couple of rows – all 208 stitches!!!

I got my Jelly Braid quilted and used my favourite stand-by, my Circle Lord Swirls.  If you click on the picture you might be able to see the quilting better.

I love the backing on this quilt.

I bought a bolt of this fabric ages ago and it’s almost all gone :-(

Finally, I made this little table runner and table topper.  I bought this fabric in Paducah and you get both out of one yard of fabric.

It’s just stuck on my design wall as it still needs to be backed and quilted.

Next on the agenda is quilting my Mystery Quilt.  There is a reveal party in October and the way the last few weeks have flown by, October will be here before I know it.

I can’t believe I’m doing this, but a couple of friends and I are going to Lancaster at the end of the month.  I don’t need any more fabric, but I love the area and I’m mainly going for the fun of it, not to buy tons and tons of fabric.  (Remind me I said that when I come back.)

I’ve already been in touch with Suzan, The Reluctant Quilter who is lucky enough to live in the area and she has given me a list of not to be missed stores.  We’re hoping to meet up at one of these stores too.  I also found out there is a shop hop going on the weekend we’re there, so that should be fun.

I will not buy more fabric, I will not buy more fabric, I will not buy more fabric…………….