The Basement

Between being out of the house this morning and total nap fail this afternoon, I wasn't able to get any new projects started.  However, I woke up from my 20 minute nap inspired to take on the basement.  It's on the list of projects at #16 and #17.  Below is a picture of the current sad space I do laundry in.  It's not a true before picture because I've already painted the wooden wall on the right and the pillar beside it. (And one brick on the back wall for fun.)  Before the current lively lavender/pink, it was the nastiest shade of dirty light yellow I've ever seen.  With bits of split pea green.  Needless to say, it needed brightening.

I didn't exactly pick out the new wall color; it picked me.  I know that my local Home Depot has good deals on oops paint, so I started watching the paint counters to see what would show up.  Surprisingly, someone refused to buy this lovely shade.  Anyhow, it met my criteria of being semi-gloss, bright enough, and not nasty yellow.  It was a paint/primer combination, but I don't know that I'd actually buy the paint/primer combination if I were out paying full price.  Here's the stairwell going back up to the kitchen.  I've already attacked the side of it with the lavender/pink - it used to be a very bland grey blue.

My plan, influenced by my mother in law and Mary Engelbreit, is to brighten the space up with a floor mat and a wall mural.  My mother in law makes adorable hand painted mats sealed with polyurethane, so I'm going to try making one too.  The floor currently is bare concrete, and very difficult to keep clean.  (Shoes are REQUIRED for basement visits.)  Never mind that occasionally little rivers run across it when there's been a lot of rain.  And I absolutely hate it when bits of laundry hit the floor on their way out of the washer or dryer; I feel like I need to wash them again to get the filthy floor dust off them.  So if I had a nice mat, it would both brighten the place up and give me a cleanable floor covering, which takes care of both problems.

The Mary Engelbreit inspiration came mostly from the colors of oops paint I was able to pick up.  I have some dusty blue, peach, rose, a couple of greens, some yellow and orange, and combined with the color for the wall, it reminded me of happy Mary Engelbreit designs.  I also already had this book: Mary Engelbreit Decorating Ideas: Projects to Make for Indoors and Out.  It's full of really cute designs complete with templates for you to make your own ME paradise.  I love the quilt pieces in the book, and thought I'd base my design around that.  I bought the fabric to make the mat months ago, but got stalled when I couldn't decide on a final design.  (I've noticed that happens a lot - when I hit a point in a project where I have to make a decision, it just sits... and sits...)  When I woke up from my brief nap today, I realized it didn't matter, I don't live down there, I can't recreate an ME original or anything like it on the wall, so just put something together already.   After a little bit of web searching this afternoon, I found some additional inspirations from Simplicity's free quilt pattern archive.  Check out the Rise and Shine Quilt and Prairie Flowers Quilt.  They're both fun and happy and pick up on the ME-style flowers I want to use in my design. 

I had a free minute after dinner to start working on my design for the floor mat.

Well, Rome wasn't built in a day.  I guess I'm working on this at Craft Day tomorrow while the little ones hopefully sleep.

One More Down, and One Almost There!

It's a very exciting day in Craft World.  Earlier today I got my hat done.  I love making things but I can't remember the last time I made anything for myself.  To that end, my mother in law put yarn in my Christmas stocking and said it was just for me.  Yay!!  Here's my hat in lovely Gelato Stripe:

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.  I wasn't able to follow the instructions perfectly which I attribute to my novice knitter status, but it's all good AND it fits.  Even better.  The hat pattern is called Zinnia Dahlia by Petra Hoy and you can find it here.  I still have some yarn left over and I'm not sure what to do with it.  It's called "I Love This Yarn" and it has sort of a chenille quality to it, but not quite as soft as chenille.  I'm thinking some fingerless gloves might be the most useful thing to make.

So, I said I wasn't going to buy any more fabric for my daughter's quilt.  And then I tried cutting strips for the binding out of what I had left.  I was about 50" shy of what I needed.  Fortunately I was able to get back to the fabric store while the print I needed was still on good sale.  And THIS time, I used my serger on the edges. (trumpets sound)  Thanks Mom, for buying me a serger before I even knew I needed one.  No fraying, no cleaning up thread balls and tangles out of the dryer.  From now on ALL new fabric that comes in my house will have its raw edges serged before washing. 

Look how pretty these edges are!

With a replenished supply of pow pink polka dot and some clever cutting, I got enough 2" strips to go all the way around the quilt edges.  It's now been sewn, trimmed, and ironed, and the completed quilt top (more trumpets) is folded in the shelf waiting for batting.  I'll pick that up this week and then knock out the handquilting.

I'm glad I found this book at the library: Mastering Precision Piecing: 7 Spectacular Quilts with Techniques for Success.  When the author says Spectacular, she means it.  The quilts are intricate and teensy and gorgeous.  I'm only a few pages into it and the suggestions and guidelines given have already improved my work.  Super exciting (for me, anyway)!  I'm very interested in doing the best work I can - hopefully nice enough to sell!

Today's movie recommendation: Across the Universe.  Absolutely beautiful.  I attribute errors in my newly finished hat to being distracted by it.  If you haven't seen it and you like music, you should see it.  If you haven't seen it and you like art, you should see it.  If you haven't seen it and you like a good love story, you should see it.  I never really got the Beatles and only some of their music appeals to me, but I found the soundtrack playing in my head all day.  I'm totally putting it on my wishlist.

I still haven't gone through my pattern pile and made a list of what fabrics I need, but I have a few more days to do that before my craft store coupon expires.  Next, I think I'm going to tackle a pair of socks for my knitting project, and a skirt.  Oh, I think that means I get to take my dress form out of the box.  YAY!   Now to find a place to put it...

Project #2 Complete!

I am very happy to present the completed scarf for my daughter.  I finished it this afternoon and celebrated with a nap.  The finished piece is approximately 42" long and 4.5" wide.  It's just the right length for her to wear doubled and tucked into a jacket.  I used a soft white acrylic baby yarn, left over from a baby blanket I made while I was pregnant.  There are 25 stitches across, and I used size 6 needles.  I couldn't decide on a style, so every 3-6 rows I did something different.  About every five inches I put a band of seed stitch to give it some uniformity, and between those bands I tried to include some vertical ribbing and horizontal bands.  I was disappointed that the ribbed sections shrunk a little bit, but I guess that's what they're supposed to do, and why we use it on socks and sweaters and hats. There are also sections of basketweave, stockinette, garter stitch, and the occasional adventure with diagonals.  I like the variety of textures in the finished piece.  I started it on Christmas, so it's taken about three weeks of knitting here and there, but it seems like it took forever to finish.  I think that's because it's tiny yarn and I put all the patterns into it.  Bigger yarn would have gone a lot faster.

The quilt (project #3) is also coming along very nicely. I have all the strips assembled, and have been working for the last few days on sewing them together to make the quilt top. I've run into a few problems with blocks not lining up properly.  I'm not sure if it's a single culprit or the combination of blocks made of smaller pieces, the furry knit things bunching in my sewing machine, or just not putting the seams in the right place.  As I lay out each set of strips to pin together before sewing, most of the seams line up fine.  However, I've found a few that did not line up quite right.  A quick trip back to the machine to sew the pieces a little further inside the first seam did the trick.  I think I might be able to get the whole top finished tomorrow!

I'm excited about the quilt that I got a commission to make. I've been out looking at fabrics, and I found a neat piece of software to help with the design. It's called The Electric Quilt Co. Quilt Design Wizard.  I have been just drawing quilt designs on graph paper and coloring them in, but this software lets me do that onscreen with a few clicks.  It's got a lot of neat blocks and thousands of fabric patterns to apply to your designs.  I'm a little bummed that it only runs on Windows, but I have access to that so it's not that big a deal.  I do wish I had the ability to create my own block designs (if the software allows this, I haven't figured out how to do it yet).  But, for the money, it's a fabulous timesaving tool.  I'm looking forward to playing with it more.

Also, I finished An Echo in the Bone (fabulous, as usual) and finally got around to watching Breakfast At Tiffany's.  Audrey Hepburn is gorgeous, but otherwise I'm not sure what the hype is about the movie.  Although I do understand now why Rachel and Kurt had to get up early and have bagels and coffee outside Tiffany's.

To do list: Decide on which knitting project to start next.  I'm thinking socks (never made any before, should be fun).  Continue quilt top assembly.  Look through patterns and calculate how much fabric each needs so that when I go to the next fabric sale,  I won't overbuy.

Things We Tell Our Children

I realized tonight that some of the things we tell our children we (or I, at least) should pay more attention to ourselves (or maybe just myself).  I know it's way too early to tell if she's ADD - she always gets distractable before bedtime.  Anyhow, while playing blocks with her dad, she suddenly realized she wanted to feed her baby doll some jello (jello being the bluish clear plastic DUPLO block).  We told her she needed to pick up her wooden blocks before she could get her Lego blocks out.  We want her to learn to pick up after herself, but also there's a finite amount of room on the floor and I've already come too near to cursing in front of her after stepping on them.  So she helped pick up, got her Legos, and finally it wormed its way into my head that I need to adhere to that myself.  At least I'm being good and not getting out more projects even though I want to.  First, I have to finish the ones I have out.  Or at least, put them away before getting something else out.

It's not making any mess, but after posting a few pictures of my quilt progress on Facebook, I've gotten a commission for one.  I know I need to finish the one I'm on first, but that isn't stopping me from turning it over in my head and thinking up ideas.  Designs on the computer don't take up any space in my workroom, or the dining room table, or the entry way, or anywhere else my craft paraphernalia is likely to be found.  However, that brings me to the other maxim I'm trying to learn: We do the things we have to do before we do the things we want to do.

I thank my husband (sometimes) for this bit of wisdom.  It's gotten under my skin, and I'm no longer able to happily walk past a chore on my way to a video game.  I know I won't enjoy the game until I've gotten the chore done.  Applied to my projects, this means I should be doing standard housework before working on crafts.  Which is no fun, but must happen.  Hence, there was no post yesterday.  I did do some work on the quilt.  More pieces got stitched into rows, some of them got ironed, and I bit the bullet and cut out setting triangles for the edges. (I am SO thankful to my friend who told me you can cut more than one thickness of cloth with the rotary cutter!!!)  A few more rows got knitted onto the scarf.  And ditto for today.  But mostly I've been focusing on keeping up with the kitchen dishes and laundry, things that started sliding when I threw myself at the project list.  Have to keep the priorities in order.

Tomorrow: Cake. Enchiladas. Vacuum. And maybe some sewing.

More Piecing

Not a lot to report today; still doggedly piecing fabric squares together.  The mess is actually starting to look like a nice quilt, though.  Being able to see the fabric sewn together without cardboard showing through the cracks makes it look a lot nicer.  I'm probably 60% done with the quilt top.  And I got a few rows of daughter's scarf knitted after dinner.

However, I do want to rave about this recipe: Delicious Ham and Potato Soup.  5,883 five star reviews can't be wrong, and they certainly weren't!  We had this for dinner tonight and I had seconds.  I usually don't have seconds when we have soup for dinner, but this one was that good.  We bought a giant ham when they were on sale a few weeks ago, and DH cut it up into steaks, lunchmeat, and soup meat.  He found this recipe to use up some of the soup meat and did I mention it was good?  We did use only a little more than half the pepper called for, and threw in a couple carrots since I'm not interested in celery.  Best. Potato. Soup. Ever.   And really easy.

Tomorrow:  Continue sewing.  Cut setting triangles.  Lunch out with a mommy friend and her adorable little boy.  And free pie.  Wooooohoo!

How to Save $11

Finding the right fabric for the setting pieces on my daughter's quilt is really starting to drive me bananas.  When I initially bought fabric for this project, I got pink with polka dots, pink spirals on white, pink furry stuff, solid pink, white on white, tan on white, and three pink/green prints all selected to go with the pink rose stripe.  None of them go. I was guided toward deep pink, but it's a little girl quilt, so I wimped out and got light pink daisies.  Not sufficient.  I made it to the local independent sewing store today and they have BEAUTIFUL fabrics.  They agreed about deep pink, and I bought a yard of a wild lipstick colored damask.  It looked fine in the store, but once I brought it home it was a big NO.  While I was fuming about having paid full price for something that wouldn't work at all, I realized I had some leftover fabric from the cart seat cover I made (the one in the original post of this blog) that might be just right.  I dug it out, and while it's a little loud, the color is actually spot on.  So had I had my cotton fabrics folded nicely and organized by color - rather than stashed into old grocery shopping bags stashed into bigger old shopping bags -  I would have seen immediately that I had a loud pink print I could try, rather than dropping $11.

But being the stickler that I am - and after my husband's one description of the leftover hot pink as "loud" and the $11 pink as "ok, THAT'S loud" - I made one last attempt at getting something appropriate.  Here's what's up for evaluation right now:

I hope it grows on me, because I'm not buying any more fabric for this quilt.

As far as progress goes, I worked this afternoon piecing the pink and white strips together.  They actually look pretty cheery as they come off the machine, and I wish I had some festive use for them.

I'm crafty, but even I don't think I could make piles of these just to use as garlands for a party.  So I guess they'll go into the quilt where they belong.  I got several rows done before I ran completely out of white thread.  (How does that happen??!) Since I can't go anywhere during naptime, I retooled for knitting and sat down on the couch to watch All the Queen's Men.  The reviews for the movie were not good, but I usually disagree with critics and I think Eddie Izzard is fabulous, so I got it anyway.  It really is not good.  Eddie did not disappoint, but the writing was just not good, and I'm pretty much done with Matt LeBlanc now. 

I'm restocked on white thread, so tomorrow I'm back to piecing strips.  No more shopping is allowed until Sunday.  If I get the top totally done (unlikely) it'll have to get folded and put up while I knit something in the meantime.

Piecing

I had an opportunity to go back to the craft store today, but decided not to.  Since I can't go buy random things that are on sale, I'm spending more time looking at the sale flyers and getting organized about what I actually need and when I need to buy it.  I'm going to be good and make a proper shopping list before I go back.

Instead, I started piecing together my daughter's quilt top.  At first, it went so quickly I was like wow, maybe I should go get that batting today.  And then I got to the knit pieces.  As I was trying in vain to sew them nicely to the cotton pieces, cursing at the sewing machine as it ate yet another knit fuzzy piece, I realized I had quite a bit of work yet to do.  So I slowed down and had some chamomile tea .  DH got me the Mighty Leaf Loose Tea Sampler for Christmas and it's fantastic.  Anyhow, I got more piecing done more smoothly after having some tea.

 At first, I was just pulling pieces off the design wall and stitching them together.  It didn't take long before I had too many pieces to keep up with.  And each piece is different, and I worked hard on the layout making sure I had each one turned the way I wanted it.  So, I got out a water soluble fabric marker and put a dot at the top of each piece so I could keep them straight.  This worked well for orientation, but a couple of times I wasn't sure if I'd gotten them in the right order - and one time I definitely didn't and had to break out the seam ripper.  Then I got the bright idea to number them, but was too lazy to write numbers, so I put dots, which turned into Roman numerals, which are actually pretty easy to write in a hurry.  Now I should be able to tell quickly which way is up and which one goes where.  And the marker disappears with a drop of water.  Woohoo!

I washed and ironed the pink fabric I bought yesterday and I'm ambivalent about it.  I talked to a lady I know who teaches sewing and asked her opinion what color the border should be, and she recommended a really deep pink.  It's a little girl quilt, and I don't think I can handle a really deep pink.  I thought what I picked was dark enough, but now it's next to the actual quilt pieces I'm not sure.  I have the fabric draped next to the pieces and I'm going to live with it for a while.  (Best advice ever given to me by an art teacher.  Live with it for a while, let it talk to you and tell you what it needs.  If it even needs anything.  No need to be in a hurry.)

And I know I said I wasn't going to decide about the bedroom duvet fabric but it came out of the laundry in the same load as my other new fabric and I can't leave it alone.  I think I might go shopping tomorrow at the other local fabric shop and see if I can find something to settle the design.

Tomorrow: Look at duvet cover design and calculate needed amount of light/white fabrics, shop if possible, continue piecing daughter's quilt.

The dress form I bought last month is also calling to me, but my work room is so covered up I really need to finish the quilt before I take the dress form out of the box.

Work Day

I had to go to work today so I didn't get much crafting accomplished.  I did get a notebook put together that I need to have in a couple weeks - on my to-do list but not a craft.  Before I hit the craft store I did some calculations to make sure that I buy enough fabric to do the setting triangles.  I tried to be thrifty with a couple of my earlier fabric choices and was bummed to find out I didn't have quite enough.  So this time, working from The Plan, I was able to count out how many squares I need, do some math, and make sure I get enough fabric.

Here are today's acquisitions.  The pink daisy print on the left is going to be the setting triangles for daughter's quilt, and the big print on the right may turn into the center medallion square, I'm not sure.  I'll cut them and put them on the board and see.  I got the edges stitched.  This time I stitched them separately.  Last time I stitched panels together, thinking it would save time, but in fact it was more of a pain.  Taking them apart carefully with a seam ripper was a bummer.  Also, they still shredded quite a bit in the washer. So for these panels, I just did a running stitch as close as I could to the edge, and we'll see how they come out.  It's very tempting to go cut pieces right now but I know that's a very bad idea.

I picked a couple more pieces for the bedroom duvet cover, and now I'm in turmoil about it. There are a few blue floral prints I must have, and the other five kind of fight with each other.  And the white background prints don't really go at all, and I think I might have to scrap my design and start over.  For now, I'm just going to put the fabrics away and not think about it.  Sometimes deferring a decision is a perfectly acceptable decision.

The batting I want was not on sale today.  Excellent coupons start tomorrow, so I'll go back sometime during the next couple of weeks and pick some up.  I realized I don't actually need to worry about batting until I get the top pieced, but I like having all the pieces ready to go.  You know, just in case I get stuck in a blizzard and have time to finish piecing the top, but no batting because I didn't need it when the snow hit.

Lentils and sausage was much better today.  I took half of what was left and brought it to a boil on the stove.  I don't know if it was soaking overnight, or reaching a higher temperature, but the lentils were a much nicer consistency.

For the rest of tonight:  An Echo in the Bone.  The book is picking up and really starting to get good.  Tomorrow I'll get the fabric washed and ironed and cut triangles, binding, and think about some of the other projects on my list.

Build Up

It's not a craft, but it took two hours and two people to assemble so I think it's worth mentioning.  My dad gave our daughter this playhouse for Christmas.  It was too big to ship, so we bought it locally.  When I went to pick it up, the box wouldn't fit in my tiny car.  When I took our other slightly bigger car, it still wouldn't fit.  So, the loading guy helped me crack open the box and put all the pieces in the car, and I crossed my fingers I had them all.  They've been stored in the basement since right after Thanksgiving.  We decided it was time to get them out and set it up.

It'll live in the living room until the snow is all gone, and then the house - and its picket fences and mailbox, not shown - are going outside. She'll see it for the first time tomorrow morning, and I'm pretty sure she'll love it.  Whenever we go somewhere that has a little kid playhouse like this one, she goes in and plays in it until it's time to go.

Dinner tonight was lentils and sausage from the Allrecipes Slow Cooker & Casserole cookbook.  It's a very simple recipe with lots of flavor.  The lentils came out a little firm though, so next time we'll cook it on a higher setting.  Although next time won't be for a while - it filled up the entire crockpot and we'll be eating it for days...

We never made it to the craft store today.  This morning we stopped in for a bang trim (THANK YOU to my salon for doing these - and child haircuts - for FREE) and then stopped on a couple other errands.  Dear daughter was in an "I'm almost two, so I'll act like it" mood, so it wasn't much fun.  Once I finally got her fed and napping, I got all the rest of the squares cut for her quilt.  A friend called and asked if she could borrow my serger, so I took a break to get that out and working.  A word to the serger newbies, like me - when you take the thread spools off, clip the thread a LOT farther away from the first eye than this:

It's practically impossible to tie secure knots onto this short length of thread.  I ended up just stripping out the first one and totally rethreading because it was less hassle than tying the next thread on.  (If you've ever tried to thread a serger, you understand why you don't rethread it every time you change the threads.)  Anyway, it's all up and working now and ready for my friend to pick up.

And NEXT time, I'll leave the threads longer.

I know I'll be at the craft store tomorrow, so I'll pick up some batting and see if I can find a fabric suitable for the setting triangles for my daughter's quilt.  None of the things I already have seem to suit, and I've gone to too much trouble to settle at this point.

Oh, and kitchen window?  You and your pal Winter Sun are on my list.  I don't think I have anything to make a longer curtain with, save thread, but as soon as I'm allowed, your days of glaring at me while I make lunch are OVER.

I Finished Something!

This morning I found a project that should have been added to the list, but wasn't.  My daughter got three really cute pairs of sweat pants for Christmas.  They're size 3T, which fit over her cloth diapers perfectly, but they are WAY too long in the leg.  And they're the straight leg kind, with no elastic at the bottom.  At first I was excited - I don't think the elastic leg opening is cute at all.  However, we had to roll all her pants up last year, and they never stayed up.  She also got two pair of pants that do have elastic legs, and even though the legs are too long, the elastic keeps them from slipping down over her foot.  My daughter asked to watch Elmo this morning, so we snuggled on the couch - she watched her show, and I fixed her pants.

The first two pair were easy.  I opened a small hole in the hem with a seam ripper, and threaded a piece of elastic through with a safety pin.  I hand-stitched the elastic together and then stitched the hole closed.  The third pair (the flowery ones in the picture) weren't put together the same way though.  The fabric was hemmed BEFORE they stitched it together into pants, so I had to open holes on both sides of the seam. There's a little piece of elastic showing, but I don't think my daughter will mind.  So there's project #34, added and finished in the same day.

I also managed to get a few loads of laundry done today.  It was 30 degrees this morning, but DH assured me that laundry does dry on a clothesline even in cold weather.  I tried it, but I guess there wasn't enough sun.  Five hours later the jeans I hung out were still damp.  So now they're inside on a drying rack by the radiator.

This afternoon I cut some more fabric for daughter's quilt.  Some of the pieces need to be stitched together in strips and then cut down into smaller 2-block pieces, and I got all of those made too.  I have a giant piece of cardboard from the box for an enclosed blind we bought for a french door, and today it turned into my quilt design wall.  I reached a point where I didn't feel like cutting anymore, so I started sticking pieces up with pins.  This was good because I realized I miscounted my drawing and didn't cut enough of the strip pieces.  I started to go back and make more, but then realized I'd lost my long fabric ruler.  I can't imagine how I did that.

Behind the wall of crafts, there are three college degrees.  For a while I thought about moving mine to the basement laundry area, but I guess this is just as good.

For the rest of the evening I'm curling up with a cup of tea and An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon. I checked it out from the library over a month ago and it's due tomorrow, even though I've already renewed it once. Thankfully our library lets us renew three times, as long as no one else wants it.  I'm only a quarter of the way through it, so I'll probably need all of the renewals.  I used to be able to fly through Gabaldon's books, but with a toddler and a project list, there's just not as much free time as there used to be.  Plus this one is Tolstoy long.

Tomorrow: Finish cutting pieces for daughter's quilt.  Shop for batting and additional fabric for duvet cover.

Craft Day

I LOVE CRAFT DAY.  I also love the girlfriend who suggested it.  I have a couple of mommy friends who are also crafty, but being a stay-at-home mom means you don't have a lot of disposable time on your hands.  So, when one of my friends asked if I wanted to have a craft day, I said YES.  At the time, all our babies were on the same nap schedule, so the plan was for all of us to meet at someone's house, enjoy some pizza, put the babies down for nap and enjoy our two hours of chore-free craft time.  Everyone brings their own thing to work on.  We kept it up weekly for a while, but schedules and changing nap patterns got the best of us.  We still get together periodically, and when I got a text right after New Year's asking if I was up for a craft day, I said YOU BET.

So today we enjoyed an All the Meats from Papa John's and a solid two hour nap from the kiddos.  I got a lot of pieces cut for daughter's quilt, and I think I'm about halfway done.  Rotary cutters are awesome.  Even better are the thick plastic templates that help keep lines straight and shapes all squared up.  I'm especially fond of the Fons & Porter 6x6 Square Up Ruler that I picked up a few weeks ago.  I figured I needed it after none of the seams in my first quilt lined up.  I'm glad I got it, because it made this job a lot easier:

I finished my calculations last night and determined that the basic repeating shape for my quilt would be a 3" square.  This means I have to cut 3.5" squares.  No problem, especially since the other template I have is 3.5" wide and I can run strips quickly.  However, the fabric in the picture above was not as easy to cut as I planned.  The quilt design I'm using has a diagonal setting, but I want the stripes in this fabric to be vertical in the finished quilt.  AND I want them to line up.  After messing up several squares last night by trying to cut 3.5" strips, I realized each one was going to have to be cut individually if I wanted the center stripe to go straight down the middle of each piece.  I now fully understand the meaning of the term "fussy cut," even though it usually applies to a much larger floral print.

The fussy cutting also threw a kink in my math.  I bought four yards of this fabric (again, don't buy fabric without a Plan), but I knew I couldn't have it all sitting on the table while I cut tiny squares off one end.  So I did some geometry to figure out what length of 44" fabric would give me 56 3.5" diagonally set squares (The answer is 17.3" - I guess I owe my geometry teacher a thank you)  So I cut a 19" piece to be safe and it all would have been fine except that the blasted stripes are a half an inch too far apart for it to work out properly.  So the 19" piece of fabric I took to craft day only yielded 45 or so squares and I'm going to have to cut another hunk off the big fabric piece.  Not a big deal, I have plenty :)

Next steps: continue knitting the scarf as time allows and cut more squares during naptime.

Ironing It Out

I spent some serious time ironing today.  All morning I looked for little pockets of time to trim fabric pieces - while daughter finished her breakfast, while waiting for my friend to come by for his photo op.  I finally got it all separated by mid-afternoon, and then spent about two hours ironing.  Remind me next time that shopping for fabric without a plan is a Bad Idea and will always result in overbuying and thus overironing.

I zoned out a little while DH played with our daughter before dinner and started sketching out a plan for daughter's quilt. After three drafts, I finally have one that I like.  Since the fabric is all washed and ironed, I'm ready to start cutting it, but I need to double check my math first.  They always say, measure twice, cut once.  I'm using the "Medallion Magic" quilt design from Quick Colorful Quilts for Beautiful Beds (Rosemary Wilkinson, editor), but I'm making a crib-size quilt, so I have to scale it down. If my calculations are right, I'll be knee high in 3" fabric squares tomorrow.  Again, remind me next time that shopping for fabric without a plan is a Bad Idea and may result in owning yards and yards of fabric that have no purpose.  I have at least three cuts of fabric that I thought I might use for this project, and in fact they don't match at all and have been rejected.

I also got the vinyl attached to the bib fabric for #29.  I had to wash the dirty bib pile today, so when the one I want to copy is dry + I have time, I'll mark up the vinyl/fabric assembly for cutting. 

I would also like to brag on my friend who popped by today.  I thought he was only coming to do campaign-style shots, but it turns out he is also recently engaged, and brought his fiancee along for some photos as well.  Congratulations you two!  All the best wishes for a great election season and a wonderful life beyond.  I'm honored you wanted to use my house for photos.

What's next - double-checking measurements and cutting lots of squares!!!

Blustery Day

We woke up this morning to a blustery, snowy day. DH, my go-to source for weather information, said if I wanted to go out today, I'd better go soon. As we were completely out of paper towels (which we discovered while frying egg rolls - not a good time to run out of paper towels), and milk is a required purchase when snow is coming, I bundled up my daughter and we trudged out to the grocery store.  I went out with just a knit hat on my head, but after unloading groceries, buckling my daughter in the car, and putting up the cart in 28 degrees, I wished I had put on something substantial.  My daughter seemed to be enjoying the weather, but I figured that I'd better step up the priority on her scarf so she has a little extra insulation when we go out to play.  I'd estimate it's halfway finished at this point.  I worked on it before nap and after (I joined in on nap today, but shouldn't have as I woke up with an eye-splitting sinus headache), and then got caught up in other things, like dinner.

Dinner tonight was fried rice using leftover Dijon Pork that we made from Don't Panic - Dinner's in the Freezer: Great-Tasting Meals You Can Make Ahead.  The roast was really good, but it made so much that we had to mix it up.

During dinner, I was reminded - again - that my daughter has totally outgrown all of her bibs.  I need to make her some new ones (project #29). I have all the stuff.  I just have to get started.  After dinner I started to get out the ironing board and attach the iron-on vinyl to the fabric, but then I remembered I stitched the fabric for it with the quilt fabric yesterday and it still needed to get washed.  So now that's in the dryer, and soon I can recover it and get it going.

Speaking of fabric, here's the assortment that's going into my daughter's quilt (project #3):

I wanted something sort of shabby chic, white with tiny pink roses, but couldn't find anything that was quite what I wanted at the store.  Instead, the stripe pattern on the left jumped out at me and I couldn't leave it alone, so I picked fabrics I thought went with it.  Now that I have it out again and I'm looking at it at home, I'm ambivalent about the whites, but I'll try a few blocks and see how it goes.

I also got a phone call from a friend today who's running for office, and wants to come by tomorrow for a photo op.  No problem, except I still haven't cleaned the entry from Christmas madness.  But this is actually a great thing, because now it will get cleaned and DH will be super excited.  In the process of cleaning my desk, I realized a pencil can that used to be in the kitchen was now getting scooted around on the bare wood top.  This IS a problem.  Fortunately I had some felt left over from a previous project.  I cut a piece to fit the bottom and attached it with some trusty Aleene's Tacky Glue.

I have lots of these cans around the house.  Coffee cans, oatmeal canisters, formula cans.  Anything that doesn't have a sharp edge at the top is a good candidate.  I just make sure the inside is clean, and I attach some pretty paper from the scrapbooking aisle with Elmers Craft Bond Paper Craft Glue Gel.

So, when that can is dry, it can go back on the newly cleaned desktop and I won't have to worry about scratches.

What's up next: ironing out bib fabric and putting the vinyl on it, continuing the scarf.

Egg Rolls and Projects 1-3

Happy New Year!  I'm looking forward to 2012.  Hope it is a great year for everyone.

We celebrated the new year with a fantastic feast of egg rolls, spinach dip, and black-eyed peas.  DH did most of the cooking, but I helped by rolling the egg rolls and toasting some italian bread for the dip.  The egg rolls were wonderful and crunchy and especially nice with duck sauce.  We did the recipe as is, except that we used a bag of cole slaw shred instead of chopping cabbage and carrots.  I love that DH's mom has a tradition of making these on New Year's Day; it's a tradition I'm very happy to continue.  The spinach dip was pretty good, especially after we added the crushed red pepper, although Emeril's recipe still tops my list.  I like spinach dip with artichokes and LOTS of jack cheese.  And you can't beat black-eyed peas for comfort food.  DH made the recipe pretty much as written except he omitted the tomato sauce.  We had a really nice smoked ham in the freezer and the fatty bits made the beans really tasty.

As far as crafts go, I got a lot done this afternoon. One of the things you have to do before you start a quilt is wash and press all the fabric you're going to use.  This is important so that any shrinking happens before you cut quilt pieces instead of after, potentially making them the wrong size.  Also recommended is stitching the raw edges of your fabric before washing.  To my newbie self, this seemed unnecessary, but after pulling balls of tangled fabric and string from the washer and cutting them to bits just trying to separate them, I can vouch that this indeed important.  (It's also a great way to finish off spools of thread that are not enough to do anything else with.)  So I got out all the fabric for the duvet cover as well as the quilt I have planned for my daughter (project #3), and spent naptime running basting stitches down all the raw edges of the fabric. Some of them I stitched together at the edges to save time.  Seeing all the fabric sewn up next to each other is exciting and I'm ready to see what it looks like when I start to piece it.  In all honesty, I don't have a plan for my daughter's quilt but looking at the fabric this afternoon gave me some ideas. I'm thinking a pattern of different size squares... for the moment.

I also got a few more rows done on the scarf for my daughter (project #2).  I worked while I watched Tristan and Isolde last night, and a little bit this afternoon between sewing and making egg rolls.  I started it just before Christmas using a partial ball of white acrylic baby yarn left over from the baby blanket I made while I was pregnant.

To do list: continue knitting rows on scarf, investigate patterns for daughter's quilt and make a decision.