For the Birds

I couldn't really quilt anything this past week. The diamond tabletopper requires special needles that work for metallic thread and the fox baby quilt was waiting on me to purchase some new equipment. So I started a new project to keep me busy in the meantime.

I didn't really take many photos as I went, but this is where it's at now. The pattern can be found in Table Please: Part Two from Art to Heart by Nancy Halvorsen.

A fun combination of needle turn applique and piecing. And it's been kitted up for 3 or 4 years at this point. I did switch out one of the original batiks in favor of the bright yellow one for the top center bird. It's roughly 26 inches square and was designed as a tabletopper, but I've added hanging loops to make it more versatile.

If you poke the photo, you can see some of the quilting details clearer. Usually I make the binding before I quilt a piece, but it's taken me all week to decide how I want the binding to look. All that's left is to make a label, make and attach the binding, and then do the hand finishing. Not bad for a week's work!

Once the binding's attached, I'll get the diamond tabletopper quilted. The necessary needles came in last Tuesday.

Then it will be time to play with my new toys and start the fox quilt. I picked up a set of Westalee rulers yesterday. For anyone unfamiliar with the product, it's basically Spirograph for quilting. I'm looking forward to upping my quilting game on the smaller pieces I decide to do myself at home.

I'll be dropping the sea turtle Dresden top and back off with the long armer on the 14th. She's got several quilts in line that need to be done for the county fair, so she won't get to mine until after.

That's all for now. I'll leave you with some cuteness while I get to making some quilt binding. Tare care and stay cool!

Dodging An Expensive Bullet, Completing A Class, A U.F.O., and Another Class

When I left off last week, I was playing with the homework from my quilting class. I was also finishing up reorganizing many of the unfinished projects and fabrics I'd purchased with projects in mind. I had a stack of gorgeous fat quarters that needed put away in my generic quilting stash, so I went to do that. That's when I remembered my stash bin was over full and that I could pull out some of the kitted projects from there and give them the same organizational treatment as the others.

It seemed like a fantastic idea and I started pulling out fabrics destined to be things. That's when I heard an odd noise. Like little rattling things hitting hard surfaces. I started digging. That when I found: seeds.

It seems a mouse decided my stash bin would be the best place to have a larder for winter. After uttering some phrases that would make a sailor stop, think, and turn crimson, I started digging some more... and sniffing as I went. The universe was apparently trying to create some balance for all the recent frustrations I've had because there were no rodent corpses, no feces, no urine, and no chewed up fabric. Just lots and lots of seeds.

FuzzyHusband helped me move the giant bin out of storage and I started sorting by color family. Thankfully I'd also just purchased a box of color catchers by Shout. Those things saved my stash because they caught all the loose dye as I washed every scrap of fabric to remove any mouse taint. Because... ick.

While I was at it, I finally got around to reorganizing the stash into manageable 16 QT bins that are clear and labeled them. Small price to pay to save a few hundred dollars (or more) worth of fabric. Seventeen bins in all and that doesn't count: where the batiks are stored, some fabric I set aside for a mystery quilt, and another 3 fabrics that I have multiple yards of to make some luggage accessories. The last one is tied up in a clean pillow case because I ran out of bins. Once I finish some more small quilted things, I'll free up a bin. No sense in buying more.

Once all the laundry was done and the holiday was over, I was able to go get more fabric to bind my little basket mini quilt. It's finished now and I"m quite pleased with it!

In all of the cleaning I did in the previous week, many old projects rolled back out into the light of day. Remember this one? I just needed to make a label and finish a single corner of the binding... 3 years ago. Its finished now too!

That brings me to today. I took another quilting class and have quite a bit of work ahead of me. I"m only going to tease you with the "before" photo because I want to get back to sewing.

Now I'm going to go finish the quilting on my friend's quilt and then start back on my quilting class homework. See you next weekend! Oh and Ellie says, "zzzzzzzzzz."

Whoops, forgot a title! Oh well!

Well I finally finished the binding on this baby quilt. Now to get it delivered.

Pixel was very helpful in making sure I stayed seated to work.

Mercedes made sure I celebrated May the Fourth. I think she just wanted the cookies I was giving her for wearing the BB-8 head boppy thing.

In other news, our area is experiencing a bit of flooding. Nothing horrifying, just the sidewalks and parking areas down by the riverfront. I took these photos as they were closing the sidewalks in preparation for the high water.

So I've had to find temporary haunts for playing Pokemon GO for the time being. But better than getting wet feet.

That's all for now. I have to figure out what the next UFO I tackle will be. And the parts I had to order for the crochet project I started a while back have gotten here, so I might dig that back out. We'll see what sounds good as the week progresses. See you next time!

A Veritable Flood of Yarn

Lots of fiber related things have been happening this week!

First off are my Icy Owl Warmers. I bought the pattern on Ravelry. It's called "Country Owl Wrist Warmers" for anyone interested.

Then since FuzzyHusband asked oh so nicely, I made him a new hat because Real Men Respect Pink. (That's the clever title I gave the project on Ravelry.) This was a free Ravelry download called "Pussy Hat Project." 

Then I made myself a little something fun. I'm going to work this pattern up again at some point as I really enjoyed it. This is my Mammoth Cave Infinity Scarf. Mammoth Cave is the name of the yarn color. The pattern is free on Ravelry and is called the Savannah Infinity Scarf.

Now I'm almost finished with a new project! This is a free pattern on Lion Brand's website and is called Twisted Wave Cowl.  It's currently the length called for in the pattern, but for it to lay correctly on myself it needs to be a bit longer. So I'm going to see what another 6 inches looks like on it.

Now I bought myself a bit of a treat Saturday.

The caveat is I can't play with it until I finish the cowl from above, a hat/ear warmer thing that I've queued up, AND figured out what this mess is and fished what's in the bag.

I really only have a couple of guesses as to what's in that bag. It's been kicking around for a couple of years now. Here's hoping I get it figured out and everything finished so I can get my reward!

Now for a little something different. My niece (her mom is my "sister from another mister") had a painting party for her Sweet 16. I didn't feel much like painting a tree, so I did a kelp forest instead.

So that's all for now, I need to get this house tidied up, laundry done, some sewing worked on, and the back to the crochet. I might be late in posting next weekend. We'll be traveling for another family birthday. Just an FYI. Take care, everyone!

Technical Difficulties

We've been having issues all week with the internet. It was assumed the reason I couldn't stay connected to Twitch for live streaming was due to the big E3 conference last week. Mnay other streamer friends were having similar issues. However, E3's apparent bandwidth requirements weren't the only culprit. The modem is dying.

As I type this, I don't know if I'll be able to hit "Publish" and actually get a positive result. I'm keeping this short and sweet for that reason.

Since I couldn't stream, I sat with my foot up and sewed tiny plush elephants. They'd been cut out years ago and some of them were mostly (and poorly) done. I say poorly as I was under tremendous stress when I first started these pint-sized pachyderms and it shows in my stitching.

The three on the left are the originals. The four on the right in various states of assembled are the ones I started playing with on Tuesday. They all have eyes, ears, and tusks now but for the sake of expediency, I'm not taking a newer photo.

I did make two pairs of fat quarter bundle earrings on Monday before the stream crashed 6 times. However I don't have a picture of them. They will have to wait until next week.

I'm cutting posting this close enough as it is. FH and I will be replacing the modem after the sun comes up and hopefully we won't have more connection issues. I really missed streaming this past week. It just wasn't the same.

So see you all next week! Until then, take care!

Another Old UnFinished Object-Now Finished

This time it's a piece of mini stitching.  It predates me meeting the local mini group back in college.  I was given the kit by a lady in one of my history classes.  We were partners for a class project and when I was at her house I saw her amazing dollhouse.  She had one of these "Welcome" mats finished at the front door.

When the semester was over she invited me back over for a wine, chocolate, and mini party.  We had a lovely time and came away with some duplicate things she had kicking around in her stash.

The rug never got finished back then because the finishing instructions were just too strange.  I thought I'd understand them better now since I've had more stitching experience and whatnot.  I was sorely mistaken.

After puzzling through them unsuccessfully for 30 minutes I said, "(insert choice expletive here) this.  I know Casey doesn't do it this way.  There's probably a reason."  Off I went to Casey's blog and I was right.  She finishes mini needlepoint rugs this way.

The first thing I did was to stitch another round of border.  It didn't look finished enough before.  In fact in that picture above you can see that I forgot to take a "before" picture until after I'd started the new border.

So here it is after 15 or so years of being unfinished:

Thanks, Casey!  :-)

I plan on doing at least one more in the hopes that I can show my tension has improved with time.  But somehow it just didn't seem right letting this one remain a UFO.

Some of you may be wondering when I'm going to get around to the curtains I mentioned on Sunday.  Well it's still Sunday night... I'm writing this post to update on Monday afternoon whilst I'm uber-busy with Guild things.  The fabric for said curtains is in the washing machine and is headed for the dryer in about five minutes.  I plan on trying out the curtain instructions at the meeting tomorrow.  I'm also trying out this "schedule a blog post" thing for the first time, so I apologize if it doesn't work correctly.  If it works I'll try to utilize it more in the future so I can blog more often again.

One More Addition-Reviving A Long-Forgotten UnFinished Object

And I think that the Shabby Chic Shop it completed (for the moment) now.  I found a forgotten, neglected, and unfinished Chrysenbon clock kit in my stash.  I had painted it pale yellow and tried (valiantly) to paint ivy on it.  Needless to say that failed miserably and it sat in my stash for the better part of a decade incomplete and unloved.  The brass cover for the pendulum had vanished somewhere in that time.  Apparently I had decided to no use the brass piece that the clock face is supposed to sit in.  Instead that sticker was directly on the plastic.  Happily it came back off and the brass clock front had not joined the pendulum cover.  Here's what it looks like now.  I must apologize for not taking a "before" picture.  It was late at night when I finally found it and by then the plan just took over.

When I found it again I rubbed a light coat of gesso over the original paint and then wiped it off.  I only wanted to tone down the previous colors.  Then coated the whole thing in a thick coat of crackle medium.  After ten minutes or so I slathered on some white paint.

When that was dry I dry-brushed a little bit of pink onto the sides and decorative edges.  Then I reattached the clock face in the brass cover and glued it in place.  A rare stroke of genius told me to glue a sea shell in place of the brass pendulum cover. 

So now it is finished, loved, and in place.

 Once I finish catching up on real housework I'll get back to the Porch.  I'm waiting on an order from miniatures.com with some necessary bits in it but there's still plenty to do without it.  My mom was here for four days, so I'm running behind with getting things back in order.  She's an enabler... I pointed at a roombox kit in the HBS catalog and told her my idea for it and she handed me money to order it.  *sigh*  One more project in the pipeline now....

Hopefully I will have something to show you tomorrow or Thursday.  See you then! 

Irritating Respite

FH suggested I pick up a small UFO (unfinished object) and use it as a distraction from the frustration of frogging the white in the Flowerpot Kitty. The project in question was started when I was in junior high school (18+ years ago) and was never finished for one reason or another.

Here's the original amount of progress.
And here is what I've managed to get done, as I work around the numerous mistakes that my pre-teen self made in this piece.I have stopped counting every mistake I find because it's just too irritating. Instead I'm pretty much doodling with thread right now in the attempt to create the lattice around the flowers. The other vexing issue with this piece is the remainder of the lighter green has gone walkabout. I need it for some back stitching of flowers, but I will make something work. I could have used it to repair the biggest mistake...

The original kit shows the blue butterflies studded with yellow French knots which I believe I shall replace with straight stitches which I think will look less clunky.

This week will be quite busy. Monday I am on the quest for supplies for a needlepoint class. Tuesday members of the stitching guild and I have the pleasure of meeting the instructor for a demonstration of rag rug techniques, lunch, and shopping. Then on Wednesday we have the actual class. I should have pictures Wednesday.