New Year - back to the old...

The New Year has started - goodbye to pneumonia infested 2010 (which was a fine year otherwise)!

As I sat behind my sewing machine this weekend, I realized that I had not actually been behind my machine since October!!! How I have missed it!

My crafty plans for the new year mostly involve revisiting abandoned projects. Remember this quilt? It was intended as a gift for my husband's 40th birthday. I am now aiming to finish it during his 40th year. Ambitious? Not really, but probably more realistic.

For quality couch and new TV show time, I have pulled out another WIP. Rember these?:

I'm working on making them into this:

This project is inspired by Yvestown's crochet blanket which I have long admired. Regrettably, I bought plastic yarn (cheap acrylic). I wasn't sure that I knew how to crochet well enough to invest in nicer fiber. I regret my choice. It's just not as much fun to crochet when you are running cheap acrylic across your winter chapped hands. Blechy! Good thing the colours are enough to draw me back into the project. Perhaps these colours will help to combat the grey, dreary weather that is happening right now? Brrr.

Zombie stitching...

Does anybody else have their attention span just melt in the heat?

I have had to resort to super simple stitching to accomodate my lazy summer attitude.

We have spent much of the summer with a cold beverage in hand in company of friends and family. It's been a restful summer (for the most part - let's not talk about the day it "rained" in the dining room - darn you roof! Grrrr).

Back to restful, mindless, summer stitching:

I have also been taken hostage to the allure of the hexagon. I have been amassing a humongous pile. Originally I had decided that I would make an entire hexagon quilt from my Anna Maria Horner fabrics (don't they seem so bohemian, Horner fabrics and hexies???). 100s (and I DO mean 100s!) of hexagons in, I have changed my mind and decided that hexagons look best as a mish-mash of scraps of fabric. Once again I fall prey to my indecisiveness. No matter. I will need years of hexagons to ever end up with a quilt. I view this as a project that I will keep coming back to over the years.

Maybe I should sign myself up in some hexagon swaps to trade some Horner hexies for other fabrics???


In the meanwhile, I have abandoned my mindless hand work for a simple patchwork baby blanket. Can't wait to spend some time sitting behind my sewing machine. It's been a while!


Happy summer stitching to all!

Goodbye 2009...

Goodbye millions of woven ends...

Goodbye champagne (OK...really delicious Italian prosecco).

Goodbye 2009!

A new obsession...

As you can see, I have invested NO time in weaving in the ends...but I will. It has been so much fun coming up with colour combinations from the selection of yarn that I treated myself to during my greedy post Christmas excursion (posted about here).

I have been obsessing a little bit over the idea of this afghan for quite some time now. A small search of the internet shows me that I am not alone in my obsession. There are quite a number of lovely and helpful tutorials for a beginner (like me!).

1. yvestown blog
2. 1/4 of an inch
3. Posy (this is a lovely blog that I have followed for quite some time now - check it out!)

Don't you just love it when something is sooooo beautiful that it inspires you to try to master a new crafty skill??

I hope that you are all managing to carve out some peaceful, crafty time during the holiday. I must admit to many evenings in my pyjamas puttering through projects while watching TV. Truly enjoyable! Especially when you add in a glass of red wine and some Christmas treats.

Happy New Year one and all!

The one in which I am not that smart...

My crafty stories today very clearly demonstrate what a quilting novice I truly am. I wonder if when other people say "self taught" they have had to rip out the same (very high!) number of stitches that I am ripping out in my new hobby? Oh well...I see seam ripping time as time to come out of the sewing room and enjoy a bit of television.

I (FINALLY!) started quilting my zig zag quilt. I thought that I would do some straight line quilting because I really admire how clean the straight line quilting at Red Pepper Quilts looks.

I had measured the width of my walking foot and decided that I would use the edge of the foot as my guide for 3/4" spaced lines. Here is the part where I am not smart - I didn't really account for the fact that the needle travels down the centre of the 3/4" measurement. The result? Extreme busy-ness on busy-ness. Not pretty.



So....I learned something about how to measure.

I also came to the realisation that what I really liked about the quilts that I had seen at Red Pepper was exactly what my quilt is NOT! Calm, quiet, soothing and linear. This does not mean that I don't like my quilt...it is bright and bohemian. It just means that this is not the quilt with which I should try to emulate a crisp, clean style.

Here is the plain old zig zag quilting that I did (once I had finished watching some TV and ripping out the previous straight quilting):

Much cleaner stitching against all the ziggy-zagginess and the bright, bold colours and pattern.

I also enjoyed some quality time with a glass (or two!) of red wine and a movie (Vicky Cristina Barcelona). Clearly I was too into the movie (or the wine!) and I made a mistake in my ripple blanket. Can you spot it? I didn't until I was a few hours past my mistake. Boo!

I'm off for some quality time with the TV and crochet ripping out.