Happy Easter!

Hi all -

I hope you are all having a wonderful Easter Sunday! I don't really celebrate Easter myself, but I did watch some new Craftsy videos and do some knitting and quilting. Now I'm watching the last two games in the Elite Eight round of the NCAA men's basketball tournament. Sadly, Kansas lost yesterday so my team is out of the tournament, but Oklahoma, another Big 12 team, and North Carolina, another favorite of mine, are still in the tournament so I still have teams to root for. North Carolina plays tonight, so we'll see if they can make it into the Final Four.

Spring started this week, so we celebrated with a little blizzard. We got something over 2 feet at my house. We've had a lot worse in the past, but this is enough wet, heavy snow to really know you're shoveling! Here's a view out my front door:

The snow hadn't stopped at this point, but it was mostly done and my power was back on so I decided to start the shoveling. I took some pictures after starting to try to give some idea of the snow depth:

Here's the gate before shoveling:

And after:

Luckily, I don't have to leave the house in storms like this!

So, what have I been working on this week? I've done some more knitting, which is a good thing to work on when listening to basketball games that you don't need to watch closely. I'm still working on using up the yarn for that old blanket. I still have full skeins left, but I decided to start working on knitting things while unraveling the blanket:

It works pretty well to knit while you unravel! First, I made part of a hat from the pink band that had been at the top of the blanket:

I had to put this aside when I got to the dark mauve band, so I finished this hat:

and made this cowl:

Here is Lance modeling both:

He actually loves the modeling because he knows he gets a good treat afterwards!

On the knitting side, I watched the videos for the new Craftsy class "Wild Quilting: Creative Free-Motion Combinations" by Christina Cameli. I've seen this type of quilting called "Grafitti Quilting" elsewhere and I've known for a long time that this is how I want to quilt my Bonnie Hunter Grand Illusion quilt. I had basted this quilt on the longarm with water-soluable thread last fall when I basted my sister's wedding quilt. So I got the quilt out and started quilting. The quilt is really wild so it's really hard to see the quilting, which is why I figured I could go for something fun. I decided to use a bright green Glide thread because I want the quilting to give the quilt a green glow. Here's some of the quilting on the front:

The pin in the lower-right corner is marking where my bobbin ran out so I know where to start up again. And here is some of the quilting on the back, where you can see it a bit better:

My "formula" is scattered big flowers of different types and pairs of leaves with a swirly background fill that she calls "bear claw" and some straight line quilting to fill in odd spaces that appear between the designs. I haven't gotten very far, but I'm really liking what I have. And if I got bored of doing this, I can switch to other designs as I move along.

While doing this quilting, I'm reminded of a couple of "features" of the new machine that I actually don't like. They both have to do with turning the machine off and back on again. With my other machines, if you turn the machine off with the needle in the fabric, the needle will stay in the fabric when you turn it back on. With the new machine, the needle comes out of the fabric when you turn it on. It's not a huge deal because I can use the hand crank to get the needle back in where it was, but I have to remember that it does this so I don't accidentally shift the quilt too far before putting the needle back in. The other, similar issue is with the tension. My other machines have mechanical tensions (I believe), so the tension setting stays where it was when you turn the machine off and back on again. Since the new machine has an automatic tension, it resets when you turn the machine on so I have to remember where I had it set and reset it before I start. Not difficult problems, but not ideal either. But the machine does stitch smoothly and beautifully and I love the extra harp space!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful spring!!

Nancy

Poolside Tote

Hi all -

This is my second blog post in my quote challenge from Terry Knott. Thanks again, Terry, for including me! If you get a chance, head over to see what she's working on. Here is my quote for today:

“If I’m going to sing like someone else, then I don’t need to sing at all.” ~Billie Holiday

This is a good reminder to me to find my own voice, which is something that I struggle with.

While most of my time this week was spent watching basketball, I did get my Poolside Tote finished:

This was another bag kit that I bought from Craftsy last year on sale. The instructions for this bag were great! I think this bag will be good for carrying projects to sew day.

While watching basketball (Go Jayhawks!!), I've been doing some more knitting. I started with this hat (recognize the yarn? You'll be seeing a lot of it...):

I got to the point where I need to start tapering down to the top, but I don't have the right size double-pointed needles. I ordered the needles I need, but I might try finishing this up with the "magic loop" method. In the meantime, I made this headband:

This is the companion yarn to the yarn above. It's hard to tell in the pictures, but the headband is pink while the hat is a dark mauve. And, per request, here's Lance modeling the headband:

He loves it!

On the quilting side, I haven't accomplished anything but I've been thinking about the Hoffman Challenge. I have the fabric and have some ideas. I would like to chronicle that journey in my blog for my own records, but don't want to show that to others who are also doing the challenge and my not what to see what I'm doing. So, I think I will include any information about the Hoffman Challenge at the end of my blog posts. I'll put a warning message and then bunches of blank space so you would have to scroll down to see it. Hopefully, this will satisfy my need to chronicle what I'm doing, without revealing anything to those who don't want to see it.

Nancy

Geo Pop Canvas Tote

Hi all -

I've been invited by a friend to join in a quote challenge. The rules of the challenge are to:

1 - Thank the person who nominated me.
2 - Post a quote a day for 3 days.
3 - Each day nominate 3 new bloggers to take part.

So, many thanks to Terry Knott for nominating me! You can follow her quilting journey here. She makes a lot of beautiful quilts and shares her design process along the way. Very interesting!

For the second part, I don't blog daily so I'll share quotes in three blogs. I want to share quotes about creativity and inspiration, but the state of the world (and our country in particular) has been weighing heavily on my mind so I had to go to with this:

"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."
-- Albert Einstein

I promise I'll be more positive in my next quotes!

I'll have to skip the third rule because I don't follow very many blogs. There just aren't enough hours in the day!

Now on to what I've been working on......

Last year I purchased a couple of kits for bags from Craftsy when they were on sale. I decided it was time to get those made. I was able to finish the first one since my last blog. The pattern is called the "Geo Pop Canvas Bag". I felt the instructions were pretty poor, but the bag did turn out nice:

I've also continued with my knitting. I finished the mobius cowl that I had started in my last blog post. I really like how it turned out. By request, here is Lance modeling it:

You can't see it well because Wesley was pretty sure that he needed to be in the picture, too. You can wear it long, like Lance is doing above, or you can double it up to keep your neck warmer:

And here you can see the lace patterning with a little bit of cabling and you get an idea of what the picot bind off looks like:

This was my first attempt at the picot bind off (which I had never heard of before) and it doesn't look as good as the picture in the book, but I still like it a lot.

I also made another cowl:

This one is made with some yarn that I bought 25 or so years ago to make a crocheted blanket. A friend showed me how to crochet and I started the blanket and then put it aside and when I went back to it years later, I couldn't remember how I did it so I couldn't finish it. I had bought a bunch of yarn to make sure that I didn't run out, so now I want to use it up making stuff to put in my bag for the homeless next fall. This yarn is a bit stiff:

but I think it's still pretty and will definitely keep someone warm. You'll be seeing a lot more stuff made with this yarn in the future......

And, finally, just a little picture of Lance enjoying our spring-like weather:

This is shear relaxation and joy in the sunshine! Of course, I always have to check for breathing when I first see him out there like this....

Nancy

Chevron Quilt

Hi all -

It's been a slow year so far, but I did finally get some quilting done. Well, I got some piecing done, but it's the same thing in my mind. I've been having trouble with my quilting muse lately so I decided to look for a piecing project that I might enjoy. Then I remembered a chevron quilt I started last spring. I'd seen several chevron quilts online with some gorgeous quilting and I really wanted to make one for myself. The ones I'd seen were constructed from half-square triangles. I didn't like the extra seams that the half-square triangles create, so I decided to piece mine in columns. Then I realized that if I pieced in columns, then I could easily vary the widths of my chevrons and that excited me so I got out a piece of paper and started doing some calculations, then pulled out a bunch of Kaffe Fassett fabrics and a matching solid and set to work. I cut my fabrics into the rectangles I had calculated and started sewing. To sew the columns, I started by laying neighboring pieces at right angles and drew a line from corner to corner:

I then stitched on that line and also stitched another line about 1/2" from the first:

This second line of stitching allowed me to easily create bonus half-square triangles for another project. I then cut between the lines of stitching:

To make chevrons, I had to make sure to make half of the blocks in one direction and half in the other:

After pressing, I had a portion of my columns:

Thinking ahead, I pressed the seams in opposite directions so the seams would nest when I sewed the columns together:

And I got these extra half-square triangles:

When I picked this project up again now, I had about half of the above units finished, so I made the rest of these units and then started putting the columns together. This was done with exactly the same method:

Once the columns were finished, I was able to sew them together. That's when I found a couple of mistakes. I must have cut a couple of the rectangles too narrow because the columns didn't line up in two places. Oops! Now I had to do some repairs. I started by removing the bad pieces and cutting rectangles to replace them. Here is a replacement piece next to the spot where I took out the bad pieces:

So that I could line things up correctly, I drew a line on the replacement piece. Sorry I didn't get a picture of the line on the above replacement piece, but this gives you and idea of what I did. For the above pieces, the replacement piece would be rotated to the right so the yellow fabric would be on the left and the line would start in the yellow and end in the solid:

I then lined the straight edge of the original column along the drawn line:

Now I could again draw a stitching line from corner to corner. I did a lot of pinning at this point since I was dealing with a raw bias edge and I didn't want it to move. Then I took it back to the sewing machine and sewed along the drawn line and trimmed away the excess:

Voila, that piece was fixed:

Then I just had to fix the other pieces and sew the columns together:

I love how this turned out! I'm not sure when I'll start the quilting, but it might have to be soon since I'm thinking of writing up a pattern for this quilt and seeing if I can sell it on Craftsy or somewhere.

I've also been continuing with my knitting. I made another hat using the same yarn as a previous one:

The picture looks blue, but the yarn really is green. I also made myself a soap sack:

I have a bunch of bar soap, but I rarely use it in the shower because I hate how it slips out of your hand and I hate dealing with the small pieces. I think this will help a lot. And if I like it, I might make more for my family for Christmas. It's always good to find gifts they might like! And I found a bunch of different patterns so they don't have to be all the same.

My final knitting project has been more work. It's going to be a mobius cowl. I had to learn a new mobius cast-on before I could start. It was difficult to get all of those stitches right and I had to start over 4 or 5 times, but I finally got it right:

It doesn't look like much in the picture, but these are 40" circular needles with the wire doubled up on itself so it looks like a 20" loop. So you sew around both sides and end up where you started and the cast-on stitches will end up in the middle of the cowl. Here it is after some more stitching:

And a close-up of the side:

Now that I have the cast-on figured out, the stitching itself is going fairly quickly considering there are 400 stitches in each round. The pattern calls for a picot bind-off, which I've never seen or heard of, so hopefully that'll go better than the cast-on did!

That's it for now! Hopefully I'll start making more progress on things so I'll be able to post more frequently. I'd like to get back to my weekly posts if I can.

Nancy

Jammie Pants Galore!

Hi all -

I've been finding that the quilting muse hasn't been visiting me lately so I've been concentrating my efforts in other places. My biggest project lately has been the making of jammie pants. I love flannel jammie pants and have a pattern that's perfect for me. Since I work at home most of the time, I really spend a lot of time in these pants. (I probably shouldn't admit that....) I've been collecting on-sale flannel for a while and decided it was time to get these piles of fabric out of my stash and into my drawers so I just completed six new pairs of jammie pants:

Hopefully the UPS guy will appreciate all of the new colors and patterns he'll get to see! I always buy a lot of extra flannel for these since fabric manufacturers are really skimping on fabric width and I always prewash so I often don't have anywhere near the required 44/45" of fabric width, so I have a jammie pants quilt somewhere in my future. That'll be fun!

The other little bit of sewing I've done lately was making a gift bag to hold my friend's birthday gift. A couple of weeks ago, this friend gave me a big bag of specialty fabrics that she wasn't going to use. I always take it all in and hope that a use will come along. As I was getting ready for her birthday, I thought it would be fun to make a gift bag out of one of her fabrics:

I think it turned out beautiful! The main fabric was a moderately heavy, shiny, slightly slippery fabric that seemed to fray fairly easily. To tame the fabric, I fused some Pellon Shape-Flex to the back of the fabric. It worked really well and added some body to the bag. For the bag lining, I just used a solid black quilting cotton (Moda Bella).  It sewed up nicely, but I'll be ordering some slippery lining fabrics for future gift bags since, even though these are harder to sew with, they make it easier to slip gifts into and out of the bag.

It was really fun giving her the gift. When she saw the bag, her face lit up and she said that she thought she had some of this fabric at home. With a smile, I told her that she didn't. She got a quizzical look on her face and said she was pretty sure she had some. Then, all of a sudden, she realized what she had done with the fabric and where I had gotten it. We both had a good laugh!

Along with the sewing, I've continued to work on my knitting. The first project I made was another scarf. This one I made out of a really pretty acrylic yarn that had frequent color changes. I thought this would be a nice pattern for a long scarf that could be wrapped around the neck twice, if desired, so I just kept knitting until it seemed to be a good length:

Of course, I have to make poor Lance model it for you because everything looks good on him!

Doesn't he look thrilled???


The second project I made was a pair of fingerless mitts. I wanted to learn the technique where you knit both mitts on a pair of circular needles so that you complete both pairs at the same time and also are sure to have the same number of rows in each. In my Craftsy class that teaches this, she had a pattern for fingerless mitts knit out of a bulky yarn, so I used that pattern so I could easily follow along with what she was doing. The technique worked well for me, but the mitts turned out terrible. I'm still figuring out how to determine what yarn to use for each project, especially since a lot of patterns (including this one) only specify which yarn she used and the gauge that she got, but not the weight (worsted, bulky, super bulky, etc) of the yarn. I wanted to use something out of my yarn stash so I picked a yarn but it ended up being a little too thick:

Actually, the part around the hand is okay, but the thumb is ridiculous. The picture that went with the pattern didn't show the thumb at all so I don't know what hers looked like. But these will still keep someone's hands warm, so they're fine.

My other knitting project was a washcloth for my friend's birthday (her main gift was a large photography book, so this wasn't the only thing in that big gift bag):

I really like how this turned out and she seemed to be really happy to receive it.

Well, that's all for now. I'm hoping to move back to quilting soon. I'll let you know when I get there.

Nancy

Winter Wonderland

Hi all -

I thought I'd share pictures of our first big snow of the season. I define a "big" snow as one that I have to shovel. We've had other storms, but none were more than about 8" so I was able to just drive over the snow and smash it down rather than shoveling. The latest storm started on Sunday and finished up yesterday, leaving behind about 18" of snow. Here's what it looked like out the back door:

And out the front:

I start my shoveling on the front porch. Here it is halfway done with Lance sitting next to the snow to try to give it some scale:

Then I head out the walk to the gate:

When I get to the gate, I get to see what's still ahead of me:

The road is way down on the left side of the photo. But another hour or so of work gives me a nice, clear driveway:

I actually really enjoy these snows. It's a bit of work to get the driveway clear, but it's beautiful outside while you're doing it and it's so quite and peaceful. We're supposed to get some pretty big dumps this spring, so we'll see what tune I'm singing after shoveling a multi-foot snowfall....

Nancy