Fun in Kansas City

Hi all -

No quilting or knitting to share this week because I decided to take an impromptu trip to Kansas City to visit my family. I was needing a family fix, had finished my taxes and it was my sister's birthday, so I decided to head on out. So, Lance and I drove out last Thursday and returned home yesterday. It was great fun, as usual!

On this trip we got to meet a new member of the family. Introducing Charli:

She's an adorable 10-week-old Golden Doodle that belongs to my niece. She is such a sweetheart! And very smart:

She's still working on potty training, but already knows not to bite at all (but she does give lots and lots of kisses!) and will sit or lay down for treats. My sisters and I got to take her to the dog park for her first visit. This is a huge dog park with trails through the trees and a beach area on the lake. We started with her on leash, but once we got to the lake we let her free and she loved playing with all the dogs and getting attention from all the people. She was really good about sticking around and we were able to leave her off leash until we got back to the entrance. And she was a real trooper, not getting carried for any part of the long walk. But she did have a good snooze with her mom later:

It's going to be fun watching her grow up!

This visit was also filled with activities. I love movies but don't get to the theater much at home, so when I visit we always go to the decadent theater by my sister's house. It's a regular theater, AMC I think, but they have some theaters that also serve food. There are a couple of levels of these, but we go to the most decadent one with leather seats that have a little motor to recline the seat and raise the foot rest. Extremely comfortable!! And they have waiters to take your order and bring your food. My sisters and I saw The Boss with Melissa McCarthy. It was amusing and we had a good time.

Another tradition we just started at Christmas is getting a Chinese foot massage at Long Life Foot Massage in Olathe, KS. Their foot massage includes the entire body and is incredible! We opted for the 90-minute massage. It was so relaxing that I kept dozing off!

We also started a new tradition on this trip. This one included the whole family. My sister heard about this place in Kansas City that is a real-life version of those adventure games they have on the computer. It's called Break-Out KC and what you do is go into a room where you are locked in and have to find clues and solve puzzles until you finally figure out the combination for the lock on the door and get out. You have an hour to try to solve everything. I won't go into detail about the puzzles because this is a public forum and I don't want to give anything away. But I will tell you that it was a really fun thing to do and I loved doing it with my family. We all had our different talents and skills, and it was fun seeing how everyone stepped up to the task. Unfortunately, we didn't solve the room (our room had a 19% success rate), but we're definitely going to try another room when I go back. And there's another place that does the same thing so we'll be trying that one out, too, to see how they compare. Here we are after the game:

For those who don't know us, from left to right we have: Trevor, Linda, Terra, me, Kelsey, Sue and Lindsey. As you probably guessed, Sue and Linda are my sisters. Trevor, Kelsey and Lindsey are Sue's kids, and Terra is Linda's. They are an incredible group of "kids!" Trevor is a software engineer, following in the analytical footsteps of myself and my sisters (Linda and I are software engineers; Sue is the CFO of an oncologist partnership). The girls went instead into the healthcare industry. Terra is a nurse; Kelsey is a Respiratory Therapist; Lindsey is a freshman in college, studying to be a doctor or a veterinarian. A very smart and talented group, and I am so proud of each of them that I burst at the seams!

And this is how Lance spent his time in Kansas City:

He LOVES sitting in the chair behind Linda. If he sees her walking towards the chair, he'll run around her and jump up. If she's already in the chair, he'll just hop up and snuggle in behind her. Very cute!

While I was in Kansas City, I was also able to avoid our biggest snow storm of the season so far. Our neighborhood got over 40" of snow the weekend after I left. We have a webcam in the neighborhood so I was able to keep an eye on how the snow was melting and I ended up waiting an extra day before driving back. I wanted to make sure I would be able to drive up the driveway since there's no place on the road to leave the car while I shovel. I was glad I waited! I made it up the driveway, but don't think I could have gotten over the pile of snow at the end of the driveway left by the plow if I had come back on Thursday, as planned. Here's what the driveway looked like:

The driveway itself had 8-10" of that heavy, wet, melting snow that you get in the spring, but the end of the driveway had about twice that. We had some more good melting today, so that helped a lot. We have another month or so of possible dumps, but will have more and more nice weather in between as summer finds its way up here.

Well, that's my week. I hope you're having a wonderful week, too!

Nancy

More Knitting

 Hi all -

First, last post I forgot to include a quote to finish my quote challenge from Terry Knott. (She's been doing some interesting quilting that she shares in her latest blog post, if you want to check it out.) So, here is my final quote:

"You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have." -- Maya Angelou

Definitely something I need to remember!

On the quilting side, I've continued working on quilting my Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt. There's really not much more to see than I showed you last time.

I've done a bunch more knitting, too. I realized that I should include information about the pattern with each of my knitting projects to acknowledge the designer and to give me a reference if I want to go back and make something again. So I will try to do that from now on.

My first hat was from the Spiralini Hat pattern by Jane Tanner of Knit Jane Knit. This was a pretty cool pattern because the spiral is created by the stitches that are used, not by offsetting the pattern with each round. I was really surprised at how this worked. Here is a side view of the hat:

And the top:

And here is Lance modelling for us:

Doesn't he look debonair in this slouchy style hat???

My second hat is called Brambles by Amanda Muscha of Strange Knits. What drew me to this pattern was how it looks from the top:

Isn't that cool? And here it is from the side:

Lots of cool cables! It's hard to see the hat on Lance:

My final hat for this time is the Butterfly Hat by Sofiya Cremin. Even though the description was good, it took me a while to figure out how to make the butterflies. I think I had a picture in my head of how the butterflies would be made before reading the instructions and that kept me from understanding how to do it at first. But once I got it figure out, everything went really well. Here is a side shot of the hat:

And a close-up of one of the butterflies:

Isn't that cool? And a shot of the top:

 Finally, my beautiful Lance showing it off:

Since I was getting sick of the pink yarn (yes, there's still quite a lot left!), I decided to pull out some fun yarn and make a cowl for my sister for her birthday next week. I used the Fir Cone Cowl pattern by Vermont Farmhouse Designs. The color of the cowl is actually a little lighter than in the picture:

I decided not to have Lance model this one because it was so nicely blocked that I didn't want to mess it up.

Lance has been having a lot of fun lately enjoying the spring snow before it disappears. Last weekend we still had quite a bit left from the blizzard. While I was hanging the laundry on the line, Lance was running around the house like a crazy dog. Here he is mid-leap:

Then he would come to a screeching stop and sit completely still on top of the piles the come off the roof:

It was hilarious!! I tried to take a little movie, but I couldn't figure out how to do that on my camera. Oh well, the pictures are still funny!

Finally, I started to work on my Hoffman Challenge quilt. As promised, I'll scroll down the page really far so if you are also working on the challenge and don't want to see what I'm doing, you can move on. Thanks for stopping by!











































For those of you not familiar with the Hoffman Challenge, Hoffman is a fabric company who picks a fabric each year and you have to make a quilt using that fabric in whatever way you want. There is no specific minimum amount of the fabric you have to use in the quilt, the fabric just has to be recognizable in the top. This year, for the first time, there are actually two fabrics that you can choose from, one with a white background and the other with black:

The black and white made me think of yin-yang so I thought I'd make a large yin-yang symbol. I started off by printing out a large symbol (about 27" square). I plan to use the 6-minute circle technique described by Dale Fleming in Pieced Curves So Simple for all of the curved piecing. To do this, I need freezer paper patterns for the different curves, so I cut the printed pattern so I could trace around it:

Then I started preparing the freezer paper. I've read that freezer paper shrinks when ironed, so I ironed each individual piece:

The pattern is wider than the freezer paper, so I ironed two pieces together to get the needed width:

I did this twice, then ironed them together to get a double-thick piece. I rotated the top piece 90 degrees so the seams would only cross in a small place:

Then I traced around the pattern:

I need the part outside of the circle for piecing the final yin-yang symbol to the background so I cut carefully on the line and put that piece aside. I used a rotary cutter to start the cut since I needed both the inside and the outside to be pristine, then finished the cut with scissors because I was worried about going off the line with the rotary cutter. I then cut the yin and yang apart in the pattern and traced that boundary:

With some careful cutting, I now how two patterns for the yin and the yang:

I'll let these sit for a bit while I decide whether I'm going to use the Hoffman fabric for the yin and yang, or I'm going to use solids for the yin and yang and use the Hoffman fabrics somewhere else.

That's it for now. I hope you're finding some time to follow your passions and feed your creativity,

Nancy

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