STICK A FORK IN IT

IT'S DONE!!!!!!!! It will be wrapped tomorrow or tonight and opened on Christmas Day. Yay! And it turned out really nice. I'll get pictures of it up later.

Down to the Wire

On the last of the 4 squares, about halfway through already. I think I'm going to end up machine stitching the edges as well as the binding. Hopefully tonight will give me some time to work on it. Only a few days left to get it done. :crossingfingers:

Back at it!

I have been working feverishly- whenever I get the chance - on finishing up this quilt. There's still a lot to do, I'm aiming at a no later than date of December 19th.

Working on the 3rd of 4 squares, have to do two more of the rungs, and then the border. I may end up doing that by machine in the interest of time. And then, of course, the binding. Ahh! That's a long list.

Off to get some more done!

Next Quilt

I'm going to go back to the quilt I was working on before the baby blanket sometime this week. I will pull it out and I will set up my quilting table and I will get some work done.

I will myself.

Photos - at long last

I was so lazy about getting these pictures up. I wish I had uploaded them from the camera sooner, I would have taken more if I had. They're not the greatest. But the quilt will be delivered today or tomorrow so it's a little late for me to reshoot the pics. Oh well.

I opted for the satin ribbon binding and I added a tag with the baby's name where the binding overlaps. I think it's a cute little personalized addition.

FINISHED!

I just put the final stitch in and stuck it in the washer. Once it's all cleaned up and free of loose threads, I'll be posting pictures! YAY!

He's Here!

And less than three hours after his arrival, I finished the quilting on the piece. The binding goes on tomorrow and then it can be mailed off! Yay!

I'll post pictures when it is all finished.

so so so close!

Today I actually decided I was done with this baby quilt. I pieced the top rather large, too large for a baby blanket, so I decided I'd just use the extra to hold it still in the frame, and then only quilt the portion I wanted to use. Somehow in my mind I thought I had done 5 rows of 4 squares and took everything down and admired my work only to recount and discover I had only done 4 rows. Boo. :( So I thought I was done, but I actually have to set it up again and do at least another row. I folded it under so I could get a better feel for the finished size and I actually think 6 rows would look the best, but this baby is due in less than a week. Granted, it doesn't have to be there before the baby is born, and getting a package a few days after they get home might be nicer than having one waiting for them when they bring the better new package from the hospital. ;)

So - I'm very close but STILL not finished. I can't wait to get it sent off, though. If I can do 2 squares every day I can have it all quilted by Sunday, do the binding on Monday and hopefully have it out by next Tuesday. IF.

2/3 Done!

I have four of the six rows of stitching done on this baby quilt! Yay! It seems to move pretty quickly, I just have been up to a lot of things, so I haven't devoted a lot of time to it lately. Two rows and the binding left and this one is done! (And then I'll post pictures!)

Enough Already!

Well, I put away the daffodil/tulip quilt to continue at a later time. I was just so bored looking at it anymore that I decided I should go ahead and start on the baby quilt for my friend and get it done, and then I could come back to this when I was feeling more up to it. I just need something new to look at for a while.

I've decided to do an X pattern over the whole thing, and I haven't gotten very far yet, I just set it up this morning. But it already looks good and I love the fleece-y/flannel-y fabric for the backing. I think it's going to end up being really soft. But I am going to cut it down to about half the size it is now so that it will be more of a baby blanket size than a twin-size like it is now. Which I didn't intend on making it, but I just kind of got carried away as I was making my rows.

Anyway, I have been thinking about taking some graphic design classes and seeing if I can make something happen from my digital imagining interests. Before I was a mommy I could spend hours in Photoshop just changing images around and having fun with my photographs. I'd love to get a job retouching photos or creating images. So we'll see how long I stick with this idea. Right now it's just a little musing, but it may be worth going after.

A Little More Progress

I have 2 1/2 of the 4 ladder rungs done and 2 of the 4 squares done. I would love to be able to say I'm halfway done, but I'll still have the border and the binding to do. Maybe I'm 1/3 of the way done? I'm not looking forward to doing the next square. It just seems really daunting.

However, this was supposed to be a gift, and I mailed something off in it's place, so now the pressure is off to finish it in the next week or so. Maybe I'll look forward to doing it more when I don't feel like I *have to*.

Since I have another one that needs to be quilted before September, I may put this one away and start on it. I made it quite large, though, and I think I'm going to cut it in half. It's supposed to be a blanket for a new baby and it's almost twin-sized. And thinking of all the stitching that would take, really is daunting.

Also, I'd like to give a quick congratulations to Red Carpet Fashion Awards and their recognition by E! and the Style Networks. The blogger, Catherine, is being filmed next week for a segment on one of their shows. Yay! Go Catherine and RCFA!

Quilt Progress - no pictures

So I've been quilting my little fingers off lately. I made a lot of progress over the last two days. Basically, there are four squares that have intricate quilting inside them, then the ladder (two horizontal rows, two vertical rows) and the border around the whole thing. As of right now, I have one square done, one about to be finished this evening, one ladder done, and two halfway done. I probably will not finish this quilt in the next couple of weeks like I was hoping to, but I'm still happy at the progress I've made. I've really been pushing it to get something done. Plus, I want to get started on the two other projects I have sewn up that just need to be quilted.

I'm locked into the designs in the squares and the ladder, but I keep changing my mind about the border. I'll have to finish the center of the piece before I start on that so I can decide at the very end.

My Quilt

I really really didn't want to post anything that wasn't finished. But I also don't want to go a month without posting anything. This actually isn't the project that I'm focusing on right now, but since it's a gift, I'm not going to post my main project until it is done. Follow that?

So, here's the quilt I started for my bedroom almost a year ago. Sheesh. But I put it away when someone came to stay and the sewing/guest room became a guest room minus the sewing slash. And then it just kind of stayed put away. And then it got buried deeper. But I pulled out the sewing machine to piece together two other quilts, and wanted to finish this one off before I put the sewing machine away again.

Long story short, I finished piecing it this morning.

This is a detail picture of the fabrics. The squares are 2"x2"


And this is the whole quilt. It's really hard to get a picture of such a giant quilt, even standing on a table. So part of it is not in the picture, and you get the added bonus of the corner of my coffee table. :)



And, back to sitting it will go while I finish hand quilting the two other pieces I'm working on.

A Garden of Stitches

I finished the last daffodil last night! I set myself a goal to finish all four before the month was over, and I pushed on and managed to beat my goal! :)

I have to wash my fabrics today for the quilt, and then I'll start planning it out and cutting the pieces. Hopefully my daughter will cooperate and give me the chance to get some work done. I think I'm going to have to bring the sewing machine out into the living room, though.

Three Blooms

So I have three of the flowers done. This time, I reversed the stem and leaves and kept the blossom facing the same way. I have one more daffodil to go, which I'm reversing entirely. I've got a little big already done on it, but thought I should post this tulip for now. :)

Tulip

Yay! Done with the first tulip! I was actually completely done the day before yesterday, but ran out of one of the colors in the stem. I had seven squares left to do and had to stop. That was really frustrating!

I don't know how I miscalculated the size of the fabric; I'm only going to be able to do four flowers total if I want to be able to cut them and have decent sized squares to work with. I just eyeballed it, though, so I guess that's how. I decided to flip the pattern for the second daffodil, and for the second tulip I'm going to flip the stem and leaves, but leave the petals the same direction. I have the quilt planned out in my head, I just need to decide on the actual fabric, finish my cross stitch and then get started. I'm excited for this project, I'd like to have it done by the end of July. I think that's pretty reasonable.

Daffodil

My good friend Jen kitted this up for me. There's an accompanying tulip that I'm working on next, ideally I'll finish three of each flower, and then I want to try to make it into a small quilt.

The chart didn't call for any backstitching on the stem and leaf, and I tried a little bit in a color I picked out, but I could barely tell it was there, so I didn't backstitch it. Maybe I'll see how all the flowers look when I'm done and go back if necessary, but I'm pretty happy with the way it looks right now. :)

Home Is Where The Heart Is

This is my second finished cross stitch piece. It's a stamped cross stitch kit and I substituted colonial knots for the french knots it called for. It worked like a charm and was much easier than the french knots. I don't think I like the stamped cross stitch as much as counted cross stitch, though, it seems less accurate and more messy to me. My mother in law disagrees, though, and actually prefers stamped. She also does beautiful chicken scratch and they come out looking like lace. Just beautiful! So here's my new finished piece:

First Attempt at Cross-Stitching

I had the notion to try something new since I've been so unmotivated to work on my latest quilt for months, and I was inspired by my friend Jen to try cross-stitching. I got this little kit based on Mary Engelbreit art and thought it was so cute. I've been working on it for quite a while now, maybe two weeks. The photo below is actually of my second attempt because I had to scrap my first attempt due to my apparent inability to read directions. Ha. It was a comedy of errors; first - I didn't know I was supposed to divide the threads up, so I was using a whole group of whatever it is, nine threads or something like that to do each stitch (which actually resulted in a look I think I like better for the letters - it's more solid - but still wrong.) I also didn't divide the colors so I stitched a rather large section in "rust" that should have been "dark orange". I finally scrapped the project and just started over. It was so much easier to divide and label all the different thread colors first, because then - even if I labeled them incorrectly - I was being consistent with my mistake, and also because at 11:30 at night, light pink, light blue and white all started to look REALLY similar.

Anyway, now I'm at a loss as to what to do with this finished piece. With quilting you get a nice quilt to put on a bed, or over the couch when you're done. With sewing aprons, you get an apron. I'm not quite sure what to do with this one, but I'm thinking maybe I'll frame it and put it up somewhere. Even if it's not perfect, I'm really proud of all the work I put into it.

I am, however, a little disappointed with some of the built-in design elements. I didn't do the french knots it suggested because I wasn't really happy with the rust colored stitching it directed me to do over the bonnet. I felt like it just made it look so busy, and the french knots would just add to that chaos. I'm actually thinking about taking the rust bonnet stitches out. If I ever do another one with letters in it, I think I may use more strands of thread, also, because I'd like the letters to be more solid.

Finnish Christmas Stars

Well, here you go. I made these over our Christmas vacation and they were a HUGE hit! Thanks to Lea over at Atomic Kitchen for the recipe. :D


I had to change the recipe a little bit because I couldn't find plum marmalade, so I used blackberry jam instead. They were gone in about two minutes.

BAKING!

Ok, so it must seem like the title of my blog is misleading since I have not posted ANY pictures of anything I have baked. Just for the record, I did make chocolate chip cookies today - from scratch, no less - but posting a picture of that seems a little silly. They're just cookies. Someday when I do a really cool cake or something that takes more talent, I will post a picture. Come to think of it, I guess I could post a picture of some Finnish Christmas Stars I made over the holidays...

Husband's Handywork

Going back and looking through some pictures to get inspiration for a new post, I came across these gems. About 2 or 3 years ago my husband built this tiki bar. It was very cool! The bar was complete with a power strip for our blender, it even had wheels so we could move it around as dictated by our social situation.



We had this until the darn movers the Army contracted broke it somewhere between Alabama and Colorado. :(

Photography

These are two of my photographs. I took them with my Nikon N60, made prints and scanned the negatives. I added the text and faux matting on Photoshop.

Upholstered Headboard

Very little sewing involved on this project. We took a 6'x3' piece of plywood and my husband rounded out the corners on one end. I nailed 2x2 posts on for legs, and one across the back for support. It has something like 6 layers of batting and then the red fabric (which I'm going to recover with brown as soon as we paint the bedroom). I got a button making kit and made the buttons and used a long needle to thread them through pre-drilled holes in the plywood. It took a short afternoon to make and it dramatically changed the look of the bedroom.

Aprons!

I picked up a pattern on sale for 99 cents and made aprons for some friends of mine across the country (and one friend in Finland). These were a lot of fun to do and I loved picking out the fabrics to match their personalities!


Red Toile for Lea




Dainty rose print with lace for Tonya




Orange butterflies for Jen




Sassy Leopard print for Christine




Red Hot Chili Peppers for Genise



A lovely fruit print in reds and plums for Samantha Jo



An all over sunflower print for Lisa

My First Quilt

I made this quilt in 2004 for my husband. I had a lot of help with the planning and with directions, but I actually did the cutting, sewing and quilting myself. I used a machine to stitch the straight lines in the quilting, but the stars were done by hand, and so was the binding along the edges.