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3/21/16

Working on a project...

I am learning how much exactness I need to make things line up right... Carefully trimming things before I sew. It is slow going but rewarding when I get a good corner! 

I have collected and saved (and cut out) black & whites for several years hoping to make a quilt from the book Worth Doing Twice, where women reworked old quilt tops. That pattern basically relied on having 4 values. I got so tired laying it out because the colors were so relative. Put a dark gray here and now the light gray doesnt pop as much as it did before.. Etc. 

Lately I thought a chevron pattern might be more the way to go. http://dustyandmarlina.com/rainbow-chevron-quilt/ there's an example of the style. 

A few months ago when I found out that my brother in law was marrying his awesome girlfriend, I realized these quilt triangles were perfect! To personalize them a little more I embroidered some, created a hand printed fabric about their dog, Chili. Got some chili pepper and St Patricks Day fabric. I got a fabric pen and drew a duck square and a killer whale square. 

More pictures later. I am saving this as a draft and will share this after the wedding!   I do not yet have a backing fabric. It is very true I doubt the whole project will be done before the wedding, but I must try! It was delayed enough by us moving to our new house etc. 

catching up on podcasts while i work! 

3/29

Sewing the last of the quilt top this morning. I bought backing fabric,  batting, binding and thread last night. Hoping to get as far as I can today. I am now wondering if it is still small for a twin size. Sigh! 

Final product! I did go with a border! Bias tape for the binding. 

Here is the back. I bought just enough so had to expand with the gray fabric. 

Close up! So fun! 

They have now received their gift so now I can share photos!

Slow progress

Just a little bit of cross-stitch. I have been able to work on it some because I have fewer projects going on. I have made some mistakes already but I feel pretty good about it. (And took out the worst mistakes).
Still knitting on the green socks at my lunch break, and working on fingerless gloves.

Tiny Stitches

The house is the cleanest it has ever been, Though it still needs a little work before the open house this weekend. Today I am touch up painting and doing various little jobs like cleaning bugs out of light fixtures.

 A bad photo...

 I had a few hours of free time and started working again on a counted cross-stitch. This is from a garage sale, and it is from 1995. An interesting subject matter but very stereo typically cross-stitchy. It takes so long to make any amount of progress... but since I have a lot of stuff packed, i thought it would be a good idea. It is harder to watch movies, etc, but I have been listening to lots of audio-books.

2015!

Well. It is 2015. Crazy.

I'm not the best at resolutions (and keeping them) but here goes... Not in any order:
- I got a Wii U Fit and have been doing a small amount of exercise (vs almost none before) and I want to keep it up. It also  has a pedometer which is fun to see how many steps I am taking!

- I would like to do more music. I would also like to be more active looking for new bands. (I used to spend a lot of time looking up obscure norwegian myspace bands etc.)

- I would like to read my Bible more.

- It may be less of a year of sewing because I am losing my sewing space, but I hope to make up for it by knitting more and possibly sewing smaller projects. I have a friend who wants to learn to sew better, and I look forward to helping. I did get some sewing tools/fabric $ and I do hope to keep up with it.

- Learn to cook better for my husbands food allergies. A recent success: Homemade Brown Rice Tortillas. We have been missing tortillas for so long.

- Maybe to learn to type better/faster. It would be helpful for my job and I have never taken typing classes and could be much better at it.

Okay six is probably too many. So I will stop there for now. And of course I would hope to blog more/take better photos/do updates that actually show the progression of projects.. but who knows if that will ever happen.

Here are a Few Christmas gifts: (photographed in our dark apartment...

 A Joy tea towel for my mom. Just look at alll that stitching!

  A Day of the Dead themed tea towel for Liz. Picture the sculls right side up.

 A cabbage patch themed ornament. I guess I probably failed to get photos of all of the awesome ornaments I did.

 Our Radio-Cat themed Xmas card that I silk screen printed (Hand-painted stencil)

1. 

 And I made a few bunnies. Super cute and not too hard to make. I made a cream one also, and am halfway through the 3rd one. I made them have four legs instead of two.

 I also hope at some point to upload photos from my digital camera and perhaps will unearth more project photos from the past.

Quilt in progress

The current denim and wool quilt, which is a birthday/christmas present. I bought dark teal wool for the back, which I think will make it amazing. I often back denim quilts with poly-fleece but it is nice to make it higher-quality/it just feels so much nicer. One of my green fabrics was stretchy and it drove me a little crazy. I generally just do the best I can and move on unless it is way off and I actually need to rip it apart and re sew it.  

Hopefully I can work on backing it soon... it will be a long way around and I generally hand sew it for some reason. :) I guess first I need to iron it and make sure to pull all the strings to the backside. 

Continuing with Cats...

This cat sampler project is pretty fun. I have been taking it with me to work sometimes to work on my lunch. It also goes with me when we visit my father in law who is in hospice care. I have been trying to figure out the outlines. Sometimes it makes it look more pixelated. I love all the mice and birds. I will have to re-learn how to do French knots for the eyes. 

 Here is a photo of my grandma's hydrangeas. So pretty. She lives at a lake and we had 4th of July there and ate way too much food, including huckleberry cobbler. Yum! 

I thought I would share a previous cross stitch project. It was a pre-printed pattern. I made it for my husband before we were married. I chose the colors (brown, blue, orange, gold) to match this 1970's-ugly ship painting he has. I mean, it's so ugly it's cool.

Kitty Cats

Beginnings of an Alphabet embroidery! 

Green Jeans Quilt (Finished project!)

      Hooray! I'm so glad to say that I finished sewing the blanket edging for the jean quilt I have been working on for a while now. I have made at least five twin sized jean quilts and one queen sized one over the years. I really like the blue-green look of this one. The back is a blue-green wool that I got from an elderly neighbor who was moving. It is pieced in a few places to make it the right size. Normally with denim quilts I just do two layers because the fabric is so heavy. For this one, since the wool was lighter weight I decided to do a middle layer of fleece that I had. I tied the three layer together with embroider threads.

I arranged the colors and sewed the top in a weekend. Then I got the great idea to hand embroider our friend's dogs on there. The longest part definitely was the binding because I did not have enough wool to fold over top. I made strips of fabric and ironed the seam allowance under so I could just pin the edging on and sew it. I used a blanket stitch and I think it looks great. 

Even though it took a while I think it is definitely worth doing it "right" and having handsewn details.

I finished the binding when we were on a weekend trip. We stopped to take pictures on the bleachers in Irrigon Oregon. (Mike's hometown).

I have a problem sometimes of making things and giving them away right away without proper photos. My Ravelry page is pretty sad because I dont have photos for most of my projects. Oh well. I am trying to learn to document things better. Yay!

          

Next projects: 

Baby blanket. Squares are cut but i need to lay it out and sew.
Sewing the Sorbetto and Hazel that I have cut

Wedding Pillowcases

 I have made about 5 sets of Wedding Pillowcases for friends. Usually with favorite animals or something.  I made some for my cousin and her husband the last month or so. I have a set of vintage embroidery patterns of State Birds. I purchased some vintage pillowcases from Etsy (I normally just thrift for them, but I was running out of time). I then chose their birth-states (hopefully that works for them! haha, I know they have moved around some) and started sewing. I do love embroidery and how creative and colorful it can be. I also like it because it can have sort of a paint-by-number aspect

 Illinois for Joseph. (Northern Cardinal)

North Dakota for Karen. (Western Meadowlark - same as Oregon's!)

Ta-Da! I think they are fun, and I hope they like them. Happy wedding! 

Embroidery and such

I have finally uploaded some photos! Hurrah!
First in Knitting news: this is the shrug I started, which is i guess going okay, though i have no idea if it will fit me. I have put it aside for a little while. and in the meantime (how my crafting always seems to go) I finished a cowl in a pretty red yarn. I'm wearing it right now! The shrug is 2 strands together, hot pink and red.

In the last few years I've found I really do love embroidery. I got these awesome United States Birds patterns. So far I have made 3 dish towels. The one up above is the ugly duckling (not really a duck, but it is pretty ugly. I used fat quarters, and some fabric from my stash and traced the images on the fabric, using my light table. After these first 3, I feel like i know better what works and what doesn't. On the light table I really need like white or thin fabrics to be able to see the designs enough to trace them. So, since I don't have a ton of light fabric, also since the first 3 ended up being sort of small, I came up with another idea: To make a double sided 4 pane type of dish towel, where at least 1 of the squares can be light enough for me to put the design on. I have soooo much fabric, maybe it will help me get through some of my stash. I'm also embroidering the bird names on the towels so it is more educational (for me and everyone).

My favorite so far! (the fabric is cream/white in real life). I guess I should take more photos of the finished projects with the hems on them, I also added some loops for fun, so I can hang them up. (Assuming I will have hooks to hook them on someday.)

Here's a list of state birds! It's so amazing how many states share the same bird, but the patterns are varied, so that is kind of nice. I think it would be awesome to do a whole quilt, but it would be soo much work.

blah blah. So i guess i should cut up more fabric for the 4 pane dish towels!

Ornaments again

 Polar Pup

 Owl

 Polar (my dad bought this one)

 Scraggly tree

 Star bright

Red bird

There is a lot I'm working on...but some are presents, so I can't tell you. anyway... I feel too busy to blog or read other people's blogs. I'm also hoping to work on music more soon. I just sold a CD to Canada, so that is exciting! And I sold 6 ornaments already at Knack in Multnomah Village Portland.

Holiday Ornaments!

 The first batch! Available at Knack in Multnomah Village.

 Still in progress.

 Shell side.

 Tummy side.

T'is the season for Upsidedown Cat to make Christmas ornaments. I had a lot of fun making them last year for family, friends, Knack customers, and a few other people.

This year I was invited to make them again for Knack. It is so fun, because each is different, and besides making animal ones, I am making more experimental ones this year. I'm not sure if all the experimental ones are working, but... we'll see if they sell. Yay! Also this year it is different, because I do have a job. The money is of course welcome, but there's less stress about making so many of them, etc. Anyway, Here are pictures, some finished, some still need work! If you're interested in a custom one, let me know! :)