It finally happened

Yes, folks, it finally happened. My camera, my computer and the conection cable all ended up in the same room at the same time. I downloaded all the photos - including a big old pile I'd forgotten I'd taken.

So, for the short version, I want to show the massive quilt I made for my son. This was at his request and we worked together for the design. I know the picture is pretty rumbly - more than I thought, perhaps I should have photographed before I washed it? On the bed you can see just how large it is - queen sized bed. It was hard to photograph flat because it's so large I can't lay it out on a floor. But he loves it and it turned out just like I wanted it to. Guess what his favorite college football team is?

Additional information shamelessly copied from postings on SG

Tennessee fans will be so envious of that quilt, BeeBee. It's so cute, designed to look like a football field. You must have worn yourself out quilting it. What are the dimensions? What did you use for the backing? And what machine did you quilt it on? Yes, it actually was quite the quilting project - binding was a bear, too. The dimension are really wide by really long , honestly I'm not sure - I will measure and find out. It drapes WELL over the sides of the queen bed. It's backed by another UT fabric - Orange with white T's (I can't BELIEVE I didn't photo that side, I had to match the T's - like a plaid) on the piecing). On my blog the same 2 photos are clickable and you can see detail a little better. I really do need to iron it out once for better photos. I quilted it on my Viking Topaz 30, using the walking foot attachment for the Stitch in Ditch and binding. And the free-motion spring foot for the green parts.

A New Obsession

A couple of weeks ago I was cleaning out a filing cabinet that held some of my dad's paperwork. I'm (FINALLY) finishing up his estate and can free up some filing space - always at a premium. Thank God we've all gone paperless, eh? Anywho... I came across 2 documents that began nagging me endlessly: a genealogy done by an Aunt in the 1980's (more or less) and a photocopy of a eulogy for a lady who died in the 1930's. I'd seen the genealogy before - it's about 10 pages TYPEWRITTEN (remember typewriters? And this one was in script - not print, very pretty) from one branch of my dad's family. And while this was rumbling around in my brain, Ancestry.com started sending me emails about a "sale" on my heritage. I couldn't hold out any longer and joined. Now, I'm going to warn you, looking at this stuff is like eating potato chips - you just can't stop. Especially if you find a tree that someone else has already built - you can add generations in a flash.
So, now I "know" (in quotations because validation is still pending) that my mother's family came from England and Germany - directly and exclusively. And my dad's straight from England, no matter which branch I follow. Now the good news is that my tree actually branches - no vines (wink, wink). And some highlights include a many-greats grandfather that was hanged. I'm thinking I've uncovered that horse thief found in every family. Further research said no, he was hanged by the Colonial Government of Virginia for treason - against the crown. He was part of Bacon's rebellion and had actually been pardoned by the king, but the governor carried out the executions anyway. So a patriot (one man's traitor is another man's patriot, I suppose). There is another, possible, link to English nobility and US founders but I'm not certain of that link - there are some pretty big jumps to get there. It may pan out but I'm questioning. I could very certainly become a daughter of the American Revolution - from either side of the tree. And possibly a Daughter of the Confederacy, as well. That' where the eulogy fits in, but is still being researched.
Anyway, if you haven't done this, you should give it a shot. It's a lot of fun and involves some problem solving, sleuthing and puzzle placement. All in all, a good time.
And I will finish the quilt today - all it lacks is binding.
Now, wish me luck that I can post this from home. Fingers crossed, I'm going in....

Done!

Despite all my whining and cleaning and house showing and whining I managed to get my husband's quilt finished today. Couple of minutes here, couple there, next thing you know you have a wall hanging.

I used the Oh, Fransson! wonky nine patch, that I've had my eye on for quite some time. I'm all about wonky, so if I start there I can't go wrong, right? I picked out all the fabrics myself - I didn't use a kit or layer cake or even pre-coordinated choices. He wanted blues and greens and no one wanted girly. I think it turned out acceptable on all fronts. The back and the solid square are the same fabrics, don't let your monitor fool you. The brown in the quilt squares is more of an accurate color. I used a blue-green thread to quilt it, my walking foot and quilting guide. My quilting turned out acceptable, not fantastic, but acceptable. A few tucks here and there - I need to work on how to not do that. A poster on Stitcher's Guild helped me with my binding. She offered some EXCELLENT advise on how to finish it so it doesn't show. Top notch help. Next step is how to do the second stitching from the back. Always a next step, isn't there?

The haul, ya'll

Karen and I hit Michael's (A Fabric Place) this morning, after a leizurely start and an early lunch. Michael always has the best wools. Period. Hands down. And no contest. So, without further ado (and I do like ado), I introduce you to the newest members of my stash (thanks, Kristine, for that phrase - I really like and and plan to keep it). The large plaid on the far left is 100% wool and the checks are really large, with a 4" repeat. I do love me a black and white, and a check. So there you have 2 in one. It will either become a "Channel" jacket or a pencil skirt with part of the fabric on the bias. Hmmm. Next row are the browns. The top and bottom are wools, for slacks most likely. The center is a crisp silk for a blouse or maybe just a shell. Far right are also wool (remember we were at Michael's), the top will become a skirt (and Karen bought some of this fabric, too. In fact she found it and gets all the credit). The lower right is also a wool, made for Lowe Donald of Sevile Row. Slacks for sure.
And there's an update for my newest quilt. It is all pieced (and partially quilted, but no picture of that). Seeeeeee:
Thanks for checking in, we're off to order some Chinese food and open another bottle of wine. It's all good.

New year, New Project

I've been a bit absent lately. My husband was home for the holiday and, of course, there were the holidays. But, I'm baa-ack.

I've made no, well very little, progress on my skirt. I just kind of ran out of skirt steam. It's still hanging out about 2/3 done. I'll get back to it, maybe later this weekend. We'll see.

But first I want to show you my new project. When my husband was home we mentioned he wanted to take one of my quilts back with him to hang on his apartment wall. I gave him a choice of the blue floral or the "snake" quilt - and he declined both. So he then requested I make him a new one. I think he feels a little bad about the yard sale comment. Today was my Friday off, so after doing some work from home, doing some laundry, cleaning out the entire office files and going to the grocery store, I made it to JoAnn's for fabric. I want to make the Oh, Fransson! wonky 9 patch lattice. So I needed 9 "scrap" fabrics and a solid neutral. So, without further ado, here are my fabrics. They are laying on the brown neutral. I hope to get them cut and pieced tomorrow. I should have time since I did most of my busy stuff today.

One of the things we did while the husband unit was home, was go back to Ikea. I wanted another table for my sewing area. It was just too cramped and I didn't like shoving the serger and sewing machine around to use them. I have the room, so why not use it, right? Much better, don't you think? If you look closely you'll see that I took this picture while embroidering. This: Cute, isn't it. It was on a flour sack towel and in the end I turned it into an apron. Why not?

We also took a drive back down to Alexandria for dinner. It was cold! And windy. But I pause long enough for a couple of pictures of the wharf. Yes, that's ice in the foreground. And see the lights on the sailboat mast?

I hope you all had a nice holiday season and haven't broken your New Year's resolutions, yet.

Christmas quilt

A few posts back, when all my sewing mojo had been sucked out by putzy, futzy, boring and unrewarding sewing, I said I was going to make a quilt for my grand-niece. She just turned 4 and when I saw some pink and brown jelly rolls at JA's I saw my way out of my sewing funk. Because I am apparently unimaginative, a little lazy, and this quilt was going to someone who'd not seen my others I, once again (snooze), went with my French Braid. I used all my pre-cut strips (two rolls worth) on the braid and purchased the dotted edging, the backing and brighter pink for the binding separately. Honestly, I'm not wild about the dots now that they're done - I should have used a more subtle or tonal print. Oh well - done's done and 4 year olds aren't extremely critical. I free motion quilted (snooze - again) and took the opportunity to use my machine's preloaded fonts so I will be remembered forever (grin). Or, as my husband said, they'd know who made this at the yard sale. The buttons - there are 4, one at each corner - are just because I found them and they matched the back (the dark brown/pink print) so well and 4 year old girls like novelties - or so I told myself. I thought about putting buttonholes in also, so it could be folded and stay neat, but it didn't happen.
And that, my friends, is the extent of my Christmas sewing. Well, unless you count the Grinch tee shirt. Do you?

Mojo Sucking Sewing

From time to time, if you read sewing blogs or websites, you hear about folks loosing their sewing mojo. The desire to sew, to make, to create. Most don't know where it went, they just want it back. Well, I'm here to tell you where mine went. It was sucked dry and empty by (1) holiday linens. Not hard, all I did was serge the edges of a big old piece of cotton/linen for a table cloth and then cut and serge some napkins to go with. I had some other napkins but the print is so off grain and crooked that I can't bring myself to mess with anymore. Pah. The tablecloth and napkins turned out fine, but ***yawn****. And (2) by attempting to finish up 2 pairs of pants. Putzing and fussing with waistbands and buttons and buttonholes and belt loops and still having them look like Becky Homecky attacked them with a vengeance. And their both a bit tight, despite being the same pattern as my favorite pair of pants. Pfffft. I didn't even get them hemmed, I put them on and marked one spot for the hem and couldn't bring myself to finish measuring and pinning and folding and pressing and stitching. Putzy and fussy.
So, how am I going to get over this? I hope this will help. I bought 2 "jelly rolls" from JoAnn's in little girl pinks and browns and some additional fabrics to finish off a quilt for my grand-niece (just saying that makes me feel so freakin' old!) . It's all pink and brown and flowery and polka-dotty and little girly. I'll probably do another french braid - it takes a minimum of cutting and piecing and doesn't loose a lot of yardage in a lot of seams. I'll show you that one as it progresses. All the fabric, except the rolls, is in the washer. And that's hard to photograph.
I should have some time over the holiday to work on this, my MIL was coming on Tuesday but isn't feeling well so she had to cancel (just a rant here: Delta charged me $150 to put my EARNED miles back to my account! It's not like they have to have a CPA certify this, the computer does it all. What a cheap, crappy charge. End rant) so my weekend freed up a lot. My son's having surgery on the following Monday, so I'll be back and forth to the hospital but probably not making my hour + commute daily. So more time. And time alone at my house! That NEVER happens.

I was asked, today, over on Stitcher's Guild about my Aruba waves quilt. In response to the question I realized I'd written quite a bit on how I did this quilt. So, since I'm always looking for fodder, I mean fascinating and meaningful dialog, for my blog I thought I'd pop over here and put some more information on it.

The quilt was done from a jelly roll or maybe honey bun (which is larger? this was the larger roll) knock off I bought at JA's just because I loved the colors. I'm a sucker for pretty colors all rolled up together and it kept grabbing at me as I waited at the cutting table. Then I didn't know what to do with the pieces (not the first time that's happened, I assure you ) so I just started looking around for things to do with strips that didn't take a boat load of cutting. And the French Braid kept popping up as I surfed the web. I took the strips I had and cut them down as the pattern suggested (found it on the 'net - it was free. Google French Braid quilts) and then just started piecing. This is the link I used, it was free, easy to follow and well deserves my link back to the site, as all my piecing techniques for this came from that site. It's a very simple quilt to put together. I did some maths so I would divide out my cut down strips to make the use up my strips and make the pieces the same size. I divided my cut strips between 2 colors: Blues and everything else. And then pieced at random with the blues on one side and the everything else on the other side (for the "wave" affect). I actually put the strips in 2 bags & pulled them out randomly and pieced the number for each section (3 sections) and then trimmed to make it rectangular. This trimming always hurts a bit - you loose quite a bit on the tops and bottoms. The only time I didn't follow actual randomness was if I got 2 of the exact same right next to each other and that may have gone by the wayside towards the end as the fabric selections weren't distributed evenly. Of course after trimming the sections, putting them together would have been too small so I trotted off to Hancock's and found the edging & back fabric - I got very lucky there with the fabric I found - it was a great color and even has a slight 'wave' design. And, believe it or not, I owned the binding fabric that I'd purchased for some fabric postcards that I didn't get to participate in. I'd wanted to piece the binding (like Kathryn did - I'm such a copy-cat) but didn't have enough pieces left. I used almost every scrap so I was quite pleased to have some purple quilting cotton just lying around. Seriously. I free-motion quilted it - only 2nd FM project ever and the first was just place mats - using purple machine quilting thread. (if you look very closely you will see where I did some wavy quilting down each strip - I'm slowly picking that out as I don't like it) It doesn't show up much but it was fun and I love purple. Oh, and the gecko - when I first posted the pic and called it Aruba Waves, my friend said it did remind her of Aruba but was missing the gecko. So I laid it aside for quite a while (and a move and family disaster along the way) until I remembered one odd night that I HAD the gecko - on the t-shirt I bought in ....wait for it.... ARUBA! It's quilted with warm and natural, I believe. That stuff makes my nose itch until it's all done so I need to find another batting for the next round.

It made a nice TV watching quilt - not too hot and a good size. It would be too small for a bed, though approaching twin sized.

Saturday

After I did my grocery shopping this morning, I had the rest of the day to do as I pleased. And it pleased me to play with my new serger (SQUEEEE!) and make the Burda turtleneck #120 from September that's all the rage on the sewing scene right now. I will say that this truly is a great little pattern. It took exactly hour on the machine. I serged (SQUEEE!) the shoulders/neck and side seams. I put the sleeves in flat on my sewing machine which took longer than all the rest together. My Topaz really hated this fabric. Really. Even ate a whole in it at one edge. I had to do the sleeves from the center out and then center out again. PITA. I don't have the accessories to switch my serger to do a coverstitch so I just Steam-a-seamed the hem and cuffs. Fabric is from THE WALL at G Street and was actually in my "what was I thinking box" until I drug it out for this first serging attempt. Ok, that was the good part. Remember I said one hour on the machine? Well, it was 2 hours tracing off the horrid new Burda sheets. Maybe that's why I look so sad in the picture? These things seriously BITE. This was 3 lousy pieces with no pleats or placards or other fancy-schmancy markings. 2 HOURS! Though that does include laying out and cutting this springy stretchy as all get out fabric. I'll definitely use this pattern again, though. Not just because it's great but because of all the work it took to trace the dang thing out.
Ok, next up. My quilting project. Tell me what you think. Please.

The center piece is a cotton kimono I've been dragging around for 40 years (at least). It's a large child size and I love the fabric but will never wear it. I found the fabric on the left and really like it with it. The fabric on the right? Not so sure. I love it, but just not sure I love it with the other two, I may be putting it there just because it's Japanese. Comments? Please? I do think I need 3 fabrics, but not sure what #3 should be.

Aruba waves

Finally and at long last the Aruba Waves quilt is complete. Washed and on the sofa waiting for evening TV time. My free motion quilting needs some practice, but I'm quite happy with this. I put the gecko from the front of the t-shirt on the back, just 'cause I could. I really do like this, love the colors, love the gecko. I was amazed at how much it shrunk. I don't know why this always amazes me, but it does. In this case it didn't matter - the size it the size - and I wanted the rumpled look. The binding was some fabric I had intended on making fabric postcards out of last fall, but had to drop out. I'd forgotten this little 1/4 yard of fabric crammed in the "Cotton Scraps" box until Friday night. I kicked around using the few pieces of the other fabrics randomly in the binding but decided, in the end, just to use the purple. I think it worked well. If you look really closely you'll see where I started quilting with some weird deco stitching. Wish I hadn't done that, but done is done. I used a wavy stitch on the binding for the second go-round. And I'm doing a happy dance.

And yes, you not only got 2 posts in one day. You got photos. My work here is done.

Rambling

We had a new Hobby Lobby open up in Columbia this month. I was quite excited, waited breathlessly (OK, not really. I did breathe) for it to open and have a chance to check it out. And may I just say "meh". I was soooooo disappointed. The sewing area was all pink and brown quilting fabric with about 3 feet each for zippers, trims or thread. Yarn was all Michael's rejects. And the home dec fun items all picked over. I was looking for pillow forms for a friend - they had 3 total in the required size. I wanted a large wall hanging for my bathroom - the isle was empty. Did they underestimated the excitement and demand (actually a common theme in this particular area - we are grossly under served by a number of businesses, including groceries and restaurants)? Do they normally not restock regularly? And their prices? Certainly nothing to get excited about. I was soooooo disappointed. Only spent my friend's money.
So I packed up my pillow forms into my son's little car and headed back to JoAnn's. Safe and comfortable with pillow forms by the score all at BOGO. And a line an hour long at the cutting table (that helped me stay away from the yard goods - ha! when did you last hear THAT phrase?) Picked up my black and navy thread, a few black zippers and some quilting gloves. [Melody - I tried my shower gloves - thank you! - they helped a lot, but these were just $3 and I needed my shower gloves back in, well, the shower]. My son's little car now looks like the Marshmallow Man exploded in it. I've got to get out there today with my Ikea bag and bundle all these pillows up for my weekend.
My weekend that my BFF and I are going to spend serging, shopping, watching TV, drinking wine and yapping. Likely lots of yapping. And perhaps some pillow sewing.
And maybe by tonight you'll finally get the finished photo of the Aruba Waves quilt that I started oh so long ago in a land far far away. Now complete with a gecko and free-motion quilted (see gloves above). I should not name my projects, they become much too personal and then I'm afraid to finish them because I'm afraid I'll mess them up. This sat way too long while I stewed over the quilting. I also didn't have enough fabric for the binding, but I sat down in the floor on Friday evening and dug through my cotton scraps box. See Elizabeth, this is why we keep our scraps. I found a quarter yard or so of some pretty purple batik I'd bought for postcards that I never got to make. It coordinates very well with the quilt (in fact, I did my quilting in purple thread). I got the strips cut and the quilt squared off yesterday, so I just need to piece the binding (I'll make it straight - not bias, there's no need in bias for a square quilt) and put it on.
So after sleeping way in (for me, anyway, and the dog who was very patient for her breakfast for a change), I'm going to grab another cup of coffee and go do some binding. Have a nice Sunday everyone - or Monday almost for our friends "Down under"

I'm back, part two

First, thank you all for such a warm welcome. It made remember part of why I blog and how much comments make me smile.
And whoops, if you were fast enough you found this entry as one line when I hit the wrong computer key. Now, lets finish the post....
karent: you know you're right! It DOES need an iguana! I'm going to have to find one and applique it on the corner. If I'm going there, I may as well go all the way.
Wendy: I've taken peeks at your new apartment (remember, I said I was still cyberstalking youse guys - had to say it: you ARE in NJ). LOOOOOVE your view. Are you in Jersey City? I spent a couple of months there a few years ago. I liked it, it was an improving town and very vibrant. Our company built the light rail there and we still operate it (that's why I was there - auditing the jobs). I hope you're enjoying your new digs, I know I am.
And a word (or 2...) about our move. 3 years ago we put our house in Detroit on the market and rented a townhouse in NoVA. Thinking our house would sell we rented furniture (ick) and moved in sparsely. A year later the lease was up and the house was still ours. So we found a smaller apartment in Old Town, hoofed it to Ikea and The Room Store and set up housekeeping. While standing in line with 4 carts of build-it-yourself furniture my phone rang. It was my son, "MOM! I think we sold the house!" Timing is everything, is it not? So 2 years ago, in May, we closed on the sale, moved my son to an apartment in Detroit, packed up most of our house to storage and some to the apartment (are you still with me here?) And started looking for a house in NoVA. Then our office moved to Columbia, MD. So we started a torturous commute and house hunting in MD. Insert a few family disasters and a picky husband and coming to grips with housing prices in the DC area and another year goes by. We finally found a house that I love and he likes. We jumped through more hoops than circus poodle for the mortgage company and closed mid May. Moving day comes and hubby gets a call from the guys unloading the storage unit: "um, it looks like there was a water leak sometime, lots of mold..." Over all, not as bad as could be. Lost 2 living room chairs, the kitchen table, LOTS of books (including a few my son had that were special and signed by the author), some linens and Christmas decorations. We DIDN'T loose anybody, the family photos, most of our furniture, or even our sanity. But yesterday was spent in the garage fully assessing the damage and disposing of losses, washing some items and separating out the good, the bad and the ugly. It was a hard day.
Soooo, we had dinner in a tree house. Not really - it's a restaurant in Ellicott City built onto the side of the hill that climbs up and lots of trees. So you're outside overlooking the town in the trees. Feels like you're in a tree house. And you've had a butt workout getting there.
So now I'm off to plant a few flowers and haul stuff out of the garage and into the basement that has become a mess.
Sorry, no pics. When I find my camera cable, perhaps I'll entertain you with snap of moldy chairs and books. I know you're looking forward to it.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch....

I'm back after a bit of a break. It's been a very busy and not always happy spring and I just didn't have the energy to blog. Add to that a new work computer that blocks me from signing on (or commenting on others' blogs), and a more cumbersome photo editor and you guys got nada. Zilch. A big old goose egg for a long time.

As a second to the above - I still read all ya'll's blogs. I do. But can't post comments from the office. And don't have a lot of time in the evenings. But I'm still cyper-stalking your every stitch. Be secure in that knowledge.

I spent a week in Detroit with my son and an unexpected hospitalization and turn of events.

We bought a house (FINALLY!) and moved in.

We had no Internet or cable for almost 2 weeks. And survived. Barely.

So I now have a new house with a new sewing room. There's a bonus room over part of the top floor. We'd hoped to be able to put my son up there but it won't work, so it will become my sewing room. Complete with WINDOW!!!!! bathroom, small fridge, closet and a lock on the door. My Ikea shelf didn't survive the move so most of the room is still in boxes. The machine is on the table but that's about it. Oh, and I have a TV up there. Yea! Project Runway for all. The photos were taken before the old owners moved out, it was an older son's bedroom in it's past life.

My last sewing before the move was to finish piecing this quilt. I've barely started quilting it - not sure how I want to do it. So it sits and sits. I actually have named this one: Aruba Waves. Karen and I went to Aruba a few years ago and when I started piecing this, the colors just kept whispering "Aruba". The pattern is French Braid and made from a Jelly Roll (knock off) that I couldn't resist from JoAnn's. It's backed with the same fabric as the edging. Not sure how I'll bind it, yet.

So we are now residents of Maryland. And I need to renew my car tags and can't find the title. My DH (use the "D" however you wish) has no freakin' clue what he did with it two years ago when he registered it in Virginia using, btw, an old Michigan title that still had the loan attached. So if and when I DO find the freakin' title it isn't a clear title. I can't even give this car away. A little testy about that, can you tell?

Now that I have Internet and the move behind me, perhaps I'll blog more regularly, though there's no sewing in site. My son has a major surgery scheduled for June 21 that will keep me in Detroit for a good part of the summer. Then we'll move him in with us and see the end of Michigan. I tend to knit in Michigan. Whatever.

And now a small break from life.

I'm popping in for a minute between disaster I now call life to show you a few pictures and updates.

First, the lonnnnggggg awaited back of the quilted wall hanging from the jell-roll knock-off. I think its almost too cute to put against a wall. You can see I found a really close match to one of the front fabrics. Fun, fun, fun. And since I had no idea how much fabric to buy (because I didn't measure at all, not even a little) I bought way too much. But, seriously, in real life, what do you do with giraffe fabric? No matter now much you may love it? This: so when I BBQ on safari (karen, we really DO need to plan one of those some day - after Paris), I'll be ready. (Please, NO, I have NO intention of cooking a giraffe! Really, people.)

My BWOF skirt lacks only hemming right now. Maybe next week. Fabric is from Fabric-mart (pretty sure....), a pretty green loden with some nice color flecks. Just a tad of stretch. It's fully lined with a boring brown you can see peaking out from the bottom. I completely ignored the crappy Burda waist band finishing that made no since to me and seemed to leave a big chunk of the high waist with raw edges. And would be really bulky and heavy - not something my and hot flashes need. I'm afraid it may be a bit too big at the back waist, though. Nice through hips and front waist but wanted to gather at the top of the back waist - I wonder if it stretched a bit? I darkened this a bit to show a little of the front detail. It really doesn't show well in any photo. But it is a nice design. Oh, and a crappy, not-so-invisible zipper.

And to shift gears a bit. My knitting is progressing. I made this cowl from Malabrigo worsted. LOVE the yarn, LOVED my idea of the pattern, and like the scarf. This was knit on circ's and was supposed to do the zig-zag the whole scarf, but I think I (1) cast on one too many stitches so it didn't start right. (2) made a mistake so it started zz-ing (3) made another so it stopped zz-ing (4) repeat one or both of the above errors. If I showed you enough close up you could see a few holes. Errgggg. But from walking around distance you can't see them and I enjoy wearing it. Here's a close up of the pattern. You can see it's still interesting and can determine what I'd originally planned. I'll try again next fall. Right now I'm trying socks.

A more fun posting

Ok, enough of complaining. Let's do a little show and tell, okay?

First off, is my secret scarf swap from Ravelry . I goofed and let my partner know who I was, so I had to keep my work a secret. I used Saphire malabrigo chunky from Fibre Space and the Twisted Drop stitch pattern. It's a freebie you can get by clicking on the link. My Ravelry link. I think it was a good match with the yarn. I did block it (sorry, forgot to photo before the blocking) and the stitches really opened up. I may have worried needlessly about spilling the beans, as she never posted on the board (or any other) after her informational post. It would have been fun to "hear" from her looking forward to receiving it (um, or letting me know she got it....) but I enjoyed making it and mailed it ahead of deadline.

I had extra yarn and decided I wanted a new earband. I used 6.5 dpn's (my first in-the-round project) and just stockingette stitched until it was wider than my ears and bound off. There, you have my pattern for what (little) it's worth I also used double yarn knitting from both ends of the skein at once. I think the pattern difference between the two projects is very interesting. (ignore the color variance - that's a photography fumble). My hair isn't THAT red. But look at the pooling - I was quite surprised since I used a double strand. It curls when off, but flattens out on my head. I was just happy it fit.

And I do love me this yarn. I may go back and get another skein tomorrow and make a scarf to go with. Actually, I in lust for a hooded scarf, but this yarn may be a bit heavy for that. Maybe. And I think it would cable pretty. Hmmmm.

I also received a scarf from my scarfer. This is beautiful and the softest yarn I've ever felt. (note, not felted...) I believe she said it was Alpaca. I love the end ruffle. Way better than fringe, don't you think?Here's her link, my colors and pictures are a little better, but she was being stealthy. I wore it to work yesterday with a dark purple sweater and it was beautiful.

And finally, I took a pic of my first jelly roll knock off project. This was way fun, though there wasn't a lot of fabric so it ended up as a wall hanging in my sewing room. Oh, and I forgot to take a picture of the back. Again. Dang-it. I still owe you the back - you'll love the fabric. I promsie. The pattern is called French Braid. You construct as you go, rather than block it. And I suppose you could quilt as you to, as well, though I did not. I used a bamboo batting, purchased the maroon accent and store-bought binding (unusual for me, I usually make my own). I have no photo's of my next jelly roll, maybe tomorrow. It's far from finished, only the braid (yeah, same pattern) pieced. I need backing - I have batting.

WTF?

Seriously. (1) how did this happen? (2) how did I not notice it was happening until I was done (3) how could Sandra let me down? I thought we were close? I suppose I'm out of practice, but this is bad. I did such a nice job on the pockets and a nice job putting the zipper in. Well, except for one itty-bitty little detail. This is (was?) a pair of slacks from a recent BWOF magazine and some stretch suiting from G Street. As you can see, at the top above my fingers that I've even done the top stitching. I'm not sure I can get this out to re-work, the thread is a very good match and it sinks into the fabric a lot. As you may suppose, they are currently wadded in the time out corner, spending some time thinking about what they've done wrong.

So in order to have something to show for my long weekend, other than a wadder of a pair of slacks and some missing colors for my embroidery project, I picked up my bargello placemats that I left unfinished last summer (click the link to see the original post from September, about 2 weeks before I left for my banishment to Detroit). No, they aren't perfect, there are a number of wonky stripes, but they are usable and it was fun. The pattern was to make 6, in 2 batches - so you piece three at a time and then cut them apart and finish them. Well, with the wonkiness of stitching, and I think I'm still making too "generous" of a 1/4" seam allowance, I didn't have enough cut strips to make 2 sets. AND (in keeping with this weekend's theme), I put the binding on one set wrong side out (it's sitting in the corner with the slacks, but has a much brighter future ahead of it). But here are the 2 that did get finished and used. I photographed them before we had Mexican for dinner. I will be doing this again, it was fun. The back (ack!) actually shows the bad striping worse than the front, I think. You can't really tell in the picture, but you quilt as you go, each row is sewn onto the flannel "batting" and the back so the back is quilted and the front is smooth. I wasn't sure how to finish the binding without putting stitching on the top so I really cheated and Steam-a-seams the back of the binding. I was tired of messing with them. The quilting lines really show up wonky on the back. Boo. But I learned a lot doing this, and this style of quilting really lends itself to this type of project. It is much too stiff a result for a bed quilt or throw (though I suppose you could make it work with different fabrics), but worked fabulously for placemats and would be wonderful for wall hangings or table runners. It isn't very heavy or fluffy - just very stiff. I used all quilting cottons from Hancock's with a piece of flannel as the batting. Just cheap PJ type flannel. I found some woven with a gingham pattern that was great for lining up the strips. A stripe (woven in - not printed on, too often off grain) would also do very well. Not too sure how well these will launder - all the fabrics are likely to shrink and at different rates. I have a book that has some nice tutorials and patterns in it. I used it with my own color choices.

So, is it cold enough for you?