Sunday, April 8, 2012

Happy Easter

My younger son came down from college this morning to spend the rest of the weekend with us and brought me this lovely bouquet of origami roses. He said he got the idea on Friday to make them for me; but he worked all weekend and got off late last night, so he was up until 6:00 this morning finishing the flowers. How sweet is that?

I learned a little bit about origami when I was a kid, but I had no idea you could make things like this. We looked online, and there are all sorts of origami flowers and boxes and other stuff you can make. Very impressive.

Anyway, happy Easter, and enjoy your weekend.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

March Finishes

I thought I was going to be able to get the Night Flight binding done to get another finish for March, but I still have one more side to hand sew. I quilted another small strippy today, so as soon as I get the binding done on that one too, I'll have a couple easy finishes for April.

I did finish a pair of socks for the month of March, and these are for my sister-in-law. I haven't made socks for her before, so I made one sock and mailed it to her. She tried it on and mailed it back so I could shorten the foot about a half inch, then I finished the other one and mailed them both to her last week.

I also finished this sock, but the second sock is still on the needles. I am so crazy about this yarn. It's from Regia, and I like their yarn a lot. I also started two more pairs of socks because I was anxious to see what the yarn looked like knitted up. That's exactly how I wind up with quilting UFOs, but so far I have managed to get all my sock projects finished. Anyway, I'd love to have all three pair done by the end of the month, but that might be a stretch.

I have belonged to several different quilt groups over the last ten years, and most of these groups conduct some sort of charity project each year. We've made Quilts for Kids, quilts for the Linus project, quilts for different shelters in the area, chemo caps, and pillowcases for Conkerr Cancer. I still make a few strippies once in a while plus a few pillowcases, but this year's charitable project was walker bags. These are fairly quick to put together once the pieces are cut out, and I've made about eight of them, I guess. This was one of the more recent ones, finished in March; and I have eleven more kitted up and ready to go.

I try to make four or five pillowcases every month plus two or three walker bags. I am trying to find ways to use up old fabric I had left over from my garment sewing days, solid quilt cottons because I don't really use them anymore, kids' fabric that I've somehow accumulated, and some other stuff I don't really like very much. These charity projects are a perfect way to use that stuff up.