A Crafty Day

Today was my monthly meeting for embroidery group, and we learned how to make an embossed design. Embossing is heavy stitching on a napped fabric like terry cloth or fleece, which mats down the background so the primary design stands out. Monograms and lettering are a popular way to use the embossing technique, so I stitched out this little "home" design on a hand towel. It looks a little shiny in the picture because I haven't rinsed out the stabilizer yet. I really love the effect. It's hard to resist the urge to go around the house embroidering every towel I own.

I am in the mood to make small quilts these days, so this afternoon I worked some more on this crocus pattern. I'm making the mini size, which finishes to 14" x 16". I started it only three days ago, so I'm making good progress.

The pattern is from Eileen Sullivan's Designer's Workshop. She has a whole series of different flower patterns, and I think I probably own all of them. She just released two new ones, Daisies and Coneflowers, which are on my wish list.

February Finish

The headless dinosaur strippy quilt is finished. Well, there are a few dino heads that didn't get cut off, but not for the main character, the T-rex. He shall remain headless.

It's a wonder the quilt got finished at all. My top thread shredded about 50 times while I was trying to quilt this top, and I was on the verge of throwing both the quilt and the machine right out the window. But I persevered and managed to finish it. Don't know what finally fixed the machine, I just kept fooling with things until it worked.


I like that Ebb and Flow pantograph from Willow Leaf. It's pretty easy to quilt, and it was the same shape as the dino tails, so it worked well for me.

Life has been very busy this month. We spent a week in Chicago, drove out to see our son's graduation from boot camp. His girl rode out with us from Maine, and the two of them got married over the weekend. Maybe a photo or two of those events later.

I've finished 3 more small quilt tops, I'm adding borders to 2 larger ones, and I'm in the middle of quilting a twin sized top right now, all of which you'll see eventually. Just had to get the February post done for the One Project a Month challenge.

First Finish 2011

I got this little baby quilt quilted just before Christmas but didn't get around to the binding until mid-January. I think it's a sweet little quilt, and it was easy to put together, only takes 8 fat quarters. I have no one particular in mind to receive it, but it'll be nice to have a baby quilt on hand just in case.

Quilt design: "Crazy Eights" by Bits 'n Pieces

OPAM 2011

Thought I fell off the earth? Nope! Just busy. I got done with work about three weeks ago and have spent some time catching up with things at home and socializing. It's lovely to be able to get together with my quilting buddies again.

I also spent a lot of time thinking about goals for 2011. Everybody has them, right? The last two years I wanted to bust more stash and make more quilts just like everybody else, and I didn't really do so well in that regard. Last year particularly I sort of set myself up to fail by taking on just too darned much.

So, at the end of the year, I gave myself permission to take every project I hadn't finished--Star Crazy, all the quilts for the 6-Quilt Stashbuster Challenge, the projects from the Power of Ten list, and whatever else there was--and throw every bit of it in the UFO pile. It already feels good to start fresh in the New Year and go where I want. I have a vague list of quilts I'd like to make this year, but I'm not setting any goals per se. Instead, I might pick one or two projects I want to work on each week, and leave it at that. No stress this year!

That said, I did sign up for the One Project a Month Challenge. I've done it the last two years and not been completely successful; but I had fun, so I signed up again this year. The rules are here, if you're interested, and the list of participants is limited to 200. They may be close to that limit now. That's not to say you can't still do it on your own. In fact, that's what I did last year because I didn't make the sign up in time. That's it! That's my only goal this year!

Happy New Year

Goodbye to 2010 and hello 2011. Although my husband and I have been to the occasional New Year's Eve party, New Year's is not generally a holiday we celebrate. In fact I think I went to bed last night around 10:00 because I am still doing battle with a cold and laryngitis.

This morning we had fried dough for breakfast. We only have it once a year on Christmas Day, but my son worked Christmas Day so we had brunch at the restaurant where he works. When we were kids, my dad made fried dough every Christmas morning for us for as long as I can remember. I never had it or saw anywhere else until my husband and I moved up to Maine. We discovered they sold it at the local fairs up here. My folks were from Maine, but I don't know if this is strictly a local thing or not. After my dad died, my husband started making fried dough for our kids on Christmas morning. I guess someday we'll be making it for our grandkids if we ever have any.

I started sewing after breakfast this morning around 9:00 and worked straight through til about 9:00 tonight except for meals. I'd like to get the Holiday quilt done while I'm still in the holiday mood. All the blocks are done except the center medallion. All the units for the center are mostly finished, and I'm working on sewing those together. Tomorrow I'd like to finish the center medallion and maybe sew some of the sashings together. My goal is to have the top finished by the end of the week.

Holidays at Home

We had a sew day over at Koleen's yesterday, and I started this wallhanging called "Holidays at Home". Koleen's sister has a quilt shop down in New Hampshire, and last summer she had these Block of the Month kits for sale, so we each bought one. With the Champagne quilt I had to get done for my niece's wedding, work, and everything else, I never got a chance to start on it. I'm still very much in the holiday mood though, so I'm happy working on it right now.

The colors aren't very true in the cover photo, but they are in the picture I took of the blocks I've done so far. I love the blocks on the left because they look like gift boxes.

















One of the fun things about the kit is this striped fabric that's included in the packet each month. From this striped fabric, you cut out half square triangle units and strip sections for the different blocks. Less piecing, faster assembly, but it still looks like you did all the work. I'm sure this isn't a new concept, but it's new to me, and I like it.
Hancock's of Paducah still has these kits if anyone is interested.

Catching Up After Christmas

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas celebration with family and friends. We had a nice holiday except that we missed our son. My husband has missed a few Christmases over the years because of his job, but this is the first year one of my children hasn't been with me for Christmas.

Our elder son joined the armed forces on a delayed entry program back in April and shipped out to boot camp the first week of December. We finally got some letters from him today in the mail. He spent the first week wondering what the hell he'd gotten himself into, but he's doing just fine now that's he's adjusted to the routine and the mind games. He's a tough kid with a good sense of humor, so I'm sure he'll make it through with flying colors.

The kids got together and bought me an Ipod Touch before my son left for boot camp. My son has an iPhone that I sort of commandeer every time he comes up for a visit to play a game called Booley, so I guess he figured maybe I should have my own. I actually considered buying one for myself several months ago, but mostly I could care less about all that technology and thought it would be wasted on me. Now that I have one, I love it. I have a camera, email, a web browser, an app for FoxsNews, an app for Weather Channel, some kitchen apps, and a few games, among other things. And I've created endless lists for myself on this thing, eliminating tons of paper. I'm sure this will rank as one of my best ever gifts.

Two days after Christmas the blizzard rolled into Maine. The storm raged for nearly 24 hours, and we got 15 inches of snow; but we never lost power, which I thought was amazing. I took the day off work because I refused to drive 45 minutes down the interstate in it, but my husband went to work. He had no problem until he got home and got stuck in the driveway, so I threw on some snowpants, boots, and a coat and went out to help shovel out the car. Then I played around out in the snow for a while, while my husband snow blowed the driveway.

It was about 22 degrees that day with a wind chill of 8, and maybe that's why I developed a case of laryngitis... again. I had it just over a month ago and missed three days of work because of it, and I had to call out again today. Can't be on the phones all day with no voice. It was a very fine day to sew though.