I make quilts sometimes!

It's been a while since I pulled out all my crafty toys and got to play.

I was recently invited to a friend's shower, so I jumped at the chance to make a quick baby quilt.  All of the fabric was already in my stash, and as you can see I did about the easiest pattern I could think of.

Overall it was a fun and easy reintroduction to quilting and a reminder of how fun it is to cut pretty fabric into little pieces and the sew it all back together again.  It also reminded me that I need to work on my binding technique a bit.

It was well received, which always makes me happy!

I think it's fair to say that my quilting bug is back and there will be lots more fun little quilts in my future.  I just hope I find enough babies to give them away to!

Actual Crafty Content

In between all of my other summer adventures this year I have actually been doing a little bit of quilting.  I made this one in a bit of a rush between school getting out and my trip to Las Vegas.

I didn't have months and months to do anything complicated so I chose a fun pattern with lots of fabrics that had been used in other baby blankets for mutual friends, and a few special fabrics for this little girl.

I really love I-spy quilts, because you can tell stories with them, or play matching games, or counting games.  Heck, I really should just make myself one because I like them so much.

This particular little girl lives in France with her American mother and French father, so I made sure to include some flashes of France (see if you can spot the Eiffel Tower) and allusions to America (I spy some cowboy boots and an American flag).  And then, of course, there are rocket ships, kittens, pirates, pumpkins, and baked potatoes.  Because - why not?

I didn't have enough fabric in my stash for the back so I picked up something with a little international flair:  

And a few French phrases:

The backing all together:

It may not be heirloom quality, but it was made with love!!

Countdown

It seems like the holiday seasons start earlier and earlier every year, and I guess I'm not helping much.  I got a head-start on my holiday quilting and have finished up a little advent calendar quilt.

I know that I don't do well with super-precise piecing, so I went for a slightly wonky look.

 The date-counter is supposed to be a candy-cane but I wasn't super careful about matching up the stripes.  It's little, so I might re-do it if I can find some more scraps of that fabric.

The backing has two little sleeves.  I'll need to get a dowel or figure out some kind of way to hang it.  I didn't think that far ahead... but it's got sleeves... so that's a start!!

The trickiest part was the letters... I printed them out, and copied them onto iron-on backing... then ironed that onto the fabrics.  It took one or two before I managed to get them to look right-side-up.  

 

Ironed the backing to the letters, cut them out,  ironed them onto the quilt... and then tried to do some outline stitching.  As I stated above, it was somewhat less than precise.

 

Here's a little close up of the embroidery and trim. 

Honestly, it was a lot of work for such a small quilt... but I love it.  I think it will look festive when it's finally up on the wall.  

School's out for summer!!!

Spring term finished up in June, so I've actually had a few weeks to relax and breathe.  The very first thing I did was pull out my sewing machine and start playing with fabric.

Like most respectable crafters, I have an abundance of works in progress... fabric purchased, patterns planned out, everything I need except for time to work on them! 

I've had it in my head to do a Doctor Who TARDIS quilt for a while and finally started putting it all together.  

This is just the mock up to see if I had all the pieces right.  But I've been working on it and should have a finished object to show off soon. 


Here's the unquilted top:

In other news, the Sister's Outdoor Quilt show is this Saturday and I will be attending again so look forward to a post about that!

Woven!

So yeah... um... sometimes I craft!  But mostly I'm going to grad school.  And mostly the folks who read this blog follow me on facebook, so I'm mostly just posting these pictures so I can share them elsewhere.

But a big warm "Hi" and a hug to anyone who is actually reading this.  I kinda miss blogging and I wish I still had time to do it.  =)

 So this is a scarf that I made from some alpaca I bought at Oregon Flock and Fiber... years ago!  The main color way is called "October" and being an October gal... I just had to have it. I also had some slightly heavier alpaca in a simple brown that I used for a few stripes... just to give the scarf a bit of character.

Once again I think I wove it too loosely.  It's a lace-weight yarn and I'm using a 10 dpi heddle.  I really need to figure that out.  I'm sure there's a chart somewhere. 

But it's drapey and pretty and hopefully I'll find an occasion to wear it soon.

 And here is the scarf I made back when I took that weaving class... I don't think I ever posted pictures of the finished product.

It's wrinkled because I wore it quite a lot over the winter... love the colors, I think it turned out well.

Actual crafty content!

I haven't had a ton of time to craft, but I warped my loom with some dish cloth cotton a while back and whenever I got a few minutes I'd weave a bit.

Little by little.... and there you go - dishtowels!

Ok - not the sexiest of finished objects... but I wanted to make something practical and I've got more than a few scarves in my closet already. ;)   I was also excited to try warping stripes and seeing how they looked when I used different colors for the weft.

Also - I finished the edges by hand sewing the first/last two rows together - just to keep them from unraveling when I took them off the loom.  Then I folded the ends over and machine sewed a zig-zag stitch for a hem.  It's not super neat, but it does look finished, and held up through the wash.

I made a super long warp and then tried to measure out the length for three separate towels.  It was a bit tricky... but I actually got it kind of close.  Two of the towels are almost exactly the same length - the other one is maybe two inches longer.  Not too bad.  And heck - it's dish towels... nobody's going to care. =)