'cheating' quilt complete

It's finished! The only thing I don't like about the 'totally cheating' quilt is that I can't seem to snap a good photo of it. I finished it up yesterday and got it in the wash today. It's now all full of dimpled, puckered quilty goodness. I love it!

I tied off each square with 100% wool yarn, and it felted a bit more than I had hoped in the wash. Still, I'm really happy with the results. Especially the binding. Which is hands-down the best I've ever done, thanks to a couple of tips from Lynne.

Xander and Quinn love it and spent evening 'sharing it' since it isn't large enough for both of them to snuggle under together.

Despite the lack of photos (hurry up, Spring! I need light after 6:30 pm!), I had a great crafting week. I learned the purl stitch this week in knitting class. Now I know what they mean by "knit one, purl two". I think I remember that from old Bugs Bunny cartoons. Strange.

I also took a photography lesson from Ray. I've had a Nikon D-70 for the past couple of years, and I've hardly ever taken it off of 'auto'. Kind of crazy since I took photography way back in high school and have at least a basic knowledge of camera theory.

For homework, I have to take photos every day on manual, for 30 days. The quilt photos are day 1. As you can see, there's lots of room for improvement.

something new

I'm so excited! I started Lynn's beginner's knitting class last Thursday. It was great! Very relaxing. It's been nice practicing this week at home by the fire, with a glass of red wine. ahem. My second class is this Thursday, and I'm hoping to have the whole skien knitted with no mistakes by then. Wish me luck!

totally cheating

Last week I was feeling a little lazy. This happens a lot in January. Once the holidays are over we seem to get hit with an obnoxious twenty degree drop in temperature and snow. The snow would have been festive in December, but in January it just serves as a reminder that we have at two more months of winter to get through and I start to feel, well, lazy.

So, I spent a lot of time last week on the couch with the TV on and a nice wood fire going, glass of red wine in hand, reading blogs. While purusing The Purl Bee I came across a link to their echino line of fabrics and found this great patchwork fabric (Kokka Fabrics Echino Red Squares 95000-500/b14). The perfect project for someone feeling lazy - a fake patchwork quilt!

I ordered a yard and then was off to the fabric store to get some kona cotton for the backing and the strippy binding. The binding I pieced together from four different colors of fabric (okay, that part wasn't lazy).

Then, I just quilted the layers together by "stitching in the ditch" between the squares of the printed top layer. Viola! The totally cheating quilt! I still have to finish sewing the binding on, but I want to take the whole thing over to Lynn's place so she can show me how to correctly hand stitch a binding. The finished quilt should be up here in the next week.

crafting for home

I was so happy to take down Christmas decorations last weekend. Not that I don't love Christmas. Or decorations. It's just that after six weeks, I was about done with all of the red and green, and gold.

But I have to say that once I looked around the place, I decided that I was also tired of my non-Christmas decorations. Sigh.

So, project 'crafting for home' has officially begun.

I've got a lot of ideas, and hope to have things spruced up around here by spring. I thought I'd build a little momentum by knocking off a few quick projects first. And the first one is this little patchwork cover for the flat panel TV in the kitchen.


:: with a thin handle on top for easy removal ::

a little organization

One of the gifts Santa brought me this year were these cool little plastic fabric wrappers from Polar Notions. So far, I'm liking how they work. It's nice to actually see what fabric I have.

I've been looking forward to turning the spare bedroom into my sewing room, but that project is on hold until the Spring. Kevin and I took it over while we were working on our bedroom and discovered that it is by far the warmest room in the house. There is no way I'm moving out of that room until at least April.

happy new year

I can't believe 2008 is here, that my 11 day vacation is over and I'm heading back to work tomorrow. It was a fantastic, relaxing 11 days that ended in a great new year's party with friends and family.

I should do something sentimental or insightful here. A summary of 2007, a bit of looking forward to the things ahead. But I'm just too tired and am instead heading off to bed. Perhaps I am a bit too old for partying until 6:00am after all. Ahem.

:: new year's gifts for sarah and dawn ::

:: with this bit of cute sewed tissue paper as the wrapper. from joelle's book ::