not really bragging

It’s not really bragging if I show off my Xmas gifts here?  BUT look what I got!!!!

Ok the pic was taken by the artist, Kerry, from KabsConcepts.  She takes amazing pictures and I’m not going to even try and do a better job than this.  My amazing hubby got this for me for Christmas and the bangle is just as amazing in person.  I’ve been following Kerry’s work for years.  I’m drawn to her color palette…loud, bright, bold, and beautiful.  Her jewelry design has gone in and out of my personal style.  Most of her work is chunky, and loud, but her simpler pieces are what draw me in.  I love this bangle. I’m totally inspired by it.  The red and teal with a touch of orange.  But the design is really what drew me in.  It’s different.  It’s a concept I thought of and then threw out the window immediately.  She did it and it works. 
Looking and wearing this bangle has started me thinking about my old beadwork.  My flowers and my dabbling into wirework/jewelry.  I was there in my flower work.  The same place Kerry is and she’s a successful artist, author, and teacher in jewelry and lampwork.  I never realized it.  I didn’t have the confidence in my flowers to know where I was.  I’m quite proud that at least now I’ve realized how far I took and was taking my french beaded flowers.  I’m slightly bummed that it took two years after I quit making them to realize it. 
But it does inspire me to explore and grow in the fiber world.  I’m excited to see what I can come up with and how far I can take it.  I have ideas for some multimedia quilts or mini quilts.  Not sure what I’ll call them yet.  I should probably make one first.  I have a sketch book and yes I’m sketchin.

we had a good christmas

Despite some illnesses in the house, we had a nice Christmas. 

Mira and R enjoyed the lights.  R has insisted that the lights be on at all times.  I think he’ll be sad when the tree goes down next week.

He loves his new kitchen.  He’s cooking Christmas breakfast for us here.  He cooks a little then “clears” off the counters.  Waits for us to load the kitchen back up before repeating. 
Now we’re having a recouperation week.  Sick people are trying to get better.  We are not hosting or cooking much of anything.  We are just wearing pj’s when we can and watching movies and lots of sesame street.

while the boy naps

Well I did a little while the boy napped this weekend.  I fought with my new sewing machine.  Ok I’m new to sewing, by hand and with a machine.  I got a Brother 3700 pacesetter for Christmas and have been learning the quirks.  And so far my biggest issue is with loading the bobbin correctly…and it’s a drop in bobbin.  That’s supposed to be the easiest thing about this machine.  Make sure the threads going counter clockwise and load it up.  And I can fight with the damn thing for a half hour and still lose.  I really have no idea what I could be doing wrong.  I know once it’s in right I’m good to go until I need to change a bobbin.  So I may need to take it into my dealer and feel like a fool and try and figure out my issues.  I don’t have any big rush in the sewing department so I’m planning to wait until after Christmas to stop by. 

I finished my scarves, here are 3 of the 4 that are done.  I have one more in pieces but mostly done.  Modeling scarves is not an easy thing.  Never mind my creepy intense gaze and focus on the soft Anna Maria flannel.  It really didn’t turn out how I envisioned these scarves.  But I think that’s because I decided to work in all flannels, instead of cotton and then backing in flannel.  I was hell bent on using some Anna Maria fabric some how and this was my solution.  I still like them, but more importantly I hope their new owners like them.  I plan to give away these 4 as gifts.  So if anyone gets one act surprised!

As for Christmas projects I’m mostly done.  I have a runner I was making myself that needs quilting.  I had planned on trying that out on the machine.  Now I’m contemplating hand quilting.  I like how Mom’s small projects look hand quilted and if I do it by hand I can sit next to C and watch Buffy while I work.  That’s what really sounds like an amazingly relaxing Christmas week activity. 

quilts and food

We’ve now been up for 2 hours and everyone is still in their PJs and we’ve flipped between three channels for cartoons.  Not something we do very often but we’ve actually scheduled a lazy weekend for this weekend.  And we’re off to a good start.  I’m not sure how well I’ll do with keep up with the laziness.  I have some sewing and picture taking I want to take care of sometime.  And some gift wrapping.  But all that sounds like fun while he naps activities.  I’ve gotten no sewing done this week.  Instead we’ve had a plumber come in and fix our leakiness, or I’ve been cooking.  Lots of yummy deliciousness cooking. 

Wednesday I made horseradish-crusted steak roulade.  Friday I braised short ribs and made creamy mashed taters to go with.  Sounds fancy, and hard.  Not so hard but very fancy flavors.  It was divine.  The major problem I’ve found with photographing my food creations is that I have to be fast which means the photos aren’t very good or they don’t get done at all.  I always rush it b/c I’m hungry, it smells good, it’s only hot for so long, and everyone else wants to eat now too.  Who am I to hold them all up?  So instead we have pics of Mom’s amazing quilt adventures.

This week she’s made these two mug rugs.  Small experimental versions of color theory experiments and learning to work with curves.  I love the pops of color and the simple and minimal additions of a striped strip.  She hand quilted these mug rugs to compliment the design.  I’m digging this idea of small versions of potential bigger projects.  Or even just fast use up some creative energy projects.  I have some fun new year quilt idea projects that she’s convinced me it would be a good idea to try a mini version first.  More on that later. 

R has now discovered the Xmas wrapping paper and is having too much fun.  =)

making a list

It’s been the busiest December ever!  I’m quite proud with how well we’ve been keeping our head above water.  This past weekend was extremely productive.  Here’s what we accomplished…

~ Hosted dinner both Sat and Sun nights
~ decorated and cleaned up the house for hosting
~ rearranged garage so deep freeze is in back
~ made vanilla strawberry jam and apple cranberry jam and canned both
~ made reindeer noses
~ made chex mix
~ nearly finished Christmas shopping
~ shipped off packages and Xmas cards

Things still to do..
~ finish my sewing projects.  I worked on this last night.  My flannel scarves are all assembled sewed up and pressed.  Yes I even pressed them.  I had the intention of sewing a border about a half inch from the edge in zig zag (b/c I wasn’t confident on my skill of sewing straight).  I don’t know if it was the thickness of the flannel or what but I kept breaking the thread.  And I decided I didn’t like the small zig zag, maybe it was too small and compact.  A wider stich may have been better.  I didn’t make it down half of one side of one scarf.  So I started another one and started hand quilting the border, simple running stitch.  I don’t like that either.  Not sure where to go with this.  Give them as gifts as is?  I liked this stitching idea so that the scarf doesn’t bubble up and the back twist to the front.  Maybe I need some prettier perl cotton and do an embroidery stitch for the border.  But you’ll see the back so it would have to look nice on both sides.  Thoughts?  suggestions?  I know I don’t have pics.  It’s been dark when I get to work on these.
~ I still need to quilt my Xmas runner. 
~ Plan Christmas dinner
~ finish up R shopping
~ Call dentist about a weird bill
~ make appt for kitty’s shots
~ wrap gifts
This weekend we have a family weekend planned.  Lots of watching Christmas movies and being together with out a huge plan.  I’m really looking forward to it.

xmas gift in action

C and I received our Christmas gifts early this year.  He got a new 7 string acoustic electric guitar that is pretty amazing.  And hard to find b/c they don’t make them any more.  I got a sewing machine.  It took me forever to pick a brand and style.  There are just too many options out there.  I ended up with a Brother 3700 Pacesetter.  The Brother dealer is close by so if I have any issues or need a class they are just minutes away.  I’m slowly getting used to it and learning its quirks.  I have a hard time loading very full bobbins despite the fact that it’s a drop in bobbin and should be super simple. 

I was able to get a little bit of sewing in while R napped yesterday.  You can see bits of Anna Maria’s flannel here.  It’s so incredibly soft.  It’s also a bit slippery and can be difficult to sew.  I have to go very slow and actually pin in order to get semi straight lines.
It was a short nap day though so once he got up we made his first rice krispie treats.  I added in holiday sprinkles to set the mood.  It’s been years since I’ve had a home made rice krispie treat.  They didn’t disappoint.  And R sure enjoyed licking the spatula.

afghan update

Here’s some pretty Noro pics of my afghan in progress. 
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I had a brief afghan scare a couple weeks ago.  I did some yarn shop searching looking for some holiday sales to buy a few more skein’s of Noro for the afghan.  I discovered that Noro has discontinued both of their sock yarn lines.  PANIC!  I’ve been kind of taking advantage of this project.  Buying the yarn as I went.  Not deciding on the final size of what the afghan should be.  In general just enjoying the project with no deadlines or stress.  Until now.

I did some math to figure out how much was needed for two different sizes.  A smaller 3x4 block afghan and the larger 4x4.  I did some searching and found an online shop with some Noro sock yarn still in their inventory and I ordered 4 more skeins.  That with what I had left over and what Mom has donated to the afghan stash I can make the 3x4 afghan with the border or I can do the 4x4 and get something else for the border.  Maybe some thicker Noro.  I still have room to play and no final choices to make yet.

I do love Noro yarn. 

knucklehead finale

Knucklehead quilt is finished!!!!

And I’m in love with it.  I actually finished it about two weeks ago and every day I love it a little more.  It’s so done and complete and practical.  I think it’s more complete and finished than any of my beaded flowers ever were.  I was never completely happy with the finishing of those.  There was always something missing.  Not with this.  While sewing on the binding everything just came together wonderfully and completely.  I’m thrilled with it.

The fabrics came from my local quilt shop the Quilt Corner in Morton.  They have bundles of fat quarter batiks that I get in trouble with every time I go to this shop.  I fell in love with the bright crazy colors.  While sewing this together it dawned on me that the colors are very autumnish.  Sorta like looking up at a tree with bright yellow and red leaves and seeing the blue sky between the branches.  The back of the quilt is a wonderful orange flannel.  Super soft and cuddly.

The lettering was decided after a few weeks of piecing.  My FIL called R a knucklehead and it just fit.  We don’t really call R that regularly but the majority of the time he is one.  I was very inspired by the Patchery Menagerie for help in the piecing of the letters.  I actually think this was the most fun of the quilt.  I loved the puzzle of putting together the letters and then watching it all come together.  The biggest challenge was picking fabrics that wouldn’t make it difficult to read.

I hand pieced the entire quilt.  And loved it all.  It was relaxing and fun work to do.  I even developed some nice callouses.  I wasn’t too nitty gritty b/c that’s not my style.  So not all the pinwheels meet up perfectly.  But to me that’s part of the charm.  I quilted this with my mom on her machine.  I wanted it machine quilted to help strengthen any fragility that hand piecing might have caused.  I didn’t want it over quilted b/c I wanted the fabrics to be the focus and I wanted the blanket to drape and wrap around R.  We went with a simple diagonal quilt and the quilted around each letter. 

Despite this being my first ok I guess the Rock quilt was my first…Second finished quilt.  I’m going to enter this into the Celebrate Color Contest from Stitched in Color.  Rachel from SIC has been a huge inspiration the last few months while I’ve worked on this and started new projects.  She has amazing patterns and a keen eye for color and design in fabrics.  Not to mention the huge help her tutorials have been.  I was excited that Knucklehead could meet the qualifications for this contest. 

flannel love

My next sewing adventure incorporates some fun flannels.  I’ve been craving Anna Maria Horner’s LouLou collection and when she came out with flannels I had to have some.  I would really love to make some sleeping pants but that’s beyond my sewing level and I’m still hand piecing pretty much everything.  Anyway right now I’m still in the playing mode of figuring how I’m going to do what.  But the flannel is amazingly soft and cuddly.  I bought some solids to compliment them and I’m having a blast putting colors together.

I’m thinking about investing in a sewing machine.  Since this sewing things seems to be taking a bit of a hold on me.  I’ve started shopping around and researching different brands and models.  Any thoughts? tips? stories of machines to get or avoid?

A cold snap has finally come and the trees are now mostly bare and grey.  I’ve been mainly drinking and enjoying wine but I rediscovered Killian’s beer the other day and its a new fave again. 

Tonight we have a babysitter and C and I are going to dinner and a show.  A real show with a stage in a theater.  We got tickets to go see Young Frankenstein.  It’s a fave movie in our house, we know most of the movie by heart.  I’m excited to see if its just a play or if they turn it into a musical too. 
I’ve also gotten C addicted to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  It’s now our go to show to put on while he’s playing guitar and I’m sewing.  It’s one of my current favorite things to do.

hiatus

I’ve been gone for a while now but definitely haven’t been lazy… 

>The Knucklehead quilt is completely finished now and I am in love!  Pics to come soon. 
>I’ve cooked and canned lots of things pears.  We had an amazing year on our pear trees.  I made pear jam, pear sauce, cinnamon pears, and pear crumble.  I over did the cinnamon on the pear sauce.
>I’ve nearly finished the 8th block on my afghan.  Pics to come soon on this too.  It’s a big slow going project but I’m still loving it.
>Finished R’s halloween costume…he was a little mummy.  I didn’t take into account my stitches would make his clothes a bit smaller.  So he lost a little mobility and if he raised his arms much his belly hung out.  He didn’t seem to mind though.  And we got lots of compliments.  oh well…lesson learned.
>I cooked a bunch of things pumpkin last week.  Pumpkin seeds, pumpkin bread.  I’m not a huge pumpkin person but we all really loved that pumpkin bread.
>I’ve started several xmas related projects, a couple of runners.  Mostly small projects that I hope to finish in time for the holidays. 
>Just wanted to share that I am a live and R made it through his first homemade halloween costume.  hopefully many more to come.