Merry Christmas!

It's the morning of Christmas Eve and I'm spending the day just puttering and relaxing.  I made cookie dough yesterday for peanut butter blossoms (peanut butter cookies with a Hershey's kiss on top) and sugar cookies.  I baked some of the peanut butter cookies, but the dough was too soft and the cookies expanded too much.  So both dough batches went into the fridge overnight.

Apparently this poor guy got into a nasty fight.

Now I'm back down to 3 projects in progress.  I finished the wedding quilt for John and Regina and presented it to them Saturday night.  

They were both excited by the gift.  It seems, though, that they were expecting something much smaller.  Regina commented that this would not fit on a wall.  I told them it was theirs to do with as they like.  I've never had a quilt recipient look over a quilt as closely as they did.  It made me a little nervous.

I guess I'm out of practice in machine quilting because this quilt gave me all kinds of problems on the  free motion quilting - needles breaking, thread breaking, thread bunching up.  I have one large quilt that I will machine quilt in the coming year, so I guess I will get more practice there.  Perhaps I need to plan a smaller quilt to do free motion quilting on before tackling a larger quilt so I can get practiced up.

I also finished the socks for DD for Christmas.

This was a more complicated patter than I usually do, but again, once I was practiced on the stitches, it went OK.  I love the texture and will probably make a pair for me in the future.

I still am working on Scrapitude, the hand piecing for my purse and hand quilting the charity quilt.  So, I guess I'm down to 3 projects.  I won the block of the month block at my guild in December.  I really like he pattern and was hoping to win these.

It will make a really bright and cheery quilt.  I just found out that a family friend is expecting, so I think this will turn into a baby quilt for her.  That is project #4 right now.

Merry Christmas!  I hope this finds you all happy, healthy and enjoying the day.

Did I Say Limiting to Four Projects?

Shortly after my last post, I found myself without any sort of mindless sewing to do.  I've finished the wedding top and am waiting for the backing I ordered to arrive.  I've finished the latest Scrapitude clue and won't get another until January.  I have a few blocks to make to keep up with my guild's block of the month and 9-patch exchange, but they will only take an hour or two to complete both.  I wanted something I could pick up and sew on without much thought.

My only complaint about this quilt is that either the person who marked the quilt has much better eyesight or lighting than I do.  I have to darken all the markings before stitching because I can barely see them.  but, remarking is easier than doing it the first time.

So, My current project list has been increased to 5, and we'll see if I can hold there.

Productivity

My quilty life has been pretty productive lately.  This is what I've been working on ...

Wedding Quilt for John and Regina

They were married last year the weekend between Christmas and New Year.  I offered to make them a quilt and asked for a general color scheme and a mattress size.  Since they were 'savoring' opening their gifts, I didn't hear anything from either of them until August.  She wanted something very neutral, leaning towards sage green.  It took me another month or so to get my head around what I wanted to do with these colors (not my normal palate).  Since this photo I've put on three plain borders and ordered a solid backing material. Once that arrives, I'll machine quilt it.  I think I have a good idea for the borders, but not the body of the quilt yet.  I may just go with something geometric.

Socks for DD

My daughter made some suggestion that she may like some hand knit socks at some point.  I've been knitting socks for me, but haven't ventured out to give as gifts because not all people like hand knit socks.  This was a pattern that looked interesting to me, would be a bit of a challenge and came from a book that DD gave me as a gift.  They were turning out OK until I got to 1 row before the heel gusset.  I somehow lost a stitch.  I figured out where the mistake was and carefully ripped back, tried a repair and started back with the pattern.  Then I found there were 3 missing stitches.  I tried to fix it a number of times and eventually frogged the whole thing and started over.  Two rows into the pattern I found that I was missing a stitch somewhere.  I decided to just create a new stitch and be done with it.  I can't find the extra increase in the pattern.  Lesson learned ...

New Summer Purse

This little tea leaf pattern are made from Ardco aluminum patterns that I found at the Vermont Quilt Festival.  I made one flower and thought that was too difficult, so put it away.  I've been wanting a summery purse and have a pattern.  I think I have to make 10 complete flowers and some fill-ins around the edges to make the front and back panels.  One panel in nearly complete and the other has most of it's components done.  This is all hand sewn.  This is what one panel looks like so far:

Scrapitude

This is part 3 of the Scrapitude project going on in Sandy's Blog .  I still need to trim the blocks.  I'm enjoying pressing blocks more (it was job I never used to enjoy and skipped) but I still dislike the trimming part.  I know I get better results when things are nicely trimmed and I try to make the process more enjoyable by listening to podcasts.  Perhaps I will tackle that this afternoon.

Well, there they are - two machine projects and two hand projects.  I've got a bunch more things lined up to do, but I am limiting myself to these four projects at the moment. When one finishes I will pick up the next thing that strikes my fancy.

Scrapitude Part 2

I had been anxiously awaiting the next part of the scrapitude instructions and completed it quickly.  

It's not terribly exciting to look at the pieces so far.  I think I have a lot of red and blue in this quilt.  I'm hoping that everything just blends once all the pieces are put together into a top.

Updates

A brief posting to show off what I've been doing lately.

The first is a quilt my sister asked me to make for her first grandchild.  My niece's pet name for her husband is monkey, so I ran with that - monkey wrench block and the middle monkey is holding a monkey wrench. This came together quickly because the baby was a surprise.  Imagine getting a phone call (nearly a year after applying for adoption) that a baby is being born and it is yours if you say yes.  So, the have a brand new son with about 12 hours notice.  He is adorable!

The next is my progress on Scraptitude.  Sandy from "Quilting for the Rest of Us" blog and podcast is sharing a scrap mystery quilt from one of her guild-mates.  I was planning to do something my my ever-growing scrap bag when I saw her blog post and decided a planned project would probably be better than just cutting everything up into 2" squares, which was my original plan.  I've gotten everything cut up and the first set of 4-patches sewn together.  I'm anxiously awaiting step 2 now which is not due for another 2 weeks or so.

I think the project is planned to make a queen-sized quilt.  I'm amazed that all the cut fabrics for a queen-sized top will fit into a single zip-lok bag.

Otherwise, I'm still knitting socks.  This pair will be for my Mother-in-law for Christmas.  My sock enthusiasm is slowing, however.   I started these socks in August and expected them to be done by now.  I like the yarn, the color and the pattern.  I find I'm having to push myself to pick them up to work on them, though.

Lots of other projects occupy my thoughts, but nothing concrete enough to report on yet.  I'm trying to get my head around a sage green, mostly neutral quilt for some friends.  I'm itching to get going on it, but I haven't figured out what pattern I want to do.  I just know I want a pieced project that flows as an over-all design (rather than individual blocks and sashing, for example).  I've been looking over my clippings and quilt books but nothing has really excited me yet.  But, the search is part of the fun.

Plenty of Quilting UFO, But No Knitting UFOs

I have realized the past few months that while I may pick up and put down quilting projects on a whim, that I just can't do that with knitting.  In knitting I am monogamous, but promiscuous when it comes to quilting projects.

I started knitting the red wrap and got distracted on Ravelry with a sock knit-along.  I started a new pair of socks and would generally alternate evenings of knitting on the socks with evenings of knitting on the wrap.  I found that I just couldn't do it.  It made both projects suffer because I just couldn't get into a rhythm of the pattern on either.  I abandoned the wrap while I finished the socks.  Once the socks were done, I've happily picked up the wrap again and am working on completing that.

But I don't do that with quilting.  I usually have two or more projects on which I am 'actively' working, along with a variety of completed tops waiting their turn to be quilted, and other UFOs that are hiding the the closet hoping I will find a glimmer of excitement in them to bring them back into the light and the rotation of 'active' projects.

On reading the forums on Ravelry, I find it hard to imagine why anybody would have knitting UFOs.  Or a knitting stash, for that matter.  (OK, I do have enough yarn to make another 10 pairs of socks, but I know what they are all going to be.  I never buy yarn just because I love it.  Not yet, anyway.)  I KNOW this is entirely hypocritical.  I have absolutely no problem with buying some fabric just because I like it, thinking it will make its way into a project some day.  I have no problem letting a quilt top 'rest' for a while before I take the time to quilt it.  I have no problem putting a project aside because I have lost inspiration, or have no clue or are too afraid to attempt the next step.  But I just can't imagine buying some quantity of yarn because it speaks to me without having a clue as to how I will use it.

I guess this means that I'm a much more experienced and comfortable quilter than I am knitter.  If I had been knitting for 30 years I would have a clue as to how much of what weight yarn I should buy to make a sweater or an afghan or a baby blanket or some other project.  And most of my knitting projects have been small (socks, mostly). I like that because I can play with new stitches and textures without committing to a large project.  Yet I can still knit something useful and pretty.

So, I'll continue to knit projects serially and jump to wherever inspiration takes me in my quilting world.

(Just a bit of eye candy ... ) Goat Island Lighthouse, Kennebunkport, ME at Cape Porpoise - view from the restaurant where we enjoyed lunch on our anniversary.

Where Do They Go

I spend many of my evenings watching TV with my husband and stitching.  I either do some hand piecing, hand applique, hand quilting, knitting or, occasionally, cross stitch or other embroidery.  I like to keep my hands busy.  It makes me feel (perhaps delusionally) like I'm being productive while being a couch slug.

While hand piecing or doing applique, I use short applique pins.  And I usually use size 11 betweens for quilting.  I do have occasions where I drop one of those short pins while trying to move it to or from the fabric and its storage box.  And, on occasion, while starting the next needle-full of quilting stitches, the needle will launch itself off the thread and land somewhere.  I rarely find these pins and needles.  My question is - Where Do They Go?

I have turned that recliner on its back, upside down, and sideways in the fruitless search for the missing sharp object.  I have run my hands over the arms, the seat, the backs, the surrounding carpet, between the cushions and have never had so much as a prick form the apparently vanished metal sliver.  I have tried sort of bouncing the front of the chair up and down to try to dislodge any missing pins into falling to the floor below.  I've even resorted to a rare earth magnet to try to coax the missing sharp object out of it's hiding place.   ...  All to no avail.

So my question stands - Where Do They Go???

I've pondered this for quite some time and I think this is one of those un-answerable questions like "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" or "Why is it if I eat a pound of fudge that I gain 5 pounds?" .  The answer to all is "We can never know".