catch up

Nope, I didn’t get sucked into a worm hole, I just got lazy.  So, let’s play a little catch up.

December:

• The dogs were very bad.  I’m pretty sure they were trying to break me.
• Took a 2 week road trip to see my folks in South Carolina and the boy’s grandma in southern Georgia.
  • Visited my living grandparents. Met my brother’s bulldog, Belle. Met Austin’s grandma. Ate a lot of low country bbq.
  • Only took 1 photo the entire trip – in Thomasville, GA.
• Embroidered and sewed 2 doll quilts for my SILS – beets & unicorns. Finished the granny squares for the holiday garland that I never assembled.
• Went to sleep extremely early on New Year’s Eve.  It was so nice to be in our own bed again.

January:

• Joined a gym. I both hate it and love it.
• Adopted a new kitty. He’s 9 months old and his name is Alonzo. He & Nitro get along really well.
• Joined Stash Pact 2011, but I already fell of the wagon and bought some Lizzy Dish.
• Hosted an Axis Powers themed dinner party / book club meeting at our house where we paired sausage & kraut with sushi. It was delicious.
• Signed up for 3 quilting/sewing swaps – 3×6 Mini Bee, Urban Home Goods & Doll Quilt Swap 10.
• Sandwiched and basted a t-shirt quilt I started this past spring. I’m hand quilting it while watching tv.

embroidery!

Here’s some of the embroidery I mentioned in the last post, in order of completion:

Unicorn that will be the center of a doll quilt that is in progress

Squirrel scene that I plan to turn into a brooch

Anniversary gift for the mister

Click through to Flickr for pattern and inspiration credits.

sewing machine cover

So, I totally finished the vintage sheet patchwork project before the weekend even started.  Yay! for Friday night sewing.

It all started when I saw this lovely vintage sheet sewing machine cover by Sparkle Power.  I knew I needed my very own.  So I raided my vintage linens stash and got to work.  I went with buttons & elastic instead of ribbon ties just because I know I would never take the time to actually tie the thing.  The buttons make it much more likely that I will actually use the thing.  I really enjoyed the project because it was quick and I was able to play around with pairing up the vintage linen prints.  There’s even a tutorial if you’re having problems figuring out the logistics of the project.

The mister & I allowed ourselves a lazy weekend since there were very few errands to run and not much around the house needing urgent attention.  We saw the A-Team remake, which was actually more entertaining than I thought it would be.  And I had plenty of time for sewing, including the start of a new quilt project, which I’ll photograph at some point if I can make myself take a break from sewing string quilt blocks.

weekend sewing

I have a few personal patchwork projects to work on over the weekend. I hope to work in a bit of sewing time between tedious yard and house work.

The vintage sheet project just needs a few finishing touches, but the hexagons are taking much more time than I imagined.  At least I know now what I’ll me making with them.

quilted patchwork coasters

I have a lot of quilt projects in the works right now – a coin quilt that I have yet to begin piecing as well as the sorta-finished quilt top I posted on Tuesday – as well as a few more that are completely pieced and ready for quilting, but since they’re gifts I can’t post them until after the winter holidays. Anyway, lengthy lead-in to the fact that I feel like I still need some practice on quilting technique before I begin these larger projects. That’s where my current fondness for quilted patchwork coasters comes in. I get to practice quilting on my machine & binding. For these I didn’t sew together the ends of the binding & instead tucked the beginning under the end piece. It created a little lump that I’m not too happy with, so I’ll probably switch back to sewing the binding ends together – continuous quilt binding.

The second set is not really a set or patchwork. It’s just a pair of coasters for the mister to use for his fancy root beers & “pink stuff.” Our aesthetic tastes differ drastically. He loves skulls, camouflage, & red/black combos. I love bright, springtime color combos with some brown or grey thrown in. I keep a fair amount of skulls in my stash, though, to create crafty stuff that he’ll love and use.