bumbles & lu

yay! pizza

bumblesandlu — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 14:53:31 +0000

I think it’s a bit obvious, but I’m not much of a blogger. And to be honest, I really don’t like writing or reading what I’ve written. I much prefer a photo.

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The container garden plants aren’t doing too well. The watermelon succumbed to my brown thumb. And the zucchini succumbed to squash vine borers, despite multiples attempts to save them. And the rosemary crapped out during this recent heat (hotter) wave. But the tomatoes and basil are doing well.

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container garden

bumblesandlu — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 19:29:48 +0000

Spring around here is really just a few weeks in early March, so by the end of April we’re already rocking the summer weather. I’m not really enjoying the 90+ degree weather, but the fruits & veggies I’m trying my hand at seem to be soaking up all the heat & sun. Those tomato plants down there had at least 20+ baby tomatoes budding on them when I checked this morning.

The cats are pretty happy about the time I’ve been spending out back because I usually take them with me. Alonzo is good just on the lead, but Nitro has to wear a little camouflage harness so that he won’t choke himself.

doll quilt swap 10

bumblesandlu — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 13:00:13 +0000

Finished up Doll Quilt Swap 10 recently. I was in such a rush to get mine sent off by the international deadline that I didn’t get any photos snapped of the scarf & fat quarter that I sent along with the quilt, but I did get a few shots of the awesome miniature quilt magnets and the pincushion that my partner sent to me. This is the 2nd miniature quilt I’ve received geared towards my cat lady status.

What I sent is above, what I received is below.

getting organized

bumblesandlu — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 14:42:07 +0000

That right there is a Frankenstein photostitch of my quilting cottons stash. While having it all folded and visible like that makes it less overwhelming to see, it doesn’t make it any less obvious that I need to continue my no-buying efforts and get started on some stash-busting projects pronto.

Getting all of that fabric folded somewhat uniformly was part of last weekend’s organization effort. The husband was away for a good portion of the weekend, so I spent the most of the alone-time working on random house projects. I used the stud finder & drill quite a bit and hung a lot of utility hooks on the walls. Now all the garden tools have a home and the ladder is off the laundry room floor. We also finally have curtains in the bedroom thanks to 2 Dwellstudio for Target shower curtains and my ability to sew a semi-straight line.

Next project in the queue for me is a complete reorganization of the laundry/utility room, including adding shelving to take advantage of the higher ceilings. We never really thought through what having a finished garage would mean when we bought the house. At the time, our tool collection could fit on one shelf, so we didn’t really think that we’d miss having an actual garage. Now that the tools are overflowing the garage shelving we keep them relegated to, we’ve realized some organization strategies are in order.

robot love

bumblesandlu — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 20:28:39 +0000

There have been many hand- made robots for my husband over the past few years, but this mini quilt is my current favorite.

Made as a Valentine’s Day gift for the mister, I used Kona solids, a few Jay McCarroll prints and and scraps from the scrap bin. It’s machine-pieced and machine-quilted. There a loops on the back and it will hang on a dowel on the wall in the game room with the rest of the robots.

And in other quilty-news, I received the most awesome mini quilt and fabric bucket from the Urban Home Goods swap and I got my 3×6 Sampler Quilt Mini Bee blocks sent out.

Urban Home Goods swap

bumblesandlu — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 15:53:29 +0000

The Urban Home Goods Swap goodies that I sent out Monday should have been received by my swap partner by now, so here are some details of the projects. The main item requested was a sewing machine cover, and since I love my own so much, I felt it necessary to comply. After a bit of Flickr stalking, and the swap notes, I felt pretty comfortable with my choice of mini bunting. The green and turquoise are from a Stitch in Dye charm pack and the orange solid and yellow polka dots were in my scrap bin. It’s backed with a textured teal solid that came from my grandmother’s attic stash, so I’m assume it’s somewhat vintage. I zigzag stitched in white because I didn’t want to detract too much from the flag shapes. My favorite part is little section of bunting fabric that I added to the binding.

The second item was a circular knitting needle case. I looked around for a while before finding a design that I really liked. I knew I could sew up a case pretty easily, but I really wanted to try something a little different. That’s where Splityarn’s Circular Needle Case tutorial comes in. I really liked the idea of tearing up a thrift store book – I think this was a book on economics. After removing the book’s guts, I covered the book boards with the same linen blend I’d used for the main project. The stripe is a Kaffe Fassett print (Plink in Rust) coordinated with the same teal I used for the machine cover backing. The actual knitting needle holder part is off-white duck cloth and cotton elastic.

I couldn’t resist throwing in a few dpn sleeves or pouches. I’m not sure where I got the idea, but here is a great tutorial.

I had a lot of fun figuring out what to make and working on these projects. I usually do with Flickr swaps. And it seems like the deadline of swaps is the only thing that really helps me finish up projects these days. Our house right now is filled with half-finished projects, particularly of the quilting variety. There’s a coin quilt, a strip quilt a t-shirt quilt, a quilt using Wonderland, and several mini quilts that I can think of just off the top of my head that I languishing in the sewing room. In fact, the only one that even has been turned in to a quilt sandwich is the t-shirt quilt, which I have stupidly decided to hand quilt.

sewing with cats

bumblesandlu — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 18:28:55 +0000

The sewing room door usually stays closed thanks to a certain cord-chewing floofy cat, but sometimes I’ll leave it open when I’m in there working on something. Alonzo joined me for quite a while this weekend while I did the bulk of the piecing for my 3×6 mini bee swap. No thanks to the cats, I did manage to pull together all the finishing touches for my Urban Home Goods Swap goodies, and they’re on their way to the west coast.

catch up

bumblesandlu — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 15:27:02 +0000

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.

all gone

bumblesandlu — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 14:31:05 +0000

This will probably be the last cat-centric post for a while. We sent the last of the kittens to a new home yesterday. I was sad for an hour or so, especially since the last one was the black one and black kitties will always be extra adorable and special to me. But then I got excited about all the love and attention they’ll get in their new homes and about the prospect of fostering litters somewhat regularly. I’m not sure if the mister shares my excitement about the latter, though.

They were each sent off with some toys and a small blanket I sewed for them their first week here. While an overflowing sewing room can be frustrating, it was nice to be able to whip these up with scraps stuffed in various drawers and bins.

This past week has mostly been about mending and creating utilitarian items for around the house, including knitted washcloths and dishrags. It’s nice to work through a few quick projects before I cast on for my first ever shawl.

placemat quilt swap

bumblesandlu — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 15:34:21 +0000

The 6 mini quilts I made for the Placemat Quilt Swap have been received, so I can finally post photographs. My swap partner was the organizer of the vintage sheet swap I’d just participated in, so we agreed to use vintage linens as the bulk of our placemats. This was a really fun project to work on and I managed to mostly use materials from my stash. The only thing new I bought was some Kona cotton for the binding. The backing is a fine wale corduroy, if you can’t tell from the photo. I’m not a floral-loving person, never have been, but I’ve been collecting awesome vintage sheets since college, so it’s nice to use them in projects.