Warning!

Get that towel out; you're going to need it.

This post is heavy on drool.  Keep that towel handy as you salivate over my new fabric.  Don't say I didn't warn you, either.

The peachy/rosy/orangy colors.

The green colors.

Put them all together and you get cantelope, cucumber, honeydew, and other assorted sorbet colors.  What I did not show you is the soft off-white polka dot on soft off-white.  Figured it wouldn't show up well.  BTW, the colors are softer than what my camera is showing.  It really is pretty.

 Elder DD wants a quilt!  And not in black or gray or neutrals!  Whoopie!  The New Yorker likes color!  I always knew she was a classy dame!

So what to make with it all?  I have tons of fabric here, although I think I'll need more of that off-white.  Easy enough to get. Rail block with that off-white as one of the strips?  Some sort of diagonal strippy thing?  I have no idea.  Clearly it'll need white to keep it under control.  Otherwise it'll tend to look like the great pumpkin, only with more peachy tones. 

More sewing stuff:  here are the 2 doll quilts now at the hand quilting part.  I'm not terribly good at this.  Can't do the hand under the quilt thing because it hurts my hands.  So I slowly do a running stitch.  It's quite pleasant to do, although I have learned never to quilt through seam allowances unless I have to.  So far I can't seem to get more than 10-11 sts/inch, although going down to a size 9 between is helping.  Well, so it goes.  I'm certainly never going to enter anything in a competition.  I'm just doing this for the fun of it.

I started another doll quilt, also.  This is from a Schnibbles pattern, only I'm going to make it smaller for a doll.  I'm learning how to make flying geese.  Ack.  What a mess it is, except that I seem to be able to fudge it well.  Just don't look on the wrong side.  Next time, I'll really spray with more starch!

I have another row of geese to sew, and then add all the cute sashing in-between, etc, etc.




Here's my take on quilting:  I love picking out the fabrics and looking for patterns. I actually like some of the cutting out very much.  I love arranging the blocks, and then hand-quilting them.  The machine sewing part is OK; not my greatest love, mostly because I'm so totally inaccurate.  And basting the layers together is not grand fun, although on these little pieces, it's kind of pleasant.



I was chatting with the shop owner about how much I'm loving this craft even with my crummy cutting and sewing,  and she told me that she can barely knit.  So there you have it:  Different skills and some of us are great at one thing, and others of us excel at other things.  It's a challenge to step out of your comfort zone, and it keeps the brain alive.  Plus all those colors!  What can I say?  It's all about the color!


Knitting?  I'm working on the next shawl of the Light & Dark Lace Club.  I had this gorgeous border planned, but I know I won't have enough yarn, so I'll put the pattern aside for another shawl, and come up with a cute little guy.  Can't show you pics, BUT I can finally show you Arachne's Delight, the current shawl in progress.  I had the best time knitting it, and don't you love that adorable border? 

Arachne's Delight will go up for sale in Feb.

And that's enough of my blather.

The beginnings of another little quilt

This one is Little Red from Nelson, Carrie - Schnibbles times two

You'll notice that my fabrics are totally different from the ones in the pattern.  I never make anything in knitting, crocheting, or sewing that is exactly like a pattern.  My curiosity always leads me to use other fabrics or yarns.  And you know how easily I get bored, so why do something the way it's already been done?

These are early days here.  I think I can finish up the blocks today.  My sewing hasn't improved unfortunately.  I'm afraid this is as good as it's ever going to get.  We have a few blocks that look wonky to me, but not terribly so, and I do have lots of fabric if I need to substitute a block.  But I'm having a grand time playing, and I'm never entering anything in any competition, so it's all fine with me.  The Hubbo likes what I do, not that he's any judge of my abilities. 

And that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Scrabblequeen - I kinda like it too.  I sewed the first row together and by golly, most of those little points came together.  5 more rows to go and then sew the entire thing together.  Then I have to pick out a border or two and such.  I really really like doing this.

LivvyLove - I love to use different color schemes than what was originally used.  

How come?

People now use the word "sewist" instead of "sewer"?  I'm not a sewist; I'm a woman who sews, badly, but I persevere.  My mom would never use the word "sewist".  She was a sewer.  Oh wait, could the problem be that sewer could also mean the place where sewage goes?  Ack.   Do we say that a knitter is a "knitist", or that a crocheter is a "crochetist"?  Strange, bizarre. 

Way back in the middle ages, when I began to embroider (stitch?), those who did this were called "embroiderers".  Then somehow, embroidery became a no-no, and so people then became "stitchers".  I don't think they've become "stitchists" yet, but I could be wrong.

Enough of this bloedel (badly typed Viennese German for "foolishness")!   Here is what this sewer, sewist, sewing person made this week.  Notice that you are looking at the good side of the garments, and not at the inside or the backs.  Velcro and I have a hard time together, but the dolls don't care.

Left outfit:  The t-shirt is made from an old tee of mine.   What I learned:  Don't forget to change your needle to a ball-point needle; use the actual hem of my tee to make the hem of the shirt.  Sometimes I'm smart.  I should have used that part of the shirt also for the sleeves.  Next one.

Middle outfit:  This is a cutie tee shirt from Liberty Jane that I lengthened into a dress length and added a border to match the sleeves and belt.  The real pattern has elastic around the sleeves, but I'm too lazy to do that and anyhow, it's easier to get on the doll this way and more fun to do.  If you take the belt off, it looks like a nightie.  Hey, a multi-purpose dress!

The dress on the right drove me bananas!  It has a complex instruction (at least to my non-sewer/sewist mind) of doing the waistband.  Never again.  I like the dress, but the next time I do it, I'm attaching the gathered skirt to the bodice, and then making a little belt that I'll either sew on, or tie on in the back, maybe with ribbon.

So now, when Miss P comes, she'll have 5 new outfits to use on the girls.

And now here is my very first quilt top.  I haven't gotten the courage up to start the quilting process.  Right now I'm admiring it as it.  Yep, there are places where the points don't come together, and my perfectionist self finds every one of them, but I like it, and am not ripping it out.  I hope I'll get better as I do more of these, but I'm afraid that this is my peak patchwork talent.

The fool thing came out smaller than it was supposed to (and I'm not surprised at this.  I told you that this is not my great talent.), so then I had to fudge all the borders, but as a good knitter, I can fudge with the best of them.  If you embiggen it, you'll see my non-meeting points. Just smile and look at the rest of it.

I've loved doing this so much, that I've cut out another Schnibble pattern, with 10 zillion little pieces attached to the corners of blocks, stitched, and then cut.  I spent a chunk of time just drawing the sewing line on the little pieces.  I think the best part of all this patchwork stuff is handling the fabric and admiring it.

Did you take a peak at yesterday's post about brand new Lili Lace Yarn?  Go and do it.  The pics on the blog are 100 times better than the ones in the Etsy shop!

Sharon V - You poor thing, if you think you can learn something from me when it comes to sewing. I'm a frogging sewer, and everything I sew, gets a couple of seams ripped, sometimes more than once. But I'm having fun, and the grands are a bit impressed.

It's good to be back again.

I just haven't been bloggy lately.  Not in the mood, I guess.

My MIL has been very poorly and is in the hospital undergoing all sorts of treatments for all sorts of ailments.  She seems to be coming along, we hope, but she is 87 and not in great health to begin with.  Very sad and very worrisome.

On a much lighter note, I'm still knitting on a secret project and crocheting the never-ending afghan.  All the doll clothing is now given to the grands, and the poor dolls are nekkid.  Gotta make some more.

What's obsessing me these days is patchwork.  I bought a book called Schnibbles Times Two: Quilts from 5" or 10" Squares.


I love it!  It tells you how to make quilts from either layer cakes or charm squares.  it seemed easy, so I'm making the first project in the book, Bennington, out of charm squares, and it's adorable.  Since I'm a beginner here, and I don't have any sense of what is hard or easy, I just went with it, and so far, so good.  I could do this kind of work for hours.  Indeed, as soon as I get off the computer, I'm going back to it.


Here's a pic of a bunch of the blocks laid out just so I can get a sense of how they will look. This is a bowtie pattern, and the original called for the bowties to be done in dark colors, and the rest to be done in lights. Naturally I reversed it, and to me, it looks like Japanese temari balls.

So that's what's going on.  I didn't want you to think I'd dropped off the face of the universe.

Kv - I think I also lost my bloggy mojo.
FoFo - Thanks for your prayers.  We do appreciate it.  This is such a little quilt that I'll probably finish it, if only to see what it finally looks like.

Henya - The dyeing is really sleeping.  All I want to do is sew.  I've gone over to the dark side here!

Infinity Quilter/Knitter - Thanks.  I joined up all the blocks yesterday.  I made a couple of goofs, but I'm pretty satisfied, at least for the first one I've done. 

LivvyLove - Well, your comment makes me want to go back to the quilt.  I think we have our own support group.