Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Final finish for 2013

...and it's done!  This is my finish for December's Lovely Year of Finishes.  It's from a quilt class that my daughter and I took at her LQS a while back.  Unfortunately, the shop has since closed...  My daughter completed her quilt already, and I can't have her teasing me that I'm old and slow!
The quilt is called "Crooked Furrows" - and even though I started off in class by cutting the triangles from right to left instead of left to right, it still ended up with crooked furrows, so it's all good!
I made the quilt a little larger than the class sample, but right now, I have no idea how big it is - I know that it's much larger than a typical lap quilt - it may even cover a twin-sized bed.  I'll have to get those measurements done before it goes to it's new home...
Here it is:
I'm excited that Melissa and Shanna have decided to continue the "program" to encourage me and a few other quilters to complete Un-Finished Objects (UFO's) - it's obvious that I need it!

Saturday, December 28, 2013

A few odds and ends...

Well, the month of December and 2013 are coming to a close, but not without some things to share with you.  We had a wonderful time with our "kids" earlier in the month for our Christmas celebration, and also spent some time with other extra-special folks as well.  I even had enough time to make a few Christmas cards, which is what I'm going to share with you today.
Most years, I buy a new stamp and make all of our cards using that stamp - I may vary how I embellish them, or change the orientation of the cards, but this year, I outdid myself by making 5 different styles of card!  (I actually purchased 2 new stamps for my cards, but didn't even use them in the end!)  I found the inspiration for most of my cards on Pinterest - what a helpful resource it can be!  It can also be a great place to get lost in thought, only to find out later that you've spent 3 hours drooling over recipes, and craft projects that you'll never have enough time to try, and endless other interesting journeys that have NOTHING to do with what you're searching for.....
Thankfully, I already owned all of the different aspects that I needed for these cards - and having received an order from Verve stamps just days before I started working on the cards really helped too!  So, here's a shot of the 5 assorted card groups that I made:
Most of the cards with the red "wreath" on them went to family and friends in our church, because I didn't realize that the "jewels" that I used for embellishment wouldn't go through the mail very well - unless I added padding to the front of the card, and paid double for the postage - so, they ended up being hand-delivered.  
Now, if only I remember next year that I already have 2 almost-very-new stamps for my 2014 Christmas cards!

Monday, December 9, 2013

I DO have better things to do!

Here we are, well into the month of December, and, so far, the only work that I've done on my LYoF project is to undo all of the stitched-together blocks.  My daughter's been here the past 2 days, and has already completed her "Crooked Furrows" quilt, and she's confident that I'm sewing it together completely wrong!  I "unstitched" the sections that I'd finished, and we played around with alternate arrangements, and she has potentially straightened me out. SO, tomorrow I start from scratch again...  At least it will now be next to perfect!  (That's really funny - next to perfect...!)  But, I have been busy with a few other sewing projects - we had our kids home Sunday and today to celebrate Christmas.  All 4 (5?) of the "kids" have jobs that make getting together on Christmas day VERY difficult - and we have to share some of them with in-laws, so we set aside this past weekend to open our gifts.  Last year, we decided to try something new for our gift exchange - we drew names, and then had to make a gift for that person.  It was apparently such a hit, that everyone wanted to do it again.  I ended up with our son's name - which made my job a lot easier.  He's a HUGE Dr. Who fan, and, seeing as this is the 50th anniversary of Dr. Who, it was pretty obvious that I had to chose something connected.  Have I ever mentioned that I LOVE Pinterest??? There were quite a few different Dr. Who projects, using a number of techniques.  I originally started knitting a scarf featuring the well-known Tardis (it's kind of like a time-machine), but when I had knitted about 13", I realized that it really wasn't going to be a good gift, so, back to Pinterest - and then I found it!  A paper-pieced Tardis pillow!  Never mind that I haven't done a lot of paper-piecing - I thought that I was up to the challenge - and, apparently, I nailed it!  (Even when I pointed out that I'd missed a small section, I was assured that it wasn't a problem).  So, here it is:
  It's probably already in a place of honour (right, Jon?)  And the best part? he doesn't want the scarf!

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

The final "Lovely Year of Finishes" project!

December is here!  I still think that I missed a month or two this past year, but seeing that every past calendar page has activities that I recall recorded on it, I assume that every day has come and gone as it was meant to pass.  But I digress...
December brings an end to an extremely helpful (and needed!) prod to my backside - it would be much too easy to moan and wring my hands, wondering how and when I'd ever have time to finish any and all of the projects I'd started with such vigor, only to lose steam, and then be overcome by excitement when a new quilt magazine arrived in my mailbox, or a "Pin"ned quilt bumped everything else on my sewing list to the bottom of the pile.  If it wasn't for Melissa and Shanna, my sewing table would be impossible to find, and I'd be avoiding my sewing room altogether.  Instead, in the past year, I've completed 8 projects, and made appreciable progress on at least 6 or 7 more.  (We won't talk about the new ones I started - and then abandoned just as quickly when more important deadlines loomed).
So, what have I chosen for my final project?  It was a toss-up - I've got at least 8 or 10 partly-finished projects, ranging from a tea cosy to a queen-sized quilt, but I'm going to ignore all of them right now, and instead work on a quilt that I started at a quilt class with my daughter.  I worked on my quilt industrially for the 2 hours of the class, and haven't touched it since.  My daughter has only the binding left to do on her finished quilt, AND she works full-time!  To make it a bit worse, I believe that the quilt shop where we took the class has since closed up.... SO, definitely time to finish this baby!  (I've also just signed up for a New Year's Day mystery quilt - and I didn't need another half-done quilt littering my sewing table!)
So, I present to you, my "Crooked Furrows" quilt:
I'm not 100% sure that this is the correct layout - the books that were supposed to come with the class never arrived, and I'm working from a black and white printout, so, before I go too much farther, I'll have to verify that I'm going in the right direction.  I'll let you know soon if I've messed up the pattern!