Let the quilting begin.

I'm calling the quilting step of quilt-making step 3 of 4, with piecing the top and pinning the layers as steps 1 and 2. Although, this is really overlooking the big first step of cutting the squares and might make it seem like the pinning step is equal in weight to the other steps.  The pinning process is brief with a mere hour or two of work as compared to the many tens or possibly hundreds of hours the cutting and quilting steps require.  While brief, it will keep the distinction of a step if only for the significance - it begins the transition from a fabric to an actual quilt. Plus, there is a social element that makes it even more fun!

Yesterday, I invited a couple girlfriends over for an early lunch and quilt pinning party. Angela and Sandy came over to help with Ang's kiddos as lively observers. Nick was actually pretty intrigued with the process. He came in the door asking how many squares are in the top.. I reported that there are 758!  I made the favorite Provencal tuna salad from the How to Eat Supper cookbook, blueberry wheat bran muffins, and no-fuss Betty Crocker brownies.  We snacked and pinned.  and snacked and pinned and snacked.


The process is pretty simple. All layers were pressed, then the muslin backing was smoothed and taped to he floor. I prepped the room by rolling up the rug and mopping before friends arrived. Next the cotton batting was smoothed on top.  The quilt top was sandwiched on top, smoothing from the center out. Ang and I started pinning in the middle and spiraled out part of the way before Sandy arrived to pitch in and finish it up.  Casey even put in a few pins and took some pics.  The whole affair only took around 2 hours.

No work for me today (hooray for long weekends), so I decided to jump right in on the next step - definitely the most time-intensive - the quilting, which is the part that binds the layers together.  Quilting for this pattern consists of sewing 56 rows in one direction, then turning 90 degrees and sewing another 56 rows with seams on both sides of the quilt top seams.  I read the pattern for her tips with this stage and began by rolling up one side of the quilt to the approximate center.  The instructions are to sew long rows from the center out while unrolling the quilt.  The quilt is so big and bulky that just rolling it takes a few minutes of fiddling.  The roll fits easily under the arm of the machine.  The tricky part is dealing with the tendency of the fabric to pucker and pull while going the length of the row.  It is a bit frustrating to see the layers bunch up and takes some concentration to keep the seams relatively straight while the foot is trying to pull everything through.

I can't tell yet if there is anything I can do to reduce this effect.  So far, I'm just trying to keep an eye on the reverse side after a row to see if it is obvious.  It is definitely noticeable where the muslin has gathered, but according to the pattern, the entire quilt is intended to pucker after the first washing and drying - this is supposed to give it a certain look with the bonus feature of hiding imperfections in the sewing - we shall see.  It seems that despite efforts to smooth the bottom layer as much as possible and with pins in every other square, the fabrics still move enough to provoke some cursing.  So far, I've finished 4 rows.  It's hard to see, but the last pic shows the two sets of rows - 4 seams all-together - with blank rows on both sides.  Time to take a break and make some pizza dough for pizzas tonight.  After that, I will try to limit myself to only another 4 rows, since there are a million other things I would love to do on this glorious day off... one of which would involve getting outside to enjoy the beautiful day - maybe some painting in a little while?

Quilt - Part 1b and a pair of warmed hands

This is mostly a quilt update. Didn't seem right to call it part 2 when I'm still in the middle of the first of four major quilt-making steps: 1. Sewing quilt top; 2. Pinning quilt layers together; 3. Quilting (definitely the most time-intensive part); and 4. Binding the quilt.

The quilt top step is possibly the most fun since it is in this part of the process that the personality of the quilt emerges. All of the fabric choices come together to blend colors and patterns.  This step is now half complete with 14 of the 26 long strips of 28 squares sewn together.  I'm thrilled with the look of the quilt top so far!

Another project that was worked in over the past month was a pair of handwarmers.. that i gifted to myself. I was in a handwarmer craze several years ago and made several pair, all of which were gifted away with the intention of making a pair for myself one day. Finally, I revisited the blog of a Roman girl who seems not to be blogging much anymore but still has free handwarmer patterns up. I had to experiment quite a lot with the number of stitches and rows to make the sizing right for my yarn and am happy with the result. The yarn is a pale mint cotton from Coats & Clark.

I can't resist closing with a pic of Sim who decided he would try to get packed up with our kitchen stuff when we were preparing for a weekend trip to a Cheaha cabin.

If he blended in a little better with the slow cooker he might have made the trip!  ;)

The missing years.

I somehow can't remember very many craft project in the past 2-1/2 years. Partly horrible memory and also a dryish spell while big life changes were happening.  Some of the things I can recall (maybe because they are lying around the house) are the trivets, potholders, and candle.

The trivets were major fun to make and were all unique Christmas gifts for family.  We thrifted for dishes and joyously smashed them to pieces. The candle was a recent craft. Really fun and easy but requires equipment and kitchen takeover (think cover every inch of counter and backsplash with aluminum foil), so not sure if we will adopt this craft into the mix. We were taught the basics in a candlemaker's home.

The scarves were both started ages ago and finished in the fall (soft/fuzzy) and winter ( bright/ simple).  The color didn't pick up well in the fuzzy scarf for some reason. It is a big mix of yarn knitted together.  I can't give specifics on yarn or shop.. I have been using up a large stash and long ago threw out the labels.  Not sure about pattern anymore either, but nearly every pattern I use comes from The Purl Bee blog of the Purl Soho folks.

The hanging organizer was seriously started about 4 or 5 years ago. It matches a sewing machine cover that was my very first sewing project under the tutelage of a neighborhood sewing teacher.  I think the plastic frustrated and intimidated me so much that I tucked it away for what ended up being years. Fast forward to a few months ago when I did a craft room reorganization and came across that project bin.. out it came and I worked an hour here, hour there until it was finished! Very satisfying to finally complete something that feels big. I can't even imagine how the final quilt will feel.

8 years old.

It's hard to believe we've been in Birmingham for 8 years! Feb. of '05 we moved into this house and brought Simcoe home that April. He was estimated to have been born in February so we gave him the same birthdate as our move-in day.. 2/14.

Looking at his kitten pictures is nostalgic. His personality now seems so different from his kitten days.  He is both a super sweet lover kitty and very demanding and we love him dearly.  His friend, Rosa, is a year younger. Of course we love her dearly, too. Her love is on a schedule.. early in the am or late at night - she doesn't care to be touched much otherwise.

Both are all grown up now.  :)

Bread education.

This is not the first bread-making experience. To make bread that goes from decent or fine to good, in my opinion, you need the starter.. The biga or poolish or whatever it is called in whichever cookbook, depending on the region of the world influencing the recipe.  This can make an all-day affair turn into an all-nighter as well.  This time, I revisited Bread Alone, which I long ago borrowed from a friend. It's a long process. I'm not gonna lie. Did the long slow poolish overnight in the fridge. Then from 8 in the morning until late afternoon the dough was babied. It was cool in my house so I tried using a heating pad to raise the temp. Put a towel between the pad and bowl and monitored the temp with a thermometer, aiming for the high 70s.. close to 80. The heating pad worked great! Only drawback is the need to sit closely by to watch and adjust, turning to medium or low or off or moving off the pad entirely.

The kneading process was extremely long this time, not sure why exactly. I set the timer for 15 minutes, knowing that was the minimum set in the book. The dough still needed flour and kneading for a good 10 minutes more.  Once kneaded, the process was straightforward. The fermentation yielded a risen, doubled dough. The shaping and proofing went better than expected despite a power outage from a storm. I would have raised the temp for the proofing to make it go quicker, but there was a 4 hour period with no electricity, so no heating pad and no heating oven. The oven situation caused a dilemma. The loaves doubled, but nowhere to put them, so when the power came back on and it was time to put the first loaf in, I made a decision not to touch the loaf - just slide 'er in.  The second loaf, I experimented by deflating and reshaping then baking. This proved to be a mistake. I now know that the proofing helps create a less dense, more hole-y bread. If it needs reshaping, I think it should get another brief proofing period.  So, the result was one (the first and more round in photo) bread the way I like it - chewy, with holes and great flavor. The other loaf was too dense, but you live and learn..

First quilt, Part 1.

Oh my. No post since 2010. It's not that there has been no crafting. While less frequent than previous years, there have been projects including several handmade christmases with trivets, crocheted kitchen towels, and more. The next post will show off a few things that are handy. I'm hoping that with a tablet posting will be quicker and easier, since the photos are there to grab.
It's spring break, so not only am I happily in the middle of several projects, but there is time to think about documenting a thing or two.  Much of my free time this year has been devoted to cooking, which makes me eager to also share some of those experiments.
I have always wanted to make a quilt. I used to follow more closely, but now just catch up periodically with Alicia Paulson's blog, Rosy Little Things. I will never understand how she manages to make so many beautiful things. It's constant. She has made a number of gorgeous quilts and when she posted the Olallieberry Ice Cream Quilt, I thought this might be a good pattern to try for the very first go at quilting. So far it has been fun and relaxing. There really is no fuss with the fabrics. It's supposed to be random, so just an assortment of pretty colors and patterns thrown together. Her method is interesting the way you join all of the squares into long strings of pairs, then snip the pairs apart and join them into long strips. That is the stage I am in.. With 10 strips of 28 squares and 16 strips to go.

Aprons and Kitchen Spruciness - Part 1.

The first part of 2010 has made this the year of the aprons for me. So fun! I've always wanted to make an apron and finally made the first apron from Anna Maria Horner's book, Seams to Me: 24 New Reasons to Love Sewing. It was for Jenny's birthday - the "Cup Half Full" pattern, thus a half apron. The fabric I've had for a while and really screamed Jenny to me, so I went for it - it's bold and vibrant just like Jenny-Jen. I hope this apron will help spark her creative spirit in the kitchen - not that her artsy self needs any help.. she's an artist and a teacher and a lover of cooking by nature. The fabric is by Alexander Henry, Pink Zinnia - purchased from Etsy. The pattern was very well written and detailed. There was no confusion.. or cursing .at all. which is not normal for me. I'm not the best with sewing patterns even when they're well-written and mistake-free. The waistband and tie design was very clever, I thought. You'll see what I mean when you try it - I'll definitely make another apron with this pattern.

The embroidered apron was made for Emery's 10th birthday. It was really fun to plan out, since she's a very crafty young lady and has many interests. Her #1 interest since a very young age is cats, so that was a no-brainer. The rest of the pattern pieces came from a sheet of kitchen designs, "Krazy Kitchen". All of the pattern pieces were the iron-ons from Sublime Stitching.

I've really enjoyed embroidery lately - love picking the bright, lively colors, love choosing a stitch for each segment. It's relaxing and allows for creativity - even when led by an iron-on pattern, you can add as much or little as you like for the look you want. Jenny Hart of Sublime Stitching is so inspiring with her stitching - as are the many stitchers who post to her website and flickr group - they must be a lot quicker with their stitching than I am or at least much more patient, adding the accents and level of detail to take an embroidered piece from a project to a work of art.

Ollie Blanket and Felted Tote.

These projects are completely unrelated, but had to throw the felted tote in somewhere. I'll start with the baby blanket, though, since babies are more fun and I'm excited to introduce baby Oliver (Ollie) - Wade & Eve's little one. Meet Oliver (held by daddy)! He's a wee bit bigger now - this pic shows him around 2 months old and he's nearly 6 mos now. Crazy how time flies...

I delivered his baby blanket very late. Don't know how I got so behind with it, but I really liked how it turned out despite all the lateness. Very soft yarn and nice, simple pattern. J'adore the pale yellow edging around the boyish blue. The pattern is for the Hooded Baby Blanket from the Lion Brand site - you have to register to get it, but it's free. I didn't do the hood, but used the pattern for the square blanket, then added a few rows of crocheted shell edging to pretty it up. It turned out rather large, but seemed more appropriate since I didn't get it to them until he was nearly 3 mos old. Yikes. Hopefully he's getting plenty of belly time with it as more of a floor play blanket than a swaddler. :-)

This tote has been years in the making. Seriously. Years. I got the yarn and pattern from Knitch in Atlanta with Danielle ages ago and started on it immediately. The knitting took a long time, since the bag has to be at least twice the size before felting. It was enormous and like a fool, I naturally forgot to take a pic before throwing it in the machine. I knitted the first half within the first few months, then let a few other projects jump in, and before I knew it I had only handles to go for a year. Then, finished a handle and another year goes by with one handle to go. Finally, the week before heading to Renegade with Danielle this year (in May), I gave myself a good kick in the arse. It was ridiculous really. I just sat down, took about 20 minutes to finish the other strap, then threw it in the washing machine. In hindsight, I think I was really nervous about the felting - terrified that all that pretty yarn and all that knitting would be going down the drain as I somehow screwed up the final stage. Well, it really wasn't that big of a deal. Put in a just a touch of mild/natural soap and HOT water, then just keep agitating and don't let it drain until you can see that it's either the size you want it or not shrinking anymore - then you're done. I had one little mishap when I was running around doing something else and heard the machine start spinning the water out. Aagh! I ran in and stopped it, but basically had to refill the water and keep going - no real biggie, but a pain and waste of water. My machine doesn't have a convenient cycle for felting - obviously not designed by a crafty lady.

I couldn't be happier with the finished product. I LOVE my bag. It's not often that I start (much less finish) a project for myself, so it was really fun to finish this bag and take it to Austin to show it off a bit. This is the pattern for the bag and the yarn is from Cascade Yarns - not sure Knitch carries it anymore - the orange colorway is called burnt orange, but has some little speckles of color mixed in - the blue matches one of the color specks, but they don't show up so much with the felting. No matter, though, I still love the colors together. The first pic is of the drying/blocking process - the size wasn't a concern, so I just stuffed it with a ton of plastic grocery bags to shape it a little. It took a couple days to fully dry and I kept it in a room underneath a ceiling fan and turned it over a couple times a day.

In a perfect world, I would use the nearly full skein of orange yarn I have left to knit two large rectangles, then felt and sew them into a zipper pouch. I do have this plan, but it's not even on the official project list at the moment. Ang and I need to make make up some new project lists at our next craft night to focus ourselves. She's about to have a baby, so may not really have a list of projects for a while, but it'll be fun to think about anyway.

Birthdays - Scarf and Afghan.

So, this post is a birthday post - I'm combining a scarf I made for Kendra's birthday in February, an afghan I finished for my grandmother's birthday in March, and some slippers I just finished for Angela's birthday in early June.

The scarf was a nice, simple knitting project with super soft yarn I found at In The Making - a yarn store in Cahaba Heights. The pattern was free with the purchase of yarn - they had a great scarf display in the winter with many different yarns knitted up and labeled with yarn and pattern - many of the patterns were free which is how I found this one. I love this yarn - so sorry I'm so disorganized, but I did actually get up and look for the yarn tag so I could post the info - can't find it. I promise to be better about this in the future - keeping track of yarn and fabric stats with every project so I can post details. The yarn is bulky, super soft, and hand-dyed - very rich, warm colors. It was such a quick project that I actually delivered on time for the birthday and just in time for her to take it on her birthday NYC trip. :)

The afghan squares are from the PBS show Knit and Crochet Now. The link is to their website where they provide all patterns from the show for free. They have either a knitted or crochet square every week to eventually make up an entire afghan. I printed the pattern for the whole afghan (last year's), then picked four or five of the squares I really liked and repeated them with the colorways mixed up some. I wasn't crazy about every square in the blanket, so that was my solution. I really liked the fancy edging from this pattern, but I ended up shorting it a round, since I was out of time. I would apologize for this blurry and not-so-flattering photo of my grandmother with her new afghan, but she's still so cute blurry and un-smiling that I'm sure noone will mind. ;) I didn't get a photo before taking it to her for her big birthday bash, so this pic is from my sister's fancy phone. I cut it so close with time that I was embroidering and sewing in a fabric tag on the plane. Ha!

I LOVE these slippers. Saw them on the PurlBee blog (from Purl Soho) and knew I wanted to make them for Ang's birthday. I'll eventually make some for myself. They didn't take too long to make - it was fun to finish each of the granny square sets then seam them all together. The arrangement was a bit tricky and I ended up having to make a little sketch for myself to clear up my confusion, but not sure if my doodling would help anyone else. The instructions on the blog were very good, but I still had trouble visualizing. Wahoo! I actually have these yarn tags - three colorways from Manos del Uruguay (Wool Clasica), colors: Q (blue), 68, goldish-green, and 57 (fuchsia).

Handwarmers.

While looking for handwarmer patterns, I stumbled across this blog by an Italian chick who has quite the handwarmer obsession. I love her designs and really appreciate that she shares the patterns. She also sells handwarmers in her Etsy shop for those that don't care to or don't have the time to make their own. Both of the handwarmer styles I tried for Christmas gifts this year were using or based on her patterns, which can be found in the Free Patterns section of her Creative Yarn blog.

The first pic is of Angela's Christmas present this past year - they're a knit/crochet combo pattern that has a soft, fuzzy mohair for the knitted, cuff portion and a mid-weight yarn for the hand portion. The other pics are of the style I made these for Meg and Jules. It's a straight knitting pattern working mostly in a take on my favorite stitch - she's calling the double moss (aka seed) stitch. Both patterns involve knitting/crocheting a rectangle, then sewing together lengthwise to make a seam and leaving a gap in seam stitches for the thumb.

I'll admit that it took me a couple of months this past fall to really figure out handwarmers. I initially tried increasing and decreasing to make them more fitted and struggled with the weight, doubling light-weight yarns or using a heavier weight, then experimented with smaller vs larger hooks. With the to-shape-or-not-to-shape question, I decided on not, since most yarns have enough stretch to make them fit nicely. The thicker the yarn, though, the more it might be nicer to have some shaping, since the fabric won't hang as nicely. For Meg and Jules, I ended up doubling hand-dyed, sock weight yarn from Kitchen Sink Dyeworks. KSD is owned by Mercedes, who used to own Knit Nouveau in Homewood - was my favorite yarn shop. She's online only now and devotes most of her time to hand-dying wool.

I'm not always (ok, rarely) good about taking pics before I send gifts, so the best I came up with for the Meg/Jules style were these pics of us goofing off. One is of Meg (donning handwarmers) and me at our Elementary School... oh, the nastalgia - we all walked there from my grandmother's house. The other is of Jules stylin' it up with her handwarmers when they were on a hike. Oh yeah. There isn't a long handwarmer season in Phoenix, but these globetrotting girls will have plenty of handwarmer appropriate weather in other places.

Christmas Packages '09 - Part 2.

The rest of our Christmas packages were mostly completed in a single night. We did get the vanilla extract going about four weeks before the intended ship date, since it needs plenty of time and shaking to do it's thing. The big night was spent pouring extract into little 2 oz bottles, making peppermint bark, and wrapping up the gift sets. We had several helpers who should be mentioned. Casey and Ben were our candy cane crushers, Tim helped us temper the chocolate, and Nick helped us taste the chocolate.

The first task of the night was pouring the extract into the bottles. While I poured, Ang removed the vanilla beans and cut them into pieces that we could stick down into the little bottles to give it a more homemade feel and to allow the bean to continue strengthening the vanilla flavor. After sealing up the bottles, we cut out pieces of pretty paper with handwritten "Vanilla Extract" labels to glue onto the bottles. The vanilla beans were the most expensive part of this project - we used the Madagascar variety. With the rest of the extract (bottles and vodka) adding very reasonable cost, the total extract cost came to less than three and a half dollars per 2 oz bottle - much lower cost and higher quality than the stuff you can get in the store!

Tim's job was definitely the most challenging - he, Ang, and I worked together to heat, stir, monitor temps, stir, cool in ice bath, monitor temps, and more stirring - Tim doing most of the stirring. We all read about tempering chocolate from several sources before showtime, so we knew if we didn't get the temps just right that the whole process should be started over. We tempered the chocolate in two batches onto three cookie sheets lined with parchment paper. The dark chocolate layer was first, then a white chocolate layer, then the crushed candy canes. We repeated the tempering process for the second batch, since we weren't positive we hit all the temps right. The heating and cooling happens quickly and it takes some anticipation to prevent over-heating or cooling.

The finished product was gorgeous! Now I'm remembering (with the help of the photos) that we actually let it cool and set for a day. I came over the next day to help break up the peppermint bark and package it up before we arranged and wrapped the completed gift sets.

I would never pass up a chance to read books with Nick, and it's definitely become a holiday tradition to curl up in a chair by the Christmas tree to read books at bedtime. Can't beat that sweet end to a fun-filled evening!

Christmas Packages '09 - Part 1.

Our Christmas packages were SO fun this year. We decided to sew pretty fabrics on dishtowels, then package them with some homemade vanilla extract and peppermint bark. They all turned out great and we learned a ton in the process.













The kitchen towels were very manageable. Angela always makes more gift sets than I do - more family members to make for, and this year with all I already had going on, I only made packages for out-of-town relatives (mom, sisters, grandmother, great-aunt), plus Casey's mom and sis. This plan with a more realistic goal (for a change) was a great stress-reducer for me around the normally-stressful holidays. I found an amazing deal on the kitchen towels on this site and we shared fabric from our stashes, so this part of our packages was very budget friendly.

Ang and I read and browsed blogs and talked a lot about applique before starting on our towels. I decided that I wouldn't have time to fancy mine up with applique this time, but Angela went for it and did an incredible job. She had several different designs - pears, birds, trees, and even a coffee cup and saucer. We both used the basic technique of cutting strips of fabric, sewing them together right sides together on a machine, ironing the edges under, then either using the zigzag stitch to attach to the towels or using embroidery thread to stitch onto the towels. I mainly embroidered the fabric onto the towels, since it was a portable crafting activity in between our craft nights and I like the handmade look of the embroidered running stitches in contrasting or matching colors. It's funny how sometimes we want things to look or feel homemade and other
times we really don't. :-) Ang made so many towels, but they are all so unique and different that I wanted to post all of the different styles and designs.

Part 2 of the Christmas packages will come next. For now, I'm going to show off the rest of the recent crafting from Angela. My favorite thing she made this past year was for her son Nick's birthday this past October - it's a pillowcase with the top-side covered with all of his favorite book characters. It turned out amazing! It has Thomas and Percy, Pooh, Owl, and.. oh, I can't remember the bear's name. Nick so, so loves his pillow! :D He knew his mom was working on something for him and was so excited opening it - so sweet. Ang also made a pillow last year for the daughter of her best friend from college. It turned out really cute - perfect for a little girl and something I'm sure she will have for many years. I love the little ladybug and the bee. I got the tracing supplies from Sublime Stitching and we both use the transfer paper and tracing stylus to transfer images from books or anything else with a good design.

Also crafted by Angela were a baby hat and booty set for her sister who just had a baby in January. This was her second baby set and the neat speckled effect is created by holding a multi-colored sock-weight yarn with a mid-weight (not sure exactly which yarns she used).