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.