Wool Gathering 2

The latest washing and blocking event included a cowl and a couple of hats that had been long awaiting this process. 

The pattern of this first hat was supposed to swirl, but for some reason it didn't work out that way.  Even so, it turned out to be a fairly nice hat.  

This is one of my favorite hat patterns.  It is simple, but interesting to make.  The goal of this project was to use up some yarn I had left from another hat, so with the hope that the hat would turn out slouchy, I kept going on the pattern until the yarn was mostly used up.  I like the way this pattern looks on me, but will have to do a different color.  As much as I love this color orange, it isn't something I would wear.  

This cowl pattern actually called for a heavier yarn, but I wanted to see how it would do in a lighter weight.  I really like the texture of this pattern and the way the lighter yarn made it drape.  

Needing more room in my wooly garment box, I sent these projects plus some others with my daughter to give as gifts.  She lives in a much colder clime than I, so hopefully they will warm some heads and necks along with hearts.


  

Wool Gathering

I have finally gotten around to washing and blocking several of my projects which means I finally have pictures to show.  First up is a shawl pattern by a favorite designer of mine--Jared Flood.  The pattern is called Terra, and the yarn color I used is Black Cherry.  Therefore I present to you Cherry Terra:

The yarn is actually a darker red with a hint of black in it (the iPhone camera is not the best in capturing color).  The shawl is large, and just the thing to throw over my shoulders when I need a bit of extra warmth.  Going through my yarn stash, I found that I have enough yarn in several basic colors to make myself some more large shawls (happy me!), and have gotten one started since.  

Knitting and beads--what a lovely result!  The shawl I made to wear to my niece's wedding came off the needles about three days before her wedding--just enough time to get it washed and blocked.  The name of this shawl is Dusk, and the combination of the yarn color and beads had the effect I hoped for--stars just coming out in the evening:

One of my husband's sisters really like it and requested a shawl for herself.  Because I thought this pattern didn't really fit her style, I sent her a link for another pattern from my Ravelry queue.  She approved, and over the holidays I will take some yarn and beads from my stash that I think will work well.  That will be my next shawl project after my current one. Doesn't look like my needles will be idle any time soon.

Preventive Holiday Planning

I learned a new word this past week--frenemies.  That is a good description of my relationship to the holidays.  Not being one who works well with pressure and deadlines, I find the holidays full of opportunities to get frazzled.  Wanting to be on better terms with the season, I am working on various strategies to reduce the stress.  

This is the second year where I have worked on our Christmas cards throughout the year.  By November they are done, so I can focus on the Christmas letter and getting envelopes addressed.  So far so good.

While we have never been big Christmas decorators, we do have it down now to having both the putting up the decorations or taking them down in two or three hours.  This is our second year with our little tree.

The Christmas quilts are up.

 

The Nativity is displayed on the mantel.

A bit of lights are on the front porch and my shabby chic wreath is on the door.  

Well, maybe not chic, but I am just waiting for the right one to come along to replace it.  Waiting can be profitable as evidence by our newest Christmas addition--the swirl tree.

I had been keeping my eye out for a little metal ornament tree.  This one was featured in a Crate and Barrel catalog I got in the mail--just what I was hoping to find.

Thanks to my children's willingness to work with giving me gift ideas, my gift shopping going well--almost down to the wrapping and mailing stage now.  The biggest challenge will be the food, planning for safe foods for my hubby and me plus the traditional foods to be shared. 

So, while the holidays and I will probably never be just friends since it always means a disruption to my routine, we are learning to work together to make it a time I look forward to and enjoy.   

Confection

Every once in a while in my quiltmaking, I run across an opinionated quilt.  For example, a good number of year ago, I discovered the bold beauty of Amish quilts and decided to make Amish Baskets.

Amish quilts not only have striking colors, they have a lot of quilting, creating wonderful textures and patterns to balance out the solid fabrics.  When I was making this quilt, I was doing all of my quilting by hand.  In each of the squares between the baskets I did a traditional feathered wreath.

In the process of doing all these wreaths, I determined that the outer border was not going to be feathers.  As I began to work on designs, that is when the quilt spoke up.  The conversation went something like this:

Me:  Hmmm, what kind of design shall I do for this outer border?
Quilt:  Feathers
Me:  No, no!  No more feathers!  How about this one?
Quilt:  Feathers
Me:  What about no do you not understand?  How about this one?
Quilt:  Feathers
Me:  Please don't be stubborn.  I am tired of doing feathers.  This one?
Quilt:  Feathers
Me:  You really aren't going to let me do anything else, are you?
Quilt:  Nope.  It's feathers or nothing.
Me:  Sigh.  Okay, feathers it is.

The little found quilt didn't like the name I gave it.


Quilt:  Um, excuse me, could we please change my name?
Me:  What?  You don't like Baby's Breath?
Quilt:  It sounds kind of weird to me?
Me:  What do you mean?  It is a flower.
Quilt:  I know, but every time you say it, I just see a baby breathing.
Me:  Well, okay.  Hmmm, how about Sweetness?  Every time I look at you I think, "What a sweet little quilt!"
Quilt:  Awww, thank you!  I don't think that is quite it, though.
Me:  Let's see....  How about Confection?  You know...truffles, bonbons, and petit fours.  
Quilt:  I like it!  Thanks.
Me:  Your welcome.  


And here she is:

Quilting with a Purpose

A few years ago, while browsing in a lovely quilt store, a sample quilt caught my eye along with the lovely style of fabrics of which it was made.  I believe it was my first foray into batiks.  Batiks are a unique fabric.  Almost any combination of color and fabric design work together.  They make stunning quilt tops, whether the pattern is simple or complex.  They don't play well with most other fabrics.  They have their own particular dynamic.  And I love them.  

At the same time as I saw these fabrics, I had idea of doing "tithe quilts".  While not trying to specifically designate every tenth quilt to give away, I did want to do more with my quilting than just decorate my home.  However, I had no clue as to what I would do with these tithe quilts.  Stepping out, I bought some wonderful batiks, the quilt pattern, and brought them home.

The little wall hanging was also one of my first major attempts at free-motion quilting, and I discovered a passion that has taken me to where I am today with quilting.  Once the quilt was made, I still had no idea what to do with it.  We finally hung it above our fireplace, but I knew that someday it would find another home. 

Each month my quilt group makes flannel baby blankets for a local crisis pregnancy center.  About this time last year, one of the ladies in my quilt group who is a board member of the center, was talking about the recent silent auction fundraiser they had.  This is a yearly event, and evidently there is a woman who donates a bed-size quilt each year.  I knew that this auction was to be the place my little wall-hanging would find a home.  

This past month, Bali Fire brought in about $200 for the pregnancy center.  So long, dear quilt.  May you bring much enjoyment in your new home.

 

First Venture

We took a trip--my first extended trip since starting my diet journey.  And this is what made it all work:

It took some drawn-out planning to figure out how to manage my meals while away.  First, we planned to stay in a suite hotel that had a full refrigerator and a two burner cook top.  Next I checked to see if there was a Whole Foods at our destination and thankfully there was, only about 2 or 3 miles from where we were staying.  Thirdly, I read somewhere on-line about checking a cooler of frozen food when flying and called Southwest Airlines to make sure that was possible.  Getting the okay there brought everything into the realm of possible.  

The planning and preparation were still stressful, and by the evening before our departure I was not a happy camper.  Being out of my routine for two or three days, plus the stress of getting everything together was not a good combination.  Nevertheless, we made it onto our flight, and I breathed a sigh of relief.  After that things worked out very smoothly. 

The Whole Foods was very nice, confirming to myself yet again that while I am still not a great fan of the store in general, my local store in particular is just not a happy shopping place for me.  Even so, it is better than none at all.

We had a lovely time.  The weather was beautiful.  The sites were enjoyable.  And there was plenty of opportunity to take in some HGTV.  (Pictures to come.)

So, the strategy for future trips:  pick a state, find the Whole Foods (there is actually one in Honolulu :-)  ), get a suite hotel, pack up the cooler, and we are off. 

 

Up Next

Mixed-up Split is all done.  I finished the quilt on Monday and passed it on for binding on Tuesday.  One of the other ladies took it in hand, and finished it up.  Once it was all done, it actually didn't look too bad.  It is amazing how it can come together in the end, though it still won't be in my list of favorites. :-)  I accidentally had my iPhone camera on video when getting a picture on Tuesday, so will have to try again and put it in the next post, hopefully.

Next up is a top that was put together by a couple of ladies in my group, one of whom passed away last October after battling ovarian cancer for a number of years.  The plan is to finish up the quilt by next month and then present it to her mother.  This quilt is actually one of my group favorites.  The colors and the design work well together.  Presenting Midnight Garden:

The quilting has already been started by a couple of the ladies.  The pieced blocks have a meandering design which I repeated in the rectangle sections of the border.  I will be doing the four center pink blocks, and the four purple squares in the corners of the border.  My hope is to get it finished by next Tuesday and then pass it on for binding.  

If I am successful with that plan, then I will nab this little quilt that one of our ladies found stuffed in a cabinet at her church.  It is a simple design, but an effective use of the colors.  The sashing between the rows offers the opportunity to do a bit of "fancy" work.  

And last but not least, I am two-thirds of the way done with the blocks for Painted Desert.  It is going to be an intensely bright top and a lot of fun to quilt.  Bet you can't wait to see it!  ;-)

Not quite the same, but perfect for this season.

I was at IKEA a couple of weeks ago, looking for items for my travel cooking kit.  As I browsed through the cooking section, I came across this spatula.  It was larger than that old cooking spoon I had, but the same basic shape.  I decided to get one and see how I liked it.  With doing so much roasting and sauteing of my winter squashes and potatoes, this utensil is perfect.  I can stir things around and then scoop them up when they are done.  A great find!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am doing a lot of peeling these days.  My current peeler is from OXO, and I wanted to get at least one more so I have a clean one available when I need it.  Looking at their site, I saw that they have a professional version that doesn't have the ridges in the side, which are terribly hard to keep clean.  Plus it comes with replacement blades.  Another great find!

And finally, when at IKEA I bought a couple of knives that I will use now and take traveling.  Big knives have always seemed rather scary, but with all the chopping I am doing these days, especially with the butternut squash, it was time to get used to using one.  I must say, it does make my work much easier, and I am happy to have this addition to my cooking arsenal.

 

Necessity...

...encourages thinking outside the box.

The new arrangement of my studio places my sewing machines on what were previously a side table and cutting table.  The desk which had served as my sewing table had a foot shelf on which I had the foot peddle for Bernie.  Being a person of little stature, no longer having the foot shelf has made it rather an awkward reach for me to use my foot peddles.  

Recently I was at Container Store getting some spice jars and bottles for the travel cooking kit I am putting together.  While there, I decided to see if I could find anything that might serve as a foot shelf.  Sure enough, Container Store came through for me again.  Designed for kitchen cabinet/pantry use, these shelves were nice and sturdy.  And since they were expandable, I was able to adjust them to just the size I needed.  What a big difference it has made in controlling my speed with Mr. J. 

I am really enjoying the new layout, and having one machine designated for sewing/piecing and one for quilting.  The fabric for the blocks of Painted Desert are cut out.  Steady progress is being made on Mixed-up Split, and I was given another quilt to do some "fancy" quilting in some of the blocks.  That quilt needs to be done by October.  Looks like I have plenty of happy quilting time ahead.

Mixed-up Split

Remember the Ugly Duckling quilt?  Well, I have another one on my hands, but I am afraid that there is no swan potential at all for this one.  The block is called the Disappearing Nine Patch, but since it involves splitting a block in half both vertically and horizontally, I am naming this quilt the Mixed-up Split.  

First, we started with nine 5 inch squares which we then sewed into a 3 by 3 block.  The block is then cut down the middled from top to bottom, and then again from side to side.  The pieces are rearranged as desired and reassembled together.  It actually is a pretty nice pattern.  We each made a block and then put them together in a quilt.  The problem was that some of the blocks had nine different fabrics and some had three.  Some were put together one way and some another.  There is no cohesiveness or order to this quilt.  The quilting I am doing on it has not improved it, so I am just considering it a good practice opportunity with Mr. J.  With this design, I am working on quilting straight lines both vertically and horizontally, and making stars and an ivy type design from a variety of directions.

Mixed-up split

Ivy and Stars

Straight lines

My next UFO projects looks to be much more fun.  It is called Painted Desert.  I nabbed the striped fabric from the UFO bin several months ago, but there were only fifteen 8 inch squares.  I have been searching for a pattern that would allow me to use this fabric as the main fabric, but not require a lot of it.  The quilt pictured below is the inspiration.

 And these are the fabrics I will be using.

The dotted fabric in the back will be the backing for the quilt and may be used at the corners of the sashing and in the border.  More pictures to come.

Same Goal-Different Views

My quilt group is a wonderful bunch of ladies.  Lots of camaraderie and creativity.  Some really pretty quilts, and some not so beautiful (more on that in the next post).  And there are a lot of different ways that we approach quilting.  KC, who leads our group (though she denies that she is the leader, she really is) wants to keep the quilts simple so that we can make as many as possible to give away.  A very reasonable approach for sure.  She has made some very lovely quilts that are simple in design and quilting.  The UFO's I work on from start to finish tend to have smaller pieces and more detailed quilting than KC would like, but I can't help following the design to where it takes me.  For me it is not just a giving of the quilt itself, but also investing time and creativity to make it something special to receive. Thankfully I am not the only one that has this tendency, and we do get enough quilts made that KC is (mostly) willing to bear with those of us who favor the detail.

Since I have started coming to the group, I have been able to encourage the ladies to try their hand at machine quilting.  While most have become comfortable with quilting in the ditch, if they want any "fancy work" done, they usually ask me to do it.  This is just fine with me since I love working with free-motion quilting, though I hope in time they will want to play with designs more.  This week I was asked to do some fill quilting on one of our UFO's.  It was fun to do and I am pleased with the results.

Flags a-Flying

Fill quilting with seam ripper for scale

The quilt is two rows of pre-printed flag panels, with strips added in between to get it to throw size.  The fill quilting I did is in the wide red strip in the middle.  It is very passable for one of our patriotic quilts (not my favorites).  Mr. J and I continue to get to know one another, and this project went pretty smoothly.  I foresee happy quilting times ahead.

A-Peeling, Part 2

To peel or not to peel?  That was the question.  While tis better to peel than not, the abundance of peeling makes peeling very unappealing sometimes.  But with organic, I needn't panic, so not peeling is fine, some of the time. (Okay, Shakespeare I am not, but Fezzik and I would get along quite well.)

As I did some digging concerning the peeling issue, I went back and looked at past pictures again.  In the 2007 Christmas pictures I did not have the rosacea, but in the 2008 Christmas pictures I did.  Going through our past health reimbursement file, I saw that I started taking Fosomax in January of 2008.  This, I believe may be a, if not the, big factor in my health issues. Considering that I was on it for two years, I figure I should give myself a minimum of two years to heal.  

Things continue to be better overall, but I have noticed that the Metrogel I am using for the rosacea doesn't seem to be keeping it as clear as it did.  Could this be because of the calcium I am taking or is it losing its effectiveness as some have reported it doing?  And why do somethings seems to bother me one time and not another.  And sometimes what I think is the thing bothering me isn't the issue at all.  At this point I am doing all I know to do to address all the issues, so when things get out of sorts, all I can say to my body is "Sorry, you just have to deal with it."  Hopefully, my positive efforts over time will begin to outweigh the negative things I can't avoid.  

So, I will hold to this course, and unless something major turns up, I plan to lay this topic to rest.  I pray a blessing of good health for myself and those I love. 

 

Vary A-Peeling

After watching all the "latest and greatest" health food fads come and go, I have become  skeptical about any pronouncement of the newest healthy thing on the market.  When organic products came on the market, I pretty much dismissed them along with the rest.  However, both my research dealing with my food issues, plus reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollen, changed my opinion.  Consequently I am buying more and more organic products and finding the more I do, the better I do.  

With the summer heat taking its toll on the local farmers, I am having to look more to the grocery store for my produce.  The organic produce at my local grocery and Sprouts really leave a lot to be desired, so I made a trek to Whole Foods this past week.  Comparatively it was like walking into an organic produce wonderland.  They sure know how to do a beautiful display.  Though they have the Whole Paycheck reputation, the produce isn't really higher than what I would be paying at the farmer's market, and I was surprised to find that some of their store-brand products were less than what I was paying elsewhere on sale. No complaints about that.  While my diet is not excessively expensive, it is more costly than what it was before I began this journey, so any opportunity to spend a little less is a bonus.  Looks like Whole Foods will become a regular shopping stop for me.   

Summer fruit is the one thing I look forward to in the summer.  I am doing fine with organic peaches and nectarines, but iffy with non-organic the cherries and the plums.  I did fine, though, with the plum when I peeled it.  (There is no way I am going to start peeling cherries.)  Is the issue that they weren't organic or that they weren't peeled.  Some organic plums will be the test.  To peel or not to peel...that is the question.

The Last Dot

Signed, sealed, and delivered to its sweet, wonderful, amazing little recipient. (Sorry--a little grandma mushiness kicked in.)  This was such a fun project (thank you, Mr. J.) and I was very pleased with the results.  Without further ado, here is Dot to Dot:

Front side

Back view

Small star detail

Hidden pictures

The block

Quilting detail-back

More quilting detail-back

Yet more quilting detail-back.  The way this lined up wasn't planned, but it sure worked out nicely.

The two sides together