Quiet

My Favourite Girl is away on a Girl Guide camping trip this weekend.  I'm sure she's having the best time ever in the snow, and sleeping on the bunk beds in the lodge.  I hope she's warm enough.

It feels like we operate on a lower wattage when she's away.  Everyone has commented on it - just how different it feels around here without her.  It's amazing how much energy just one person can bring/take away to a home.

We've had a quiet weekend here.  Mr Crafty World has to work all weekend, so it's just been My Favourite Boy and I for the most part.  Yesterday we went to the craft store together to look at building models.  It was decided that they are not something he wants to do, so we headed off the Chapters to buy a Lego set.  I was all set to buy a Mollie Makes magazine but I changed my mind.  There was a quilt pattern in there I really liked, but truthfully it wasn't worth paying twelve dollars for.

I took MFB and a friend to the pool and watched them/read old magazines/cross stitched for two hours. We went to the grocery store afterwards and bought a ton of candy!

I started a new crochet project with my new wool.  I love the colours, I just wish I had one or two more for variety.

 This morning I am saving all my pictures from the last 7 years onto an external hard drive.  I get spooked when I hear of people saying they always meant to back up their files before a computer crash but didn't.  It has been a lot of fun going through the photos and seeing how much our kids have changed. Their sweet little faces from the past are such a treat to see:  you really do forget what they looked like.  Sometimes I think Heaven must be where we get to go back and hold our babies again.

Speaking of babies, I finished my scrappy baby quilt on Friday.  This was the quilt I practised using my walking foot on, so it really isn't so great.  It looks a heck of a lot better after I washed it though, so perhaps it won't be defined as dog bedding after all!

I learned that I cannot make a perfect square with fabric.  A postage stamp quilt or any other quilt where I have to be meticulous in lining up my edges is not something I will ever master, or even want to try mastering.  Maybe I should try hand piecing a quilt some time and then my wonky seams will make sense.

I used one of my favourite vintage sheets for the backing on this.  I hope I have enough to make myself some pillow cases.  I did a scrappy binding (stitched on by hand!) which I like here, but I'm not so sure I would like to use it on a big quilt.  I found the differences in fabric weaves to be a bit hard to work with.

Soon I'll be off to pick up My Favourite Girl.  It's a good hour and a half drive each way so I need to make sure I have good music in the car!  I have a busy week coming up so I don't think I will get much crafty stuff done.  But hey - it's March already and there are only four more days of school left before pyjama March break starts!

Have a wonderful day!

Jenn

Quilty Day

Bear with me, I'm feeling a little bit proud at the moment!

Thank-you, Snowstorm, for making me stay at home today.  I am finished the quilt.  Finished.  Fin.  Finito.  Wow, this one has been a long time in the works.  I think at least five years.  Not because it was hard, but because I get bored easily;  and I learned how to crochet; and I got a paid job; then I left paid job.  It's just one of those things - I know I'm not alone out there.

Part of the reason it took so long to do was that I did not want to quilt it on my machine with a regular presser foot.  I coughed up to buy real cotton batting (love!), so I did not want all those nasty puckers at the back that even shrunken cotton batting could not hide.  Last fall I finally broke down and ordered a walking foot, and I have to say it was well worth the investment.  I am a walking foot convert.

I said in my last post that I was getting tired of this and did not like it anymore.  Well, I changed my mind.  I love it.  The colours have been a real treat to work with these past few days when I look outside and know that Spring is a long, long way off yet.  Throughout all the quilting I imagined this in our someday lake cottage.  Lots of good energy went into this for sure.

It is almost the right size for a twin sized bed; a single would be just perfect.  I photographed it on a double bed just to be able to see everything.  The backing is a pretty pink I bought a whole year or more after I bought the other fabric.  I think I was very lucky to find such a good match.

I was originally going to make binding out of the pink floral; but when I finished quilting the top everything was so flat I could just fold the backing fabric over and sew it to the front.  Easy, peasy.

Someone else likes it too; or perhaps she's just trying to get my attention because I have been devoting my time to this and not her.

Here are all of my quilts together. Stacked so neatly I feel more proud of my efforts than ready to point out all their flaws.  I thought this would be my last bigger quilt, but I have a feeling there are more to come.  Just not too soon:)

Patching

Last night I stayed up late (10pm!!) to finish some things.  As I have said many times before, I am trying to work on this enormous fabric stash of mine and get it down before I buy anything else.  The problem is I am bored, bored, bored with most of it.  Some of it I have had for years and years; other bits are left-overs from previous projects that just keep turning up like bad pennies.  I might attempt that scrappy, round the world quilt everyone is going so crazy for these days, but truthfully I can never seem to get my seams to match up properly.  Every morning while on the treadmill I go through all my quilting/crafting magazines and try to find projects that will use up all those bits and pieces.  In an older issue of Quilts and Things I found a pattern for baby bibs that uses charm squares.  Perfect!  I used up 42 squares to make these baby bibs:

Truthfully I could easily make another seven but I did get bored by the end of it.  They are just waiting for some snap closures and they can be put away.  Hopefully someone I know will have a baby soon?

While looking through my fabric I found an enormous pile of red and white fabric strips.  My memory tickled a bit and I can vaguely remember laying them out last year to see how they should go together, but for the life of me I cannot remember what I was going to use them for!
I pieced them together in what I think is a rail fence pattern, and hoped to have enough for a lap quilt.  The frustrating part was that I only ended up with five blocks, not six like I would have preferred.  Since it was close to Valentine's Day I decided to just make a table runner by sewing the blocks together in a single row.

This matches nothing in my kitchen, so it will have to be relegated to the Valentine's or Christmas decorations box.  I do like its scrappy charm though, and it reminds me of my Grammie who always quilted and favourite colour is red.

Today I have the morning at home so I hope to get a few more unfinished projects out of the way.  Some of them are spring-ish which is much needed today with our freezing cold temps outside.

Stay warm,
Jenn

Flannel Memories

One thing I have never been able to get rid of are my kids receiving blankets.  I had always intended to try making a rag quilt out of them as a keepsake for me, and indeed if I'm lucky enough to become a Grammie someday those little babies can loll about on bits of blankies from their parents' infant days.
Hard to believe, but it has been about six years those bits of flannel fabric have been sitting about in a plastic bin.  I know that the longer something sits around un-used, the greater its chances of being sent out for good.
So last week the muse struck a very loud chord and in less than 24 hours I completed my first rag quilt:

I would say it's crib sized.  Or just right for the floor when having "tummy time".

I cut the squares out into 8x8 inch pieces, and the batting at 6x6 inches.  The cutting was the fiddliest part, but  all in all it wasn't too bad.  I think I enjoyed the whole process: the cutting; the layering; the quilting; the assembling and finally the cutting again.

I think the happy memories of the fabrics made the whole process so enjoyable.  I know there are much prettier flannels out there now, and certainly  much softer ones - after all, these have been washed more times than anything I own -but they remind me of my no-so-little ones from their sleepy, squeaky, wormy little infant days.  Precious times indeed.