This year’s ornament flock

This is one of the ornaments from this year’s flock.  Some of you who have read this blog awhile might remember last year’s birds–they were patchwork and really cute, if I do say so myself.  I made ten birds this year, and they were almost as much work as piecing those little guys from last year together.  This is only because I am a slow embroiderer.  I followed the basic plan for the birds from here, but used the patchwork pattern piece from last year (actually from this book), slightly modified, for the bird’s bodies.  They’re made out of inexpensive felt sheets from Michael’s (ten birds=two sheets=about $.70), and I went through 2.5 skeins of white embroidery floss, using three strands of floss for the embroidering and af full strand (6) for the loops.  The embroidery of each flower features a french knot (here’s a how-to) in the center and five (or six, or four, depending on my skills that day) modified lazy daisy stitches (tutorial) to make the petals.

The original I based this on had lovely green garland between the flowers, but when I tried that it got crowded, so I just went without.  I was thinking about Scandinavian paper cutting (and my favorite danish-themed pajama pants) when I made them, which is why they’re just red and white.

My friend Mel is the best!

Because she sent me this!!  Lovely fat quarters–about ten or twelve of them–in lovely patterns!!  New stash!  There’s some gorgeous Joel Dewberry–his new lines are just stunning.  Plus some Heather Ross I’ve been pining for, and some lovely trellis fabric.  Gorgeous!  I was going to use some for gifts, but now I want to selfishly hord them for myself!  Thanks Mel!  You’ve cheered my dizzy self immensely!

New Skills: Darning

Last night I learned a new skill:  darning.  I know few people darn their socks anymore, but I have a favorite pair–green and blue striped wool–that have been worn out by many years of use and which, other than the hole in the heel, were in good shape.  I would be darned (ha) if I was going to toss them out over two little holes, so yesterday I looked up how to darn.  It’s not especially hard to do, so while watching baseball last night (sorry to see you go, Angels), I fixed up three of my holey socks.  Here’s one that’s done.

To darn, you need something hard inside the sock that you can stitch against.  You can buy what’s called a darning egg, which is a wooden or plastic egg shape on a narrow rod; being resourceful and cheap, however, I just used the backside of a remote control.  I stuck it in my sock and was good to go.  Once you have that set up, you need a long needle and some kind of stitching fiber.  I used embroidery thread, so it would match and be thick.  Then you sew a running stitch along one side of the hole; you then make stitches going in rows in the other way.  I started with a stitch up the left side, and then made my horizontal rows.  Then you begin to work in the other direction–vertically, in this case–weaving your fiber into the stitches you’ve made.   Voila–you’ve rewoven your sock, and it’s good to go.

Since I’m rather a poor explainer, here are some great tutorials:
Over at Craftzine
at WikiHow

I know some of you may giggle and tell me to just buy new socks, but why should I when a) I like these socks and b) I can fix them! Call my cheap, but at least I have warm feet, and a new skill.

The Coin Quilt: Top Completed

This week I finished the quilt top for the Coin Quilt I started a while ago.  I really like it.  It makes me want to snuggle in for the winter.  I think I might end up using it as the bed covering, rather than folded at the bottom, as I like the punch of color in the room so much.  You can see the rainbow pattern I created in the rows in this photo; I’m using a chocolate-brown linen blend for the sashing.  The rows aren’t nearly as even as I’d planned, as I evidently forgot what I was using for a seam allowance on multiple occasions.  But that’s ok–I didn’t expect to make a perfect quilt.  The bottom was horribly uneven so I trimmed it as best I could and am hoping for the best when it comes to actually assembling it.  I am terrified of assembling it.  The last one did not go well.  I think I might recruit my mom for the job–she also has a machine with a quilting foot, which will surely make it all easier.

The Coin Quilt

This here is the last row to be stitched for my coin quilt.  A coin quilt features long strips of pieced rectangles, separated by solid colors, and bound on all sides by the solid.  Some have coin borders, as well.  I’m keeping mine pretty simple–it has nine rows (I enlarged the pattern to fit my queen-sized bed), based on blue, and with a rainbow pattern.

Here’s the basic pattern:  http://maryquilts.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/easy-chinese-coins.pdf

I’ve also lengthened the rows for my bed.

Here are some finished rows.  The color pattern I’m using goes like this:

2 brown/3 blue/3 red/3 blue/3 orange/3 blue–and so on, til a rainbow is completed.  The next row shifts, so

2 brown/3 blue/3 orange/3 blue–etc.  Once blue is the starting color, it goes back the other way so that the quilt has a V of rainbow colors.  Does that make sense?  I’m terrible at explaining things.  Well, when it’s sewn up, I’ll show you, and you’ll see what I mean.

The solid fabric I’m using is a linen/cotton blend, which should give it interesting texture and weight.  It came in today, and it’s a chocolate brown.  The idea is that the quilt can remain either folded at the foot of our bed, or open, and provide a punch of color to the room.  Not long ago I complained about my inability to make the bedroom cozy and colorful.  This was my (slow-moving) solution.

Gift crafting: I’ve learned to knit

Every night I work on one of these while we watch TV or a movie. My grandma taught me how to knit many, many years ago and I pretty much promptly abandoned any project I started. I tried again in college to no avail. I was determined, though, to make this year the year I started and completed knitting projects. Someday I aspire to make sweaters but for now I’m happy with scarves.

Two of these are finished–the blue one on the left and the red one in the middle. The silvery one, the one where I tried to create a pattern, is a little over halfway, and the skinny one on the edge is about a third of the way done. Now if I can only finish them in time for the holiday, I’ll be a happy camper.

Gift crafting

This was my project last weekend: a needle roll for a friend of mine. As I made it I wasn’t sure if she knitted, so I’m only hoping she does at this point. Maybe she crochets. I know she rug-hooks. She’s a hooker. But in a worst-case scenario she could always just use it for pencils.

I made the roll out of my own imagination, not following any pattern.

I cut an 18.5 x 14.5 inch rectangle out of the printed fabric (like the measuring tapes?), an orange corduroy in my scrap bin, and a thick piece of felt to give it strength and structure. Then I cut a smaller rectangle, I think it was 11 inches or so, out of the print and out of muslin, to make the pockets.

My seam allowance was about half an inch.

First I sewed the print to the muslin right sides together, along the long top seam, then pressed the seam and turned it over. I pinned the felt to the corduroy, then pinned the pocket to that, and also pinned in a long piece of folded ribbon; I probably should have basted there, but I went for broke and pinned the large piece of print to the pile, facing the pocket. I sewed along the edges, leaving about 4 inches open on the far right edge in order to turn it out. When done sewing, I clipped around the corners in order for them to turn out well, and turned the whole thing out, using a crochet hook to poke the corners until they were sharper.

I pressed the whole piece together at that point, and began to make the little pockets. These I made by topstitching, carefully, at one inch intervals. I measured the inch and would mark it with pins and carefully sew. When I was done (this part took forever), I nipped any loose threads, cut the ribbon at the fold and melted the edges so they wouldn’t fray, and there it was–needle case! It only took an afternoon, and I’d say a beginning sewer who’s pretty confident could handle it.

How’s it Wednesday already? and almost Thanksgiving?

I bet most of you, fair readers, thought I’d never return. That the post about venison was about as weird as it could get, and that I’d finally lost my mind and run away. Ha! I’m back. And today I’m going to ramble about both crafting and baking, so it’s a real banner day.

The last few days have been more than enough activity for little old me. Not only am I ridiculously behind in my own work (no one is getting papers back anytime soon), but Mr. Pea came down with some kind of awful migraine/sinus headache/thing that was intense and mean and pretty much absorbed most of our weekend attention. I tend to be a bit of an over-the-top caregiver and am not good at turning that instinct off. When I cooked I cooked some standards–chicken soup, for example–that are reportedly able to cure a host of illnesses. I also made some brussell sprout risotto, which, while it combined two of my favorite things, really wasn’t that great, so I didn’t bother to tell you about it. But now it’s Wednesday, a startling week from Thanksgiving (how’d that happen?), and dangerously close to Christmas. Actually, I love Christmas. I love the season, the music, the lights. Bring it on. Once Halloween is over, I don’t mind Christmas peeking out from around the corners.

Before things got nutty on Saturday, I ventured to a local fabric shop which sells a lot of nice designer quilting cotton, the kind of stuff I used to buy for Sweet Pea Handcrafts. I was so excited to just mill around and look at it all, but limited myself to fabric for projects I had planned. The above photo is an example: this tiny bird ornament (it’s maybe 3 or so inches long) is from Last-Minute Patchwork Gifts, and I’m working on a flock of ten of them. I’ve got four done, and they’ll be part of gifts for folks for the holiday. They’re made on the machine, which took a little finagling at first since they’re so little. The book has all kinds of cool projects, many of which can be made in just a couple hours. I took it out of the library last weekend and hope to make at least a few things from it before I send it back.


I got around to baking a new round of cookies over the last 24 hours I thought I’d share with you. The pictures I saw of these (in Gourmet) don’t look much like mine turned out. Mine are ok, theirs are gorgeous. The cookies are essentially a buttery shortbread with pistachios and dried cranberries. You make the dough, roll it into a log, and pop it into the fridge to firm up. Then you slice the log and bake. The problem for me was that as I sliced the 1/4″ squares, the cookies would start to break when I hit a stubborn pistachio. The more pressure it took to cut the pistachio, the greater the likelihood that the cookie would bust up. This was frustrating and I’m glad I only made a half-batch. They are tasty at any rate, but I’m not sure I’ll try them again. I think I’ll find a drop cookie recipe instead. At any rate, you can visit epicurious for the recipe.

Yee Haw!

I thought it was high time for a crafty post over here. I’ve gotten a lot more crafting in since the move, in large part because I’ve discovered the Gilmore Girls. I never watched it when it was on TV, but caught enough occasional snippets that made me think I’d really enjoy it if I had. Arriving in the new state, our local library has the first two seasons on DVD. Much better than jamming our netflix queue with them, I’ve been taking them out for a couple of weeks at a time. I’m almost through season 1. At any rate, I like to do something with my hands while watching TV, and cutting and doing hand-sewing works for me. I don’t knit–I was taught by my grandma years ago but have rather forgotten–so this has to do for now.

One of my most recent crafty projects is this small quilt. It’s about 4 or so feet long and a bit narrower across. It’s made from stash bits–half a yard or so of Alexander Henry’s Buckarettes (cowgirls), and equal parts from Jen Paganelli’s Sisboom basics. It’s bound with strips of blue corduroy, which give it a nice, rustic trim. I even had leftover batting, so the whole thing cost me nothing!

Instead of actually quilting the layers together, I cheated and knotted them at each corner between squares. I used alternating shades of embroidery floss for that. It was really very easy and the whole thing came together in a couple of weeks of on-and-off work. Since it’s for my 2-year-old niece, I don’t think she’ll fuss too much about the quilt-versus-knot option; I only hope she likes it, since right now she’s into stuff like Dora the Explorer. But if she takes after my genes in the slightest, she’ll someday have a horse phase, and then it will be perfect.

So what do you think of my first pass at quilting? I think it’s cute, and hopefully only I can see the places where it’s less than perfect

Crafting Time

So in the few weeks that we’ve lived in our new state, before the semester begins, I’ve gotten some crafting for Christmas done. Knowing that my good pals don’t check this out at all (ahem), I figured there was no harm in showing you guys what I’ve been up to. These are Tanglewood bags, made from a pattern Alicia over at Posie Gets Cozy made. They weren’t hard, necessarily, but were really involved. First you have to cut all the little squares; sew them into patchwork; press seams; place bag pattern and cut; then cut the rest of the bag. I used, on the pink-trimmed bag, a print that’s also on the front for the lining and then just a solid dark brown for the back. The other has a bright red lining and back. They have leather loops for the buttons. If you’re an intermediate-level sewer, I highly recommend you give these a go; if not, try out some simpler stuff first before moving on!