It Is A Craft Blog Too

I know there hasn't been much craftiness going on around here lately on the ol' blog. My life has been consumed with running and training. They say when you train for a marathon it's like a second job. I agreed with that back in 2006 and confirmed it again this year.

In a couple of weeks the marathon will be over and life will be somewhat back to normal. I'll have more time/energy to devote to my other loves. There will be more sewing and knitting happening around here (for those who come for the running, I will still be posting about that too). I have many projects that need to be finished and am working on a master plan to get them done.

So here's what's been happening in the craft department during the past few months:

1) Last winter I showcased my first ever quilt here on the blog. I mentioned it here and here. This is what the finished top looked like:

The question is, "Did I ever finish it?" By the end of the last class in December, I had the top and back layers completely sewn together and all layers had been pin basted together in anticipation of quilting. In January I did start the actual quilting process. I managed to quilt two of the blocks before I put the quilt in a timeout. Why did I do that? Because I currently live in a basement apartment with little space and terrible lighting. To accomplish what I had done, I had every light on in the apartment along with an Ott light and I still had difficulty seeing the dark fabric. My honey came home one afternoon to me practically in tears because I was so frustrated. So sadly my beautiful quilt has been put away until we move to the upstairs apartment where there are lots of windows and lighting.

2) I started a second quilt and first blogged about it here. I mentioned at the time that a co-worker commissioned me to make a baby sized quilt for her and this is what the fabric looked like:

Progress has been made on the quilt. I was given the challenge of incorporating a few personal memento's into the quilt. I decided to do a total of 9 (12x12) blocks, with 4 of them containing the personal items.

Here are what the blocks look like:

Fabric from a doggie sweater. I decided to use the fabric to make little doggie prints.

These appliques came from a leather doggie jacket. I added a couple strips of the leather for accent since I could not incorporate the whole jacket.

This is from a doggie harness. I still have the clasps and am thinking of hand sewing them on the block so the doggie will have something to chew on besides the quilt.

The doggie's name. I might embroider some elements on this block.

This is the center block of the quilt.

There are 4 of these blocks to put in each corner of the quilt.

As of right now, all blocks have been sized and I have machine appliqued all the personal item blocks, except for the one with the name. I have sewn the first two rows of blocks together and will complete the third after I finish the name block. As soon as that is done everything will really come together quickly.

3) Finally there was some knitting over the summer. I visited my sister in Myrtle Beach in early July since she was going to be moving to Georgia in August. We couldn't help ourselves from visiting one of the local knit shops one last time.

Of course I found some yarn that I loved and had the perfect project already in mind. Four skeins of Sublime Baby Cashmere Merino Silk DK hopped in my arms and wanted to grow up to be "Some Cloudy Day" Legwarmers (Ravelry Link).

By the time I left my sister at the beach, I was only a few rows from finishing the first legwarmer. Within a couple days it was complete.

Legwarmer #2 is on the needles, but hasn't seen any action since casting on. If I had planned on making it to Rhinebeck this year, I would have made sure that it got done. Now that it's the perfect weather to wear them here in the city, I will be picking them back up after the marathon. I only need a week or so to finish it.

So that's all the craftiness I have been up to lately, or not. I did purchase some yummy fabric while in Myrtle Beach for a couple new quilts that I will have to share with you soon.

Until then, tell me what are on y'alls knitting needles and/or sewing machines?

*Note: I want y'all to know that I am now responding to everyone's comments within the comments section. I find it much easier to respond to everyone this way. So please make sure to check back to see my response. Thanks for taking the time to comment. I do love hearing from everyone!

Sewing Adventures

Ever since I finished sewing the Christmas Tree Skirt in December, I've been wanting to spend more time working with my sewing machine. I had bought Amy Butler's "In Stitches" book a while back in hopes of one day making a few things out of it. A couple weeks ago I dusted the book off and began thinking about what my next project would be. My selection was the "Patchwork Duvet Cover". I went over to fabric.com and spent a couple days piecing together my fabric choices.

All the fabrics are from Michael Miller and I just have to say I had a hard time narrowing down which ones I wanted to use. To me this collection is just divine. I first fell in love with the Tulip fabric and wanted to build everything else around it. I needed a total of five fabrics for the front. I think my choices compliment each other very well. For the back panel of the cover I chose the green flannel.

Manny and I are planning a visit down to Myrtle Beach in April to visit with family. I am planning on bringing the fabric with me so MB can help me cut all the pieces out. She has the proper setup that will make cutting them out much easier. The sewing will begin once I return.

I also have another project in mind. On my way into work one night I stopped by a magazine store and came across the Spring Issue of "Quilts and More." In it I found the perfect project for the fabric bundle I purchased at Purl Soho last October.

I thought this "Patchwork Pouch" was just adorable. I know the example is using all patterned fabric but I think that incorporating the solid fabric will be just fine. I'm excited to start this project just as soon as I get a working iron. My old one died over Christmas and it was to never steam again. I recently bought a new one, but now need to return it to the store because it is used. Uhhh ewww!! Anyway, I will exchange it this weekend and maybe by Monday or next weekend I can get this project in the works.

I am still knitting away. I have made great progress with the "Texturized Tweed Jacket". I will have an updated picture on my next post.

New Year

Happy New Year everyone (18 days late)! I hope you all had a beautiful holiday season. Despite not being able to go home and celebrate the holiday's with my family this year, I did have a very nice one. I spent it with my DB's wonderful family. Christmas was spent up at DB's cousin's house in Poukeepsie and being there made me feel like I was with my family. It eased my missing of my own family this time of year. I ended up with the beginnings of a nasty cold on New Year's Eve, but I didn't let it stop me from ringing in the new year with DB's family here in Astoria. I am now feeling much better and very happy it didn't turn out to be the flu!

The new year started out just right for me. For those of you that don't know, I finally went permanent with the law firm that I was temping at for the last 10 months. They made me the offer back in November for January 4th. I was very happy to finally know what my status was going to be with them. I am still working the late night hours, just on different days. I shifted to Tuesday through Thursday and am really liking having Monday's off now.

I know it's been forever since I last posted so I am going to back track a little on what I had been working on over the holidays. This was this first Christmas that I didn't knit any gifts. I think I was set back when I got carpel tunnel back in late October. Since I was on the DL for a while and was slow to pick my projects back up, I turned to my sewing machine. I completed 4 gift projects. I gave my mother one of those "Taxi Cab" Little Wallets like I had made myself. I whipped up a couple of these cupcake pincushions (1 for my sis MB and 1 for my niece):


Didn't they turn out adorable??? I bought the fabric from the City Quilter when my sis was visiting last October. The ribbon and rosettes I picked up from M&J Trimming. I am planning on sewing one up for myself soon. These could really easily be made in a day. Very quick project. DB was awesome in that he helped my fill them with sand. It was not a one man job that's for sure.

Lastly I finished up one of my Christmas Tree Skirts to give to DB's older brother and sister-in-law.

It took me only 2 days to finish it. I had everything done except for the sewing of the two fronts together, adding the lace edging, backing and yarn bows. This gift was well received. I have three more to finish. One will be for DB and myself. I plan on selling one of the two remaining ones.

As for knitting, I decided to sign up for the "11 in 2011" group on Ravelry the other day. You plan on knitting, and completing, 11 items throughout the year. What I like is that they don't have to be projects you start in 2011. They can be WIP's from the previous years. I thought this would be a great way to motivate myself to finish 4 projects that I have on the needles right now. Right now I am focusing my attention on my Bacon Socks. Just my basic vanilla toe up sock.

I first saw this sock yarn when I was having lunch with Yarny Old Kim back in September. I fell in love with it and decided I had to have some of my own. It's called Bacon yarn because when you knit it up, it's suppose to look like bacon.

DB and I are heading up to Maine (Sugarloaf) on Sunday for a week of snowboarding. I'm hoping to have sock #2 on the needles in time for the 8 hour trip. I promise to come back with lots of picture to share. Probably tons of me on my butt for this will be my first time snowboarding. I can't wait!

Another Craft

I have a new love interest. It's the City Quilter store in Manhattan. I have been wanting to pay a visit to this store ever since I read about it on another blog last year. So while Mary Beth was here we took a venture to visit. From the moment I stepped foot inside the store I was in love! I have never seen so many bolts of fabric in one space that I wanted to take every bit of it home.

I have been sewing ever since my mother taught me as a teenager. I've made anything from clothes, to tree skirts to even a couple mini wall hanging quilts. City Quilter has definitely renewed my interest in sewing. The staff are super nice and they offer a wide range of classes.

So after spending over an hour in the store I didn't walk out empty handed.

I bought a couple small patterns - Little Wallet and Cupcake Pincushion. I thought these would make some cute Christmas presents. So I bought some fat quarters to use in the projects. City Quilter carries a whole bunch of NYC fabric. So for the Little Wallets I loved the taxi cab fabric and to go with it I got the solid black and yellow fabric. The other fabric pictured is for the Cupcake Pincushion. I got enough fabric to make two for right now. The little buttons are for the pincushion.

A couple weeks ago I spent some time behind the sewing machine and within an hour I had this...




Isn't it adorable? I am actually using this one right now. The three pockets hold all of the cards I had in my wallet very nicely. Needless to say I am looking forward to spending more time with my sewing machine.

MIA

Been lost in the land of sewing!

Sew Much?

No. Not at all. What happened to my grand weekend sewing plans? It all went out the door into the cold air on Saturday. First, this is what I accomplished on Friday...


I managed to get all my fabric cut out for the Boxy Bags. It took a few hours but I was thrilled they were all cut out and ready to be sewed up on Saturday.

So what happened to the sewing? Well long story short. I rent the basement apartment of my landlord's home. On Thursday he brought a technician in to look at the boiler that apparently went kaput. Now remember since this is a house and the boiler is in a little room in the basement in my living space. The gentlemen looked, stated that my landlord needed to go pay for the new boiler Friday morning and it would be delivered in the afternoon.

Friday evening is now upon us and the landlord now comes by with two technicians. It is now stated that they would come by on Saturday morning and install the new boiler. Since this is my home, I nicely asked what time they would be coming by and was jokingly told "Oh 6am." They quickly said that it would probably be around 10am or so. I was much happier with this time since all week long I get up at 4:30am for work.

Around 8:30am Saturday morning I am walking down the street heading back home from my run at the gym. I immediately spotted that the technicians were there is do the work. So I went in, changed and tried to think of what I was gonna do because having 5 men in my tiny living space making a mess was not something I really wanted to be around. So I took myself to the 10:10am showing of Twilight. Must say that I loved the movie very much and am thrilled that they are talking about filming the next one. By the time the movie ended I had been gone for about 3 hours. When I arrived back home they were still there. I stepped inside and saw that I could do absolutely nothing but sit on my couch and watch tv. It was even too cold to knit because they were going in and out of my apartment to cut pipe and stuff.

Let me just end it here. Does it really take 17 hours to install a new boiler? The answer is yes, it does. The new boiler was humming nicely at 1:30am when all left and I could finally collapse into bed. Guess the story wasn't too short.

So my mojo was totally lost and I spent Sunday sleeping in until 9:30am. Stayed in my PJ's and knitted on my latest sweater. Last week I noticed the new Twist Collective was out and I immediately found a few patterns I wanted to knit. I bought the Mary Jane by Zephyr Style pattern and casted-on for it last Monday night.

Isn't it pretty? Here is the front.....

...and here is the back....

Does the yarn look a little familiar to you? It should because it's the same yarn I used on my Puff-Sleeved Cardi. Remember I had purchased this yarn earlier in the year for a different project. So I used 9 for the cardi and I have 9 left to knit this sweater. I actually think I'll have 2 skeins left. At least I am using this stuff up!

Weekend Plans

Can you guess what I am going to be doing this weekend? Yup. That's a big ol' pile of fabric. Freshly laundered and waiting to be pressed with the iron. On top of the pile is all the fabric I have waiting to be made into boxy bags. The middle fabric is waiting to be cut into nice squares so I have them for 3 tree skirts. Finally, the rather large (12 yds) of muslin will be cut up for the backing of the 4 tree skirts. If all goes well, I will hopefully have some stuff up on etsy soon.

I would like to take a moment to thank everyone for their well wishes offered to me in my new educational endeavour! I was a bit overwhelmed this week and wasn't able to answer everyone individually. I'm excited to see what may come of all of this. I will keep ya'll posted. Until then, I again offer a great big thank you and hugs to all!!

Christmas Sewing

The past few days I have been vigorously Fall cleaning my apartment. Lots and lots of purging, dusting and organizing was had. While I am not done, I've made good progress. So I thought that since I had accomplished so much, I would reward myself with some craftiness. I spent some quality one-on-one time with my beloved sewing machine this afternoon.

Over twelve years ago I had sewn a few quilted tree skirts. Five to be exact. The picture below shows you the first one I had ever completed. The women in my family loved it so much that they all wanted one. At the time, since our family had grown so much in size, we picked names out of a hat for exchanging Christmas presents. It was made sure that each year I got someone else's name that had not yet received one of these skirts.

It may have been a few years since I have sewn one, but it isn't something I have forgotten how to do. I have enough fabric to make four more skirts right now. I have all the squares cut out for the skirts with the exception of one of the beige fabrics needs to be cut up for three of the skirts. For the most part all fabric patterns are the same with the exception that one skirt will have a different beige fabric than all the rest. The same goes for for one of the white fabrics. Other than that, they will be identical.

I spent probably close to three hours sewing up the squares for one of the tree skirts. Each skirt has two panels to be sewn. I did both panels for the one skirt. The picture below contains both panels but I have them stacked on top of each other.

I am quite pleased with the pattern combination. I look forward to finishing it, but before I can, I must do a little shopping at my local Joann's to get the remaining materials needed for all four skirts.

My goal is to complete all the tree skirts within the next month or so. I want to sell three of the skirts to those who would like to have one in time for Christmas, either for themselves or as gifts. I would be willing to make more this year, but only if I am asked by someone who didn't get one of the three. I now my mom and sisters absolutely treasure theirs!

Do You Think...

Second time is the charm? I say Yes, Yes, YES! I have successfully completed my Boxy Bag tonight. I am thrilled and could jump over the moon. Well ok, jump over the couch. This is how my *other* bag was suppose to turn out but silly me made a teensy mistake on which end to sew the zipper on and therefore my result was a smaller bag. Which is totally ok because I love my makeup bag.

Just like my sister, Mary Beth, I used the Drago[knit]fly: Box Bag Tutorial for the basics of putting this baby together. I did however use a 14" zipper instead of the 12" and I cut out my fabric with the dimensions of 15.5" x 16". The finished dimensions are roughly 9" long, 4" wide and 4.5" tall. I also *sewlifted* the idea of using the grosgrain ribbon on both zipper ends of the bag to assist in opening and closing of the bag from my sis. I asked and she didn't mind. I thought it was a brilliant addition.

With the sewing of this bag I bonded even more with my lovely new toy (Uhhh Sophanne, if you are reading this, take your fingers out of your ears and stop LA LA LA LA'ing and get on the sewing bandwagon with us!). I finished the edges of the inside of my bag with the stitch that gets me as close to a serger finish as I possibly can. The inside is very neat and tidy if I do say so myself! I'll be adding a decorative zipper pull as soon as I get some beads to match the colors of the bag.

Well I promise ya'll that my next post will contain some knitting content. I started a new knitting project on Sunday. It's actually a gift so it's ok that I have five projects going on right now.

I Made This

Well here is my first completed sewing project in over 13 years! And let me tell you....this little bag took all afternoon. I finished it just about 30 minutes ago. Whew!

So my sis, Mary Beth, was right when she said in her comment to my last post about making a boxy bag. That's what this is, however, it turned out a bit smaller than I thought. I even forgot to put in the handle. I had done so much ripping out on this little thing, there was no way I was going to rip out some more just to put in the handle. I'm just gonna save it for the next one I make.

Since this bag can't really hold any knitting projects, maybe knitting notions, I found another use for it. It's my new makeup bag! Everything fits in it perfectly. Including my full size MAC brushes.

While this finished bag is far (way far) from perfect, I am happy and proud how it turned out. Why did I really think putting in a zipper was a good first sewing project after all these years?!?! I'm still pondering that one. Regardless, the bag is solid. It may flare out at the bottom and the box shape heights may not be exact, but I like it because I made it.

It's Love

Today I finally had the chance to get aquainted with my new sewing machine! I am totally in love with it. I didn't know what I had been missing with a computerized sewing machine. I think it's awesome that I don't even have to use to foot peddle. I am going to have so much fun!

I ended up placing a fabric order over at Fabric.com the other day because I had a little project in mind that I wanted to do. Something to jump start me back into sewing after all these years. Fabric.com is awesome. I got my order in 3 days. I ordered 2 fabrics. One is just a simple burgandy cotton broadcloth and the other is Amy Butler's Lotus Temple Garland Clay. I'm not going to tell ya'll what I am making. You will just have to pop on back by and see for yourself what it is.

When I posted about geting my new baby, Kim had commented that she had bought something and wasn't sure why she did at the time. Then when she saw my post She realized why, and gifted it to me.

At lunch on Thursday she gave me the Amy Butler Gum Drop Pillows pattern. This was something I had been considering purchasing the other day, but decided to hold off at the time.

Thank you so much Kim. I am so thrilled to have this pattern. I had been wanting to get an ottoman so I could prop my feet up when I am knitting on my couch. Now I can! The Gum Drop Ottoman is definitely on my sewing list now.

So besides my over excitement of getting ready to sew a project any day now, I did devote time to my knitting projects. Since I currently don't need any of the chart patterns for Juno Regina right now, I have been brining it to work this week. I've made excellent progress as this picture shows. Believe it or not I am over 13 inches into the 42 inches.

Tilted Duster has the back and both front pieces completed. I started the sleeves Wednesday night. I am happy that I will be able to knit both at the same time since they aren't in the round. I be devoting some of my knitting time this weekend to finishing up my Thermal sleeve. I am so close to finishing that baby!

A New Addition

Look what Mr. UPSman (Mr. Postman's cousin) brought me today? Isn't it lovely?

My mother turned me on to sewing when I was around 14 years old. I still remember the very first outfit her and I made together. It was a sleeveless pull-up pant jumpsuit with a matching shirt to wear underneath. The fabric was sky blue and had what looked like wide brush strokes of different colored paint on it. The shirt was pink. It was a perfect summer outfit. Oh that was so many years ago.

Anyway, one Christmas 22 years ago both Mary Beth and I received our very own sewing machines from mom and dad. I remember I was a little disappointed when I opened it because I had secretly thought it was a stereo system I had been wanting. Well I have treasured my very first White sewing machine for all these years. I have gotten all the use I could possibly get out of that machine.

Last fall my machine finally went caput! I was devastated because I never thought the day would come (btw it came at the worst time, because I had just sat down to hem my girlfriend's pants - which she ended up having to take them to the taylor). I think if I took it in to be serviced it probably could be revived.

I knew I wanted to upgrade my sewing machine over the past few months but was not in a big rush to purchase one. It wasn't a must-have-right-now item. Well, the other day Mary Beth emailed me a site that was carrying this machine and at a fantastic price. MB told me that the White 3100 Computer Style-Maker is actually a discontinued model and this site was one of the only places still selling them. I took one look at the information she sent me. Saw everything it came with in the box (and let me tell you - IT COMES WITH EVERYTHING). Took one look at the price. Immediately proceeded to checkout!!! Two days later I got my package.

I am very excited about my new machine! I can't wait to get sewing again. I have an unfinished Christmas Tree Skirt that I started for myself 13 years ago (something I have made many of as gifts and finally wanted to make one for myself. Uhhh mommy if you are reading this could I possible borrow the Christmas Tree pattern you bought? Mine has gone MIA). My divorce and move to NYC (12 years ago) put all sewing/crafts on the back burner for a very long time. Not anymore! I am back to adding sewing to my crafty repertoire!

Can't wait to start playing with my new toy. I've already leafed through the manual and it does so many things that I can't imagine learning to use it all!