January Schnibbles

 I really liked this month’s Schnibble.  I thought it was cute and with it having stars I gravitated toward patriotic fabrics again.  I just can’t help it!  So I pulled out some charm packs that I had been saving.  Flag Day Farm and American Primer both by Moda.  I got started and soon realized that I wanted it to be bigger.  Not bigger stars but more stars.  I had two American Primer charm packs and one Flag Day Farm so I hopped on the internet and ordered another Flag Day Farm charm pack.  I think the two lines look great together.  I made as many stars as I could with the charm packs.  I ended up with 23.  I am a huge fan of the sawtooth star.  It is my favorite block of all time and there are so many great variations on it.  As I looked at the blocks, this orientation wasn’t doing it for me. 

 

But if I set it on point it became the sawtooth star that I love and it appealed to me more.

So that’s what I did as I put my 23 blocks together into a quilt.  I set them all on point and I am so happy with the result.   

It measures 53” across and 32” top to bottom.  I am debating about putting some borders on it.  I made it to hang above the couch in my family room.  I bought the cream fabric that I used for the outer and corner triangles from a local quilt shop that is closing because the owner is retiring.  I bought enough to use for the back too.  I also bought a pretty red for the binding while I was there.

I can’t wait to see what the new Schnibble is for February! 

My Dad’s Socks

 

My parents are here for a visit and while they are here we celebrated my dad’s 67th birthday.  Let me tell you about my dad.  He is very cool and very funny and I love to be around him.  I wanted to give my dad a gift that portrayed how much I love him.  For me that translates into hours of dedication and tiny yarn and needles. 

 

Yep, I knit him a pair of socks.  This is the first time I have knit socks for a man and let me just say…their feet are BIG!  I used my husband’s feet as a guide since they have about the same size feet. 

*Let me just put in a little disclaimer here about why I haven’t already knit a pair of socks for my husband.  Believe me, I want to.  I want to cover him in knitted love but you know what…he doesn’t want it.  I know!  It’s crazy!  Who doesn’t want hand knit socks.  They are warm and comfy and fabulous!  But when I mention knitting him a pair of warm, manly, wool socks, his reaction is blah.  It is really hard to set aside hours upon hours of knitting for blah.  In hindsight I wish I would have just knit him a pair and not asked.  In fact, I hoped he would get a little jealous as I tried my dad’s socks on him to gauge how it as going on the size but that didn’t happen at all.  Ok enough about this…I’m getting all worked up. 

I used the pattern called Mr. Pitt’s Socks.  It is the perfect sock pattern for the guy in your life.  I loved the sock yarn I used which was Knit Picks Essential Tweed, which I believe now is called Stroll Tweed.  Very manly, don’t you think?

My parents live a couple of states away and we don’t get to see them as often as we want to.  I was so happy that they have come for a visit and we got to celebrate my dad’s birthday with him.

Round Robin

I signed up to be part of a round robin group in my quilt guild. A round robin is where each quilter makes a center square and that square is passed to everyone in the group and they each take a turn adding a border. We have five people in our group so each quilt will have four borders. When you get it back you can add more if you want or finish the top into a quilt as is. I am excited about stretching my creativity as I work on each person's quilt in my group.

Here is my block. I wanted to do something bright with fun colors. The only thing is that I can't decide if I should leave it like this...




Or add a border of the fabric that inspired my color choices...

What do you think? Is the striped border overkill? Which do you think would look better? Remember four other quilters will be adding to it.

Baskets and Strings...

...these are a few of my favorite things. Be glad you can't hear me singing right now. Scary! I finally got a binding on my November Schnibbles quilt and the red that I chose is perfect. I love how it ties everything together. The red fabrics in the center don't look so out of place now.


So nice to have another finish.

Julie from JulieKQuilts had a series of giveaways and the last one was for a box of strings to make a quilt in the next year for the HeartStrings project. I think everyone that commented on that post won (I think there were six of us). She had enough strings for everyone.

I got the strings in the mail yesterday. I really wanted to do some charity quilting this year and this is the perfect chance. I have never made a string block before but they look easy enough and I hope to have some fun with this. It was funny...I opened the box and pulled them out and said to myself, "I have a bunch of these!". So I will be adding a bunch of my own strings to the quilt. Thanks, Julie for giving me this opportunity to make a quilt for HeartStrings project. And thanks for the gift of the fat quarters. That was very sweet.

Silhouettes

Back in September I won a giveaway on Jodi's blog for a custom silhouette from Petit Debutant. Norma was very patient with me as I took my time deciding what I wanted. So I finally decided and went with a picture of my daughter. She had the silhouette sent to me in a day or two and I loved the result. (She sends two images facing each way and then you can pick which one you like and then you print them yourself) I ordered another one so I could have a silhouette of my son as well.


I thought paired together in a frame that they would make a nice Christmas gift for the grandparents. I really liked the frames I found. I was going for something a little old fashioned looking that would match the style of the silhouettes. I like how they are connected and they were the perfect size to hold wallet sized photos. I also kept it a secret from my husband and made one for him that he could keep on his desk at work. The kids were in on the secret and were really excited to give this unique gift. My husband loved it and the grandparents on both sides liked theirs too. I just wanted to share this fun gift idea with you!

A New Scarf for the New Year

I got an e-mail about a week before Christmas from one of my local yarn shops about a day after Christmas 40% off sale. The only catch, show up at 6 am. I can't think of anything else I would rather lose sleep over than really gorgeous discounted yarn. So I woke up the day after Christmas at 5 am and made my way to the shop in hopes of buying yarn for this scarf. I was 4th in line and it was freezing, the thoughts of wool was the only thing keeping me warm. When the doors opened I hurried in, trying not to knock too many ladies over, looking for the Noro Silk Garden. Guess what? They didn't have any! I wandered around until I came across these four skeins sitting together, no other yarn of its kind in the store.



The last four skeins of Noro Kureyon. Not Noro Silk Garden but it looked the same. I asked the shop owner and she said the only difference was that the Kureyon didn't have the silk. That's all. I can do without a little silk. Kureyon has the same beautiful color striping and yardage as Silk Garden. It worked out perfectly that there were 4 skeins and that's how many I needed. I also wanted two of the same colorway and two others that were different just like Jared (the designer) did. And that's what I got. Two skeins of colorway 149 (greys and tans), one of colorway 214 (blue, green, red/brown, magenta), and one colorway 196 (blue, green, purple). They are a little more subdued than I was hoping for but they do look beautiful together.

I couldn't tell you all that without showing you how it is coming along. It is so fun to knit! The color changes keep me on the edge of my seat. I can't wait to see what color combo is going to be next. And it is mindless knitting in that I can watch TV while I knit. I'll keep you posted on how it's coming along over the next little while.

Happy New Year

Yeah, I am a little late to the party. At least I have finally accepted that it is in fact a new year. I don't know what is wrong with me this year. I don't have that rejuvenating, motivating feeling that I usually have when the clock hits midnight and we welcome in a new year. Last year I was all about the organizing and I think it really helped me throughout the year. But if you read the last line of that organizing post, I did not do those things throughout the year at all. My knitting goals from last year were a lot more successful. I knit and wear often my first sweater, made one for my daughter, and two for my baby nephew, Jackson. I got rid of a lot of yarn I didn't want and knit socks but not as many as I would have liked to. As far as the sock yarn diet...I did really good for most of the year but I have bought some solid colors lately for more intricate sock designs.

I do think it is important to set goals and try to strive to be a better person. I wish I could set a goal as simple as my son which was to get more bounces on his new pogo stick that he got from Santa.



A lot of my goals are personal. Things I would like to improve on within myself. Eat healthier, exercise more, stop biting my nails, read my scriptures daily. Things I would like to improve on within my family. Be a more patient mother, a more supportive wife, a better housekeeper. And of course goals for my quilting and knitting. I am currently on a UFO finishing high and I don't think I am going to stop because the challenge ended. I have a feeling I am going to be finishing a lot of unfinished projects in 2010. For real this year. As far as my knitting goes this year, I want to make more socks (of course) and a few more sweaters. I really want to try my hand at fair isle. And after the reaction I got from my daughter about her socks, I think I see more socks in her future.

I would have loved to make one of those beautiful mosaics of all I accomplished in 2009 but frankly, I don't know how. So if you would like to see some of my finished projects from this past year just click on the "finished quilting" and "finished knitting" labels on the right side of my blog. You can scroll though and look at the pictures and pretend I am computer savvy enough to make a mosaic.

New Year? Still Christmas here!

Christmas lasted a while longer here at my house. And I am not talking about the fact that we finally undecorated. I got a present in the mail from Tina, who most of you know is my sister. We got each other's names in our family gift exchange drawing. So fun! She made me a fabric basket that had some goodies inside.


I opened it up and found this adorable little quilt.

This little quilt can also be a cover for my sewing machine. It has ribbons attached with the cutest little spools tied at the ends. I love how she sent little pictures to show me its different uses.

She also sent a little photo album with a basketball on the cover. We get to fill it with pictures of my kids playing their first season of basketball. She also gave me a gift certificate to get my knitting fix from Knit Picks (I already placed my order) and my quilting fix from The Fat Quarter Shop. She spoiled me!!


Do you remember these socks I made for a special someone for Christmas?

They were for my sister, Johnna. She sent me this picture, she loves them, and they fit! I was so excited that she sent me a picture of herself wearing them.

Funny thing about the family gift exchange...I had Tina's name and made her a gift. I had Johnna's name and made her a gift. I didn't realize until after Christmas that my husband had one of their names in the exchange but I am not sure which. I guess I just got excited and took care of both gifts. Oops!