WTF!

I don't know where my last post went but I'm pretty sure blogger ate it when it was down all day. So let's see if I can find the info again!
(ETA Looks like the nail giveaway I posted about hasn't been reposted since the great blogger apocalypse. so I'll repost when she does!)

Nail Polish Giveaway!

So I mentioned earlier that I've been into nail polish like whoa lately. I know it doesn't have much to do with my crafty blog but every now and again you will see me post about it. If you are into at ALL you need to check out this blog: mynailgraffiti.blogspot.com She is very creative and GREAT with color!
She's also hosting a giveaway to celebrate 100 followers. Check out the blog and enter to win. Also, check out the prize! HOLY HAUL BATMAN!

Really quick! Giveaway alert!

Hello to my few crafty followers. I just wanted to clue you in on a giveaway going on over at Leona's Quilting Adventure She is so generously giving away an Accuquilt Go Baby Fabric Cutter! I don't know about you, but this has been on my dream wishlist since it came out!!! Check out her blog and enter to win!

oneygirl-myquiltingadventure.blogspot.com

"Stuck" to this website....

Har har! My husband brought this website to my attention, and I thought I would share it with you crafty types.  It's called This to That (click-able).

It's a very basic, straight forward website that gives you advice on the best type of adhesive to use when sticking things together. For instance, from the fabric drop down menu I chose Fabric. The second drop down box I also chose Fabric just to see what my options were.

It gave me multiple options including ones that would avoid stiffness (SSSSHHH! I hear you giggling all the way over here!) and non toxic solutions. All of the results are click-able, and bring you to an index entry on the site that tells you the toxicity of the glue, the time it takes to adhere, and where it is available. Some index entries also give you an estimated price and related glues or adhesives.

This website is definitely getting added to my bookmarks, and will come in handy the next time I need to make something that I can't use the sewing machine or knitting needles!

Rainbows!

One project I'm working on (just started actually) is a Rainbow shadow box quilt like the one seen here:

From Flickr user Quilts by Elena

It is an offshoot of the Ravelry LSG Beginners Quilting Bee. I needed to cut fat quarters into 5" charm squares and thought I would post a tutorial on how to make the most out of your fat quarter (12 charm squares from 1 fat quarter) It's easy really, but cutting always proves to be one of my least favorite things about quilting. So here is how I made it quick and easy with minimal waste.

First, clip the tiniest corners off of your fat quarters and wash them. Take them out of the dryer while they are still damp, and immediately iron them.
Then, on to cutting.

1. Fold fat quarter in half, meeting short ends together.

2. Line up the fold on your cutting mat, and trim off raw edge on right.

3. Cut 3 sections that are 5" wide. You will have a bit of scrap here to add to your scrap bucket.

4. Stack your 3 pieces and line up all edges. Line up the long edge on your cutting mat. Cut the raw edge off the right side, and cut into 4 5" inch sections. This will give you 12 charm squares.

The amount of scrap you have at the end of this will depend on how well your fat quarter was cut to begin with. Mine were all from JoAnn's and some were perfect, and others were wonky and terrible. So in my illustrated example, I have very little scrap left because this fat quarter was wonky, but in others I had an inch or 2 extra to add to my scrap bucket. Now repeat these steps for as many fat quarters as you need to cut. In my case, I needed 10 different blue fabrics. I did 11 to be safe, because one or two of mine were questionable as far as tone on tone qualities. I wanted to provide an extra so that the other participants could eliminate one if they didn't like it. I also had 2 fat eighths (I think? basically half a fat quarter) so you actually see 12 fabrics here.

 

(note: the one that is 3rd from the right looks like white background here but is not. Blame strange lighting and iPhone pictures.) 

Keep your eyes pealed for the other rainbow colors that will be arriving in the next few weeks for this project!

FINALLY back!

Blogging (and everything pretty much) eluded me the last couple of months. We've been dealing with my husband's health issues, which have gone from bad to worse. He has been in and out of the hospital more times than I can count and is still pretty much home bound. I'll spare you the gory details (you can read them on his blog if you want, thedailytwitch.blogspot.com) but the end result is probably going to be a pretty intense back surgery coming soon. Before that happens we need to move into a ground floor apartment, have a 3rd birthday party for a very special little girl, and get caught up on everything we've missed in the last few months.

In the meantime, the weather is quickly warming up here in Arizona and that means less knitting, hopefully more sewing (because it's cooler than working with wool) and lots of time at the swimming pool either here at our apartment complex, my sister's house, or my parent's house.


Stay tuned for pictures of current projects I'm working on including very little knitting, a few sewing projects, and nail polish? I know, I know that doesn't really fit in with my crafting blog but it's something I've been into lately so I will post about it here.

Another FO

A's hat. It's huge. Seriously was thinking about wearing it as a sweater there for a while. But he loves it which is the important thing!

ABQ Love

We've been reminiscing lately about our short time in Albuquerque. You can ask any of the friends we made while there. We hated it. We complained constantly about living there. And since we've left, we've missed it so much. There are still things about ABQ we don't like, but we miss our friends, the community, the quirkyness (I like to call it Austin-lite) and the atmosphere. Most of all, we miss living in a LGBT friendly, democratic state.

Honestly, our first choice would be to live in Portland, OR but realistically we can't afford Portland. I'm beginning to think moving back to Albuquerque would be a nice 2nd choice. We will be visiting soon but until then, a pic of one of my favorite stores in Nob Hill, Masks y Mas.

ETA: I forgot some things about ABQ. It's where A and I were married. It's also where we conceived and had L. Very special memories in ABQ including showing our friends ultrasound pics and the entire table saying "AWWWW LABIA!"

Last FO for the weekend

I think.
L has been into Angelina Ballerina lately so started this for her. Set it down after all the knitting was done because it was ridiculous to finish. The amount of seaming and finishing in this project was agonizing. I'm happy with the finished project but the pattern left much to be desired.

Some recent Knitting FOs

 Fuzzy the Hedgehog for L. She loves him!
Pattern can be found here on Ravelry. 

 Juneberry Shawl by Jared Flood. No berries on mine as I left out the bobbles. Pretty intense project but fun!
Pattern here on Rav.

This is kind of a double FO. I hand dyed the yarn to stripe like this. Then knit into a Hurricane hat. Love how it turned out but it's a little bright for a hat. Also, with my short hair it makes me look like a chemo patient. It fit's L a little loosely but I think she will wear it more than me.
Hurricane Hat pattern on Rav.

A Glimpse into my World

A quick picture of my craft corner. Back in September we moved into a tiny 1 bedroom apartment so that we can start eventually saving money to get out of Arizona.

Since we've been here I've rearranged a few times and we are finally starting to get settled in. We have L and all of her toys in the bedroom. Instead of a couch in the living room we have our bed. In the dining room/kitchen we have our small pub table that the sides fold down on, my craft area, and our chest freezer.

It's a little cramped but it hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be. The key is to keep EVERYTHING cleaned up at all times (this never happens here!) because nothing is in a room you can just close the door on and ignore for a few days like in our big house.

Anyways, here it is. My sewing/craft area.

I'm always interested in what's in other peoples' craft areas so I will explain mine a bit. On the wall on the right is a vintage rigid heddle loom that my mom had as a kid from the Sears Roebuck catalog. I will be learning how to weave on this very soon. Beneath that is my portable ironing board, buttons knitting needles etc. You can see my small desk Ottlite glaring at you. My machine and rotary cutting mat. This is all on a table from Ikea that folds down to the size of the little shelf you see underneath. I never fold it because it gets used too much and there is lots of storage underneath. You can see my thread and rulers/templates hanging on the wall and some plastic drawers with current projects in them. on the other side of the drawers is our chest freezer. I keep my yarn swift on here to wind yarn into cakes when needed. My dad made it for me and its a table top one instead of an umbrella swift. I need to figure out how to store it but for now it lives on the freezer.

There is also a hallway closet that I store some of the yarn and some fabric that fits. Once its more organized I will post a pic of that too. I'm getting good (or at least I think I am) at making the most of small places. It's cluttered but functional. It's starting to feel homey. Now I just wish it was on the 1st floor instead of the 2nd, and I wish our neighbor wasn't an escort. That's right. You read right. She's an escort that "entertains" in her apartment. We share the stairs with her. When she's busy, there is no sleep for us. Someday she might get evicted. We'll see.

Slow crafting ahead.....

Not much to update. I haven't made ANY progress on any of my quilts.
I did finish a quilt block for the block bee I'm in on Ravelry. Sawtooth for your enjoyment

I do know after making this block I will NEVER do an entire quilt in this pattern. Too fiddly.

I've been knitting a lot more recently. I finished a Juneberry Shawl. It's a Jared Flood pattern that is supposed to be pretty difficult. It took me a bit to catch on but once I understood what was going on, everything was fine. Definitely a pattern you have to pay attention too while knitting! Once I finished it, I felt like I was missing something. Even though I have a gazillion other projects I could be working on. So I started my next shawl. It's called Batik. This one is worked bottom up in fingering weight so I had to cast on 363 stitches. But the further along I get, the faster it will go! I hand dyed the yarn for this project and I love the way it came out!

I will definitely be dying yarn for projects in the future! LOVE!

Pinterest

Have you been to Pinterest.com yet? If not, and you are looking for inspiration, check it out!
You can find my Pins here and leave me a comment with a link to your pins so I can check them out. A few of my favorites:

PS These are not my photos, or my work, just some inspiration I've found and repinned.

Finished in JUST enough time.

I only handmade one gift this year during the holidays. I didn't want to push it with how crazy things were and the only reason I did the one is because my niece so kindly asked for a hat. She looks awesome in it and wears it everywhere! Finished on Christmas Eve just before the gift exchange because I needed her to try it on as I went to make sure it fit.

Disneyland Post #1

I promise not to spam you all with cheesy vacation pictures but I do want to share just a few from our pre-Christmas vacation to Disneyland. This was L's first time (and mine!) and she was such a trooper. She loved meeting all of the characters and wasn't afraid of a thing. Her favorites were meeting Chip and Dale, TinkerBell, and Rapunzel as we had recently seen Tangled (GO SEE THIS MOVIE!)

Coasters

As mentioned previously, one of my first projects of the year is going to be quilted coasters as gifts for the Pay it Forward creatively Facebook project.
Basically, on Facebook, amongst my knitterly friends you were to post this as your status:

Pay it Forward 2011: I promise to send something homemade to the first 5 people who leave a comment. They must in turn post this and send something they made to the first 5 people who comment on their status. The rules are that ...it must be handmade by you ...and it must be sent to your 5 people sometime in 2011.

 3 of my 5 spots have filled up (comment here if you want the last 2 spots and I will direct you to my Facebook page) and all 3 are knitters so instead of knitting something, I am going to quilt a set of coasters for each person. I found this tutorial here: A Pretty Cool Life that seems to be easy, and I can add more fabrics as I like or make them all the same. Maybe this weekend I will get a moment of quiet to whip them up!

11 in 2011

 Ravelry (if you haven't been there and you knit or crochet you really should go!) I am participating in a 11 projects in 2011 group.  I got to thinking today why not do the same for quilting? I've already picked 11 knit or crochet projects that I want to complete in 2011. These are projects that I have already started but need to finish and a few that I have been drooling over for a while. Some projects are quick and easy, instant gratification projects and others are more time intensive. This doesn't mean I won't do other projects as well but these 11 are my priority for the next year. I think it's a great motivator to complete some projects before starting new ones. And, as some of you know from previous posts, I have start-itis.

Project #1 for knitting: Juneberry Shawl by Jared Flood.  (Ravelry pattern page here if you are on Rav.) To clarify I've never knit lace before and my first project is not only a giant lace shawl, but a Jared Flood pattern no less. There have been a few hair raising moments so far,  but I'm already done with the body and am on to the knitted on border! I LOVE IT! Here are a few bad cell phone pics of my progress. (my camera isn't recognizing my memory card so crap photos it is!)

Body of Shawl pre blocking so you can't really see much.

Border of the shawl stretched out with the help of Adam so you can see the details. LOVE THIS!

My project list for quilts for 2011 isn't finished yet but here's what I have so far.

1. Finish binding on bright quilt for me.

2. Scrappy Coin Quilt (fabric cut but barely started piecing)

3. Friendship Braid quilt for L (again cut but barely piecing)

4. Coasters for the Pay it Forward Facebook project.

5. Geometric solid quilt for our King size bed.

6. Cheater modern double wedding ring (most fabric cut, sewing in progress)

I have a feeling I will start more than 11 projects this year, but finishing is another story. 

Temporary lapse in blogging....

Life and the holidays got in the way of blogging but I'm slowing recovering from both so should be back more often.
Coming soon:
*Pics of my craft corner freshly reorganized in our tiny apartment.
*Updated pics of current projects and any that have been finished.
*Crafty inspiration that I've been collecting since I've been gone.
*Pics from our recent DisneyLand trip.