A wee project that went too fast

Tiny baby hat, started on an airplane and finished the next day. That was fast! Now what? This goes with the sweater posted recently. 

Busy Grandma

I just finished this dress for my granddaughter! It will be a gift for her 5th birthday. 

I also recently finished this sweet, tiny sweater, size 0-3 months. 

Who is it for, you may be wondering? Cia is pregnant, due in November. :-) The baby will need a sweater to keep warm and cozy. 

Works underway, done, and on the road

A new dress for Sammy is underway. It's another Oliver and S pattern. This one is the Play Date Dress.

Just finished this sweater for my granddaughter. I hope she likes it! She just started pre-K today, going on a real school bus. Pattern from Berroco Comfort/Book for Girls.

And lastly, "Rose For Your Nose" is going to Houston Quilt Festival! So that means I will have three quilts there. It would be nice to go, but we have other travel plans at the same time.

Fiber festival in NY

I forgot to mention one of the highlights of our trip, a visit to a fiber festival in central NY, with Martine, Sammy, and friends Heather and Claire. It featured several tents full of vendors and exhibits, with yarn, roving, and lots of animals: sheep, angora rabbits, alpaca, llamas and goats. There was all sorts of yarn spinning equipment. Very interesting! One booth was about rug hooking and had a barrel of wool fabric scraps, so i stuffed a bag full. Perfect for quilting! Also I couldn't resist this pretty skein of yarn. I'm thinking hat and/or fingerless gloves. I took more photos of the fun.  This is just a preview.

Roll top socks

I just finished these. I wonder if it will cool down enough to wear them this Spring. I might have to wait until fall.

Getting a little filing done ..

My art studio has been suffering from clutter, and much of it are patterns I have printed out. Not for quilts- clothing, pouches, knitting, etc. So I have been filing it all away. I need to split this collection between sewing and knit/ crochet. Not glamorous, but at least there is less clutter, and I can find what I need. Yay!

Socks in progress

My poor neglected blog. Here is a photo of socks I am knitting for my grandchild. Cute, huh? They are actually a back burner project. I am also hard at work on a quilt, which I can't talk about yet. I am enjoying the process, though!

My husband is recovering from a broken collar bone. He fell down the stairs Thursday night. Poor guy, it is a slow process.

New fingerless gloves

I recently finished these, while my sewing machine was at the shop. I am happy how they turned out. It was yummy hand-dyed yarn I bought at the Hamilton farmers market in central NY. I'm keeping these! I used the Aegean Mitts pattern by Amy Polcyn, available through Interweave knitting patterns.

Alphabet dress and Noro sweater for Sammy

 Sammy is modeling the alphabet dress I made for her earlier this summer.

 Here she is at the Clinton Farmers Market, eating a chocolate crepe.

The crepe makers have a booth right next to her parents, and this is a special treat. Amazingly, no chocolate got on the dress!

 And here she is wearing a sweater I made for her ages ago. It was way too big then, but now it fits!

It's Noro yarn, and the sweater directions are in the Noro Kids book.

 This is what the back of it looks like, taken at the pumpkin patch.

An Exquisite Moment quilt

This is old news, but I was on my trip when I found out that my quilt, "Grocery Shopping with Sammy," was accepted into the "An Exquisite Moment" special exhibit by Dinner at Eight Artists. It will go to the Long Beach International Quilt Festival in August and I'm not sure yet where else. I am very excited to have my quilt included in this wonderful exhibit.

I didn't have an image to share when I was on my trip, but now I finally have time to share it with you.

It depicts my granddaughter when I was grocery shopping with her at Wegman's in Central NY. My husband is hand embroidered in the background.

Detail of my husband in the background. He has been in three quilts of mine, that I can think of. Lucky him! ;-) He's wearing a hat in two of them. He has a moustache in all of them.

As long as I'm sharing things, here is the knitted cap I made on my trip to the UK! I knitted on planes, on trains, and once in a while in hotel rooms. I started it and finished the whole thing on the trip. It was a challenge. Every single row was different! The design is by Alana Dakos, which appears in her beautiful new book, Botanical Knits. Check out the book, it's really wonderful. I can't wait to try some of the other designs.

knitting needle holder tutorial

My knitting needles were a disorganized mess, so I made a new little case for them.  Here is a tutorial so you could make your own.

I cut two fabric rectangles, about 20" wide by 18". I put right side together, sewed 1/4" around all the edges except leaving about a 4" opening. I clipped corners, turned right side out and pressed flat. At this point it's about 19 1/2" by 17 1/2".

I folded the bottom edge up about 4 1/2".

I have a lot of double-pointed needles that I wanted to keep separate from my regular needles, so I added a second rectangle (made the same way as the first one, 19 1/2" wide by about 7" finished) which I sandwiched under the folded up bottom edge. Then I sewed around all four outer edges through all the layers.

I turned the upper edge under about an inch and a half. This helps to keep the needles from falling out. Then I sewed vertical lines of stitches about 2" apart, all the way across. A walking foot helps to keep the stitch lines straight and to measure the space between the previous line and the current line. Alternating lines go halfway up and the others go all the way up, to hold down the top fold. Hopefully this makes sense.

Sew a ribbon, twill tape or shoe string about 2 feet long, on the outside along one of the sewing lines, about halfway up.

So this is how it looks with needles in it. Pretty cool, huh? It holds most of my needles, including the circular ones, with room for more.  My oversized needles go somewhere else.

This is the pathetic one I made a few years back, woefully inadequate. But I learned from it: make it wider, for more needles (10 sizes)! Make two rows, for double pointeds and regular needles! Leave wider space for each size! And make it nicer looking!

post holiday catch-up

I'm drowning in holiday photos and too busy to post. Here are some random family photos from my phone.

Ginger cuddled up in the animal quilt I made for Sammy.

On a walk with Sammy and Ginger to the park.

Dining at Zov's in Irvine.

Sammy modeling the sweater I knitted her.

I still have more photos to process out of my camera.

holiday projects continued

This is a small art quilt that I made for Vickie, a member of my art quilt friendship group. She was supposed to get it last Friday, but the meeting got cancelled due to illness. She wanted Art Nouveau style quilts. This is similar but not quite AN, so I called it "Presque Nouveau." (presque means almost)

I made a pillow case for Samantha to go on her youth bed. It goes with her animal quilt. I need to find a photo of that, too. I've got one somewhere.

I made two hats like this, except with the colors changed around. These were for Jack and Warren.

Our friend Yoshiko sent us Japanese treats all the way from Japan! We've been working them. My favorites are the ones that include chocolate.


More photos to come!

more holiday projects

 

I made four of these hats for gifts, made by a pattern that I got at Yarn Lady, which is unfortunately going out of business. This photo doesn't do them justice. They are slouchy and flattering.

The way you shape them is to wet down the finished hat and shape it onto a child's ball. Let it dry thoroughly and it's stretched into a nice slouchy, lacy shape.

I knitted this sweater for Samantha. It was a simple pattern, but I think it turned out adorable. I believe I found the pattern at a little shop in Santa Fe. It looks cute on her; I will post photos of her wearing it later.

Another view.

I made this puppy for Samantha, too.

Hanging out with the red dog.

Aren't they cute together? I loved making these dogs.

I made this kitty from a Mimi Kirchner pattern. Mimi is a very talented doll artist. She has a cool blog; I'll try to get the link for it.

I made the doll to ressemble Samantha's cat, a tuxedo cat who is coincidentally called Mimi! The scarf on the Mimi doll is cut from a cashmere sweater. The body is made from black sweaters.

The details are made from felt and embroidered. This doll was also fun to make. She's very huggable! I would like to make more.

Okay, now to something more art quilty! This is a prayer flag for my sister-in-law Marti. I was inspired by the forest fires that were near where she lived in Colorado Springs in 2012.

This is the other prayer flag I made for Marti for Christmas. Obviously I went with a more wintery vibe, and the theme is "Calm." The quazi-calligraphy pieces were made by Lisa Englebrecht. I am sure I will get inspired to make more flags for Marti in the future.

More projects to show you, soon....