quilt: miranda & todd's wonky log cabin

I hope Miranda and Todd like this quilt half as much as I do.  I am really pleased with how it turned out!

colors: freshwater coastal wetlands

I just love these colors!

The colors of the baylands vegetation are gorgeous -- I find them very inspirational and plan to use these photos to guide some future quilting.

The temperature hit 97 degrees today, so what did I do? I finished a quilt! I'll be giving it to baby Maja this weekend.

specs: 50 x 50", the colorful fabrics are from the Noveau line by Moda. Orange and yellow flannel backing.

project improv blocks

I made one each of three color combinations: blue & green, pink & orange, and my new all-time favorite, red & aqua. Each block is 12x12 inches and will be sent off to Jacquie of Tallgrass Prairie Studio, for their inclusion in Project Improv.

confessional #3

I really need to blog more often than just Sunday confessionals.


I believe I crafted every day (I've taken to bringing some knitting to work, to tinker with at lunch, or better yet, get someone else to drive the vanpool so I can knit), and don't have any finished projects to show for it, I feel like I'm getting a lot done. I'm about one-third done with a Pleated Beauty Bag for Habetrot:




I started a new knitting project for felting (I'm improvising the design -- I'm going for an organic-but-not-too-lumpy look.... wish me luck!):




And speaking of improvising, I am getting down to business with my Project Improv blocks. Today I went through my stash to see what I had that would work for the assigned color combinations (pink & orange, green & blue, and red & aqua (I'd never given that last combo any thought at all, and I think I even cocked my head at the Project Improv directions when I saw it, but now I see it everywhere, and I love it)):




And we received our swapping partner assignments for the Bend the Rules Sewing #4, so I'll be searching for fabrics for that too, soon.


And...drum roll please.... I bought no new craft stuff this week! Is it reasonable to feel so accomplished for doing.... nothing?

Edited to add: lest I end up posting only weekly confessionals, I am going to place a text box on the sidebar for my confessionals from here on out.

confessional #2

There must be something in the water... Holly, Sooze and I all fell off the wagon this week and bought craft stuff. Like them, I could blame something (or someone... Ellen, I'm looking in your general direction), and I can make the argument that I was going to have to buy these fabrics eventually anyway, since I have next to no pink fabric in my stash and Habetrot has recently informed me that all of her pink baby knitting was well-guessed. What I would rather do though, is consider these initial two weeks of the Use Me Up Challenge to be like those of a new diet. They say that when you try to loose weight, your body freaks out a little and in fact you might gain a pound or two before you start to loose any.

Or maybe I'm just not cut out for this? We'll see.

So yeah, I bought an entire quilt top's worth of fabric on Friday. I popped it all in the wash on Friday night, ironed it on Saturday morning, and then something amazing happened: I sat down, desgined the quilt, cut the pieces and had the whole thing pieced before lunch. Now get this: the baby isn't due until this summer! I really don't know how that happened....





Other projects I worked on this week:

* organizing my craft room: I love the new set-up, and I feel so.... organized!

* the Liesel scarf and the aforementioned dishcloth for Heather and Stephen (deemed an "incredibly fancy dishcloth" by the ladies at my knitting group):



...and as I headed out of the back yard, I snapped an obligatory spring-is-coming crocus photo -- they were all over, right after Thursday's snow melted.

nathan's quilt

Emily's kids are two-for-two when it comes to their Aunt Andi finishing the binding of their quilts on the airplane and in the hotel.

specs: 50 x 50 inches, front: various batik fabrics, back: flannel, pieced batting

WIP: nathan's quilt

red & white quilt

Finn decided to "help" me with arranging the blocks of the red & white quilt yesterday. Good thing I had just given him a bath!

finished kimono quilt

I am so happy that Liz and Marla like the quilt (I went fishing for compliments after most of the guests had gone and asked Liz if she wanted to see the quilt, which I'd finished just that morning).

WIP Thursday

I've just finished the Kimono quilt top, and I'll give you a peek, but I'm going to wait until the recipients get it before showing the whole thing....

Quick on the Kimono quilt's heels is the Red Quilt....

And the Stained Glass quilt patiently awaits the love it rightfully deserves...

WIP monday

A little knitting....

Lacy Vine Washcloth by Theresa Gaffey in Knitter's Stash. In Louet Euroflax Sport in Neptune blue.

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Elizabeth and Marla are getting married in August, so their quilt is the next at bat. The pattern is bit of a departure for me, but I selected it specifically with their living room in mind, and I think they'll like it.

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Things in the garden are sprouting/growing/fruiting!

sugar snap peas.....

strawberries.....

blueberries....

lavender flowers....

and hops (they just have the neatest looking leaves!)....

isabella quilt: finished

Baby Isabella's quilt is finished and ready to be shipped off! One thing though: Isabella has an older brother (about five, I think) with whom I rather bonded with when we visted the family last christmas. I would like to make something for the brother too, but I don't know what. The only think I can really come up with is pajamas (and that's mostly because I have a children's pajama pattern handy). Any ideas?





My final exam has been issued: redesign a space on campus (the small-ish park-like area between Allen Library and Sieg Hall, if you happen to be familiar with the UW campus) as a Peace Memorial. The "problem" with this one is that the space is not nearly as uninspired as the space of the midterm project -- it's actually quite nice already, and when I went there yesterday morning (after hauling my bike down from the garage rafters, dusting it off and pumping up the tires), I was rather taken with the space as is. So, what does peace look like to you?


And here's a card I made for my friend Frank, who had a touch of knee surgery last week.... an embroidered knee joint.

sprimmer

At last, the garden is planted! I believe we managed to stick seeds or starts into every available nook and cranny of the backyard. That translates to: asparagus, tomatoes (2 each of cherry and slicing varieties), yukon gold potatoes, artichokes (1 purple, 2 green globe), sugar snap peas, bush beans, mesclun salad lettuce mix, romaine lettuce, spinach, russian kale, carrots, shallots, scallions, walla walla onions, garlic (3 varieties), strawberries (4+ varieties), raspberries, an apple tree, blueberries (3 varieties), hops (3 varieties), zuchini, peppers (2 varieties), broccoli, cucumbers, and of course, the herb garden (mint, thyme, rosemary, sage, lavendar, oregano and basil). Also, sunflowers and nasturtiums.



And now hear this. I, Andrea, hereby relinquish all attempts at growing cilantro. Apparently it just isn't in the stars for me, and I fear adverse mental effects should I continue to attempt it. I'll stick to tomatoes, which seem to work OK for me.

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The Huge Log Cabin quilt and matching pillow shams are done, and safely in the hands of their new owners.



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It's been warm enough for Finn to take up lying in the coolest part of the house and do a little swimming...

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We went to the Padres vs. Mariners game (the Pads won that game, but lost the subsequent two)



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Isabella's quilt is quilted (but not yet bound)...

isabella quilt update

Baby Isabella's quilt top is finished! The charm pack made this quilt go together so much faster than any other I have done before. Just add sashing (ok, two separate trips to the fabric store for that bit), and voila! Instant baby quilt!

with finn, for scale.

WIP Tuesday

First, a finished object!

I made a pencil roll for a friend’s daughter’s birthday. I used the pattern from Joelle Hoverson’s Last-Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts, abbreviated to fit the 12-color pencil set I bought for it. The word on the street is that the recipient loved it, which makes me very happy.








Now on to the WIP du jour:
I am also about half-way through piecing the top of a baby quilt for the latest arrival of my friends Toni & Shawn, Isabella Renee. The patch fabric is from a charm pack of Moda’s Flutterby line, and the sashing and border fabrics are Kona Solids. The binding will also be Flutterby. I’ve seen photos of this sort of pattern, but I don’t know if it has a name, and I am constructing this quilt without any written instructions.






Toni’s first baby, Seamus, was the recipient of my very first “real” quilt, a rail fence patterned quilt from Alex Anderson's book, Start Quilting (below). Not wanting to rely on the traditional gender-associated color pallette of blues for a boy, I went with bold primary colors in three color groups: red, green and yellow (I know, green is not a primary color, but I trust that you see what I was after here). In each of the groups, I selected a fabric that incorporated sunflowers, since those are Toni's favorite flowers, unfazed by the fact that this boy's quilt was going to have flowers on it. Now Toni has a girl, I am making her a quilt that features insects! Unintentional irony -- I love it.



Rail Fence for Baby Seamus, circa 2005

catching up...

A little out of order, but I wanted to catch up....

Eastern Oregon and Washington road trip....
Eric and I hit the road for Pendleton at 7pm on Friday evening, arriving around 11:30, safe and sound. On Saturday we worked and at the end of the day, we went to the Whitman Mission National Historic Site. It was a lovely site, if only known for the massacre that happened there. The weather was great -- the kind of sun and shadow you only get from the massive clouds that manage to look cheerful and ominous simultaneously. On Sunday, we headed north towards Clarkston, WA and Lewiston, ID. That's Lewiston in the background there.

We took the Lewis and Clark historic trail (the highway version of it, anyway) and took our time. We passed through Moscow and Coeur D'Alene, ID; Pullman and Spokane WA. Eric dropped me off at the quilting shop in Moscow while he gassed up (is he great or what?). That quilting shop is dangerous -- it's attached to a yarn shop.

Back in Seattle....
On the 19th, we went to the Roman Art from the Louve exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum, and on the 21st, I went to see the Yarn Harlot at her book signing. I brought my knitting and stood in line for a little while, but eventually had to give up on having her sign my book, as it was 9:30pm, the bus had already stopped running for the evening, and Eric would only be willing to come pick me up for a little longer. Fortunately, she's got another manuscript in the works, so I'll just have to go see her again (would anyway). By then, hopefully I'll have finished a sock, or even a pair!

The huge log cabin quilt top is off for quilting! When I see it next, it'll be a fully formed, beautiful quilt! In the meantime, I have two matching throw pillow shams to put together. This is it, right before it went off for quilting. Glass of water for scale.



Next up: baby quilt for baby Isabella Renee (born 29APR). Should be a quickie (famous last words).

This week, Eric has been in Glynco, Georgia for training. He was supposed to continue on to a second week of training in Charleston, but his grandmother passed away on Tuesday, so he's gone back to San Diego for her funeral this Wednesday. Nana was a strong, capable woman whom I admired. I know she stuck around to care for Papa, and once he was gone, she was finally able to rest. I didn't know either of them very well, but I will always fondly remember that Nana referred to the time that Papa was in the Navy as their time in the Navy. She considered herself every bit as involved in the Navy as he did. "Remember when we were studying for the Acadamy exam?" she once asked him. Not "when you were studying" but "when we were studying." A wonderful, sweet woman. She will be greatly missed.

OK, that's enough catching up for now. This weekend is all about the Garden of Bewilderment. I am pleased with the plan I have in my head -- I'll post pics once it's done (and once Eric brings the camera home... I feel a little lost without it).

WIP Wednesday

The huge log cabin has one more border to go! It has gotten so large, I had to employ the clothesline in order to take a photo (for scale, consider that the clothesline is about five foot, five inches above the concrete. Of course, I have to take photos when I get home while it's still light out, and then do some more sewing, so after this photo was taken, I added the creamy pink border to the top and bottom of the quilt. Now all that's left to complete the quilt top is the maroon border.



Notice the garlic doing very well in the lower right corner...

Our starts are also going like crazy: cucumber, beans and kale...






and just as I posted, Eric announced that we have Italian roasting pepper sprouts!

WIP Thursday

The starts are well underway, and I wish I had some time lapse photography equipment to show you just how fast these suckers are growing....




bush bean seeds from last year's harvest...



and various lettuces....

And now for the debut of the huge log cabin, not yet finished but looking mighty fine, if I may say so myself....





There's actually two-and-a-half more borders on there than when the photo was snapped yesterday -- one of the medium pink and half of the creamy pink. I really need to inquire at the quilt shop about getting myself in the queue for their long arm quilting service -- this thing barely fits on my sewing table as a quilt top -- adding batting and another layer would take up the whole room, and probably send me into convulsions. So off it will go for some expert quilting on big fancy machine. Hopefully they'll let me take pictures!

Tomorrow, Eric and I are off to northeastern Oregon for a mini road trip (read: business trip where I get to bring the old man).

My spring quarter class is off to a great start -- sort of on the touchy-feely side, but in a good way, so I am still quite excited about it. We have to do some observations every week on a given theme -- if I like any of my observation writings, I'll share.