10.31.2010

Sunday stash - Super Saturday edition part 2

Due to my, uh, not-so-impressive restraint at the Rossville fabric store, I had enough fabric from that outing for two versions of Sunday Stash. I probably had enough for a third part, but I'll pretend that wasn't the case. Plus, there's lots more fabric in my stash for future editions.

I LOVE the fabrics in this first group. I'm thinking these colors as inspiration for a future quilt. I'd also love to have a bag with these fabrics, too. It would totally match my wheelchair.
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From left (what info I could find): Fusions; Santorini by Lila Tueller; Shadows by Fabric Freedom in London, England; Floragraphix II by Jason Yenter; Floragraphix IV by Jason Yenter)

These two are from Plume by Tula Pink.
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More Plume by Tula Pink. Love this line!
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The colors in the photo below are really off. The one on the right is a sort of raspberry and white; the other one is a mix of light green, purple, cream & brown. Not sure what line the left one is from, the right is from City Blooms by Kitty Yoshida.
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This is from Fandango for Henry Glass & Co. It's brighter in person.
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10.30.2010

It was mostly a cinch

Other than watching a really sad football game today, I sewed. And sewed. And sewed. It helped take my mind off all kinds of other things I really didn't want to think about. It wasn't completely successful in that regard, but at least I got some things accomplished, including these two cinch sacks. They are all finished other than adding the ribbon ties, but I think that part will be quick and easy.

I've had a pattern to make these "It's a Cinch Sack" bags forever. A couple months ago I cut out all the fabric I needed to make two of them, but stalled out. I kept putting them off, but had good intentions. After I finally started sewing them, they went together pretty easily. I had some trouble sewing over some of the thicker seams, but I went back over those little problem areas by hand and think they turned out OK.

10.24.2010

Sunday stash - Super Saturday edition

Last weekend I was lucky to have some company, my mom, one of my sisters and her husband. It was so nice to have them here, especially since I have been having a rough time for a while.

On Saturday, they were nice (and patient) enough to take me to a nearby town to visit a local fabric shop. It is one of the few I've been lucky enough to go to lately and it definitely did not disappoint! It also happened to be the day of the Super Saturday sale and I found lots of good bargains and beautiful fabric. My mom, who is an avid quilter but very good about not buying too much fabric (that gene really did not get passed down), and my sister, who is not yet a quilter, both even found some fabric to buy.

Here are some of the ones I picked out.

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Did you see the adorable elephants???

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I don't have any definite plans yet for any of these, but couldn't pass them up. I will share some of the others soon!

10.22.2010

I have no shame

I was very honored to serve as a guest blogger for I married a Polack yesterday for her regular "Random Thought Thursday" feature. I am sure this honor was bestowed on me for a number of reasons, which most likely include:

a) My huge blog following
b) The fascinating nature of my random thoughts
c) The low, low fee I charge for such requests

Why I was selected, is in no way whatsoever, related to the fact that we've been friends for more than 20 years and that I volunteered.

Because I'm lazy and have no shame, I am counting that post as a post here. If you are a reader other than Natalie (anyone? Bueller?), head over there to read my random thoughts and read her blog. She's awesome!

10.17.2010

Sunday stash

In my opinion, one of the oddities of the quilting world is the challenge in finding good, red fabric. There is a lot of red fabric to be had, but the challenge is in finding a basic, primary shade of red. It's either too pink or too maroon. Too orange or too purple. It's pretty annoying, especially when I am looking for just the right color for a project. This also seems to be an issue with yellow and bright turquoise.

I bought these fat quarters in a little bundle at Joann's a while back. They happen to be a great basic red, so it didn't take much justification to buy them and add them to my stash.

Red fat quarters

10.16.2010

In progress

In an effort to blog more often (did you notice it hasn't been over a month?), I'm going to try to post more projects that are in progress, rather than waiting until everything is finished. Heck, even if I posted all completed projects rather than posting about every fifth one it would help make my blog more interesting.

So anyway, in honor of Sock Saturday (ha, I love alliteration!), here's a pair of socks that are half-finished. These are Sheri's Posies Socks from the book "Socks From the Toe Up" and are made out of my own hand-painted yarn.

I had to temporarily put these aside because I misplaced my copy of the pattern. I have since started another pair of socks because I was in the mood to knit. And then I promptly found the pattern to these. Oh well. I hope to get back to these shortly and avoid the dreaded SSS (Second Sock Syndrome).

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I love knitting socks! And wearing hand-knit socks is so awesome.

10.14.2010

To re-skein or not to re-skein ... that is the question

One of the dilemmas I have faced since starting to dye yarn for my Etsy shop is whether to re-skein - i.e. re-wrap the yarn in a different sized skein - after dyeing. One of the issues is that the yarn sometimes looks a little messy after the dyeing process, since I end up using a mix of foam brushes, squirt bottles and my fingers to get the dye just where I want it in the quantity I want it in. This ends up with some really neat effects, but the yarn sometimes is off-kilter in the skein after it dries, which is sort of annoying.

Some knitters have a preference one way or another, either liking to see the original dyed product (to see how long the color repeats are) or prefer to see the colors all mixed together (so they can get the idea of how the fiber will look knitted up).

So far, I've just been leaving the yarn as is because I like the way it looks after being painted. And it saves me time, which is awesome, because I'm a low-tech kind of re-skeiner, wrapping it around a board in my apartment. Still, I was curious if it would make much of a difference.

One of my favorite skeins was this rainbow-colored beauty.

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I had pretty much decided to keep this skein, so I decided to re-skein it, just to see how it would look.



Hmm.

Granted, this picture was taken indoors in not-so-good light, but this yarn definitely loses some of its luster post re-skeining. One of my favorite things about doing one-of-a-kind hand-painted yarns is the variety of tones, shades and color mixes I can achieve. It's kind of hard to notice that when it is re-skeined and twisted all together. I think I'll stick to the original skeins for now, as messy as they might appear.

Because they are prettier.

And quicker. :)

10.13.2010

Tilt-a-whirl

Have I mentioned how much I adore the new tilt shift camera app I have on my iPhone? (Probably not because I hardly ever blog). But oh, how I love this app. It's called TiltShiftGenerator and is so beyond awesome. It has the ability to make even crappy phone pictures look amazing.

Here are a few of my favorite recent shots.

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(This last photo is from the garage sale!)