Bad at Finishing

This has been a slow year for me, creatively, with lots of stalled projects and unfinished business. Today, though, I am showing off two things just completed, and only with the help of others!

One year ago I saw my Aunt Lois, who came to Salt Lake City for my dad’s memorial service. I don’t get to see Lois very often, but when I do, I am always impressed by the way her engineering mind interprets and deconstructs art. She has taught me many new skills over the years.

Lois, like many women in our family, cannot bear to have idle hands, so she brought with her the ingredients and tools for assembling these soft, 3D fabric magic cubes. I flipped for them, and marveled at how she figured it out. I later looked up a model, so that I could understand it more fully. Instructions for building one made from wooden blocks can be found here. She gave me an assembled cube with bright fabrics pinned to the foam blocks, and all I had to do was stitch up the seams.  I am embarrassed at how long it took me to finish, but my kid and all visitors are delighted with the finished product! Thanks Aunt Lois!

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Two years ago, I went into a tiny yarn shop in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida. It was near closing time and I rushed to choose the best yarn in the place. I bought an expensive skein of Tilli Thomas Flurries named Chocolate Cherry, a supersoft deep brown merino with bright cherry red beads, with the intention of making a purse. I visited a fabric shop in Panama City Beach and purchased a red-on-crimson koi print for lining and a chocolate brown zipper. I knitted a rectangle, coaxed all the beads to the knit side, watched a youtube video on making lined wallets, sewed the zipper to the lining (incorrectly), and …. stopped. There is sat, in the quilt shop plastic bag for two years. My mind could not fathom what I’d done wrong or how to fix it.

A few days ago I showed it to my new friend Daniela, who knew how to fix it, and was willing to pick out the stitches for me. I took the dog for a walk, had an epiphany about how it should have been sewn, and came home to a completed purse!

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Finally, here is a new embroidered purse my mom made for me! Perfectly timed, too, since I just wore out my everyday purse while camping. It’s still unfinished; my mom only secured one end of the strap, so that I could adjust it to my size and sew it in. I’ll finish in the next day or two, because I need it!

Birthday Dishes and Linens

My birthday was last weekend and I invited some friends over for a grownup dinner party. Really, I wanted the excuse to show off the dishes I bought and the napkins I made to go with them.

Miss P brought citronella candles and I set out the bug spray and I didn’t even get bitten (a nice b-day gift of itself). I made pototo lima bean soup and whole wheat rolls. C&D brought a quiche and P&T brought grilled veggies. Everything was so good, and I counted myself really lucky to have such great friends!

I made the birthday cake, just my usual chocolate cake from a mix, but I used some cake-decorating resources to frost it nicely (turquoise with white polka dots). It was my 36th birthday, and I didn’t have enough candles, so I made an 8-bit binary code. I also served soan papdi, a box of which I have been saving since my trip to Salt Lake. Soan Papdi is so sweet that you have to wash it down with birthday cake.

I had spent the week leading up to my birthday sewing napkins. It was surprising how many turquoise/orange/red fabrics I had, and I bought some others at the shop on my street corner (yes, I live practically next door to a quilt shop!).

Plus my old napkin rings went fabulously:

In uploading these photos, I was reminded of another dinner party almost exactly two years ago, where I also showed off new dishes, and where I OUTDID myself on food. See Indian Feast.

 

 

Staying Entertained

Two things we’ve done lately:

Bowling with bumpers and a ramp:

The Boogedy believes that the best and most magical part is when the ball comes back!

Making our own beanbags:

Little fingers helped fill the bags with weevily chana dal:

Finished products (2 of polkadot/cupcake, 2 of lime checks/stripes, and 2 oranges/sunset plaid)

Playing toss, and trying hard to understand why we have to stand way over here on this paper and can’t just drop them in from above:

Gator Bag

Look at what I made for Zach!

I sewed this nifty bag by following the directions (if not the exact measurements) set forth in this wonderful and easy-to-understand tutorial at mmmcrafts by Larissa! I took better photos of this when I made the bag, but can’t find the pictures, and now the bag is dingy from use, so you’ll have to put up with these lame photos.

I also sewed these dolphin pantaloons in clever Thai-wrap styling (also called fisherman pants). Craig came over wearing a pair of pants in this style and I liked them so much that I invited myself to his house and we each sewed a pair using his pants as a pattern.

These are really flattering on him. I wish I had captured that!

These photos were taken in Florida when we were vacationing. Today it is the first rainy, cold day of fall, and I’m remembering the warmth!

Tea Wallets–Condom carriers?

I made a personalized tea wallet for several loyal readers, tea drinkers all. Now that I know all have been received, I can post pictures here.

For Kristin: Marbelized fabric that reminds me of book endpaper. With a super cool tortoise-shell-esque button.

For Maria: The cupcake queen, with a button that has Sprinkles.

For Sonya: A little something bold and retro. The big button should get itself caught on everything in her purse.

For Jen: Why, FISH, of course!! Swimming against the current.

For my mama: Cherries. I always think of my mom when I see cherry fabrics. She used to live in a little town in Florida called Cherry Lake, and I know so many childhood stories that happened to her and her band of sisters there.

I found this amazingly simple pattern by way of Whip Up, from a tutorial by Christy’s Creations. SO EASY and fun.

Delaney’s Delight

My friend Jenn approached me last July about knitting a blanket for her little cousin’s birthday in September. A knitted blanket turned out to be prohibitively expensive (and time-intensive), so we agreed on the size/price/general color scheme (bright!) for a pieced quilt instead. Jenn’s taste seemed to lean toward geometrics and liberal use of stripes. She insisted that the quilt be feminine, but not little-girly, so that as Delaney grew, she wouldn’t think of it as her baby quilt.

I enlisted the help of my mom and sister to help with piecing and binding this twin-size beauty, and had it professionally quilted by Sue’s Machine Quilting in Roy, UT. I was so pleased with this quilter’s work and speed!! I highly recommend her if you’re looking to have something quilted. I embroidered the label and appliqued it to the soft flannel back.

By the time we had everything figured out, we had to push our date to xmas, instead, and Jenn says that Delaney sat in the box on xmas morning and really was delighted by the present. I was so pleased, because I know that sometimes little kids can be so non-chalant about blankets, socks, clothes, etc.

Here’s me laying it out at my mom’s apartment:

Mid-week present!

When I got home last night, I found green padded mailer on the table from Maria! Maria and I worked together several years ago at ImagiKnit in San Francisco. She’s quirky. She’s fun. She’s a good cook. She read my post about how I’m always carrying my knitting around in the paper sack the yarn came in. She sent me this gorgeous reversible bag that she made!

It’s already holding my current project, which I’m afraid you just can’t see right now because it’s nearly x-mas, and the recipient of this knittery might just read this post! Ok, a little peek. This photo has better color, by the way:

Thank you Maria!!

Also, she sent me some scraps of some fat quarters she’s in love with. I’ll be finding some coordinating fabrics in my mondo-stash and sending her a little gifty right back.

Bohemian Baby

Thanks to Michelle at Green Kitchen for a fabulous tutorial on these sweater pants! I shopped at the local thrift store last weekend, and found the perfect sweater, but it was a women’s medium, MUCH smaller than her tutorial suggested. So, I couldn’t use the sleeves, but I was able to cut a pattern from the front and back of the sweater. I’ve never sewn pants before, so my mom had to help, because my brain wasn’t grasping it (again, that’s because I didn’t actually follow Michelle’s explicit and clear instructions).

Oh yeah, and the sleeves from this thrifted sweater are going to be a pair of trendy legwarmers for me. They are sure to be way cooler than the plum slouchy pair I had when it was actually the 80s.

Now my guy is a colorfully clad dreamboat. This bohemian outfit is finally something stylish enough to rival Sonia’s quirky kids. Yes, I did knit that hat. And that sweater (successfully put in a zipper, by the way!!). But those maroon curtains are original to our 90s luxury van. I wish you could see the big tv in there …(it’s true, I’m not the mom I thought I’d be…he watches Winnie the Pooh when he’s cranky).

Fruit Booter

My mom and I pieced this quilt for Zach for Christmas 2007. I am notorious for making quilt tops that then sit unfinished for months (or even years…see the story of the July 21st Header). Months ago I purchased backing (though not quite enough), batting (polar fleece), and cotton floss for tying. Then my house has been in such upheaval with construction and new roommates that I misplaced several of those items.

Truly, I forgot all about the quilt. Then all items except the floss were discovered in the bottom of the armoire, necessitating a trip to the fabric store for replacement floss and more backing.

Last week mom came over at 7:30am and spent the cool hours of the morning helping me tie the quilt on my driveway under the trees.

I went back the fabric store Saturday because I had forgotten to get material to bind it. I will post full pics when the thing is fully bound and labeled (should be done just in time to re-gift it to him for xmas). At that time I’ll tell you where this quilt’s queer title came from!

Forgive me while I write, once again, about chickens

Each winner of the chicken-naming contest received one of these handmade chicken magnets for their fridge. Meldrick (red), Lady Tremaine (aqua), and Ugly Betty (green).

The chickens are made from home-dyed woolen fabrics and felts, yarn, cotton floss, beads, sequins, and stuffin’. They have strong magnets sewn inside. This was a fun project for waiting in line at the DMV to register the van on April 30th.

Here you can see them together, holding up our household “star chart”. Our 7-year old great-niece lives with us and is such a picky eater; almost as picky as her mom! So we created this start chart so that they both can earn stars for trying new foods. When the chart is full, we have to buy them a prize! Zach and I earn stars for turning down foods that we really shouldn’t be eating (my chart should be full of donuts and breakfast cereal, but so far I haven’t turned down much!!)