Q is for quilt

I find it entertaining and useful to make an alphabet-based to-do list for weekend activities/chores/errands, etc. It is very handy to be working on so many quilts for this purpose! 

Here is my progress on mystery cross-stitch from last week:

And here is my progress on the quilt flowers! I finished the orange one while zooming with my book club today; knowing that I was planning to blog was a good motivation to do it! Creating the strips is much easier than sewing the strips together, so it might look impressive but all the hard work is still ahead on these. :P

It's so fun to see all your projects and violets, Margie! And thanks for the encouragement. :) I agree, make the same mistake bottom left (or top left?) and no one will ever know. 

Full flowers: 8/64 done (4 started)

- Catherine

It's taking soooooo long!

Well, I have to report that I am missing a magical being to work on my projects while I sleep.  After reading all those fairy tales growing up, this seemed like a more common occurrence than it's turning out to be.

The biggest problem is a lack of free time.  I'm taking Spanish 2, so my Monday and Wednesday evenings are lost por hablo español.  I've added another committee at church, which has monthly meetings and stuff to do in between meetings.  Jeff and I exercise after work every other day, and then it's time to make dinner when we're done.  If we're not exercising, then we walk for about an hour after dinner.  Just not enough time!  I need a time turner!

There have been some trips lately, but I haven't made as much progress as I would like.  Here's where things stand - I have five more colors to go on the stripey shawl.  

I've started the decreases on the waist for Catherine's sweater.  This is the slowest project by far.  I have made more progress since this picture.

I'm almost done with the first ball of yarn for Jeff's scarf.  This is usually my TV project, but we haven't been watching much TV lately.  It's over 2 ft long.  No current picture for that one.

Nothing else has been started.  I did, however, decide to participate in a knit-along, where a bunch of people will all knit these cute new socks "together" online.  They've got short legs, so I think they'll go quickly.  Plus, I always need to use up sock yarn!  

Other excitement... Ginny got sick before my trip to Minnesota.  She had mastitis, probably from excessive licking?  It was not fun.  Jeff and The Boy did a great job medicating her while I was gone.

Smallest gave me some African Violets last summer and they are finally blooming!

Oh!  I have a cross stitch dilemma!  (speaking of cross stitch, I think you need to pick up some 0.5 power reading glasses for your new project!) I have been working on the border and realized I messed up!  I have already ripped out parts of the side twice, and the error is up at the top right corner.  I do NOT want to rip it out again, so I think the answer is to make a corresponding mistake at the bottom left corner?

I think that's all I know at the moment.  I only have one trip this month, to see Smallest in her end of the year performance.  She has been auditioning for companies this spring and has two apprentice offers, so I think she will take one of those over taking another trainee position.  It's either Minneapolis, MN or Manassas, VA!  If we go by the strange coincidence that everyone seems to be 1000 miles away, it's Minneapolis, but we'll have to wait and see.

You're making great progress on all your things!  I am impressed!

A cross-stitch mystery

This Tuesday I got started on one of my cross-stitch projects (where there aren't colors listed; I mentioned this in section 3 from my last post). The fabric I picked is so small in gauge that I had to take my glasses off & hold it right up to my face to know where the needle goes. It's kind of weird when the needle comes up right toward your eyeball! :O But, it's coming along well so far. Can you guess what it's going to be? 

I also had a training where I only needed about 5% of the information given, so made a little progress on the purple hexagon. My first trip this month is in two days, so I'll hope to finish these two and start some others! Having a needle close to my eye (for the cross-stitch) definitely doesn't seem like a safe plane activity...

Full flowers: still 7/64 done (2 started)

- Catherine

Muddling along

A few updates since last post:

1. The bugs have finally been handed off!! It seems that the recipient liked them. I forgot to take a picture, though - will get one next time I'm at their house.

2. I forgot I have one other mending project in process - another dress that I'm turning into a skirt (this time partly because it would be better suited on someone not so tall and because the top was just not my style). That is first on the list for when I next pull out the sewing machine.

3. I started picking out cross-stitch thread for three things I've been wanting to work on (one of them being the 2008 project). The patterns I'm working from don't give you thread numbers, so I'm having to look through all of the thread I have and guess what the best matches will be, which also triggered an overall sorting of the thread since many were floating around in a colorful mess. I finished the organizing and got through picking colors for two of them. The 2008 project (a baby announcement for a child that's now 16 years old, good grief) also needs some redesigning, so I don't even know what colors I'll need yet.  

4. I had a little sewing time during some webinars, and made some quilt progress. See? The pink and yellow were partly done last time, and I wasn't in the mood for more long seams after I finished the pink so I started the purples. I've got two trips coming up in April, so perhaps I'll make some more progress on those. :)

5. Not at all sewing related, but celebrating: We got our windows replaced in the summer of 2021, and the edging of the new windows was plain wood. We painted two of the windowsills right away, but for some reason the others just ... escaped. FINALLY I painted them all yesterday. Here is the big bay window with all it's happy plants, looking pretty (the edging on the back door to the left is also newly painted). 

Full flowers: 7/64 done (2 started)

- Catherine

Oh frabjous day!

Bags are done! Zipper is done! Calloo-callay! 

I still need to work on my zipper tabs - the zippers + tabs were too long in both of these bags, which I am realizing now is why those top corners won't pop out nicely; too much material smashed in there. 

Still, I think they turned out cute! The lining is a good match for the outside fabric but hopefully still light enough to see what's inside.

This clearly is not the ideal outfit for the finished skirt - I was getting ready to go for a walk in my green tights (for St. Patrick's day!). :P I also ironed the whole skirt after taking this picture, so hopefully it won't look quite so rag-tag after being in the closet for years.

Yay! Now on to the cross-stitch...

- Catherine

Punching it out

I am excited to report progress on two fronts! I had some time chatting with friends last weekend and a virtual book club this morning, and sewed hexagons: 

I also started the bags with the punch needle designs! I had much better success applying the interfacing this time, even with the giant clump of thread from the punch needle preventing the fabric from lying flat. I found some cute ribbon to cover up the seam between the punch needle canvas and the regular fabric, and I've prepped the zippers, both of which needed to be cut. Now it's just a few seams and they'll be done! And I have to figure out some way to fluff the pineapple/llama back up without pulling weirdly on the threads, since the iron really smushed them. But I think they will be very cute. :) 

Next on my agenda: Finish the bags, redo the zipper in my blue skirt, and then make a plan to finish a cross-stitch I started in 2008 (!!). Exciting!

Full flowers: 6/64 done (2 started)

- Catherine

All that and a bag of fish

I have been meaning for some time to convert some punch needle products into little pencil cases for two friends, but I was intimidated by trying to get the stiffness of the bag right and generally not having made one of these before (or many things that incorporate a lining). I finally worked up my courage by deciding to do a test bag. I offered it up to Evil Twin, so he got to pick the fabric and size, but with no promises that it would be any good.

I am pleased to say that it mostly turned out perfectly! The instructions for the fusible interfacing were far too gentle - trying to use a cloth between the iron and fabric just led to limited glue activation, and when I used a *damp* cloth (per the instructions) it just led to a soggy mess. However, brute force - i.e., iron right on the fusible, for ~2-3 times as long as the instructions said - helped a lot. It also wasn’t really clear from the video I was following how close to the zipper I should sew the various fabrics, and I was too aggressive there. As a result, there is a tendency for the zipper to get stuck and the zipper tabs didn’t have enough room to make nice corners. Not bad enough to fix on the test, but great to know for the next!

It’s so fun to finally be making progress on these old to-dos. :)

- Catherine

Mending mania

I'm glad to report that I made the most of Evil Twin's absence (even despite an early return, the sewing could not be stopped!) and had an excellent weekend of clothing repairs and adventures.

I repaired the waistband of some scrubs that Margie gave me back in the dark ages, so they are now serviceable again. I put iron-on patches on:

- a tanktop that had a long skinny tear

- a pair of jeans where the belt loop had pulled up, ripping a hole in the main pants material (and then used some nylon thread through the loop & patch to make sure that it was all contained)

- the stretchy sleeve of a fabulous hoodie I got in New Zealand that has been sitting in the closet for far too long while I was intimidated by the stretchy material.

Yay!

I had also previously dismantled a dress (from India?) that was super cute but for people much shorter than me. I had been meaning to turn the front of the top into a little bag. And I did! Not any fancy sewing required; just needed to get on it. Isn't it cute? I'm using it to store the hexagons I'm actively working on.

I also wanted to turn the bottom of the dress into a skirt. I had to find and decorate some red ribbon to match the waistband in the front half of the skirt, and install that, and put in a zipper. I did successfully put in a zipper, and wore the skirt out to dinner on Saturday night. A fashion debut!! But I also offset it in the wrong direction on the seam so that the zipper was more visible from the front than the back, and the zipper I had on hand - white - was so distracting that I decided to redo it. I also discovered while reconsidering this situation that I had forgotten one of the bits of decoration on the new ribbon. So on Sunday, I pulled everything back apart. I got a new (blue) zipper on Tuesday and will finish that up soon!

I still have some more mending projects, so will try to keep the pressure on. :)

- Catherine

Halves no more

I love your list! So much fun stuff going on. 

We did find a notice that we missed a UPS delivery - perhaps that is it? 

I don't have much to report - I finished the final two half flowers, and now I officially have 60 flowers to go. I also spent some time deconstructing my high school T-shirt quilt; it is tedious and difficult to see any progress being made (as I'm mostly pulling apart the front and back), but I'll try to get a photo sometime. 

Evil twin will be out of town next weekend so I am currently contemplating what project I might dive into with all that time on my hands. Or I might sit and read books all weekend. Who can say? :P

Full flowers: 4/64 done

Half flowers: 8/8 done 

- Catherine

A List

Look at you! So productive!  I love those pants.

I took some handknit socks on the plane with us last Friday night to mend the holes in them so they could be worn (if needed) on our trip to NYC to visit Sarah y Javi.  It was satisfying to fix them, and I was glad to have mine for sleeping.  We mostly walked and ate.  Over the three days we were there, I racked up 50,164 steps.  Ta-da!  And I ate several chocolate chip cookies, had an amazing hot chocolate, and some very tasty dumplings!  Yum.

This is the hot chocolate.  It has a ring of toasted marshmallow around the

rim of the cup and is topped with a scoop of whipped cream.  It was good!

Here are my Happy Lucy pictures.  She was indeed a Very Sweet Girl.  I suspect Dad misses her a lot.

I thought it would be fun to list all the projects that I've got planned and in various states of progress currently.  Inactive projects are kept in large baggies because of a moth problem I had several years ago.  It was traumatic.

Here's the yarn for the Anne of Green Gables socks

Here's the Yarn Club shawl.  It came with me on the NYC trip, so airplane knitting fun.  Ginny WANTS the yarn.

Here's the yarn for the True Colors shawl.  Melanie Berg is a designer that I like a bunch, so I'm excited to get to this one!

Here's the beginning of your sweater.  I'm almost done with the ribbing on the bottom.  I work on this before Spanish class, during online seminars, on the weekends, or when I have time before a church meeting.

Here's the new scarf for Jeff.  It is my mindless TV knitting.

Oh!  Here's yarn for a sweater for Smallest as well.  It was not requested, but she mentioned she would like one.  She outgrew her other one.  I also need to make the second Darjeeling top in the green yarn.

Ginny's allergies seem to have died down.  We're also feeding her allergen-free food now, so I'm hoping that it does the trick and we can avoid the dreaded shot.  It's been a month since she went in for her limping, which was diagnosed as arthritis, and she's moving around fine so hopefully that will continue to not be an issue.  Fingers crossed!

Supervisor cat

Examining the bag for yarn

I think that's it?  I have jury duty next week.  Knitting/crochet is not allowed.  Maybe I can take one of my languishing cross stitch projects and hope I'm not asked to serve.  I did serve on a jury once.  It wasn't bad, but I confess I'm not excited to do it again.

Margie

P.S. Did you get a small package from me?

You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here (in my pile of mending)

Mending time! I've been trying to do some organizing in my life, and was reminded that I have this stack of mending that needs doing. I think I got nervous about one particular mending job (on a stretchy part of a hoodie), and let the other things pile up on top of it. There were also some more substantial reworking of clothes I wanted to do that I figured I needed a tailor for. But! While Margie was here last year, we tried out a local tailor and she was great! And I needed to take my portable sewing machine down to my parents house on Tuesday to fix my dad's pants, and thought I might as well get started on some of my own things as well. So far I have fixed a seam on one of my favorite reusable grocery bags, the waistline of one of my favorite skirts (where the seam had come apart in two places), the strap of a mask (technically disposable, but it was barely used), taken out the darts in a dress that will (hopefully) become a skirt, and fixed the zipper part of some fun pants I bought on our trip. For the last one: Basically, someone had put in a zipper on top of the existing fabric, so unzipping the zipper only gave you about 2 extra inches in the width to take the pants off and on. I needed a lot more than that! In fact, I'm pretty confident I never got to actually try these pants on before, because of that silly feature. So finally I got up the nerve to cut right down between the zipper and then just sew around the new edges so they don't fray. And it worked perfectly! I can now get into the pants (see?), and they are super comfy and beautiful. 

More mending & a visit to the tailor to come!

I also had a couple of webinars this week where I got to sew hexagons, and finished one more half-flower. Three seams to go until these halves are done!

Full flowers: 4/64 done

Half flowers: 6/8 done 

- Catherine

A good girl gone

 In good news, I'm done with 5 of the halves. Here's the new one, plus the three still in progress.

In sad news, my parent's adorable dog Lucy passed away yesterday. Here is a picture of her feeling satisfied after a long wiggle upside down, though it doesn't capture the cuteness enough. She had a tough last year - at least three different kinds of cancer, and diabetes, and epilepsy! oof. - but she was always so happy and loved coming to greet you at the door and get treats. RIP, sweet puppy.

Full flowers: 4/64 done

Half flowers: 5/8 done and the last 3 started.

- Catherine

Quiltrageous!

Have we used that title before?  Your flowers are so nice!  It is interesting to think about the different assembly methods.  Very scientific :) What are your next projects?

I need to get a picture of the finished cardigan!  I've worn it a couple of times and I like it a lot.  There's a wonky thing going on at the bottom front on the right, but I'm okay with that.

I've finished the socks and need to put them in the mail to the lucky owner!  We have nice padded envelopes at my work, so I'll snag one of those today and mail off the socks tomorrow!  I'll post a picture after they are received.  I like the look of the pattern, but I'm not sure I'll make them again.  I don't think they're nicely stretchy around the leg.  We'll see what the review is once they arrive.

Since I didn't have anything lined up to work on next, I now have many projects lined up.  There's two pair of socks with some Anne of Green Gables-themed yarn for Middle and Smallest that will coordinate with each other, two shawls - one for a yarn club that Jeff signed me up for from a dyer that I really, really like, the second is one from a designer I really, really like and I finally have the yarn assembled to make.  There's FINALLY casting on for the Pokemon sweater for Catherine!  I thought I would be knitting it on larger needles, but I get gauge with size 2, so it's going to be interesting...  There's more socks - some for Jeff probably, and some for Middle with Taylor Swift-themed yarn (Middle is a Swifty), I do want to make Sarah a hat, there's also a second Darjeeling top for Smallest, oh, and Jeff wants another scarf.  I also have plans and yarn for a sweater for me, but I think that's on the back burner for now.

There's a lot!  Here's a bad picture of the scarf yarn.  And the Yarn Club shawl.

While your airplane time is winding down, mine is ramping up!  I have a quick trip this weekend to Philadelphia to host a dinner at the Biophysical Society meeting, then next weekend we go to New York to visit Sarah and her husband.  The first week of March, I go to Minneapolis for the American Physical Society meeting and a dinner there.  I also get to see Jeff's cousin and his wife, who is also a knitter!  At the end of March, I go with Smallest to Boise, Idaho for a ballet company audition (her, not me).  That will be exciting!  She has other auditions in March also.  It's quiet for a bit after that, and then in June I go to our program's annual meeting, this year in Italy, and then Jeff and I will take a week to goof around after that.  Very exciting!  After that, I think we're done until Jeff's family gathering over Labor Day.

I've started taking Spanish.  It's been pretty fun, and it's easier than French.  It helps that there are no tests but we do have to worry about spelling and accents and stuff.  The teacher is fantastic.  I need to make flashcards for vocabulary.  I'm hoping to practice with Sarah and Javi when we're up visiting.  

 I think that's it.  Ginny the Cat's allergies are bothering her again.  There's a shot she can get to help her, but the vet we talked to when she got the second shot was very discouraging, telling me that it would give her diabetes.  She also may have arthritis, and the vet wants her to get a $150 shot every month?  Time to look at pet insurance for real, I think.  Bleah.  She's only 7, how can she have these problems?

Half of the halfs

While I thought I might not be talking about the quilt today (see last post), here I am. I’ve decided to focus on the half flowers when I have time for this quilt, mostly because the countdown is confusing at the moment - do I have 66 or 63 or something in between left? 

This week I finished the pink and yellow halves, and started the blue. Poor green still has not been ironed. And that’s the full report! 

Full flowers: 4/64 done

Half flowers: 4/8 done (plus 2 started)

- Catherine

Hex city

I realized I didn't report back on some of the big flowers that appeared in progress in the first hexagon blogs, so here is a photo with those, a newly finished orange half, and the ones currently under construction.

I also finally finished cutting the last two hexagons - I had thought I didn't need these little scraps of yellow fabric, so put them in the trash. Of course I then realized I did need them, and that I actually needed to get two hexagons out of them, which was a stretch! I'd put them through the laundry, not knowing what they encountered in the trash, and today I finally converted them into hexagons. One is definitely a bit skinny, but is only one piece of fabric, while the other (see photo) will be a poor Frankenstein piece. Fortunately, the pattern is fairly chaotic and this will be at the edge of the quilt, so I don't think it will attract a lot of attention. 

I have an hour-long webinar on Tuesday that I just need to listen to, so should be able to finish the pink half and work on the yellow half while I still remember the unique challenges of the tiny piece. I will also need to switch over to other projects that I can only do at home while I'm home, so the next post may not have many hexagon updates!

Full flowers: 4/64 done

Half flowers: 2/8 done (plus 2 started)

- Catherine

Planes as plant food

This is a silly title, but my flowers are growing at a terrific rate thanks to all my plane time. I started and finished the half flower in the bottom right of the photo, finished assembling the rows of the blue one and started sewing those up, started and nearly finished the orange half flower, and I've created the rows for the green half flower! I would have made more progress on the green one but it needs ironing - somehow the hexagons got all mushed up and it is annoying. 

I realized I didn't make a note last week that I spent a bunch of time cutting the rest of the hexagons (with the exception of two, where I need to sew some fabric together to make a piece big enough). So now all I have to do is sew sew sew!! Until I get done with the flowers, and then I will have to cut a billion white hexagons as the in-between sections. For now, it's so fun to have all the colors to choose from and really start to imagine what the quilt will look like. 

Another fun fact, that came up in my conversations at home this morning: I so far have not had to buy any fabric - this is all coming from my stash plus the two collections I received from my fabulous neighbors. It was a fun logic problem to look at what I had and try to pair them up individually and then think about how they'd all fit together - there were definitely some fun fabrics that would have ruined the overall mood so got set aside. I'll have to find another use for them!

The only challenge for my continued progress is that I have just gotten home from my last trip for a while, so I will have to be patient (yet not lose focus!) as I wait for a lot of flights that are on the horizon, and work on other things that are less suitable for planes in the meantime. 

I did have one other achievement this week - I was reminded that John's birthday is coming up soon, and we were so close to finishing the bugs! I just needed to put sparkly thread in the scarab's border. But I just really hated that border, both by itself and in combination with the other two. After consultation with Margie, we agreed that I should make a new border to match the others. Ta da!! It is done. Today I will wash/prep them and tomorrow I'll take them to the framer in the hopes of having them done in time.

Full flowers: 3/64 done (plus 1 started)

Half flowers: 1/8 done (plus 2 started)

- Catherine

Growing gardens

14 years! I can't believe it. 

I am so pleased that I decided the grandmother's garden quilt could be a good project for planes - it definitely is, and I am making good progress! I also figured out a better way to construct the flowers, so that is speeding things up as well. Specifically: For the first two flowers, I started with the middle yellow hexagon and built out from there. However, it meant that there were a lot of inefficient seams (joining a couple of hexagons but creating a new interface in need of sewing). I tried in a couple of cases to go up and back along these orphan interfaces, but it wasn't very aesthetically pleasing. So! For the third flower, I tried sewing each hexagon into a pair, then building up pairs (or triplets, as needed) into strips, then sewing the strips together. It was much less fussing with changing angles, much more secure (as each of the pairs was better fastened together), and much faster! I went from starting the pink to finishing the pink entirely and finishing all of the blue pairs in one session with my mom and two flights. See? In the first photo, you can also see how convenient of a project this is on a plane. :)

I think I'll start a counter to motivate further progress:

Full flowers: 3/64 done (plus 1 started)

Half flowers: 0/8 done

- Catherine

Year 14!

 Look at us!  The blog is 14 years old!

Your heart quilt is lovely.  The little quilted hearts are a nice touch.  I agree that it counts as finishing in 2023.  And now you're done!  Hooray!

The hexagon piecing looks great too!  You can do all the things.  Very impressive.

An update on my things...

I finished the cardigan and after blocking the size is better.  I decided to change the bottom edge from an i-cord bind off to the same band of lace that runs along the center of the sweater.  It makes it a little longer and I think, once it's blocked, it will look like it belongs.  It mostly does now, but I had to pick up stitches at the bottom, so it's clearly an addition.  Perhaps I will get it in the bath tonight?  I have three of Jeff's sweaters to wash also, and very little wool wash solution.  That reminds me that I think I remember seeing either Euclan or Soak at the grocery...

The socks are out of time out and I am working on them in earnest again.  Lots of little cables, so we'll see how quickly I can make progress.

Sarah said no to a new hat.  I still might make one.

The insulation is wonderful.  The bedroom in question is definitely warmer.  They were great and got us on the schedule before Middle got home.  Yay!

I'm still trying to figure out what to do next.  I'm making some little notions bags that I saw on Instagram. (they are here: Sew Together Bag) I finished one for me that I made first to make all the mistakes so that when I make one for Middle and Smallest, it will go more smoothly.  I'm sure glad I did, because I made a big measuring mistake which resulted in piecing the outside piece of fabric.  Glad it was on mine.

Other than that, I am in need of a project!  Perhaps it's time to make Catherine's sweater?  I did swatch for it, so I know what needle size is needed, I have all the yarn...