Thursday, October 16, 2008

Socks #2 — All Through!

Whoo Hooo! I finished my second pair of socks today! And none too soon either as everyone is wanting a pair! Well, everyone meaning in my family... They are the only ones brave enough to wear something I made! ha ha. I suppose they figure it's safe; they can always hide it in a shoe if they need to!! ;o/ Here are two pics.


I think they look a little washed out. They are pastel, but the camera flash is making them even lighter then they should be.

I have the utter joy of being on fall break today and tomorrow so I am off work two extra days!! That's how I had time to finish my toes. And I went to the doctor for a little check up. They did a bone scan to check on my bone density. I have been taking boniva or fossamax and tons of calcium, 1200 mg a day for years. Well, I confess that I did not pass my test with flying colors! Yikes. I am supposed to make sure that I do "weight-bearing" exercise now a minimum of 3 times per week. This is truly supposed to help. Sigh... I will get out my daughters' swim weights and start with those. I can always use some more upper body strength anyhow!

Tomorow I am going to do more fun things and try to get some stash pictures posted on Ravelry. I also have a wip I wanted to put on there too.

Have a great fall!
Wasie
:o)

Saturday, October 04, 2008

Special Delivery!

I received the "Butterfly Blooms" quilt back from the quilter on Thursday! My DH went and picked it up for me—thank goodness! Then I worked Thursday and Friday evening at sewing on the binding and hand stitching it to the back. I had considered doing the entire thing with a sewing machine, but I just like the hand stitched look so much better. The one thing I didn't like though was sewing black with black thread! Yuck. It is so hard to see. (Or is that age creeping up on me? Naw....) 

However, I worked and pricked my lil' fingers to the bone and managed to get it finished!! :o) We even were able to get packed too! And bright and early Saturday morning we were off to Nacogdoches. The quilt looks great on her bed! And they have their beds raised off the floor about 4 feet so they can put things under them. She has her refrigerator and dresser under hers. So when you come into the room her bed just brightens it up. Here's the photos!

For those of you who were asking: the fabrics are all those Andover dimples fabrics! Every one of them--even the backing. They blend so nicely. I just love 'em! There are sooooo many colors!! And the pattern is from Cozy Quilt Shop. It's one of their Strip Club Patterns.

I think I would like to make her a throw pillow or two to match with the flower block on it to dress up her bed. Purple is THE color at SFA so I'll be sure and use a lot of purple in it!

Here is Jess on her bed in her dorm! She at least makes her bed! Well, it was made when we came!! So all we had to do was throw the quilt on top! Parents weekend was lots of fun. We were able to spend time with her and meet some of her friends. Oh and mom even helped with some chemistry homework! How about that!! Meanwhile dad did some computer updates on her laptop. So we kept him busy too.

Now I have to finish binding another quilt I received back from the quilter about a month ago for the other daughter! She is feeling a touch left out... I think she misses her sister.

Here are some Happy Blocks that I made up for some block swaps.
These are for Sept. The theme was 30 prints. The outside border had to be the 30s fabric! And the inside square had to be solid. BTW-I could not find pink, yellow or purple to match. I was solid challenged. And I just didn't want to do them all "cream"--ya know?


Then I co-hosted the October Happy Block Swap with Linda. Our theme was "Fun Food!" The center square had to be a fabric with a food that is fun to eat like a snack food, dessert, junk food, etc. You get the idea. The border fabrics could be anything that worked with it. BTW-I chose the theme... So I hope you enjoy it...

I have mexican food, BBQ, margaritas, and ice cream cones. Pretty fun, huh? I hope the gals who won, Barb & Gerda, enjoy their quilts!! I just might make one for myself!! LOL No calories!!

Happy Quilting,
Wasie
=D

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Off to be quilted!

Jess dorm quilt top is finished and dropped off at the quilter's.  (Some day I'll have a long arm but that's another story...) I asked her to have it done pretty quickly so that I could get it back and bound in time for parent's weekend at SFA! I may be doing some handwork in the car on the trip down, but she'll get it! Here's some pics of it laid out on the queen-sized bed in the guest room. It certainly came out bright! ;oD


When it is all finished I'll get someone or a couple someones to hold it and we'll do a nice photo or two. I also want to get some of it on her bed in her dorm room and with her too! The top was totally put together using 2 1/2 inch strips.  It's a cozy quilt shop pattern called butterfly blooms. They have the best patterns! I always like them.

I am busy finishing up some Happy Blocks for the September and October swaps so I will post some photos when they are finished. But now I have to get to bed as 5:30 am comes pretty early! I have to get Michelle to the pool by 6 am to swim tomorrow morning.

Night, night.
Wasie
=)

Thursday, August 07, 2008

Marmalade

Here are some pics and info about my cat Marmalade. You can see by looking at him how he got his name!
Here he is helping me organize patches for an "I spy" quilt.

He has some interesting napping positions!

"Now I'm comfortable!"

"Well, maybe this is better?"

"Hey, man, turn off the lights! Can't you see I'm sleeping here?"

He also sits outside the shower and waits for you to finish. Then goes in it, yes the shower, afterwards and licks the warm water up off the floor of the stall! He just loves water--well, to a point I'm sure. He hasn't taken a dip in our pool yet! But he plays in the water dish that he and the dog share. It is a little play pool for him! He'll play in the toilet too if you give him a chance. Yuck!

On that lovely note, I am going to change the topic. Thank goodness! And show you another project I did this summer, that I neglected to post when I made it! It's a table runner out of Kaffe Fassett fabrics that I did for a friend's daughter who got married this summer. In fact, the daughter is a friend of ours too. And so is the groom and his family! They all go to our church. They are a great young couple. We all just love 'em. They will be living in New Mexico!

Rose & Derek's Tablerunner

Buenos Nochos,
Wasie
:oD

2nd Socks!

No, they're not done yet...
I am doing too many things at once!! So I am knitting when I can--like waiting for my daughter at her flute lesson--stuff like that--and finishing up my older daughter's quilt for her dorm bed! Yikes! She informed me that she would leave for college EVEN IF IT WASN'T DONE! Now how about that! Curses! Foiled again! So now I am on a deadline... I just have a few blocks left and then I put the top together. I'll put a pic up of the top when it is done. I LUV IT! Picked up the backing fabric yesterday. I am glad that it is twin-sized since it is looking like I will have to machine quilt it myself on my sewing machine. So glad I had it tuned up!!

Well, I digress, back to the socks. I am making them out of Crystal Palace Yarns Panda Cotton. It's a bamboo/cotton/nylon mix color dreamy #0142 and is very soft. Needles are crystal palace US 2 dpns. My gauge was 7 st/in. I am just doing a 2x2 rib for the cuff and doing them basically like the last pair. I actually did try a pair in between these two but I messed up on the heel and ended up taking it all out--both socks. And I had done a fancier cuff--the rib was swirled. I decided it was too much for that yarn anyway--it was self-striping--and I don't think I cast on enough stitches. However, I think I figured out the whole heel business, what I had done wrong and all. (I couldn't get the stitches back on the needle to save the one sock, so I tore 'em both out. I live too far away from a yarn shop to just "pop in". It's a major drive down.) Anyhow new socks, new yarn, new beginning for socks #2. AND I have promised myself that if I am stuck that I WILL go down to the Woolie Ewe and ask Sue for help this time. So there. Here are the cuffs partway done.
Socks #2! Panda Cotton Dreamy

I have not been posting ANY of my quilting projects either so I will post at least one pic of one of them today. This is Peng's quilt. If you recall, Peng was our Chinese foreign exchange student last year. She left very early in June for China. She will return to the US in the fall for college, but not to Texas! :-( She is going to a school in Oregon. We are hoping to get to see her though at Christmas break.
Peng on the left; my oldest daughter Jess on the right.

Peng's Quilt is a quick and easy "Take 5" pattern by teachers-pet. If you need a pattern that you can do quickly this is it! I chose Peng's favorite colors and prints. Hopefully, she will enjoy using it at college.

Smile!
Wasie
8-D

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

My first socks!

This past May I took a beginning sock knitting class at the Woolie Ewe. It was so much fun! We had one class a week for 3 weeks and homework in between. The socks we made were just basic socks. I did a 2x2 rib for my cuffs and then just stockinette on the foot. The yarn I used was a great hand dyed merino wool from Peru: Hacho shade 301. I used double pointed needles US 5.

(They probably need to be blocked... Haven't really figured that out yet.)


A perfect fit! Warm & comfy!

Now I'm working on my second pair in between quilting projects!! I need to put up some photos of those too!

Have a great day!
Wasie


Sunday, July 06, 2008

Squaring Up a Quilt Block

Sorry I have not been doing my usual blogging of late. Life. You know...
Anyhow, I have prepared these directions on how to square up a quilt block using ONE RULER for all sizes of blocks! This should save some of you some mulah! You can do this with any brand of rotary cutting square ruler! I am not advocating one brand over any other. This was just the one I happened to have that was large enough to do this!

Remember to click on the jpeg and it will get larger!

All squared up!
Wasie


Monday, January 21, 2008

One-a-week

Flirtations is a wonderful new line of fabric by Sandy Gervais. I just love her style! I just had to make something with it so Sharon and I both are making table runners. Here's mine:



I think it is so fun! I'd like to do placemats, and a wall hanging, and a quilt for the living room etc out of this line! Sigh... so much fabric, sew little time!

A week ago Friday I purchased fabric for a quilt. Took it home and promptly began cutting it up. On Tuesday, I called Mary and managed to get ahold of her and told her that I needed this quilt done this week. She said she could do it if she had it by Wed morning. So that night I got the backing ready for it and I was able to get Paul to bring it over to her Wednesday at 9 am when she opened. I was so shocked though, when she called me on my cell phone that afternoon to tell me that it was done! Since I only had "check-in" for labs this past week, they didn't take the full 4 hours and I was finished earlier than usual and could leave to arrive in Sherman before 5 to pick it up! That just left binding! The quilt was finished on Thursday-a week after I started it. My family has decided that it is a record for me! Of course, I did have help with the machine quilting part.

The reason that I needed it in a week is it is a gift, of course, for some friends who are moving down near San Antonio. I am actually going to give it to them on Wednesday evening. Here are some photos of it.




It uses the "Take Five" quilt pattern which is why it was so fast and easy. Plus it wasn't too large to get finished either. There are 5 main fabrics in the body of the quilt: music, water, marbles, blue kaleidoscope, & fireworks. I chose the fabrics not only to "go together" but also because they have some special meaning for the family for whom the quilt was made. Music: both of them were involved in the choir and special music in our church. He was also our accompanist. Water: last summer, she was in charge of "splashdown" a free water carnival our church sponsors for the community. Marbles: this past year, they were given a foster son. Blue kaleidoscope fabric: reminded me of stained glass and they helped with putting the "stained glass look" on our sanctuary windows and the colors were similar to them also. Fireworks: they are alot of fun! And at choir sometimes they shoot zingers at each other. Well, I hope they enjoy it! It was fun finding all of those fabrics!

Gosh, and if I could keep doing one quilt a week for the rest of the year, how many quilts would I have done by Dec 31st? It boggles the mind!

Happy Calculating!
Wasie

Saturday, January 05, 2008

Be Warm!

This week, one of my friends, Sharon, and I drove down to The Quilt Asylum and picked up our first installment in our 12 month BOM — Nancy Halvorsen's Be Attitudes. I worked on my block starting yesterday and finished it up today. It is "be warm". Each one of the months is "be .... something."

This was the first time that I had blanket stitched on my sewing machine around little pieces with curves and corners that were tight and angles etc. I made up a little practice piece using scrap fabric with an "m" and 2 mittens — thought maybe I could get some use out of that... And I diddled around with the length and width of my stitch. Well, I thought I was doing okay on the lil' practice piece, so off I went on the snowman! Aargh! I did not like it! The scarf, in particular, looked terrible. I ended up finishing stitching the entire block, then pulling out the stitching on the entire scarf and redoing the whole scarf. I used a slightly narrower stitch this time on the scarf and that seemed to help plus my experience from doing the rest of the picture and all of those letters probably helped too. Also, see that strategically placed green button...it's my favorite. I loved that it was a wide button — hides all kinds of things... There are also little cream shiny buttons that go on the ends of the snowflake arms, but I was afraid that I would just have to take them off later for quilting, etc. I will probably have to take off the carrot nose and the green button, but I just couldn't resist putting them on!

Well, if you're tempted to join me, the website for the BOM is The Quilt Asylum. They will ship them to you mail order each month if you can't get to the shop to pick them up!

Be Warm,
Wasie
;o)

Tote Bag, Tote Bag, Everywhere a Tote Bag...

I have truly been the tote bag queen lately. And every time I make one, my daughters go, "Oh, I want one like that!" Using the Charm Party Tote pattern by Quilts Illustrated, I ended up making 6 different tote bags. I truly think I have the pattern memorized now! Three of them were for the church bazaar; then 2 more were ordered from that and I finally was able to make 1 for a gift to give from us! Here's picks of some of them.


These three were the first 3 for the church bazaar.


This one is a gift for Grandma Pat.

Then I made a little purse for Peng from a pattern by This n That. And a Jelly Roll tote for my sister-in-law Linda for Christmas. I can't seem to locate a photo of Peng's purse right now, but here's Linda's jelly roll tote.

The jelly roll was a fabric collection called shangri la. I have enough strips left to make one more bag, and now that I know what I'm doing it should go faster!

Happy Toting,
Wasie

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Hey! Where'd November go?

The pics of the November Happy Blocks never got posted!
Here they are. The theme was Christmas.


Ho, ho, ho. Merrrrry Christmas.

Oh, and a Happy New Year everybody!!!
Wasie