A Little Yarn On The Side

Is it wrong that my own project makes me laugh every time I see it?

A LOT of progress.  With a sidekick who is still not quite sure if he likes Bernie, I finished the last block for the Christmas quilt, sewed all the blocks together, added a small border, then swept the floor downstairs so I could do this I'm sure other people have different ways of doing this, but taping the backing onto the floor and then pinning everything onto it is the only way I don't get massive puckers in the back of the quilt.  In the future, if I were to use this quilt design again, I would make even numbers of blocks for each row--that way all the edges would end with the same color.  But, I think this is going to be a nice size, and I am STILL hoping to finish it for a Christmas gift (I know--I could have brighter ideas during the 100-projects year), so I'm going to live with it as it is.  The backing is massive because I first had tried putting together a back piece that was only slightly bigger than the quilt top....and discovered after washing it,...

I made the mistake of doing all the large triangles first, so now I'm slogging though the 24 little triangles needed for every single block.  I have been doing a few at a time so that I have blocks moving forward in stages so I can at least see them--and so I don't find myself banging my head on the table (which would of course be cushioned by a pile of triangles) Of course, I have my sidekick with me.... and has lost a little fur here & there to the rotary cutter, but otherwise  Yesterday I thought I was getting close to being done, and decided to figure out how many more triangles I needed before I cut out the next strips.  Now, there are SOME points when doing the math is a good idea.  I don't think this was one of them.  After carefully counting the blocks & figuring out how many more I needed, I discovered I still needed one hundred and eighty-six squares , which would need 372 more triangles.  Oh my. I think I have met the fabric e...

Yesterday was Finishing Friday and I only had the binding left to do on the quilt, so my sidekick and I got up early and headed for the sewing room.  Theo helped cut out the binding and in his "most helpful" mode, he kept moving around to take over any available space I found to work in..... but I did eventually get it cut out, sewn together, and ironed even WITH his assistance. I decided to do the binding as a single strip as I've only done that once before and thought it looked nice, but could use a bit more practice.  Of course, I had to redo each corner once--having made a big whopper of a mistake--but finally I was ready to start hand stitching the binding to the back... --which Theo LOVED. My little sidekick stayed with me for most of the stitching marathon, and last night we finally had a quilt! Complete with non-wonky corners, threads that still need to be cut, a heck of a lot of cat hair, and...... no puckers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  How did I manage this ...

So in spite of Theo's help, the quilt is progressing and the decorative stitching is almost done!!!!! I don't know if you can see this, but there are only two rows of solid blocks still needing decorative stitching--and they aren't even the longest ones!  Whoo hoo!  And since I've found a way to get Theo off of the quilt while I'm trying to sew I really could finish it this week!!!!!!!!! (Unless Theo catches on to my strategy first, that is......)

All the actual quilting has been finished without a single swear word.   Now normally I would know better than to provoke the Quilting Gods by uttering such an obvious boast, but I've already been flattened by them this morning, so I have been properly chastised already.  Now I'm doing the decorative stitching on the red & green squares, and just did one in the wrong direction and had to pick the entire thing out, so the Toni-Quilting equilibrium has been reestablished.  Still--there could be a finished quilt THIS WEEK!  I thought I should prepare you, just in case the shock might be too much for anyone.... There is a calendar hanging in my sewing room, which I see every day, and finally it occurred to me that March is almost over.  (I'm quick with these things....).  In December, I started a sweater for Andy's birthday--which is in July. In one of my deeper, more insightful moments, I have just realized........ The sweater will only be finis...

Ms. Sutton jumped out of bed early today, excited to start work on the quilt again today, because yesterday went so well for her. Will the aliens who took the REAL Ms. Sutton please return her?  Er.....just as soon as she finishes this quilt??????

....but definitely a "progress" Friday. First, the attack of the coasters!!!  Here they ALL are--in their little desperately-trying-to-rack-up-projects glory. Now....what did I do today? Remember this quilt from.........well, not recently?  I thought it was time to get at least one of the quilt tops at least a little closer to being finished.  Not to mention someone really likes quilting. First, we added the green pieces to the two remaining sides-- (first managing to sew the strips into right angles before the caffeine kicked in) then we cut out the backing (and just in case you were wondering, that was an extremely crooked cut), but there is BIG news! Look at that!!!!!! NO BIG FREAKIN' PUCKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh yeah.......kicking some quilting but & taking names!!!!!!!!  Well, until It seems that the Quilting Gods are both fierce and fast.  Smugness over the lack of puckers will automatically qualify you...

I actually had quite a bit of stuff to get done this week (amazing how far one can fall behind in two weeks), so I actually didn't spend much of yesterday crafting, but I did manage to get this sewn together:  and since this part is now "finished," it sort of counts for yesterday.  One of the lines little triangles didn't match up exactly--and is off about 1/4", and it was bothering me enough that I had resolved today to make an entirely new block and replace it, but looking at the picture of it, I can't even find the problem, so I might leave it as-is.  I know--quilting is not really the ideal project for a year when I'm trying to finish an insane number of projects, but this is actually part of my new "project containment" policy.  As you might have noticed, things can disappear with rather alarming frequency in the sewing room, and I'm going to bet that it will be harder for me to lose an entire quilt TOP than one or two blocks, so.....N...

Washed, stretched (because it turns out that among its many other bizarre qualities is a tendency to pucker right after being washed), ironed, and de-furred, the finished bridesmaid's quilt: So far I have even managed to keep the cats off of it and only laid it out for pictures when I knew they were both snoozing in another room.   I'm thrilled to have finally finished the thing, and I love the colors.....and my friend is going to be totally and completely surprised when she receives it, being three and a half years later and everything....but I can't say that I'm overly pleased with it.  I made the border too large--even with the embroidery, the back is a different shade of blue than the front because I didn't write down what I bought in the first place and "looks like the same color" is not the same thing as "IS the same color," and the embroidery pattern looped a bit in the back even though the design is one I bought from the sewing machin...

THE QUILT IS DONE!!!!! THE QUILT IS DONE!!!!!!! THE QUILT IS DONE!!!!!!!!!!! If I knew how to make it do it, my blog would be playing the theme from "Rocky" right now.......

After much debate and hoping everyone else would think the same way, I decided that the yarn for Andy's sweater is actually overdue from my allotted purchases from January 1, 2009 and had already been "allowed" so it wouldn't be cheating.  So.......THERE IS YARN ON ITS WAY TO MY HOUSE!!!! Being no fool--or at least not one right at that moment, I was flying through Elann's ordering process before I could be seduced by any other yarns so quickly that I didn't double-check the address and had to email them after I placed the order to explain that the address they had on file was no longer correct.  (And having a post office box where yarn can be sent so your husband won't see is a bad, bad idea....that isn't why I had one, but it's a bad idea nonetheless) I did allow a set of blocking wires, but I had been looking for a set so that was a little less of an impulse buy than one might think.  AND THERE IS YARN ON ITS WAY TO MY HOUSE!!!! Since I am 4...

...but I am immensely proud of myself today. There, I've said it.  I know I will probably bring down the wrath of the sewing gods upon my boastful little head, but maybe they're not as vengeful as the knitting gods.  I'll burn a little summer cotton tonight in sacrifice to the just to be on the safe side.  In the meantime TA-DA! My first attempt at continuous quilting with the embroidery machine! Okay, to be fair, it wasn't an intentional attempt.  My intention was to do a few unconnected pieces of design on each side--basically enough to keep the batting from going crazy in the washing machine but nothing too "involved."  That was before I discovered this:  The design I had just embroidered onto the quilt that has taken THREE AND A HALF YEARS to make was only made for continuous design.  Not that there were any directions with the software--which I will point out is the only embroidery software I bought from Husqvarna (the company that ma...