Catching Up on Crafting

 I haven't been very motivated to blog lately, but I have been doing things, so here's a peek at what's been up.

Of course, winter has been ongoing (perhaps that's why I'm mostly unmotivated 😏) and the new snow is very pretty though not my favorite thing. Mr. Cardinal has still be showing his lovely self out my desk window and I've even had a few sightings of the elusive Mrs. Cardinal.

My daughter made it safely back from her mission in Ukraine, mostly teaching English and knitting to kids in a refugee shelter, but also delivering supplies to villages near the Russian border. She was welcomed well in her exhaustion by her niece.

In the evenings as we watch Hercule Poirot, I've been hand-quilting this beauty...

...and sometimes continuing with my ongoing (and often frustrating) endeavor to learn to knit. I wanted an excuse to buy some Crazy Yarn from Stonehedge Fiber Mill near us as well as practicing different knitting patterns, so I'm making six-inch blocks guided by this book and plan to put them all together into a lapghan by doing some lacy crochet in between.

I got out my APQ UFO Challenge #6 pattern (Autumn Jubilee 2020, I think), ascertained where I was in it, and started cutting fabrics for the leaf rows (I'm substituting another leaf row for the pine row because pines don't turn lovely colors in autumn).

I thought I was going to join in on the Stay at Home Round Robin, so I made my center block using some orphan pinwheels, but then I didn't want to do the figuring involved in making the next rounds the correct length, so I'll probably just put a fun, maybe tea-related border around this and hand-quilt it.

Because so many people were gone from home last week, I had extra raw milk from our milk-share, so made some simple cheese (called paneer in India). It's made by stirring lemon juice or vinegar into hot milk and then pressing out the whey overnight. Do you like my makeshift press? 😉

It turns out rather bland, but is great with roasted garlic and herb sprinkled on it and I hope next time to try marinating chunks of it in herb-flavored olive oil to see what that's like.

On my day out thrift-shopping, I found an interesting wooden trivet and decided to upcycle it like this:

2 Peter 1:3-8   

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence,  by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge,  and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I hope you've enjoyed this little tour of the craftings of late and that you've had time to create things, too.

Felicitously Fondling Fabric Friday

 I actually have some finishes to show! I'm so happy to be getting several UFOs either finished or very close to finished. It helps that the view from my window shows the continuing several day long snowstorm. So I mostly stay inside and sew.

My cute tea cup rain chain is now an ice chain. Maybe it's for iced tea now?

I'm actually going to take it down lest it become too heavy and get damaged.

So here are some fabric fondlings I've enjoyed:

I finally finished the twin-sized top made of BOMs my daughter made about 15 years ago. So it's for her bed when it gets back from the long-armer and when we get to set her up in her apartment which is now being used by another daughter's family while they remodel their house.

Yup, I'm displaying it draped over the box from our new oven which is now granddaughter's much-loved playhouse.

Aunties are such fun!

Another quick finish (and therefore not very quality, but they'll work) is a couple of hot pads since mine were cheap dollar store ones whose batting was getting thin.

And we got the Thanksgiving tree quilt hung and are starting to pin on it various things for which we thank God. It's always a delight for my husband to read the stack of them after Thanksgiving dinner.

After reading this post by From My Carolina Home, I'm inspired to go declutter, dust, and decorate my living/dining area. 

Talk to you later.

April One Monthly Goal

 Since I cant get out to the gardening yet, though I may be able to do some yard clean-up before too long, I have hope that I will be able to meet my goal this month. And meeting last month's goal has a motivating feel also.

Some time ago Pat Sloan did a quiltalong called "Home is..." and I got a good start on it and I believe I even printed up all the instructions.

So, April's goal is to finish it as a flimsy (unquilted top), one way or another. I may or may not use all her blocks because I'm thinking that I want to make this as a lap quilt for my own living room. So, I might not need it to be as big as her plan. I honestly haven't even looked over the layout plan nor have I counted how many blocks I'd need to make to finish it. 😋 So I'm kinda walking blind into this month's goal. Wish me luck.

*~*~*~*~*~*

In other news, I started a batch of saurkraut Monday and plan to be brave enough to try it later today. It hasn't bubbled as much as I thought it would, so I'm not sure it's working. We'll see.

I hope your projects are going well.

Starting Something New While Finishing Somethings Old

This week I started (finally) on my daughter's wedding quilt. She was married on March 23rd, pushing up the planned April 4 wedding because of quarantine requirements which were to take effect at midnight on the 23rd. Her first-responder fiance got a sub for a few hours, got dressed up, got married at our house with immediate family present and others joining through Instagram video, and then had to go back to work. 

They both are very into The Lord of the Rings (the books, of course, though the movies are tolerable) so my daughter and I are designing a Tree of Gondor quilt. She printed up a poster size pattern and with the help of Wonder Under, I machine-appliqued the white tree to a sparkly black fabric. This will be the center panel.

Then, with the help of a tablerunner pattern in Quiltmaker magazine (July/Aug. 2010) I made a sample star block. There will be seven stars crowning and surrounding the tree.

It's a "figure it out as you go" project which will rely heavily on my husband's brilliantly mathematical mind. So stay tuned.

*~*~*~*~*

In other crafty news, I'm finally (what's with all these 'finalies'?) basting my Michigan wall-hanging in hopes of hand-quilting it before there is no more Michigan as we used to know it. I don't know how much longer we can hold out against the severe economic difficulties created by over-reaching government. 

Since evenings have cooled down (we don't have air-conditioning except in our bedroom), I hope it will be comfortable enough now to have this quilt over my lap for working on. I'm looking forward to doing it and hoping that my hand-quilting skills aren't too rusty since I haven't done it in several years.

I also decided to revamp the Days of the Week wall-hanging that I'd finished last month. I don't want to use it as a menu board after all, so am taking the hooks out and I cut off part of the right side to make it more even. So I'm rebinding it.

I hope your projects are moving right along and that you're enjoying the process.

April's One Monthly Goal Finishes

My April OMGs were to use previously embroidered dish towels in some way after having soaked them in bleach water to get the stains out.

Since they were days of the week embroideris, and I'm trying to be more of a menu-maker rather than flying by the seat of my pants, I decided to turn them into a wallhanging menu board. The cards a daily menus, currently following the Trim Healthy Mama plan. The yellow one is Sunday since I plan our meals around worship service (even if we're doing it online) and our small group Bible study (also online). So I use the crockpot or simple but nicer meals for our mid-day meal.

The other project was to finish the October and November embroideries for A Year in the Garden by Jenny Reynolds. I finished October and got a good start on November, but didn't complete it.

While I didn't get done all that I had hoped to do, I am happy with what I did do and can now get caught up on my Quarantine Quilt. I haven't been doing blocks daily because I like to use a string of house-making as each other's Leaders/Enders. So I make several at a time, not getting ahead because I make some of them out of fabrics that represent some of the activities we've been doing during this time. 

OMG has been a good motivator and I intend to plan my next month's projects this afternoon.

Felicitously Fondling Fabric Friday - Making Baby Bibs

On Monday I popped into our fairly nearby pregnancy care center and asked if I could serve by sewing or crocheting things for their "baby pantry." I was happy to learn that they needed crocheted blankets/afghans and some little spit-up bibs (which differ from toddler bibs in size).

So, off to JoAnn I went, making good use of coupons and the special 40% off everything deal that day and got some prequilted cream-colored fabric, some Buy-One-Get-One-Free bias tapes, and some of the Caron Simply Soft yarn.

Tuesday afternoon was pretty free, so I used the time to make four baby bibs using a simple template I'd found online and cut down to a slightly smaller size.

I first sewed the bias tape across the top (chin area) and then, leaving 12 inches as a tie ribbon, I sewed it in half and then all around the edges of the quilted fabric and then in half for the other 12-inch ribbon. (I had intended to get double-fold bias tapes, but accidentally got single fold so the bias tape edging is extra narrow. As it turns out, I like that feature because it makes the bibs look more delicate and cute, so will continue to use single fold.)

I just love these bright colors, don't you?!

Using my tried and true method of making templates - cookie cutters traced onto light cardboard, in this case file folders, I made little applique figure of scrap fabrics and Wonder Under.

Satin-stitching or zig-zaggin around the applique insures that these bibs will survive many washings.

Besides the bibs, I started a baby afghan that I'll show you another time. I also plan to try making a different pattern to make reversible bibs. 

It was fun to be sewing again.