TTMT #108 - jewells68 - December 23, 2014 - Hats, Puffs, and Owl Post

In which I show off newly knitted hats, crocheted cosmetic puffs, and stuff from the lovely hp5freak.

TTMT #107 - jewells68 - December 17, 2014 - Hats and Yarn and Granny Squ...

This week I show off some very small hats, surprise mail, yarn and more.

TTMT #106 - jewells68 - December 9, 2014 - A Whole Lotta Froggin' Goin On

In which I show off what's left of last week's knitted sweater. Talk about catbedfail, show off a couple of new Birthday Blocks and a bit more.

Finish it in '15

A little something we all do (or most crafty-types I know) going into a new year. I've pretty much written off my to-do list for 2014. I have a few things in my head that I'd like to get done, but odds are they won't due to *insert annoyed rant about work here*. 

So, I'm turning my shining face toward the new year, with a UFO list to finish in 2015. I'm a bit of a cheater. I like to cross things off, so although there are ten things on the list, 2 actual projects are divided into steps so that I can cross them off as I go, because I like it. :D


There. I will be ecstatic to cross all 10 off by the end of 2015. That being said, I'll be perfectly happy to cross only half of them off. Seriously. 

And NO STARTING NEW PROJECTS!!!!!! Unless I need to. You know. And have a concrete start and finish. You know how it is. ;)

TTMT #105 - jewells68 - December 2, 2014 - Sweater Babble

In which I show (and blather on about) the sweater I've been knitting for ME as well as Birthday Blocks and a special knitted fandom-related item from hardhatcat.

TTMT #104 - jewells68 - November 25, 2014 - Yarnish Exploits

In which I forget to put on my glasses and you can see how badly I need some sleep Oh, and I also show a few new yarn purchases and my rectangle granny ghan in progress...

TTMT #103 - jewells68 - November 18, 2014 - PJ Party!!

In which I show off my owl pajamas as well as the rectangular crochet granny ghan I'm currently working on. Exciting stuff! ;)

TTMT #102 - jewells68 - November 13, 2014 - Grooooovy!

In which I show some groovy donated fabric I brought home from the October Project Linus meeting, Pouncy the cat drops by, I talk about how busy work is, how darn cold it is, and how little crafting I seem to be doing. Hope it's not too horribly boring!

TTMT #101 - jewells68 - Nov 4, 2014 - Crocheting and Surprise! Mail

In which I talk more than I show things. Also, I apologize for not showering and dressing before filming, but it's a work day and if I do it this way I can get ready for work while the video is saving and processing. I show a mostly finished Project Linus Granny Square Afghan as well as some awesome stuff I got in the mail yesterday. Also love the still shot on the video, lol.

TTMT #100 - jewells68 - Swaps and Gifts

Posting a little early this week as I'm heading out of town for work for a few days. Don't think you can rob my house either, because everyone else is still home. So there.



Link to the Fandom In Stitches page with the Union Jack Pattern (Scroll Down)

Here's the tutorial I used for the zippered pouch.

TTMT #99 - jewells68 - October 21, 2014 - Happy Birthday Cat!

In which I talk about all the things I'm NOT getting done. And one thing that IS getting worked on.

TTMT #98 - jewells68 - October 14, 2014 - Fast Talker

In which I talk a bit about costuming, granny squares, make a plea for some yarn, and show the three Project Linus blankets I turned in this past Saturday at the October meeting.

TTMT #97 - jewells68 - October 7, 2014 - Speedy!

TTMT #97! - In which I race against a dying battery to show more stuff I found for my daughter's cosplay outfit, and a THIRD blanket I'm going to be donating this Saturday at my monthly Project Linus meeting.

TTMT #96 - jewells68 - September 30, 2014 - Just One Little Thing

TTMT #95 - jewells68 - September 23, 2014 - Juggling Act

So many ongoing projects at the moment! Yikes!

TTMT #94 - jewells68 - September 16, 2014 - A Wonky Finish

This week in my TTMT video, I talk about my inability to NOT bring adorable donated fabric home from Project Linus so that I have to make them more quilts. Good thing I like to make blankets for them. :D I also show off my finished Birthday Blocks for hardhatcat for the 2014 Birthday Blocks Swap Group to which I belong, and a couple of items I picked up at Joann's because I cannot resist the remnant bin. Definitely need to not go to Joann's without a shopping list.

Bits and Bobs

In an effort to keep this blog from stagnating the way it has been in the past few months *coughcoughYEARScoughcough* I have been cross-posting my TTMT  (Talk to Me Tuesday) posts here as well as on the TTMT Livejournal community (where they have always been posted). I try to make a post there each week at some point (hopefully Tuesday, sometimes Thursday) so that way something should be cropping up here weekly, at the very least. Now, the videos still show up in the sidebar, and for now I'm not changing that, because hopefully my actual posts with WORDS will eventually outnumber my video posts. The other reason for not changing it is I can never remember how to do things on this platform and so changes get postponed because html is NOT my second (or third) language. Ahem.

On to the crafty bits! After feeling a surge of confidence from finishing (successfully, imo) my great-niece's Great Granny's Squares quilt I hopped right back on the quilting train and tackled a quilt top that I have had finished for Project Linus for months that has been waiting patiently to be quilted. Toward the end of the quilting and binding my machine started complaining by throwing my tension off and doing other things machines tend to do when they want you to take better care of them, so I haven't quilted anything since. But I did finish that, it's labeled and washed and ready to turn in this Saturday at the monthly meeting for my Project Linus circle.

I named this one the Big Lots Charm Quilt, because the squares in the main part of the quilt were a charm pack that I purchased at Big Lots. Very creative naming procedure I have, right? I pieced the charm squares into fourpatches, then adding sashing with fabric from my stash and a small amount of Project Linus fabric given to me by my bff Jennifer, and found the additional turquoise-ey border fabric in the donation bins at a Project Linus meeting (the backing fabric also came from there). As far as the quilting goes, I decided to get a little creative and mark my quilt top with some blue painters tape in a expanding diamond grid, and quilted on either side of the tape, removed the tape and then added an additional line in between those lines and called it DONE. I love the diamond grid. It's tough to see in pictures, but hopefully you will be able to see it somewhat.

Here's my piccies of the marking and then the finished quilt:

This will be my 8th donated blanket for 2014, and my first donated quilt (made by me). My goal for the year is 12, so I'm basically on track to make that happen. My current crochet project is *almost* done, and if I really plugged away at it the next few evenings I'm sure I could have it done, washed and labeled and ready to turn in this Saturday also, but I probably won't. Only time will tell. About a week's time, I'm guessing, lol. 

Until next time... keep it crafty!

TTMT #93 - jewells68 - Sept 9 2014 - Just a Little Somethin'

TTMT #92 - jewells68 - Labor Day Crafty Bonanza

This week in my TTMT video I show off a small custom baby gift and a couple of finished embroidery designs for the final week of the Fandom In Stitches Summer of Stitching Theme: I <3 Disney. New pdf patterns have been added to the sidebar of this blog.

Great Granny's Squares: The Story of a Quilt

This is the story of my latest family quilt, which I made for my great-niece, who was born at the end of July.

The story begins with Birthday Blocks. For the last several years I have joined an online quilt swap group called "Birthday Blocks". It had its origins on Livejournal, but this year has moved mainly to Facebook. It's a small group of quilters managed by my friend Cat and another lady, Amanda, and in this group each quilter picks a block from which they would like to eventually make a quilt. Some choose color schemes and no actual block pattern, some choose specific patterns and colors. It's a fun way to branch out of your comfort zone and try something new. Each person in the group makes a block for each other members and sends it during their birthday month. I decided to choose the Granny Square Block tutorial from Blue Elephant Stitches so that the other members could just use whatever scrappy fabrics they wanted on a white background and I could use up some of my scraps as well to finish it. 

When I learned that my niece was having her second child, my brother and sister and I were in the process of going through my Mom's house to sort through everything and empty it out to sell it. Mom passed away last September 30th, but it took a really long to time to get through everything because a) we were still in the process of grieving and b) there was SO. MUCH. STUFF. Like almost 80 years worth of stuff. Actually more because Mom had stuff from her sister and parents and grandparents so... you get the idea. Anyway I digress here. This post is about the quilt. 

Mom had some sewing fabrics put away in her closet. These included some squares that she had cut by hand, I believe with the intention of making one of those grapevine and fabric wreaths that were kind of "the thing" for ladies to make in the 80s. If you are older than 35 or so you probably know what I am talking about. Here's an example. Anyway I had the thought when I came across those squares that if there were some that were cotton I could use them in a quilt of some sort for my niece's impending bundle of joy. I brought the fabrics home and started looking for patchwork patterns in which I could use them. 

I scanned pattern after pattern and was having a horrible time making up my mind, and then it hit me. I needed to produce some samples for my birthday blocks using the tutorial that I selected for my "pattern" so that I could make sure it was easy enough to follow. And then the name struck me. Granny Square. Great Granny Squares. Mom would have been this new baby's Great-grandmother, so this just seemed too perfect a coincidence. So I went with it, and after digging through the squares found that most of them, unfortunately, were a blend of poly cotton instead of 100% cotton. I wanted this quilt to get that squunchy, crinkly look that only a cotton quilt can give you after it's washed, so I ended up with only two fabrics that would work. 

About this time I learned she would be having a girl, and fortunately, the two fabrics were a jewel tone purple with bright pink and white print on it and a hot pink sort of batik-ish looking fabric with a hint of gold. The squares were unfortunately not quite evenly cut, as they were all cut by hand, so I trimmed them all down with my rotary cutter to 3.5" square, and then proceeded to go through all my different scraps looking for fun cute fabrics to use for the other colored squares and cut, I don't know, a million 3.5" squares and sorted them into color groups. Then I bought some white kona cotton and cut some 3.5" strips which I then cut into 3.5" squares for the background. The first time through the tutorial was slow going, but her instructions are terrific and I loved the result. I proceeded over the next couple of weeks or so to make 9 more blocks. And in each block I made sure to use one of each of Mom's pink and purple squares. Then I realized I had better come up with a layout to put them all together. I enlisted the help of my bff Jennifer of Sewhooked to come up with a few ways to lay the blocks out, using some software she has. Meanwhile I started trimming up the finished blocks trying to get them to as uniform a size as possible, only to learn that I had not been very consistent with my seam allowances while sewing them together, which left me with about 6 that I could use in this particular quilt. Also, because of the way the quilt is constructed, it's better to NOT use direction fabric like some of the fussy cute cute little animal fabric I used, because after it's done when you need to sew the blocks together the direction fabric was turned sort of diagonal. So THAT made me throw out all the layout suggestions from my previously mentioned bff  (sorry Jen!) and come up with a new plan altogether. This was going to be my first "on point" quilt. I was going to turn the blocks themselves on the diagonal so that my cute little directional animals would be framed properly and be pointed the right direction. Which meant that I only needed 5 blocks, so I picked my 5 favorites of the ones that were fairly uniform in size and got busy sewing them into rows and adding sections of white at each end to be able to square it up properly. I have a ton of the cute little animals flying in hot air balloons fabric, thinking it would be perfect for baby quilts, and it was certainly perfect for this one. The bright colors went very well with the scrappy quilt top, and the balloons can represent my home of Albuquerque, where we have a huge international balloon fiesta every year and the sky fills with hundreds of balloons at once. A scrappy binding in the colors of the rainbow finished it off just the way I wanted.

This was a quilt of firsts. My first "on point", my first quilt using a walking foot, and my first quilt quilted on my 1956 Singer 301A, which my mom gave me a few years ago after someone had given it to her and it had sat around in her garage for a few years after that. She was thinking my daughter might use it, but I've decided to clean up and repair Mom's 1986 Kenmore for her so she can have a few utility stitches for garment construction. But I digress.

The quilt is now at the home of my new great-niece, where she can play on it, sleep on it, cuddle under it, and hopefully feel like it's a hug from her great-aunty Julia and her great-granny Ruth. 

And now for the gratuitous, self-indulgent photospam of "Great Granny's Squares"... :

TTMT #91 - jewells68 - "Post-Finish Funk"

TTMT #90 - jewells68 - August 19, 2014 - Charmed

TTMT #89 - jewells68 - August 12, 2014 - Great Grannies, That's Progress!

TTMT #88 - jewells68 - August 5, 2014 - Christmas in August!

Well, hey there blog. Haven't seen you in a while... 3 years I think. Whoa. Did not realize it had been that long. So one of my goals starting this month is to blog on this here crafty blog a little more often. I want to start getting to creating my own patterns and need a place to host my stuff that I want to share.

So here we are... May 2014... My goal is a minimum of 2 posts per month. Now, as far as crafty bloggers go, that's not very much, but as someone who works full-time outside the home, but loves to spend her free time making things, I think that's something I can handle for now without adding stress to my already kind of busy life. And I figure, surely I can come up with a crafty post at least twice a month. I don't want to bore my 11 readers with stuff other than crafts.

Just because I haven't posted in 3 years doesn't mean I haven't made any stuff. If that were true I'd have to change the name of this blog. I have indeed. And I still upload pics to flickr, and hopefully that little slideshow widget is still here on my blog, showing my public flickr entries. Probably should have checked that before I started writing this, lol.

So craftywise, what is Julia making? What about those things you had going in 2011 when you last posted? Well, my Project of Doom quilt got sidelined not long after my last post in 2011, and it's still sitting there in my giant IKEA bag of UFOs. I definitely plan to get back to that at some point this year. Last year I started the 50th anniversary Doctor Who Stitchalong hosted by Fandom in Stitches, but never got past #3. Last night I started stitching on #4, my all time favorite doctor. Since I last worked on this project I have changed my feelings about the type of materials I was using so I think I'm going to go back and start #3 over from scratch, because when I started stitching on it last night I didn't care for how it looked with two different kinds of thread/floss. So since I'll need to see if I have any leftover background fabric and transfer #3 again to start over, and I had #4 transferred and ready to go, I went ahead and dove in. This time around I am finding embroidery slow, but relaxing. I'm really liking it quite a bit. Before it was kind of difficult, but I hadn't really done it before and was having a hard time finding just the right materials as far as thread/floss, needle threaders, and finding a comfortable place to stitch where I could actually see what I was doing. So I'm back to that project.

Another ongoing project this year is Paper Piecing Vintage, a block of the month designed and hosted by my awesome bff Jennifer Ofenstein, of Sewhooked.com, and I'm seriously behind on that, as well, but in the next month or so hope to get totally caught up on that as my "real life" starts to calm down a bit. Paper Piecing Vintage can be found on Craftsy, just look up sewhooked there ad you'll find it.

I'm working on doing more quilting and embroidery, because yarn is just so HOT for the warm months, and I don't want to get too far behind on my Project Linus donation goals for the year. My goal this year is 12 blankets, up from 6 last year. I know I can do it if I can get to quilting. Right now I think I'm at 3 blankets, but I have one labelled and ready to turn in this coming Saturday at the monthly meeting and have a quilt top in progress. So my next post this month should have some photos for you! Meanwhile, if you're back to visit and want to see what I've been up to feel free to check out my public photo albums on flickr. I always try to put a decent description on there, that's sort of been my quickie version of blogging over the last few years.