2 finished blocks for my daughter's Project of Doom quilt and a bit of babble about sickness and baby quilts.
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
TTMT #127 - jewells68 - May 19, 2015 - 5 minutes of not much
Little in the way of crafting this past week and weekend, but I do now have a daughter that is a HS graduate! Maybe some actual craftiness next week.
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
TTMT #126 - jewells68 - May 12, 2015 - A Quilt, A Log Cabin, and a PoD B...
Sorry, but it's a long one. The title is pretty self-explanatory this time.
Saturday, May 9, 2015
Log Cabin Closure
What's this? a real blog post with words and pictures and everything? Not just a link to my TTMT video? What could possibly warrant such an occurence?
I did it people. I FINALLY finished the scrappy log cabin I started in February of 2009. Yes 2009. The last blog post I made about it was this one in April of 2009 although I did actually mention in an October 2009 post that I was working on it again. So I dug around through my old posts a little more trying to figure out what made me stop working on this project. Turns out it was a combination of 2 things: learning to crochet and my arthritis. Knitting was really starting to bother my elbow quite a bit. My left elbow. Early in 2009 I started teaching myself to crochet. I use my right arm more than my left when I crochet. So the bigger the blanket got, the heavier it got, and the heavier it got the more time I had to rest in between days I worked on it.
Then of course that was the year of the moth infestation, in which I lost hundreds of dollars of beautiful wool and alpaca and even acrylic yarn to the bastards. They got into the project bag for this blanket and got into the skeins of yarn, but the blanket itself showed no signs of infestation, however, just to be on the safe side, I packed it up in a space bag with some moth balls "for a while" to make sure. That turned into a year, and another year. And another year. At the beginning of each year I would take out all my UFOs and make a list of which ones I wanted to finish that year. For a while the scrappy log cabin was on the list, but I really had gotten to where I preferred crochet so much more than knitting that I just couldn't bring myself to drag the sucker out. So it sat there... in the UFO bag under my cutting table, or got moved to the corner, sometimes on a shelf... taunting me. Every time I would rearrange in my project room I would say "I really need to do something with that blanket!" And then I would move it out of sight and forget about it until the next year. Well no more.
So what happened to get me to FINALLY do something with this forgotten UFO? Well, this month Project Linus kind of snuck up on me. I think because our annual volunteer appreciation brunch was just a couple of weeks ago, I thought I had a little more time. I have a crochet blanket in progress, but haven't been working on it lately. So I realized early this week, Tuesday when I was making my video for TTMT, that I had nothing ready to turn in this weekend, and I was already behind for the year in my goal of 12 blankets... I only had 3 turned in so far this year. So I thought, what could I realistically get done by Saturday morning. And then it hit me. The SCRAPPY LOG CABIN. When I started it I intended to make one that was big enough for our queen sized bed. But clearly that was never going to happen. Well it was already at least big enough for a toddler comfort blanket or maybe even a pre-schooler. So I thought... you crochet now... crochet a border around it and call that baby done! I took it out of the bag and inspected it again. No signs of moths. Washed it to get rid of the moth ball smell and make doubly sure it was ok. It was fine. So I took some white Caron one-pound yarn and a size H crochet hook, did one round of single crochet around it (that took several evenings... very painstaking), then one round of half double crochet, and then I switched to black and SC backwards around it for the final edge last night. This morning I took it to my monthly Project Linus meeting, wove in the ends and sewed the Project Linus label on with just 20 minutes left in the meeting, we were already over halfway through with show and tell.
And now it's done, done done! And gone gone gone! Woo!
Here's how it finally ended up:
Done and Done! and that plus the teddy bear panel quilt I backed with fleece this week (also something that's been hanging around in my fabric bins for a few years) make a total of 5 blankets so far and it's May, so I'm right on track for the year. Yay!
Have you had something hang around as a UFO so long that you felt it was never going to get done? Don't give it up, there's hope. Find something to inspire you. For me that was knowing I was NEVER going to knit on this heavy old thing again and some child would love it. They can race cars around the stripes and have a blast. They can snuggle under it. It will bring them joy, and that's a heckuvalot better than taunting you every time you see it, right? So if it's been languishing, get it out and give it a good honest look. And then find a way to let it go. Man does it feel good to be GONE!
I did it people. I FINALLY finished the scrappy log cabin I started in February of 2009. Yes 2009. The last blog post I made about it was this one in April of 2009 although I did actually mention in an October 2009 post that I was working on it again. So I dug around through my old posts a little more trying to figure out what made me stop working on this project. Turns out it was a combination of 2 things: learning to crochet and my arthritis. Knitting was really starting to bother my elbow quite a bit. My left elbow. Early in 2009 I started teaching myself to crochet. I use my right arm more than my left when I crochet. So the bigger the blanket got, the heavier it got, and the heavier it got the more time I had to rest in between days I worked on it.
Then of course that was the year of the moth infestation, in which I lost hundreds of dollars of beautiful wool and alpaca and even acrylic yarn to the bastards. They got into the project bag for this blanket and got into the skeins of yarn, but the blanket itself showed no signs of infestation, however, just to be on the safe side, I packed it up in a space bag with some moth balls "for a while" to make sure. That turned into a year, and another year. And another year. At the beginning of each year I would take out all my UFOs and make a list of which ones I wanted to finish that year. For a while the scrappy log cabin was on the list, but I really had gotten to where I preferred crochet so much more than knitting that I just couldn't bring myself to drag the sucker out. So it sat there... in the UFO bag under my cutting table, or got moved to the corner, sometimes on a shelf... taunting me. Every time I would rearrange in my project room I would say "I really need to do something with that blanket!" And then I would move it out of sight and forget about it until the next year. Well no more.
So what happened to get me to FINALLY do something with this forgotten UFO? Well, this month Project Linus kind of snuck up on me. I think because our annual volunteer appreciation brunch was just a couple of weeks ago, I thought I had a little more time. I have a crochet blanket in progress, but haven't been working on it lately. So I realized early this week, Tuesday when I was making my video for TTMT, that I had nothing ready to turn in this weekend, and I was already behind for the year in my goal of 12 blankets... I only had 3 turned in so far this year. So I thought, what could I realistically get done by Saturday morning. And then it hit me. The SCRAPPY LOG CABIN. When I started it I intended to make one that was big enough for our queen sized bed. But clearly that was never going to happen. Well it was already at least big enough for a toddler comfort blanket or maybe even a pre-schooler. So I thought... you crochet now... crochet a border around it and call that baby done! I took it out of the bag and inspected it again. No signs of moths. Washed it to get rid of the moth ball smell and make doubly sure it was ok. It was fine. So I took some white Caron one-pound yarn and a size H crochet hook, did one round of single crochet around it (that took several evenings... very painstaking), then one round of half double crochet, and then I switched to black and SC backwards around it for the final edge last night. This morning I took it to my monthly Project Linus meeting, wove in the ends and sewed the Project Linus label on with just 20 minutes left in the meeting, we were already over halfway through with show and tell.
And now it's done, done done! And gone gone gone! Woo!
Here's how it finally ended up:
Done and Done! and that plus the teddy bear panel quilt I backed with fleece this week (also something that's been hanging around in my fabric bins for a few years) make a total of 5 blankets so far and it's May, so I'm right on track for the year. Yay!
Have you had something hang around as a UFO so long that you felt it was never going to get done? Don't give it up, there's hope. Find something to inspire you. For me that was knowing I was NEVER going to knit on this heavy old thing again and some child would love it. They can race cars around the stripes and have a blast. They can snuggle under it. It will bring them joy, and that's a heckuvalot better than taunting you every time you see it, right? So if it's been languishing, get it out and give it a good honest look. And then find a way to let it go. Man does it feel good to be GONE!
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
TTMT #125 - jewells68 - May 5, 2015 - PoD and Possibilities
3 more Project of Doom blocks for my daughter's quilt, and a test block for a possible future project.
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About Me
- Julia
- Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States
- This is my place to talk about crafting, what I make, and maybe even why I make it.