Over Extended

I got a little ambitious this fall. I knew that I needed to start Christmas goodies early with a toddler in the house but there were also birthdays and most importantly a new baby coming. My craft books piled up with tabs and dog ears marking far too many projects for far too little time. Eventually I had to scale things back from my over ambitious dreams.

Although I changed what I was making for the soon-to-arrive baby somehow it morphed in to more than I thought. I knew that I wanted to make a quilt and instead of making an intensive quilt top I thought that using a panel and embroidering some details on top would be easier. Oh how the craft gods laughed at my plans. Indeed the time on the sewing machine was barely existent, I just added some green fabric with poke-a-dots on the bottom and top of the panel.

Then time stood still as I started in on the hand quilting. Lesson learned, hand stitching takes time, more time than you think. As I was working away at outlining bird wings, tying french knots and satin stitching until the wee hours of the morning I started to think about if I had really chosen the right project for the baby. I worried about getting it done in time for the baby shower where I wanted to surprise my best friend with it. Then of course I started thinking of when N was little and would play on the quilts that I made her. I thought of this little baby feeling the stitches and textures of the floss, pulling out some of my sloppier french knots and eventually learning the animal sounds that go along with the quilt. And I realized that it was worth every stitch.





Then I went to crazy town.







I had extra flannel from the back of the quilt and I thought that I may as well whip something up for them with it. So I turned to the tutorial where I made N's changing pad covers and made one of those. Because really, you can't have too many changing pad covers.

I still had some other odd and end pieces of fabric that matched the panel and thought of how much N loves her buckets. I figured, hey they won't take long. I suppose, in comparison to N's, they didn't. I didn't do any hand stitching on these, just put in the contrast fabric against white and lined them in some matching Kona cotton colors.

As I was packing up the goodies to send off across the country I realized that I and unintentionally thrust an entire nursery set upon the parents-to-be. The box arrived just in time, literally the day before the shower, and by all reports back they love everything that was sent. But then again they're too nice to tell me otherwise.

Snowflakes

Hello December! It is December right? The only way to tell here is by walking in Target and being asaulted by the Christmas music and over the top glittery displays that make sure you know you should be shopping for all of your loved ones. We had a small flurry of snow at the end of November which has all melted away leaving me feeling a little homesick for Alaska and all of the snow that Decembers mean. No worries about a white Christmas there. We did put up our Christmas tree this weekend and I love watching N's face light up when she sees it, touches it and pulls the ornaments off of it.

These little beauties won't melt though, regardless of the weather outside. My mom gave these to me a year or two ago. She had unearthed them in some box in her house and didn't know what to do with them. Tatting isn't something that I can do, nor do I have a lot of interested in learning. But, I can appreciate the time and effort that went into making these. I'm not a doily fan, and if these pieces had been much bigger they probably would have been donated to the Rescue Mission. They are perfect in these little frames though, and C thought that they looked like snowflakes. Perfect addition in a December without any snow, yet.

Here's hoping you have some snow. It does make winter so much less dreary and Christmas time much more festive. There has be lots of other creating, alas much of it is for Christmas and can't be shared until then. But I do have a few other things that have been waiting to be shared until the 25th rolls around. 

The non-road trip

We were able to visit my sister, brother-in-law and nephew for Thanksgiving. We actually went last weekend and visited early. Our hope was to use some time my parents had in their timeshare company to rent a place for all of us to get out of town but it didn't work that way. But before we knew that we weren't going to have a road trip I had already started on the road trip bags knowing that there was going to be a lack of toys where we were going.

The bags were made from a free tutorial here. E's is the one in blue and was made exactly as the tutorial directs, N's is the light one and I squared the bottom rather than rounding it. I'm not sure that I can tell much of a difference between the two when they are sitting. The cords I think could be shorter and the tubing that the cords go through have to be bigger than what is called for in the pattern. I made them bigger and they were still pretty snug to thread the ties through.

I have been wanting to make a few handmade quite activities for N to be able to play with on her own when I need a minute (or five) to myself. Thanks to the wonder of Pinterest I found this, I love that she did it as an exchange with other mom's and I think that it would be a great way to do Christmas if you knew enough parent's who were game. I didn't do everything that she had listed but I did a few.

A rice I-syp bag: which N loves, even if it is just to carry around. I walked around JoAnn's looking for small stuff and ended up with some shaped buttons, small wood shapes, ABC letter beads spelling out her name, some small bells, and some of those Japanese shaped erasers (a pig and a pair of shoes if you are really interested).

The button worm: at least that's what we're calling it. She hasn't really gotten how to thread it yet but she does currently enjoy sticking her fingers through the cut holes when the felt squares are taken off the ribbon.

Velcro sticks: a note of warning, if you buy the pre-colored sticks at JoAnn's and your child sucks on them, the coloring will come off and dye your child's mouth/face/hands etc. On the up side N doesn't really chew on them any more since the incident with the one red one that made me freak out. She does love ripping them apart whenever I try to make a shape with them.

The bead bottle: by far N's favorite, and probably my least favorite. It's a mess, pony beads will go everywhere. On the up side, she does love putting them in, in the bottle, in her pants, in the play kitchen, in the trash, pretty much anywhere they can be put, she'll put them.












The miscellaneous extras. You really can't go wrong with giving a toddler a whistle and a kazoo, at least if you want them to stay occupied you can't go wrong. If you want to have a conversation with another adult it might not be the route of distractions that you want to take. N mostly likes the silly putty container more than the putty itself.

Countdown

Time is speeding up, as it always seems to do this time of year. With a toddler in the house I have gotten better at strategically planning ahead and how to make the most of my time. So far it seems to be working for the handmade present stack that I've been working away at for the past couple of months. Yep, that's what a toddler will do to you, make you start Christmas presents in August.

This isn't quite a Christmas present, it's N's advent calendar. Which in it's own perverse twist needed to be done well before Christmas time. I have really clear and fond memories of our advent calendars growing up. We always got to pick out one of the molded chocolate ones. You know, they sell them at grocery stores and as a kid you get excited, because, hey it's chocolate everyday. But as you get older you realize that the little brown shapes are more wax than anything resembling actual, good, chocolate. I wanted N to have that same excitement every morning leading up to Christmas.

I fell in love with Elizabeth Hartman's version a few years ago and knew that I wanted to make one. Last winter, after Christmas, I stocked up on the fabric since it was so cheap. This would be a great scrap project because you really don't need much of the patterns at all. I think that the next time I make it I would probably try to use a charm pack. I finished the top months ago but I was building up the courage to do the quilting. With December looming I finally got busy last weekend. The quilting was actually quite quick and a lot easier than I had imagined - it is just squiggles after all.

All in all I'm happy with how it came out. The pockets are big enough for treats and little presents (hello Target $1 bins!) but the whole calendar doesn't take up a ton of space on a wall. It probably would even fit nicely on a door. Here's hoping the rest of my present stack finishes up as quickly and easily!

A little crazy

We are in the process of buying our house. It has been a long process. Not particularly difficult, just a lot of paperwork, legal-ese, and frustratingly long waits. We were suppose to close on the first, November first, however that has come and gone and we are not in home ownership land yet. Needless to say, some of my free time (read: crafting time) has been over taken by calling a lawyer, or a bank, or an insurance company, or someone else.

I have managed to work on a couple of little things. This one I don't feel like I can really take the majority of the credit for. The quilt top was done by my great-great aunt. My mom pulled it out when we were visiting a couple months ago and said casually something along the lines of how wouldn't it be nice if I could finish it for my sister. Point taken.

The top is an odd size, but it's bound for my sister's couch so sizing isn't something I had to be worried about. The "batting" of the quilt is old chicken feed bags, they were so great I almost wished I didn't have to cover them up with backing. Plus the hand embroidery made a lovely pattern all it's own on the batting.

My sister was also visiting my parents while we were, so she and I were able to pick out backing and binding fabric together. She chose some Kona cotton in Grass and I love how it turned out. The front can be a little dark on it's own but the green helps lighten it up a bit. Finished at just the right time since we're going to visit them in Wisconsin a just a couple of weeks. It will be perfect for snuggling with her on the couch and drinking some tea while we plan the Thanksgiving meal.

A year behind

The traditional two year anniversary gift is cotton, three year is leather. Colin and I received this quilt top for our three year anniversary last month. Either my mom has had a bout of amnesia during our marriage, or she's just not trying to stick to the traditional timeline.

It was pieced, by hand, by my grandmother and great grandmother the year that my mom was born. Most of the flowers are scraps of other fabrics and although in this photo it looks like all of the fabrics of a similar color are the same, they aren't. The quilt is an odd size and when laid down flat it becomes clear that it isn't finished. 

At first I was tempted to just square it up, quilt it, bind it and enjoy without messing with the heritage of the top. But then Hexa-Go-Go started popping up all over the blogosphere and I figured that it was fate telling me to jump into the deep end and figure out how to do some paper pieced hexagons to add to the two sides of this that aren't done. So that's the plan, to try and find some vintagy looking scraps to make a few more full or half flowers to finish it up. I want to hand quilt it anyways since it's too big to do on my machine and I like the idea of doing it how my grandmothers would have. 

Just one more thing to do, in a very large growing pile.

Hand-me-downs

When going to visit my parents I know to leave room in my suitcase for goodies to bring home. It's possible to find almost anything at my parents house, most of which I have never seen before. They have lived in the same home my whole life which leaves lots of memories, and also allows for lots of stuff to get hidden. Both of my parents are savers (although some would perhaps use the term horders), which at times can be a bit wearisome it can also be wonderful for treasure hunting.

First I visited my mom's fabric drawer. She mostly sews clothing, and doesn't sew as much as she did when we were growing up so there are some dusty layers in her stash drawer. When we went through it together the pile she wanted me to take began to over take the pile that was going back in the drawer. In the end we compromised on these lovelies.

I don't know what any of them are, I dare say none of them were purchased in the last twenty years. Only the elephants and top floral are cotton. The blue dots are linen, tulips are a volile and the green and black is something heavy - it was actually my grandmothers.

Next to the fabric drawer is the craft closet. I don't think that I have ever seen the carpet or the shelf liners in this closet. I managed to find two packages of pom-poms and chunky wooden beads that had never been opened for a project with the babies. I also came across these -

Two grain/feed bags. I have no idea what I am going to do with them or even if my sewing machine can handle this heavy of material but I love them. Particularly the farm illustration.
























Then my mom pulled out the big guns. The thing that both my sister and I had not seen before but should have. A family crazy quilt - 

It was done by my great-great-grandmother over a century ago. All of the patches are velvet and the thing is heavy! But the hand embroidery is amazing. I am sure that a lot of the symbols are simply things that they liked, but some of them have more meaning (like what's with the weird arm holding a hat by the year?) however the real story of the quilt has been lost over the generations. It looks like someone used it at one time as a quilt for a bed but I think that over time it has been holed up in a linen closet never to see the light of day. I'm not sure that I can justify putting it on a bed either, at least not while there is a little sticky fingered critter running around the house. Perhaps it will take up residence on a wall at some point, it's just too much work to be sitting in a closet.