Saturday, May 1, 2010

Baby Quilt for Lina Rose

Look, I finally made another quilt! My dear friends Reada and Dave had their first baby recently and I was beyond happy to make a quilt for beautiful Lina Rose. I love the fabric I picked out and I'm really happy with the quilt.



The best part about making the quilt was that I got to hand deliver it to little Lina in Houston last weekend. I haven't seen Reada and Dave since I left Peru 2 years ago and they are getting ready to move to a new school in Venezuela, so I was glad I had a chance to get down to Houston and meet Lina and spend some time with them.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Work In Progress, still...

I've been very neglectful of my craft blog, and crafting in general, recently. Somewhere along the way I've lost some motivation to sew. But I recently rearranged my living room so that my sewing machine can be set up all the time and not be in the middle of the room, so I'm hoping that will help me be better about working on projects when I have some free time. Amanda came over last weekend for a craft day and that helped too. She knitted and I sewed and I actually got some things done. And she was good about pushing me to work on this quilt for my mother that I started back when I was living in Sunapee last winter. Mom picked out the fabric when I was still living with her in Maine and I promised her I would make a queen sized quilt for her bed. The size of the quilt is a bit daunting for me, which I think is part of why I haven't been wanting to work on it. But when I laid it out the other day when Amanda was here, I realized that it really isn't that bad. Yes, it is big and it is going to get bigger, but I think it is going to be beautiful when it's all finished and I know Mom will love it. I'd say about about 60% done with the top now, so it's coming along. I'll keep you posted as to the progress and definitely post a photo when I've finished piecing the top.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

I've Been Tagged

My friend Amanda over at Sevin Stitches recently tagged me to tell you six random things about myself that I haven't shared on this blog. Between this blog and Notes From A Not So International Life I've share quite a lot of information about myself, but I've been thinking about this post for a few days, racking my brain for new tidbits, and this is what I came up with:

1. I don't like cooked fruit - no apples, or blueberries, or cherries, or anything. I can handle cooked strawberries, but that is it. This hatred of cooked fruit means I don't like apple pie, apple crisp, apple fritters or anything else involving cooked apples that everyone else in the world seems to love so much. The words "un-American" often come up when I mention how much I dislike apple pie - it is a label I'm prepared to bear.

2. I could watch "The West Wing" on DVD over and over, and over and over again. It is my favorite show and no matter how often I watch it, it never gets old. I just finished watching the entire series (7 seasons) for what might the billionth time and I'm considering starting to watch it all over again fairly soon. I think the show is incredibly smart and witty, plus if I could combine Sam Seaborn and Josh Lyman, I'd have my dream guy.

3. Speaking of "The West Wing", I think part of why I love it is so much is that it appeals to the part of me that was a political science major my first year in college. Yep, at 17 years old I had aspirations of becoming a politician. I still find politics and public policy interesting (though I do think it is more a love of history than politics, and probably always has been), but halfway through my freshman year of college I realized it just wasn't the right track for me. By that time, I was hanging out with all the music kids at Holy Cross and taking more music classes than political science classes, so I knew it was time to make the change. My mom tells me that she had known all along that I would eventually go into music education - it was just a matter of me figuring it out on my own.

4. I can read the same book multiple times and not be bored with it. I know a lot of people who can't go back to a book and read it again months or years after they have first read it. I'm not like that at all. One of the best things about moving into my new apartment was that I had the space for all my books that had been living in Sarah and Reg's garage for the past 5 years. I loved unpacking them - it was like being reunited with old friends. I think part of the reason why I can return to a book again and again is that I read really quickly and once I've finished the book, it is kind of out of my head. I can't tell you all the details of the plot and recount the book once I've finished reading it - I remember the general ideas and whether I liked it or not. This means that I can come back to it months or years later and it is fresh again. I guess the good thing about this is that it saves me money on always buying new books!

5. I have no desire to own my own house anytime soon, which is very unlike pretty much everyone else I know. I like living in apartments, especially now that I have a big one, and not having to worry about all the details and hassles of home ownership. My biggest dream is to buy a house on Georges Pond, Maine, where I spent summers growing up, and have it as a summer home to retreat to at the end of the school year. I'd be completely fine with owning a summer house, but I have no desire to own a year round home. I think my ideal life would be an apartment in Berlin for the winter and a house on Georges Pond for the summer. Sounds pretty nice, don't you think?

I hope you enjoyed my random facts! Now I get to tag some blogs to do their own lists. Play along if you'd like - I'd love to see what your facts are!

1. Julie over at Los Lemleys. Julie and John taught with me in Peru and are now living, teaching, and raising their son in Japan. I love reading Julie's blog and keeping up with their lives.

2. Cindy at Just Alaska. She is a former student of mine from Manchester who has a beautifully written blog sharing her life as a newlywed, lower 48 transplant now living in Juneau, Alaska.

3. Amy at Making The World A More Creative Place. Amy and I went to high school together and she keeps a blog about her life in Florida and all of her exciting travel adventures with her husband.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Finished

I finished this quilt and I'm pleased with how it turned out. It doesn't look much different from the last picture I posted of it, but I did add light blue ties and finished hand sewing the binding.

Hand sewing the binding was time consuming, but I think it worked out pretty well. I'm going to try it on my next quilt too and see if I can get it to look even better. I think it is probably a better way to bind my quilts than to try to machine sew them, at least until I learn how to actually do machine quilting.

I really need to find a quilting class to take...

Thursday, September 10, 2009

VW buses

I am completely in love with this Heather Ross VW bus fabric. It is very hard to find, but I managed to snatch up nearly 2 yards of it from various places on ebay. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it yet, but I have some ideas... Until then, I'm just going to admire it in all its cuteness.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

W.I.P.

Here is my latest work in progress. The fabric is flannel and I really like it. I love the idea of trying fun new patterns, but lately I've been very content with simple blocks, particularly larger blocks.

The biggest challenge of this quilt is the binding. I decided to hand sew it and it is taking forever! And I'm pretty terrible at hand sewing. I've realized that I really love making quilt tops and I, of course, love the finished product, but doing the binding and the batting is kind of a pain. I think I maybe just need to learn how to do binding better. Any suggestions??

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Finished

I've been working on this quilt for a while and finally got it finished today. I spent a cold, rainy morning watching Ted Kennedy's funeral and happily sewing. I don't know what took me so long with this one, but I seem to like to make quilt tops, then put them away and take forever to get them actually finished. I think part of it is that I'm not very good at doing the binding, so I don't like to do that part. I need to figure out how to do binding for real - at this point I just make it up as I go along.

I'm really happy with the back of this quilt too. I love all the fabric and think it looks really good together. I have no idea how big the quilt is - definitely not big enough for a bed, but will be a good quilt for the couch. I think I'll be using it tonight - it is chilly!!
 

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