red and yellow geese for christmas

Another Christmas present here. This one I made for my dear friend Gregg. I got to go visit her and her family in Richmond this fall (she treated me to an evening with David Sedaris -- word to the wise: don't bother with the mascara -- you will laugh/cry it all off) and I had the chance to case her family room for color inspiration. I love flying geese patterns but didn't like the waste when you make them the usual way. So I found some instructions for no-waste geese and they were great! 

I pulled a mixture of red and yellow prints from my stash along with a red solid to pop and white for the background. As usual, in trying to randomize the prints while alternating the red and yellow, I now see that I ended up with some matchy rows -- oh well.

The double diagonal quilting worked really well and for binding I was able to use some of this red/yellow/black print I have for my kitchen. It washed up nice and crinkly.

For the back I found a couple more red and yellow prints (the yellow is a swiss dot -- just looks solid) and some leftover strips from the front. My crookedy stripes are the reason I don't quilt with pre-cut strips.

Miss Cincinnati got involved in the photo shoot -- but hey, I was using her bed for a studio (she lets us sleep there too). I missed the dining room light that afternoon and I needed to get the pictures so I could get this in the mail in time for Christmas.

Hope your holidays were great! More projects to come later.

merry christmas to a colts fan

As promised, here's one of the commissions I had for the holidays this year. My friend Monica ordered this quilt for her niece, who is a huge Indianapolis Colts fan. Monica chose the basic pattern for this lap-size quilt and let me run with the Colts fabric. I picked out 2 blues, 2 grays, and black and white to coordinate with the 2 Colts patterns. I was a little ticked at the Colts organization for not including a third color to go with the blue and white in the logo. It would have made for more variety in MY quilt. No one in the Colts' front office has responded to my complaint.

Monica mentioned that Peyton Manning is her niece's all-time favorite player and that if I could include something about Peyton, it would be great. Well, in case you've been hiding under a rock for the last couple years, news flash -- Peyton now plays for the Broncos. No more Colts #18 stuff. So I made this block by appliquéing numbers in the Colts' logo typeface. I quilted with these double diagonal lines all over, and bound the quilt with this perfect royal blue stripe. This same print in another color appeared in my red and aqua quilt last year. Love that stuff.

I got all excited about the back! I already HAD this black/white number print and the typeface is just the same as the Colts'! Clearly it was meant to be. But not without a little work -- I only had 2 yards of the number print. So I added some Colts fabric scraps and some black/white dot.

This was a fun project -- I hope Monica's niece liked it! More holiday gifts next time!

books of 2013

It seems like 2013 was kind of a slow year for reading -- thank goodness for my two book clubs that kept me reading something. I will also have you know I also read several issues of the New Yorker, so I want credit for that too. But I don't deserve too much credit since I just read a couple of issues from last spring on our Winter Break trip. Better late than never, right?

January:
Gold - Chris Cleve. Ok, I don't really remember this one. This is why I keep a book list, so I don't read this again.
The Wave. Confession - it was for my book club and I didn't finish it. But Bill did -- do I get half credit?

February:
Bring Up the Bodies - Hilary Mantel. This is the sequel to Wolf Hall -- I loved them both. Intrigue in the court of Henry VIII. There's a third one coming - I can't wait.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - Mark Haddon. This was a repeat for one of the book clubs. It was still good the second time. Interesting point of view.

March:
The Truth About Style - Stacy London. Some parting advice from Stacy at the end of the run of What Not to Wear. What will I do now? When you see me in 5 years I will still be dressing like 2013 because that's when my fashion advice ran out. Who am I kidding -- maybe in 5 years I might be caught up to 2013.
The Book Thief - Markus Zuzak. Everyone else was reading it so I did too. It was interesting and good, but I hear they wrecked it in the movie.

April:
The Power of One - Bryce Courtenay. This one was about an English boy growing up in South Africa during Apartheid. It started interesting enough but became pretty fantastical -- this boy was clearly on track to single-handedly cure cancer and bring about world peace, while winning 5 Olympic medals.
What? That was it for April?!

May:
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald. Another bandwagon read in anticipation of the movie. But still good. I read along with the Cliff Notes, which brought out some of the deeper themes.
Cesar's Rules - Cesar Millan. How in the hell do I handle this dog?!
A Walk in the Woods - Bill Bryson. One of my recommendations for the book club, I have read this one several times. It never fails to entertain.

June:
The Orchardist - Amanda Coplin. Another book club selection, a quiet story about an old man and his family. Beautifully written. I think this was a first novel.
The Art of Racing in the Rain - Garth Stein. Sorry mom, but I really hated this one. I did skim it all the way through, though, hoping for some redemption. No dice.

July:
Beautiful Ruins - Jess Walter. Good yarn taking place in Italy and Hollywood in the 60s and the present. I loved this writer from his earlier novel, The Financial Lives of the Poets. Ask me to read you the poem about moms' thong underwear sometime.
The Uninvited Guests - Sadie Jones. Very Downton Abbey, with a twist at the end. A fun read.
The Newlyweds - Nell Freudenberger. I really liked this novel about a Bangladeshi woman who comes to the US as an internet bride.

August:
Elders - Ryan McElvain. I was really looking forward to this, having heard the author interviewed, and given my interest in Mormon subjects. Big disappointment. And I shlepped the library book all the way to Hawaii. And back.
The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides. I remember liking this, but honestly I don't remember much else. Not the best review.

September:
Wild - Cheryl Strayed. I spent several hours reading this book. I am never getting those hours back and I am bitter about that. This is one of those examples of Narcissistic Screw-Up memoirs that make me crazy. I found the author pretentious, whiny, and largely unbelievable. Bless her heart. Set fire to this book in the back yard and read A Walk in the Woods again instead.

October:
The Round House - Louise Erdrich. Something else from the book club. Loved it. I haven't read any Louise Erdrich since The Beet Queen long, long ago. This concerns a brutal crime on an Indian reservation, which sounds like a deal-breaker for me, but it was actually compelling, moving, and even funny at times.

November:
Did I really not read anything in November?

December:
In the Garden of Beasts - Erik Larsen. Takes place in Berlin in 1936. Nonfiction about the experiences of the new US Ambassador to Germany and his family. Interesting, but not interesting enough for as long as the book was. This would have made an excellent New Yorker article. Why am I not everybody's editor?
The Source - James Michener. Oh, yeah, this is why there's nothing for November. We read this 900-pager over 3 months in one of the book clubs. It was great. It starts with an archaeological dig in Israel in the 1960s and goes back through time with a story about each level of the site. The stories are loosely connected. The story in the present is pretty darn sexist in its treatment of the female archaeologist, but it works if you just view it as another level in the dig. A fascinating look at the history of the region and the founding of the state of Israel.

Well, that looks a little better when you see the whole list. I hope to read more in 2014!

fabric splurge

After quite a long time of reading a much-too-long list of sewing blogs, I have succumbed to the temptations of the release of a line of designer fabric. But not just any designer -- this collection features the art of Charley Harper! After first seeing some of his prints at some friends' house in Washington, D.C., we have been looking at different Harper prints, books, puzzles, etc. and looking for just the right one. I think our inability to choose just one design has been the main thing paralyzing us. Enter the Charley Harper collection from Birch Fabrics. (No, they didn't give me anything for this shout out -- they are quite unaware that I'm alive.)

Aren't these fabulous?! Wrens and nuthatches and squirrels along with those pretty leaf and flower prints!

And the cardinals! My favorite birds! I splurged on a set of fat quarters of every print in the collection. Now the pressure's on for a design good enough to show them off. I imagine I'll do something really simple just to feature the art. It's going to be hard to start cutting!

It's busy around here -- lots of Christmas presents and another quilt commission -- nothing I can show until the gifts are given. Come back for a busy January!

In the meantime, I leave you with life in a nutshell around here. The dog (ridiculous in her life preserver replacing the cone of shame), overexposed in a patch of sunshine, sound asleep, being overseen by the cat, in complete control of the situation. That's pretty much how things work around here.

See you again soon!

que sera in aqua

Things have been quiet here on the blog, but there's actually been quite a bit of activity at the kitchen table. I just finished a quilt commission that I'm going to wait to blog about until it's given as a gift for Christmas. I've also been invited to teach some textile classes at a local art studio -- more about that later too. Stay tuned!

But I did finish this lacy cardigan -- the Que Sera pattern in aqua bamboo blend. I found the pattern on Ravelry via Pinterest and the yarn is a Martha Stewart brand from Michaels -- 40% off my entire purchase, thank you very much. I kept this baby going for many months, picking it up whenever I happened to be sitting in front of the TV with the family. Let's just say that this sweater has seen a lot of Top Gear and What Not to Wear.

I like the lacy shells and the color. The pattern was pretty good, but I did have to do a lot of figuring out when it came to maintaining the pattern while shaping the tops of the pieces. (Know what I mean, knitters?) I chalk some of that up to the fact that this was an independent rather than a commercial pattern -- I often find that indy patterns aren't tested very well. But I'll climb down from my soapbox and say that I loved knitting both fronts and the back as one piece -- oh, how I hate sewing my pieces together -- and the sizing was right on. Though if I EVER knit this one again, I'll make it a little shorter. I must also sing the praises of the internet for the youtube videos that helped me improve my seams by a mile! They look SO much better than the way I used to do them.

It's probably been at least 10 years since I've knitted a sweater for myself, and I have to call this a success. Next up -- a lacy black cotton scarf to replace the scratchy wool blend one I made a couple of years ago. Stop by again soon!

tagged hawaiian

This little quilt finally went off to its new home so I can post it here! The pattern is called "Tagged" so I'm calling mine "Tagged Hawaiian" since I used some of my Hawaii stash for the featured squares. The pattern is from the book Growing Up Modern by one of my very favorite quilting gurus, Allison Harris. Her gorgeous blog is Cluck, Cluck, Sew and I never miss it. I ordered her book shortly after it was published and this is the first thing I've tried from it.

The pattern was super, with great directions for cutting and assembly. Allison did all the thinking for me! Now I can't wait to try something else from the book.

I actually already had both the red and the aqua left over from other projects, and I had collected some single-color Hawaiian florals last summer. The binding is leftover from a friend's son's Bar Mitzvah quilt from a long time ago. (The Bar Mitzvah boy is now a Sophomore in college!) I just did some simple straight-line quilting.

I didn't know what I was going to put on the back, but can you believe this -- I actually already had this Japanese-Hawaiian print from my Hawaii shopping binge from two years ago. What a perfect match! And enough fabric that I didn't even have to piece the back.

This one went to a couple of friends, one of whom works with Bill, who are having their first baby any day now.

I got this picture from the soon-to-be mom after the shower. I hope the whole family likes the quilt as much as the cat does!

red and aqua life-savers

Here's a new quilt now hanging over the back of our couch. I previewed it in this W.I.P. post and now it's finished! It came together really quickly--just squares and half-square triangles.

I admired a design I saw on Red Pepper Quilts and I thought it would be perfect for the reds and aquas I've been hoarding collecting. Since I'm kind of late to the red/aqua party, not only did I have some nice prints in each of the colors, but I also found some where the fabric designer had put them together for me. That floral on the left is my favorite in the whole quilt.

I picked a couple of prints from the top for the back. I waffled about whether to use a blue or a red print for the binding, but in the end I liked all the prints so much, I decided to make a scrappy binding.

I stitched in the ditch around the blocks and then quilted the diagonals through the life-savers. I am so happy about how this one turned out!

The back of our couch is getting pretty crowded -- good thing I have some gifts and commissions coming up!