Never ending baby blanket

One of my friends was going to have a baby and she wanted it to be a surprise, so she wanted general items. This is rather hard to do now days. It seems the world is content to deal with boy or girl and nothing inbetween. Since I am a lover of all things thrift I went to the ARC stores and got her about 10 items that would be great for a boy or girl. I wanted to add a little something personal to the gifts, so I started knitting a baby blanket.

Now I started knitting about a year ago and I have done mostly scarves for myself and one for a friend (which I believe I posted on here). I recently tried a jacket for my new cousin Liam and it turned out pretty well, but it took me 6 months because I'm still new at it. This blanket has taken me WAY longer and its only about half way finished! I wasn't able to give it to her at the shower, so I had planned to give it to her when they baby was born, which has already happened. (She had a little girl.) SO my NEW plan is to give it to them at Christmas. (Christ almighty it better be done by then!)

Now at the time I started this no one knew what she was having, so I picked what I thought was a very general stripe yarn. I thought it would be good for a boy and still fit a girl. Ironically now that I look at it I think it fits a girl more, but hey who cares cause she had one! (thank you!)

I have already gone through one ball of yarn and about half way through the second one. I have a third in my knitting bag, so I seriously hope that is all I need. Originally when I started this I thought I would only need two (not a good thought on my part), but I went with smaller needles so I screwed myself a little there. The yarn I picked is still available at several stores, but the dye lot is not the same, so the ball I'm on now is the wrong dye lot. I figure if its in the middle it will look more like I planned it to be a slightly different shade. The bottom and top part are the same dye lot, so I should be ok to make it work out.

(you can see Stue lying next to me ready to attach any stray yarn... which I oh so love... NOT)

The first ball made great stripes, but the second one seems to be making misplaced stripes. I must have done it differently when I started the first one, but I honestly don't remember doing anything special. At this point I will chalk it up to it being the middle section and it just gets to be a bit odd. I will have to work harder on the last one to make it be more striped again.



I work on it for about 30 minutes to an hour each morning before work. Some nights I work on it to help me relax and sleep. On my days off I still work on it in the morning, but thats about it. I tend to work on other projects, as I currently have several going. I love how I do that to myself. Silly me!



vibrant quilt project update

With the help of my mother and her quilting supplies, I was able to get MOST of the squares cut out.

I had wanted to do 10inch squares, but since the fabric shrunk a lot more than we thought, I ended up with 9 inch squares. (Well I cut out 9 1/2 inch on each side to allow for sewing.)

I had to cut down two sides to get straight edges and that limited me even more. Sometimes it was just a tiny bit, but other times one side would be so streched out that I lost alot in order to get a straight edge.

The cutting wasn't too bad until the last 7 or so. Then it was a back challenge. I said I cut out MOST of my squares. I calculated it and I need 12 down (to go from top of the bed to the bottom) and 8 across (side to side, not including the border which will make it the length I want on both sides), so that means I need 96. I was able to get 64 from what I had.

There were 8 strips of fabric in each package and I had 4 packages. I now need to get 2 more packages, wash them, iron them, and then cut them out. This is the part of quilting that is NOT so fun for me. Time consuming for me.
The bunch does look so good together. I can't wait to start getting it all together.

I need to hurry up and get the next two packages because they were on clearance when I got them. I found the perfect border fabric too. I will have to try and get a shot of it today and upload it. Oh and this is the blue I originally forgot to picture.

I love the detail on this one.

Anyway I have to get ready for work now. I can't wait for another day off to get some work done on this!

Moment of Zen

Grace wanted the sunlight and to be near me while I was making jewerly.... so she feel asleep in my tool box. The box is no more than 12 x 10 and she is sleeping on pliers, needlenose, bent pliers, crimpers, and a few other random tools.

The power of the sun.



vibrant quilt project

I will be starting a new quilt project. I wanted something vintage, but also something that would look cottage/country. I think I found the perfect combo in a precut package I found at work.

 

 

There is another print in light blue, but I forgot to take a picture of it. I will have to do that later. I'm happy that they all work so well together. I might make the border either a purple or a light green. I'm leaning more towards purple since it would be more contrasting. Any ideas?

It will have 10 inch squares and a border about 7inches wide. The backside will be one solid color (I think... haven't desided if I also want to do the backside.) The colors are very vibrant, but have a soothing cottage country feel. I think it will turn out pretty good when I get done. I don't know how to do all the super fancy detail quilting work, so I might just skip that part and do ribbon ties to secure the quilt and batting together.

Anyway I washed and pressed the fabric being used, so I need to do the cutting and sewing. I haven't gotten the border fabric yet, but I know what I am going to use. I just want to be sure of the size before I get it.

I thought you might want to take a look. I got the idea from a magazine called Perfect for Precuts from Better Home and Gardens Special Interest Publications.  It one of the several ones I picked up from Border's going out of business sale.  (40% off of Magazines is too much to pass up!) The article is called "Sew Easy" from designer Anna Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts.

 Well I'm off to get cutting! Let me know what you think!



Crystal Cluster ring

In the book Crystal Jewerly Creations there is a ring called "Fruity Cluster" and that is what I used as an inspiration for this ring. Its VERY easy to do.

This is the book:



What I used:

12 head pins

1 ring with 3 loops

2 deep blue gems

4 gray luster gems

4 deep purple gems

1 light purple gem

On the first loop on the ring I put 2 gray luster gems (one on each side of all the other gems), 1 dark blue gem (for the middle), and 1 dark purple gem (for the middle). The middle loop on the ring only had 2 dark purple on either side and the 1 light purple gem in the middle. The last loop had the same as the first loop. Thats it! Easy as pie!