Tag Archives: sewing projects

What happened to November?

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Well, I got really, really, really busy with several projects: knitting, sewing, refinishing and reupholstering a desk chair, sewing, knitting, sewing, knitting, and getting ready for a new addition to our home.

I finished (finally) the November socks for my daughter. These socks seemed to take forever. I put them on hold while I was helping my sister recover from surgery, then one of her precious greyhounds got involved, our two closest grandkids moved to Michigan, my birthday happened, and the list could go on and on. Here are the socks in all their glory.

November Socks
November Socks legs
Closeup of leg and truest color shot

I love the colors and it’s really hard to capture how pretty they really are. The honeycomb pattern was fairly easy but I did have to concentrate on those rows.

My sister gave me some fabric with a plate and silverware design so I made six placemats for my daughter.

These two chairs have been sitting in my basement since I rescued them from iPad aunt’s garage in 2015. I stripped one chair, refinished it, and put on new upholstery suede fabric. I took lots of pictures during the process but I’ll just show you the before and after. If you really want to see all the work-in-progress pictures, let me know and I’ll try to make some sense of them for you. Personally the before and after pictures should be enough. I plan to redo the other chair but that will have to wait till next spring as I have to do some of the work outside.

Before…..
After…..

This quick sewing project took about an hour or two. I made mesh laundry bags to send with all of the socks I made with the hand-dyed yarn we dyed in June.

The Karate Kid’s socks were next on the project list and I finished them in record time (for me at least). I used this Syncopation Sock pattern that I’ve used before. The pattern is written for toe-up socks but I made these from the top down. I love the colors and wish I could keep them for myself! They deserve a post of their own so I’ll just show the finished project for now.

All of the socks I knit for my three grands and my daughter along with the mesh bags and placemats will be boxed up and sent to Colorado ASAP.

Another quick and easy sewing project was this leash. The fabric is a heavy brushed cotton that looks like a patchwork quilt. I had everything in my sewing stash so, in less than 30 minutes, it was done.

I just started this sweater (I’m just using one color) the other day and have a deadline of December 16 to get it off the needles…

…because we are getting ready for a new addition to our family.

A female miniature schnauzer puppy! No pictures of her right now but I will soon. Very soon! For the next several days puppy-proofing the house will be our #1 priority!

Happy belated New Year!

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2020 is here and I hope it brings you much happiness, joy, and good health!

I have a new sewing project: a quilt for our soon-to-be seven-year-old grandson.

When I was visiting him in November, I noticed that the quilt he was using was starting to fall apart.  He loves airplanes and his favorite color is green.  This fabric was perfect for the backing!  I purchased backing fabric and blue fat quarters several years ago and there they sat. 

Going through my fabric stash, I found several greens that would play well together with the blues.  Solid white will round out the color scheme.

The quilt front will be blues, greens, and white.  The backing fabric will tie it all together.

Les Monsieurs by Tamara Kate for Michael Miller Fabrics #DC6095

Knitting projects are still hanging in there.  More about them soon.

What are you working on?

 

A new obsession

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I haven’t been posting much lately.  Things have gotten a bit hectic at home and at work. 

Our office has a two-day conference this coming week and someone has to organize the logistics with the hotel, meeting space and menus, order the meeting packets and give-aways, design and mail invitations, postcards, meeting packets and newsletters, collect the registration data, design and print the programs, table signs, and nametags.

That someone is me.  While I like doing all those things, I do not want to look at a computer screen.

Sorry.

But…I have been busy not knitting.

A few months ago I decided I was going to do something from my bucket list.  Don’t ask me what else is on it as I just started making a bucket list.

Anyway, making a quilt is on that list so I’m making quilts for my grandchildren.  I just finished two twins bed sized quilt tops and plan to piece the backing as well to make both sides fun.

The twins share a bedroom so I made theirs similar.

E-quilt-2013

Both are the same “Stack and Slash” technique using mostly the same fabrics in each.  When I saw this on Chasing Cottons blog, I knew it would be possible for me to do.   The tutorial from Kate Conkil was easy to follow.  I used three stacks of fabric instrad of two as I was making a larger quilt.  I also had to add some fabric tp make it wider for the twin bed.  Extra blocks were cut up and pieced together for a horizontal column.

Z-quilt-2013

I used Kona solids and some cotton scraps from other sewing projects.   I even used some fabric scraps from the dresses I made them a couple of years ago.  (Yes, the one that got eaten by the Destroyer.)  I bought backing fabric when I was in Ohio this past July.  I don’t have the backing plan finalized but I do have it narrowed down to two.  Or three.

The Stack and Slash method seemed like the perfect technique since no seams have to match up.  Adding the row of horizontal stripes negated that right away but I did still got everything to line up.  You might be able to enlarge the photos by clicking on them.  I think.

I plan to quilt these on my new sewing machine.  Simple lines.  Simple wavy lines.  Simple wonky lines most likely.  But that is a long way off.