Phew!

This project was going to be quick and easy little boy quilt -- one of those just-get-it-done tops to crank out in a day, or a weekend. I mean, what's simpler than sewing a couple really cute charm packs together...right?

Turns out it's only quick and easy if the charm packs aren't homespuns cut every way but straight. Some of the squares were so distorted and cut so crooked I couldn't use them; there were others that weren't much better but I could square them up a little by adding a solid corner. It worked in some cases, but there are a lot of places where it looks like I had my eyes closed when I pieced it.

It was frustrating, because the last time I used homespuns, I painstakingly ironed and cut the plaids as straight as I possibly could. I was annoyed most of the time I was piecing this one that Moda, with all its cutting technology, couldn't even come close.

But rather than keep that bee in my bonnet, I'm choosing to revel in its "rustic" feel. Some things aren't worth getting worked up over, and I don't think Baby Jack is going to care very much when he arrives, either.

[Fabric:  Two "Sunshine" by April Cornell charm packs and various Kona solids]

Time flies...

Not sure how it all of a sudden got to be the middle of January, but here I am. Sorry to be gone so long -- again!

The year started off with quite a bit of freelance work, which is very welcome in these parts. It's keeping Archie in catnip, but it's also keeping me away from my sewing machine! I did manage to dig out some aging charm packs last week and start in on something new. It's simple, but going very slowly given how little time I've put toward it so far.

Archie's ready to get sewing!

My Christmas visit home was nice, relaxing, and I had some great visits with friends and family. The slipcover jammies were a big hit -- so big, in fact, my Monkey Girl decided she absolutely HAD to try them on right then and there, in the restaurant bathroom, which she did, and we all had to take turns going in to see her model them.

No, this was not taken in the restaurant bathroom.

She and American Girl Samantha have been wearing them every night since.

As "Sound of Music" moments go, I think this was one of my best!

Blog? What blog?

It's been a while, hasn't it? What started out as an intent to write when I had something finished to show off turned into a whirlwind of projects where lots got started and very little was getting done. That shouldn't be a surprise.

Anyway, over the past month I've been busy crafting, and working a little, and blogging has definitely taken a back seat. My apologies. I'm going to try to be more diligent in the New Year, but I also hate making resolutions, so we'll see how long that lasts.

But five days before Christmas, I am done with all but one project, which is an easy one so I've saved it for last.

Since Thanksgiving, I made my Christmas cards...

and stenciled some stationery...

made my sister an apron...

and decorated a whole lot of Christmas cookies.

But the biggest project this year was one I never intended to do.

You see, this Fall my Monkey Girl's mother decided to rehab the vacation house up north, which meant, basically, clearing it out and taking it down to the studs. The house has been in her family for thirty years, and I've been going up there for twenty-seven of them. There was a lot of history there, and memories, and lots of work to be done. I went up to help in September, right about the time she decided that the sofa, a wonderfully huge, comfortable sectional she'd had in her first apartment here in Chicago, needed to go. The slipcover wouldn't match the new decor, and it was going to cost just as much to reupholster as to buy a new one.

Unbeknownst to her, before Habitat for Humanity came to pick up all the donated building materials and furniture, I rescued the slipcover. All thirty-some yards of it.

I was going to make a quilt out of it, and still will at some point -- but a few weeks ago I got a PajamaGram catalog in the mail and the wheels started turning -- and I couldn't get them to stop. When they finally did, I had this:

Monkey Girl, her mother, and Samantha the American Girl Doll are all getting matching pj's this Christmas!

I used coordinating stripe from my stash, and some sweatshirt material I was saving for just such an emergency. There was a mile of piping, which I used on the bottom of Monkey Girl's top (it reverses to the slipcover fabric), and made more from the stripe for the bigger pants. The only drawback was that none of the fabric pieces were long enough to do an adult-length leg, so Mom's getting hers cropped, but that's it. I'm pretty proud of the results!

And besides being in love love love with piping now, here's my favorite part: the half-inch buttons for the reversible top. Too cute!

Hope everyone's holiday crafting is going well!

And Merry Christmas!

Best meal EVER...

I have the most wonderful food hangover this morning, thanks to my cousin and her neverending culinary skills. It's no wonder everyone in the family looks forward to Thanksgiving all year long!

Hope everybody had a great turkey day!

When procrastination is a good thing (sort of)...

Most of the time procrastination gets a bad rap.

I admit, there are times when it involves periods of outright sloth, vegging on the couch watching multiple reruns of "Grey's Anatomy" or blog surfing instead of addressing the task at hand -- but there are times when it actually pays off.

I like to think of it as "productive procrastination" -- avoiding projects by getting a whole bunch of other items (things that themselves have been put off, no doubt) checked off the to-do list.

Such was the case last week when I should have been working another project. Not only did I wash, spackle and caulk my windows, I got packages shipped that had been sitting around for ages, took my car in for service, changed the furnace filter, hauled my paper and plastic to the recycling center, organized some fabric, and dug out a UFO that's been sitting around since...well, let's just say Detroit was still producing Oldsmobiles when I originally started it.

I have a feeling it was abandoned because a) it was my first so-so foray into paper piecing b) I'd put it off so long that it wasn't finished by its Thanksgiving deadline (a case where procrastination was a bad thing), but this year? It'll be finished with time to spare!

It's a weak rationale for not doing what I'm supposed to, but it assuages some of the guilt.

Taking the easy way out...

OK, I admit it:  I was really tired of these fabrics.

I probably should have put them away for a few weeks and come back to them when I had a fresh perspective, but I also wanted to get the last top DONE. So I took the easy way out and did 6.5" blocks with sashing.

I worked through quite a few different ideas for this one, but they all came out way too busy, and ugly, much like the first one I did. So I stuck with simple, and didn't let the yellow overpower everything like it tends to do.

It's a relief to have all three tops done -- so now I can stress about getting them quilted in time for Christmas. It's only six weeks away!

Life's a beach...

So here's my latest Paintstiks project in its 15" x 15" entirety. Since it was inspired by beach glass, I thought it was fitting to bring it back to where the idea began.

I drove back to South Haven this weekend to assess the damage from last week's freaky storm. Apparently the combination of extremely low pressure, rain and high winds created the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane -- weather rarely (if ever) seen here in the Midwest -- and I imagined the worst as I watched The Weather Channel reports of the storm screaming across Lake Michigan. But outside of a couple loose shingles and finding somebody else's screen door in the driveway, the little cottage stood its ground as it has no doubt done for the past 98 years. There are signs that the waves, which must have been monstrous, came almost 100 yards up the beach; some of the snow fences have been leveled by the sheer volume of sand blown against them, and there's flotsam everywhere. It must have been a doozy, but you'd never know it now -- the past few days have been the calmest and quietest that I can remember.

I drank my coffee on the deck this morning, in my jammies, slippers and a fleece-lined jacket. Thirty-six degrees, perfectly clear skies, and not a even a wisp of wind -- no cars, no people, no noise at all. It's the total opposite of my neighborhood in Chicago with the El roaring by, school buses, kids, sirens and car alarms -- I sometimes wonder why I live there.

Maybe it's just so I appreciate here more?