Fleece frenzy

I went to JoAnn's yesterday for a spool of thread (just thread!), and well, their fleece was on sale. So was a bunch of other stuff, and I came away laden with bags of more things (dare I say crap?) I really didn't need.

I have had a love/hate relationship with JoAnn ever since she expanded and exposed me to several other crafts I really had no business getting into with an apartment the size of mine (Fimo, for example). I was a knitter before I was a quilter, so I was happy about her yarn selection, but do I really need a pasta machine exclusively for rolling polymer clay? I think she and her brother Michael are conspiring to suck the disposable income from people like me who have an incredibly low resistance to anything even remotely cute and creative.

And yes, I believe that, in order to complete any successful clay project, one does, in fact, need a pasta machine. I'm such a sucker.

Fleecy goodness!

My neighbors have been keeping my plants alive during my many vacations this summer, and I thought blankies for a busy mom of two would be a nice treat. I had bought them Mackinac Island fudge in August but ended up eating it out of frustration during a construction jam in Indiana on the return trip. So this is Plan B:

Gratuitous shot of Archie

I spent more time on this than I intended, so the second is still under construction. If I get home from work early enough today (say, before 8pm -- it is Monday, after all), I can probably finish it up and get back to my homespuns!

Only 90 days 'til Christmas...

I don't even remember whose blog I read that directed me to this site, but I do remember leaving a comment that I may never forgive her for doing so!

I'd never worked with homespuns before, but I saw these and immediately thought of a special someone (who may or may not be checking in here to see what I'm up to and therefore shall remain unidentifiable) who might just fit nicely under a nice flannel throw by the fire this holiday season. So I thought what the heck, I'll try something new, and ordered every blue plaid flannel they had.

Flannel homespuns...can't you just smell the chestnuts roasting?

Initially, I wanted to do a rag quilt, but then I found this pattern (from this book, which is hard to say three times fast but has some good patterns in it). So I loaded up on muslin at the Ice House, and they even dug around in the back room to find me some long-forgotten gray-blue plaid flannel for the backing (at 75% off -- woo-woo!), and I'm good to go!

From "40 Fabulous Quick-Cut Quilts" by Evelyn Sloppy,
whose work, anyway, is actually quite neat

I am, however, finding cutting plaids to be a little challenging. I've complained about pre-washing taking up time, and ironing (thinking ahead, though, I was pretty careful not to distort these so cutting wouldn't be a total nightmare) -- but not being able to stack these babies and produce five or six strips with one slash of the rotary cutter? Ack! It's messing with my quilting mojo!

I suppose I could layer them and cut without regard to the plaid, but I'd be even more frustrated if the lines were crooked (see? I can be a perfectionist when it's called for!). So I'm gutting it out (poor, poor Kate, so eager to put the foot to the floor) and slicing my strips from each individual fat quarter with such accuracy it hurts.

Patience. I am taking a really deep breath and exercising patience.

I hate triangles!

Two easy-to-take-along Christmas gift WIPs got resurrected to go on vacation with me last week. Yes, I took my machine along, the bathroom up at the house needed new curtains. What better excuse did I need?

I'd started the flannel Flying Geese blocks last winter and got distracted (who, me?) by many other projects, and the Zig Zag blocks have been begging for attention ever since being abandoned in favor of that sparkly new jelly roll. Time to get back to them so I don't create my typical week-before-Christmas-sewing-marathon panic!

With six days in the crisp north woods ahead of me, I thought I could just crank these things out in no time and be on to my next project (purchased, of course, at my favorite Ice House Quilt Shop just down the road), but I got mired in Triangle Hell. The individual units went together beautifully (or so I thought...), but when it came time to put the four pieces together -- ugh! The points are all over the place! Despite all my efforts to sew a perfect quarter-inch seam and stitch very carefully through the seam intersection at the top, I came up with a new rule: if I can't get it right after ripping it out twice, well then, it just has to be GOOD ENOUGH.

The best of my so-so blocks is only so-so

I'm sure there are many perfectionists out there grasping for their seam rippers and gasping at the horror of a leaving a blunted end unresolved, and up until last Wednesday night I might have been one of them...but here's the reality of it all: I know for a fact that the recipient of this quilt will not give a rat's you-know-what about whether the pinwheel points are blunt or floating, and will just be happy to have a warm and cuddly handmade gift under the tree (or in the mail -- not giving any clues away here, friends) to use throughout many winters ahead.

It's not being entered in any competition, and nobody will be judging my handiwork. And if they do, so be it...I can take it. That is not to say that I don't take pride in my work (I'm half German, half Austrian, so anal-compulsiveness is woven tightly into every strand of my DNA, been battling against it for decades now) -- it's just that in order to maximize my time, save thread, and preserve my sanity, in this particular case, I am learning to Just. Let. Go.

The Zig Zag presents its own little problems, mainly bulky seams. I expect that with the flannel, but didn't think it would be as much of an issue with these. Again, points mismatched to the point of shame, but here's the start:

Sorry, no iron on vacation!

Any tips? Suggestions? The flannel blocks are done and I have made my peace (or piece!) with them, but I have about 745 more of these little babies to go. OK, 245...it just seems like a lot more.

An age-old question is answered...

Maybe it was just the nostalgia. But it tastes just like I remember, only with bubbles!

Back up north

A morning visitor

How big's a cubit?

Well, I was wrong: driving conditions weren't any better on Sunday. Lots of rain, lots of flooded roads...but not much traffic.

An angry Lake Michigan

At least the rain stopped at some point last night. Then started up again this morning. Maybe by the time I get back home the water in my basement will have receded, I'm sure it's flooded.

Good thoughts go out to Texas this morning, and to anyone else affected by Ike's ire.

When inspiration hits...

...you just gotta roll with the punches!

I had a list of about twelve things I had to do today before I packed everything up and headed to Michigan for the week, but woke up to a hard, steady rain that had been falling all night -- hardly beach weather. It wasn't showing any signs of stopping (and hasn't, yet -- I think this is leftovers of Hannah, maybe, or a precursor of Ike cruising up the Mississippi into the midwest, but it's been raining all frigging day), and Archie wasn't feeling all that great after yesterday's trip to the vet for his booster shot, so the list went out the window. Salvation Army can live without all my old dress-nice-for-work clothes for another week; Bed, Bath & Beyond isn't running out of picture frames any time soon; and the beach house (a wonderful escape when the weather's nice but a little depressing when it's pouring out) certainly isn't going anywhere. Hoping for improved driving conditions tomorrow may be just wishful thinking, but that's what I'm banking on.

So instead of packing, I made a big cup of coffee and confronted a stack of fabric that had absolutely nothing to do with anything I've been working on (go figure), grabbed the rotary cutter, and came up with this:


I really like the look of Denyse Schmidt quilts, and I'd been wanting to do a Hop, Skip & A Jump-like project since I bought her book a while back, and, well, today was apparently the day. I didn't have the patience to actually cut out all her template pieces and instead chose to cut random-width strips of the colored fabric and sew them to random-width strips of Kona Snow and get crooked from there. More of a "Hop, Skip & A Little Shuffle."

Love, love LOVE yellow and pink together!

I can go pack now.