Those 'Hey Girl' memes weren't that far off!

Ryan Gosling's 'perfect day' activity? Knitting

Click on the link for the article.

Gifted and well received

I ended up widening my seams so the pillow would look more stuffed. It worked . . .sorta. It is fuller, but the corners are still a bit loose. I did try punching in the insert so it would spread out more towards the corners. I didn't try it because I can barely sew a straight line, but Linda suggested a slightly rounded corner. "Use a small drinking glass to draw the arc around each corner. Place the edge of the glass so they align with your sewing line. Follow your straight sewing line on the sides and continue 'round the bend' following the drawn curve, picking up the straight line again on the side". Next time I will give it a shot. 

I am still pleased with how it turned out. I gave it last night and it was well received. The family I gave it to have been so very, very good to me. 

I started working on my Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery Monthly Sampler. It wasn't as easy as I expected. The mark of a good pattern is having to unpick if you mess up. I unpicked twice! If you look closely you can see the larger holes from where I'd already stitched. This month is a deer couple. I had joked with Emily that we should do a side by side comparison of our deer, but at the rate I'm going, I not so sure. Hopefully I get done before February's arrives. I can't get behind on this. I still have 11 blocks of the 2011 Fat Quarter Shop Block of the Month to do. 

Pleased and proud

I am so pleased with the way the pillow turned out. Two wonderful ladies made great suggestions on what to do with the quilt and I had two other wonderful friends who gave in person advice.

I added a flange as suggested by Linda.

I used a textured type fabric as suggested by Doris. I wanted something that was more furnishing like and ended up with micro-suede. I did research on how to sew it and it ended up being a breeze. No different than cotton. No special needle either.

I mitered my corners and using the micro-suede was very helpful. It was very forgiving and being a pillow it doesn't have to be ironed. It took some figuring out though on how to negotiate the 45 degree angle and get the corners sewn together. I even did a flap back. So pleased with myself. I see more pillows in my future.

It has turned out super well, but as I type this and look at it at it I don't like how the corners seem baggy. I made it exactly to the pillow size (18x18), but it just seems kind of limp. Any suggestions? I think I am going to sew in another quarter inch on each side to bring it down to 17.5 inches.

Now for the pillow making

Any suggestions are welcome. Fabric border or no fabric border? If border, how thick? Does border fabric have to match fabric on back? What fabric? What size pillow? The aida is 15x18 and the picture is pretty much all of it.

I love it. It will be hard to part with, but it is going to a very deserving home. I am also happy that I am having a hard time giving it away because I know then that it is worthy on the recipient. If I didn't like it, then why would I gift it?

Good thing I prepared

I am blessed to have electricity, heat and internet right now. There are homes around town right now who are out. I also don't have to be at work. 

I woke up to this.

We got a foot of snow overnight and this afternoon we have high winds to create blizzard conditions. We even got thundersnow last night. I am glad to be home. My door decoration flew off. I will need to retrieve it after things have died down. 

I knew the storm was coming so I stocked up. Megan from Canoe Ridge Creations was doing the same thing. I got to meet here this weekend. I was up in Decorah for a wedding and stopped at the LQS. I thought I recognized her, but to be sure I kept staring. I am pretty sure they noticed my staring. I mentioned to my friend that it was a blogger, but wasn't sure if I should say something. Well I did and I'm glad I did. It was nice to meet her in person after reading so much on her blog. 

I have today to work on my cross stitch. I won't make it for Christmas but that is ok because season 3 starts on January 6th. I HAVE to have it done by then.Yes, I know I sing that song a lot. 

My plan is for 2013 to be the year of 'not buying and finishing'. I am little burned out on quilting. Over stimulated and burned out. Does that make sense. It seems like I see something and everybody has it and I want it. It is also an expensive hobby. I'm going back to my general crafting and cross stitch roots. I signed up for The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery 2013 Sampler. I lurked last year on flickr so this time I decided to join. It is on sale right now so check it out.

The fabric they suggested was tea dyed linen. I do not like linen; I am sticking with aida. I picked oatmeal because it was the darkest before beige. Beige seemed a bit too dark and flat. I hope the light colours show up. From looking at the picture it should be ok. 

OK, off to cross stitch. May have an update later tonight.

Make a demo

If you are making a gift for someone, make a demo. I found out the hard way. There was much unpicking and redoing for this project.

It is a baby height chart. I picked up the idea from this post. The link to the tutorial had been broken. Anyway, here are some pictures of my version. There is a wonk to it and  my first attempt at machine binding did not go well. Now the whole world sees my mis-mitered corners. The back though looks fantastic! I used the Frixon pens for the straight lines at inch increments and really like them. I would make this again. . . now that I've done it once.

Christmas, Christmas time is near

The Chipmunks Christmas song has to be the most annoying song ever, but it is catchy! I find myself wanting a hula hoop every time I hear it.

Christmas time is near and I have been cross stitching like crazy. I HAVE TO GET THIS DONE. I am terrible about keeping project/gift deadlines. I figure it is because my work life is run by deadlines so what do I care about my hobby deadlines. This time though I do care and I WILL get this done.

So I still have to add the people in and I haven't done that yet because I would have to keep looking at the pattern. I have been schlepping it around everywhere for the last week. I have cross stitched in several different libraries as I kill time for wherever I need to be that evening. Does it look three dimensional? I am worried now that the contrast isn't working well enough to make it look 3D.

I have started doing some Christmas decorating. I used an idea from Pinterest to make my door hanger. I love the stitched ribbon. Is there a term for that? I have a pair of shoes that are black and the stitching shows. I really like that look. The pine cones came from Emily's yard. I'd had them for a year in my garage, but then realized that they may have been full of bugs so I washed and baked them. The smell in my kitchen was lovely. True woodsy smell. Speaking of Emily, she has done a ton on her deer. I don't have pictures; I keep forgetting my camera.

Last weekend I was at Home Ec in Iowa City. Cute store. Very eclectic for lack of a better word. One of the sales staff had a cute scarf and she said she had made it from fabric in the store. Very cute fabric, but it is jersey. I bought some and want to make an infinity scarf out of it. I have never sewn jersey before. A friend of mine said I probably have some hand sewing in my future. I anticipate that as well. The fabric is from somebody up in Minneapolis called Ten14 Textiles. It is organic, blah blah. I don't care about organic. I just thought the pattern was nice.

I thought my last picture of the yarn didn't do it justice, so I took another one. I think this one turned out better. As you can tell, I still haven't started on the scarf. I will get there.