Not All Who Wander Are Lost, Part 1

I have finished the first three blocks for my "Not All Who Wander Are Lost" block-of-the-month quilt from Fandom in Stitches!  Here they are:

"Bag End" designed by Breanne Cremean

"Bree" designed by Regina Grewe

"Weathertop"  designed by by Soma Acharya 

Pretty Cunning

There is a sci-fi tv show that the hubby and I enjoyed a few years back... and a particular line from that show well describes a certain Christmas present that I made for him this year...

"A man walks down the street in that hat, people know he's not afraid of anything!"

Yes, I made him a hat just like Jayne Cobb's in "Firefly!"

I found a pattern by Chloe Sparkle (check it out on her blog, "The Hundredth Monkey" here.) and found the perfect colors of yarn (from Vanna's choice, if you must know) and started knitting "in the round."  Perhaps I should have practiced a little bit of "in the round" knitting before attempting this project... and perhaps I should have heeded Chloe's warning that this pattern was for a "BIG" head... because the hat came out very large.  It was positively gigantic on me and even too big for my hubby's large noggin.  Thankfully I was able to make a barely noticeable tuck in the back so that it could be worn!

But now the hubby can confidently walk down the street with his head and his ears warm... and people will know he's not afraid of anything!

We have windows now! Windows are cool!

Yes, we actually DID have windows in our old apartment... but they were not COOL windows.

They were old city windows.... the kind of windows that you had to keep covered 24/7 because they lined up with the windows of the neighbors house 3 feet away... and they were the kind of windows that you had to shrink wrap in 5 layers of plastic in the wintertime and then they would swell shut and refuse to open in the summer.

Now that we've moved, we have NICE windows!  These are the kind of windows that you can easily slide open in the summertime for a nice breeze.  They are the kind of windows that you can sit at and gaze out of at the beautiful tree-covered hills outside... These windows actually function as windows!

And as functional windows, I believe they deserve some functionally beautiful window treatments!

To celebrate autumn and the Thanksgiving season I made quick valences to dress up the dining room.

This was an incredibly easy look to achieve... I simply hung some tea-towels over the curtain rod!  I added a coordinating napkin in the middle to hide the overlap and turned it diagonally to make it look sophisticated.

That gave me some time to sew some real curtains and valences.  I made the curtains out of canvas drop cloths from Home Depot because I wanted them to be a nice, neutral backdrop... and because it was more cost effective than buying "home decor" fabric.  I did have some nice green fabric in my stash that was begging to be used... so I made some simple green valences to add a little color.  I wanted to keep the valences simple so as not to detract from the nice molding above the windows.

On the back of the valences I added a small button at the top so that I could embellish my window treatments for the seasons.  For the holidays I hung some cheery red bows on them!

Fantastic!

Quilting for Geeks

Several months ago I stumbled onto a wonderful site called Fandom in Stitches.  Basically, it is quilting designed for geeks.  If you have an obsession with classic video games, science fiction movies, vampires, or Lord of the Rings, chances are that they have a quilt block or two that would appeal to you.  Pretty much all of their patterns are paper-pieced, which happens to be my favorite piecing method, and all of their patterns are free!  It was the perfect place to find inspiration for family Christmas presents.

My sister and cousin are really into the Harry Potter series, so I made them Hogwarts Crest pillows:

Another sister of mine is slightly obsessed with Doctor Who, so I made her a TARDIS tumbling through the vortex.

My youngest cousin is still really into Disney's Cars, so I made him Lightning McQueen, complete with a shiny gold lightning bolt on the side.

Another cool thing about Fandom in Stitches is that they have a photo group on Flickr that allows fans to post photos of projects they have made using Fandom in Stitches patterns.  Then they also post those photos on their blog every Tuesday (and offer prizes!).  You can see my work-in-progress photos posted on Fandom here!  

Also, if you would like to check out some additional detail shots, you can peruse my Flickr photos here!

...and just one last little thing that I am SUPER excited about... Fandom in Stitches is hosting a "Not All Who Wander Are Lost" Lord of the Rings Block-of-the-Month quilt project!!  Every month they will post a new block or two and I intend to sew them up so that at the end of the year I will be able to put together an entire Lord of the Rings quilt!  I am so excited!

Thoughts for the new year...

As the "Christmas Craziness" is winding down I find that I am able to take a deep breath and take a step back.  I finished all of the projects that were then given away as gifts and right now I have no deadlines to worry about.  This is the perfect time for re-organizing my crafting space and cleaning up all of the schnibbles of fabric and paper that have become a carpet.  Perhaps it is also a good time to re-organize my blog?

At the beginning of the year I really tried to post something at least once a week, and for most of the beginning of the year I did just that.  Of course things got crazy as we moved to a new town in the summer and then the holiday season snuck up on me and I got distracted with life... but overall I'd say it was a productive year.  I was able to share over 19 projects with you guys!

Looking towards 2013 I still have lots of projects that I can't wait to get started on and some new things that I want to try.  It is still a goal of mine to post stuff weekly and regularly, but in addition to my posts of finished projects, I am thinking of doing "work-in-progress" posts along the way.  I started this blog as a means to motivate myself to finish craft projects and I am often working on multiple projects at the same time and some of my projects take longer than others.  So I suppose that I am looking for some feedback from you, my faithful followers... would you be interested in seeing weekly "work-in-progress" posts of the things that I'm working on?  Which 2012 post did you enjoy the most?  Is there anything that you would like to see more or less of?

Thanks for sharing 2012 with me!  Here's to a great 2013!

--Doodle

Striped Pillowcase

Where's Waldo?

The question went through my mind as I worked on this pillowcase for my sister...

She's studying at RPI and joined the rugby team there... so I made her a rugby-inspired pillowcase in her school colors.  Apparently there are a lot of wide stripes in traditional rugby apparel... and RPI's colors are red and white.  

And now that the Christmas season is upon us, I am also reminded of candy canes...

Wedding Rings

Two of our good friends got married a couple weeks ago and I made them some special pillowcases as a gift.  I found a traditional quilt design called "double wedding rings" and knew that it would be perfect for the occasion!  At first the pattern seemed quite daunting... for one thing it has curves.  Curves are tricky to sew.  Pieced curves that have to match up at the ends are even trickier.  ...and I'd never really done a curvy quilt before.  But I decided that I should challenge myself and try it!  I found free printable templates at french-knots.com and got to work.

I knew they liked "autumnal" colors so I decided to go with warm golden browns and a little bit of red and green.  The not-so-fun part was cutting out dozens of little trapezoids from the various fabrics... and by dozens I actually mean 196...  Those little trapezoids were then sewn into arcs.

At this point I arranged the arcs into the double-ring design and tried to make sure that there was a nice visual balance.  Then it was time to sew the arcs into football-shapes.

This required matching up the bottom corners of the arcs so that the red squarish pieces lined up properly... and sewing these curves meant bending the arcs around backwards and pinning them like crazy!

See what I mean?  Once all of the football-shapes were finished I could then sew them together onto the center pieces.

Here is where the template instructions stopped... Now If I was making a huge quilt I would just keep connecting rings until it was the size I wanted, but here I wanted to use the rings as a visual element on a pillowcase.  So I kind of made the rest up... to keep things relatively simple I just appliqued the rings onto the background fabric. 

Then once that was done I had this crazy idea that I should do some fancy leafy shaped quilting around the rings.  Again, this was something that I had never done before... and perhaps I should actually take a quilting class someday... There is probably a much better way to do this... but oh well.

In order to make my leafy design uniform and consistent I drew up some designs and printed them on freezer paper (much like I did on my stenciled pillowcase) and ironed them in place.  Then I sandwiched my batting between the top and the back and sewed over the lines on the sewing machine.  I wouldn't recommend this method for several reasons, but mainly because I ended up having to fold the pillowcase up and maneuver it around my machine and the freezer paper started peeling off as it was folded and bent.  Pinning the paper kept it in place, but it still shifted somewhat.

But finally, FINALLY! After all of that, it was a simply matter of sewing some panels onto the back to create a pair of lovely pillow shams!  (I constructed the backs much like I did for my "No-Slip Pillowcase.")

I have to say that I am pretty proud of my first "curvy" pieced design with it's "fancy leafy shaped quilting!" I learned a lot and even though they aren't perfect, I still think they look cool!