Baby Boy Quilt

Instead of a term paper for my women's history class (Spring 2006 I believe it was), I opted for an art project and that is when I made my first quilt.  It was a simple "Around the World" quilt, which consists of an arrangement of plain squares.  Now that I have a sewing machine again, I am excited to try a more complicated block quilt.


My friend Amber is having a baby boy in October, which gives me the perfect excuse to piece together a 20-30 block mini-quilt.  I already had this unspeakably adorable hot air balloon fabric, which I picked up from the Marden's store in Waterville, Maine.  The rest of the fabrics are from the local craft store here in Vermont, Knits & Bolts.  A brand new top-quality nonstick ruler made quick work of cutting up the squares yesterday.

I soon realized the 1/8 yard of each fabric was more than enough for two quilts - the second one will be up for sale.  I feel like a genius of efficiency!

Fox Stole Progress

Here is a quick image to show where I am going with the fox stole.

The slant is formed by
decreasing on the right every rs row
and increasing on the left every ws row

I've done and redone this much over and over, but reassuringly it gets better each time.  I am pretty happy with the top portion now, but a proper fox tail should be fat, fluffy and fabulous.  I'm not seeing that yet.  So I had to take a break from it this past weekend. I now prepare to start all over again, looking forward to the results...

Packers Pillow

Way back in February, I showed you this Green Bay Packers pillow I was making for my favorite Cheesehead!  My sewing machine is finally up and running, so here is the finished project...

a very late Valentine present!

 











Ned loves his pillow!



Summer Stripes Boatneck

I finished it awhile ago, but here for your viewing enjoyment is my Sirdar Summer Stripes dk sweater!



My sister and I have a saying.  Well actually we have many, but here's one that I want to share.  You know that certain item of clothing that you always turn to lately?  You just got some adorable new jeans, and even though you wore them to last night's barbecue over at Suzie's, tonight you're going out to dinner with Jane and she wasn't at Suzie's, so you go ahead and wear the same jeans.  These are what we'd call your 5 out of 7 day jeans.  Well this is now my 5 out of 7 day sweater.

Copyfox

Oh, the life of a struggling artist.

It is always a good feeling when you receive a request from someone who wants to commission a project!  Recently Like a month ago, a girl from Tucson messaged me on Etsy about trying to recreate this chunky knit fox stole.

Eugenia Kim for Anthropologie:
nearly 300 big ones!

One thing I've had on the back burner of my to-do list is learning amigurumi (the art of crocheted or knitted dolls).  Most use crochet over knitting, as it makes a sturdier fabric.  However, I will always prefer the look of knitting over crochet.  The fox stole has given me just the push I needed to perfect this new skill!

Summer Stripes

As I've mentioned, I am a big fan of the UK fiber and design company Sirdar.  For the past few months I've had my eye on their new cotton/acrylic blend Summer Stripes Dk and the Summer Safari design book they have released with it.  There are so many beautiful, modern designs that I knew I could learn from, so on my recent visit to Scottsdale's Knit Happens I decided that purchasing this book was a worthwhile investment to put on my credit card write off as a business expense!


It was a tough choice whether I would start with the Boat-Neck Top with Turnback Cuffs or the V Neck Tank...and the color choice was even more difficult.  Ultimately I went with the Boat-Neck in their color choice, Oasis (312).


I finished the first half within about five days, meticulously choosing which skein to join based on keeping perfectly ordered stripes.  Now on my second half (pictured below), I decided to mix it up a bit, and you can see there is a little "reflection" in the middle where I changed yarns and started backwards with the new skein.  I can say for sure now I think it's more interesting to mix it up when using a self-changing yarn like this than to try and keep perfect order.

Home Sweet Home

I am so happy to finally be back in Maine! Even though it was fun to catch up with family and friends and get some long-awaited sunshine, I definitely confirmed that making the big move to New England was the right decision for me.

To make my trip

e v e n   l  o  n   g    e    r

it took me three days of travel just to get home!

Between flying standby, and nationwide crazy weather, I spent Wednesday night in Chicago, Thursday night in Philadelphia, and Friday afternoon I miraculously made it onto an overbooked flight into Bangor, Maine.

From the sky I could see there was already green grass on the ground and buds on the trees. Only my beloved Mount Katahdin was still covered in snow. I am sad to have missed out on a lot of the transition into spring. Where have I been for the past month?