2007, The Year in Stuff

Stuff I made, that is. It's only a month into 2008 and really, how can I be expected to have all of 2007 wrapped up the moment it's ended? Why do you think we don't pay taxes until April? You need time to get your shit together! It's just impossible for me to sum it all up when I've been too busy living it.
So here it is, I call it: All the Stuff I Made in 2007.
(You can see full sized pictures of everything above here.)
You may hate me for saying this but I feel like there should be more. I know that some of you may think that's foolish while others of you may scoff at my meager offerings but it's strange to see one aspect of your year all laid out in one place. It feels very different to look at it all in a pile like this than to be living it and making it. It all seems so small when I look at it as a group, with a little distance. I would love to make some sort of graph that compares my crafting accomplishments to the other things that happen in my life and see how the two are intertwined. Maybe that should be an on going project for 2008, a crafting progress report. I keep a spreadsheet on my computer of the number of seconds that I animate each day at work. I really love seeing things represented in numbers like that. Is that too nerdy?
Well anyway, I give a fond farewell to 2007. Happy New Year!

What?

Wait, what's today's date? It is? Huh. Well I guess I blew that one. So my New Years posting mojo kind of petered on me. Don't worry, you won't get gypped out of my 2007 round up. Let's just tie up a couple of loose ends here.
First, a cart. It's from Ikea and I decoupaged pieces of wrapping paper from the Paper Source onto the drawer fronts, top and sides before assembling it.

I was planning on bringing this to work to keep my crap in and wheel from stage to stage but in the end I decided that the decoupage was a little too delicate for studio life. Instead it's staying home and holding different crap in my craft room.
As you can see, Stabone really digs it.

And here, ladies and gentlemen, is my very last craft of 2007.

It is a baby quilt for the little boy that a friend from high school will be having this year. She had a shower on December 30 so I chose a project that I could complete after my Christmas gifts were done but could be finished before the shower with mostly hand work since we would be in Minnesota for the entire time with limited access to a sewing machine.

The idea to hand quilt around large motifs in the fabric came from Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts. The quilt in the book is very girly with large flowers. I had a hard time finding a fabric that would be suitable for a boy but still cool and not too cutesy. I don't like cutesy. I bought all three fabrics(front, back and binding) from Sew Mama Sew. You can find them here.

So, sorry for the long lag in updating, we've been very busy with work. Season 3 of Moral Orel is going to be incredible. People, this is a great show. You probably don't watch it but you should. The first 15 episodes are available on DVD and I know you have Netflix so you have no excuse. You can also see clips and some full episodes at the Adult Swim website but it's really best watched in sequential order so get to work on that DVD now so you can be ready when season 3 airs! AND! I just check iTunes and all of the episodes are there but not in the right order. There's an episode guide here if you're actually interested.
And if you want to see some more stop-motion goodness, Harv produced some animation for a Soulja Boy video recently. I laid low for much of the production (I was making Christmas gifts) but I did make the costumes for the puppets. I'm pretty clueless about what's happening in the rap world (I assume that you're hip to it though, right?) but apparently Soulja Boy is quite popular with the kids these days. So check that out too. I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure you people don't have nearly enough stop-motion in your lives. It is by far the craftiest type of film making, in my opinion.

The Complete Package

I know that I said I was sending out my doll quilt a few days ago but I didn't actually do it until yesterday. That's just me. You know how it is. Well maybe you don't but Harv knows how it is, with me at least.
But it is now in the mail so I thought I would share with you some little peeks at packaging Lady-style.
First, there has to be a very Denyse Schmidt-y card. This one is a little mini card with a mini envelope that is leftover from our wedding (we had a weird postcard theme that extended to little mailbox favors with mini mail inside).
Second, I stuff the card and the sweet little quilt (goodbye my love!) into a lovely handmade (by me) envelope. The envelope is made out of craft paper and sewn together, not glued. I fold over the top, sew it shut and then,
step three, add a handmade Lady Harvatine sticker! Voila.

In other news, look at what I did!
Can you see it? I installed a sprinkler! Yes, I know, hold your applause. We had this ugly patch of nothing in front of our house and since I wanted to plant some vegetables this year I thought this would be a perfect spot for them. There was already one sprinkle in the ugly patch but it didn't reach the entire area so I dug up the pipe, chopped off the end, added more pipe and another sprinkler! It was great! Then of course I buried it all and planted my vegetables. So fingers crossed. This is my biggest gardening attempt ever. I'm hoping to be up to my eyeballs in tomatoes this summer. It's going to be great!

Hatching new friends

Sweet little birds are hatching all over the place here in Make Out City. First, I took my new treasures from ReproDepot along with some frames from Ikea and put together some easy-as-pie artwork.
I love love love these fabrics and picked them out especially for this purpose. But of course now I have a whole bunch left over, ripe for the sewing. It's always so difficult for me to come up with projects that I deem worthy for truly wonderful fabrics like these. I definitely think that the bees may be destined for a purse though.
The second hatchling is this:
I made the pattern myself. I think he may be a little too fat but he will be added to the Easter tree nonetheless.

See You Soon!

Well internet, we're off. Harv and I are going to Europe with his parents for about a week and a half. Oh, how I will miss you!

I'm leaving you with these nerdy his and hers passport holders that I made for Harv and I. Don't worry, we'll wear these under our shirts.
See you soon!

You Too Can Make Any Beer Taste Cold!

Quilting away...finishing up the "Empire" quilt and catching up on "Ugly Betty" and "Desperate Housewives" on abc.com. Have you tried watching the shows that they have up there? It is quite enjoyable. I only started watching "Ugly Betty" because I needed some more sewing entertainment and it was just sitting there for free. I have seen every episode but never watched it on tv. Very fun.
In lieu of a finished quilt I thought that I would share the pattern for the Coors Light cozy. It's not so much a pattern as a rough tutorial with the chart that I made.

Cold Tasting Beer Cozy
Use worsted weight yarn, different kinds if necessary, to get the right colors. You need red, black, white, gray(for the silver can) and blue(for the frost brewed liner). Gauge is roughly 18st and 24 rows =4 in, but it doesn't need to be exact.
Using US size 8 needles, cast on 35 stitches with the gray yarn. Don't worry about your cast-on row being a little tighter, it's good if it wraps under the bottom of the can. Knit rows in stockinette stitch. Knit 10 stitches, place a marker, knit first row of chart, place marker and then finish out the row. Follow the chart, working inbetween your markers, to the end and then bind off. Sew the two short ends of the rectangle together to make a tube. Insert cold beer can of your choice. Open beer, drink beer, enjoy how cold your beer tastes and how not cold your hand is.
*Notes on chart: Purple = gray, all other colors = themselves. Disregard all of the pen marks...they mean nothing!
**Note on knitting color work: If you have never knit more than one color like this before do not fret! Here is a great little article the explains the basics!

Lillian Stuck

I painted a painting! I had some acrylic paints out to paint some figures for another one of these and I was inspired to paint something a little more fun and interesting (for me, no offense Harv).This is based on an idea that I had a while ago. I love cats (obviously) and I love images of stylized cats that are more like big blobs than really animals. Cats really are very good at contorting themselves into tiny little legless balls or big fat blobs with paws and eyes. This painting is Lilly, stuck in some sort of tube, maybe a chimney. I like to think of cats as big masses of fluff that can change shape and be stuffed into different containers. I really like how this painting turned out. I don't know if I'll paint cats stuck in other things or more like this. I like how she's just on display but doesn't really care. Very much like the real Lilly.

Birthday Wrap-Up

Some handmade birthday gifts I recieved last week:
First, this lovely afghan knit by my mom. I suggested the color and she chose the pattern because there was a cat laying on the afghan in the picture. That works for me!
She's been on a big knitting kick lately. By big knitting I mean super chunky yarn on huge needles. This is her third afghan in about two months! I love the look of cables and other patterns worked in a big gauge like this.Next, these personallized nesting dolls painted by my friend Melissa! I was so excited to get these. It was so much fun opening them up for the first time. She really did a great job of picking out different themes that I would like. The first three even look like me! The first one is sewing, the second singing, the third holding a bunch of flowers, the fourth is a cute little owl (there are so many adorable, stylized owls and birds out there that I have developed a little obsession) and the last is a little Lillian! This one is by far my favorite. She's wearing a tiny babushka with fish bones all over it! So cute. The good news for those of you who I'm sure are very jealous of these dolls is that you can order your very own personalized set! Here at Melissa's Etsy shop you can order a set and give her all of the information she needs to paint them up for you or someone you think is in need of such a sweet gift.
Mine are great. We had a small game night to celebrate my birthday with a few close friends and the various dolls were employed as mascots and good luck charms. The Lillian was by far the most coveted. I insisted that she stay by me and help my team but Harv kept swiping her when I wasn't looking.

The Coldest Tasting Beer

We are a Miller family. Harv has decreed that Miller Lite is our beer of choice and I'm pretty okay with that. There are other beers that I may prefer but they're not light beers and you know, every little bit helps. If I'm going to settle into bed with a six pack there may as well be a lower number of carbs in that six pack than in any other six pack that I could be drinking.
While you can usually find at least a few cans of Miller Lite in our fridge, more often than not there is also some Coors Light. I know, the horror! This is not for us but for our friends, siblings Eric and Jenny Towner, who hail from the land of the Rockies and come over often to play Nintendo, sing karaoke and drink beer. What kind of hosts would we be if we tried to force our light beer onto people who were raised on a different light beer?
You may know that Coors Light is the self-proclaimed "coldest tasting beer". I know, this makes no sense. Nonetheless, one needs something to protect one's hands from that cold, cold aluminum can. And heaven-forbid that "frost-brew liner" should fail, you need a failsafe to keep your precious beer cold! Enter the Coors Light Cozy, Eric's secret Santa gift, made by me. It has the added bonus of disguising a non-cold tasting beer if no Coors is available.
To make the can, figured out my gauge and using this handy tool I printed out some knitter's graph paper. I then taped the graph paper to a Coors Light can and used colored pencils to color in the predominant color of each square. I measured the height and circumference of the can to calculate how many stitches to cast on and how many rows it would be and I was off! I knit it as a rectangle and then sewed the two short sides together. I had planned on putting a bottom on the cozy but because I started at the bottom and I cast on somewhat tightly, it naturally curved around the bottom of the can, making a nice little lip for the can to sit on.

This is one of several Christmas gifts I made and never blogged about...very stinky of me. I think that I may catch up someday. I really want to be a vigilant blogger. I think sharing crafts is always good, regardless when the crafts were completed.

Apron and Mitt

Well, I've accidentally made something for myself.
I intended to make this apron and oven mitt for a friend but decided after they were finished that these colors just don't suit said friend. I was inspired by these orange pom-poms that I had. In hindsight, I don't really think my friend is such an orange person, nor a pom-pom person. So, I'm keeping them for myself and making another set in more fitting colors.
The patterns are from "Denyse Schmidt Quilts", my A-#1 favorite quilt book. I love the way they look. I cook a lot but I have never worn an apron. I must admit that I feel totally cool when I cook in this. It's like a time to cook uniform.
Unfortunately the oven mitt is not quite as functional as it should be. The pattern just calls for one layer of batting and I used two but it is still isn't quite thick enough. And it was really difficult to sew through all of the layers plus the pom-poms. Since the next one I'm making won't have pom-poms I should be able to add another layer of batting. I don't want to burn any hands!

Denyse Schmidt Wannabe

I'm making a quilt for a secret someone using this fabric.I was looking at patterns, hoping for inspiration and I found this quilt on the Denyse Schmidt website. So that's what I'm doing. It's working out pretty well so far. I really hurt my brain trying to plan out how many of which color strips at what width and what length. That sort of thing gets really jumbled up in my head but I'm glad I did it. That way I only cut the fabric that I needed and it was much simpler to lay out the final pattern without having to worry about using too much or too little of any one fabric.
Here is my center panel. I have sewn on the two side panels and spray basted everything together so maybe this weekend I will be able to quilt it up!

At Long Last!

I finally had time to make a robot from the Wee Wonderfuls Put-Together Book No. 2! The book arrived in the midst of Christmas gift making madness and I had to work really hard to avoid dropping everything to make something right away. But now gifts have been given and I have time to work on some projects of my choosing. New Year, new robot!

Happy New Year!

Harv and I returned from our adventure in the East on New Years Eve Eve with no complications! Imagine! We were all set for a laid-back New Years at home.
There was a little of this, a little of that and a yummy meal from one of my new cookbooks. And of course, nothing quite rings in the New Year like knitting a Mason-Dixon "warsh rag"!
Here it is, just waiting to clean up all of the messes we'll make in 2007. Dish cloths are a great small knitting project for so many reasons, I don't know why I have never made one before now. Especially for someone in a climate such as this, where knitting hats and mittens can seem very futile. I hope to make many more of these as part of my ongoing mission to abolish as many disposable paper products from this house as possible.

Christmas At Last

Well, what a delinquent blogger I have been. The Harvatine Empire as a whole has been suffering this holiday season. The good news is all of the gifts have been given and now I can share! I plan to spread things out a little bit. I don't want to blow my wad in one post.
To start things off, a frame for my good friend Niamh.
This was modeled after a pattern in "Denyse Schmidt Quilts" but I didn't actually use the pattern. I really love Denyse Schmidt's fabric choices and combinations. They have such a random, haphazard look to them but there is a lot of thought and theory behind each piece. I have discovered this because when I try to imitate her style in a way that actually is random things never really come out very well. I like the fabrics that I used for this but I was strictly using what I had. My stash isn't quite big enough to totally emulate Denyse Schmidt but I try.

Niamh's gift to me was a copy of "Mason-Dixon Knitting" which I excitedly told her over lunch (before she gave it to me) Harv had given me for Christmas! I am sure she was disappointed but I think that it is just great. Here is why: Harv gave me the book because I had it on my Amazon wishlist. I put it on my wishlist because Niamh had been raving about it so I knew it must be good! And here comes Niamh, trying to share this great find with me and I have, in a way, beat her to it! I think it's very sweet. And I am very much enjoying the book.