Broken Lines

I haven't had much time to sew lately but I really wanted to make some sort of quilt for my friends Sarah and Olivier's baby shower. They are the couple that I made these table runners for last year. Now they are expecting their first baby, a boy.

This quilt was designed to be completed in the limited time I had available this week. It's super simple but my taste usually tends toward simple anyway.

I love the way this turned out. The colors are so pretty. As I'm writing this I kind of want to make a plus sized version for myself.

Two keys to getting this done in time:
1. The size of the quilting (bigger spacing than I would normally do).

2. The size of the quilt. I used the "craft size" batting, 36" x 44" I think. The last baby quilt I made was much bigger. Bigger is nice but in the end it seemed like overkill for a baby. This small size is much more conducive to blankie-fication which I would love to see happen with something I've made.

Sarah and Olivier picked out the backing fabric for the table runners for their wedding but it didn't come in time for me to use it. I'm glad I was able to put it to good use.

And of course, one must make a matching card from the scraps.

PS I've been wanting to attempt actual pattern writing, not just the half-assed variety I am wont to do. I thought I would start with some sort of free pdf and see what kind of interest is out there. Would you like to make this quilt? Drop me a note or a comment if so. I think this one would be a good start. Thanks!

First Quilt in a Long While

Fresh out of the wash, Oh Fransson!'s Mod Sampler quilt-along quilt.

It's a gift for the daughter of an old friend.

There's a WHOLE lot of pink in this baby. Much more than I would normally go for but when someone looks this great in pink, come on! I'm pretty sure I had no choice.

The blocks were made entirely from fabric I already had. That was great. These are all fabrics that I really like but I just don't find a lot of opportunities to use them.
I bought the backing and sashing fabrics. The sashing is linen which I've never used in a quilt before. It was a little trickier than cotton. It can be pretty wily. I do really like how it turned out though.
The label is a piece of the linen I used for the sashing. It's stamped with Jacquard textile ink.
Gracie's mom is allergic to cats so I tried really hard to keep this quilt cat free. Stabone is sulking because I won't let him lie on it.

A Little Giftie

A belated birthday gift for a friend:

A pot holder and matching coasters/cocktail napkins. The pot holder has two layers of Insul-Brite on the inside. Aside from the piecing on the front, it all came together in one step. I layered like so: 1 piece Insul-Brite, backing fabric right side up, rick rack around the edge, top fabric right side down, second piece of Insul-Brite. Pin, sew leaving gap, turn and quilt. Done!

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.

Wait! I'm Not Done Yet!

What to do? The Old Year is slipping further and further away and as much as I want to wish you a Happy New Year, I haven't finished talking about 2007 yet! Ack! I love seeing so many "year in review" posts on all of your crafty blogs and I intend to join in on the fun, I just need to share a few more things so that they too can be reviewed. So I believe I've got three more items to share which means ETA of "Liz Harvatine Shows You All of the Stuff She Made in 2007" is Saturday, January 5. That's not so bad!
Today's gift:

Neck warmer for my Mamacita. The pattern is from Knitty. I used some sort of Merino, I'm sorry I don't know what, but it was very soft and squishy. This baby was pretty fast and fun to make and, I think, an elegant alternative to bulky scarves.

Mother and Baby

*Oops, not McCalls, the pattern is Butterick 4944.*

More Christmas gifts...bear with me.
On my last full day of Christmas crafting before returning to work, I was feeling short on time and short on ideas. There are a couple of ladies in my life who needed gifts but I just hadn't come up with the perfect fit for them. The longer I spent brainstorming ideas the shorter my list of possibilities became. There was much pressure to pull the trigger on something, just to get the ball rolling. Yeeps...stressful! But in the midst of gift making panic, I found some calm in an old familiar pattern.

The "mother" is a (I think) McCall's pattern that I first used for a traveling bag last Spring. The "baby" is my own smaller version of the pattern that I had made for a much needed Summer purse.

Didn't someone say that marathon gift-making is not the appropriate time for trying out new patterns? Well I certainly can't say that I adhere to that rule but it sure does feel good to make something familiar. You don't have to keep double checking instructions, you know which steps can be glazed over and you know exactly how it's going to turn out. These two bags just flew through my sewing machine.

A happy Christmas

Alright! We've done it. Christmas is over and it was great. Harv and I are in Minnesota, spending the holidays with his family. So you know what time it is...it's time to share more handmade gifts, now that they have all been given. My sister gave me a hard time because she saw this shopping bag on my blog before receiving it. How about that? She reads my blog! Who knew?
So now that it's safe, here's the full body shot of the sneak peek I gave you earlier.

It's a western shirt for Harv's mom, Dar. Along with being a very crafty lady, Dar is a bit of a cowgirl at heart. The pattern is McCall's (I'm sorry I don't have the number!) and the embroidery patterns are from Sublime Stitching.

AND, guess what Harv got me for Christmas!

A MacBook Pro, and just in the nick of time! My old laptop is crapping out big time. So Merry Christmas to you and Merry Christmas to me too!

Charming Handbag

One of the gifts I completed on Sunday:

It's the Charming Handbag from Bend-the-Rules Sewing. This baby came together super fast. And I do mean baby. It's so much tinier than I though it would be! This could be my fault though. I didn't feel like scanning and resizing the pattern piece so I just figured out how big it would be at 129% and drew it myself. Have I mentioned I was a math major? And have I also mentioned that math and arithmetic are really not the same thing? I'm good at the former, stinky at the latter. So my bag might be a bit smaller than intended, but I think that only increases its charm.
Be warned that the measurements for the handle and casing pieces are not included in the book. They can be found here at the book's Flickr group along with other errors. Reading through the comments about this pattern I saw that someone suggested making buttonholes through the lining in stead of making the casing. I thought that was an ingenious idea.

The casing pieces seemed impossibly small and I think this just looks neater, not to mention they were quicker and easier.

Sneaky Peek

It is eleven o' clock, my reinstated bedtime. Today was my last day of hiatus. Boo. But what a day it was. I managed to knock out three handmade gifts today. Three! And not simple shortcut gifts either, three gifts that I am very proud of and excited to give, two of which I kind of don't want to give, I want to keep them for myself.
I love the third gift too, and to be honest, it is the gift I am most proud of, it's just not quite my taste. I do think that it suits the tastes of it's recipient though. I really really hope so, because although I finished this baby today, it's been a long time coming! I don't want to share the whole gift just yet but I will give you a little sneaky peek.

With this unexpected burst of productivity I'm feeling much more relaxed about working this week but it's still sad to see my dear friend hiatus leave me yet again. The good news is my other friend Christmas break is going to be here real soon.

Gift for Who???

I've decided to share a few of the Christmas gifts I'll be making this year, before they are given. The reason for this is that I'm not working right now and hiatus tends to be a time when I can really devote a lot of effort to not only my crafts but also my blog. I like to share with you all! Once the gifts are given, I will be back to work with not so much free time. Also, I'm sad to say that I have serious doubts about the regularity with which most of the people I will be giving gifts to read this blog. You know who you are. Although you're probably not reading this so you don't know that I know you know who you are.
So, completed gift number one:

A very stylish reusable shopping bag. Made from this pattern, this was a fun and easy knit. My one complaint with this pattern was this line: " Use a very stretchy bind off like Lucy Neatby's Modified Conventional bind off [see Lucy's Knitting Essentials DVD volume 1 for a detailed how-to]". Come on! Just teach me a stretchy bind-off, or at least tell me where I can learn one without buying a DVD. I did a search online and ended up using and Elizabeth Zimmerman bind-off that I found here.

I used Tahki Cotton Classic in Linen White instead of the hemp yarn called for in the pattern. I was much too impatient to order anything online.

The handles are gross-grain ribbon with some cotton twill tape as a lining. I sandwiched the edge of the bag between the two and machine stitched them together. I also classed it up a bit by using this pretty ribbon for the draw string, rather than a cord.

Isn't that neat? It folds into itself so you can keep it with you. I dig it and I certainly hope its recipient does as well.

Baby Quilt

The aforementioned baby quilt is quilted, labeled and washed. Now to pack it up with the bibs and ship it off. That's the part where I usually drag my feet.

The quilt is 56" square. I used bamboo batting that I bought at Joanns. It's 50% organic cotton and 50 bamboo (which the package says is "naturally antibacterial", who knew?). This stuff is so silky soft, I wish it could be on the outside of the quilt. Also, the maximum quilting distance is 8" which I think is pretty cool compared to 100% cotton which is, what, 3 or 4 inches? Really, the reason I bought this was because the crib size is 60" square, not 60" by 45" like other cotton batting and I knew I would be making a square quilt. But I was also curious about this new product. It's made by the Poly-fil people, so I don't know how ecologically sound the rest of their business practices are but this stuff seems pretty great. You can read more about it at their website.

Anyway, the quilt is made up of 81 4 inch multi colored squares separated by 2 inch strips of a neutral khaki solid. I love me some neutral background! I also love the pillowcase binding aka birthing method. It's kind of a non-binding. I liked the simple border of the neutral fabric and I thought that was frame enough for this quilt.

I quilted around each square and a quarter inch from the edge. And lo and behold, I actually made a label.

You may recall that I have been a bit grumbly about labels in the past. Of course, I understand the merits of a good label and I thought this quilt was especially deserving of one. I made the graphic in Photoshop, using brushes I downloaded here and here, found via Dooce. I printed it out on an inkjet fabric sheet and voi-la. Preserved for all time.

Sunday Up-D's

Christmas is fast approaching and the end of our hiatus is coming even faster. I have much that I hope to accomplish in the next week or so.
As of right now, our tree is up and looking fabulous, even more so than last year with the addition of some sweet little Martha Stewart ornaments bought at Macy's, including this tree topper. (Sorry for the teeny image...I guess you can no longer buy it online.)
I also have for the first time, my own little craft room tree.

Fake trees go against every little bit of Christmas spirit that resides in my soul, but a little baby bonus tree is a clear exception to that rule. I also don't have the heart to leave certain ornaments in a box in favor of stylish themed ornaments. But again, baby trees give a little creative outlet without forcing me to abandon Harv's extensive collection of Donald Ducks and Packer hat wearing mice (although we do prune those down, just a bit). Of course the only craft room tree theme that I have going on this inaugural year is "Box of ornaments I bought at Target four years ago." But they're so tiny and sweet! And if it weren't for them, this baby would probably be naked.

In addition to Christmas gifts, I'm nearing completion on this brand new quilt, made for a certain brand new baby.

And to go with the quilt, a trio of bibs, made from the pattern in Bend-the-Rules Sewing.

I did nothing to jazz these up at all. I was looking for some sort of mindless crafting that I could complete relatively quickly, thus making me feel better about myself one night, and these fit the bill. If you know a baby and you need a crafty pick-me-up, make one.

Long Time No Blog

There's no good reason for my recent lapse in posting so let's just pick up where we left off, ay?
At long long long long last I have finished this beast.

A Denyse Schmidt inspired queen sized quilt for my sister Lauren's birthday. Her birthday, in case you were wondering, is June 6. Guess what tomorrow is! It's her half-birthday! Yes, this gift is 6 months late. But it's such a special gift, surely that's okay!

So what took me so long? I don't know. It's not like there was anything particularly difficult about this. I think I just reached several plateaus of motivation and had a hard time working my way past them. But it is done.

Hey, here's something cool: because Lauren lives in Connecticut where a thin quilt doesn't cut it in the winter I turned this quilt into a duvet so she can use it year round. I quilted together the quilt top, batting and a queen sized sheet from Ikea. Then I bound that together with the actual quilt back, leaving a three foot opening at the bottom to stuff a comforter into. It's convertible! Clever, aye?

Of course you can't put a new quilt out anywhere without this happening:

If the quilt weren't going to my sister I wouldn't let the cats love all over it. But where this baby's going there will certainly be much more of the like.

PS Check me out: I've been nominated for a major award! I'm very excited and there's no mirror in here but I think I'm blushing as I write this. The ceremony isn't until February and in the meantime I must find something fabulous to wear. Wish me luck!

Kitchen Accessories

Busy busy busy! My goodness, there's a lot to do. It makes me quite glad that we're not working. Robot Chicken Season 3 ended for Harv and I about two weeks ago, we met his parents in Arizona (where this was taken in case you were wondering), then brought them back to our house for the rest of the week and we arrived in Connecticut on Tuesday morning to spend T-giving with my family. In the meantime I really really really wanted to finish this quilt for my sister Lauren. Her birthday was in June. I'm so close to being done but I had to throw in the towel the night before we flew out. That will be my first order of business as soon as we return. I did however have time to make some birthday gifts that were late but just barely.
In this case, just a few days! That's really good for me.
My dear friend Niamh is a doer of many things, one of which is cooking.

I've had the idea for this apron design for a while now and Niamh's birthday seemed like the perfect motivation to get me to actually make it.

Included with the apron was a matching oven mitt, made with a layer of regular batting and a layer of Insul-Bright.

It works pretty well, much better than two layers of regular batting.
The second mitt is for me.

Also for me...

Another off-set square pin cushion, made from the oven mitt scraps! This one is a baby. The squares are only 3 inches wide. I really love it though...it is a perfect sewing accessory! I highly recommend you make one of your own.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Quilt

Hello friends. Sorry to be gone so long. We made a quick trip to Atlanta this past weekend for my cousin's wedding and things were quite crazy leading up to our departure. On top of the regular packing and other traveling preparations we had a sick puss on our hands, had to find a puss sitter to give him medicine twice a day while we were gone, scrambled to put together our formal attire (Harv hadn't worn his suit in three years and we knew this because he found a chocolate favor and program from a friend's wedding in the pocket) PLUS I made the fastest quilt in the history of (my) quilts to give to the happy couple.
I finished the quilt the night before we left. Since we left for the airport before it was light out I didn't have a chance to take pictures of it before the trip (needing natural light and all). So before the wedding, Harv and I took this baby out on the streets of Atlanta and had a little photo shoot.

Actually, we took it to a park. Piedmont Park? Does that sound right? Well there was a beautiful lake, lots of sunshine and grass! Actual grass! Something that my backyard is sorely lacking.

I'm calling this design Audio 1. I was inspired by the random zig zags of audio waves. I see them everyday on the track sheets we use at work. The first time I remember seeing something like that as a kid was in Fantasia. I loved that movie.
It's called Audio 1 because I'm not sure that this is exactly what I was going for. I may try another version based on this idea. But we'll see.

I do like it a lot. I hope that the bride and groom do as well. I'm not totally sure of their tastes. The nice thing about making a little throw like this for people is they don't have to feel obligated to have it out on display if it doesn't exactly suit them. It's perfectly acceptable to store it in a closet and bring it out for a snuggle every once in a while.

(PS Stabone is on antibiotics and he should be better soon!)

Great Big Pants

A birthday gift for the legendary Jenny Towner.

The pattern is from Amy Butler's In Stitches.
I had read elsewhere on the internet that these wide legged pants were reeeeeeally wide. It's true. But Jenny liked them.

I used the same He-Man bed sheet that I used to make this pillow for another friend's birthday. I was a little limited in the placement of the images. I only had just enough fabric widthwise to make the pants the images aren't in the most ideal spots. I taped the front and back pattern pieces together at the side seams so that I only had to cut out two pieces of fabric. It seemed like it would be easier to get what I wanted out of the fabric by doing it this way. Plus, that's two less seams to sew. There really wasn't any reason not to do it this way since the legs are so straight.
I don't think that this is quite what Amy Butler means when she suggests using vintage fabric. But how can you not love these when Skeletor looks so bad ass?

A Very B-Dogg B-Day

A He-Man pillow for B-Dogg's birthday.
Made from a thrifted sheet I got at the Rose Bowl Flea Market. The front is quilted. The back is vintage fabric from a thrift shop in Ventura. I guess you can't see that. Well it's there. And I have much more of it so I'm sure it will surface again.
The birthday boy, 31 years young.

Pirate Quilt for a Girl Pirate

My pirate loving friend Melissa is having a birthday this weekend, the perfect opportunity to make her a Jolly Roger-inspired doll quilt.
Just what she needs to do some serious swashbuckling.
I made the quilt using this awesome method, which I first saw here.
Then got myself some freezer paper. (Note to Southern Californians: I bought this at Vons, they didn't have any at Ralph's or Target)
I drew a skull and crossbones, cut it out with an exacto knife and ironed it onto the quilt. Then I dabbed on some white screen printing fabric paint.
In case you're wondering, yes I did quilt the entire quilt before doing the stencil and yes, that was not the best idea. The reason I did it was because I didn't have any freezer paper when I started the quilt and I was too excited to stop working on it. So the stencil isn't perfect but I'm okay with that. Pirates aren't perfect either.
The quilt is not actually a flag, I just basted on some temporary ties for a photo shoot. I tried to take pictures of it hanging in front of our house but our house just isn't very nice looking, especially around the little flag pole holder. So I had to recruit some pirate models.
The matching outfits are a coincidence.

Star Wars (Really?)

More coasters.
I woke up tres early this morning to make these before work. Today is one of our co-workers' birthdays and the thrill of actually giving someone a gift on their real live actual birthday was so exciting that I just had to get this done. So imagine my disappointment when I arrived at the studio this morning and overheard that he was not coming in today! Luckily, the birthday boy lives less than a block from the studio so I'm going to stick the package in his mail slot at lunch.
The coasters are made out of more pieces of a "vintage" Empire Strikes Back bed sheet that I used to make this quilt for Harv. I threw in a bunch of scrap cotton and scrap batting and voila. This one is my favorite.
So, while we're on the subject of Star Wars...I am getting to know my audience here and there is a dramatic difference in the amount of interest that exists for my most awesome crafts and pretty much everything else (less awesome crafts, reasons for not crafting, work, house, most everything else). This is understandable of course but it is not going to prevent me from updating you all on certain happenings, especially the big work stuff. I spend way too much time animating for it not to seep into this blog every once in a while!
I would therefore like to insist that you watch the "Robot Chicken Star Wars" Special. It is airing on Sunday, June 17 at 10pm (maybe earlier if you're central, I'm not sure) on Cartoon Network. For those of you who don't know, my husband Harv and I are both stop-motion animators working at a studio that produces two shows for Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, Robot Chicken and Moral Orel. Last fall we produced an officially Lucasfilm sanctioned half hour special (which is a really big deal as all original official Star Wars content in the past has been created from within Lucasfilm except for one guy who wrote some novels (nerds, I'm sorry if I didn't quite word that information correctly)) and it is honestly very cool. And I'm not a big Star Wars nerd like many of the people around here, yet still, I think it's funny. I know that you all are mostly not Star Wars nerds either but I'm pretty sure that some of you at least have an inkling of Star Wars nerdiness...or you're just married to a Star Wars nerd. So watch! And look out for the Ponda Baba sketch as it was animated almost exclusively by me. (Ponda Baba's the guy who has tusks on his face that, I'm sorry, look like balls. Or an ass if you want to be a little less graphic. Here's a picture of him. Look for this guy.)

Time to start drinking

I've finished the new project that I mentioned the other day:
Coasters! I am really happy with the way that these turned out. They are made out of cotton fabric and batting and silk screened with sweet little animal motifs on top. I've been wanting to do something like this for a while now, silk screening over quilting. I was initially planning on quilting more than this but I really like the simplicity of this. They are for sale in my Etsy shop.

In other news, my sister Lauren's birthday is tomorrow and I told her I would make her a quilt for her new queen size bed. And I haven't started it yet. Yeeps.
I asked her in February if she would like one for her birthday. I didn't want to just surprise her with one. That would pretty much guarantee that she wouldn't like it. I have such difficulty making gifts that I know that people will like...I usually just make gifts that I really like. So she said that she wanted one and I thought "It's February! June is so far away!" June 6 seemed very very far away ever since then. But now it's tomorrow. Oops. This weekend I plan on getting that well underway. I am very excited because after showing her several options that I could make for her, she chose something like this or this. I love these quilts, I can't wait to make one!

Someday I'll finish posting Christmas gifts

Here at long last is the quilt I made for my mother for Christmas!
It is Denyse Schmidt's Flock of Triangles from "Denyse Schmidt Quilts". It has mistakes. A lot of them. I had a really hard time piecing the triangles so that their tips wouldn't get cut off when I sewed the rows together. I also (gulp) didn't use a walking foot when I quilted it. I know I know! You have to use a walking foot! Well, I thought I could get away with it. Well, I was wrong and this quilt proved it.I feel bad because my technique has improved since I made this quilt and if I were to make it today it would be far superior. I realised that my mom is the recipient of these types of handmade gifts more often than anyone else I give gifts to. Gifts I have made when I have just begun a new craft but haven't quite got the hang of it yet. I wish I had a picture of the enormous fuzzy socks I knit her in college. But I think the reason for this is that she is always the first person that I want to share my new craft with. Everyone else has to wait. Besides, at the rate I am going, I foresee many more quilts in my mom's future.
Using what I have learned from the triangle quilt, I am making this zigging and zagging quilt.
The triangles are bigger than the "Flock" triangles and the fabrics are arranged to give these lovely, stripey zig-zags. I had a "duh" moment in which I figured out how to line the triangles up properly so as to remain triangles and not become trapezoids. And yes, I do have a walking foot now. The next time I make a quilt for my mom it is going to seriously kick ass.

Seriously Striking Back

Ta-da! Harv's Valentine's day gift, an Empire Strikes Back quilt, made from a bed sheet we bought at the Rose Bowl Flea Market.You can see more pictures, including some close-ups here.
And of course I can't let you go without a picture of the lucky recipient:
Is this too nerdy? Absolutely. But let's be honest, if you own a light saber, it doesn't really make sense to have an "Empire Strikes Back" quilt photo shoot without it. That's just silly. I will let the internet know that this was my idea, Harv is an innocent victim of my picture taking.
So now what? Another two months of hiatus = let's start another quilt! This next one is going to be really fast and simple. I bought these fabrics today to make a baby quilt for a friend's new little boy. I really really love this quilt which was inspired by this quilt (also love) and both have inspired what I am planning to do here.
I had a lot of fun picking out these fabrics. I got a lot of flannel and the blue is corduroy so it will all be nice and fun for baby to touch.

Some Good Things

1. Finished listening to my first book at Librivox, "Northanger Abbey" by Jane Austen. Very funny and sweet. I highly recommend Librivox. It is such a wonderful site!
2. Made vomacka for dinner last night. I believe it is pronounced voh-MACH-ka. Ate this soup at a restaurant in Minnesota that we always go to when we visit Harv's best friend and his wife. I think it is the only restaurant in their very small farm town. A lot of the people there are of Czech descent and this is a Czech recipe. I have been thinking about this soup ever since I first tried it over a year ago and finally made it last night. It is a creamy vegetable soup, flavored with dill. SO GOOD!
3. Rediscovered this Denyse Schmidt quilt along group on flickr that I joined a while ago but forgot about. *sigh* I just love Denyse Schmidt, a lot.
4. Finished the Empire Strikes Back quilt! Happy Valentine's Day Harv! Tomorrow being March, I finished just in time. It's handy not working. Putting the quilt in the washing machine right now. I will put a picture up soon!
   

Progress

We don't have cable. Which means we don't have Tivo and we don't get HBO and we've never seen an episode of "Project Runway". These are all things that I know I would enjoy if I had access to them but I don't. It is my personal belief that, although I love it, tv sucks my life away. I simply cannpt resist things like "30 Minute Meals" and crappy MTV documentaries like "Made" (is that still on?). There is just too much I want to be doing with my time to waste it channel surfing all day. Watching too much tv makes me sick to my stomach and a little depressed.
So we decided a couple of years ago that we weren't going to pay to hae our lives sucked and we went off the cable. We're a rabbit ears family now. Rather than slobbing on the couch flipping through 100 channels for an hour, switching between three different shows that we are only aguely interested in, we have a handful of shows that we make a point to watch each week, things that we really want to see. Other than that there are some throw away shows that are entertaining while I'm crafting but don't take my attention away from the task at hand. The great thing about only having 7 or 8 channels (in English, there are about 12 more in Spanish and I think Japanese) is your done channel surfing in about 30 seconds. Then you're either watching something you like or the tv's off.
Now, all of this being said, I really do like to be entertained while I am crafting. While we're working and I only have the weekends to make stuff I listen to NPR non-stop. But now we're on hiatus and I have a lot of time to be entertained while I'm sewing. So, we've put our pinky toes into the pool of 21st century entertainment and joined Netflix! I spent a wonderful Sunday watching "Anne of Green Gables" (sigh) and working on this:
Harv's very very belated Valentine's gift. It's an Empire Strikes Back quilt, made out of a vintage sheet that we bought at the Rose Bowl flea market a couple of weeks ago.
So along with this discovery I made at this lovely blog, I am going to be up to my eyeballs in craft inducive entertainment. Perhaps this quilt could even be finished before March!

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!

Robo-Christmas

We had robots popping up left and right this Christmas. My favorite being this silk screened robot ornament that I made for my mom as well as several friends. He's saying "Merry Christmas!" in robot. I had a great picture of the whole pile of them, about 16, but I accidentally formatted the memory card in my camera, losing that as well as all of my pictures from Christmas Eve and Day. I don't know why I did it. I'm usually not that stupid.
Anyway, this is just one of several silk screened gifts that I made this year. It was my first foray into silk screening so I will expand upon that in a later post.
As for the other robots, we went to Old Navy on Christmas Eve and bought the three most amazing rolls of wrapping paper I have ever seen, covered in red and green robots. And they were 70% off! Of course I took great pictures of all of the gifts we wrapped in this paper that were erased in the formatting disaster. Luckily enough, I was able to find, on the Old Navy website, a picture of the matching robot boxer shorts that I also bought for Harv!

Photo Removed

This way I don't have to post a picture of Harv wearing the boxers. Although he did put them on over his pajamas on Christmas morning so I guess that wouldn't be so bad.

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.