Catching Up – TUSAL and Theme-a-licious

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Heather

Thank you all very much for the lovely comments about the teddy bear. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I wasn’t able to finish him before I left for my vacation. Thankfully the little man wasn’t too upset. The plethora of Lego and Matchbox toys that I left for my mom to dole out to him as gifts to keep him amused surely helped a lot. Now that we are home, he is expecting me to get it done yesterday. Unfortunately, I’m still recovering from seven days on a ship, and the world is swaying way too much for me to try working with a sharp needle.

I missed the posting date for the TUSAL because I was too busy packing for the trip, and worrying if we we actually going to be able to go. (We were originally booked to fly out on Air Canada, but they are having labour issues, which have caused a lot of problems. Luckily, we were able to rebook on Sunwing at the last minute.)

This past month I worked mainly on 12 Days of Christmas, and added a bunch of red threads to my jar. There is also some yarn from the Wee Gol Pullover I knitted for the little man. (He has yet to wear it. 🙁 ) Everything in the jar is jumbled, though, since the little man likes to root around in it for long “ends” to use when making race tracks.

 

TUSAL - jar of bits

Yesterday was a Theme-a-licious post day, and I missed that too. Terrible! So, this month is Amazon April, where we are supposed to work on our largest projects. I bet you can guess what I will be working on. Yep, more stitching on 12 Days of Christmas. I’m also thinking of possibly starting either Eclipse by Fire Wing Designs (using a purple silk on a hand-dyed fabric from Enchanting Lair) or Glendon Place’s new design Plum Pudding (also on a hand-dyed from Enchanting Lair).

12 Days of Christmas - WIP

I’ll leave you with a picture from our vacation. We took a cruise on the Holland America ship Eurodam and had an absolutely fabulous time. You can see the ship in the distance, below. The beach is at Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas, a private island that was beyond amazing. I can’t wait to go back.

Half Moon Cay

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Little Brown Bear

Posted on March 17, 2012 by Heather

When the little man was very small I decided that I wanted to make him a teddy bear. I bought a kit from Bears and Bedtime at the Creativ Festival, and then promptly forgot all about it. A year or so later, I bought another kit. This time, I bought one where all the pieces were precut, giving myself one less reason to procrastinate. And, you guessed it, it quickly got lost in the back of the closet.

Now, though, the little man is growing up really fast. He is starting school in September (late, because of when his birthday falls); he is getting his own mail (from school and the good folks at Lego); and he is just becoming all ’round more independent. So, I decided I needed to make him his bear before he totally outgrows that sort of thing.

Meet Freddie, a 12″ full-jointed bear, hand-made by me.

Freddie the Bear

Okay, Freddie isn’t done just yet. He still needs some stuffing, and to have the gaps sewn up. But isn’t he as sweet as can be?

I made a few changes, switching out the black safety eyes for green hand-painted ones from Sun Catcher Eyes. I also decided to use a safety nose instead of embroidering on a nose. I’ll be leaving his face furry (not trimming his muzzle), but I will be embroidering on a mouth once he is stuffed.

Sweet, green-eyed bear

I am so in love with Freddie. He turned out so much better than I could have hoped. And I think I might just give the other kit a try sooner rather than later. But first, doesn’t Freddie look like he needs to have a sweater knit for him?

 

 

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day

Posted on March 17, 2012 by Heather

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

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Theme-a-licious – March Madness – Part 2

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Heather

Thinking I could get much accomplished in March was clearly madness. I have been working away on my sock for Sock Madness on Ravelry, but I ran out of yarn before I could make it long enough (there are very strict rules to make sure everyone is knitting the same thing), and I couldn’t bring myself to use another yarn to make up the difference. Sure, I could have ripped it out afterward, but that would be, well, madness!

Dicey

The yarn is Crystal Palace Panda Cotton which I dyed myself. (It was originally an awful bright blue, and had a couple of coffee stains. :/ ) The pattern is Dicey. Essentially, it is a purl2, knit2 rib, but every four rows you roll a die for each column. Depending on the number that comes up, you either knit it straight or do a cable.

Cable Close-Up

I really enjoyed working on this sock, but there were times when the pure randomness of the dice rolls nearly killed me. And I will admit that occasionally I threw in a cable even when the die roll came up as a straight row.

I’ve cast on for the second sock, but there is no way I will make the deadline for the first round of Sock Madness. But, you know, I’m okay with that.

What sort of madness do I have planned for the rest of the month? How about sewing a teddy bear for the little man, or attempting to make some meaningful progress on a shawl while away on vacation. I think that will be madness enough for me.

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String Blocks

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Heather

I’m still motoring along happily with the Craftsy Quilt Block of the Month class. Although, I did learn last month to hold off a week or so and let any of the problems with the printed pattern be sorted out before I get started. 😉

This month’s blocks used the string piecing method, which is essentially sewing fabrics strips over a base fabric in a specific way, and then trimming all the over-hanging fabric to get your pieces. Here’s a picture of the Broken Spider Web block in progress:

Piecing the Broken Spider Web Block

This time I went for the green and blue fabrics in my fat quarter pack, as you can see. I’m still really loving how they all look with the black.

Trimmed Broken Spider Web Block

The above picture is what a segment of the block looks like once all the strips have been sewn on and it has been trimmed. Pretty neat, eh?

And, the finished block:

Broken Spider Web Block

As always, the colours are off. I am using a better camera now, but the strange light I had when I took these pictures yesterday morning has washed out the colours, and made them seem much more pastel.

The other block for the month is a simple String Block. I picked pink and purple prints for it.

String Block

Overall, my points are improving, and so is my ability to sew a straight-ish 1/4″ seam. (I do use a 1/4″ foot, but even still…) I can’t wait for next months blocks, which is be paper piecing, which I have done before and thoroughly enjoyed.

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WIPocalypse Check-In – March 2012

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Heather

Behind again. No surprise, I know.

During the past month, I’ve made a little bit of progress on my WIPocalypse projects. I finished up Gingerbread House, did enough of Bargello Basics for me to return the pattern I borrowed (pictures eventually), and even worked on the border of 12 Days of Christmas.

12 Days of Christmas by Joan Elliott (WIP)

The fabric is actually a white linen of some sort, but the light here is a little weird today. We’ve been getting warm weather, but with fog and heavy clouds, so it feels damp even though it is pleasant. Anyway, the inside red border is nearly done! I’ve still got to stitch gold on the inside and outside of it, and stitch the entire outside border. Sigh… I still have a lot to do.

 

In other, unrelated news, Google Friend Connect has been shut down. It appears that it still works for people with blogs hosted by Blogger, at least for the time being, but it was shut down for the rest of us on March 1st. I don’t really know what this means for bring traffic to our blogs, or for being able to read blogs through Blogger’s monitoring service. Personally, I’ve always preferred to subscribe to blogs through the RSS feed, and leave out the middle man. I hope you are all still here and reading my blog. Believe me, I’m still reading your’s. 😉

 

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March Stitching Blogger Question

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Heather

Oh, March, you are a changeable lady. So far this month we have had two wind storms, a lovely warm day, snow, and heavy rain. Goodness knows what the rest of the month will bring! I just hope that the weather will be nice for our flight on the 24th, and that Air Canada won’t have any part of their staff on strike. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Also, if anyone has any suggestions for things to see or places to shop in St. Thomas or San Juan, please let me know. We will have about eight hours in both ports, but don’t plan to stray too far from the ship. The beginning of April is going to to busy for me, and I really want to return from the cruise rested, not worn out.

On to the stitching!

This month’s Stitching Blogger Question from Lee of Lake Stitcher is:

Do you participate in exchange or RR stitching? Why or Why Not?

I don’t take part in round robin stitching for a couple of reason. First, I stitch opposite from most people. While I could easily turn all the pieces I get 90°, I’m afraid someone who got my piece wouldn’t notice and I’d get back something that looked a wee bit off. The second reason is that Canada Post is very expensive. The least I can expect to pay to ship something to the US is about $6, and within Canada it would be around $7. So, if I had to mail out, say, five or six times, I’m look at $30+ in shipping costs. And, unfortunately, there is no tracking across the borders, there are long delays at customs sometimes, etc. It just isn’t worth the hassle.

I used to take part in exchanges. Sure, there was still the same problem with mailing the package, but at least it was only one package I had to worry about, and my love of exchanges totally made up for the stress of mailing. I’d really love to do another exchange sometime soon. Anyone?

 

Now for one last subject change: today is International Women’s Day.We may be lucky in terms of equality here in North America, but there are women all around the world struggling for basic human rights, let alone equality with men. I hope that the husband and I are doing a good job for teaching the little man that neither sex is inferior. Although, he says Momma’s kisses heal hurts better than Daddy’s. 😉

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