Moments that Warm Me

When a two-year old begs you to sew with him, with cookie breath and a wide-eyed please, are you going to disappoint?

Having nothing loaded on the machine, we took scraps from the top of the pile and laid them down, willy-nilly, pell-mell, and just sewed. Nephew was in charge of needle-up/needle-down and scissor buttons. "[Nephew] do it! All by 'mself."

I didn't bother with an iron; an attentive nephew will quickly turn to a crazy beast if you keep removing him from his perch on your lap to press seams. I used fingers instead as we admire our work and plotted the next scrap.

Decent improv piecer, that Nephew. I figure he'll be entering shows by six. :)

Still kickin'

Well, it's been real... lol.  I find that in the spring, I need a little more downtime than the rest of the year due to the season-shift and the migraine-related consequences that come with it.  This year, with its whack-tastic weather has proved to be a little more difficult than usual and results in the frequent disappearing act.  It's not that I don't miss reading blogs and keeping up on the haps but this last little while, I kinda skipped the glare of the internet - my laptop sat abandoned - and my sewing machine gathered more dust from disuse than lint from overuse.  It's Easter break so I've had the week off but while I had big plans, I crashed hard instead. My productivity was more of the passive kind - I cleared tons off the PVR and watched almost the entirety of Game of Thrones. (I was also holding my breath approaching the NHL trade deadline... Phew! Dodged an unneeded goalie-sized bullet there!)

This was the first day of Spring 'round these parts.... Chest height snow. After the first two melts.  Yeah.

So, I'm a week behind on everyone's blogs if you've been missing my comments or hits on your site. Sorry, I'll get there. :-) (Oh, so very Canadian....)

I am working on a tutorial for the random piecing demo I did at the Saskatoon Modern Quilt Guild at our last meeting and I'm hoping to get it up before the end of the weekend.

The guild has a couple of challenges going at all times.  The one we just finished was the Ugly Fat Quarter Challenge.  We all brought an ugly FQ, dropped it into a pillowcase and took turns pulling one out. What did I get? A green/brown floral monstrosity.  I went pouch because I was mentally blocked and after experimenting unsuccessfully with some FMQ and mock-trapunto, I was running out of fabric.  I did manage to quickly design my own gnome-y accent for it though and it makes me happy.  My sister thought the pouch was cute and it now lives with her.

'Scuze the shaky photos - took them months ago.

Our current challenge is a Two-Colour Crayon Challenge.  You pull two crayons from a magical toque and those are the colours you're stuck with.  You can use only those colours, and neutrals if you really feel you need them.  I pulled yellow and white.  And as much as I'm happy with how it's going, it will also be living at Seester's.

I managed to get my Simply Solids Bee block finished.  Karen @ BungalowBayQuilts asked for Scrap Jar Stars and I was thrilled that I had tons of scraps so I could make it really colourful for her. Hopefully, colour was what she wanted because, boy, there's a ton in there!

The major project I had planned for the break was the quilting on a quilt that's sat waiting, basted and ready, since the middle of January. Well, folks, it's already the end of Thursday and this is how far I got.

10 minutes in...

But when HotWheels interrupt your projects, it's really hard to be annoyed at a lack of progress.  Nephew's learning about why we don't keep pushing the button with the scissors on it...

And since you may have noticed this, I'm not on Crackbook, I don't pin anything, I don't use Twitter or Instagram, and am kinda lame and inept at using Flickr.  Therefore, please understand how very difficult it was for me to do the following.   I am resentfully claiming my blog on Bloglovin'. (I am a curmudgeon, yes, I get that.)

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Yeah.  I have no plans to use it - I'm happy with Reeder - but I know that I keep a pretty low profile and thought it might make it easier to find me, if you're looking.

Now - I'm going to send some overdue emails and get back to reading.... Have a lovely one!

Wanted: A Clever Post Title

So if you think of one, let me know. :-)

The tree came down last weekend and my desk returned to its place in the corner, but along the other window this time, which has freed up some space.  I'm still in the process of getting organized but I'm getting there. Given that this new setup has led to long, uninterrupted stretches of sewing, I have taken full advantage.

My nephew's 2nd birthday was on the 5th and while I did give him a bunch of Hot Wheels, I hadn't finished the other half of his gift until this past Wednesday:  the bag to put them in.

See my oops? :-)

I found the paper-piecing patterns on Fandom In Stitches - totally free - and then I framed the results with a lovely little traffic print, lined it with the leftover solid from Seester's quilt and added two ribbons to act as drawstrings. It finished about 12x15".  He was thrilled. "Oh!  MAY-turr...!"  Happy boy, happy auntie.

The other advantages of gaining back the workspace is that I was able to cross off a goal by organizing my scraps.  I went from this...

...to this...

...and finally this:

Ooooh, that's one fingerprint-y desktop...

Neat and tidy. Well... they're contained, anyway.  I would like to organize further but right now, they're sorted by size. Crumbs and short strips in the orange bin, everything else sorted in large ziplocs, etc, in the white laundry hamper.

The sort also allowed me to do something I swore I didn't have time for...

I drank the kool-aid.

For the record, I don't do instagram.  I wasn't exposed to this virus through instagram.

Nope, it was y'all.

Within a two week period, it seemed that almost every feed in my RSS reader was throwing Scrappy Trips at me.  I'm not generally a joiner in the "everyone's doing it" sense (I still haven't seen Titanic, and don't intend to) but they were so pretty! And EVERYWHERE.  It was a bombardment; I was hiding in my "I don't have time" bunker but being shelled within an inch of my quilting sanity.  I came out waving my white flag. Of scraps.  That was my one rule for myself:  I had to use only scraps for these blocks.  What will happen with the back and binding? Don't know.  But for now, I'm pleased (and sickeningly shocked) that I made 36 blocks without cutting into yardage.  That's a sizeable dent in the old scrap heap, eh?

And then there's my first ever bee block for the Simply Solids Bee.  Never done a bee before but it was on my quilting bucket list, so...  Lethargic Lass asked for asterisk blocks - and they were much more fun than I thought they'd be; the fabrics she sent were different than what I usually use, too, so that was very enjoyable!  I threw it in the mail last week so she should have it soon.

Believe it or not, I actually got MORE sewing than that done last week and I have the iron-steam burns to prove it. But why spend all my projects on one post...?  :-)

Have a stellar week!

Shadow Blossoms and The Punisher

Happy New Year!  I hope you had a fantastic end to 2012 and are already having a spectacular 2013.  I am already tripping over my feet trying to keep up and I'm hoping that will have disappeared by February.  :-)  One of my goals for the year (subject for another post) is to get a little more organized with my time and start editing in various areas of my life.  I've already started with my bedroom closet; the great weeding of 2013 has begun!

I can FINALLY show you some of the things I made as gifts for Christmas. It'll take me a couple of posts but I'll start today with the big ones.  The photos are not stellar - due to a lack of quilt holder-uppers before the day and lack of sunlight and reasonable temperatures after, it's been difficult to get a good shot.  Indoors on a cloudy day.  Blergh!

Shadow Blossoms

I have already mentioned here that Seester requested a bed quilt to go in the bedroom she painstakingly redecorated this summer.  As I had already been planning to make her one for Christmas, I confessed my intentions, we discussed colours and fabrics, a loose idea of a design, and away I went.  Once fabric was purchased (mostly Bonnie&Camille Vintage and Ruby), I okayed it all with her but that's the last she saw of it until Christmas morning.

The quilting is a mix of meandering for the main and giant pebbles in the border.  I had started out with intentions of doing much more complicated free-motion work but was stymied by both my lack of FMQ skill and the sheer size of it.  It'll fit her queen-sized bed with plenty of pillow-tuck and drape space. Big quilt. HUGE!  (Did anyone else think Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman just now? Anyone? No?)

Alas, this was the best shot I could get of the back.

I'm happy with the way the design worked out - it's my own, right from scratch, and I'm working on a pattern for it.  I do wish the fabrics we'd agreed on had more contrast in value so that it looks more like shadows from stained glass but she loves it so I don't really care.  

She also got a set of matching pillow cases.  I used this tutorial. Very easy, French seams and all.

The Punisher

The gift I was most excited for this year is this one. If I didn't make him a quilt, he'd be the only member of my immediate family that didn't have one.  However, looking at him and his interests, "quilt" is not generally a word that would make the short list of gift ideas. My brother-in-law is a giant(!) and a giant fan of the comic book vigilante, The Punisher.  This skull is his symbol.  Inspired by Dan Rouse's (Piece and Press) totally amazing work, I decided to do it in reverse appliqué. Not wanting it to be boringly solid, I decided to piece random backgrounds (another post) so that the quilt would have a visual texture to it. I had no idea if it would actually work but I gathered up my fabrics, crossed my fingers and started cutting like a hairdresser with no concept of consequences...

The skull is quilted in random jagged lines - very sharp and pointy - while the black is meanders.  I also added a few black "cracks" in the skull.  It turned out exactly like I envisioned even though there were moments in the piecing of the backgrounds that I had serious doubts.  The blacks didn't seem black enough, the whites were going to be too beige, it was all going to be a huge mess...  But it wasn't!  Put black fabric next to white fabric and all is right again. And cutting away the appliqué left all these marvellous raggedy edges after washing.

He was completely excited when he opened it.  He stood to spread it out and get a better look, and referring to the super-impressionable and parrot-like toddler at his feet, said, "You have NO IDEA how much I wish I could swear right now!"  Ah, there's nothing like censored curse words of appreciation...! :-)

The back was pieced using leftovers from the top.  It's just over six feet high and five wide, not quite big enough to fit on a bed. On purpose.  Seester thanked me for that.  :-)  It will go in his man-cave and their newly finished basement for movie watching.

So that's round one!  Thanks for reading this rather long post with very sad excuses for photography. :-)  I'm off to get working on those goals... Did I mention I joined a bee?

Pulled Pork: Easier Than It Sounds. Now with Coleslaw and Pie!

Where does a week go?  I had started writing a post a couple days ago regarding a cake recipe I'd tried.  Then I went to find my photos and ....???? Apparently, they exist solely in my memory.  Alack and alas.

So, on to something saucier.*  After Mothers' Day's culinary triumph, I had to follow up with something delicious for Dads' Day.  I decided I'd finally try Pulled Pork sandwiches with coleslaw and pie.  I'd skimmed a bunch of recipes online that needed a smoker or involved a number of ingredients I'd never tried or took too long so I said, "Heck with it, I'm just going to the store and I'll make it up when I get there."

After a little wandering down the aisles, I grabbed a tasty sounding jar of salsa (and it was)

 

and a couple bottles of a barbecue sauce I had never heard of or seen prior to a random mention on a food blog that morning.  And it was on sale. Score!!!

I also grabbed some multigrain kaiser rolls and some shredded broccoli/cabbage slaw mix (lazy, I know) for dinner, and scoped out the fruit aisle.  Apricots and plums sounded like pie to me!**

Pulled Pork:

• 1 pork butt roast - get a bigger one than you think you'll need, if it turns out to be a little fattier than you planned, you'll still have enough for a number of people. All the better if it yields leftovers!
• 1 jar salsa - I used PC Smoky Chipotle Salsa (picked both because I love chipotle and I'm a sucker for a beautiful label.  It's a medium hot salsa but you can go hotter than you normally would for just eating since the spice diffuses quite a bit)
• 1-2 bottles of Sweet Baby Ray's Barbecue Sauce (or your favourite - you have to like it or this will be a terrible meal for you. If you have a large roast, you'll probably use a bottle and a half to two bottles.  Smaller roasts might be fine with one.)

Note: Try your salsa and bbq sauce before committing to throwing them in the slow-cooker.  You want to be sure they work together because they will get to know each other intimately.  Very intimately..

Place roast in a slow cooker and cover with salsa.  Squirt 1/4 cup of bbq sauce over top.  Cover and roast 3-4 hours on High (if you're short of time) or preferably 7-8 hours on Low.  Meat should be tender enough to come apart into nice juicy shreds when pulled with a fork.  Remove pork to a baking pan or rimmed plate and shred, discarding any fatty, grisly bits.

Skim fat off liquid remaining in slow cooker and remove about 1/3 of liquid remaining after that.  Leave as much of the salsa chunks as possible.  Return shredded pork to cooker, add rest of bbq sauce - until thoroughly coated but not quite soupy - and cover.  Cook on Low for 20 minutes to an hour.

Serve on buns with coleslaw.

Carly's Coleslaw Dressing

It's no secret that I despise mayonnaise.  I have often seen creamy coleslaws but have refrained from eating them, knowing I would be disappointed and disgusted at the first bite.  I also knew that these sandwiches needed coleslaw.  So I invented my own, very tangy dressing.  Adjust all of these ingredients to your own taste.  I didn't measure precisely - I used mostly tasting and tweaking.  However, I've made it since and seem to have cracked the proportions. By tablespoon, I mean a well-rounded regular old spoon.  I did not use my trusty measuring spoons.

• 1 cup plain greek yogurt
• 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tbsp dijon mustard

Combine. Taste.  Add to slaw mix of your choice and to the moisture level you prefer. 

Dad was definitely happy.  I'm calling it a huge success!

And yes, I made rosemary potato wedges and more aioli. I'm so deeply in love with aioli that with a dish of raw carrots, I consider it the best late-night snack though garlicky. :-)

*I realize that this recipe is in no way vegan, vegetarian, kosher or halal.  However, the pie, if you skip the butter, could be all of the above.  The coleslaw, if you sub in vegetarian/vegan mayo for the yogurt could be vegan as well.

** I used my basic, sub in random fruit pie recipe.

Finished: Another Sweater for the Little Gentleman

I think I might like knitting clothes for my nephew more than I like knitting clothes for me.  Why?  It takes a lot less time, for starters, so I get the satisfied feeling of accomplishment sooner.  Second, it takes a lot less yarn so I can use the stuff I like.

This is a Debbie Bliss pattern from the latest(?) issue of her magazine.  I also used her yarn - Baby Cashmerino. Because I love it.  It knits well, it washes nicely, and the pattern called for it. And I had the exact right amount in my stash for just such a thing. Serendipity.  It's sweltering right now so he won't need it for a few months but it's big on him right now and should get him through winter,

I know that it's just a matter of time before he's bigger than I am and it takes 30 skeins to make him a sweater instead of 5.  I figure that he'll tower over me by the time he's 13.  And by then he probably won't want auntie sweaters... or live for monster-noise making contests, singing "If you're happy and you know it", or giving baby fist-bumps and diving, sprawling, tackling hugs...

 So I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

Runner. No, definitely not me.

As in, I don't run.  Unless I'm being chased and am uninterested in being caught.  Today, I would kill to be able to run as I suffered some sort of back trauma early Friday and have been an invalid since.  My time on the computer has been limited as the weight of the laptop has caused problems.  Lapcat has faced limited time as well, much to his chagrin.

I do have photos of the project I completed last weekend.  My mother requested a table runner for her birthday and I had yet to begin it.  I kept asking what colours and patterns she wanted and she didn't answer.  Then she saw the baby quilt I made for my Long-Suffering friends and liked those fabrics, which I happily and thankfully had the presence of mind to stash.  Pattern? She didn't care. So I just started cutting....
....and sewing....
....and playing around...
....until I had this:

No quilting on this one since she wanted it to lay flat.  It's 19x80" more or less and backed in a simple off-white Kona. Hometown by Sweetwater with a mottled green fabric which I purchased long before I began paying any attention to fabric names. She loves it. She's forbidden Father to go anywhere near it with anything that could drip or stain.

Well, I have not managed to get much work done on the papers I wanted to tackle this week.  I may not get to school tomorrow. Profs have been notified, student council meeting regrets sent, and Skittles liberally applied.  I have managed to get some hexagons and kites sewn, however, for the homework quilt.  Nothing like being unable to operate your beloved sewing machine to finally turn you to English paper-piecing.  :-) I'll have an update on that project next post.

Enjoy the Oscars!

Firsts

Today is my first day back at university since April.  It's odd to be on the student side of things again and I miss teaching like it's as important to as breathing.  And it is.  Of course, I'm an advocate of lifelong learning, and wearing jeans on weekdays again, but the adjustment is tricky.  Ready to go there but not ready to be here.  Ah, the hoops.

Tomorrow is my nephew's first birthday.  I remember it well for being so very long a day.  The call came at 12:45 am and after a few hours, they sent her home until the afternoon.  I had four classes (one a three-hour night class) that day on two hours of sleep.  I went back and forth between hospital and class all day.  He arrived at 11:30pm.  On his due date.  And has filled my life with so much love, I can't believe it.  I'm lucky that I get to see him almost every day.


I made him a sweater.  With an elephant.

From Vintage Knits for Modern Babies. Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino. Elephant instead of bird.

And towards many other firsts, a second.  I was spoiled by Santa this Christmas and found a new sewing machine under the tree. It's a Janome 4120QDC and it's so zoomy!!!  I love it and can finally learn to free-motion.  It's incredibly quiet (my old Kenmore shook and squeaked the house down) and if I can't manage a scant 1/4" seam allowance, I have nothing left to blame but the operator. I have only just started to play around with all the features and what-not but I'm completely in love.

 I named it Oscar.  Yep, I name things.  Usually British men's names.  My phone is Giles. My iPad is Nigel.  There's also a Hamish, a Kenneth, and a Darwin in my life.  There was a Kevin, but it's still too hard to talk about... :-)  I don't name cars; I find it portends their doom.

Hope you had a happy!

Holiday, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, New Year!  (and any other celebrations I missed.)

Hello again!

I unintentionally disappeared for  a bit.  I had intended to post the last of the gifts I'd made on Christmas Eve and then fell asleep between supper and church.  I won't lie; I slept through church.  It wasn't even at midnight.  It was 7:30.  Since then, I haven't been online. At ALL.  It's been nice but I'm feeling out of the loop.  The only news I've seen is sports-related.  It's been hockey, hockey, hockey...

ANYHOO...  This is the Borrowed Creativity Collection of gifts from this year.
I made this quilt for my mother for Christmas.  It's Allison Harris' Seville pattern.  I even bought the fat quarter bundle to make it.

Completely unoriginal on my part but I liked it so much I didn't want to change a thing.  I named it Figaro.  (Fee-ga-ro, Fee-ga-ro! You know, the Barber of Seville?  Anyone? No?)

Also, a Honey Cowl, knit in a Manos del Uruguay mulberry silk.  Also for my mother.

Seester got a shower cap (tute here), and a number of makeup bags using laminated cotton, which is much  easier to sew with that the interwebs would have be believe.  I used fantastic patterns and tutorials for all of them.

Boxbags:  Amber of One Shabby Chick has a great tutorial.  I lined the largest one with some interfaced Kona.  It added a much-needed sturdiness.

Dumplings:  Keyka Lou.  These are awesome and fun to make.

Slouchy makeup bag:  This one kicked my ass.  You can tell it went haywire because the lining is on the outside...

Makeup Roll:

She also got one of the ubiquitous Anna Maria Horner scarves... I made this one in voile about 12"wide by 70"long.  I made a couple in green for friends.

And finally, in the "saw-it-need-to-make-it" department, some pillow fight weapons for my brother-in-law.  I saw them on ManMadeDIY.

I thought they were so clever. As far as I can tell the artist doesn't have a pattern or store so I hope he doesn't mind that I made a set.

So I was a sewing maniac.  How I found time for three quilts during my internship, I don't know, but I suspect that I tend to sew as an unwind.  It doesn't require speaking or socializing, or analyzing whether someone's got the whole answer or missed the boat.  In sewing moments, my time is utterly my own.  Which is why I was so very excited about my Christmas present from Santa.

But I'll show you that next time.  :-)

Happy New Year!  I'll be catching up with you soon.