Day Two of Rabbit Holes

I'm into sewing, knitting and cross stitching, although the stitching took a back burner after bifocals came into my life. I have a small stash of fabric and a when knitting came along project bags took on a new look and place in my life.

When I was stitching I really enjoyed vinyl mesh bags, most of my projects are still in those bags. A new design was popping up for qsnaps and projects that has stitching incorporated into the bag. I haven't made one of those yet but those are on my radar.

This is my latest creation. Fell in love with the Fringe Supply Co. Field Bag and l really like the size and canvas fabric so much that I own two. I decided to surf Etsy and see if others were making similar bags. Many many bags popped up and after getting a feel for the bag size and construction I pulled out what little home decor fabric I had and made the bag. I have another bag cut out and after test driving this one I'll make any necessary tweaks and make the second bag.

I also make bags with matching DPN needle minders and notions bags. I may have shown these before. My sweet sister keeps asking how many bags do I need? But I like to change them up frequently.

My favorite style is a wedge bag and I have material for several more. It fits several skeins of yarn, a project, and notions pouch. I am also addicted to purchasing them from The Fat Squirrel, Amy Beth's bags are really nice. The construction is top notch and I love her fabric choices. There is a retreat coming up and she will be vending. I'm going to have a hard time not purchasing more. Ordered the retreat bag already.  :)

I made and use this bag all the time. 

Several other bag makers will be at the retreat market and I've been saving my purchase $$ for a bag from Hopkin's Studio. I want to see her bags in person, they are a little more expensive and she has so many fabrics I can't choose which is just right. 

So many bags, so little time to make and use them all!

Catching Up

Once again, I have let time slip away. I've been working, knitting and sewing. No quilting has been done. It's been a fast moving spring and summer is almost here. School is over in a month!

We are in the middle of state testing and my students are so ready for it to all be over. We are all suffering from spring fever.

I've been knitting away and have finished several pairs of socks and another Weigh It Shawl. I haven't blocked the shawl, so no photos. I have started a special pair I work on when I watch GHS Softball! It is a great yarn I picked up at Stitches South from Twisted Owl Fiber Studio. It has splashes of royal blue along with my favorite beach colors.

 

I made this lovely bag from scraps I had left over from the house quilt and I have several more half squares I plan on making into bags or more needle cozies.

 I've also dabbled in making stitch markers and I'm very happy with the way these turned out. I need more beads. The ones I purchased do not have consistent hole sizes and I had done my research on what types/sizes to purchase for markers.  These are some of the lovely socks I've been knitting. I've purchased my first yarn from Desert Vista Dyeworks and I love her yarn! 

 This is a lovely skein of Star Wars complimentary yarn from Must Stash Yarns. Droid Wars socks will be cast on May 4th. As you can see, it is kitty approved. The last photo is some of the yarny goodness I purchased at Stitches South. 

KAL Update

just a little knitting update

Sometimes I really don't like working on my iPad or on blogger. They often don't play nice together. I'm having trouble loading photos. So we'll see if these work.

As you can see I've been knitting on my Piper's Journey and it is blocking now. It has been very cool here in TN and it has taken a little while for this shawl to dry. I finished it and it counts towards the Knit Girllls Stash Dash 2015 KAL and the Around Your Neck KAL in the Suburban Stitcher group.

I also got very creative this week and ordered my own custom designed labels for my project bags. I used Winchester Lambourne on Etsy to design my label and I purchased labels from Ananemone. I am so excited to about them. I am waiting on delivery before I start making a few more project bags.

This a my Pebble Beach Shawl. It's had very little knitting because I've been focused on my Yowza Shawl.

The Yowza Shawl is almost ready for the ruffle and bind off. 40 grams more to knit before I begin that part of the shawl.


That's my Update. ;)

New Year

2015 has rolled in and I remembered to write about it! Last year's blogging effort was a fail. I didn't do well journaling my days. I realize once again that I'm not a good journal keeper.

Four months have flown by since my last post. This school year has sped by and in a lot of ways I'm glad. I really enjoy my eighth grade classes. The others, not so much! But I'm determined it will be a good year.

Knitting is going well. I've spent Christmas break finishing WIPs before I allow myself to start on new projects with my Christmas gifts. Quilting has stopped while my machine is in the shop. It is ready to be picked up and I plan on making a few project bags as soon as my machine returns.

The pets are good although Asher gave me a scare during mid terms. He ate 20 inches of elastic ribbon and the result was extreme vomiting, dehydration and kidney failure. Thankfully, we have a fabulous vet who got him rehydrated which stopped the kidney failure. He passed the ribbon the evening he came home. It took almost a week before he got his bounce back. Still shaking my head over the entire situation.

I leave this post with a few pictures of projects and pets.
Stitch Markers
Fingerless Mittens
Baby Hat for Jaxon
Project Bags
Socks with a slightly bent needle, don't know how that happened.
Multnomah Shawl
One IV owie
Sister's Christmas Tree shirt
PomPom Hat minus the pompom to match my mittens
Lovely scarf that almost doubled when I blocked it!

Poor Little Blog

I've deserted you! Actually, no one really reads this blog and it's just for my pleasure. LOL

But I need to get back to blogging and posting pictures of my latest projects and my journalling. I have uploaded photos from my phone and will make this post very photo heavy.

These are some of the things I've worked on in the past few months. I'll post summer project updates later.

Checkbook Cover

This project was easy, I took apart a "purchased" fabric checkbook cover after it had seen it's better days. I used it as a pattern, following the stitching and folding lines and soon had a new cover!

I finished Suburbs quilt and it is at the longarm quilters!

 I started a toe-up sock, my first ever and I'm halfway to the heel.

I started a new applique quilt but ran out of the right color threads. I've purchased more colors and I hope to get back to this project soon. I've also been making little ditty drawstring bags for my knitting. While in the bag mood, I've taken apart a few older stitching projects that were in tuck pillows and some frames. I've begun making project bags for my needlework. I haven't finished those yet, so no pictures to show.

I made this little cutie for a dear friend's first birthday. My mom made lots of these when I was growing up and I found a freebie pattern online at Lil Blue Boo  and I love him. I left off the crown and quilted the frog. I got the idea from Fat Quarter Shop's video Baby girl loved the frog! He got cuter after I pinked the edges.

Last year at this time my hair was between my shoulder blades, very long and I didn't realize how aging it was until school pictures were taken. I started cutting it then and it kept getting shorter and shorter until you see what happened two weeks ago. Love it!

That's enough updating for now! Off to enjoy the day!

Journal - Jan 19 &20

Jan 19

Great morning at church, I wasn't working media and I sat in a different part of the worship area. I was closer to a speaker than I'd been in months. I could really hear the music and it was awesome! A quick lunch and I decided I was going for a Sunday drive. I really took the long way home and drove out to an area near the lake and I think I may have found a new "peaceful" getaway. It is only 25 minutes from the house and I used to make the drive all the time because is was near my parents farm. But yesterday was the first time I remember driving to the boat access area. The water was so quiet and green yesterday. I will have to go back again.

I spent the rest of the afternoon at my friends house and played with baby Claire. Nice day!

Jan 20 

I spent the day reading and trying to make bread. It hasn't done a lot of rising and I'm really thinking it won't turn out the greatest. I'm going to make a stomboli for dinner using the dough. I'm going to put a twist on it and use a tex-mex filling. We'll see how it turns out. I also did a little productive sewing today. I made a new ironing board cover for my pitiful ironing board. It is extra wide which is great for quilting but hard to find a new cover. I could have ordered one from Amazon but I decided to whip one up myself. I love it!

Quilt Caddy

I decided I wanted to do something crafty today. As I was going through Bloglovin', one of the bloggers I follow posted a little machine quilt she had made out of orphan blocks. I've been wanting to make a caddy for machine for quite some time. So I Googled quilt caddies and looked on Pinterest. I found lots of tutorials and one suggested using two fat quarters and simply turning the end up for the pockets.

So I measured my machine to see if fat quarters would be wide enough. My machine is only 16" wide, so a fat quarter would be perfect.

After my quilt room reorganization, finding batting scraps was oh so easy! But naturally, none of the scraps fit. Some were the size needed for baby quilts, so I didn't want to cut into those and this one was just a wee bit short. It was also long, so I thought I'd pull a Bonnie Hunter and piece my batting. Then I remembered I'd be cutting the width to make the pocket and this piece was just right. I cut off the length and use it for the pocket batting. 

Next I decided I really wanted to quilt the entire caddy. I've not done any machine quilting for quite some time and I really haven't done any cross hatch quilting because it looks so boring. But I decided this was a great practice piece and I drew my lines 1" apart and away I went.

Really don't like how Blogger lays out photos!! So I'm trying a new editor.After cross hatching, I decided the pocket needed to bedifferent, so I drew horizontal lines and quilted it. I knew I wanted to be finished today, so I machine sewed the binding front and back. I don't really like the look on the back. I won't be using this method on a quilt.

Final product  - Love It!

Crafty and Cleaning Days

I spent yesterday visiting a friend and playing with her grandbaby! Oh the fun we had. I love baby Claire and she is as sweet as pie. She is crawling and loves to follow you through the house. I realized while visiting that I really needed to clean my house! I'm not fond of cleaning and more into crafting. :) But Claire crawling on the floor was something she couldn't do if she were visiting me.

So today, I've been cleaning and I still have a lot more to do, but at least I don't have fur balls rolling like tumbleweeds any more! Need to steam mop and dust, I'll do that in the morning. I have turned my dining area into the crafting area and I spent a lot of the morning putting things back in their proper location.

While I vacuumed and puttered around, Asher curled up in the chair and napped. Puff hid in the bedroom, she doesn't really like the vacuum cleaner.

I took the leaf out of my dining room table, I find the more space available, the more I pile in that space. I still need to finish the borders on the baby quilts. I may attack them again this afternoon. My mitering is not going the way it should. After finding the top of my table, I pulled out my Matthew Precept study and did a couple of days worth. I haven't been diligent in doing this study. But I'm committed to finishing it and part two. I love these studies and I'm trying to ingest them slowly.

I kept seeing these denim baskets on Pinterest. So I made several. They were quick and very easy to make. I need to take to work and find homes for them.

Crafting Friday

http://www.incolororder.com/2011/10/lined-drawstring-bag-tutorial.html?m=1

I felt a little crafty and found this great tutorial to make draw string bags.  The Yarn Harlot was listing knitty Christmas presents and had accessory bags listed. When I saw the cute bags on Etsy, I really like them. But I'm also cheap frugal and refuse to pay $30 for a bag I can make.

I dug through the fabric stash and found this cute Mary Engelbriet fabric. Less than an hour later I had two bags made. Great tutorial and easy to follow. Now my knitting isn't tangled in my bag.

Weekend Quilting

I'm hoping to finish a sweet baby quilt today! So I'm just stopping in to do a quick post and say I've not forgotten the blog. I know I don't have many readers, but I won't have any if I don't post often. :)

I also finished knitting a cowl last night, now I need to block it and sew the ends together. I purchased some awesome knitting books a few weeks ago and I'm sure The Principles of Knitting will walk me through sewing the ends together.

Will post pics soon!

Hobby

When I was young, I hated my mom taking pictures. She took forever to focus or whatever she was doing. LOL Both sister and I have a love of photography today.

I am constantly reading photography blogs. My vacations are to places where I can take great pictures. Even if my photo style is bad, the scenery compensates. :)

I'm very thankful mom gave me a love for photography. Even if I didn't want to be her subject. Tonight, I combined my gifts and made my own camera bag. I found tutorials online and think it was a success!