Profusion of Butterflies

I spent a lot of this weekend crafting instead of doing things I was "supposed" to do, so here is a quick update. I estimate that I am about 10% done with Butterfly Profusion.

As of Sep. 25

As of Sep. 28

I've been watching Stargate and doing laundry while working on this project, so it really has been a relaxing weekend. We also went to the theater to see The Equalizer. It wasn't as good as Man on Fire but it was definitely an excellent movie.

This Wednesday, Mega Mini Month Madness starts over at Pull the Other Thread so expect to see a few Christmas Ornaments popping up here and there on the blog. I would also like to do another block on my Halloween Twister quilt this week.

In other more unfortunate news, I had to initiate word verification for comments on this blog, due to the high number of spam comments I was receiving. I hope this will take care of the problem so that I do not have to start moderating comments. Please continue to leave me comments anyway, I always love getting feedback from friendly folks.

Halloween Twister Quilt

This week I pulled out an old UFO and started working on my Halloween Twister Quilt. This one became a UFO because I had some purple ghostie fabric to use as sashing but I thought it looked too busy. This time, I tried just plain black fabric.

Then began the somewhat tedious work of cutting out the twists.

Being incredibly impatient, I stitched the rows together as they were cut. Here is the first two rows with the original block to give you some idea of the size difference. The original block was 28" and the finished twister block is 19".

Tonight, I finished piecing the twister block together. I have materials prepared for five more of these.

That will give me an approximate 40" x 60" quilt, so I'll have to add some borders to make it decent throw sized. Luckily, with careful cutting, I was able to salvage a lot of the trimmings, resulting in a pile of about twenty 2.5" squares. I'm confidant that I will be able to use those to make the border.

Lesson learned the hard way: be very careful while cutting out the twists. I sliced too far on one and cut into the next block. I've zigzagged the cut closed but I will have to cover it up with some applique when the top is completed.

In other news, here are the penguins at last update

September 13

And here they are now:

September 25

I will confess to pushing this one aside in favor of the butterfly kit I picked up last week. The colors are so much prettier on that project.

Plans for the future? I have some Christmas Ornament kits and I plan on spending October doing a SAL with Pull the Other Thread for the Mega Mini Month Madness. I think I will take them to work and spend my lunch breaks on them instead of Maggie the Messmaker (whom I am quite annoyed with and haven't worked on for three weeks after frogging a large section.) Cats are so temperamental.

Happy Stitching!

I wasn't planning on a new start, but...

This weekend we had a long road trip out to the Badon Hill event in Somerset, PA. We took off Thursday at about lunchtime, got about an hour down the road, and discovered that I had left a page of my pattern for my Fall Fairy cross stitch project behind.

Now I'm looking at a six hour car drive with nothing to do. And six hours on Sunday. And all day at the campground Friday and Saturday. ARGH NO PLEASEEEEE SOMEBODY SAVE ME!

Jack came to my rescue with an emergency stop at the Toledo JoAnn Fabrics, where I picked up the Butterfly Profusion kit by Dimensions. (And then a stop at the Hobby Lobby down the street to get a Q-snap frame - isn't he the nicest bestest hubby ever?)

I tirelessly worked on it all weekend when I wasn't shooting the minions of evil with arrows, eating funnel cake, or catching up on sleep.

We had a great time at the event. The nearest town was only 15 minutes away and there was a food vendor on site, so we didn't even bother cooking for ourselves all weekend. They held skirmish battles on Friday and main battles on Saturday. I really wish I had thought to keep my camera on me, but I left it in the tent on the way to the main battle, which takes place at the top of a very steep hill. By the time I realized my camera wasn't with me, I had already climbed the hill twice and was completely unwilling to do so again. Hopefully I can borrow some photos from Facebook to share.

So now it is back to Mundania and work tomorrow. Oh, how boring!

Linking up to Slow Stitching Sunday @ Kathy's Quilts

Just Keep Stitching

I was finally able to locate the original pattern of the penguins that I am working on. The pattern was by Pegasus Originals and is found in a booklet with three other patterns.

My standing frame for stitching came this week! I'm so excited (I combined all my birthday money this year to buy this frame.) It is handmade to order by Artisan Home Design and took three weeks to get delivered. It was worth every penny and the long wait.  Unlike many mass produced floor stands, the Artisan Home Design stands can accommodate almost any size project and clamp to the scroll frame side bar or hoop instead of the scroll rod. I picked the Ergo model because it is collapsible and portable and compatible with recliners. I am really very happy with my stand, although I have yet to try it with a large project. Currently, my Penguins are living on the stand.

And the end of the penguins is finally in sight! That little line of brown on the right side represents the bottom of the project. I must confess here that working with only a few colors (and all of them in the brown/black family) can be gosh-darn boring at times and at other times nice because you don't have to think too hard about your stitching. I calculate about 4800 remaining stitches. Next time I plan to do a project with so much white in it, I would probably choose to stitch on ivory aida, to make the stitching easier to see.

I also finished quilting Mod Mosaic. I'm going to put the binding on before I post photos, but hopefully that will happen this weekend.

Jack has been busy this week finishing his quiver. I won't post photos yet because he should get first bragging rights but it is a beauty. More to come soon!

Progress and a Scary List

I think I finally got the "No Reply Blogger" nonsense squared away, although I'm pretty sure that my posts will no longer automatically appear on my Google+ feed.  If you are having this problem, check out this tutorial for help.

We got stuck inside today for various reasons and I was more than happy to take advantage of the downtime to work on a few things.

The first thing I did was dig up an old whiteboard and hang it in my sewing room. I have issues focusing on what needs to be done unless I have a list. Check out my list. It is scary long. Plus, I'm sure I missed a few things.

Future projects are things I really want to start now, but am not starting until a can cross a few things off the list. Having them on my list is incentive to Get Stuff Done.

Today, I shifted the Kona Slate Rock quilt from the UFO phase to the Flimsy phase and ordered some blue and white variegated thread from Red Rock Threads for quilting. This really needs a better name than "Slate Rock" because that was the name of the fat quarter pack I used. 

Then I womaned up and sandwiched the Mod Mosaic quilt. It wouldn't have happened except I had a piece of fabric the right size in my stash for backing. 

I even started quilting it in a basic stipple pattern using the same rainbow thread I used to quilt Anemone. I'm really liking how the thread shows up on both the gray backing and the dark purple quilt top. 

Once I get the Mod Mosaic quilted up, I want to finish the top for the Train DP9. It only needs borders and was set aside because I cut the borders wrong - twice - and got frustrated. 

The Affairs of the Heart quilt that you can see under my "Future Projects" list is from this book:

There is a whole assortment of these quilts out there for you to see if you want to get an idea of what the finished quilt looks like. There are 36 different blocks and all appliqued. It is a long term project. I've decided to use my Asian inspired fat quarters and a dark cream colored background. I'll put the kimono quilt on hold for a while because its not really interesting to me at this point. 

The Anna of the Celts is currently the next HAED that I want to start, although I'm going to force myself to finish at least one cross stitch project first. At the very least, I need an open scroll frame. I think I'm going to try to finish the Penguin Family first. 

Anna of the Celts by Dean Morrisey

I am planning on doing the mini version of this pattern, it will be about 9" x 13" when completed. 

So here's hoping that my list can keep me on track! How do you keep tabs on your unfinished projects?

Linking up to Anything Goes @ StitchbyStitch and MOP Monday at Tweety Loves Quilting

No Reply Blogger

Hello everyone,

Sometime recently I was switched to being a no-reply blogger. I'm not quite sure when this happened (although I suspect it was when my google plus profiles were linked to my blog) and I apologize for the inconvenience. I have followed all of the google tutorials for fixing this option and I have not been able to resolve it yet. So, I have posted a help ticket and hope to get it fixed soon. Thank you to everyone who found a way to reply to my comments on their blogs anyway.

~Kaelyn

Grumpy Day

I'm a little grumpy this evening

So here are a couple WIP pictures

And what I decided to eat for dinner after Olga's supplemented my to-go salad with some rotten (literally, black nasty rotten) lettuce.

At least I can now engage in brownie therapy. Yes, I like to make my brownies in pie plates because then you can get yummy crispy edges on every piece.