MOP Monday

Last weekend, I finally gave up on the idea of finishing my Inspired by Scattered Quilt top and carefully stacked up the remaining pieces and tucked them away. I am happy to announce, however, that I was able to finish the top yesterday evening while Jack worked on Akron Stuff.

 
I LOVE IT. Hubs asked me who it was for and I told him ME. Some things I did learn from this quilt though - if you are going to use charm packs, DO NOT mix manufacturers. This quilt has charm packs from Connecting Threads, Stonehenge by Northcott, a pack from Missouri Star Quilting Company (not sure what brand) and a few extras that I cut from my stash, and they are all slightly different sizes. Ugh ugh ugh.

Sleeping last night was out of the question, after a loud noise woke me up in a panic. Turned out it was just a fan clacking, but I honestly thought it was an electrical wire sparking.

I gave up eventually and pulled together a few fat quarters and spent a couple hours cutting them up and stitching them together in a sort of bias binding. It is not for binding but that seems to be the best way to describe it. I finally crashed sometime after 2 AM with a nice pile of 30+ yards of quilt "blocks."

This morning I ironed some navy blue fabric and started stitching the "binding" to it, in the spirit of the Loominous Pillow by Faith@Fresh Lemons Modern Quilts.

It is already sandwiched with batting and backing and is a Quilt-As-You-Go method. I'm using my walking foot to stitch the strips to all three layers. My first attempt at this, but I'm liking the results so far. It will be a small quilt but a heavy one, as there will be three layers of fabric at each point on the quilt top.

Linking Up to MOP Monday @ Tweety Loves Quilting

Slouchy Hat!

Between Hogwarts and overtime at work, there hasn't been a lot of down time. Most days this week, I left home by 6:30 am, arrived home after 6 pm, and went to bed about three hours later.  Watching TV and playing video games are about the only thing I've had the energy for. 

TV time is good for handwork, so I did finish the Slouchy Hat. It was a free pattern on Craftsy: The Audrey Slouchy Hat.

I made it from the same yard as the Windowpane Scarf. All done and ready to go into a box. I have no idea what I'll do with it yet, so I'll tuck it away until I find somewhere to donate or someone who needs it. In my experience, these things always have a way of getting used somehow.

The other two scarves I am working on are coming along nicely and will both need matching hats eventually.

The purple one is the Orient Heights Infinity Scarf but I think the pattern is hard to see because of the thick yarn. It has just over one skein in it and the pastel dragon scale has two skeins. I will probably keep the pastel dragon scale one because I dearly love it and the other will go in the donation box.

I'm thinking that the purple hat will use this pattern: Divine Hat by Sarah Arnold and I'd like to find a dragon scale hat pattern for the other one.

First Years This Way Please

"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts..." My niece's surprise birthday party took place this weekend.

It started with a portal through Platform 9 3/4.

Upon arrival, the new Hogwarts students were sorted. The bag contains tokens with the symbols of the houses. The students drew a token and received a matching tie.

Then after a sorting was the Feast in the Great Hall.

Classes began soon after. Defense Against the Dark Arts with wands designed to fire marshmallows, Quidditch 101, and Potions.

For the Quidditch game, we hung hula hoops up in the back yard, used a small soccar ball as a Quaffle, and a plastic bat and two small balls as bludgers.

The Birthday Girl was thrilled and very surprised and those involved were occasionally attacked with enthusiastic hugs over the course to the evening. It was declared the "Best Birthday Party EV-ver." I had lots of help from family and friends to get this set up and it was worth every second. People made cakes, helped decorate, designed crafts, and kept it a secret. GO TEAM!

Today I am very tired and taking it easy. Birthday Girl spent the night after her party and her parents picked her up at Church this morning. I'm currently back home, bundled up in pajamas and planning on spending the rest of the day watching TV and playing video games.

Tomorrow I need to clean out my sewing room, as I had to use it to store stuff to make room for the party and then hopefully get some stitchy time in.

WIP Wednesday & Let's Be Social

It's almost all the way together! I know I was supposed to get this done a couple days ago, but, well, Life. It will be done in the next couple of days because it has to be. 

No cross stitching this week, as I've had to put my stand away for a few days but I am working on a hat to match a scarf that I finished a while ago. This will be a "slouchy hat" and the pattern was free on Craftsy.

I was kind of excited to learn how to do the stretchy brim. :)

I hope your week is going well. Linking up to WIP Wednesday and Let's Bee Social.

Sunday Stitching

It's Slow Sunday Stitching time again, hosted by Kathy@Kathy's Quilts.

I've spent the weekend cleaning and organizing and taking time to do some stitching. ALL of my cross stitch projects were moved from my stitching corner to my sewing room for the time being, except for the one I'm currently working on. My basket of yarn also was subjected to a clean out and most of it went back into my yarn bin which is hiding under my sewing room desk. I kept the overflow in the basket in addition to the project bag in which I have my three crochet projects.

Library Kittens is still in the rotation. Last time I presented a full update was right after Badon Hill in September, as I spent a lot of the drive stitching.

Before

I managed to get a lot stitched in the last week and a half, so I'm very happy with the progress. 

As of 01/17/16

I calculated the total stitches on this to be ~17,000 stitches which puts me at about 30% done, not counting the backstitching.

The quilt piecing is going very smoothly, and should be finished by bedtime this evening.