John's Quilt

I finished John's quilt on Monday and have been waiting to post about it until I could go get pictures taken of it. Well, I kept forgetting and then I was going to do it and it started raining and then I was working on the quilt for Eric and Emerald's baby... you get the picture. Today, I bundled up both quits, took them over to ACU to take pictures, get John's quilt all laid out, grab the camera....and the batteries are dead. Go figure. Anyway, currently the batteries are charging and I will go take pictures in the morning. The baby shower is at 1 tomorrow and I am supposed to be there at noon and John is showing up around 3, so tomorrow morning is my last chance to get pictures taken.

Here is what I have so far:



John wanted blue and orange for his quilt. Normally this is not a color combination I would choose, but it was fun to work with and I feel it came out well. I picked up some of these fabrics throughout the last year while I was working on Melody's quilt. Those were the basketball, net, and soccer prints. The blue with gold swirls is leftover from Harmon's quilt. Apparently, I had been planning on making the borders on Harmon's quilt out of that fabric because after making his quilt and a knitting bag for a swap there was still 2 yards left. After using it in John's quilt in the blocks and for the binding it is down to about 1/2 of a yard. It's a good thing I like this fabric.



The pattern I used is called Indian Summer and I found it in the November 2003 issue of Quilter magazine. In the pattern all of the stars are supposed to spin the same direction. After I started piecing the second set of stars I decided to make them spin the opposite direction. This created the cool rectangles of the black and white prints. This is actually the first quilt I have made that had sashing and cornerstones. It adds a bit of work, but it sure does look nice.

I accidentally made this quilt a full size. I had been planning on making it an extra-long twin, with 35 blocks, but for some reason when I started cutting I had it in my head that I needed 48 blocks, so it has an extra row and column of blocks.



On Harmon's quilt I had embroidered sports and graduation designs in the centers of the blocks. On John's I embroidered sports and academic designs around the border. I had hoped to be able to cut long strips and mark where all the embroidery should be, but that ended up being to complicated to pre-plan, so I cut out 6 inch squares to embroider. After the embroidery was done I squared them up to 5.5 inches. The machine embroidery can cause some pulling and shrinkage. Then I played with the layout. I had been planning on putting one design centered next to each of the blocks. However, that didn't work for centering the name patch at the top of the quilt, so I ended up centering the embroideries on the sashings and corners. This worked out really well. I will have more pics of the embroidery along with explanations of their significance.



On the back I used free-pieced letters to spell out Johner Mac. Because the quilt ended up larger than planned I didn't have nearly enough of the great backing fabric I had purchased. I had nightmares trying to get the back big enough. Originally, I made two strips of disappearing nine patch blocks and put the name strip between them, but the back still wasn't long enough, so I put 4 inch strips of white on the bottom and top of the name strip and then used white to fill in the top of the back. This is more how I was planning on it looking anyway. I really like it now. I kept the other strip of disappearing nine patches. I am sure that they will be used sometime. I am thinking it would make for a quick baby blanket for a boy.

Anyway, there should be more pictures tomorrow or Sunday.

My quilt!

My quilt, originally uploaded by knitterleigh.

I have been working a lot on John's quilt, but I took a bit of time out to play with mine for a while. Here are the first four blocks. The blue is cut from extra pillowcases we bought when we bought new sheets to go on the new mattress. This quilt will be 100" on each side. This pattern is called Spiderweb. I had seen these showing up online on various blogs and I thought this would be the perfect quilt for our room. The walls are a light blue with white trim and we have black furniture with silver accents. I can't wait to get this quilt on the bed in there.

Hi again

It's been almost a year since I updated this, but it is time for me to be more diligent with posting here.

After finishing Harmon's quilt last year, Melody and I went shopping for fabric for a quilt for her. Since this quilt was to commemorate her graduation from nursing school, she got a king size quilt. She found a beautiful toile remnant at Hancock fabrics and we bought the whole piece. Then we picked some more rose, gold, and green fabrics to go with the toile. We picked a quilt pattern that would allow me to highlight the toile. All of those pieces were fussy cut.

I had this whole thing pieced, sandwiched, and pinned and even some of the quilting done by her graduation in December, but once I had missed that deadline, this got pushed to the end of my priority list. I had a friend's wedding veil that I needed to have finished by her wedding in June and didn't have time to work on both projects. The veil is done, and the wedding is over with a very pleased bride. More info on that later. I finally had time to get back to Melody's quilt. I pulled it out and cleaned up my sewing room with the help of Carolyn and got to work again. Even quilting almost all day every day, it took me a little over a week to finish the quilting and binding. This is one huge quilt! I even changed the border quilting pattern from what I had originally had planned to this beautiful feathered leaf pattern that was in the newest issue of Quiltmaker.

Carolyn and I took it over to the Jacob's Dream garden at ACU to take some pictures. Unfortunately in the course of taking these pictures, I tripped over a rock and dropped the camera to its death. It took a few more pictures that have some blurry spots and then refused to work any more. This was a brand new camera. I really liked it and the great pictures it would take with hardly any effort on my part. Hopefully I will be able to replace it in the near future. Until then I am back to the old camera that I hate.

I took the quilt to Melody on Sunday and she loves it. I don't actually have any pictures of her with it, but here are some of my cat Emma with the quilt. Emma is very sad that this quilt is gone. She had claimed it as hers.

Baby Barcroft

The first baby in our group of college friends is due next month! Kara, Chris' cousin, and her husband Daniel are having a baby boy.

We girls, Tiffany, Laura S. , Laura B., Ruth, Katey and myself gave Kara a surprise shower on Saturday. Toph, Austin, Tiffany and Laura S. went over to Kara and Daniel's house ostensibly to celebrate Austin's birthday, which is on Tuesday. Then they got Kara out of the house by telling her they were taking her clothes and antiques shopping. Meanwhile the rest of the girls were at the antique mall in the tea room where we had all of the presents.

Laura and Tiffany brought Kara in and she was very surprised to see all of us. We had planned a baby book theme, so everyone had bought baby books for the new baby. Our favorite was the one from Laura:





Kara loved all of the Little Golden, Good Dog Carl, and Pirate books. The baby got a lot of clothes including the outfit that I gave them. For those of you who do not know Kara and Daniel, Daniel is a goofball who loves cartoons and comics and is a cartoonist himself. He always wears Converse sneakers, including at his own wedding. So here is what I made for their baby; Converse booties, Blue jeans, and a baseball tee with Mac from Freshfish (Daniel's webcomic) on it.





Daniel loved the shirt so much that he took it to church the next morning to show off to everyone! It was really great being able to make something that they appreciated so much.

We did finally take Kara shopping so that she could get some new maternity tops and we could all hang out.

That night, Laura B., Katy, Tiffany, and I went Swing dancing at the Sammons center. It was so much fun. I hadn't been dancing in years. I felt five pounds lighter by the end of the night. That is the best way to exercise ever!

I spent the next day with Laura S. knitting on her couch and helping her untangle some beautiful alpaca/silk laceweight yarn that she had tangled when she tried to knit with it straight from the skein. :( Chris hung out with the guys and played the new expansion to Settlers (the best game ever!)

All in all it was a wonderful weekend, though a little long. I can't wait to see the baby when he comes!

Harmon's Quilt Pt. 2

Well, I went home for Harmon's graduation and birthday a couple of weeks ago and I gave him his quilt and another present. I have been busy and lazy and haven't posted yet.

I didn't take any pictures of Harmon with his quilt because other people there had better cameras than I did. So these pictures were taken by his girlfriend.

First, I gave him a personalized picture frame. (These pics by Melody)


Then, I gave him the quilt.
He loved it.

I am so proud of him. Here he is walking across the stage and getting his diploma. Notice the gold tassel which means that he is in the top 10 percent of his class and the NHS collar.

Graduation Quilt pt 1

Last Christmas my wonderful, darling husband bought me a new sewing/embroidery machine. I decided that to properly break it in, I should make a graduation quilt for my brother Harmon. Harmon runs Cross Country and the one and two-mile events in Track as well as plays soccer and basketball. In addition he is a very good student. I would love to have students(s) like him! I wanted to honor his activities in a quilt that allowed me to play with my embroidery machine, so I picked a quilt pattern that had large white blocks that I could embroider with motifs about his sports.With this in mind, I picked the Bear Tracks pattern in the Spring/Summer '07 "Quilt Sampler" by Better Homes and Gardens which my mother had given me for Christmas.
I used Harmon's school colors. The fact that the pattern has bear claws is fitting since his school mascot is the wildcat and they have paw prints on everything. (yes, I know that the bear claw has 4 toes and the cat paw print has only 3)
I just finished piecing it to night and have laid out the backing, batting, and quit top sandwich. I will start quilting tomorrow. I am very pleased with how it is turning out so far.

Other News and Knitting

Two weeks ago, the DH and I went to the D/FW area to hang out with some friends and I took the opportunity to do some yarn shopping at Yarns Ewenique in Fort Worth. I got some great yarn. First I bought some beautiful Classic Elite Miracle in the most gorgeous deep plum color I have ever seen. Alas, I have no pictures, as that yarn was purchased for my Swap on a Budget partner on Ravelry, and it has been sent off. I bought some other yarn for some secret baby knitting. And then I splurged and bought two balls of Jojoland Harmony in rust and green colorway to make my first lace project; the Pretty as a Peacock Shawl by Some Knitting Required. I am hoping to have this done by the middle of June so that I can wear it when I go out to California for my grandparents 50th anniversary.

I have gotten about halfway through the second chart and am really enjoying this knit. The colors are gorgeous and the pattern is really interesting. I love getting far enough into a chart to see what picture this portion creates. I also love the moment when I "get" the pattern and what is going on, how the row I am knitting now relates to the previous row. That is a really great feeling. (I also am less likely to mess up because at this point I understand what I am doing and not just blindly following the steps, trusting that they will get me to the desired end product. I wish that my students could get what we are doing in class the same way. It is the best moment in the world when it does happen. Those are the moments that remind me why I am teaching.)

Anyway, here are some pictures, because that is why you are here, right? You want to SEE what I am making.

Here is where I was on April 27th. At this point, I had completed the first chart.
Here is where I am now. You can see the change of colors that is happening and the change in pattern from the little tiny feathers at the center to the bigger feathers that overlap like scales at the outer edge where it is green. You can also see the yarn I am using. I love it. It is really soft and having the colors change has been a lot of fun to watch.
If you look closely, you can also see the 17 stitch markers that I made so that I can separate each pattern repeat. They don't all match because I made the big pink ones first and used up all of those beads (Yes mom, they are the leftover beads from the bracelet I made you for the wedding). But then I got to the next chart and it repeats 15 times so I had to make 10 more markers and so I used some plastic pearl beads that I have had for ages and ages along with some purple seed beads left over from when I made my sister's prom dress a few years back.

Completed Fifi!

I have completed Fifi finally! I have been holding off on posting because I have had difficulty obtaining a decent picture. I finally decided I should post and show you the pics I have and then come back and add the gorgeous pictures that Emerald is going to take for me.



First we have a picture of it in its finished glory while blocking. Yes, it really is THAT orange while wet.

This picture was taken on Monday, when I thought that I was going to wear it, but then I turned on the news and it was 37 degrees outside. 37! in Abilene on April 28th. So I changed into something else and then wore Fifi on Tuesday. I wore it again on Friday night. I really, really, really love this pattern/top! It is super comfortable and super cute. Don't you think so?
I want to make another one soon, probably in a plum or dark teal for some variation. The color on this one is really interesting. Thus the varying colors in posts. The color makes me think of a Creamsicle. It is just about that color of a soft orange.

Even though I made mine in the size medium and made it 3-4 inches longer than the cropped length in the pattern I still used only 5 balls of Rowan Calmer instead of the recommended 7. That means that since I bought it as a bag of 10 balls, I have enough left over for another one. I am hoping to be able to either trade or sell what I have left over to obtain yarn for a new one. The only thing that I am not completely sold on with this pattern is the dip in the center front and back. Before I make my next one, I want to experiment with changing the center section so that it doesn't end up so much longer than the rest of the top. I am thinking about continuing the three center cables, keeping the outer ones as staggered cables. This is based on my theory that the diagonal ribbing is what is causing the "V" shape in the center and that the cables won't do that. We'll see.

Multitasking, Progress, and Cats that Get in the Way.

I mentioned the other day that I had been knitting while watching my embroidery machine and listening to an audio book. Well here is what that looks like...

I have been working steadily on my Fifi and it shows:I only have about 6 inches to go! and then finishing up the sleeves. I am really excited about getting this done.


In other news: it is difficult to knit when the very friendly cat decides that she wants to sit right next to you and lays down on your yarn. You don't have room to move your elbows without disturbing and waking her up (and then she would try to play with the yarn...) and it is harder to pull the yarn with all of that extra tension on it.

Notice that Emma does not care at all that she is being a nuisance.

Ravelry!

I am now on Ravelry. If you want to find me on there, I am Knitterleigh.