It's done!

Yay - the final stitch went into my son's dragon quilt not 10 minutes ago.  Put the binding on yesterday, unpicked the stay stitches that the quilter put around the edges and added a simple label this afternoon. Even managed to get a pic before the rain hits.

My Blessings to everyone over this festive seaon.

New Syndrome

I decided last night that I have discovered a new syndrome.  One that is known to many but, I don't think, ever named.

It's called: MSNP Syndrome.

And I have it.

So what's MSNP I hear you ask?  Well that stands for Must Start New Project.  and that's what I was doing when I came up with the name - starting a new project.

Never mind the few I have in progress - actually that's probably lots in progress.  I got the idea to make a felt table runner in the Penny Rug style and just had to do it.  Today!  No stopping me, it had to be started.

Here is a sneak peak.

That's just 1 end of it - it's around 90cm x 40cm and will have tongues on the short sides with pennies on the tongues.  I got all the light globes stitched down and started on the bulb ends and electric wire and went - mmmm, had enough now.

I intend on making it reversible.  The other side will be white with....... - yeah don't know yet.

But here is a pic of something that I have finished - today - and under 1/4 an hour.  My mantle over the fire place.

I used the panorama feature on my camera - hence the out of whack photo frame at the top.

Latest Creations

As part of - or rather because of - being part of the 12 socks in 2012 Challenge, I had to finish off the pair I had on the needles.  They are a blue self stripe in a wool blend.

They sit around mid calf and have shaping down the calf to the ankle.  This is an attempt to stop them from bunching around my ankles.

I also finally got around to sewing up a Sulphur Crested Cockatoo.  This guy I have had cut out for over a year just sitting in a bag waiting.  He's a Funky Friends pattern.

I did not like the way the pattern had his tail so I made one myself using the wings pattern.  The original did not have a tail as such, it just stopped at the end of the body.

I think he looks much nicer with my tail.  Now to make a flock of cockatoos, galahs, etc....

New Challenge Joined

After doing a random search of things crafty, I came across a challenge to knit 1 pair of socks each month in 2012.  I think this is something I can acheive for a number of reasons.
1. I like to knit socks.
2. I have lots of socky yarn.
3. I find they knit up fairly quickly.
4. I like to knit socks - or did I already say that?



So you can find the link over on my sidebar, if you too want to join this challenge.

Blessings,

Busy Beaver

I have been busy making things recently.  Making up for lost time during the year I spose.

Some fabric ATC's - there was 3 more but they have already been given away:

Some Christmas Ornaments for my niece and nephew:

Some more ornaments for some friends:

Also made 2 Christmas stockings, 1 for my Sister and another for a friend, plus the friend's hubby got a knitted willy warmer.  Sorry guys - no pics of these.....

I had lots of fun making all of these shut away in my Craft Room.  I have to shut the door otherwise I get help from Neo.  Here he is sitting on the ironing board not impressed that I won't let him sit on my knee or what I was working on at the time.  He often helps me type things too......

New Purse

Ok, so It's not really a new purse, but I was tired of the outer layer of my purse flaking off.

See the discoloured bit in the middle - that's where the vinyl came off.  It was horrible.  The stuff would end up all over my hand.  So after 1 hour of cutting, stitching and glueing I now have a 'new' purse.

Isn't it pretty?  No more flaking stuff.  It's been like this a ciuple of weeks now and so far it is holding up quite well.  I wanted to sew on the fabric all around, but the vinyl was gumming up my needle too much - I ended up gluing half of it to the original bit.

Here is some little cross stitches I did for my eldest daughters cali team members.  They did bugs for one of their items.

newest quilt

Ok, so the other day I had read about a technique on speed sewing a quilt top using nothing but a jelly roll - I think it was called jelly roll 1600.  This had me intrigued so I went to my LFS to get a jelly roll.  I found 1 that I liked, but it had been 'broken into' and did not have all the lengths it should have had.  So I went to the sales table and lo and behold, I found 13 coordinating fabrics.  This really rare for me, never mind the sales table.  They were all from differnt ranges too, which I think made it better.  Since I found this many I decided that fate was playing a hand and I bought 1m of 12 of them.

Here they are.

I Sunday I sat down to make me a speed quilt.  I cut 3 2.5" strips from each of the fabrics, dumped them all on the floor and randomly picked up 2 to sew them end to end.  I kept going until all 36 strips were used up.  The only rule I had was to not put 2 of the same fabric together.  I did diagonal seams for interest.  Once together I got the two ends and then sewed down the length - I went from a pieced strip 1512" long to one that was 2 strips wide and 756" long - had to cut the strip in half when I got to the end (middle??). 

Here's the pile that seaming made.

Then I found the ends again and sewed the 2 strip sets together along the length, cut the end and repeated it twice more, until I had a finished quilt top.

All in all it took only a couple of hours from start (cutting the strips) to finish.  I picked up the strips randomly, so what surprised me was that twice, when doing the first long seam, I had the same fabrics being sewn together and then on the next long seam they ended up near one another.

I showed it my youngest and she thought it was quite nice.  I haven't measured it yet, but it is a nice large lap size.  It has inspired me to make another one from the same fabrics since I still have 80cm of it left.  I'm thinking this one will be more ordered with some sashing and some plain borders.