"Film at Five" quilt in progress

This one is coming along ... Inspired by the "Film at Five" quilt design I saw in this tutorial by WeddingDressBlue: https://weddingdressblue.wordpress.com/2012/09/24/tutorial-film-at-five-quilt/

This little quilt is made with a bunch of bright, fun batiks, and unbleached muslin.

I love it so far ... Mine is smaller than the tutorial -- It's a baby quilt, about 50" x 50".

Here's a picture of the partially-assembled quilt top.

T.A.R.D.I.S. quilt in progress

This one is almost done ... By special request from my oldest daughter. 

It's a T.A.R.D.I.S. quilt ... My own design, made of recycled T-shirts, based on the "Dr. Who" TV series.

The piecing is done. The lettering is done. The quilting is in progress.

I'll post more pictures after it's quilted.

Knitting Socks

For several months, I've been knitting these awesome fall-colored, striped socks. Last week, I finished them - just in time for Fall weather!

Have I mentioned how much I love self-striping sock yarn?! Watching the colorful (predictable) stripe patterns emerge just keeps the (repetitive) knitting process so interesting!

These are made from Heart & Sole's "Razzle Dazzle" sock yarn. Washable. Partly wool. Super-soft. These are now among my favorite cozy wintertime socks!

Little Zig-zag Quilt

I've been working on this here and there for a while ... Right now, it's about 35 inches square. Might add borders, or more rows, but for now, it's progress!

Batik Double Wedding Ring Progress

This Double Wedding Ring quilt top is coming together slowly, but surely. Every now and then, I pull it out and work on it. Several days ago, I spent some time adding to this one.

Right now, it just needs a couple more rows of circle units added, and then the center with be done. After that, it'll get an order border of the same navy as the background.

I love the way the bright colors look against the dark navy background.

Green T-Shirt Squares, Minecraft-Style

I got this quilt top pieced, from green T-Shirt squares. I'm getting it ready to quilt it onto fleece.

For the T-Shirt/fleece combination, I usually like to quilt straight diagonal lines, to minimize the shifting and stretching that sometimes happen when quilting T-Shirts.

This Minecraft-style quilt is almost done ...

This quilt is ready to quilt ... It's for my youngest son, who's a big fan of the Minecraft video game. (This one's made of T-Shirt fabric, backed with fleece ... Super cozy!) I find it fun to put together the bits and pieces that look not only quilt-y, but also Minecraft-y!

Next Up ...

This quilt is next up to be quilted. It's a twin-sized Minecraft-style fleece-&-T-shirt quilt. Probably, it will be for sale on eBay soon.

This is a fun style, and I love the soft coziness of the fleece and T-shirt combination!

Flannel and Blue

I found the most adorable blue flannel remnant at the store recently, and thought how cute it would be as a little quilt!

The little gray and blue elephants on the flannel are just the cutest! I had some T-shirt fabric squares in matching colors, so a quilt top came together pretty quickly.

Now, the big question ... Should I back it with fleece, or with batting and backing? We shall see ...

One Thousand Eight

As of right now, this quilt top has One Thousand Eight little squares!

This one started out as a Leaders and Enders project, but once I got excited about it,I got busy getting it done.

I'll probably add a border or two next ...

Anti-procrastination day ...

This week, I tackled a couple of things I've been needing to finish, or send, or return. It feels good to get that last step done! Really, I should probably assign myself at least one "anti-procrastination day" per week!

Still knitting ...

I've been knitting this pair of socks for a few weeks ... I mentioned this pair in an earlier post. 

I've just gotten to the part where the heel increases start ...

A thousand little squares

I'm in the process of sewing together over a thousand little squares ...

It's impossible to say for sure what this one will become, but so far, it's looking like a twin-size quilt, and I have high hopes for it.

I've got all these little squares ... A rainbow of solids, (and prints/stripes/batiks that "read like solids", as quilters like to say), with a variety of whites ... They're all cut at 2 1/2 inches, to finish at 2 inches.

They're all sewn into 4-patches, and each 4-patch is sewn to another. (Is there a name for that? 8-patch? 2x4? Half-a-16-patch? No idea.)

Look for more pictures of this one later, when more progress has happened.

Quilting today

I got this little T-shirt quilt (Minecraft-style!) quilted today.

 I quilted the T-shirt quilt top onto a fuzzy fleece backing.

This is a throw-size quilt ... 

About 42" x 52".

Candles

Lately, I've enjoyed having candles around. Since I enjoy them, and since I've been using my candles a little more lately, I've gotten curious about the processes for making jar candles.

With a little extra candle-wax around, and a bit of informal research, I've started trying to make some candles (even if "making" just involves re-melting candle wax and pouring it!)

I'm finding that pouring candles can be kind of a messy business!

But I'm loving the results -- lots of great candles, without the usual expense!

I'm enjoying my candles, and my candle-making!

I made a doily quilt!

This was a fun project I recently finished ... It's a baby quilt for a friend's new baby girl.

T-shirts on the front ... Doilies on the back.

Lots of T-Shirt squares for a simple patchwork quilt top ...

 

And those doilies I mentioned a couple weeks ago ...

 

 ... added to a gorgeous peach-colored quilt back.

More Video-Game Quilts

Lately, I've had fun making a couple of Minecraft-style quilts (see posts here and here).

I'm working on a couple more! Once again, I'm working with T-Shirt fabrics. These quilts will be small, throw-sized quilts - about 45" x 55".

 

Probably, I'll be able to finish these pretty soon. I'm hoping to donate them to the local foster parents' association, to be given to children entering foster care. Maybe, in a small way, a cozy quilt might help to brighten a difficult time in a child's life. I hope so.  

 

Check back in a couple weeks, to see finished pictures ... 

Spring Flowers

Other than daffodils, these are the first spring flowers that bloom in my yard.

Here they are in a vase, (along with leaves from another plant.)

Little white flowers that grow from bulbs ... Their Latin name is Leucojum, and I think they're also called Snow Bells.

They look a lot like lilies of the valley, but the flower edges are different (less "ruffled", plus the green spots), and the leaves are narrower.

These pretty little flowers are such a nice welcome to spring!

Self-Striping Sock Yarn

I love self-striping sock yarn!

It's so fun to watch the patterns and stripes emerge, without any extra effort.

I'm knitting these socks from the toe up ... Like I did with a previous pair (see this post and this post).

Socks!

There's nothing quite like hand-knitted socks.

This pair is finally finished!

Actually, as sock-knitting goes, this pair was faster than my usual.  

According to this post, I started this blue-green pair of socks in mid-December; they're done before the end of March. Not bad!

 

 

So. I've already bought enough yarn for TWO more pairs of socks!

Up next: Self-striping Heart & Sole "Razzle Dazzle" sock yarn. I love it already!

 

Doily quilt?

For several months, I've been intrigued by the idea of putting doilies on quilts.

So I've been "rescuing" crocheted doilies from thrift stores, and pondering how to make a doily quilt.

Recently, I happened upon some crochet thread, & decided to crochet a few tiny doilies, so I'd have more doilies to try on quilts.



 

A few free patterns later, and I've got some tiny doilies!



 

 

Check back in a week or two, to see what I've been doing with these!

  

  

 

 

Update: See this blog post for a finished view of my first doily quilt!

 



 

Quilting tonight

I'm quilting a couple of T-shirt quilts tonight ... gifts for friends. More details later ...

The (different kind of) T-Shirt Quilt again

A while back, I mentioned a (different kind of) T-Shirt Quilt I finished in December as a gift.

The previous post had pictures of the not-yet-quilted twin-sized quilt; here are the rest of the pictures for that one.

 

Anyway, I free-motion-quilted this one with variegated thread.

 

And it's backed with a fuzzy green blanket.

 

Coziness is the idea!

 

As far as colors go, I was aiming for the warm colors fading into cool colors idea; I think it pretty much works. 

 

Shirts-and-Jeans Quilt

During the past few months, I've finished several quilts, but I've been short on "blogging time", so, I'll be playing catch-up for a bit, sharing some quilts I've finished lately.

Several weeks ago (see this post), I mentioned the Shirts-and-Jeans quilt that I finished. I've been meaning to add a few more pictures of that quilt.

Lately, I've been blogging from my phone a lot, since blogging from my phone is usually faster. (Snap a pic ... write some words ... press publish -- that works pretty efficiently, and efficiency is key some days!)

In order for my pictures to be "more interesting", I've been trying out the concept of outdoor pictures of quilts.

 

While I've never been one to take my quilts on field trips, or lay them in the grass/snow/tree ... this one kind of worked.

  

 The more natural light, the better, right?

I stuck the quilt to the metal shed with super-strong magnets. Like I said, it kind of worked. :-)
(Full disclosure: There was another quilt that did not fare so well, and did not stay up long enough for a pic. So I don't necessarily recommend this method!) 

Shirts and Jeans. A classic combination.
This one's about twin-size ... 65" x 75".
This quilt is for sale on eBay for a little while. 

My Second Minecraft-Style Quilt

I finished up my second quilt that's Minecraft-Style. All the "square" graphics are great for patchwork, and my kids have had fun helping me with style/color analysis, since they're my resident Minecraft experts. :-)

 

Once again, this is a fleece-and-T-shirt quilt ... Made from super-soft recycled T-Shirts. Actually, since each of the 12 blocks is made from 100 little squares, this quilt is made from 1,200 little squares!

 

 

It's almost twin-sized ... 60" x 78", so it's a really versatile size.

Update: My oldest son was pretty happy to get this quilt as one of his birthday gifts ...