It doesn’t look much right now, but it took me a couple of hours to sew this kite into the fabric for the mug rug swap on Saturday with the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild. I was going to use another square for this project, but scrapped the whole thing after seeing this dreamy quilt on the internets. I’m very sure I didn’t use the same process as Melanie (the creator of the quilt). Her kites are perfectly spaced and I think she got her kites done in four pieces. Luckily, the theme for this project is “improv” – so, this is my take on it. I had to log cabin and sew the heck out of little kite for all the edges to finally come out in some semblance of a rectangle in the end. Slice and sew…slice and sew…uh oh…that didn’t quite line up…slice, slice, sew…FINALLY! I have four edges instead of 7. Hooray!
I even thought of a title for this little mug rug on the bus today – Gray Skies. We’ve had wonky weather this week and the idea of a happy kite in the overcast sky cheers me right up.
I’ll have time tomorrow night after work to sew one more grey border around it and then I’ll embellish it with some string and some satin ribbon on the string, so it looks like those old fashioned kites with ribbons on the tails. And of course, I need to bind it. Tomorrow could be a long night for me, but that’s okay. I don’t have to be in Abbotsford to swap it until 2:15, so as you can clearly see, I have HEAPS of time! Maybe it feels like heaps of time because it’s not 4:00 am on the day it’s supposed to be ready. I have about 36 hours to complete it. Ahead of schedule!
Just in case you’re wondering why the Modern Quilt Guild will be in Abbotsford, it’s for the Creative Stitches Show. It starts tomorrow and ends on Saturday at 5:00 at the Tradex. I’ll be manning our quilt guild booth for the last shift, so that should be delightful. I think I may even help clean up.
Best hit the hay. I’ve got more sewing to do tomorrow after work!
I spent a restful day knitting in a circle and making this cool scarf for our upcoming trip to Calgary. I’ve spent hours knitting it, careful not to twist any of the stitches, only to find I’m pretty sure that I have a twist in it. *Sigh*. I’m not sure if I REALLY need to frog the whole thing or not…but I’m leaning toward, *grumble*, starting the whole darn over again. On a positive note, my knitting is speeding up, so it may not take me as long to re-knit my second try.
[click to continue…]
Once I signed up for this project – things found in your fridge – it started a chain reaction. I realized that if I was going to take a photo of what was in the fridge, I would have to replace the burned-out light bulb in our refrigerator. I kept the bulb for a few days, taking it with me to London Drugs to make sure I picked the right one. I put the burned out bulb back in my backpack, took it home and in the mailbox? This month’s Cloth Paper Scissors with an article on how to make birds out of light bulbs. It was meant to be! I began stage one of Light Bulb – Chicken Legs tonight. I used Sculpey – it’s clay that you bake to harden. I’m not sure if it will be sturdy enough to hold the light bulb and the bamboo chopsticks I used for legs. I may have to add some glue. There are a few stages to this project, so there may be some added stability when I add a layer of paper clay. I’ve had some in my stash for ages and never used it, this is the perfect time to use it. And just in time for Easter, too! I can put some Easter Eggs with this little chicken. I just hope he stays standing up. This will be the perfect gift for my cousin’s new baby, don’t you think? No! That would be crazy! I’m going to give it to her 3 year old daughter instead! Excellent idea. I’m sure it will make it in one piece in our luggage to Calgary for the Easter Long Weekend, which is just around the corner. I’m looking forward to that mini vacay.
Meanwhile, peeking up around town…
Snowdrops. It’s really Spring when these guys show up. Which just reminded me. Calgary is going to be really cold in April, isn’t it? If memory serves me correctly, it’s really chilly. Oh man. I’d better get my long scarf finished.
This square represents many hours of errors and mistakes, including an entire quilt top I made that I didn’t really end up liking after I had completed it. Somehow, when I put it all together, I love the end result!
The centre square was the last of my botched 10X10 squares, that actually measured about 7.5 X 7.5 inches. Really poor measuring on my part with that one. I did my favourite thing to it – cut it into 4 squares, then re-sewed them all together, but instead of making a diamond shape with the stripes, I sewed them all facing out.
[click to continue…]
