I have this odd habit

I tend to hang my craft projects on the wall, even when they don't belong on the wall. :) This is one of the first quilted hangings I ever finished and I love it, flaws and all.



Originally it was the logical extension of the idea of a 'design wall'. Hang it up, take a step back and take a good look to see if it really looks as good as you think it looks.

Eventually it became the easiest way to keep track of my projects. My craft room - my entire house - tends to exist on the fine line between control and chaos and if it's hanging on the wall, it's above the fray, as it were.





Since my cats love my crafts - especially my crochet - it became a good way to keep it away from them, though my youngest seems to find the afghans hanging on the wall a convenient way to chase bugs.




Right now, I am in the middle of a quilting buzz. I finished a top recently for my friend's daughter. It amused me to take 'in progress' pictures. Right now it's folded in half and hanging on the wall, since it is too long to let it hang free. The point is to keep it away from the cats, not give them another excuse to cuddle with my fabric.



I have just begun my christmas quilting. I had plans for these quilts and then I threw out all those ideas and started over.




I have a fondness for traditional quilt blocks and since I have projects running out of my ears, I am especially fond of any technique that allows me to do it faster.

To put it simply, I love strip piecing. :)




Around the World is one of my favorite blocks, partly because it is ridiculously easy and fast, but mostly because I think it's simply a beautiful pattern.





Everyone who comes into my house gets this look on their face when they realize what is hanging on my walls, this look that says they think I might have finally gone around the turn, but I like it.

celtic knot heart

I am ridiculously pleased with how this afghan turned out.

It is based around a celtic knot pattern that conveniently curls up into a heart, convenient since I made it for a wedding.



I can look at it and seen a dozen mistakes and things I wish I had done differently, but I have been crafting long enough to know that while those mistakes are glaring to my eyes, most people won't even notice.



The woman I am making this for is fond of red and with my recent experience in successfully dying an afghan yellow, I was eager to see if I could turn my washing machine red.



I was quite successful and I am almost as proud of that as I am of the afghan itself.

odds and ends

I'm in the middle of about three big projects right now, but I've finished several odds and ends.

My friend was less than impressed with the cloak I made for her and after some thought, I eventually got over my pride and re-did it. I still like the effect of the yellow and black, but she's right, it's simply not her.

This cloak is very simple, a straight back, no sleeves, straight front, sewn only a few inches on either side and a hood, yellow tulle over black broadcloth, but it will look better on my friend than the flashier yellow poncho. She was right, that was more me than her. :)






I hate sewing buttons on. I haven't nothing personal against buttons, in fact I rather fancy them, but I hate sewing them on and I have tried multiple ways of getting out of using them the way the maker intended. I think I might have finally hit on a possibility. I found some tie-tack backs at the craft store and a little lightbulb went on. :) I made all the cloak pins this way, hot-gluing buttons onto tie-tack backs and if they work, several of my costumes will also be getting the hot-glue button treatment.



I was rustling through my button collection (I tend to buy them, even though I'm not real fond of them) and found some great goldish-brass looking buttons with NSEW written on them, which works out perfectly with the necklace I have already made to wear to the last HP movie, there on the right. It's kismet. :)




And finally, a belated birthday gift for a friend. I'm usually thumbs at remembering birthdays, but I am trying to at least remember the correct month, if not season. :)

My friend - she of the Hufflepuff cloak - got me a book of cross-stitch designs called "Subversive Cross Stitch", where the messages tend to fall more in line with my own caustic, abrasive personality than normal. In revenge - or thanks - I made her a set for her birthday.




I looked around and simply could not find any frames that I liked, so I got creative. :) I found some cheap cardboard mattes at the craft store and then some scrapbooking stickers for decoration. I thought they turned out rather cute, especially since the cute little stickers rather clash with the messages.

Square filet

I love square filet. Well, to be perfectly honest, I love filet in general, but square filet combines my love of the delicate, lacy filet, with the ease and utilitarianism of granny squares. :) And I love granny squares.

This is the first square filet I ever completed, from a pattern called Greenbriar I found at Celts.



This is the first complete afghan I ever made from filet squares. It took forever and it's gorgeous, if I may be allowed to say so. The pictures doesn't do it justice, in reality, I dyed it bright yellow. :) The pattern is from Crochet Monthly.


This is the first filet square I ever designed myself, based on a quilt pattern called Tea Roses.





And this is my second pattern, one I have high hopes for. When completed (I hope, but all signs are pointing yes) it will resemble celtic knotwork. right now...not so much, but soon. :)

Hary Potter Cloaks

So, I think it goes without saying really that my friends and I are huge geeks, especially when it comes to dressing up in silly costumes. :) Ren faires, movies, books, you name it, we dress up for it. We've dressed up for StarWars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and more. Because we can. :)

This summer will be the final Harry Potter movie and in many ways, it will be the end of so much more. In many ways, it will be the end of - not really our childhood, since this all started long after we stopped being children, but maybe our young years, our childish years. We started all this in college, when we were free and stupid and easy and we end it as adults, with families and jobs and worries that are a bit more pressing than whether or not we have the tickets to a midnight release.

I'm not saying we aren't still stupid and free and easy, see any post about going to a Ren Faire, but where Ren Faires started when we were adults, Harry Potter started when we were young.

So, one last hurrah to our young years.


C'est moi. I have been a Ravenclaw from the very beginning and damn proud of it. All knowledge is worth having. This is a vest pattern from Butterick with a capelet pattern from Vogue added on, done in navy blue broadcloth with a bronze-y gold net over it. It looks messy because I haven't finished hemming the edges. It was the first one I did and after that, I learned my lesson about how to keep that stupid net under control!




Our Slytherin and the closest I came to a 'traditional' cloak pattern. For the others I got creative. For this one, done with green broadcloth and this great silvery/white tulle complete with glitter, I just cut really big rectangles and put them together. It's not visible, but it also reaches to the ground for that perfectly elegant Slytherin look.




I was careful to turn over the hems to keep it in place and I like the look of that wide green border all around. My friend was rather dedicated to the idea of a big, wide hood, which I did and didn't manage. I had to get a bit clever with that too and while it looks right, in reality it's a bit of a sleight of hand with the edges of a square hood tacked together.



For the final two, Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, I got a bit creative. Neither of the people involved really gave me clear instructions and I find it impossible to do the same thing twice, so I just started making stuff up. :) One would think my friends would know better than to say 'whatever you think best!' when it comes to costumes.

For Gryffindor, done with red broadcloth and gold tulle, I wanted short and sassy and yet fast, if that makes sense. It looks a bit like a Quidditch uniform, which I found amusing. The gold net does not show up that well in the pictures, but in person, it really pops.



I made this cloak out of triangles and I am pleased with the look of it. Very sharp and different.





And finally, the Hufflepuff cloak. *groan* I am currently making a postage stamp quilt and strip piecing the squares and I figured, what could be easier than sewing long lines of squares together?




The other three cloaks (with the exception of mine, but it was the first and a learning experience) went together like a dream. This one? Like hell. If it could be put together wrong, backwards, crooked, wev? I managed it!





But I also think it is the best looking of the bunch and the most intriguing. I'm almost tempted to make something similar for myself. I have told my friend that she will need to wear black under it, so those cut out diamonds in the front (which are totally serendipity and unplanned) pop.

So, here is to Harry Potter, the books, the movies, the music, the friendship and the laughter over the last - let's see, I read the first book in '98, so...thirteen years.

Thank you, J.K. Rowling and everyone else responsible for this magical adventure.

The year of the quilts

I already know what I'm doing for next xmas and I figure if I get half of them done, I'll be doing good.

Next year - this year - is the year of the quilts. I'm making postage stamp quilts for two friends, based on these lovely old embroidery patterns that have been converted into cross stitch patterns.

(Not the best pictures, but better than nothing.)

This two are from a book called "Small Scale Embroidery in Cross Stitch and other Techniques" by Brenda Keyes. The first one is called Elizabethan Flowers.



The second is from the same book and is called Victorian Flowers. It's much bigger, but the friend I am making it for has a much larger bed, as well as being married and needing more quilt to snuggle under.




The third is for that friend's daughter, one she asked me to make last year, but well, last year sucked. It's called New York Beauty out of a book called "In Love with Quilts" from Oxmore House. My friend wants it in purple and burgundy, which looks rather nice.




And the last one is from this years "Quilts" calendar and is for my uncle and his wife. I like Around the World patterns, my aunt likes blue and add in a bit of patchwork? Perfect. :)




Here's hoping this year is better than last.

xmas gifts

I had big plans for xmas crafts, which obviously were derailed. In the end, I only finished those crafts I had already started. I'll admit, I'm rather proud of the end results, but it was a rather paltry offering compared to what I usually do. Bless my friends, they understood.

There is a whole series of these black cat cross stitches. I got most of them on sale over the years and put aside, knowing that 'one day' I would make them and sure enough, they were the perfect gift for a friend with a a - wait for it - black cat.



These are a rather bittersweet gift. I spent most of my summer with my mom and since this series was small, portable and simple (black, black and more black), I kept them at the house to do while she was sleeping and we were watching movies.




They also went a rather circuitous route to completion. My initial idea was to frame them and then I was going to make them into door pulls and at once point I even toyed with the idea of turning four of them into an open cube to be used as a catch-all for a desk. In the end, I backed them and stuffed them, turning them into cute little pillows. :) I'm rather pleased with the end result.




This was the other cross stitch I spent the summer on, finally finishing it and turning it into a bit of a wall hanging/tapestry.




And finally I gave my friend the afghan I had meant for her birthday last October. She loves the colors, which suit her to a T.