Going Green

I like to think of myself as an eco-conscious person. I try to stay aware of my impact on the earth; I recycle, I use my reusable bags whenever I grocery shop and even keep one in my purse for those random shopping trips. I try to use the plastic bags I do get for other things instead of throwing them away, and slowly but surely I am trying to transition this attitude into my cleaning.

Enter: the knit swiffer cover. Made of cotton yarn, it is a washable cover that just slips right onto the swiffer. I ended up spending a whopping $.97 to make this glorious little number and let me tell you, it picks up cat hair like a dream. It comes from a free pattern that Lily, the makers of Sugar n Cream cotton yarn, made for Michael's. I actually think it may work better than the disposable covers that you buy, and then you can just throw it in the wash and you are good to go all over again. I think, assuming this first washing goes well, that I am going to make a bunch of them and have them around when I need them. The only problem I can foresee, and this may be a personal issue, is that to avoid putting so much cat hair in our washing machine I have to pick a lot of the hair off before I can wash it, but I don't really mind so no big deal. Here is what it looks like (I am not showing pictures of after it was used because I don't even want to admit how much cat hair was hiding on our floor....orange fur blends in with hard wood haha....so you'll just have to take my word that it works)




This also may have inspired me to make some cotton cleaning cloths to cut down on our paper towel use. I will have to knit some of those up and see how it goes. Every little thing helps!

P.S. an update on my sewing machine, which I love so far, is coming as soon as we are better acquainted and make something together :)

Ambitions

There are many things in my life that I wish to accomplish, and my crafty life is no different. Ever since I discovered this love of quilting, I have gone absolutely crazy with ambition and the number of projects I would like to accomplish. While there are certainly other projects that will have my attention, a variation of sewing, knitting, scrapbooking, and other random things, I think that quilting is going to become a main focus for me. I like to set goals for myself although often times the achievement of said goals is inconsequential, largely, I think, as a way to keep myself organized. And when I realize that I may not get it done, I don't usually worry, I just reevaluate and figure out where I stand and what I should be working toward. All this by way of saying that my goals are constantly changing as I think they should be, especially when the goals are long term. That said, I am still writing a post about my current goals as they pertain to quilting and we will just have to see how it goes. Currently I have 7 quilts that I have found that I would really like to make, and I have most of the fabric (or will once it arrives) for4 or 5 of them, which should keep me pretty committed I would think. Here they are:

• Ragged Square Quilt -I just have to buy the backing fabric for this....It should be done by christmas seeing as it is a gift
• Stacked Coins Quilt - There was this fabric I had been eyeing that went on sale for 45% off (um hello $3 a yard!) so once it gets here I will have a pack of strips, the backing and the binding fabrics and just need the sashing
• Scrap Quilt - I have a lot of scraps and I save them all, so I am aiming to get a quilt like this one out of only fabric I currently have in my posession...that should lead to some interesting creativity since I don't know what I have big enough for a backing but I will absolutely make it work
• Ticker Tape Quilt - I am in love with this and I think it would be a good way to use a lot of my smaller scraps that won't work in the other scrap quilt.
• Log Cabin Quilt - I saw this posted and could not get over how beautiful it is. I am getting a bag of designer scraps that I think will be my starting point...I love the bright colors and fabrics and hope to come up with something similar
  
• Tumbler Quilt - Ridiculously cute. Enough said.
  
• Wonky Log Cabin Quilt - I think this looks so cool and would make a really interesting quilt. I may actually try this before the regular log cabin because it gives more room for error I would say.

I am giving myself a time frame of approximately 1 year to complete these if I can. I am guessing I will at least get half of them done and hopefully be on my way with the others. I am not going to stress myself about it, I just wanted a record of the things I would like to do. I will try to check in and give a progress update every once in a while too which should be a good thing. Of course I don't know what in the world I am going to do with most of these which is the one thing that might slow my progress. Most of them will be lap/baby size and I don't know many people having babies right now so we'll see. Many of them will probably turn into gifts or something. There are also other quilts I have seen that I would like to do, but they don't seem as pressing right now....I may or may not add and subtract from this list.

Before I end this, I have one other goal that I would like to share. I have come a long way with my quilting, especially in the past few months. Over the next 6 months, I would really like to learn to free-motion quilt. So far I have only done stitch in the ditch, and a grid and I am ready to expand. The ragged square quilt has the quilting already set out, but with some of the others I would really like to try something different. I am planning on doing the swirly like quilting on the seams of the scrap quilt as it is pictured so I think that may be my starting point. So there you have it, my possibly ridiculous quilting ambitions :)

An early Christmas

It seems my sewing machine is sick :( Yesterday I went to work on a project and it sounded kinda funny and kept skipping stitches...which I might have been able to deal with if I wasn't topstitching, making it ridiculously obvious. Needless to say, all that will have to be ripped out and redone....with my NEW MACHINE!!!! That's right, I ordered a new machine yesterday. I have been using my parents machine for the past couple of years (the one they got around the time they got married 25 years ago...) and well, it was time for an upgrade. After a couple hours of research, this Brother machine was the winner. I am really looking forward to getting it this week and spending some time getting to know it. I have a lot of projects planned for the next couple of months and hopefully this baby will help me get through them with ease. I am particularly happy it has a table attachment which should help me quilt!

In any case, I am really excited, but it also does put a number of things on hold. I am hoping that by next weekend we will be familiar enough (me and my machine that is) to get to work on a few things. In the meantime, I am hoping to get to work on some knitting projects that have been sitting around for ages. I am also working on some project goals for the next year or so that I will be posting soon, kind of a sneak peak of the different things I am looking to accomplish.

my first *really real* quilt!

Here it is, the moment you have all been waiting for! That's right, the wonderfully bright yellow quilt is finished! Now, like all my projects, it certainly has it's imperfections and I don't pretend to ignore them. However, I am ridiculously proud of this quilt. I say it is my first really real quilt because I would consider it my first proper quilt -- the cat quilt was my first real quilt, one involving quilting and binding, but this one is so much more special then that because I took the time and hand sewed the binding on the back. I think this gives it such a nice finished look and it makes me really proud. It only took me 2 movies to get the binding all sewn too, which isn't bad at all. I even managed to wash it and it didn't fall apart which is definitely a good sign!

So let's see, the quilt stats: I got the pattern from Your Space which I got for my birthday and is the same book that gave me the instructions to cover my memory box. The pattern itself seemed to have some issues (like not accounting for how pieces were put together when measuring...or I could be crazy, I'm not ruling it out) which did not help my already handicapped measuring, but that is besides the point. It measures 40.5"x46.5" instead of the intended 45"x51". I got some really great binding help online from a number of sources, but primarily used a tutorial from Heather Bailey, and some great instructions on turning*turning for both how to do an invisible stitch, and believe it or not, how to knot the thread (as an aside, I am being completely honest when I say that not being able to easily knot my thread was a major hand sewing roadblock for me....mine were ugly nests and endlessly frustrating....I think this discovery may have turned my life around, no lie). Anyway, on to the pictures!!!










Now I have a bunch of smaller projects coming up and I am going to start working on some christmas gifts. Of course what I really want to do is make approximately a bazillion quilts now that I feel like I know so much more and have a TON of cute patterns I would like to try. I will just tuck them away and slowly gather fabric for them :) I think I may have found my crafty calling here!

Quilt Teaser

Last week I was hard at work on my sweet quilt and amazingly, it is all finished....all except for hand sewing the binding on. So instead of spoiling the surprise of the finished product, I am just going to post this, a hint of the glory that is to come:

laptop case

As promised, here is the laptop case that I made for the husbands new laptop. I used a pattern found here, and he picked his fabrics and I went to work. I'll tell you, my sewing machine sure did not like the zig-zag stitches to attach the velcro, but I made it through. I did have my needle snap in half when I was sewing all the bottom layers together at the end which was odd. Anyway, the big point here is that the bag actually fits the laptop as intended! This is a totally new thing for me since I am so bad with measurements, no matter how hard I try. It was a fun project though and it went quick and with all the pieces cut, it was sewn in an afternoon.





Today I will be cutting fabric for a quilt that I have been waiting for months to make! I can't start sewing until I get my new thread (finally making the switch to cotton....which I should have done ages ago but I didn't know) but once I get it, it shouldn't take too long to make. It will be my first attempt at making my own bias tape binding, and probably hand sewing the binding on. So on second thought, maybe it will take a bit longer than I'd like haha. I also have another quicker project I may sneak in, but I guess we'll see :)

Cat Quilt

Well here I am again, back from a long break from crafting, necessitated by a long stay in NJ, including a wedding and honeymoon that were delightful :) The past week or so, after we finally got all our new things settled and got back into our routine, I was able to start back on my projects. I decided that I wanted to try binding a quilt, and that instead of starting with something that I really liked and was afraid to mess up, I would start with a scrap quilt for the cat. I had been thinking about making something for a while to go in his little cube, in case he ever decides to use it or something. So I designed a simple pattern, which incidentally did not use nearly enough of my scraps, and off I went. It is a 26"x27" quilt that when folded fits perfectly in his little box (it was supposed to be 27"x28"....close enough). I just stitched in the ditch around the rectangles for the quilting and used pre-made double fold bias tape from Joanns for the binding. It worked surprisingly well and I think after reading a lot and after this practice run, I am going to try to make my own bias tape and I am going to hand sew the back of the binding on my next quilt. More on that when I get to it. Anyway, aside from a few..um...imperfections (*ahem* crooked rectangles...and borders...*ahem*) I am really proud of it. It is small and was a great step for my quilting.







There are about a bazillion and six other quilts I now want to make and I know that every time I will get a little better at it. I have to be willing to overlook my inability to cut or sew straight, but other than that it is getting easier and more fun even :-P Tomorrow I have a laptop bag that I made to post, and get this, it actually fits the laptop! So there you have it, something to look forward to.