Newbies

Just a mad rush to the first day back at school. After one day back, I know my projects are going to slow down considerably. It's musical time again with after school and weekend rehearsals.
So the last projects and the newest are being posted.

First, a simple pair of fingerless mittens made for my hairdresser who found some yarn and gave me license to make any type for her. A bulky locally made yarn of mohair and wool. Very imperfect wool, but she'll appreciate them. I personally don't own fingerless mitts, but will make a pair now that I see how handy they can be. Found the free pattern "Ursus" on the internet through Ravelry. The pattern did not have thumbs on them, so I created a bit of a thumb extension.

I also made a couple of biscuit baskets using the Aunties Two biscuit Basket pattern. Fun stuff, although not that easy. It was a tad tedious turning all the tubes, but makes a nice gift. I made 3 miniature ones for Christmas gifts (my own adaptation) but only took a picture of one of those. I like to buy my patterns at Create For Less.
Finally my pride and joy. A baby quilt I started during the summer and finally finished. I wasn't exactly sure how I wanted to quilt the project and finish it. I juxtaposed circles all over the quilts squares and I love it. I used plates and lids from all sorts of things around the house. This is a baby quilt for my dearest colleague who teaches with me. She is expecting her 2nd baby any day now and I cannot wait to give this to her. I know she will love it. It is a quilt from Judy Martin's scrap quilt pattern book called 'Newport Beach'. I used scraps from my own granddaughter's quilts that were full of primary batiks and blenders. It was so much fun to make. I had some striped fabric on hand with all of the colors and made a bias binding which really touches off the excitement of the quilt.I love how the primary squares 'float' on the quilt.

 

...for Kylie Sue and babe.

New Year's Eve Dinner...delish dish

I love it when I come upon a new recipe that knocks the proverbial "ball out of the park".
NEW YEAR'S EVE!
I'd love to have a houseful of guests over. I'd love to party till midnight. But then I think to myself, "oh, the work" and then " but all I want to do tomorrow is quilt and sew and read and relax.....".
Since Mike and I love our food and wine, the question was what to make. I have made countless New Years Eve meals of filet mignon. Well in my search,  I came upon this highly rated recipe from The Barefoot Contessa; Ina Garten.  Lobster Pot Pie. A meal in a dish. Sounds perfect. And little did I realize how much so until we tried it. Downright succulent. This recipe is a keeper and it's now in my recipe file forever.

I downsized the recipe by a third since I only had 8 oz. of lobster meat. (I used good quality frozen lobster meat that was processed in Maine.)
It made three individual casseroles, which took a little creative license on my part, but I made it work. (The recipe calls to make it in one large casserole dish.)
Here they are ready to go in the oven.

Out of the oven. They are beautiful and smell delicious.

A thing of beauty.

The candles are lit.

The table is set. The Veuve Clicquot Champagne is poured (our favorite!)

The verdict is in. Superb!

I was in bed by 10:30 p.m. No midnight revelry for me. Awake at 5:30 a.m. quilting a baby quilt for an expectant mother. I simply cannot help myself and I am quite comfortable with that. Best yet, the only thing that is hung over this morning is my cat, Lily. I can live with that, as well.

Endings. Projects and the year 2011

 It's December 30th and after a quick trip to a fabric store to stock up on thread at 50% off I headed off to the sewing room to finish projects.
This cute table runner is made from all of my assorted Christmas scraps. It ended up nicer than I imagined. I thought it would be a bit too busy, but it works and I will set it aside as a gift for someone next year. It is one of the designs from a pattern I used earlier call Little Charmers II (Anka's Treasures designs) . I didn't use charm squares, obviously.Went together in a flash and is as straight forward as can be.

 I also finished a purse. I've already stuffed it with my wallet and phone. Awesome purse pattern. The pattern is from Four Corners Designs and is called The X bag. Neat construction with pockets created from the bag pieces overlapping each other and sew together on the sides.
I fused decor bond interfacing to my fabric which I won't do again as it made it too stiff, although it is nice, but makes it difficult to sew through the thickness of the side and bottom seams. I will make this using quilted fabric next time.
I am in love with this fabric from Marcus fabrics.

By the way. I bought 40 spools of thread. I'm ready for 2012!

Post Holiday Rush

I'm in only one rush....to get as many projects finished and started in one week as possible and loving every minute of it. The pre-holiday craziness is exactly that for a music teacher/musician. Evenings and weekends are tumultuous between concerts and rehearsals. The kids are more than excited at school which makes for exhausting days. Once Christmas Day is over I feel a little like Gollum from Lord of the Rings as I gaze at my week long break and start reciting, "My Precious". I have made some very cool things in all the haze of December. And I will post these projects as they become finished projects.
Our Christmas tree this year was cut from our hill. This is our 5th Christmas in our new home and every year we have put up a tree that was found on the property. We love it's little imperfections, in fact it makes it perfect in our eyes.

The presents started going under the tree and I realized that I had insufficient wrapping materials this year. I am a huge blog follower and bookmarked a blog a little while ago that was about making homemade bows out of fabric. Well, it was fun and easy once I got the hang of it.

 Look at the cool fabric bows I made. I now have a use for the strips of fabric that I keep throwing in my fabric bin. I had only time to make a few of these, but I think I will make several and set them aside of future gift giving. 

A gift certificate for my mother presented me with a "how do I wrap this" challenge. It was simply a sheet of paper with information from the website that I gave her a gift certificate. In fact I had to cleverly make it look nice and print it out. I did not want to slip it into a regular business envelope so I used the same idea as the bow and made an over sized envelope out of fused fabric (like the bows). I used a yellow business envelope, gently took it apart and used it as a template. Voila! My mom loved the envelope and she is going to store things in it as it is useful and sturdy.  Perhaps old Christmas cards or pictures or it can be re-gifted for someone else.

 Well off to the races. I have mittens and quilting and sewing projects, "my precious"!

Carve out some time and the turkey.

Have you ever had someone professionally carve your Thanksgiving turkey? Well it happened this thanksgiving at our house. My sister's boyfriend offered to carve the beautifully roasted turkey and after we agreed he immediately left the house to his car and when he returned he was armed with his professional carving knives. The real deal.

Well, in the time that it took for me to make the gravy...say 15 minutes.... the turkey was completely carved and carefully laid out on the platter like none I have ever seen before. Not a speck of meat left on the bones and better yet, no post turkey clean up. It was awesome! (and the leftovers are wonderful.)

Haven't tired of using my yarn stash for dreaming up hats. Even with busy Thanksgiving preparations I was able to carve out the time to make a couple more. I'm not a Black Friday person at all. I stay home and stay mellow and ignore all the nonsense. I'm not completely innocent, however.  I did check out online quilt and yarn shops.

 Lisa's Hat by Green Mountain Spinnery. Pattern purchased on Patternfish. Made from Organik (ecru)yarn and Elann Peruvian Highland (green).

Trifurcate Hat by Hunter Hammerson. Also purchased from Patternfish. Made from the leftover yarn from The Quince and Co. Solstice cardigan.

Hats off to Autumn

 I made it little wall hanging for the season. I may eventually give this as a gift, but for now I'll let it decorate my wall for the next week or so.
It has squares and rectangles displaying many  autumnal elements. I'm not a huge Debbie Mumm fan, but these are fun & relatively quick to make. You have to be a fusible web fan. I made a winter one of these kind of patterns last year. They do make fun and unique gifts. The directions are crystal clear in the book. For a link to the book, here it is:
http://www.amazon.com/Seasonal-Samplers-Autumn-Winter-Trimmings/dp/B000JHO0AA

I'm in a hat craze. I like wearing hats. I am up to my neck in scrap yarn so I am on a quest to make as many hats as I can for the time being. This urge may wear out after my very next hat, which I've already started, but it's what feels right, right about now.
This hat pattern is from the new issue of Love Of Knitting, Holiday 2011. Picked it up at a newstand. I was pleasantly surprised at the nice patterns in it. I am an Interweave Knits magazine girl, but I can't resist the Holiday issues of some of the other knitting and quilting publications. This is call the Double Diamond Hat and Scarf. It's shown being worn by a handsome young gentleman, but I think I'm keeping this hat for myself.

This was made out of leftover yarn..a Brunswick Worsted weight that I'm sure has been out of circulation for a long time. A barn red color.
Well...off to knitting more hats.

Encore performance & UFO completed

The first one was so fun, I decided to make another Cardi-vest for Claire. Made using Paton's Shetland Chunky yarn in Tangerine. Hope there is an "orange" day at her Kindergarten! This sweater has "October" written all over it. This is such a wonderful pattern. I could make dozens of these. An easy weekend project.

 Husband's sweater is done. It was posted as a beginning project last year. A beautiful sweater and he looks great in it. This project took time, but it wasn't an unpleasant or burdensome job....just a lot of stitches!






Finally, had a distress message from the grandaughter the other day. She was traumatized to find out that she had a loose tooth. A harsh reality for one who has never gone through it before. Well, I immediately set out to make a Tooth Fairy Pillow. It will conveniently hang on her door handle or the bed headboard. Used a embroidery download and designed my own little pattern. The grandaughter called last night to tell me how much she loves it. For her, It took the sting out of the idea and her phone call made my evening.