works in progress.......monday

I'm going to have three big finished quilts (and a new sweater) to show you soon!

Happy Monday!

sometimes I forget to blog.

Well, it would seem that I forget to blog almost all of the time lately. Sorry for that. I love this space and sharing with you all, but I guess these little people are keeping me so busy that this is taking a backseat for now. Thanks for still popping in to see what I've been up to.

So what have I been up to? I've been squeezing in sewing when it feels right. Besides working on a quilt for Lucia's new big-girl bed, which I'll share soon, I finished this Summersville Strings quilt top. Wow, string quilts are a ton of work, and frankly this one burnt me out for awhile, but I love all the juicy, summer-y colors in this one and I promise to baste and quilt soon so I can share the whole thing! 

I also had to drag this one out of hibernation. This is my Ode to Denyse Schmidt color wheel spiderweb. I started this one over two years ago, but being a king size it just gets a little daunting and gets pushed aside again. And yes, I have no idea what I was thinking when I decided to go for a king. It's not likely my husband is going to let me use this for our bed quilt ;)

And while the sewing is a bit slow-going, I've still been knitting like crazy. I finished my Urban last month,

More details on my Ravelry page, here.

And yesterday I just finished blocking my new and most favorite knit yet, Raiun. It's the perfect basic little cardi in a lovely neutral color. It seemed to take forever, but well worth it I think.

I hope you all are enjoying your summer! I'll see you soon(ish), hopefully with my completed Scrap Hoover to show off!

be still my beating heart

Remember this quilt? My Scrap Hoover? It is back from it's spa treatment at the studio of none other than the stellar Angela Walters.

It is beautiful and I can hardly wait to show you the whole thing. But first I must bind, bind, bind. Full reveal soon.

I hope you all are well. In other happy news, it seems my sewing mojo is returning :)

reunited and it feels so good

I'm not sure what's going on with me but sewing has still been sporadic at best lately. But I'm staying busy and happy so I guess that's what counts. I do have a project to share with you, though! It's an oldie but a goodie - my newly quilted Flea Market Fancy Wonky Log Cabin quilt.

You've seen this before, right? So why am I showing it to you again? Well, this one has spent the last two years in hibernation while until I finished the very tedious job of unpicking all of the horrendous quilting. I made this quilt at the very beginning of my sewing career, before I had any idea of what I was doing. I jumped right in to my precious FMF stash and started slicing and dicing. I still love the piecing of this quilt top but when it came time to do the actual quilting it was a mess. I free-motioned it on an old cheapo Brother and let me tell you, the stitched were ugly and uneven. After I got my Bernina 44QE and quilted my first project I couldn't even stand the sight of this one, so the ripper came out. Little did I know what a job I was in for!

Anyways, I thought this would be useful information to share with any of you who have a quilt lying around that you love but detest the quilting on. Unpicking a million little stitched was not the most fun I've ever had, but the end result was worth it.

I left the binding and backing in place and just pinned every so often as the stitched came out. When I was finally all done, I FMQed the original stipple but this time with pretty, even stitches in the correct tension. After a spin in the washer and dryer, VOILA! All the little holes from the original quilting disappeared and the makeover was complete! 

This one is back in regular snuggling rotation.

In other news, someone just turned one year old! Check out the cake moustache! Olivia is getting sweeter every day.

Delancey Cardigan

If you follow me on Instagram or Flickr, chances are you've already seen my newest finished knit, but I wanted to show it off here on the blog too. It's the Delancey Cardigan, and I think it's my favorite sweater to date.

I knit this as my entry for the big MadMay madelinetosh knit-along on Ravelry. What a fun pattern to knit! The construction is really interesting so I chugged right through it. I'm so happy with the fit.

I used the DK Twist base in the colors Ink, Oceana and Ultramarine Violet. It's still cold here in Seattle so it's already getting lots of wear.

I'm very grateful for my knitting right now. I seem to have misplaced my sewing mojo so it's nice to have another productive hobby to fall back on. Knitting is portable and just so much easier to work on when my girls are awake. I miss my sewing machine but for now rolling around in my stash will just have to suffice.

Instagram May

Wow! I've been a really bad blogger! I don't know how entire weeks and projects go by without me even taking a moment to share them, but that's how it's been lately. I suspect it's because I've been using Instagram to take my photos with lately since getting time to use my real camera in good light has been alluding me. Instagram is such a fun app but the photos are pretty low resolution so I don't like to use them here. But there has been a lot going on I haven't shown you so please forgive this one post of some IG photos from the last month (and if you haven't joined Instagram yet, you should. There is a great community of crafty folks having a lot of fun over there).

May has been busy! We celebrated Lucia's 3rd birthday with a huge bash at our house, and then left the next day for a road trip to wine country in Walla Walla, Washington, where we are soon to open a second tasting room for Mark Ryan Winery. Fun times! I got some knitting done and I've been attacking the sewing machine ever since we got home too.

There's been garment sewing going on! I'm starting to feel more confident in this area. So far I've made two Wiksten tanks, this one from the Liberty of London Umbel print to go with the Wispy Cardigan I knit last summer,

and the Liberty Fairford print to go with my newly finished sweater,

Audrey in Jade!

What a great pattern. You can find more info and notes over on my Ravelry page if you're interested.

And I can't believe I haven't shown off the Wiksten Tova top I finished earlier in the year. The fabric is a lovely, soft Nani Iro double gauze.

I'm really loving this whole DIY wardrobe kick. Next up is Megan Nielsen's Darling Ranges dress.

There's been sewing going on too, when I get the chance. I was lucky enough to get an early bundle of Thomas Knauer's super cute new Savannah Bop line to play with, and finished this baby quilt top. I'll get some real photos up as soon as I finish the whole quilt.

I also had to jump at the new Summersville line, of course - 

A brand new quilt coming soon:)

Baby Star Patchwork

Whew! It's been a rough couple of weeks around here. The flu bug that hit our house has been making the rounds though luckily I have been spared so far. This hasn't left much time or energy for sewing, but I did finish Olivia's Made in Cherry quilt! It's actually been done for awhile but for some reason it's taken me forever to sew on the binding.

I loved all the quilts I was seeing in the Made in Cherry Quilt-along, but I had already started a Swoon and didn't think I had time. So I'm a little late to the quilt-along party but this ended up being one of those quilts that just had to be made.

This was a very fun design to choose fabrics for and to piece, and came together fairly quickly. I chose lots of bright, spring-y prints, choosing many of my favorites from the Pam Kitty Morning collection and from Aneela Hoey's A Walk in the Woods for Moda.  I combined those with a few Denyse Schmidt, some japanese cuties and a few more from the old stash. The background is a pink Sketch print from Timeless Treasures and the binding is another Aneela print - cute little mushies on blue. I wish I could show you the back too, but I forgot to take a photo - it's the Little Red print on blue from A Walk in the Woods. So flippin' cute.

For the quilting, I did some free motion cathedral circles for the patchwork area and mimicked the star points with straight line on the pink background. Which took forever and confirmed my lack of patience with straight line quilting. 

I think this is going to be a wall hanging for Olivia's room.