Shiny cap'n!

My mother requested that I make an Asian-themed quilt for her, queen-sized. I've never done a quilt this large before, so I'm going to do something very simple. I started off making some really easy quilt blocks with a stash of Asian fabrics I bought off of eBay, but not many of them go together very well. I have about 3 yards of an Asian fabric in my stash that I bought about a year ago and decided to incorporate that into my design. It's a very pretty pattern, so I used it as the centerpiece and surrounded it with the quilt blocks. I'm going to surround what I have so far with a black border, and then use the remaining stash-fabric to make a wider border around that. I'm hoping that'll give me the width and the length that I need to make it queen-sized. I might go searching for another fabric and use what I have along the long sides and use a different fabric along the short sides.. I haven't decided yet. This is definitely an easier quilt-top, but I didn't want to commit to something more than I could handle (I didn't really want to do a queen sized quilt; I would have rather done something much more intricate and make it throw-sized, but she wants something for her bed). The only other thing I have to decide is how I want to quilt the top... I don't know if I want to go with something geometric (because of the lines in the blocks) or if I want to go with something more organic... Once the top is finished I'll probably just sit on it awhile until I come up with something... Pics after the jump. ( Read more... )

So, my close friend Christina is going to have a baby in October! Unfortunately, she and her hubby live all the way on the other side of the country (quite literally -- I think there's fewer places farther apart than Connecticut and Washington State), and I'm not going to be able to be there. I'm super crushed (you have no idea). So I'm making a quilt for her little peanut! She didn't want a boy/girl-themed quilt, but instead asked for owls. Now, I'm not one for arty quilts. In fact, I really have no idea what I'm doing! So I'm not going fancy -- pretty much it's entirely applique! And then I'll quilt some pretty designs on it in the end. (And don't worry - she's totally cool with me posting the quilt with y'all. I asked. :) )

So, some photos! The colors aren't exactly right, as I took the photos as night with a bright light focused on them, so they're a little washed out. Otherwise, this is pretty much how it looks:
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So the past week has been an exercise in patience. Last week, the good ol' hubby was sick with a pretty nasty cold. He got better over the weekend and I thought that I was out of the woods without getting sick! But then... there was this little tickle in my throat... and that was the end of that. I've been relegated to the couch since Sunday evening, wrapped in blankets, sipping tea, and watching a ton of Star Trek: DS9.

As it so happens, we had ourselves a nice little snowstorm last night. So who gets to go out with the hubby and shovel snow? Why, I do, of course! We got about 20 inches, on top of the snowfall we got just last week. Which, honestly, wasn't bad. I was feeling pretty good today, and it was nice to get out and fresh air.

For the record, this is what our car looked like before we went to work digging ourselves out:

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So, since I've started feeling okay, I've started a new project: a Katamari Damacy bread cover! So far, all I have is the Prince's legs done, but eventually it's going to be lined with some of his cousins. I'm really kinda excited!

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I have 2 days to finish this quilt. Bad, bad idea.

I managed to get all the strips cut, and pieced, and stitched, and pressed, and then stitched into larger squares... all that's left now is to cut the black fabric that'll go in between the squares, stitch it all together, stitch the front to the back, make the binding, and stitch the binding on. In two days. While also taking care of baking and New Year's cleaning.

I must be crazy.

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