Old quilt, new quilt

The Firebird quilt is a baby quilt, meant to be used, not just looked at, which means it'll get dirty, which is exactly how it should be. I machine washed and dried the fabrics before quilting, and then I machine washed and dried the finished quilt.

The difference is amazing. It didn't shrink more, it just... fluffed... and puffed... the details really pop now, and the whole quilt has such depth. I love this. Now, it is truly ready to go to my friend, where it'll be an At Gramma's House Blanket.

 And by great coincidence, the fabric for the Next Quilt arrived the very morning after I finished Firebird. This is another Spoonflower original fabric (not my design). It's a complete mood shift from Firebird, but the moment I saw it, I fell in love. These goofy robots captivated me.

 And the coordinating fabric (one of several from the same designer), is perfect!

 I think I'll go with a solid color binding- probably bright orange, or bright green.

And of course, I started quilting right away. The designer helpfully drew little quilting lines everywhere, so I know right where to sew... This quilt is going to be such fun to work on!

Wordless Quilt Progress, Now with 100% More Fabric for the Binding

This 'n That

 Did you know that there is such a thing as Glow in the Dark Bubbles? I sure didn't, but the Grandgirls did. And man, did they love them! (BTW, there are 4 bubble-coated girls in this shot).

 The quilt is coming along really well. I'm amazed at how quickly the stars are quilting up.

 Constellations everywhere!

 I mowed for the first time this morning (it was about 39 degrees, I wore a hat and gloves), and was thrilled to see that Bee Girl's bare root Crab Apple tree survived the winter. Go Tree!

Did I mention that a group on Ravelry is doing a KAL (knit along) of the Prairie Earth and Sky cardigan from Fearless Fair Isle Knitting? They're graciously allowing me to post pictures of their progress. Above are the swatches (they're doing the sweater as a class). Aren't those colors marvelous? I am absolutely tickled (and honored) that they chose my pattern.

And finally, a young writer who is near and dear to my heart has started a blog for movie reviews. The two reviews posted so far are pretty darn good, if I say so myself.

For the Straight-Line Impaired

I highly recommend free-hand quilted squiggles.

 I mean, look at this: no eyeballing straight lines 1/4" from anything (a skill I simply do not possess). Just lots and lots of quilting along printed outlines, and then wandering wherever I please. More than one person has commented that the quilting around the stars looks like constellations. I love that notion. The only thing I'm sorry about is that my friend Ann V didn't mention that such a thing as glow-in-the-dark thread existed until I after I had already started the handwork. How cool would that have been?

Here's a much clearer shot of the backing fabric, chosen only because I had enough of it on hand and we no longer have a store that sells fabric within 43 miles and I wanted to get started. It'll do. The front border fabric was chosen for mostly the same reason, though that particular tan shade is echoed in the design panel, so it looks good. I will have to buy fabric for the binding, and I don't know yet whether to go with orange or green. I'll have plenty of time to contemplate the choice, I think.

Quilting, and spring

It took awhile to get the baby quilt bordered and

 sandwiched (and sorry for the less than optimal photo- sometimes my phone takes wonderful pics, and sometimes it doesn't... which probably means that the problem is the photographer)

 and basted. You can't see it but I basted lines every 4"-5" around the center.

 I had intended for this shot to illustrate my inability to eyeball a straight line and sew at the same time, but all you're going to be able to see is that the backing is a vaguely brown print. (Darn phone).

 I didn't get a lot of quilting done last night, but this is what I intend to do with the stars- just quilt in random squiggles around them. There are a LOT of stars, so there will be many many random squiggles. I'll quilt the outlines of the design elements, and whatever portions of the insides I feel like quilting. This is probably the least regimental project I've ever tackled.

I love love love my little stickum leather thimble. Keeps my finger almost entirely unpunctured.

American Idol is on tonight and tomorrow night, so it'll be Friday before I get more quilting done (I only quilt/knit/sew in the evenings- during the day I... get ready for it... work...), but I'm sure I'll post pics. More pics than you'll ever want to see.

We're having an exceptionally early spring. The grass is green, and leaves are popping out everywhere. I know that to most of you, the timing is nothing out of the ordinary. But we generally don't get leaves until the first week of May. I'll repeat: no leaves until the first week of May.

And how warm and weird is this weather?

We were too lazy to clean out the garden last fall, so the remains of the Brussels Sprouts are still in the ground. That green you see? Those are re-sprouts. The Brussels Sprouts not only survived the winter, they're growing again. And those other little green things sprouting? Well, some of them are weeds, but easily half is dill.

Like I said, weird weather.

Not so wordless spinning...

I have another project that I want to start, but The New Me (the one with a Work Ethic) tries to finish WIPs instead of abandoning them.

 So I finished spinning the matching singles for Sunday's yarn. I was able to divide the Twisted roving in half almost perfectly, but the lighter roving (above) wasn't divided quite as evenly. I ran out of this bobbin while plying it to the Twisted single (though there was some left from the first *half*, so I was able to finish plying the yarn).

The 2nd hank is 4 ozs and 309 yards, for a total of 7.7 ozs and 552 yards of 2-ply, self-striping yarn. The hanks look matching, but they're not going to line up perfectly when knit because one hank has more yards, therefore the stripes are going to be wider. That's not a disaster- spinning matching self-striping yarns is difficult, and this was an experiment that didn't actually fail. It just didn't turn out exactly as I hoped it would. Regardless, the yarn itself is gorgeous. I hope to make either cabled or lace socks (and there will be plenty left over). Or maybe gloves. Whatever I knit with it, it'll be a pair of *something* anyway- I went to a lot of trouble to make these skeins vaguely matching, so I might as well take advantage of it.

By the way- this WIP was the spinning of the yarn. The knitting of the yarn is an entirely different project, which is definitely not IP. Nor will it be IP for awhile because I have the urge to do a little quilting.

Not patchwork. Hand quilting.

 I bought this beautiful one-yard fabric is called Firebird. It was designed by ceanirminger through Spoonflower. I am going to add a cream print border, but otherwise it won't be pieced. I just feel like doing some decorative hand-quilting, so I'm going to sandwich this with batting and a plain backing, and just sew wherever and however I please. A good friend became a Grandma for the first time last month, so this will be an At Gramma's House Blanket.

And of course, I'll post pics.