For The Record

Ellen and Abby have both posted lists of their UFOs (unfinished objects) on their blogs, and when they did, I thought, gosh, that's brave. I'm not sure I want to look at that list in black and white! Then I was cleaning out the sewing room this afternoon, and my husband said, "You ought to start a list of all the projects you have going. You might find something you completely forgot about."

So I'm starting a list. It's over on the right-hand side, and I'll be updating it as I find more things I forgot about. I am only including projects that I have already started and/or bought fabric for; maybe someday I'll start a wish list of things I want to work on in the future, but that's more than I can handle looking at right now! I'm also going to start a list of things I've finished, although that will have to wait for another day. Here's hoping the "finished" list grows faster than the "unfinished" list!

Kitten House

I had the day off work today (another great thing about having a job is that sometimes you can get paid for not going to work!), and I used some of that time to finish up Oliver's playhouse. I've been wanting to make him something he can scratch; not only are the commercially available cat toys pretty tacky, but he won't scratch any of them, so we needed a better solution.

I used SewTakeAHike's tutorial (which is currently not available online, although you can see pictures from her version here) and the fabric is from Deer Valley by Joel Dewberry, which I bought at CityCraft ages ago.

It didn't take long before Oliver wandered over to check it out, with Kate on his heels. She won't quite fit in there, though, and I'm not sure I can handle making a Kate-size playhouse!

I think he likes it! Now if I can just get him to scratch the inside of his house instead of the outside of our furniture, we'll really have something...

Project Notes:

Finished size: Approx. 15" x 18" and 20" high

Materials: Quilting fabric fused to single-sided heavy-duty interfacing

Overall impression: This project took a little longer than I was initially expecting (ha! not the first time I've said that!). But you have to cut out the shapes from both the fabric and the interfacing, fuse them together, zig zag stitch around the edges to keep them from fraying, and then sew it all together, so it does take a little time.

I had a hard time figuring out how to feed it through the sewing machine, especially at the end when I was sewing roof pieces on. I had this big, bulky house hanging off to the left side, and I struggled to get the pieces to feed through evenly. Then it looked a little smashed when I was done. I ironed it and then let it sit with heavy books in it to flatten the base back out, and I think that helped some, but you can still see that it's a little wonky; not the sturdiest construction job ever, but I still think it's pretty cute!

Wicked Good

Still not much crafting time around here lately; although I have made progress on a few projects, nothing's finished yet. Gotta keep working on that! In the meantime, though, I've been enjoying some other leisurely pursuits: Hanging out with friends!

I had coffee at Cafe Brazil with a dear friend on Saturday morning, and then I went to see Wicked at Dallas Summer Musicals with 2 friends from work that evening. (The great thing about having a job is that you get to have work friends -- and you make money you can spend going out with your new friends!). We had dinner at Sushi Zushi (try the Cosimo Roll, which is great if you like cream cheese and fried stuff) and then headed over to Fair Park to catch the show. This was my first time to see Wicked, and I was really impressed by the talent of the performers. Musicals at Fair Park always have some pretty awesome people-watching, too, so I had a great time!

Lacking Leisure Time

The last few months have definitely been a whirlwind! I started working full time back in March and I have to say, this whole "working for a living" thing is more work than I expected! I have a great job with wonderful colleagues, but it's taking me a while to get the hang of it.

And, as if that weren't enough to keep me from my sewing room, we decided that it would be a great time to move to a new house. So in the last few weeks we've gone from talking about neighborhoods to looking at houses, making an offer, getting financing, having an inspection done -- and finalizing a contract! We're closing in a couple weeks although we won't actually be moving until mid-summer. I'm pretty excited about the new place and I love our new neighborhood, but there is still a lot of work to be done (mainly PACKING! Yikes!).

So, yeah, not much time around here for sewing, unfortunately. I'm in the middle of 3 projects right now -- my Grandma's Christmas 2009/Flag Day 2010 quilt, a playhouse for Oliver, and a needlepoint project that I got my husband for Christmas. I'd also love to get a new quilt for our bed finished before we move, but that may be asking a little too much at this point. We'll see how things go!

Marching for Babies

This is my 2nd year to participate in the March for Babies event with my friend Debra. The walk is this coming Saturday, and I'm a little late signing up for our team (no big surprise there!). Anyway, I'm hoping to raise a modest $20 for the walk, and if you can spare a little to help out, I'd really appreciate it! You can click the link below for more information.

Thanks so much!

Happy Easter

1 Down

Ta da! I finished a quilt! Which was thoroughly inspected by Quality Control, aka Oliver T. Kitten, and, having passed, is in the process of being washed and dried before taking up residence on the living room sofa.

This is my happy quilt. I've wanted to make one ever since Ellen made hers, but I've been busy with other projects, life, etc. I finally started this one in January (or early Feb?) because I was cold and wanted to snuggle on the couch with it. I used the Avalon pattern from Material Obsession and modified it just a tiny bit, using only 9 fat quarters instead of 12. I was wanting a quick, easy lap quilt -- not much easier than sashing whole fat quarters together!

I wanted to use fabric that I had on hand, which I did, except the backing, which is a light gray solid (Kona Ash) and the binding, which I bought at CityCraft (it's a Michael Miller fabric but I forget from which line). The white is the same Kona solid I used in all the Christmas-gift quilts that I will share here eventually (when they are all finished...), and I got the fat quarters as a set last fall at a local quilt store in Missouri. As far as I can tell, the tan hummingbird fabric in the very center is from Moda Arcadia and the rest are a random assortment of leftovers that the people at the shop put together.

I love love love it. Yay for happy quilts!