Our House

We are (somewhat) settled into our new home in Maryland.  We are renting a lovely place on a culdesac with a playground next door.  The neighborhood seems very friendly.  Henry will start school after the new year and we are looking forward to seeing what the programs here can offer him.  We finally got our moving truck three days ago and we just got internet yesterday.

We put our Wisconsin house on the market the same week we moved out.  In fact, we didn’t allow it to be shown until the day after we left.  As we drove through Pennsylvania, we got a call from our realtor that the very first person that saw the house put an offer on it.  The past three weeks have been busy with negotiating and banking and paperwork, but we just closed on that house yesterday.

I have a special relationship with our house after all of the renovation I did on it.  A few of the posts about home renovation are here, here and here.  I loved our yard and garden, too, (with posts here, here and here).  I didn’t blog about the weeks of work I put in at the end.  Things just got too busy.  Anyway, I’m glad our house will have another family to love it now. 

I made this ornament of our Wisconsin home.  I think it still needs a little more embroidery before it goes on the tree, but I'm a little too schmoopy to work on it now. 

I feel grateful for the six plus years we had in our Wisconsin home and I look forward to the good things to come here.
Wishing you all a cozy place to celebrate the holidays with loved ones.

Digging, finding, sewing, packing, etc.

I'd like to start by thanking all of you for sending me good thoughts about packing and moving.  Henry is adapting fairly well so far, though we can see the effects of the change of routine.  We are making steady progress on the house, but Friday is coming up very quickly.

The very hardest room to pack up has been my craft room.  I tend to have too, too many ideas.  I make a lot of piles of random supplies with big, big plans in my head.  And then the piles beget more piles.  I feel like it was an archeological dig down in my basement to some of the ideas I had when we moved in six years ago (or before).  Anyway, in order to tie up some loose ends, I ended up sewing and cutting a lot more in the past two weeks than I had planned on.


I cut up all of the fabric for Ben's quilt and then packed it up.

I cut up some squares for a patchwork muted red, white and blue quilt.  I've had this idea swimming around in my head for 3 years and I finally collected enough fabrics for it.

I had one starter block received from the 3x6 bee (mrssorrells2009 on flickr) and a stack of fabric that this block inspired.

I started by cutting the fabric into strips to make one large log cabin block. Then, instead of folding up the strips and putting them away, I just sewed them all into a quilt top.

I look forward to getting a batting and backing on that after the move.

I also dug up some quilt as you go squares from the Mother's Day retreat with crazymomquilts and I finished quilting all of those.  I hope I can get some of them sewn together on the car ride.

As I've been packing, the mail has been coming in with ornaments in the Trim the Tree swap.  I'm a lucky, lucky swapper this year!

Oh gosh.  I'd love to chat more and show off more fabric and quilting and project pictures but I really have to get back to cleaning and painting and bubble-wrapping everything.  I have big craft plans for the drive and for the first couple of weeks before the boxes arrive by moving truck.  Cross your fingers that all of the knitting and hand sewing projects I have in my head will fit in our tiny little car.

A bit frantic

We are moving soon. I've lived in Wisconsin all of my life, and now we will be making the big move to Maryland, perhaps as soon as the beginning of December.  I always like to close up loose ends by the end of the year, but packing up an entire house in a matter of less than three weeks is a bit much.  So today's post is a jumbled mess of about four posts all jammed together so I can focus on packing for the rest of the week.

First up is my sunglasses block for Tamiko in the Ringo Pie Bee.  She asked for Magnum P.I. themed blocks.  This block was due in June, but it took me quite awhile to find the right fabrics and the right techniques to achieve my vision for this block.  I hope she loves it as much as I do.
 

Next up is a recent distraction.  I've been collecting fabrics and perusing patterns for a quilt for Ben for many months now.  He is a mathematician and a birder.  He loves camping, patterns and lists and taking notes about the birds he sees.  I fell in love with Leila's Boy's Nonsense tutorial for the Value Added project and everything came together perfectly. 

I made eight blocks this weekend and now I'll have to pack them all up to save for another sewing day after the move.

My Trim the Tree Ornament Swap mittens are done.  I added a little detail work with size 8 perle cotton.  I hope my partners like them.

And you saw this quilt a couple of weeks ago.  It will be traveling to...

...the Pine Ridge Reservation along with the quilt below to keep a couple of babies warm this winter.  The quilt above was my first ever attempt at baptist fan quilting.  The one below was my second attempt.  I think things got better, but I still need a lot of practice. 

Okay, I'm off to pack up my sewing and crafting mess into boxes.  I'll have to save a few hand projects and maybe a couple of other tidbits to work on.

Trim the Tree

My favorite swap every year is the Trim the Tree Handmade Ornament Swap.  I've been working on some prototypes.

This ornament comes from this Danish blog tutorial from Sofie Legarth.  It ended up a little thick from all of the folded fabric and a bit floppy.  I think it would work a lot better with pretty paper and a bone folder.

I adore this knitted glove, but even with my love for tiny knitted things, I can't tolerate making four more of these.  My wrists ache just thinking about it.

So, I'm going to knit tiny mittens instead.  Both the glove and the mitten are from the Mini-Me pattern by Julia Mueller on ravelry.

I absolutely adore handmade ornaments. Do you have any favorite tutorials or examples to recommend. I'd love to see them.

Quietly Busy

I've been puttering away in the sewing room, pondering my next big project and trying to finish some of the smaller things on the list.  I've been planning for weeks to try to whittle my WIP's down to single digits by the new year.  That just isn't happening so far, though.  For instance, this past week the holiday workshop had to open up for the Trim the Tree Handmade Ornament Swap. 

These are made with linen, some favorite fabric scraps and extra thread for the details. 

I'm even working on a Halloween decoration because I found a kit that I just couldn't pass up and couldn't leave until next year.  You'll have to wait a bit to see that one, though.  

Thankfully, I'm not planning on any turkey-themed projects.  

What about you?  Are you completely done with Halloween sewing?  

Anything for Thanksgiving?  Have you started on the gifts yet?