For baby gifts I work almost exclusively with scrap yarn, so choosing colors is both a fun and difficult challenge. I store my yarn in Ikea bags and when I have an idea I just pull what I like and organize it on the ping pong table. I pull and add until I have the pounds of yarn I think I’ll need. [Read more…] about Video Tutorial: Scrappy Quilt and Blanket Fabric and Yarn Color Selection | How to Determine Dark vs. Light
Stitch
Packing for Retreat
I’m getting excited for my retreat this week. I leave Wednesday morning and will thrift my way to Oelwein, Iowa where I will knit, crochet, and stitch to my heart’s content until Sunday afternoon. I’m most looking forward to hanging out with my Mom, Kelli, and Connie, but I’m wondering how many projects I’ll be able to knock out when there are no chores to do or mouths to feed.
Naturally, in order to have no chores or cooking for almost a week there is much to prepare for. I’m taking the drudgery out of my long task list by alternating it with packing for the retreat. I’m bringing a bunch of options.
Being it’s a quilt retreat I’m bringing mostly quilt options. There’s my fussy cut drunkard’s path- first conceived in July of 2015.
I’m also bringing my Texas braid. This one is so old I remember cutting it out in my college apartment. I couldn’t find a picture on Flickr because it was started pre-smartphone, but I was almost positive I had one. I searched my old blog and came up with this gem.
I really need to do a better job blogging because reading old posts is hilarious.
I don’t even have this pattern anymore but I know all of the pieces are cut. I will just keep adding to the strips until I run out of pieces. My mom recently posted about Texas braids the lazy way and I will have to get over my ironing addiction and follow her advice to get this beast complete.
A much more recent project is my striped tumbling blocks quilt.
The only reason this one is languishing is that I only work on it as I find white and blue pinstriped shirts and I will only pay $2 or less. It’s really engaging to assemble. Purl Bee has a fantastic photo tutorial explaining how it all goes together.
Finally, I’m starting a crazy quilt. I want to make a project for each category of Fabric and Threads at the state fair and this will be my pick for surface embroidery. I chopped up a bunch of green and orange vintage sheets and have been collecting vintage rick rack and embroidery floss.
I had a few yards of Kona Snow that got some sort of damage like coffee was spilled or something. Anyhow, I ripped it into squares for foundation pieces. Being I have 25 of them, this quilt will finish at about 45″ square. I plan on making 9.5″ squares and embroidering individually before assembling them and hand quilting.
Let’s be honest, I will probably ditch everything and crochet instead. Or piece like, two crazy quilt blocks and spend the rest of the time embroidering. I’m bringing my Scrap Addition blanket.
It’s been a while since I updated you on that. It is now almost at 8 x 8 and measures about 40″. I intended to stop there for a baby blanket size but now I’m making it bigger to fit into the throw size category at the fair. I have a different idea for a baby blanket and I don’t want the two of them to compete.
Finally, I’m bringing a doily.
It is a pattern called Majestic Pineapples available for download on Ravelry. This picture was only taken a few days ago but it is already much larger because it is my new favorite travel project.
That should be enough to last me five days, right?
Handmade Hand Towels from Old Bath Towels
July 22 must be the day to ponder hand towels.
I was folding laundry and thinking all of the thoughts. We don’t have very many handtowels for the bathroom and end up using bright yellow microfiber towels, which are functional but not especially attractive.
Although I have frequently find cute vintage tea towels at thrift shops, I have yet to buy new towels from a store in my adult life.
Then, while folding, I came up with a hand towel I made from a shrunken bath towel and binding from vintage sheets. I thought to myself that although it was pretty faded, it was still in good shape. I enjoyed making them and thought I should make some more.
I knew I had blogged about it before so I headed over to Kayla K’s Thrifty Ways and discovered that I had blogged about it- seven years ago to the day.
How weird, right?
Anyhow, I didn’t end up making new hand towels. I did something else new: I threw away a towel. We have two bath towels that have torn enough to not make it all the way around anymore. I intended to add some binding but decided they were just too far gone. They went out to the garden where they will block weeds around my new fruit bushes and eventually compost down.
All of this to say:
- How weird is it that I was thinking of making hand towels exactly seven years from the first time I made them?
- How annoying (but also cool) that my handtowels made from hand-me-down bath towels seven years ago have outlasted the ones I got for my wedding five years ago?
- I made a tutorial for my cute towels seven years ago and it still exists on the interwebs. You can find it here.
