Blinded by the Pink

Just finished up another blanket. This one is for my daughter. She picked out the yarn herself and though you can't tell from the photos, it is sparkley. Yes. A bright PINK sparkley blanket. Seriously - I thought I might get blinded by the sheer girliness of it all.

This one is mostly a straight granny stitch - just like a granny square only worked in rows instead of a square. That way you can make a rectangular blanket. The white border (also sparkley!) is a simple double crochet. And the edging is a scallop? shell? design. You can see that I'm really knowledgeable about crochet, huh?

This worked up really quickly, all things considered, which is good since my son has already chosen yarn for HIS blanket. Since they picked out the yarn and have watched me making them, the kids obviously know about these blankets. But I'm still waiting to actually give them until Christmas. It was important to me to let them see the amount of time and work that are put into creating homemade gifts.

Of course, Bailey had to "try it out" before I put it away. I think she approves!

Happy Crafting!

Language

Parts of this post may offend. I do not mean for them to offend, but there you have it. Maybe it will help to know that I started my career in theater as a stagehand and carpenter before moving on to stage management. When working backstage or in a scene shop, I was often the only woman and I picked up some rather unladylike habits. Cussing like a sailor would be one of them.

I worked very hard on this quilt block.

Lots of teeny tiny piecing.

Completely and totally imperfect because I have never tried making these types of paper pieced letters before. They were HARD!

This picture isn't all that great but I wanted to share how all those seams need to play together on the back of the block.

This is for Chawne's "Give a F*ck" communal quilt project. You can read more about it on her awesome blog. Be careful - you will get sucked into her amazing crafting.

It turned out vaguely patriotic with all that red, white,and blue. Perhaps I've been watching a bit too much of the current debate cycle. Or maybe I was thinking about the economy. Or about the whole Occupy movement. Or about how we don't adequately fund our schools. Who knows? I like it. Like I said, it's not perfect, but neither am I. So we made a good pair.

Until I mailed it out and had to say goodbye.

Now I'm glad to have these pictures to share because I'm afraid the block has gone missing in the mail. It's been a week and has not yet been received. I'm prepared for the worst.

And I guess I need to make another block.

Fuck.

***UPDATE*** I am so so so happy to report that the block arrived safe and sound at its destination! Whew!

Whew!

We had a great weekend for the Jingle Bell Run/Walk for Arthritis! Owen performed handsomely in his duties as Junior Grand Marshal!

The day started at the World Trade Center in downtown Portland. The courtyard was beautifully decorated with these huge lighted snowflakes and there are tons of people in costumes and ugly holiday sweaters (for the ugly sweater contest, of course).

We were introduced and went up onstage and Owen spoke into the big microphone to say, "Thank you for helping to stomp out arthritis." Adorable.

But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Because the weather can be a bit, shall we say, unpredictable this time of year (i.e. two years ago we missed most of the event because of an ice storm that had us stranded until our driveway thawed), we decided to get a hotel room closer to downtown for the night before the run. Once the hotel found out that Owen was the Junior Grand Marshal, they went all Spirit of Christmas on us and upgraded our room, had a welcome sign for Owen in the lobby, gave him some awesome toys (Spiderman! dinosaurs!), and had the most insane chocolate cake waiting for us in the room.

We were stunned! There were even a few people at the hotel who were participating in the run.

So... Once we got to the run, Owen's team was honored to be the top fundraising team for 2011! Thank you so much to everyone who helped by making a donation to Owen or his team. We were astonished to raise over $6,000 for the Arthritis Foundation!

We all ran the 1k kids fun run, which just confirmed for me how woefully out of shape I am. After that, Owen got to blow the air horn to start the 5k runners. And he even got to give the medals to the top men and women finishers.

Even Santa couldn't miss the festivities so the kids got to get their picture taken with the big guy - though Bailey was infinitely more interested in the big basket of candy canes. I think she ended up with about 7 of them.

And this was what things looked like for the ride home. A thoroughly satisfying adventure.

Blankie

Well, I made a blanket.

It's my very first one (so be kind).

But it's definitely not my last. I found the whole process thoroughly enjoyable!

I didn't use a pattern - it's just one big huge granny square bordered by some double crochet and a little scalloped edge.

And it's another Christmas gift. So I've completed two gifts and it's not even December yet! That has got to be a first for me.

I love how smooshy and cozy it is. Of course, the kids each want their own blankets now.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with this picture of Bailey. Yes, she has been sleeping with her pumpkin from the pumpkin patch (usually it's tucked in under the covers with her) and yes, she's kind of flipping the bird. Precious.

Have a good one!

Thanksgiving

Wishing a very Happy Thanksgiving to all the stateside folks. Well, really everyone. We can all take a moment for gratitude!

One thing we are incredibly grateful for is the amazing support shown to this little fella.

Cute shirt, huh? Sent to us from Lolly Polly Kids to celebrate Owen and his stint as Grand Marshal for the Jingle Bell Run/Walk.

We are deep into Thanksgiving preparations at our house. Pumpkin roasting for the homemade pumpkin pies, turkey defrosting, stuffing being all mixed up with onions, herbs, and celery. Good times. Our house is the gathering place for this holiday and it's great to stay home and fill the house with the delicious smells of the day.

In addition to being grateful for our family, friends, health, and home, I am so thankful that you all stop by to spend a little time in this space.

Let the celebration begin!

Fractal quilt

Okay, so my husband and I were chilling out one evening after the kids were in bed. Time alone? No kids around? What's a couple to do?

Yeah, so we were watching a NOVA special on PBS about fractal geometry. No, seriously. We're weird like that.

Gary is kind of a math and science geek. Degrees in math, chemistry, the whole nine yards. Me? I took as little math as possible in school and although I got good at it, I used my proficiency to avoid math at the college level. You needed to get 60 points on one of the placement exams to pass out of taking any required math courses at my university, so I used every brain cell I had to score 61 points. But I digress....

So we're sitting there watching all these images of fractals and I'm thinking, "These would make totally cool quilts!" But I don't say anything out loud because I'm sure that my math geek husband will roll his eyes at me.

Then you know what he says to me? "Hey, these kind of look like quilts."

"Oh my god! YES! YES THEY DO! WANT ME TO MAKE YOU ONE!!!!"

And there we were: the math geek and the quilt geek. A marriage made in heaven.

But out of all that came this:

For those of you who don't know what a fractal is (and I sure didn't until I watched the NOVA special), it's a geometric shape that can be split into smaller parts, and each of those parts is a reduced size copy of the whole.

Here's an example of a square within a square fractal that was the inspiration for this quilt:

You start out with one square-in-square (SIS), which is in turn made up of smaller SIS. Then those smaller SIS are made up of even smaller SIS. I had to stop there because I thought I might go insane piecing it any smaller. Now though, I kinda wish I had done it. Oh well....

Anyway, Gary picked out the colors and I got busy cutting and sewing. This was actually a pretty easy quilt to put together because I was able to chain piece everything.

Deciding how to quilt it took me awhile. I knew I wanted straight line quilting along the outside borders but I wasn't sure about what to do over the actual fractal image. I found a great fractal pattern but knew that it would be impossible for me to try to duplicate in on the quilt top. Finally, I settled on this simple diagonal line version. I like that it doesn't overwhelm the fractal design.

And the straight lines in the center of the quilt? Yeah, total PITA at the start because you have to turn the quilt so much, but it does look pretty cool now that it's done.

And the back:

Had to add that one orange square in there to complement the orange binding. I really like how the back turned out and I think the quilt will look fine however it lands on the sofa.

Here's a detail of the corners where the straight lines all intersect. It's one of my favorite parts about this quilt.

It's now washed and crinkled up and ready to be given to Gary for Christmas. YES! I finished a Christmas gift before Thanksgiving. High five!

On your mark....

Get set....

GO!!!

What could be better on a crisp Fall day?

Almost done binding the latest quilt. Can't wait to show you!