Category: Quilting

Quilting · Unraveled Wednesday / Knit & Read

Unraveled Wednesday

Vicki8 Comments

I’m joining Kat & the Unravelers for Unraveled Wednesday!

KNITTING:

Normally, I’d just share a photo or two of a recently completed project, but today I’m also sharing this image of my Ravelry project page, which shows all the projects completed in 2025, because FIVE OF THE EIGHT weren’t even on my radar until a week before Thanksgiving!

Grid of completed knitting projects including hats, mittens, and shawls displayed on a Ravelry project page.

That Musselburgh Beret for Ginny was just too cute & was quicker to knit than expected, so I had to knit another one for Malina.

A hand-knit purple beret displayed flat, showcasing its circular shape and knitted texture.
  • Ravelry Project Page: Musselburgh Beret II (for Malina) 
  • Pattern: Musselburgh Beret by Ysolda Teague 
  • Yarn: Make.Do Realize Sport in Lavender (OOAK) – from my stash
  • Size: Adult Small
  • Needle: US 3 (3.25 mm)
  • Start to Finish: December 19-22, 2025

And, y’know, if I was knitting something for each of the girls for Christmas, I really felt like I needed to knit something for each of the boys! I already had Ali ask all the kids for their favorite-color-of-the-moment, mainly to know Ginny’s, so at least I had that info for all.

I previously wrote about getting started with Davy’s mittens — I actually knit two pair (one slightly larger than the other) — and was just about at the point of felting. That went pretty well, and I propped them in front of the heat vent in the kitchen to hasten drying.

A collection of four yellow knitted mittens displayed in front of a heat vent on a wooden floor.

As they caught my eye the next morning, I thought to myself… Kai might be interested in those, maybe I should move them.

A pair of yellow knitted mittens with a red ribbed cuff, displayed on a speckled surface.

Famous last words! That little hole could probably be patched — I think I have a felted slipper in the repair pile, too — but not right now.

A pair of yellow mittens with a brown ribbed cuff, displayed on a speckled surface.
Close-up of the knitted cuff of a mitten showing a textured design in various shades of brown and yellow yarn.

Sarah’s blog post, along with a cautionary note about the cuff sizing that she made in a comment, were extremely helpful.

That left Junah to knit for — his favorite color right now is purple (“like crayola marker purple”), so I pulled out all my leftovers (and even some not-leftovers) to knit a hat! It turned out really great, except that it was a tad too small, so I made another one — purple is still the base color, but it didn’t shine as well. Oh well.

A hand-knitted purple hat showcasing a textured pattern, resting on a speckled surface.
Close-up of a hand-knitted hat in shades of purple, yellow, and gray, lying on a patterned surface.
  • Ravelry Project Pages:
    • Snap I (left) (for Junah… but too small, so for the girls & Davy)
    • Snap II (right) (for Junah – it fits!)
  • Pattern: Snap by tincanknits 
  • Yarn: Bits of every purple, adjacent, or complementary sock yarn I could dig up
  • Size: Child Small
  • Needle: US 8 (5.0 mm) & US 11 (8.0 mm)
  • Start to Finish:
    • Snap I – December 26-27, 2025
    • Snap II – December 28-31, 2025
A young boy wearing a knitted hat featuring purple and dark color variations, smiling at the camera indoors.

Handsome dude…

A boy in a black hoodie and sweatpants stands outside a barber shop with a sign featuring a cowboy and barber tools.

You can’t see his very fine fade under that hat, though. I took him to the official? unofficial? barber of the Green Bay Packers, including the head coach, for a New Year’s Eve haircut! Yes, it was a little $$, but look at him! Worth it (maybe not every time, tho… his hair grows fast!).

Anyway, also in the finish column for 2025 — the amazing Hexie Love crocheted blanket that I gave to Addison for graduation, and my first two Hitchhiker shawls!

I continued working on the Family Temperature Blanket — it’s all seamed up, and I’ve begun to knit the border. The first corner was not to my liking, so I tore it out and that’s where we sit. I started a couple other projects & I’ll get back to those as soon as my wrist recovers, because…

QUILTING:

I FINISHED MY QUILT YESTERDAY!!! I sewed (by machine) the binding on at Ann’s a few days ago when I spent the day doing laundry. Yesterday, I folded it around to the front & sewed it on. There was a lot of folding & pressing & pinning & clipping & fiddling… way more “hand work” than I expected. But, it’s DONE & it was on the bed last night.

My 10-week quilting class starts on Tuesday, so I’ll learn how to do it for real!

Quilting

12.5: Eye Candy Friday

Vicki6 Comments

It’s the first day of a long weekend! Most of it will be spent getting two Airbnbs ready for weekend football fans, but there will be time for other things, too. I have some errands to run, a Christmas inventory to do, and making the binding for my quilt!

The light in the Garden Room was perfect this morning! These are all pretty true color-wise (at least on my monitor).

A vibrant quilt featuring a variety of colorful floral patterns and designs, draped elegantly over a chair, with natural light illuminating its textures.
Colorful quilt featuring a vibrant pattern of dots and swirls against a white background.

I chose ORANGE thread for top & bottom. The quilting pattern is called SPLAT — it reminded me of the floral-ish shapes from the set of The Dating Game, which aired in the ’60s. So it’s floral-ish, which is a nod to the Kaffe Fasset fabrics, but also gave me a groovy vibe, which I also get from the backing fabric. It was in the ’60s when Fassett moved to London and his creative life really began to bloom. I dunno, it all came together in my head & gelled in about 2 seconds, standing there in the quilt shop, and seemed to work.

Close-up of a quilt featuring vibrant green, blue, and pink fabrics with intricate quilted patterns.
Close-up of a colorful quilt featuring vibrant floral patterns and geometric shapes, with orange thread detailing.

FEELING GROOVY!!

Squeeee!! I’m so in love with it and can’t wait to throw it on the bed!

Quilting

12.1

Vicki5 Comments

I woke up on Thanksgiving morning and saw this in the ravine:

A forest scene in winter with bare trees, some fallen logs, and a dusting of snow on the ground.

I immediately thought, “Oh, there’s my venison backstrap.” Oh, were it so…

By the time we opened the venison chops that we found in the freezer at a local specialty market, to find that one package was definitely “off,” and so immediately dooming the second by association (of a 1-year-plus-old sell by date), the grocery stores were all closed. Rusty was at the studio, and our only hope was that a nearby Kwik Trip was open. There was a pretty good chance of that and, thankfully, they’re quite a bit more than your run-of-the-mill gas station convenience store… but what would they have??

We ended up with sirloin steaks. Honestly, not too bad, and everything else went smoothly. We had roasted acorn squash, wild rice pilaf with mushrooms & dried cranberries, and a fresh salad of alfalfa sprouts & dried cranberries with toasted pine nuts. I was in charge of dessert, and made Olive Oil Pumpkin Cake With Salted Maple Cream from NYT Cooking. It’s a gift article (Happy Holidays!), and I’m sharing because Rusty, the usual maker & extreme lover of pumpkin (or any other) pie around here, declared it to be The Best Dessert Ever! With a review like that, man, I’ve just gotta shout it from the rooftop! It was suggested that the cake would improve with time, so I baked it on Wednesday evening & whipped up the maple cream just before serving.

On Friday, I bought a new car. I’m picking it up after work today. Maybe I’ll have a nice pic for you tomorrow!

Saturday brought our first significant snowfall. We’ve been hemming & hawing about buying a snowblower for a while now, and I bit the bullet. (Obviously, some spending happened this Holiday weekend, but all very practical, mostly planned-for purchases.) Rusty & Kate put it together on Sunday morning (when it was really needed), and Kate did the deed!

A vibrant quilt featuring a patchwork of colorful floral patterns, laid out with various fabrics and crafting supplies in the background.

I’d had a call on Wednesday from the quilt shop that my turn for the long-arm was here! Naturally, I’d put off adding the border — though I had cut all the strips. So I was busy getting that done between everything else (so much sorting, organizing & rearranging) and, because I’m math challenged when it comes to figuring what I need for strips/binding, I was short & had to cut another strip! Anyway, while it was still light/before the roads got too bad, I dropped it off on Saturday. We’d already discussed the backing fabric when I was there earlier, so this time we chose thread color, stitch design & scale, and batting — so fun!! I have no idea how long it’s going to take, but I’m so excited to get it back!! I ended up with a LOT more binding than needed the first time I made it, so we’ll see how it goes this time.

Ali & the kids came over on Sunday for a late lunch, hanging out, and decorating! I’d sorted through toys & games, and we made some decisions about that… as I’m slowly de-childproofing my house, now that they’re getting older.

A festive display of holiday decorations featuring miniature Christmas trees, figurines, and a light-up house, arranged on a wooden table.

Ginny & Davy were most into the tree decorating, while Junah was very busy building a new K’nex project, and Malina had a project of her own (with buttons & glue) happening in the kitchen… then she shifted to arranging the tableau above. From left to right: a little candle holder fireplace w/sleeping mouse that Ali gave me for Christmas one year (from a “gift shop” at school) (my childhood nickname was “Mouse”); one of two vintage angel candles; bottle brush trees w/fabric stars; a ceramic reindeer music box (broken antler) made by my grandparents; one of three silver angel ornaments (the other two are atop the bottle brush trees on the right), these angels are tiny versions of our tree-topper; Jesus, Mary & Joseph, also made by my grandparents (amusingly, Mary & Jesus were found packed away in a completely separate box than Joseph); a glittery, springy wire tree decoration; my one-and-only Christmas village building – the White Horse Bakery; the other angel candle, bottle brush trees; a glittery gold star tree-topper; a LEGO snowman; and a set of three elf decorations. Chances are, this will be added to & rearranged a few times before Christmas.

We had a nice lunch & a great time hanging out. I sent them on their way with bags of goodies & two advent calendars — a “Monster Trucks” version for the boys to share/do together, and a “LEGO Friends” version for the girls. They seemed very excited. We’ll see if only one door gets opened each day…

I hope you had a wonderful weekend!!

Crochet! · Quilting

10.30: Coloring my world

Vicki8 Comments

It’s my friend’s birthday today & I was so worried that she’d become the newest member of The Bad Birthday Club… but, thankfully, I don’t think that will happen. It’s bleak & agonizing, though, no doubt about that. I hope that peace comes soon.

Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud. ~Maya Angelou

I decided last week that I wanted to make a quilt. Like, right now. I needed something to dive into, as none of my current projects is speaking to me in a satisfying way. (I may now have the reserves & bandwidth to persevere.) I returned from Nashville with a couple of Kaffe Fassett fat quarter collections, adding to the random KF FQs & other cuts that I’ve collected over the past couple of years (see image below), and it seemed silly to just put them away… so a simple quilt seemed to be the thing. Plus, we need something on our bed that actually fits, and hopefully these fabrics will help brighten my world as the dark days loom ahead.

A collection of Kaffe Fassett fabric cuttings arranged in vibrant colors on a green cutting mat.

I found a super easy/fast quilt pattern that seemed perfect for the mostly large-scale prints I wanted to use. I pulled out all the fabric, mixed it all up (accidentally), and then sorted it to find some combinations that worked.

A vibrant assortment of Kaffe Fassett fabric fat quarters spread out on a table, including various patterns and colors, alongside a small iron and craft supplies.

(In the process, other ideas were percolating!)

A colorful quilt in various large-scale floral prints, arranged in a diagonal pattern on a wooden floor.
A vibrant quilt displayed on a floor, featuring a mix of large-scale colorful prints in a patchwork design.

Naturally, I made it quite a bit bigger. And I didn’t mind the long diagonal stripes, but I liked it better broken up. Most of the prints were directional, or I’d probably have done a big chevron type thing.

A vibrant quilt layout featuring a mix of colorful fabric pieces, including floral patterns and geometric designs, arranged on a floor surface.
A colorful quilt top featuring a patchwork of large floral and patterned fabrics in vibrant hues of pink, blue, green, and red, laid out on a wooden floor.

After a bit more rearranging, everything is sewn together. I had to rip & re-sew more than a couple of seams and there are some woefully mismatched corners. I’m not sure I’d be very good at more intricate designs. I’m contemplating finished size, whether to add a border or just binding, and how to actually quilt it. I’ll be taking it to the quilt shop soon (maybe tomorrow) to get a professional opinion.

We live in a rainbow of chaos. ~Paul Cézanne

The crocheted granny square blanket is finished! After all the squares were stitched together, I went around the whole thing with a row of double crochet in each color to finish it off. There was just a small ball of each color remaining.

A colorful crocheted blanket featuring a grid of squares in various colors, including purple, red, green, yellow, and white, with a white border.

The back story of this project is that the yarn was given to me by an Airbnb guest who has stayed with me a few times over the years — the first time was when she brought her dad for his first game at Lambeau Field. She booked early and was very communicative, as her dad was undergoing treatment for cancer at the time; thankfully, his treatment was successful & he/they’ve been visitors a few times since then. The game last year was right around Christmas… she’d asked me, at one point, what my favorite colors were & I said “jewel tones” (because that can be SUCH a hard question to answer). Lo, she gave me a big skein of acrylic yarn in each of the colors you see. I added the “antique white” to pull it together. I really felt that I needed to honor her gift, even though I’d never have chosen that yarn (which wasn’t too bad, actually, outside of being just a tad splitty). I’ve talked about the rest of my process for this project before — and it really was fun, start to finish.

And I’m glad I’m finished.

I hope all is well out in blogland. I am so behind, I may have to draw a line in the sand — “mark as read” older posts and move on.

Quilting · Sewing

Quilt

Vicki22 Comments

 Once upon a time, Ali had a brilliant idea about making quilts together!

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March 2013

Ali: I think we should have a double wedding ring quilt challenge. But it has to be a secret because mine will be for Abbey and Kevin. {A wedding present for their August 2013 wedding.} But you can report your progress, and at the end surprise the masses with TWO beautiful finished products. Eh? Eh? smile emoticon

We have 5 months! We should make a guide of some kind showing what we have to get done in one week. Pace ourselves. I have no idea how to begin. smile emoticon

Vicki: I've never made more than a quilted square!  Will have to do some research… and, first, you need to get a handle on colors for Abbey & Kevin! I want to go to a good quilt shop!!! Am excited now!

Ali: Me tooooo! We'll have to make a date!

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With a 3-month-old baby only 6 months until her best friend's wedding day, it was quickly decided that we'd be making only Ali's (king-size) quilt, and that I would be her helper! She wanted to use the "Easy! Fast! Smart!" Quiltsmart method, which involves no tedious piecing and, instead, utilizes fusible interfacing to make the arcs and assemble square blocks.

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So instead of tedious piecing, we tediously cut, sewed, trimmed, turned, finger pressed, ironed, sewed again, pressed again, sewed again, pressed again…

As far as I'm concerned, and having never made a traditional pieced double-wedding ring anything, the jury's still out on the ease, swiftness, and/or intelligence of making a quilt this way (your mileage may vary).

May 2013

Vicki: We need to carve out some production time… a quilting bee!

Ali: Whooo! I'm having a very difficult time finding time!

Vicki: I have turned all that were trimmed and am now trimming more so that I can turn!

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August 16, 2013:  WEDDING DAY!

 

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Some parts of this quilt traveled across the pond and I worked on turning and finger pressing in Scotland — on the train, playing Scrabble in the evening, etc.

June 2014

Vicki: I did some sewing & trimming for quilt yesterday and thought I was caught up… but then saw a whole 'nother pile! Haha. Hope you're having fun up north. XOXO

Ali: This thing is a nightmare!! Haha. Xoxo

Vicki: WE CAN DO IT with this quilt thing!!! smile emoticon

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March 2015

Vicki: {Random sewing talk.} Also, we have a quilt to finish.

Ali: And yes. Quilt. I know I still need some more white fabric, but it's coming along. I can maybe give you what I have..it's ready for the clear thread.

June 2015

Vicki: Re: Quilt… we need 90 total + 38 halves, right?

Ali: Yep. So 128×4?

Vicki: Hm. Quilt. Suggested dimensions for a King size quilt, INCLUDING a 15" drop at each side and the bottom, is 106 x 94… which would be 9×8 (assuming our squares are 12"?) So that would be 72 complete squares and 34 halves to go all the way around, give or take. I'm getting confused. We can't need 70 more arcs, can we???

Ali: I suppose I haven't sat down and done the math since the way beginning, and I'm sure it was hasty.

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August 2015

Ali: I know this is on the back burner… but I wanted to touch base with an idea! We sew the squares into 1'x9' panels, so maybe we cut 9 1'x9' panels of white fabric and use that as the second layer before the batting. Then it's all connected and sturdier and we don't have an extra actual fabric layer to send along. Yes? I haven't sewn these together lengthwise yet but… smile heart-eyes emoticon

I can't remember exactly, but it was sometime in late summer/early fall that we delivered the finished quilt top to the quilter. We had it done at a shop because that was just WAY beyond either of us. (Ali: I have no idea how to begin. Vicki: I've never made more than a quilted square!) We've learned some things!

January 2016

Vicki: I just watched a GREAT tutorial for binding a quilt. WE CAN DO IT! Do you have fabric for binding? smile emoticon

Ali: I have some packaged white quilt binding but we can use something different if you'd like!

Vicki: I actually think it would be easier to do it with fabric strips instead of packaged binding! I discovered all the old backing yesterday, too, so have plenty. Making the strips won't be difficult at all. I forgot the dimensions of the quilt, though, so that was my next step! Do you remember? If you want to do packaged binding, I can pick it up. I watched 2 tutorials on YouTube — on one Fat Quarter Shop and the other by Missouri Quilt Co. I actually think the FQS method would be best (simple finish on the front).

Ali: Alright! Let me know how you'd like me to help!

Vicki: I need to measure the perimeter of the quilt; cut, sew & press the 2.5" strips. I can do that part if you want to sew it on… or I can do the first step of sewing and you can finish. I'll measure & cut tonight!

I picked it up less than two weeks ago, and made the binding.

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Not only did it take me THREE TIMES to sew the miters making this long strip of fabric, I also made almost twice the length required for the task because… I don't even know why!! But I did a good job and it looks nice and now I have extra.

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I made the binding one evening, and Ali came over the next and sewed it all on in just a few hours! After the blocks were assembled, it all went pretty quick! She washed it within a day or two.

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It's done and delivered, appreciated and loved!

I still can't quite believe it!