A Week of Finishing :: Three Ginkgo Pillows

No location shot today.
I'm winding up my week of finishing and hope to be back tomorrow with one last completed project. I'm pushing hard to wrap things up because I'll be leaving town on Sunday for about 10 days. I'm going to a swim meet...in Israel. A mom's gotta watch her baby swim.

A Week of Finishing :: Hexagon Quilt

The quilt measures about 36"x 45". I don't know the dimensions of the train depot or the cow.

A Week of Finishing :: Big Nate Quilt

I finished this quilt on Monday, binding it while sitting in my car waiting for my daughter at swim team. There's really nothing like having a warm quilt on your lap in your car in the summer heat. I didn't go inside the swim center as there's no air conditioning in there anyway, so not sweating wasn't really an option. Despite the perspiration, I am very happy with the finished product and decided to celebrate by taking pictures of it at a favorite park.


The quilt measures about 60"x 80" and is a combination of concentric squares and circles of varying sizes. Most of the squares and all the circles have been made using the shibori technique I used to make this quilt. Like that quilt I rented time on a long arm quilting machine to do the quilting. It's amazing how quickly a top of this size can be quilted on one of those babies. If I had an extra $10,000 laying around, I'd definitely consider investing in one.
Oh well...more tomorrow.

A Week of Finishing :: Leaf Tee

Sometimes you can spend weeks working and feel like you have nothing to show for it and then other times you come into a veritable smorgasbord of finished objects. Well, I'm happy to say that it looks like I'm at the buffet table this week. I'm hopefully coming to the end of several projects and I'm planning on sharing them here this week.
My first completed item is not a sewn item, but a knitted one. If you all knew how hot it has been here the past few weeks, you would laugh at why I felt compelled to work on my knitting. In my own defense I will say that this item was made out of an amazing bamboo/cotton blend, so it is cool,with cool being a relative term when human beings are forced to endure 100+ degree temperatures day after day.
But I bet you all don't want to hear me go on and on and on about how freaking hot it is here and how, despite the fact that I have a pretty high tolerance for heat, I can't take this particular inferno,right?
I thought so.
Here's my finished object instead:


Try to ignore that string that is in every single one of the shots I took and instead focus on this really cute and easy to knit top. It's the Leaf T-Shirt, a free pattern on Ravelry. It's knitted from the top down. Oh, how I love knitting from the top down. It's so civilized.


Here's a detail shot of the tee. Or maybe it's a shot of me passed out from the unbearable heat. Either way, you can see the pretty lace pattern. It's just a 6 row repeat with plain knitting in between, but I like the interest it added to the top.


I've got a second Leaf T-Shirt in my future as well as more cotton/bamboo yarn. I picked this batch up today at a lovely local(air conditioned) store .
I'll be back tomorrow with another finished item.

July Comes in with a Bang

...and I'm not just talking about the fireworks that will shoot off across the country this Saturday night. Everyplace, except here,probably. Because we're in the midst of a drought, and there's a burn ban, and we've had a string of 100+ degree days, and that's not just 100 or 1o1, but 1o6 and 1o8 degrees. It is too dang hot here for fireworks!
But, I digress. Must be heat stress. The bang I'm referring to has to do with exciting goings on for both my family and my blog.
My family news has to do with my eldest daughter, Sarah. I've mentioned before that we are a swimming people and that certainly holds true for her. Well, she is off tomorrow to Israel to swim for the US team at the 18th Maccabiah Games. She is one of 12 females and 12 males to be selected for this team. She is so excited and, well, so am I. The US team is particularly strong this year because this guy is swimming on the team. Remember him from Beijing?
Me being me, this momentous occasion prompted a wee bit of crafting. Sarah's not big on photography, but even she had to admit that she should get a camera and take a few shots. Naturally, I felt that her camera was a bit naked without the appropriate pouch.


I used a cute Japanese print and some beads I bought at Quilt Festival a few years ago to sew up this case. She seems to like it.
The sweet fabric, purchased through an independent retailer is a good segway to my July's bang for my blog. I have a new sponsor, Runner Girl Fabric and she carries some amazing fabric in her online store. For instance, check this print out. And this one . Runner Girl Fabric also carries Anna Maria Horner's Good Folks line as well as loads of great Amy Butler prints and Heather Ross's designs for Kokka. My suggestion is that you dash(cute pun, huh?) on over to Runner Girl Fabric and take a look for yourself. You won't even have to break a sweat. Isn't the internet grand?

When I Iove something...

...I really love it. Take as an example Simplicity pattern 4589. See, I just typed that without even consulting the pattern envelope. Why? Because I've made the pattern 8 times. Also, when I fall in love with something I want to share that love. Just recently my good friend, Sandy, asked me for a recommendation for a simple, beginner's pattern and, needless to say, I sung the praises of Simplicity 4589. When she accidentally bought the wrong size pattern and was concerned that she wouldn't be able to exchange it, I gave her my copy of the pattern. I did it not because I'm particularly generous, but because I so wanted her to love the pattern as much as I do. And she did. Last I heard, she'd made two versions of this top. What more could I want?
The same is true for the Automated Postal Center at the post office or APC for short. Ridiculous as this may sound, when I first discovered I could send all my domestic packages via this machine and that I could do so any time of day, 365 days a year, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I have since happened upon purchasing and printing my postage via my computer, but I'll always have a special place in my heart for the APC. And, like the sewing pattern, I enjoy letting other people in on this little treasure. When I do have to go to the post office, I can't help but glancing at the addressed packages of those waiting with me in the interminably long and slow line and upon realizing that the person next to me has a package that could be sent via the APC, I think nothing of casually saying, "I don't mean to butt into your business, but did you know that you could avoid this Disneyland-like que and ship your package directly through the APC?" Most people are pretty excited by this bit of news.
Now, I have something new to love. This:


It's my newest cookbook, American Masala by Suvir Saran. See all those post-it page markers laying on top of the book? Well, now the book is inundated with those bookmarks because that's how many of the recipes I plan on trying. Frankly, before I decided to organize my favorite recipes by marking the pages, I'd already made 2 or 3 of the book's dishes. As of this writing I've probably tried and loved at least half a dozen recipes with several made more than once.
Yesterday, I made this recipe not once, but twice.


It's called Indian Chopped Mixed Salad and I made the first version in the morning right after my farm basket was delivered. The dish calls for tomatoes and cucumbers and they were abundant in the basket.


I then made it again last night as a topping for homemade enchiladas. It was delicious. Are you hearing the piercing shrill of my enthusiasm?
The premise behind this book is to craft American recipes like Macaroni and Cheese casserole with an Indian flair and to slightly Americanize traditional Indian foods. The book is well organized and beautifully photographed. And it doesn't call for ingredients that you'd have to literally trek the silk road to find. Here's my suggestion for a perfect day: start off by whipping up a version of Simplicity 4589 followed by a quick trip to the post office to mail packages via the APC, then enjoy making and eating at least one of the recipes from American Masala. I bet you'll doze off that night with a big smile on your face.

The dog ate it

That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
Actually, in all fairness to my sweet puppy, she didn't eat my mini quilt this Monday. She couldn't of. I didn't make a mini for today. I've been too busy working on several projects including two big quilts. Well, one is definitely large and the other is more large-ish. I didn't want to disappoint too much, so I've taken some in progress shots of those quilts.


Sorry for the crappy lighting, but this is against a wall in what seems like a permanently dim part of my studio. Anyway, the customer who requested this quilt liked the hexagon mini I'd made in the past, but wanted hers to be a wee bit bigger. This one will measure about 36"x45" when it's all pieced. It's not really even large-ish, but something about it being constructed out of hexagons makes me think it is.


The other quilt that's been keeping me busy is this bigger version of my Nate quilt.
It too is a for a lovely customer and it was her idea to include a smattering a twinkle circles amongst the squares. I really like this idea and it's given me a chance to incorporate both large and small circles. Now that I think about it, this quilt, when finished, won't be huge either, just 60"x 90", but I think of both of these quilts as big pieces. Maybe it's all the mini quilts I've made lately or the fact that these are not the only projects I'm working on or maybe I'm shrinking and will soon join the Lilliputians?
Regardless, this is my excuse for not completing the week's mini quilt assignment.