posts tagged: WIP

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wip: postage stamp quilt

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Back around Christmas, when I was feeling the full weight of my stash, I decided to slash through my scraps a bit, get that bin under control, and start making more things out of leftovers from past projects. So one afternoon—until my wrists started to ache, in fact!—I cut all my scraps into 2.5″ squares however I could.

scrap squares

Of course, not being a sampling of all the fabrics in my stash, there was only so much I could envision doing with them. I’d kept them organized by color, so I thought about slightly organized 9 patches, in coordinated color schemes, which I’ve seen others do and really liked. I arranged and rearranged the blocks a few times and just wasn’t feeling it. So I just set out a 6×6 grid of them, pulled at random, and walked away.

Walking away was really key here because I thought it looked nice when I pulled the fabrics but it was only a while later, when I walked past the table, that the block really sang for me. Seeing it from afar made me happy, and so I sewed it up right away. I dumped all the squares into a bag so I could pull even more randomly, and I made another, and another—in just that one night I made 4 blocks. With each one I’d determine an initial layout quickly, then walk away, sit on the couch for a bit, and then come back to see if I wanted to swap out a block or flip the placement of two.

postage stamp blocks

A few days later, I made two more.

postage stamp blocks

It is amazing to me that I dipped into my scraps, which filled a relatively small plastic bin, and suddenly had the equivalent of a piece of fabric that’s 48 x 24! Obviously now that I’ve started I want to keep going forever—I’m not going to stop at a baby sized quilt; this one will be for me! A highlight of all the fabrics I had in my first years of sewing? What a precious thing. This means that the next time I feel up for an afternoon of cutting, I’m going to sneak off 2.5″ strips from various fabrics that weren’t in the scrap bin, to flesh out the variety a bit more. I suppose I’ll be adding to it in bits and pieces over time, too.

I hope it isn’t too long before I come back to these blocks, and I hope it isn’t too long before I have enough area covered to make myself a blanket!

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wip wednesday

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crochet

I’ve been crocheting. I have no idea where this project came from, really. Years ago (in 2010!) I loved my friend Diana’s Frida skirt. I had knit several skirts and bought the same yarn as her to make my own. In a khaki color. That is not dissimilar from my own skin tone. In truth, I know what I was thinking: I have a khaki skirt that I practically lived in for years each summer until holes finally separated the waistband from the body of the skirt, and I thought to knit myself a staple that I’d wear just as much. I knit nearly the entire thing before getting up to the waist and worrying that it wouldn’t fit. Apparently instead of really trying it on and making a decision, I shoved it in a bag and hid it at the back of the yarn shelf.

Last week in a fit of pique I decided to straighten up the bookcase I use for a few yarns, ones that haven’t been packed up and stored in the closet properly. The piles were meant to artfully mimic those in a yarn store, but what I was ending up with was a waterfall of yarn that threatened to spill over any time I touched it. Some cleanup was in order. And lo and behold I found a few nearly finished projects languishing at the back, complete with needles in the stitches. One was this skirt, which I pulled off the needles and tried on. And it was terrible. The color looked horrendous on me, and while the waist was definitely destined to fit OK, I knew I would just never wear it. So I plopped down and ripped the whole thing out.

But what to do with such a yarn? No garment would make sense, as I do not want to wear that color on my body. Maybe a sophisticated baby blanket. Yes, that’s an idea. The yarn is lusciously soft and buttery so despite being cotton I think it would make a nice blanket. So I flipped through some crochet books and settled on a motif in Edie Eckman’s Beyond the Square Crochet Motifs. I happened to pick a square one, ha. It’s easy to memorize, I can bang out a half-dozen in an evening, and I feel pretty empowered to make a whole (baby) blanket (something I’ve never done before). We’ll see how long I last before I bore of the squares!

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it’s football season!

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Crocheting Season

This past weekend was opening weekend for the NFL, and for the first time in months I found myself drawn to the couch, yarn in hand. This summer was just too hot, too muggy, and too busy to want to do any knitting/crocheting at all. But there’s just something about the sound of helmets crashing on helmets and those random shouts of the count that make me feel like picking up yarn again. The weather even cooperated—Sunday was cool and rainy, the perfect weather for staying on the couch. Plus, my Eagles (and my Redskins—yes, I can divide my loyalty between two teams in the same division, much to my boyfriend’s indignance) were playing, so I had a reason to keep an eye on the TV.