April 2015 – Thimbleanna

Checking In

20 Comments / April 23, 2015 April 23, 2015 / Chat, Chuck Nohara, The Aunts' Quilt

Man, I have no idea where the last week went. I feel like I just posted yesterday, but according to the calendar, it’s been 8 days. Work, Work, Work, it sure makes time fly. I’m sure you’re busy out there too — it feels like it never lets up, doesn’t it?

I spent the whole of last weekend cleaning. and boy, was it ever needed. Sort of big cleaning. Like, clean the windows cleaning — I can’t remember the last time I cleaned the windows. In addition to cleaning, we had a visit from Winston for a few days while the kids had a few days away. I enjoyed being able to take him on walks in the neighborhood. Spring is finally peeking out from under winter’s rock — late, but here. And looky who we found on our walk:

Can you see them? It’s Mr. and Mrs. Duck! Winston spotted them right away and wanted to go and play. Sorry about the picture quality, but I felt lucky that I had my phone with me. Anyway, if you’ve been around for a few years, you know that our duck couple is our official sign that spring has arrived. The trees are just barely showing a tinge of green and in spite of the snowflakes we saw this week, beautiful weather is right around the corner.

In the meantime, I’ve been doing a bit of sewing here and there. When I started the Aunts’ Quilt, I mentioned to the Auntlets that they might want to think about prepping the scallops for the border as we go along, in order to save a ton of work at the end — only I haven’t been following my own advice. After I finished last month’s blocks, I started to panic a little. Only a few more months and it will be time to do those borders and I hadn’t prepped any of the scallops. So, this past week, I got with the program and prepped some scallops in the evenings while we watched tv. Very fun work. And pretty too!

And there’s been another little project too. There are a bunch of crazies over on Instagram and I’ve followed them over a cliff. They’re having a quiltalong — you make a few blocks a month from the book “2001 Blocks of Patchwork” by Chuck (it’s a woman!) Nohara. (Click on the link, scroll down, click on the book and you can view a few pages). I need another project like I need a hole in the head. But, the ladies are a fun group, and what’s another deadline anyway? It’s good to keep busy, right? I hope I can finish some of them in this lifetime LOL. Anyway, here’s my first block:

Before I go, here’s a few fun links for you:
Randi is making smoothies and this one looks deeeeeelicious!
Flossie Teacakes wrote a great post about solids. Do you have a solids stash? Mine is sadly lacking. Hey — maybe we should have a Moda Bella Solids of the Month Club and build our stashes.
Speaking of Crazies, Ms. Ric Rac has her very first line of fabric coming out at market. Here’s a peek. I can’t wait to see it.
And finally, Irene has a new book coming out and I can’t wait to see it too. Spring Quilt Market is almost here — lots of exciting things on the way.

Ok, Peeplets — I’m off to bed. Have a great weekend!
XOXO,
Anna

The Aunts’ Quilt — Month 6

24 Comments / April 15, 2015 April 15, 2015 / Cookie of the Month, The Aunts' Quilt

Happy Tax Day — for those of you in the U.S. Aren’t we happy that‘s over for this year? The less said about that, the better! ;-D

Moving right along, it’s the 15th of the month and therefore, it’s time for the monthly Aunts’ Quilt Report. How are you Auntlets doing? I haven’t seen many updates this month — I hope you’re just too busy to post. I will say though that Karen R is killing us! She even finished and posted early this month — WooHoo Karen — Congratulations!!! I barely scraped by this month, but I got my blocks done. Here’s the applique block:

I had a hard time with the applique block this month. It’s definitely not my favorite, and I think my fabric choices made it even less of a favorite. Maybe the parts that really annoy me will get fixed, and maybe not. Anyway, here are the two pieced blocks:

And my little sneaky animal piece? I chose a deer this month and I think he’s cute.

Here’s what the blocks look like all together. They’re too big for my little design wall now, so I had to lay them out on the floor. I’m sure they won’t stay in this order, and there are a few little pieces that need to be fixed, but you get the idea.

And let’s not forget the Cookie of the Month — a girl needs sustenance for all this applique work. I had some leftover lemons from the Debutante Lemon Cake, so I decided to consult my cookie board on Pinterest. I ended up choosing Chewy Glazed Lemon Cookies and boy, were they ever good! A great choice while doing hand work and stitching. If you like lemon, you should definitely try these cookies!

Ok Auntlets, don’t give up yet! According to our schedule, we’re halfway done with this quilt (can you believe it???) — it’s all downhill from here! For month 7, we’re scheduled to do 4 inset triangles. Easy Peasy, right?

Ok — get going!!!
XOXO,
Anna

Too Late Lopi

24 Comments / April 9, 2015 April 9, 2015 / Knitting

Hello Invisible People! How’s it going out there? Did you have a nice Easter? Ours was quiet and somewhat marred by the fact that I had to spend the weekend doing MeMum and BigDaddy’s taxes. Oh well, it’s done now — Yay! I did manage to make a cake for our Easter dinner. I love lemon cakes in the spring, so I made Miette’s Lemon Debutante cake (I’ve posted about it here before, when I made it for Easter a few years ago). I forgot one crucial step, but it still tasted just fine. It’s a labor intensive cake, but well worth all the work, imho. Then, the recipe makes sort of enough cake and frosting for another little cake. I popped the extra stuff in the fridge for a few days, and then chose to make a little vanilla cake — all the work except putting it together was all done — what a treat!

Otherwise, things have been pretty boring here. Like sitting around watching paint dry, we’re just sitting around waiting for spring to pop up. It’s been raining the last few days and things are just barely starting to green up, so it won’t be long. In the meantime, I finished my Lopi sweater.

This is my third Lopi sweater and I looove them so much. They’re big and bulky and oh-so-comfy. Berglind and I decided to knit this together — if you can call it together, Berglind finished her version for her daughter several months ago. This one is late for the season, but we’ll still have some cool, blustery days and this sweater will be perfect to wear without a coat. And, hopefully, I’ll adjust to that neon green yarn — it looks radioactive to me. (Berglind was much more sensible and chose gray and white – I know I saw a picture of it but I can’t find it on her blog. Help Berglind!)

I used my very favorite tubular cast-off method for the neck. It gives a nice rolled edge to the collar. I looked for on-line tutorials for you, in case you’re an interested knitter, but none of them are just like the method I used. This one is very close, except that I do the set-up rows twice and I do all the work on the circular needle.

I was happy to see that the sweater fits nicely in my new knitting bag. The goal was to make a knitting bag that would be big enough for bigger, bulky knits — success!

Here are my leftovers. I didn’t have much blue yarn left, but I have quite a bit of the neon yarn. What to do, what to do. Maybe neon mittens or something. We’ll see.

Oooh, hey — while we’re on the subject of knitting, you should check out these adorable American Girl Doll clothes that Marsha has made.

Ohmygosh — I need a little girl in the family!!!

XOXO,
Anna

Month: April 2015