WiP: Snowball's Chance in Hell

Dear Shayne,

Do you remember this post back in October (yikes!) when I bought yarn for these sweet-ass armwarmers?

Well, after hemming and hawing and various stallings, I finally started them this month! I'm not quite finished with the first one, but I'm so excited, I just had to share:


(Good God -- looking at the photo I realize that my arm color almost matches the white door behind me! Ack, I'm pale!)

So I still have to finish making that last motif (the skull) and then bind off. I guess I could have waited another day to post the photo when it was done, but... well, I was excited. Look how cool that thing is! Yeah!

Meanwhile, this has been a somewhat arduous project and I imagine that the second one will be tougher to slog through than the first... I hope that the name "Snowball's Chance in Hell" is not an indicator of my likelihood of finishing these.

Oh, yeah -- and even if I do finish them in a timely fashion, it will be just in time for... summer! Yay! Guess it's time for that trip to the Southern Hemisphere!

love,
kelly

Your wrequest

Dear Shayne,

As you recall, I made you a wristlet a few months back:


I know you recall it, because you told me that you use it all the time and you've requested (or wrequested -- it's a wristlet request, after all) one using this fabric:


You do like your pinks, don't you?

Before I get started, I have a few of questions for you:

1. Same size as before? I wrote the dimensions down when I made it (WOW!) so if yes, I'll use those. If not, what do you want different?

2. How do you feel about the hardware on that thing? I had a terrible time finding a matching set that had both the swivel ring and a matching D-ring (which most commercial wristlets seem to have). So I ended up just clipping the swivel ring onto a bit of fabric. Does that work for you? Or did you want something different?

3. Any other changes?

No promises as to when I'll start this bad boy, but I thought I'd ask...

love,
kelly

Finding fabric

Dear Shayne,

Remember how I said I already had a backing fabric for that baby quilt? And all I needed was the binding fabric? Well, I went out shopping last week with the express purpose of buying binding fabric and... found a better backing fabric that the one I had originally bought.

Ooops. But it was just sooooo much better. Check it out:


That picture doesn't show the colors very well. Here's a close-up:


How could I resist? It's got all of the same colors, although the blue is a bit more turquoise-y on the back than the front. But trust me -- it works.

(It's from the Amy Butler Belle line. Color: olive/kashmir.)

The good news is that I went out two days later with the express purpose of buying binding fabric (my exact words as I left the house were, "I'm not coming back without fabric for the binding!" A mission, I tell ya.) and I found some! And it's striped! Yay! (Side note about the striped binding: besides the fact that this quilt is being made for a stripe-lover, I love, love, love stripes for a binding on a quilt. I don't know why -- it's just fun. And that's how I feel about stripe-y binding. So, there.)

Now I just need to find someone else to do that quilting for me (my favorite go-to gal for quilting seems to have become unreachable, so I'm in the market for a new quilter). And then voila! Quilt!

love,
kelly

Memo board... finally!

Dear Shayne,

I have been wanting to make a French memo board for... I can't even remember how long. I have finally gotten all of the pieces (and my shit) together and created that very thing:



This probably would not have been my absolute, "A Number 1" (how is that spelled out, anyway?) choice of fabrics to use, but I've been trying hard to use things in my stash lately. Here was a yard of fabric I liked that also looked good with the dining room walls, sooo... used it. I also had that trim and those upholstery tacks on hand... what the heck was I planning to make with all of that crap?

I dunno, but it came together pretty well as a memo board. Now I have a pretty place to put photos and cards... you should send me some!

Here's the action photo. Not great quality, but it's dark out and I wanted to post this bad boy:



In other news, I found a binding fabric for that baby quilt (yay!) and I've been painting in the bathroom (double yay!) Photos soon!

love,
kelly

Bathroom? What bathroom?

Dear Shayne,

Remember back in (I'm cringing here to look at the date...) September when I said something about fixing up the bathroom? Um, yeaaah. Remember? We were going to fix up our bathrooms together? "Operation Transcraftinental Bathroom?" OTB? Remember? How's yours going? Yeah. Me, too.

I did do the dreaded caulking (no photos - it looks horrible) but then... well.. yeah.

I have a fresh reason to return to the effort: my parents are coming to visit next month. So it's time to get back on that project. In the meantime, here's a photo of the switchplate that I made and never posted:



Looking at the original photos, I had it up then, but I didn't take a close up. And, you know... handmade switchplates deserve close-ups, right?

I was going to crop that photo to just show the switchplate, but I think this photo highlights some other issues nicely: chipped wall paint just under it and, of course, the disgusting condition of the trim around the door next to it. The good news is that I've already sanded that trim, so it's ready to be painted. The bad news is that the Painting Fairy keeps skipping our house, so it looks like it's up to me.

Sigh. Okay. Next step: tape off the trim to get it ready for (gasp!) painting. Are ya ready? Better question: Am I? Eep.

love,
kelly

Patchwork-y!

Dear Shayne,

Remember this post when I gave my friend an "IOU" quilt instead of an actual baby quilt?

>Sigh< The baby was born Feb 13 and I'm still working on the quilt. Newborns don't really need quilts anyway, right? Whatever.

I've finally got the quilt top done, but I'm having my doubts about it now. I chose colors that I know the mom adores and I know that she loves, loves, looooves stripes. So I decided to make her a striped quilt.

Sort of.

I mean, I think the stripes are visible, but, being the patchwork-lovin' fool that I am, I just had to use a million different fabrics. Sooo... yeeahh... well... here it is:



My wacky fabric choices may have obscured the overall "design" of the thing. Whoops. Oh, well. Moving on...

The next step is to find a fabric to use for binding (the edge of the quilt) and then to send it off to get quilted. I do have a backing fabric, sooo... at least that's done. Of course, finding binding (Whee! I rhymed!) to match this quilt may prove difficult. Wish me luck.

In good-for-me news, I made this quilt top entirely of stash only fabric. Looking at it now, I'm thinking I probably should have gone out and bought more fabric that was closer in value/color to the other values/colors that I already had.

Oh, well -- here's to patchwork-y!

love,
kelly

Easter yars

Dear Shayne,

I was still debating picking some "off" holiday for April, but I went ahead with traditional Easter colors: purple and yellow. I had way more purples than yellows (um... of course) but I made it work... sort of. Still not as good as pink. And really, not even as good as green. This little project may be going downhill.



What's next? May is Mother's Day. Guess I could do purples and pinks for that and perhaps renew the Yar Love. After that? June is Father's Day. What? The colors of ugly ties? Hrm... I guess June is also Flag Day, so I could do the red, white, and blue and ride those puppies through July.

But then... August? Hrm... let's see... Oh! Oh! August 3 is National Watermelon Day (I found it on the internet, so it must be true, right?) I don't care if that's a real holiday or not -- I am totally doing pink and green yars in August.

Happy first day of Spring!
love,
kelly

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Dear Shayne,

First, gratuitous cuteness:


Awww.

And a full shot of the quilt:


I actually made this a few years ago. It's not very big -- lap-sized, I guess -- and it's not very fancy (the technique is called, erm, "stack-n-whack" or "pile-n-chop" or something like that), but St. Patrick's Day is my absolute FAVORITE holiday and this quilt did a good job of using up lots of my St. Patrick's Day fabrics.

Of course, I still have some left...

love,
kelly

Crazy fur hat (er... crown?)

Dear Shayne,

I haven't been too overly crafty lately, but I did make this wacky hat for a costume party I went to last week.



It was a Star Wars cantina party -- I was the Queen of the [made-up] Planet Ov. It's an all-female warrior planet and... it's apparently cold, because we all went with the fake fur.

I guess it's a hat... or a crown... or something. I don't know, but it was enormous.

It's hard to tell how big it is from that photo -- I still need to get some sort of model head for these hat shots. For this one, I used Bill's bowling ball as a model:



(I think that photo is totally hilarious.)

As an added crafty bonus here, Bill (AKA "Mr. Crafty") made the deck you see in the background of these photos.

love,
kelly

Yeah, pink was better.

Dear Shayne,

I swapped out the "yars" (yarn + jars = yars) this weekend from pink for Valentine's Day to green for St. Patrick's Day. I didn't have as much green as I thought I would, so I think the pink was better (and I know you'll agree, since you have a fondness for pink!)



St. Patrick's Day is my favorite holiday, though, so I'm keepin' it green. Maybe I should sprinkle some shamrocks in there to liven it up. Or maybe I'll just leave it until the next holiday... Easter?

Hmmm... I guess I could pick from this laundry list of nutty holidays in April. Perhaps I could use the colors of the Scrabble board on April 13. Hmm... beige, pink, red, and blues... might be a bit obscure. I do love me some Scrabble, though. We'll see.

love,
kelly

Yay! Hockey painting!

Dear Shayne,

For the past two years, Bill and I have been trying to figure out a safe, economical way to transport a large (4'x 4') painting from his parents' house in Michigan out here to California.

Finally, we got a box big and sturdy enough and good quote from, of all places, FedEx and we are the new proud owners of this painting! Yay!



It's an abstract-y sort of collage-y painting of scenes from a hockey game. Bill's uncle's friend painted it. Unfortunately, we don't know his name. (The artist, not Bill's uncle. We know Bill's uncle's name.)

As you can see from this next photo, it fits perfectly in our living room, which is part of why it's so exciting. With high ceilings and a gigantic couch (10' long), we definitely needed something big for this wall. And we got it!



Of other crafty note in this photo, I made the pillow in the center of the couch and Bill painted the walls. Whee! Crafty!

love,
kelly