This quilt was a gift for my aunt and uncle for Christmas. I made it following this tutorial. I love that big blocky look, but I I'd been taught quilt pieces could only be the width of your hand or smaller. Now I've made this quilt I feel comfortable working on a bigger scale. Anyways, on to the pictures!



I wish I'd taken more time with the photos -- I just took these with my iPhone and the colours are off, especially in the paler fabrics, which are not nearly so white. The fabrics for the star were all from Liberty of London and mostly Kaffe Fassett prints. I went to London in August and though that store is unbelieeeeeevably expensive, I had to get some fat quarters and off-cuts as souvenirs.



With my foot to show some sense of scale. Each square is 18"x18".



The back. You can see I didn't quilt it densely at all. I love that look, but I've been having a lot of trouble with puckering lately. I quilted the plain corner squares into eighths.



All folded up and ready to be shipped.



A closeup of the label. I embroidered it all myself and learned a lot of new stitches. T and T are my aunt and uncle's initials. It's a Sublime Stitching design.

I have my own home for the first time in my life, and I really love it. It has tons of light and really high walls, but those walls are also covered in boring beige wallpaper. Renting doesn't leave me a ton of options, but I made a tree papercut two years ago (has it really been that long?!) for a 12 Days of Christmas swap, and I've always wanted to make for myself since.

Long story short:



It's made from four pieces of a light foam fibreboard and about 5 feet wide by 4 feet tall. I googled for "old tree" because I wanted something that looked windswept and most importantly, had very few leaves. I wound up using this painting. I then drew the outline onto the fibreboard and cut it out. I had a exacto knife but I actually found that simply pressing the pencil deep worked well most of the time, and was also easier around corners.

Here's a close-up:


I drew over this one so you could see more easily where the intersections between the four pieces are:


I was going to use the pencil to make indentations for woodgrain, but decided to leave well enough alone. I flipped the pieces over to hide the pencil marks (that's why it mirrors the painting) and just stuck it up there with copious amounts of scotch tape. Sometimes I think it's a little creepy looking - the black leafless branches kind of remind me of that scene in Snow White where the trees grab at her - but most of the time I really like it.

[12th day of Christmas]

My dad sent me a photo of the package that TAOJ sent me:


He also attached a photo of his "helper":



Nothing gets by him.

For the 12th day of Christmas, my partner TAOJ sent to me:



12 gift tags!

Here's the front: and the back: .

These look hand-stamped but I'm not sure. I've already put on on one of my dad's presents.

For the 11th day of Christmas, my partner TAOJ sent to me:



(excuse the grate in the photo. I'm using my dad's comp & I can't figger out how to edit pics.)

11 Christmas cards! They're two styles. The first one has lyrics and sheet music (?) for O Christmas Tree, and the second one has words like yummy, togetherness, family, friends, sweets, and peace. The tree paper is sewn onto the backing paper and then that's glued onto sturday red cardstock. These cards are EXCEPTIONALLY well-made.





For the 10th day of Christmas, my partner TAOJ sent to me:

Supplies! I got cross-stitch fabric, thread, a frame and instructions for some really cool-looking colourful designs.





For the 9th day of Christmas, my partner TAOJ sent to me:

Ornaments!



Half were stars and the other half were candies. CHECK OUT THE TINY EMBROIDERY AND BEADWORK ON THESE BABIES. It's insane!



For the 8th day of Christmas, my partner TAOJ sent to me:

Bath stuff!



There's lotion, soaps, bath salts, a washcloth, a soap saver and a face scrubbie. It's all orange-scented wonderfulness!

For the 7th day of Christmas, my partner TAOJ sent to me:



Clockwise from the top: 2 luggage tags, a sort of stained-glass mermaid which I LUV (did you make it yourself TAOJ?), gift tags, a passport/ticket organizer, marble magnets, and a birthday book that you use to remember people's birthdays.

For the 6th day of Christmas, my partner TAOJ sent to me:

A whole bunch of stuff to warm up with!



There's hot chocolate mix, "snowman poop," a neck warmer filled with seeds that you pop in the microwave, and two smaller handwarmers for your pockets. I love the pocket ones. The only things I've ever seen like that are in camping stores, and they're completely non-reusable.

I also got a lovely hat and scarf set, CROCHETED:



I knit but I just can't crochet so I think it's really neat. Check out the June Cleaver hairflip - oh yeah, that's all natural. (Yeah, I'm getting a haircut tomorrow.)

For the 5th day of Christmas, my partner TAOJ sent to me:

Supplies!



There's a DPN needle holder (squeeee! I have wanted one of these forEVER!), a pincushion,a spindle, and merino roving (that's the term, right?). In the back there, it's a little hard to see but there's a quilting template ruler, to help with angles because I said I had trouble with those.

For the 4th day of Christmas, my partner TAOJ sent to me:



That's three pear-scented candles as well as some of TAOJ's family recipes. I really like the oat bars, at the front there. I'm not sure if you can see the designs on some of the blank cards she sent as well, because they are gaw-jus.

ALSO IN DAY FOUR!



A necklace made from a piece of filmstrip. I scanned it in, and I'm not sure how clear it is. It's two frames from Shrek, and there's the little guiding holes on the sides and everything. How did you make this?!?!?! My guess is that it's from a VHS cassette?

And, so far quite possibly my favourite piece:



An apron! But not just any apron. It is so cute and stylish I just want to war it everywhere - actually, I'm wearing it right now. It's a little retro and I can actually use it and it fits perfect and it looks just like something out of the movie Waitress (which is fantastic, btw). Thank you TAOJ!

For the 3rd day of Christmas, my partner TAOJ sent to me:



A sleep mask. I believe I should get points for taking a picture that better than most I take, on the first try, one-handed, blindfolded.



An afghan (helpfully modeled by Felix, star of the Milanese catwalks I can't believe I just made that pun).





and sleep pants! (excuse the mismatched socks, and blur.) I may fib and call them yoga pants so I can wear them out in public because I loves them so. I am in fact wearing these right now, beneath the apron.

For the 2nd day of Christmas, my partner TAOJ sent to me:

A calendar and a messenger bag!



The bag is huge so I can carry the tons of stuff I haul with me everywhere. The outside is black corduroy and it's completely lined.

Now for the calendar. This requires a bit of background. See, TAOJ lives very near where I was born and lived for my first couple years. And my favourite movie, New Waterford Girl, and one of my favourite books, Fall on Your Knees, are both set near there. So TAOJ based an entire calendar around Fall on Your Knees. It is AMAZING.



See, it says "House at the end of Railroad St, Whitney Pier." The second taxt block says "A likely spot for Jameel's Speak", which is one of the main settings in the book. Each month is colour-matched like that. Some of the photos are archival but I believe TAOJ took most of them herself.

June:
I apologize for the blur.

This one is for November, and it absolutely blew my dad away. It's a rosary and it's completely gorgeous.



For the 1st day of Christmas, my partner TAOJ sent to me:

A SWEATER!



It's Mr. Greenjeans from Knitty, and it's fantastic. The yarn is this soft lilac wool, I believe. I love this sweater!

I've received from skitterflex! She sent me a beautiful mitered square to use as a coaster. I have to be extra careful with it because it's made of $100 wool. I don't even know where you find $100 wool.



Anyway, as you can see, it's gorgeous. Thanks, skitterflex!

[really]

Or, "Homefront Meets Battlefront" if you want to be particular about it.

I took a class called Historian's Craft this year and it was all about different ways of looking at and portraying history. For the final project, we had the choice to either critique a website or movie or something like that, or create our own completely new depiction of something that interests us.

C'mon. This is Craftster. You know which one I chose.

There's a really long description of all the thoughts that went into the project and everything on my blog, but I'm not going to force it on you guys here. Check it out if you want more background. Here I'm just going to say it's an image of the trenches - the battlefront - in the language of the homefront - knitting - because the way those two interacted was interesting to me.



This is the whole shebang seen from the front, all closed up. It's a triptych, so it's hinged and yes, the latch actually works.



What you see when you open it up, and you finally get why I posted this in Knitting.



This is the central panel, and uses a ton of different types of knitting: labyrinth, short rows, freeform . . . there's even a little bit of Fair Isle there. Once again, there's reams of info on this in the blog.



The left . . .



. . . and right panels.

I received from wiseowl! She sent me the most gorgeous jewelry.



Excuse the flash, but this is the best picture of the beaded crochet necklace. I'm also wearing the earrings she sent but you can't see them very well. To add fuel to the "I don't understand your craft!!!" fire, I knit like a maniac but can't understand crochet at all, let alone really fine beaded crochet. There's two strand of it that make up the necklace.



This is a better picture of the earrings. I've cropped my face out because I'm making the stupidest expression ever.



And here's the first necklace along with the OTHER necklace she sent! The colours are a bit washed out here because I took it in such bright sunlight. The blue is quite a bit deeper and those are hardware-type bolts in the necklace!

Not pictured: the two big bars of American Hersheys.  Yum.
Thank you, wiseowl! I'm beginning to feel a little embarassed about what I sent...

According to Google, I'm quite possibly the first person to knit this other than Grumperina. I get a stupid little thrill from this (please correct me if I'm wrong).



Close-up on texture and beads:


Further off:


I used one skein of Sheepjes Donna. It's a heavier weight, so I knit it on smaller needles than normal and made the small size. It fits my big ole noggin just right.

As always, WAY more blather on the blog.

^I don't know why this picture is so distorted (on my screen at least) so here's a link to it: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v672/UnstoppableBoogie/swallowtailshawl009.jpg

Once again, another project where it took me at least three times as long to do the finishing and blocking as to actually knit the darn thing.



I used just over 2 skeins of Lorna's Lace Shepherd Sport weight in Navy, on 5mm (US size needles. This project went FAST, and it was a great comfort level for me.



The pattern's in the most recent Interweave Knits (fall 2006), and it only takes just over 400 yds, so it's pretty economic to boot. Unless you want a HUGE shawl, though, I'd recommend staying with sport weight or less.

There's way more info, photos and blather on the blog: http://shaxophile.blogspot.com/2006/09/fo-swallowtail-shawl.html

[LOVE]

I made these two argyle quilts about a month ago or so for swaps - the first one for the Craftster 5 Senses Swap, and the second one for the reveal package in Secret Pal 8. I had this pattern in my head of an argyle quilt, and I think it still has a ways to go. I'd like to do one in the traditional pattern still, in just three or four colours (maybe dark, rich batiks . . . mmm).

Anyway, here's the first one. I made it in all in quilting flannels, except for the strips that divide the diamonds - they're regular old quilting cotton.


And the back:


It's super-super soft, and I love that. On the other hand, the colours aren't as crisp as could be desired. I love the quilting on the back (which is a gingham print), because it's just so simple and it stands out in a way I find so lovely.

Here's the second, which I LOVE:



And another view:



All cotton this time, and the colours just POP! Very hard to part with this one, even though I would never pick all that purple and pink for myself. The quilting is what made this one extra-special to me. These are only my third and fourth finished quilts, and the first two were just jumbles of 4" squares quilted along the lines. The success of the argyle quilting on the above quilt made me confident that I could do this:



That's one single line of stitching, starting in the centre and spiraling out. What a rush!

I don't know anything about quilting (seriously - have never read a book or anything - I just ask my mom if I'm curious), but I'm thinking about posting a tutorial/pattern on my blog. Would anyone be interested?

I received from Sarahrah, and it was wonderful! My colour was green.



Here is touch and sight. She went out on a limb (oh, I kill myself) and made the bag for touch, because it's the feeling of grass beneath her feet. I love this idea, and the paint, and the quote! In case you can't read it, it says "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin", from the play Troilus and Cressida!!! It makes it even better because I saw T&C this summer (it's one of Shakespeare's "problem plays" and so is hardly ever performed). Plus, I always overload my bags so much that my nice ones are falling apart, so I needed a new one! Wow, I'm really going on here, but basically I love that she combined my man Shakespeare (<3) with the swap.
Sight is the long glass bead necklace. I draped it artfully over the bag there because the picture I took of myself wearing it was just sad. It's just so pretty and bohemian! Beading is one of crafts I've tried and just bombed at, so I always appreciate getting pretty bead-y things in the mail.



Here are taste and smell. The taste is wonderful peppermint tea (just as I was running out of herbal tea . . . along with the tea and the bag, I'm starting to wonder if Sarahrah read my shopping list  ). The smell is cucumber & pear cented potpourri. Yumm!