More blog silence...because I am, sadly, very far away from my
sewing machine AND my knitting needles, and instead devoting my time to study. Lame. However, in about a month I will graduate (hooray!), go back home, and quickly (hopefully) finish the three WIPs I left behind...three quilts for some very special people who are helping me plan my wedding. The first one I have already sh0wn pictures of, and that one actually traveled with me to Vermont...I am slowly but surely hand-finishing the binding in my off moments, which are sadly few and far between.

However, I now know an awful lot about deixis, especially in Chinese. I'm still not sure precisely how that will help me do my job better, but knowing is half the battle, right?

I decided to take a study break and revisit my crafty goals for this year.
T-shirt quilt: done! yay! Want to make another one for my dear husband-to-be, who owns more tshirts than anyone I have ever known.

Fusing plastic bags. I did do a brief experiment with this, but had trouble finding the right iron heat to make it really work. I could only succeed in very small pieces...I will have to ask my friend Carole Ann, who I know has had some success with this. On a side note, I really want to make one of those gathered clutches she has on her blog...

A new hat for the boy...definitely a necessity. Any good suggestions for hat patterns? Maybe this one...or this one...or pretty much anything listed here.

T-shirt tote bag: again, tried this, but had a hard time with sewing the tshirt material. Grandma suggested I needed a different kind of needle, but by then I was already distracted by something else...

Sigh...back to learning about speech act theory...

I have been following along one of the BEST TUTORIALS EVER at Obsessively Stitching:
I suppose that, technically, this is not my first quilt ever, but the t-shirt quilt is so unique that this is a whole different type of project. This tutorial (really, set of tutorials) is amazing! The whole process is laid out step by step, from what fabrics to buy straight through finishing it off...any questions you might have had about making a quilt, answered. I have the top almost finished. I'm so glad there are people out there in the world so willing to share their talents! Many thanks to Care!

Tah-dah!

This is so satisfying!Since it is so nice and springy outside, and my condo has almost no natural light...I decided to venture outside to take a few pictures of my work. I love the finished effect! I was partway through this project and trying to figure out how to do this on my own, when I saw this post from Maiden Jane and decided, like my boss always says, there's no use reinventing the wheel...so I bought a wonderful pattern from her and learned from her experience! I'm really glad I did, because her way was SOOOOOO much simpler than what I had been planning on doing. I won't give away her secrets, but it was definitely a worthwhile purchase.

And the final result? I have comfortably napped under it several times already, and found it to be very satisfying. Is it perfect? No. But it's mine :)

A (failed?) experiment

My trip to China went amazingly well. The kids were well-behaved, the tour guides were knowledgeable - altogether, I loved the tour, the company, and the experience.

On the crafting front, I've been making good progress on my quilt. The top is almost done!

I love the effect - it's like my life story in a quilt! Of course, cutting up all those t-shirts left me with lots of scraps, so I tried to come up with some ways to use them, including these coasters below.
Last week, I saw this tutorial at an amazing blog called Adventures in Dressmaking. The tutorial explains how to turn a man's shirt into a skirt. The attempt was not flawless - I didn't make the waistband wide enough, so there wasn't enough space to fold it all the way over, so you can see the unfinished edges on the inside. I also attached the waistband backwards, so I had to do a quick switch with the button and buttonhole to make it work.

Despite it's flaws, I think it's really cute, and I would love to wear it - but, sadly, it's WAAAY to small for me to every dream of wearing :( Next time I'll have to get a much larger shirt to start with!!! At least now that I've done it once, hopefully I'll be able to attempt it again and get a wearable result. Not sure what I'll do with this one!

Spring has sprung!

The weather here has been absolutely beautiful for the past few weeks. The flowers are blooming, the trees are blossoming...and I am taking seventeen students to China for spring break in three days. Crazy? Probably. But I'm sure it will also be fun.

So, what have I been crafting?

I have been making some progress on my t-shirt quilt. This is one of the largest projects I've undertaken, and it has taken a lot of time! First, I had to pick the shirts. And figure out how they would lay out and look nice. And I realized I have way too many shirts.
Then I had to cut them all (and find a size that worked...)...and iron on the interfacing....I am almost finished sewing the quilt top together, but that project will have to be on hold until I get back from China. I have learned some important lessons from this project so far:
1) cutting straight lines is hard (is that hard for other people, or just for me?)
2) I am bad at math. I totally failed at figuring out how much fabric I would need for the sashing and backing and will have to go back for more.

For my birthday, my grandmother bought me an awesome book called "How to Sew a Button (and other things your grandmother knew)" by Erin Bried. It has all sorts of tips and tricks in it, from cleaning to sewing to organizing and cooking and gardening, budgeting, taking care of kids, entertaining...and the first project I tried out was "How to Make an Apron from a Pillowcase". Ta-dah! (Ew, you can see how messy my house is!!!) Picked up a cute pillowcase at a thrift shop, and a few quick seams later I had a new apron! I have since picked up several more cute pillowcases because this was a fun project and I think they would make nice gifts, especially for housewarming or something like that. The whole project took me about an hour, but I think I could do it faster next time.

Finally, I made myself this cute little bag. The instructions came from "Sew What! Bags" by Lexie Barnes, a book I adore. It has little pouches for my cell and, most exciting of all - it has a zipper!(Note to self: Work on taking better pictures, and read the cleaning section of that book Grandma gave you...although if it's any excuse, Keith was finishing the tile in the kitchen yesterday so the house is recovering from that project).

Rufio says, "Happy Spring!"

A Good Reason For Blog Silence...

So, lately I haven't had time to do much crafting or blogging...because I got engaged!

So we've been busy looking at places for the wedding and doing assorted planning! It's all very exciting - we're hoping to get married over Columbus Day weekend next fall.

So, getting married means I need bridesmaids. Of course, I couldn't just ask them. That would be boring. So I looked around and found a really cute idea at Project Wedding. And then I made one of these for each of my bridesmaids!

Now, I just need to track them down to give them away...

I also made several very cute penguins. My husband-to-be says he thinks they're the coolest thing I ever made. The pattern comes from Amy Gaines' Etsy shop - I just love her patterns and have made several of them in the past. This very cute penguin was a gift for a friend of mine who is having a baby:

Now that ski season is (mostly) over I'm hoping to start sewing more - and my Spoke sweater, in the works since just after Christmas, is blocking as we speak!

The last few weeks have been a bit crazy, but good. I went on an excellent (and free!) trip to Paris...

And then spent a relaxing week skiing (translate: picking up small children and carrying them around) with my family.

Nothing earth-shattering to report on the knitting front, but I thought I'd post some pictures of my latest finish - a baby gift for a friend. She doesn't know if she is having a boy or a girl, so I went with gender-neutral green :)

I'm not sure if I'm completely satisifed with how he came out - I knit him with bulkier yarn and larger needles than the pattern called for because I wanted a bigger toy. Regardless, I think he's very huggable, and the yarn is very soft.

Yesterday I went to my parents' house to dig out some old t-shirts for a quilt. Turns out that my mother has been saving them since I was very small (with what goal in mind, I'm not sure) and I have enough t-shirts to make several quite large quilts. I suppose there are worse problems to have - now I have to pick my favorites!

Thanks to all have been reading and commenting - it's nice to know there are people out there!

Thanks,
Erica