Look to your right!

Just a reminder that although I don’t post on any predictable basis, I am constantly documenting my doings (however minimal) and sharing them via some form of social network or the other.

In the column on the right you can check out my Twitter feed, my photos on Flickr (which I am getting better about posting and promise to get better about captioning) and what I’m reading on Goodreads.

Quick hexagon update

I have two current projects involving hexagons. I have blogged about them before but this is just a quick update on how they are progressing.

The Hexodus Throw is still chugging along. I am thinking about tasking myself with making one hexagon per day so that I get it finished before spring is out. Thoughts?

I’m doing much better with Puffy Diddy, aka The Beekeeper’s Quilt, that consists of a few hundred hexapuffs. I have done 80-something of them and am on pace to have it done within a year of beginning.

Colorwheel Quilt – beginnings

I have begun putting together my Colorwheel Quilt. It is a square quilt and the final dimensions should be 56×56 inches (142×142 cm).  I rotary cut 52 pieces of fabric for the wheel and I think I am fairly happy with this arrangement of the pieces.

Although it is a very simple pattern, I found excellent step-by-step instructions in a pattern from this book by Joelle Hoverson of Purl Soho:

The plan is to do this one entirely by hand. I am now beginning to piece it and I think that should go fairly quickly. Updates to follow!

More dolls

Since I’m at it, I might as well show you some of my other dolls. The lady below is from Senegal and she has some damage to one of her feet that I am cleverly obscuring with some volcanic stones that I may (or may not) have brought home from Iceland years and years ago.

Below her is a Herero lady from Botswana. The Herero women wear the most fabulous and distinctive headresses in the world (IMHO).

Below, from left to right are a Xhosa lady, from South Africa, another Senegalese lady, a Nigerian woman, a Xhosa woman and a Herero lady.

Finally, one of my Ndebele dolls, also from South Africa:

New addition

I have what I consider a sizeable collection of dolls from the African diaspora. Intentionally, the dolls I have collected are made entirely of fabric. The only exception within my collection up until this point has been my precious Antoinette, the doll my mom (“Edna”) bought me the day I was born:

 Recently however, a beloved doll was bequeathed to me by Jean‘s mom, Wilma. Here she is:

“Baby doll” has been Wilma’s since she was a little girl and I was honored to welcome her to the fold. Here she is with her new family:

Cottage Quilt – update

The second quilt, hitherto dubbed the Cottage Quilt, is well underway. I decided to go very simple with the quilting, in part to get it finished sooner. I hand-pieced the blocks horizontally but then used the machine to piece the resulting strips vertically, if that makes sense.

I have been quilting it by hand, alternating between “stitching in the ditch”, which is simply quilting on the horizontal seams and quilting wavy lines that I drew freehand on the quilt top.

The more I look at it, two things occur to me:

1) I should probably rename it the Holiday Quilt or something close since it does have a year-end/holiday feel and…

2) It actually sort of complements the Not-So-Irish-Chain Quilt.

I hope to finish the quilting soon and then get to the binding!

Year-end wrap-up

I unintentionally took a full month off blogging. That is not entirely unprecedented but still seemed a little bit strange. December 2011 was a very busy month as was the entire year. Despite blogging and journalling, I still cannot account for how hectic the year seemed. Was it a good year? It was! Will this year be better? I sure hope so!

As far as intentions for this year go, they are the same as always: to create more, to be a nicer person to family and friends, to master German, to play my, um, violin, to travel, etc.

I am also planning to devote a lot of energy this year to finishing up my WIPs (works in progress, travaux en cours,  lavori in corso).  I have an astonishing number of projects in progress and that needs to change.

So, to make room, literal and metaphorical, for these (non)resolutions, the holiday decorations are being taken down and packed up today. It was a raffia, twine, papier-mâché and kraft paper (didn’t have any tinsel) kind of Christmas. My decorations were entirely opportunistic since I don’t have many ornaments, I have a tiny tree and not many of the holiday decorating staples.

I made this little door wreath from a Michaels wreath, some raffia tied in a bow and my papier-mâché elephant ornament from Anthropologie from last year.

Then there was the tree. That’s right, folks. I am NOT afraid to overload a tabletop tree with standard-sized ornaments. I actually like the odd proportions.

The whole “tableau” looked like this:

Cheap and cheerful (as the Brits say)

Last year when I was still hunting for the right couch, I ordered swatches so that I could think about coverings. I eventually decided against any sort of print and went with a very plain couch but I still had swatches that I really liked. So of course they had to be repurposed.

What do you do with small swatches? Why, wall art for the bedroom of course!

First, I gathered my materials: a Ribba frame from IKEA that I had gotten months back with another project in mind, some Irish linen, fabric adhesive and the swatches.

Second, I cut some of the Irish linen as a backing and used the fabric adhesive to lightly tack the swatches to the linen, placed it in the frame et voilà, wall art! It really doesn’t get quicker, easier or much cheaper.

Here is a terrible photo of said wall art in situ:

I simply cannot get a decent picture of my bedroom with my point-and-shoot and it really does seem that a digital SLR will jump the line of toys to be acquired in front of the spinning wheel. Oh well, you get the idea.

Whacky Waves

I finally finished my Whacky Waves socks! Yay! They are warm, comfortable and stretchy! The pattern is Waving Lace Socks by Evelyn A. Clark.

They have been in progress for kind of a looong time but they’re done now so that’s what counts! That’s really all I have to say about these

Time to get real

I really like my apartment. I really wanted/needed it to feel like a home. I didn’t want it to feel like a living/working artist loft. I needed to get real. The dining half of my kitchen/dining area used to look like this:

This was ok, but I finally accepted that this space would be put to better use if I reconfigured it to reflect my current needs. Inspired in part by my time at Quilt Camp 2011, I changed things around last week to accommodate what I actually do in my apartment most of the time – make things.

My before and after pics are both from my iPhone because I didn’t have the presence of mind to snap photos with my real camera.

Anyway, I am really excited about the new configuration and I have already been doing more sewing since I changed things around. I even propped up a design board (which is just my blocking board covered with a removable piece of cotton flannel) that will allow me to plot and plan quilt projects.