New start - Always Time

Bonnie's mystery quilt of 2014 has begun, and of COURSE I'm eager to participate.  I hadn't chosen fabrics, so after arriving home Friday afternoon after celebrating Thanksgiving at my parent's house, I spent some time in the sewing room.  I had a stack of luscious lilacs/sages/olives that I was hoping would fit the bill, but..... *sigh*.... no matter how I sorted them, varied them, added to them.... 

... they weren't working out with Bonnie's requests.

And, in a weird silly moment, I begged the silent aura of Bonnie for forgiveness.  I chose to push pause on her mystery.  I needed to work with these fabrics!

Friday evening, I spent in front of the television with stacks and stacks of quilt magazines.  I'm thankful I've been able to ignore the little voice in my head that often tells me  I need to reduce my pile of magazines, thinking I'll NEVER make a quilt from a pattern.  By the time I headed to bed, I had narrowed my choices to four that I felt would work with the fabric amounts on hand.

Saturday morning, I finalized it to the Ramblin' Aunt Sukey pattern.  I've made this pattern before for Cathy's Aunt Sukey, back in 2008.  It's a lovely, elegant pattern. 

The morning was spent cutting up most of the units.  It's crazy how much time it takes to cut all of these pieces, but yet...... there's SO little to show!

I would have loved to begin sewing, but I had a wedding to attend of a very special young lady.

Bright and 5:00 early this morning though, I was up raring to dive into the project.

Hours later (7?), the blocks are completed and are resting on the carpeted area, waiting to be sewn into a quilt top.  Today was a wonderfully productive day :D  After working on it for hours, I think it'll suitable fit the name, Always Time.

My Green Bay Packer scrap leader-ender project is growing nicely on the design wall.  I have no definite size in mind;  I'll just keep adding until it reaches (no larger than) a queen size.

Now, I have decisions to make!  I would love to continue tackling this collection of yarn odds-n-ends in a new 'Scrap Ripple' afghan, but, sadly, I think my school work needs to take some precedence.  (At least long enough for me to know what I'm planning to do tomorrow!)  And soon---the Packer game is on!

Fall finishes [Crochet]

Such a sight is long behind us already in the northern parts of Wisconsin. Cassie captured this image during the first weeks of October; a sure sign that winter was nearing.

...And crochet projects got underway for the changing season. 

 Cailtyn's Hat [free Ravelry pattern]

Cassie's wristers [free Ravelry pattern]

And yes, we wrapped up the tomato harvest as well -- JUST in time for the snow to come.

We have two cases of spaghetti sauce and a couple cases of pizza sauce.  In fact, I just made up a batch of lasagna yesterday with one of the last jars from last year's harvest. 

Somewhere amidst the end of summer, the Fall Ripple was finished but never blogged about.  

Candace had chosen the colors and order of the yarns for the afghan.  She wants to claim it as hers, but she can't get EVERY afghan I make.

This is a larger afghan, finishing at 68" x 90" and fitting a queen sized bed decently.

Then, a few weeks ago, I was in a creative slump -- I didn't care to work on ANY projects I had underway, crochet nor quilting!  I know I'm not alone when it comes to starting a new project;  after all, that's usually why (and how) we have so many UFOs floating around ;)

However, this one kept me motivated...

... and I put the final stitches in this afternoon while watching a Harry Potter movie with the girls.

The yarns used were extras I purchased for the Trip Out West afghan (hmm.... did I ever blog officially about that???)

Random Ripple Afghan (54" x 67")

At first, I started out with the standard ripple pattern, alternating colors after one back-n-forth path.  But then, I tried out a random strip generator, and followed a sample there for awhile.  Sadly, I ran out of the darker gray yarn midway and refused to buy any new yarns! (GASP!)  So, I threw in a charcoal grey towards the end just to get another 'dark' in the afghan before wrapping it up for good.

Roughly, this afghan took 20-25 hours to complete;  not too shabby.

Changing of the seasons...

Blogging continues to be on my mind, but the act of brining my thoughts to life on my blog was more of a challenge lately than not.  Two months gone.  Two months to catch up on (?).  THAT would take a while.

Instead, I send out my greetings to anyone still following and reading me despite my departure from the blogging world for the past 2 months.

Today marked the first day off from school since it started;  it's been a long time coming.  We have the entire upcoming week off;  partly due to Thanksgiving, but mostly due to the Wisconsin deer hunting season.

Cassie is out with Paul this year;  I'm really not sure who is more excited!  It's been a quiet day so far...so I've heard.  

Therefore, it was FINALLLLLY possible to spend some time cleaning, tidying and getting back to work in my sewing room.

Angela's Rainbow Scrap Challenge received all of my attention today.  All eleven months' colors are complete;  another year of color tackled!

Additionally, I pieced backing for my Hawaii Sunset AND Celtic Solstice quilts.  They have been folded and added to my growing pile of "must-quilt-SOON" projects.

It's a beautiful 35 degrees out today;  the other two girls have stayed home with me and are playing outside, rolling in the snow;  excellent packing snow today!  For the evening, we have movies prepped and ready to go... and I'll continue to work on a new ripple crochet afghan I started a couple of weeks ago.  Who knows... MAYBE I'll get another update typed up for tomorrow too.

;)

Thanks for still being out there,

-Amy