New Profile Photo

You may have noticed that I changed my photo..  this is because my sister (Laurel) pointed out that in the previous photo I was wearing make-up, which was very perspicacious of her, since it is a very SMALL photo.  Nevertheless, she was correct, and it is also true that I almost never wear make-up, so this new photo is more realistic.

Double Wedding Ring

I recently decided that a double wedding ring quilt would be nice to have around. Done in old-fashioned looking fabrics for a real vintage feel.  I did a wall=hanging several years ago that had 9 rings, and it went okay.  Well, it doesn't lay particularly flat, but it didn't cause me too much angst. 

So I started one, thinking to make it 16 rings, in a 4 x 4 arrangement, a nice square lap size. Fortunately i still have the book with the wedding ring pattern templates in it.  I really like this book, "Quilts Galore!", by Diana McClune and Laura Nownes.  I decided to cut down the size of the rings, since I wanted that old-fashioned look, as you know.  So, I just copied the templates at 80% of the full size.  So, instead of a ring being 17" across, I suppose it will be smaller.  Not quite sure of the actual size. 

There was quite a bit of cutting pieces from templates.  Started sewing arcs together, then football shapes.  After a while, I decided to lay out some of the pieces:

 Aaahhh, I thought. This looks a little boring.  So I thought I'd add in some other colors to jazz it up a bit. Right-o. 

 So, because I'd already cut out all the pieces, I now had to make the quilt bigger to add in new colors.  I think I finally settled on a 5 x 6 arrangement.  So I cut out more template pieced fabrics, and sewed more arcs and more football shapes and laid them out on the floor to see how it's going. 

I think it looks pretty much like it did before I jazzed it up.  But now it's bigger. 
Well, whatever.  I am nearly at the hard part, where I have to sew in that squarish center piece and then join them all together.  So I will now take a little break from this project. 
michelle

Home from the lake

I'm back home after spending a few days up at the lake.  Frozen lake.  I had a few visitors:

I took up a bouquet of tulips for a dash of spring, to match the gorgeous weather!  I was even able to sit outside on the deck for a few hours to enjoy the sunshine and fresh air.

 and soon we will say goodbye to these snowy scenes.  Altho I really like these guys.

michelle

March Frost

Awoke this morning to a winter wonderland.  Tons of light as air snowflakes resting in the trees and on every surface. 

 All of these photos are taken from either the doorstep or the second-floor bedroom window.

 Sometimes at night I come into the bedroom and look through this window.  The window has a demi-circle top, and there is a light post just out of sight.  I think it is like looking through the back of the cupboard into Narnia.

Need I say more....

Seriously Cute

I am so excited about this little thing.
I had first seen red and white knitted mug warmers at a big bookstore before Christmas, they were adorable, but I didn't get one.  Then, I saw one on a knitting site recently, which was also very cute, with a cable knitted on it in chunky yarn.  Then, this afternoon, I was blog-surfing and came on this blog here,
  aha, I found it: 
mug warmer by house wren studio
which has a lot of stuff on recycled wool felt.  It showed on in a photo, somewhere that I can't locate now, where it was just simply cut out of a recycled sweater!!  Of course!  This had sort of been in the back of my mind these last couple of days while I've been on a bit of a sweater groove.  So I immediately jumped out of my chair, and found the leftovers from my felted aran wool computer bag and made one.   You can see I just did some easy crocheting with pink around the edges and a chain stitch to make button loops.  Then I had to make a new pot of coffee in order to test it out. 
If you explore around on her blog ( I love it) you will also find photos of take-out cup warmers too!, as well as other great stuff,   

 Don't you just love wool?