The Ultimate Unfinished Objects Post

I think it's pretty obvious after going through my fabric and project stash that I like to make quilt tops...and stop there. I didn't truly realize this when pulling out all my unfinished objects (UFOs) as I was contemplating starting yet ANOTHER quilt top.

Somebody stop me...

Half finished quilting bee blocks and tops - from 2 years ago! (Bee Stitched, Fresh Comfort 2, Quilting newBEES)

Newly completed half-square triangle Echo quilt top - OBSESSED with this line and can't wait for her soon-to-be-released Bella.

Hand sewn hexies - appliqued onto Kona Snow

Started this skirt

Stars quilt top

Complete quilt top, bed-size!

Clearly basted back when it was chilly - flannel monkey children's quilt

People...there are even a few more. I have a quilt top from a colleague that her grandmother made and I'm quilting it for her. I also started Anna Maria Horner's prism quilt which will take FOREVER. Not to mention I have a whole stack of blocks featuring cute little dogs from Heather Ross.

And I actually considered starting a new quilt top today. WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME.

OK, my goal is to finish all these by the end of summer. Yes, seriously.

Odin's quilt

A very special little boy turned 1 this past week. The adorable son of 2 of my colleagues celebrated his birthday in style - a big party (mostly for grown-ups) with lots of food, fun, and of course presents! I knew that I wanted to make a quilt for Odin months ago. This is one of my favorite completed quilts - I'm so excited that I can share it now. It features some of my most loved fabric - Heather Ross fishies, a Converse sneaker print (his mom owns many pairs) and bright fun prints from some of my favorite lines. Odin's parents both work with me - his mom and I work in the same department - and needless to say we've formed a relationship beyond just work. It may seem corny but making new friends is the greatest.

Hope everyone had a lovely weekend, especially all you mommas out there!

Spring cleaning

I've been bitten by the Spring Cleaning bug. I'm going to go through my fabric in hopes of destashing. I did this before and was semi successful. Also, if you own a fabric shop or workspace and are looking for anything (ie. things that aren't as popular so I probably won't try selling them but still need a good home and might be useful for say, teaching classes?), please let me know. I'd be happy to fill a box and have you just pay for shipping.

Handmade clothing - by me

I posted on my new shared style blog today about sewing clothes. Check it out here!

Ugh, I'm sorry - I've been such a bad blogger. Life is crazy. Yes, we all say that. But I'm here! There has been a fair amount of crafting lately (one baby quilt gifted, another one in process, one more to come this summer...) so I will try to take pics soon.

Speaking of pics, I'm totally smitten with Instagram. Follow me @bighairforpeace.

Some highlights from the last month or so...

Happy weekend! xoxo

New blog!

No worries - this one is still active. My sister and I decided to start a fashion/lifestyle blog. Check us out here!

Hope everyone had a lovely holiday weekend, whatever you were celebrating!

New accomplishment

Woohoo - I finished my first garment! I decided to make the popular Wiksten tank (especially since was cheaper now in PDF download format) in one of my favorite Anna Maria Horner prints (purchased while on sale at Quilt Home). The voile is sooo comfortable for this top.

All in all, the experience went great! It's made with French seams, which I read about in a few different places before attempting to make sure I was doing them right. I spent A LOT of time making sure that my cutting and sewing was as accurate as possible since, unlike a quilt, the fit really mattered!

I love it and think I'll make a few more. It's definitely a classic shape and perfect for the hot, sticky summers here in DC. I may - if I'm brave enough! - try to make a few fit adjustments (ahem, at the bust) but overall I think it turned out great.

Please excuse the pic - Sunday night, with weird lighting, and no make-up, definitely tired after a long (but fun) day...

So much

Brothers
Originally uploaded by LittleOliveBranch

Lots going on lately! Sorry for the lack of frequent posting. Need to get back into the swing of it.

Happenings:
- Wedding planning (date set, venue booked, photographer booked, band booked, wedding dress shopping for the first time this weekend!)
- Crafting: projects for 2 littles (one special boy who will be turning 1 and one soon-to-be-hatched little girl)
- Diving into the world of garment sewing: after getting this from my sis for my birthday, I'm ready to take the plunge! Ordered this and will be making this for myself! Wish me luck.
- Getting back into running. Slowly.
- NEW BLOG! My sister and I are starting a style blog! Stay tuned for more details...

Sewing!

Where has February gone? I know this always happens but still. It doesn't help that I was sick for 2 weeks, just now feeling better (the usual cold, that turned into a sinus infection, that still lingers a bit and causes me to *gasp* snore).

Anyway...

My sweetie and I have made great progress in terms of wedding planning. We've now nailed down the venue, photographer, and band. Yay! I'm really glad that we have sooo much time - it allows us to enjoy this process. My mom is coming down next weekend and we'll be doing the first round of bridal dress shopping - I'm so excited!

I feel like it's a been a while since I made any major progress on crafty projects. Since my sweetie had some work to do this morning, I spent the time sewing and managed to finish this:
It's a SUPER snuggly lap quilt (for us to keep) made of Anna Maria Horner's Loulouthi in flannel. Seriously, if you haven't gotten your hands on some of this, you must. It's sooooo soft and cozy. Louie jumped at the chance to be the first one in our house to test it out, fresh out of the dryer.

I also pulled out all of my unfinished quilts (there are so many...) and decided that the first one I'd tackle would be the one below, which I plan for us to use as a bed quilt. We have no fewer than 4 lap/couch quilts in our apartment but not one that's big enough for the bed. I'm not sure if I'll tackle the actual quilting of this since I have a pretty small machine and this quilt will be queen size but we'll see. I typically don't do complicated quilting on my quilts (I prefer to let the fabric be the focus) so I may just go ahead and try.
Hope everyone is having a great weekend. We're having a date night at a new-to-us bistro near my office and then off to watch basketball with some friends.

Also, on a random note, I've become totally obsessed with Pinterest!

Yarn fail

So I was wrong. I STILL ordered the wrong yarn. GUH.

And I'm still feeling awful. I have this going in the crock pot right now and I can barely smell it. And one of my dearest friends is celebrating her birthday by getting a van to take a whole bunch of us around wine country tomorrow and I think that's probably not in the cards for me seeing as how every time I stand up the pressure in my head makes me want to just lie back down.

Boooooooo.

(I promise I won't be quite so mopey soon. I'm overly dramatic when I'm sick. Obviously.)

Caught the bug(s)

I've finally caught that mid-winter cold that I always get around this time of year. Fortunately, it's not unbearable and since things are relatively quiet at work (for the moment), I ended up coming home early today and am thinking I'll take it easy tomorrow too to get rid of this bug.

I've also caught another bug, so to speak - the Honey Cowl bug! This adorable knit has been popping up all over the crafty community and I decided to make one using some super soft jade green Mission Falls superwash merino wool.


Speaking of honey...another unfinished project is coming back to life. I finally decided to order the remaining wool needed to finish my Honey Comb sweater (and yes, now is the first time I'm realizing the honey theme!) and it should be arriving tomorrow. I'm bad about getting rid of yarn labels and had accidentally put the label from ANOTHER black Debbie Bliss wool in the bag with this sweater, ordered 3 skeins, and then realized once it arrived that I ordered the wrong weight. Thankfully, I was able to return it and order the correct one.

Glad that I'm not feeling too sick to knit and quilt. Hopefully will have some fun stuff to show soon.

Knits

Clearly my whole attempt at a 365 project failed miserably. I think I lasted about a week, haha. Oh well - since most of my time is spent at the office, not too many terribly exciting things to take pictures of.

I did finally get around to organizing my knitting - unfinished projects, supplies, etc. - and have some pics for you. First, I have 2 unfinished sweaters for myself. The black one is this funky Teva Durham pattern with these random honeycomb cable patches throughout. The tweedy one will be an open cardigan by Jo Sharp. I'm determined to finish them both (they're more than halfway done!) by spring.

Also, I finally finished my cashmere scarf. Waaaaay back when Purl moved to their new digs, my sweetie won this in the raffle (of course we both entered and of course he won - thankfully, purple is more my color than his!). It's worth over $100 and is SO COZY!

Where has January gone?! Eeesh. Work has been busy, busy, busy and last weekend my sweetie and I headed to check out wedding venues. We think we found the place and have decided to wait until Summer 2013 - plenty of time to plan and make it awesome. :-)

Have a good week!!!

29

When I was little, I always asked my parents to sneak into my room the night before my birthday and leave my presents next to my bed so that when I woke up, I'd see the pretty wrapped boxes right away.

But I grew out of that (but it was definitely fun). Now my presents come in other forms - sweet doggie kisses when I come in my apartment door, nice messages from friends, and my sweetie who will soon be meeting me at a lovely little restaurant for a quiet birthday dinner, just the 2 of us. All day today, this day that is my 29th birthday and marks the start of my 30 year (whoa!), I've been reflecting on how happy and lucky I am. It's important to mark milestones this way, I think.

I plan on ushering in this 30th year by doing a 365 (366!) photo project. We'll see how long it lasts but I'll try, probably mostly using my iPhone.

And it begins with sparkly tights, and black patent pumps...

More celebrating

Who wants to clean the kitchen, work on finances, or do laundry? Not me. Which is why I've been poking around on Pinterest, figuring out what to bake myself for my birthday (ahem, tomorrow!), and doing other unproductive things. Our sweet friends came over so we could finally give them their wedding quilt (which I finished about 5 months after they got married...oh well) and of course that got me in the mood to sew. Life has been really hectic since Thanksgiving so I'm not even sure which projects I'd dive back into. And of course, I could always start a new one...

But back to Pinterest for a second - I love it! For those of you who haven't checked it out, it's like a virtual bulletin board (actually many bulletin boards - divided up however you'd like). I love it particularly for wedding ideas (wee!), crafty inspiration, and recipes. You can follow me here! Check out some of my picks below:



With practically spring-like weather here, I'm off to walk Louie with another Westie friend. The cleaning will just have to wait.

The year ahead

I think that this photo is sort of a microcosm of the year ahead for me. Focusing on crafting, eating well, and planning my wedding! Weee!

It's back to work tomorrow and back to reality. It's my birthday a week from today so the all the fun that comes with the holidays always spills over a bit into January for me each year and keeps the post-holiday blues away just a bit longer. No big birthday plans since it was quite and eventful holiday season, except eating out with my sweetie here. Yum!

Happy New Year!

I always look forward to a new year. I mean, who doesn't? I rang in 2012 with my sweetie (and for those of you who missed it, MY FIANCE!), my future brother-in-law (whoa!) and his GF. We spent the day on the National Mall. With spring-like temps, it didn't feel like December 31st but definitely a great way to round out one of the craziest year's I've ever had. One of the highlights from yesterday was visiting the new MLK Jr. Memorial. It's gorgeous! A few pics from the day - it was fun to play tourist, as now that I've lived in DC for a sum total of 2.5 years (split), I realized I don't have that many pictures of this place. Sad, considering who my neighbors are!...

No explanation needed - though it's usual occupants are in Hawaii right now!

Washington Monument

Part of the Korean War Memorial

The MLK Jr. Memorial

Check out my Flickr stream for some more pics of a few of the quotes from the memorial.

I feel like I have so much to say about this year. At the start 2011, I was feeling very unsure of where I was going. I had been underemployed for a year and was heading down to DC to explore job opportunities. Fast forward to today and I'm happily employed in a job I enjoy, living with my sweetie (and Louie!), planning for a busy exciting year including a wedding! I made new friends, read interesting books, continued to grow as a quilter, and started working on living a healthier lifestyle (which, let's be honest, took a backseat for the past 2 weeks but is getting full attention again starting tomorrow). I definitely like to set goals in a new year (call them resolutions or whatever) but this year I'm keeping it simple: stay healthy, stay happy, spend time with loved ones, and keep life in perspective. Last year I proved to myself that I'm strong, can persevere through difficult times, and am creative beyond my own expectations. I hope to have yet another year filled with fun, surprises, and progress. I finished 12 quilts this year and read 24 books. Below is a mosaic of all my quilts from 2011.This year:
- Make more quilts!
- Learn to sew clothes
- Get back into knitting more frequently
- Run a 10K
- GET HITCHED!

Happy 2012 everyone! I plan to try to be in this space more often. Hope to see you around here. :-)

The happiest

Happy Holidays!We're engaged!

Much love, joy, and peace to you and yours this holiday season.

Craft happens

Presents! (More details to come...)

Winding down - for a fresh start

I'm here. Life has been so busy. I've been working, crafting (so many things to show you all!), settling in to DC with my sweetie and Louie, etc. All is well and I can't believe that 2011 is almost done. Seriously! My birthday is fast approaching in less than a month (that would be 29 - eek!) and so many wonderful things on the horizon.

I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season. I promise I'll be back more, hopefully very soon.

xo

In the works

I'm not sure why I've been gone for so long - clearly I've been busier settling into my life here in DC with Louie and my sweetie that I realized.

I recently took stock of my WIPs - and I'm almost ashamed to admit that there are seriously too many. I'm obviously the kind of crafter who likes to have MANY projects going at once. But aren't we all?

This weekend my sweetie is going to a wedding in Florida. I opted to sit this one out as it's kind of pricey to get there and stay there and we didn't want have to find someone to watch Louie. I love going to weddings but I'm definitely looking forward to not traveling this weekend. I plan to hang out with Louie and do lots of sewing, knitting, and movie watching.

A few sneak peeks of some of my projects. This one below is the Jelly Stars quilt pattern - it looks much more complicated than it is! I'm going to be doing vibrant stars with probably a linen background and a yummy flannel backing. This one will be living with us!


These Swoon blocks are complicated (LOTS of pressing) but look so lovely! These ones are being made into a present for a friend. More details to come...


I'll post more pictures and more updates this weekend!