Boxing Out

There was a bit of additional non-knitty crafting happening around here prior to the holidays. I didn’t want to blog this stuff until it was all distributed, but here you go!

I’m a lazy wrapper. Especially when it’s something squishy that requires a box for proper wrapping. When I sent the Christmas gifts to Mississippi for Bill's mom and sister, I whipped out a couple of rudimentary gift bags loosely based on this tutorial (sorry, no pictures), then I made a couple more for family Christmas gifts. Two pairs that look pretty much exactly like this:



The red bag has the snowmen as a lining and the other way around. They went really quickly.

But the biggie was a project that had me using my serger for probably the most amount of time ever. Box bags!



I did one test bag based on the Purse-Nickities pattern from Lazy Girl Designs (highly recommend Joan’s stuff. Her tutorials are easy to follow and extremely well-written). Then I branched out on my own. I made one bag for myself and a baker’s dozen for my knitting friends who I appreciate so much.



Here’s a little peek at the inside of my bag. Most of the bags were made with a 12” zipper, but several – including my own – have a 14” zipper. They were all constructed to have a 4” square end, which is a bit more real estate than the original pattern calls for. Anyhoo, the last batch was distributed on January 8, and it has been a lot of fun seeing those bags out in the world being used.

A Soggy Saga

I’ve mentioned it before. I’m a damn lucky kid to have found the friends that I did in Los Angeles. At the top of that list are my "Melrose Mondays" peeps. Anne is the only one who blogs, but they’re all fantastic people, very different, but extremely close to my heart.

[As a side note, I’ve been damn lucky to find a similar group in my Hurricane Knitters here in Pittsburgh. But I digress …]

So the M&Ms picked a project for 2008. One big quilt, started by Person A, and rotated through the whole group of eight to finish at the end of the year. You saw the row for my quilt in progress


I’ll talk a little more about that on a different day.

So Carol is the person who volunteered to mail the project to me at each change. And when we started chatting via email and through other group members, it came to light that I was going to be in a bit of a bind. The first meeting was supposed to be on Monday (Feb. 11). Add in a couple of days for our friends at the USPS and I probably wouldn’t be able to get my hot little hands on my next row until Feb. 14. If I’m lucky.

The problem with that plan is that I leave town on Feb. 19. To go to LA, actually. And I essentially won’t be home until March 10. Which is the day of Meeting #2.

Since that Carol character is wonderful, she sent the fabrics and instructions for her quilt to me via Express Mail so I could get down to brass tacks as quickly as possible. Great!

Let’s back up a little bit. It was scheduled for Wednesday arrival. That’s yesterday. Yesterday’s weather in the ‘Burgh was intermittent torrential rain with brief pauses for a 60-second ray of sunshine every few hours. Then more torrential rain.

At about 2 pm yesterday (Wed), I was downstairs and figured the mail might have arrived, so I checked my mailbox. And found this


Ruh-Roh Shaggy! I didn’t take a pic of the envelope in the mailbox because I was in “Oh Shit!” mode. But perhaps this will give you an idea.


Apparently, we have a drip in the gutter immediately above the mailbox. It drips down the front porch light and onto the lid of the mailbox as it slopes down. Drip. Drip. Drip.

This is not a huge problem unless Mail Dude jams a 9x12 cardboard envelope into the box so almost half of it is sticking out. This makes the lid tilt BACKWARDS towards the seam and creates this problem


It's a little difficult to see, but Yep. That’s a good inch of standing water in the bottom of my mailbox. And the cardboard envelope was happily slurping up that water. Into the cardboard. And the fabric inside.

So forgive me for not taking a blog photo of “fabric squishy in water” but I panicked a little bit. And the envelope fell apart in my hands as I took it out.

Here’s the inside of the envelope after I removed the fabric. I didn’t tear it this way, it just kind of disintegrated like that.

And here’s the background fabric chillin’ on the sock drying rack in my basement


And the coordinates

At the end of the day, it’s all OK because the fabrics didn’t bleed or get cardboard-ey or otherwise ruined. And no, I can’t really toss them into the wash because I belong to a “don’t pre-wash” group of quilters (don’t be hatin’ it’s a personal choice and I don’t know that any of us have had serious issues. We use quilt-store quality fabric and it works for us.).

So let this be a message to all of us. Zippy bags are our friends. If you’re mailing anything that could be adversely affected by water, find an appropriately sized zippy bag of your choice and seal it up before you put it in the mail! This episode could have been Much worse, and I was lucky. I’m just glad it wasn’t my Yarn Nerd that arrived today! ::shudder:: And let’s not even mention that the “put envelope between storm door and real door” was less than two feet away from the mailbox. It’s not worth it.

Friday Potpourri

We woke up to a Winter Wonderland this morning … if you like ice.


It’s a damn good thing that Duquesne Light fixed that transformer yesterday. It never would have made it through the extra weight of the ice.

Everything was melted and rainy by about 10 am. Ho-Hum.

So I have enough stuff sitting around that I should be posting both days this weekend. I have a FO that deserves its moment in the sun, and Julie asked me to show and tell on my M&Ms blocks. So I will! Later. Now? On to today's stuff.

First and foremost, I was extremely surprised and truly honored to receive an award! Turtlegirl76 picked little ‘ol me for a “You Make My Day Excellent Award!”


While presenting this award to me, she said “Through blogging and e-mailing alone, someone I can refer to as a friend and mean it.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

The Turtlegirl's blog is one of the first blogs I started reading about 18 months ago. From that first day when I was using Safari bookmarks and had never heard of “bloglines” or "google reader," she has been one of my favorite reads. In fact, after my Day of Darkness yesterday, I didn’t read the post with the award because I was tired and wanted to save Cristi’s post until I was awake and could enjoy her snark wit properly.

And so, I pass along the spirit of Bill and Ted and would like to share this award with 10 of my favorite reads

I’ll start with the people who I met online and who felt like family the minute I met them. They were so critical to my transition away from my amazing quilting buddies in Los Angeles and it has been great to get to know them in person. Although I’ve only known them for about six months, I’d have a gaping hole in my new life without them.

1. One Small Stitch for Mankind. Jen’s was the first Pittsburgh blog I found and started to read. She had some wonderful encouraging words for an aspiring sock knitter and is just as wonderful in person as she is to read.
2. Knit/Wit. The Yarn Harlot introduced me to SJ’s blog and I’m glad she did! A prolific sock knitter, I’m always impressed by her spot-on observations and blatantly honest yarn and pattern reviews
3. WierdyPants. We can talk football, disagree on our favorite teams and kibbitz over the pathetic prospects of the Buccos. Now I just want to meet Rufus!
4. Knit’nat. My Hurricane Knitter dinner buddy, Yvonne reminds me of my roommate from my senior year of college. That’s a good thing ☺

And now, for a few newer discoveries and WebFriends!

5. Baseball Knitter. Her life is very different from mine, but I have really enjoyed getting to know her through her blog
6. Kim’s Big Quilting Adventure. I miss my quilting buddies terribly, but Kim’s fantastic sense of humor reminds me almost daily that I love working with all that fabric in the basement.
7. Laurie’s Random Musings. She hasn’t been posting very often lately, but she is a very profound writer. She’s not afraid to tackle any topic and always has thought-provoking posts
8. Mehitabel’s Musings. She’s my link to those LA quilting buddies that I miss so much. Marie knits and quilts, so I get to see glimpses of my yarny haunts and the quilters that I love so much.
9. Cabin Cove. He lives in a city that I enjoy and has a fantastic eye for photography and color. Although I’m immune to the spinning virus, he spins stuff that makes me drool. He also sews, so he’s a source of so much inspiration, and I hope he'd be willing to show me a fiber stop or two the next time I make it to Boston.
10. The Tucci Family. Misty is a dear friend from my old life at UCLA. She became a mom in August and decided not to go back to work. I smile every single time I see that she has posted, and I’m very very happy that we’ve maintained our friendship despite our very different “real lives” and the 2500 miles between her home and mine. Mwah!

Please feel free to download Cristi's button and pass the award along to your favorite 10, or just enjoy the shout-out. This is a small sampling of the blogs that I read, but they are all people that make my day every time they post!

Although I’m sure I should wrap up this post here, I have a serious problem! I have talked to Zonda about making a custom needle case for my KnitPicks Options needles (Go! See her stuff! Order one for yourself!) Since I have a ginormous fabric stash, she has agreed to use my fabric. I just have to pick!!!

HELP!!!

Here are the four fabrics I’ve narrowed down to. Top left is a Laurel Burch animal print. Top right is a batik print that I just found the other day. Bottom left is a yellow star print. Bottom right is a rainbow batik leftover from a quilt top. Please vote! Please! Please!



This is my first attempt at a poll. Cross your fingers that the thing I chucked in the sidebar over there --->> works. If not PLEEEEEASE leave a comment! Please! :) Oh, and I have No Freaking Clue how I turned the background of my blog title brown. I'll try to figure it out when I'm not quite so tired.

That is all. Have a great weekend!

Fabric Loot: Make Your Own Shop-Hop!

No web access at home-of-friends last night. Here’s where we stayed. It’s a seriously awesome house built in the early 1930s on the Susquehanna River in central Pennsylvania.


We made a stop at The Quilt Company on the way home today, so that makes FOUR quilt shops in three states during a 72-hour span. Well, if you set the clock from when we stopped at Four Seasons Stitchery on Tuesday to our stop at TQC today, about 50 hours, but you catch my drift. As Aunt Suz said, it’s not a shop hop until you’ve seen four shops, so we just had to stop at TQC today! ☺

So now, we move along to the loot. Today is Quilting Loot Only. Tomorrow I’ll do Yarn Loot, plus the one holiday decorating thing I got.

We shall go in order of our itinerary. First stop was Four Seasons in Grantsville, Md., on Tuesday around lunch.


Three pieces of fabric. The blue strip on the top-right was sale, as was the awesome green-pink-blue batik.

Then we stopped at Jinny Beyer’s Studio on McLean, Va., that afternoon. I got a kit for Jinny’s Jewel Box Quilt,

some yarn you’ll see tomorrow and the French Braid Quilts book. This book is seriously cool. Aunt Suzie snagged the last kit for the table runner from this book, but I can pull from my stash pretty easily. I’m excited about making something from this book, I just wonder when the crap I’ll get around to it!

In addition, I finally used the AmEx Gift Card that was presented to me at my last M&Ms meeting in California. My stash thanks you, the Jinny Beyer Studio thanks you and I thank you! Obviously, as instructed, I used it for fabric!

Yesterday, we did Valley Forge, where RT got up close and personal with George Washington. I’ll recap this visit when I have more energy, because I’m just too damn tired tonight.

On the way from Valley Forge to our dinner-and-sleep destination, we decided to stop in Morgantown. Not this Morgantown. This one! We stopped at a very nice yarn store, but did not purchase. Then we stopped at Hayloft Fabrics, which was a general store that had knitting/quilting stuff upstairs.

Almost all of the fabric was about $6.60/yard (note to Knitters: That's cheap. Good fabric is usually closer to $9/yd), and they had yardage of Moda’s The Hamptons fabric line, which I lurrrve. I was all excited and ready to buy. Until I touched it. Icky griege goods. I did find one print that felt normal and I know what I’m going to use it for. It will be backing for the Row Robin I did with Carol, Lisa and Beth a year ago.

I also got a neat panel that’s an Advent Calendar. It was 20% off because it was Christmas fabric, and since it was only $5 to start with, who could resist?


Finally, today’s score. I really, really like The Quilt Company. I just wish it was on “my” side of town!!! I found a truly special batik, and bought five yards of it.


No, I have no idea what I’m going to use it for. Shut up. It’s gonna marinate in the stash, and it will be freakin’ amazing whenever it tells me what it wants to be when it grows up.

I also got sucked in on another one of their kits (Click here, then scroll down to Winter Blessings). I know. Be quiet. I will start sewing again soon!


The kit actually has a light blue background and is much “happier” than the one pictured above. I almost got sucked in on this one too, but yeesh. I have at least two UFOs that are similar, so I took a deep breath and stepped away.

So that’s about it. I can’t wait to sleep in my own bed. The air mattress at home-of-friends was good last night, but I historically don’t sleep very well the first night in a new bed, and I just had two nights with a “new” bed each night. I feel some serious Z’s coming on. I just wish I had a fake foam brick to throw at my TV so that I wouldn’t have to listen to Bryant Gumbel any more. Gawd, he’s bad as a play-by-play announcer.