M&Ms #8 of 8: Mine!!

My letter to the group was pretty vague. I went out and bought a box of the Crayloa crayons you got in kindergarten. Just eight colors: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple/Violet, Brown and Black, and I included it with my letter

I love blues, and that’s a color that’s usually very prevalent in both my knitting and quilting. So I told my friends to use those crayons as a guide and while they were welcome to use blue, they shouldn’t focus on it. I didn’t put any restrictions on my quilt at all. Pick something and go with it. Have your row reflect what you love about quilting.

You all saw my row being constructed here




And my “opening row” here

Yeah, it's the good 'ol Double Z!

My friends then took that row for a ride from mid-February until December 8, and here’s what they came up with


The above photo was taken at Sandy’s on December 8. Believe me, I would much rather have been there than in Florida. It would have been exponentially more enjoyable!

I took another photo this morning while the weather was still nice here this morning


In the above photo, the rows were constructed by (from top to bottom, links to their quilt posts): Carol, Anne, Denise, Nonie, Sandy, Yours Truly (starter row), Lisa and Beth.

I’ll be toting this quilt top around for a while in an effort to find the perfect border and backing, but I am very much looking forward to seeing this quilt finished. Thank you, my friends. I love all of you and am incredibly thankful that you have been willing to keep me involved in your group despite the thousands of miles between us. You all mean the world to me, and I would not have lasted eight years in Los Angeles without you.

I can’t wait to see what kind of trouble we’ll get into in 2009!

So that concludes the 2008 M&Ms quilt reveals. I hope you have enjoyed the series!

M&Ms # 7 of 8: Carol!

Carol gets a gold star on this whole Row Robin project.

She set the schedule of who got which quilt at each trade.

She’s our official note-taker, making sure we all know what took place at our meetings beyond eating good food and laughing a lot.

She volunteered to be Mail Girl, sending me the next quilt at each exchange.

And she’s just a genuinely wonderful and generous person.

Carol’s quilt was the one I brought home with me in February after our initial meeting. She even tried to give me a jump on getting started. Remember the leak above our mailbox? Yeah. That was Carol’s quilt.

Here’s Carol on “opening day.”


Carol found a border print a while ago and built her quilt around that print. Do a full row of five 12" (finished) blocks, but fabrics can be different in each block. She provided background fabric, and since she knew that her fabric tastes and mine are polar opposites, she sent a few other fabrics that would go with her border print and once I had a few minutes to rub together, I got sewing. Remember this picture?


Well, it was from this blog post.

Somehow, I didn’t manage to take a picture of my row on Carol’s quilt before sending it off, but I did my “trademark” Double Z block from Quilters Cache. You can see Carol’s churn dash block? That’s the row you can see just to the left of center in the finished quilt below. My Double Z’s are one row to the right of the churn dashes (4th from the right)


Here’s hoping that this "inside" of the quilt looks fabulous with Carol’s border print!

One quilt left to blog. Mine! Santa was very, very, very good to me and I’m sure some of that stuff is blog-able. Plus there are two knitty FO’s and a 2008 wrap-up, so it’s going to be a pretty busy week around here (I hope!) Tomorrow’s itinerary includes Christmas card shopping with my mom first thing in the morning and a probable trip out to Robinson with the Hubster to visit Costco and possibly the J-store. Hope your day-after-Xmas is fun too!

M&Ms #6 of 8: Lisa!

Oops. I spent the afternoon in the basement, sewing. Then we had dinner and I watched a little football and all of “It’s a Wonderful Life.” I kind of forgot I hadn’t done a blog post. Well, the world won’t end if I’m a little late, will it?

Lisa had very specific instructions.


Black background, fabric provided. Name of the block must include the word “Star,” and could be any 12” (finished) star except the Autograph Star. She had made autograph stars for each of us, which we were to sign with our name and the name of the start that we chose to sew. The color of each block was to be chosen by the color of an M&M. You saw a preview of my block here with this picture:


Once again, I took crappy notes, and hell if I can remember the name of the block I chose. Lisa reads, so if she can fill me in on the name of the block, that would be awesome!

As you know, a regular package of plain M&Ms has candy in red, orange, yellow, green, blue and brown. If I remember right (and that’s a crapshoot, especially when I’m blogging this late!), brown was to be ignored and orange could only be used once. Your only color restriction was that your row had to be a different color than the row before yours. Carol and I had a good giggle when I posted the above photo as the tiny little preview of my work on Lisa’s quilt. Knowing my affinity for blue, Lisa was baffled that I had chosen green. Tee hee! Carol had done a blue row!

Here’s what I got in the mail from Carol

On my lovely living room carpet, no less!

And here’s what it looked like when it headed back to Carol for the next switch


And finally, here’s what Lisa saw at the big Dec. 8 reveal!


I think she had a fantastic idea and would up with a really terrific quilt!

Merry Christmas, everyone! It’ll be a quiet holiday here. Just the Hubster and I for the morning, then at some point we’ll head over to my parents house. Enjoy your Thursday in whatever way suits you best!

M&Ms #5 of 8: Anne!

Anne is the lone blogger in my M&Ms group, although she’s a bit of a lapsed blogger. That’s OK. She’s fun anyway, and I love that she’s grabbing her new life at the Gardens with both hands and shaking it for all it’s worth!

Anne loves bright colors, particularly lime green. When she moved in at the Gardens, we made her a quilt for her bed at her new place. Here’s her blog post of that quilt, my row is the nine-patch blocks at the foot of the bed.

So anyhoo, the colors for Anne’s quilt this time around weren’t drastically different. Dog/cat fabrics, bright colors, black backgrounds. Fabric options, background (I think?) and between-row sashings included for our convenience. Here’s Anne with her "starter row" on Opening Day:


Once again, I worked on this just about exclusively at the Lake, I used a fabric I bought at Quilted Memories up there, and barely took pictures for some unknown reason. I used two blocks, two Brasstown Stars


And three Paper Pinwheels


And where did I find the blocks? Say it with me now … Quilters Cache! Here's what the quilt looked like when it headed back to the left coast


Finally, here’s Anne with her finished quilt top.


Three more quilts to go.

In other news, I’m officially off of work until January 5. I don’t really have the words to express how happy this makes me. We’re also meeting with the third and final contractor about the master bathroom tomorrow morning. Here’s hoping we can get someone in here and working in January.

M&Ms Quilt #4 of 8: Nonie!

Nonie picked some of my favorite colors, blues and yellows. I have a whole tub of fabric with a pattern pulled to do a blue and yellow quilt of my own!

Here’s Nonie with her row on opening day

Hi, Nonie!

If I remember right, Nonie’s instructions were pretty much to use yellow and blue fabrics and you should use at least two different blocks in your row. But I could be wrong. I don’t clearly remember the instructions for this particular quilt. (since I had it many moons ago ...)

I worked on this quilt exclusively at the Lake, and went to my favorite store up there, Quilted Memories to get one of the two blues. I promptly mis-cut in some way, shape or form and had to readjust exactly how many of each block I was going to do. Eh. It all worked out OK.

My row is on the bottom. Blocks, as always, were taken from Quilters Cache. I believe they were (L-R): Antique Tile, Arrowhead Puzzle and Envelope Motif. I have no idea why I skipped my “signature” Double Z block, since it wound up in just about everyone else’s quilt.


And here’s the finished quilt on the night of the “big reveal.” Boy, my row really stands out in the middle there!



I don’t know why I didn’t take more pictures of this quilt, but that ship has sailed. We’re at the halfway point of the M&Ms Row Robin. I hope you aren’t bored to death yet!

M&Ms Quilt #3 of 8: Denise!

Before I start talking quilting, I have a very important announcement to make:

Happy Birthday, Dad!

I learned early that December 21 was the winter solstice. Easy to remember, since it’s also my dad’s birthday! We’re off to the family birthday dinner shortly and remember, the days get longer from here on out!

Meanwhile, back to quilting.

Denise wanted a Christmas quilt.


She provided some sashing fabric to go between the rows and some other fabrics to coordinate. She also sent along some of the fabric that will be used as the borders so we could all do our best not to clash.

I pulled stash fabric for the reds and greens I used, but if I remember right, I used one of Denise’s blue snowflake fabrics for my background.

Mine is on the bottom, right below Carol’s snowmen!

I pulled the mitten pattern from one of my very favorite holiday quilting books, “Joy to the World” by those evil geniuses Lynda Milligan and Nancy Smith. I swear I want everything they publish, including “More Joy to the World.”

Here are a few more close-up looks at my row. The green-mitten appliqué blocks on the ends are identical, and the pieced blocks are the block that’s becoming my “signature” block – the good ‘ol Double Z from Quilters Cache.



Once I had the whole thing pieced and attached, I realized that I probably should have done two mitten blocks, one green and one red, and three Double Z’s. I wasn’t thrilled with how closely my row mirrored Carol’s, but that’s my fault for trying to do this in a hurry. I hope Denise is pleased with the final product. Here’s how it looked when it left my house


And here’s how it looked at the “Big Reveal” on December 8!



That’s Denise holding the right edge of the quilt. Happy Holidays, my friend. I did get your package in the mail and I love it :-) (I'm just way behind on "life" and haven't made the time to send out thank-yous. Shame on me!)

Oh, and to the rest of the M&Ms, I have received my quilt and I love it! It’ll be blogged last in this series.

M&M Quilts #2 of 8: Sandy

Sandy’s quilt should have been the sixth quilt that I worked on, not the seventh. But I got really behind and finished Denise’s quilt so I could ship it back to Nonie, and Beth and Lisa were fine with having a little less time since they could sew concurrently to finish the quilt. (no, you really didn't need to follow all of that)

Here’s Sandy on “opening day” back in February with her starter row.


Sandy’s quilt was made with upholstery fabrics. All of them were heavier than regular quilting cottons, some of them a lot heaver, and many of them frayed quite a bit.

The parameters for Sandy’s quilt were that each row had to have five unique blocks (12” finished). You could repeat a block from elsewhere in the quilt as long as it wasn’t in the row that was touching yours. Sandy provided all fabrics for the quilt, since none of us were going to already have matching upholstery fabric in their stash.

This quilt somehow got “big and scary” in my head and I don’t really know why. But in the end? It is a little special to me as it was my election day project! This is what I was sewing on when I heard the news of who was going to be POTUS No. 44. I stayed up until about 3 a.m. that night watching election returns and sewing until this quilt was finished so I could send it out the next day. Totally worth it!

Once again, I used Quilters Cache as an amazing resource to find the blocks I sewed for this quilt. From left to right, they were:

Ribbons, Four Patch Fox & Goose, Double Z, Amish Diamond, Mystery Block (Nelson’s Victory that I screwed up? Not out of the question.)

Ribbons, Four Patch Fox & Goose, Double Z

Four Patch Fox & Goose, Double Z, Amish Diamond

Amish Diamond, ???

And here’s a picture of Sandy’s quilt when it left my house. My row is at the bottom.


Finally, here’s the finished quilt, as unveiled at Sandy’s house on December 8.

(my row is next-to-last on the right. see the bright blue < ?)

Sandy is our wonderful host for this very special group. The group is the M&Ms quilters because we meet on Mondays and Sandy lives on Melrose, so M&M’s means Melrose Mondays.

As always, huge thanks to Sandy and her daughter Deb for allowing all of us to spend so much time at their house. Love & miss you both, and Sandy, I hope you love your finished quilt!

M&M’s Quilt 1 of 8: Beth!

Sorry for the long blog hiatus. Convention was a killer (I’m too negative and have a smart mouth. Gee, that wrap-up meeting was fun!) and a full week of significant sleep depravation has left me fuzzy-headed for an additional week.

But, I’ll get back to blogging starting now! The only knitting I’ve been doing is on my Noro Scarf, and the end may finally be in sight! Good thing, since I’m itching to start on the yarn I bought for the sequel!

Anyhoo, I said I’d blog the eight quilts my M&Ms quilting mini-group revealed just under two weeks ago. We’ll go in order of when they left my house, most recent first.

So whose quilt did I sew on last? Beth’s!

Beth did something totally different than everyone else in our little group. She picked a paper pieced quilt from that amazing website Quilter’s Cache, and provided all of the fabric, both the background squares (which caused a minor emergency) and the colored stars. By using Judy Mathieson’s brilliant freezer paper paper piecing technique (scroll down, it's there!), I zipped right along on this quilt.

From top (left) to bottom (right), here are the three photos that make up my row on Beth’s quilt. I photoshopped in the white line so you could see where my work starts. It’s kinda hard to tell otherwise. Anyhoo …

Left chunk

Center chunk (with my most favorite-est slippers peeking in at the bottom of the frame)

Right chunk

And now, for the whole shebang as it looked right before I put it in the mail back to California

Tah-Dah!

And on reveal night, December 8, at Sandy’s house!

Hi, Beth! :-)

Hope you like your finished quilt!

Beth wound up with a fabulous final product. I hope she loves it!

It’s Over (I Think)

Convention is over. The workroom is nearly empty. It's 6 p.m. and I’m still in here using my computer, and I don’t leave to fly home until Monday morning. I'm waiting for co-workers to field trip for dinner, then I'm gonna collapse.

I could have changed my flight to leave tomorrow, but knowing that we’re in a Steelers/Ravens coverage area tomorrow and knowing the Herculean effort it will take to get packed up … I decided to stick around and enjoy the hotel, which will include both a massage and time on the beach tomorrow. And pack at my leisure. I’ll be home by Monday night. Which provides a workday where I have a legit excuse to do 0.0 minutes of work. Heh.

WeirdyPants won’t be disappointed. I have stories. The last two nights I was able to go “out” to the horrendously overpriced hotel bar and enjoy time with friends. But honestly, I flew here on four hours of sleep and haven’t gotten more than five hours a night since I arrived. I’m so exhausted I’m mispronouncing names of people I’ve known for years and am making other silly mistakes.

The plan for tonight is to leave the (outrageously expensive) hotel grounds for dinner, then I’m hoping to take a swim in the hotel bathtub. I’m gonna take pictures of that thing tomorrow. It’s worthy of a blog post all by itself.

Hope everyone is doing well. I’ve gotten a few rows done on the Noro scarf but that’s about it. Perhaps some knitting will be on the agenda tomorrow!

*The photo above was a sign that stayed posted on the wall of our workroom for the duration of the convention. On Sunday or Monday, Karen (my favorite co-worker/lifeline) called x2900 to get something from the hotel staff and remarked that the staff here was so good that it was like calling Santa. They generally had the problem fixed about the time you thought to call them. That’s when “help” was crossed out and replaced with “Santa”

Still Spinning

Hi, kids! First of all, while I flew into Fort Meyers, I’m actually in Marco Island. I’ve heard there’s a beach here. I haven’t actually seen it yet.

I am so incredibly stinking tired. Today started with a 5:30 wake-up call and 6:15 a.m. departure for golf tournament check-in. I was outside for two and a half hours (even if a good chunk of that was prior to sunrise), which about quintuples the entire amount of time I’ve spent outside since landing on Sunday. As a result, I’m not quite sure what day it is, I’m surviving on chocolate and caffeine and I know there’s no way I’ll get done tonight before 10 pm and we start all over again at 7 a.m. tomorrow morning.

There’s a rumor that we have Saturday afternoon and the bulk of Sunday free. I’m not holding my breath, but boy howdy would that be nice!

Meanwhile, tomorrow starts with breakfast at 7 a.m. and moves along with meetings at 8, 9, 12:15, 1:30, 2:30 and 4:30. Aren’t you jealous?

I left my adapter for my camera in my room, so you don’t get to see a picture of RT on the golf course. Maybe tomorrow.

Meanwhile, it's 7:45, I have a mini-chunk of work still to do, need to put in a bit of time at a reception (since that’s dinner) and try to write a few more coach bios. Since when we got here, I found out that we needed paragraph bios on 28 coaches. Catch you later!

In a Galaxy Far, Far Away

I’m in Florida. That sounds good, but I think I’ve been outside for a grand total of half an hour since I arrived at 2 p.m. on Sunday. So don't get jealous.

I got up at 4 a.m. and forced the Hubster to drive me to the airport, leaving the house at 4:45 a.m. to take me to the airport. Flight was at 7:15. I connected in Philadelphia (no plane change, just a layover), but didn’t have to switch planes. The good news is that I was able to get off the plane to use a bathroom that doesn’t move and get a pretzel (yum!). The bad news is that while I was in the airport, the fire alarm went off. It was LOUD.

But, it was nothing, so we all just stood around waiting for it to be turned off. I was the first one back on the plane (only person who came from Pittsburgh headed for Fort Meyers) and the rest of the trip was uneventful.

Before I left town, there was a flurry of activity. On Friday, my mom and I executed Christmas Tree Acquisition: 2008, getting trees for my house and hers. After we got her tree set up and in the stand, my tree was dumped in my front yard and mom scurried back home to get ready for a holiday party she was attending with my dad.

I figured I was already outside, covered in needles and smelling pine-ey. I had brought the four tubs of Christmas stuff down from the attic earlier in the day (good grief, were the big ones ever heavy!), so I just started putting up the outside lights.

It was 20 degrees outside and as long as I kept moving it wasn’t too bad. I got all the outside lights up and got Santa up on the roof of the front porch before turning into a frozen banana. Inside tree was put up when the Hubster got home. I’ll take pictures and post once I get back to the ‘Burgh, but basically? Looks the same as last year!

I threw up a few of the easy/favorite decorations. I have two “new” snowmen.



This guy was purchased on clearance for a buck or two. He sits on the “mail-dump” piece of furniture in the front hall



I don’t remember where I got this guy, but he was purchased some time last year. He’s sitting on the ledge of one of the windows that flank our front door.

I prefer to decorate with snowmen instead of Christmas. Then I can leave things out longer :)

There’s one other thing I finally took care of while I was in “git ‘er done” mode



I finally hung up my birthday presents! I have a better photo, but apparently I forgot to throw it on Flickr so I could access it here.

Yes, my birthday was in May. The Hubster did pretty well, having my signed program from March’s Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me! visit and the accompanying ticket signed. He also got my signed Barenaked Ladies CD and concert ticket (two separate meetings with the band) framed.

Yeah, it took me six months to get this done. So sue me!

I’m in Florida (don’t get excited. I’ve been outside the hotel for a grand total of 30 minutes since my arrival on Sunday at 2:30 pm) all week and will try to blog when spare moments come up. The “big reveal” for the M&Ms quilts was last night. Lisa was kind enough to email me photos of seven of the eight quilts. I’ll just have to wait to see mine until it shows up in the mail!

My “master plan” is to work backwards, featuring each quilt as it was when it spent time in Pennsylvania, starting with Beth’s (the last quilt I sewed on) and finishing with my own masterpiece, which I haven’t seen since February. Please be patient. I can only access the web when I’m in the conference area of the hotel, and my spare time is limited this week.

Okey dokey. Back to work!

A Day in the Dungeon

OK, so it wasn’t the whole day. I stayed upstairs and worked until about 1:30. But the weather matched my mood (overcast and damp) and after making sure that I had finished all of my work that needed to get done, I decided to play a little hooky and spend the afternoon in my basement.

Yesterday, in celebration of my mom’s birthday, we visited another birthday party – at The Quilt Company! They had a good sale (Mom's favorite word!) so we went up there to check it out. I really love that shop and just wish it was the littlest bit closer to my house.

In any case, one of the things I bought was two packages of Bali Pop fabric and the (free) pattern to go along with it.

Welcome to Blurry Photo Day!

So this afternoon, I went downstairs and started cutting, then sewing.

Wow! Sorry 'bout that photo. I had no idea it was so bad and I only took one!

I’m about halfway through the blocks made from the first kit, and I’m starting to second-guess myself. Should I do the second pack since it’s the same colorway? Or run back up there and exchange it for a coordinating pack? I’m planning to make one quilt with this project. I’ll make a final decision later.

I also threw one of my first quilting projects in the washing machine. A year and a half of sitting in the basement left it open to spiderwebs and the like, so I didn't consider a bath optional. I knew the fabrics were lower quality and remembered that they had crocked when I sewed them, nearly eight years ago.

Yeek! (Yep. Three blurry photos!)

It came out just fine. There’s a tiny bit of bleed on the muslin background, but I knew that was coming before I threw it into the wash. It’s a several-inch thick poly batting and it’s tied. Not my best work. It’s a utility quilt, so I’m not upset.

I took a break from sewing tonight to go to a holiday party at The Frick with my mom, the Hubster, my aunt and a friend of hers. Then we went here for dinner (yum!).

OK. Back to the dungeon for a tiny bit of pressing so I can be ready to sew again tomorrow. Around a whack of errands in preparation for the Florida trip. I’m so not (mentally) ready to go. ::sigh::

WiP Wednesday: Focus

Of the three things I showed you last week, one hasn’t been touched, one is finished and one I’m still loving.

Here’s the one new photo that (still) fits the WiP Wednesday criteria


I am loving these mittens. Seriously. One more repeat to the decreases, then off to the races with its mate. I will absolutely do more colorwork in the near future. These mittens are a blast.

The Moebius will be going with me to Florida next week, along with yarn for its successor. I’m hoping those will both be Christmas gifts, but I’m not committing to it yet. We shall see.

The Sheep Feet Socks are done. Six days. For a pair. You’ll see them in this corner of cyberspace soon. I have some strong opinions going on that topic too.

And I picked up the Noro Scarf again. It went to Frost/Nixon (the play. not the movie) with us tonight and will also be going with me to Florida along with its successor. Yeah, I had to miss Hurricane Knitters tonight, which stinks. I'm hoping everyone had fun without me!

So that’s about it from chez DPUTiger. Exciting stuff, I know. Off to clean up for the cleaning folks, who are coming tomorrow. I know that sounds crazy, but I’m a slob and I need to pick up after myself so somebody else can do the dusting and sweeping. Hey, it makes sense to me!

Koigu Kermit Socks

OK, so I give up on waiting for the confluence of sunlight, my feet, my camera and these socks to come together. So you get socks on blockers, not on feet.


As usual, I started with my favorite toes. I still think the garter toe is just brilliant!

Check out those faboo sock blockers!

I finished with some nice boring 2x2 rib. But it was fine. I had forgotten just how much I love knitting with Koigu. It's a really great yarn!


I’ll never pick up heel stitches again!

Koigu Kermit Socks

Pattern: Riverbed Upstream* Master Pattern from New Pathways for Sock Knitters
Yarn: Koigu KPPPM
Purchased: Unraveled in Monrovia, Calif., Spring 2007
Color: An awesome fleck-ey green that I really love
Needles: Hiya Hiya, 2-16” 2.5mm needles
Sock Size: U.S. Women’s 8.5 (for me … 8.5” circumference/9/5” length)
Started: 26 October 2008 (this is what I was knitting when I was yelled at)
Finished: 12 November 2008 in Cat Bordhi’s class :-)
Mods: *Oops. 

*This is what I get for posting just before bedtime/putting off writing my post until the last minute. These socks were supposed to be Riverbeds. But then I turned the first heel at a special Fifth Wednesday meeting of the Hurricane knitters and put the heel on the opposite side from where it was supposed to go.

I inadvertently illustrated exactly why New Pathways socks are so versatile. It doesn't matter where you put the arch increases/heel. They really can go anywhere! So in one quick mistake, these socks went from Riverbeds (arch increases on sole) to Upstreams (arch increases across top of the foot). ba da BING!

Oh, and the 80th piece of background fabric arrived in Monday’s mail. Beth’s quilt was finished Monday night and mailed back to California this afternoon. Yippee!!