UPDATE!!

 

Purple Blankie

I struggled for years trying to come up with a use for this dark purple yarn, it's been crocheted and pulled out several times. I think I finally got it with this pattern though! It's about a yard square, with dark purple in the center and outside, and a lighter purple stripe running the middle of the square, with a white row between the two different purples.

We bought a house!

We bought a house and there has been a lot to do- mostly cleaning. And trying to rearrange our stuff in a new/different space. And trying to feel homey again in a totally different setting. But, amidst all that, I have completed some crafty home improvement projects.

The upstairs bathroom needed a curtain for a little privacy from the neighbors. This half curtain still lets in some light during the day, and come next summer we can shift it upwards when we open the window a crack. I wasn't sure what I was going to do for this curtain- the walls in this room are SO BLUE I've been trying to go all white with the trimmings to tame them down (I picked up a white shower curtain at Target, I repainted the vanity white). I wasn't even sure I was going to use this fabric in the bathroom, I didn't know if the dark color would match well- but I saw it and I loved the elegant aquatic pattern, and I bought three yards because if I didn't use it in the bathroom, I was going to use it for something. Only bummer: I should have lined this curtain, in the middle of the day it's hard to see the pattern when the sun is shining on the back of it.

I mentioned I repainted the vanity- it was a dark wood veneer (the vanity is particleboard), which was making the bathroom smaller and darker and dirtier looking. The white makes the bathroom brighter, and it helps to tame the overwhelming blue of the walls (which we will eventually paint, but there are bigger projects first).

Kitty loves these flat-top radiators. She lays on top of them in positions that can only possibly be comfortable for a cat to soak up the heat. I was uncomfortable looking at her, so I watched a youtube video and taught myself to make a cushion for her. She still occasionally lays on the metal in the living room, but uses her cushion pretty consistently here in the dining room.

All of the pillows we had amassed for the couch in our old apartment didn't match- there were patterns he liked in his solo apartment, patterns I had liked with a previous couch in a previous decorating phase, patterns of fabric I just had to make something out of... I put away (most) of the old pillowcases, and bought fabric in a more cohesive theme to re-cover all of our existing pillows. All of the pillowcases have zippers, and the two large ones and the bolster have plain khaki on one side and a big yellow flower print on the other. They all match pretty well with the curtains I bought at Target (this pattern, the yellow color: https://www.target.com/p/natalie-global-fretwork-curtain-panel-orange-42-x95/-/A-16864343#lnk=sametab)

The bathroom in the basement needed curtains. The windows are at ground level, and if someone is standing in the back yard, they'll have a pretty clear view straight into the bathroom. It's also cold down there! There isn't a lot of room to play around with still letting some light in, and definitely not without compromising privacy (and there's a shower down there), so I went ahead and covered them up entirely for maximum privacy and a little extra insulation at the windows. Kitty is not a fan of these curtains, because these windows (especially the one pictured, above the sink) are one of her favorite places in the house, giving her a ground-level view of the outside world, but she gets a little feisty when she's in the basement windows, so it might not be a bad thing.

Dinosaur Quilt

I finally finished this one! I was very excited about the dino print back of the quilt, and planned out the whole top to go with it (see how the colors match the colors of the dinosaurs...), but since I wasn't the most excited about the actual layout and design of the top, it ended up taking a long time, just to motivate myself to get it finished. And once I had the top finished, I don't know what happened, but I lost my motivation to attach it to the dino print and finish it. All in all, I've been sitting on this project for over a year, and while I'm satisfied and happy with the way it turned out, I feel good about the final product, but I'm also just glad to be done with it!

Unicorn Pillow

This is the image I first fell in love with

This is where I got the unicorn pattern

I found this unicorn pattern online and I just had to make it. I was trying to come up with some reasons to not stop work on every other work-in-progress to start this new project, and of course, my bestie was no help- her eyes went all gooey and cartoon-heart-y, and she told me it didn't matter that I didn't have the right colors to make it the same as the first example I had fallen in love with, I could make it a rainbow unicorn and she'd still be in love.

She didn't know that last summer my mom had given me some large scraps of rainbow fabric, from a dress she made me as a little girl, as she packed up her and my dad's home of almost 30 years to move halfway across the country. Or that I had the perfect teal from my late grandmother's basement stash to brighten up the background. Or the princess-castle orchid fabric from the same basement that would work so well on the back of the pillow. Or that I had a ton of greys and silvers because I'd been stocking up on all the grey remnants I could find for another project I had cooking in my brain (now in progress).

Anyways, I made it. I worked on it on my birthday because I loved it. I got some white muslin to put behind the pieced top to make the colors bolder and brighter regardless of the color of the pillow inserted. I found some embroidery floss that matched the teal almost perfectly, and created different patterns of lines and dots to hold the two thicknesses together. I attached two pieces of the princess-castle orchid fabric to the back to fold over each other and hold in the pillow form, because obviously, she's going to want to wash this pillowcase and trade out pillow forms over time. I even considered a zipper close for the pillowcase, but got lazy.

Tardis Hot Pad

Paper pieced for my mom for Mother's Day- she's been watching Doctor Who since the 70s!

Pattern from here: https://www.craftsy.com/quilting/patterns/tardis-doctor-who-along-qal-block-1/153955

Quilt for Baby Romo

Ok, I'll admit, I conceptualized making this one before I even knew there was a baby coming. 6 months to a year ago, I bought a small amount of a solid light blue colored fabric that I thought would go well with the darker blue solid and darker stripes (which I already had and bought maybe two years ago), then found the lighter striped fabric in my closet. While unearthing the lighter striped fabric, I came across the "cowboy toile" remnant I bought several years ago and loved so hard I couldn't cut it up and sew with it then (have since moved on from cowboy phase). I had decided to work a nine-square pattern with all the other blues, so I just figured out a way to fit it in, by throwing in some larger squares (taking the place of four smaller squares) that would let the cowboy print show, and also throwing in a couple half-square triangles, for some variety, and to shake up the very rigid lines that were being created.

The quilting stitches I worked on my sewing machine, half the presser foot's distance in from the edge of the solid blue squares edges, so that the lines almost shake from side to side (again, trying to disrupt some of the rigid up and down-ness of the nine-square edges and the striped fabric).

The edging is a blue color that was used for the entire back. I did run out just shy of enough to go all the way around, but I subbed in some of the darker blue color from the front of the blanket (not an exact match, but close- shhhhhh). On the upside, I have NO leftovers of that fabric that will sit in my closet for another several years until I find a use for them!

All in all, I think it turned out really nice, a little small (roughly 36x45), but good for a little baby, and little baby Romo is in fact- a baby.