A “before” photo: fabric washed and pressed for several different projects…some that are done, and some that are not yet.

I finally finished the project that I started at the class I took at the quilt show in Florida way back in November. Here’s a close up so that you can see just how small I learned to stitch:

This is why it took me so long to finish it. That’s the excuse I’m using, anyway.

Looking ahead, I’ve got some craft projects all lined up to take with me to Kabul. And because I like to keep things super-organized, I decided that I needed some way to keep all the supplies for each project together. So I started thinking about buying project bags, then decided why not just make them? And I happened to have some vinyl left over from the diaper bag, which made perfect windows to allow me to see what’s in each one!

Oh, how I love organizing…

I actually have a few other projects finished (or half-finished I should say, since they are just finished quilt tops), but no photos yet. It’s a rainy, dreary day here today, which does not make for good photos. You’ll just have to check back later!

First of all, my brother and his wife have a baby on the way. The two of them are runners — they met on their college cross country team. So I knew the baby would need appropriate attire to attend the local high school’s track and cross country meets. Bleach pen plus onesie makes a quick and easy gift:

Then, I had seen this tutorial a while back for a tea wallet. Since my mom is a tea lover, I put together a matching tea wallet/mug rug set for her. (The embroidery designs are from Wild Olive.)

Finally, since I’d put all this work into making gifts, why not just make the packaging as well? This tutorial for drawstring bags is great, and super easy. I’m planning on making up a bunch in wine bottle size. Not only will it use up some of my fabric stash, but we often take bottles of wine as hostess gifts. Score!

This one is unrelated to Christmas, but I finally finished hand quilting a lap quilt I’d been working on for myself. The pattern is called “Kitchen Window” from this book by Elizabeth Hartman and I used up some scraps on the back, rather than buying more fabric.

Up next is a custom-made diaper bag for my brother to carry once their baby gets here. He requested “not too girly,” so he looked through my stash of bag fabric while he was here visiting for Christmas. I also got a knitting kit for a bag from my mom, so that will be something to work on soon. And of course, I’ve got several half-finished projects laying around!

First, a shawl that I’ve been working on for what feels like forever. It was my first foray into lace knitting and I’m proud of the outcome.

And as much as I’m missing the dog (both dogs if you count the foster one, and any dog, really, when it comes right down to it), I’ve found that not having pets is actually pretty handy when working on many craft projects. Basting quilts on the floor is much easier than trying to do it on a bed, as I had in the past:

As soon as I got that all spread out, I found myself looking around, expecting a pet to come running in and mess it up. Instead, I got to baste it in peace. Now to get it quilted.

And today’s accomplishment was finishing my challenge quilt for the quilting guild! (SPOILER ALERT: For any of the Stepping Stone Quilters that might be reading…I’ve posted photos below.) I’m not sure that I ever gave the details of this year’s challenge here on the blog. The basics are that it had to contain an oval, and use five different types of fabric and five different types of embellishments. This challenge definitely took me out of my comfort zone. In general, I’m a pretty traditional quilter, and I would consider this more of an art quilt. But I’m happy with the outcome. Well, at least until I see what the other women in the group did…that’s when I’ll feel inadequate.

It’s based on a photo of the front porch of the house I grew up in (where my parents still live). Next to the porch swing, there’s a huge lilac bush. The smell of lilacs always reminds me of two of my favorite things growing up: the end of the school year and my birthday!

A close-up of some of the embellishments. Besides the chains on the swing, I created the tree leaves out of two different types of ribbon, the clouds are made from some super fluffy white yarn, and the lilac bush is burlap, covered with purple silk and several types of purple beads.

Now I’ve realized that it’s time to get going on all the Christmas presents I plan on making. A crafter’s work is never done!

It’s been a while since I’ve done any curved piecing. Now I remember why.

I am proud to say, however, that I have been trying to stretch my creative boundaries a little and have some things to show for it!

Two weeks ago, I started knitting a shawl. That may not sound so impressive, but I’m using lace-weight yarn. Lace-weight! This means it’s incredibly thin – you might even call it “wispy.” When I first pulled this yarn out of the package, I thought there was no way I was ever going to be able to do something with this, but here it is:

Okay, so not much progress there, but I can only do about two rows at a time and then I need to take a break to breath and stretch. So it’s a slow process, but I like how it’s looking. For anyone who’s interested, the pattern is Seascape Stole by Kieran Foley.

And just last week, I had the opportunity to use a friend’s long arm quilter. I had machine quilted some small quilts on my machine (which is not really meant for quilting), but never done any “real” machine quilting. I was pretty nervous going in — for those of you unfamiliar with long arm quilting, you’re basically driving the needle (which is moving really fast) around, drawing a pattern on your quilt. And you’re kind of just making up the pattern as you go. This is a challenge for someone like me, who has to draw out every single new quilt pattern I make before even thinking about cutting fabric. And I prefer straight lines. Perfectly straight lines.

After the first 10 minutes, when I finally remembered to breathe again, I realized I was having fun. I did a simple meandering pattern, which is basically just curvy, bubbly lines. Here’s a close up:

You can’t have a full photo because this is the quilt I made for the challenge I have going with my mom. Which means it’s not going public quite yet. The really awesome thing is that I totally hated this quilt top before I quilted it, but now I really like it. I’m not sure if that’s just the pride from having quilted it in a new way by myself, or what, but it makes me happy.

As you can see, I am in need of something other than depressing things to focus on, so I got myself busy crafting this weekend. First of all, I might be the last quilter on earth to catch onto this craze, but last month I learned about Mug Rugs. I was trying to come up with some small gifts to make and stumbled across this website. These are perfect! They can be as simple or as complex as you want, and if you make them simple, like I have been, you can whip up a bunch in no time at all. And they are fabulous for stash busting. Here’s what I’ve got so far (all done except for the binding):

Mine are mostly 5″x8″ (since there’s not really any rules, these are pretty forgiving if your math is not so hot). And I’ve got 16 made so far. I’m having an awful lot of fun, so I’m not sure how many I’ll end up with in the end. Maybe everyone will get one for Christmas….

While working on these this afternoon, I also worked on setting the colors in the Androsia fabric I’ve been collecting. I think I finally found the perfect pattern to really show off the colors and batik patterns. I’ll post more photos as I really get going on the project, but for now I’m just admiring the colors:

I’ll start with Charleston: what an amazing city! I definitely have to get back there when I’m not stuck in training for 8 hours a day. I have never seen so many great restaurants in such a small area. I very well may have eaten my body weight each day, particularly if you count locally produced beer in that total.

There was a group dinner at Bubba Gump’s Shrimp one night. This is about the cheesiest place ever, but I highly recommend experiencing it with a group of non-Americans who are: 1. totally excited just to be in America (There was an epic trip to Walmart on the first evening after our training class.); 2. super into Forrest Gump (They made us Americans look like we’d never even heard of the movie during the pre-dinner F.G. quiz.); and 3. eating shellfish for the first time (I lost count of how many photos were taken of people holding lobster claws.).

Another group event was a ghost tour of Charleston. I have always wanted to do one of these and I was totally into it. We had great weather for the walk and I found myself feeling pretty uneasy at a few points as our guide told us stories about Charleston history and hauntings. I’m sure all of these things can be explained away, but it was fun to get lost in the stories for a couple hours.

As I said, I was in training for 8 hours a day, so the only photo I have as proof that I was in Charleston is this shot taken from my hotel room:

Oh, wait, here it is a night, so I guess I have two photos as proof:

I returned to Nassau just in time to spend another Saturday working at the quilt show. This show is put on by the Stepping Stone Quilters (my quilt group) and all members show the work that they have done during the year. So there’s a wide variety of skill levels on display. And one of the highlights is that the quilts for our group challenge are all on display together. As I mentioned, before I left for my work trip, we had an open house for friends and family of the group members. Here’s most of the group:

Since I worked at the show two Saturdays in a row, I had a good chance to examine everyone’s work up close and picked out a few of my favorites here to share:

And here are all those challenges. It’s hard to believe that all of these quilts are based on Log Cabin Blocks!

This afternoon, we all worked together to take down the show. It was a little bittersweet because this is not only my first quilt show, but also my last one in Nassau. There’s another member of the group that will be moving away (because of her husband’s job) and also won’t be here for the show next year. We found ourselves standing off to the side as the other members divided up the supplies to store for the next show. I guess I’ll have to wait and see what the next year brings — maybe I can come back as a visitor to the 2012 show.

These first two have a deadline of November 29th, and as I finished them several weeks ago, I can claim success! The only photos I have are “in progress” ones, though, so I’ll need to take final pictures before they leave the house.

A Christmas table runner — the quilt guild does a gift exchange for Christmas, and this is what I made. As I don’t know the person who’s name I drew very well, I hope that she likes it.

This is the quilt for my guild’s challenge all ready to be quilted. (You can refresh yourself of the “rules” here.) Again, this one is actually finished, and I’m pretty proud of it. I’ll post some detail photos of it before it goes to be part of the (friendly) competition.

And finally, the new quilt for our bed! Front:

And back:

We’ve been using it for a week now and it has improved our lives greatly as there is no more fighting over the blankets all night. Especially good since we’ve temporarily added another body to the mix. Foster dog Koba joined our motley crew about 2 weeks ago and will be with us until we can find him a home. He and Laika enjoy wrestling a little too much for my taste, so we’re hoping to find a good home as soon as possible…

(Waiting for a treat is the ONLY time they sit this still.)

This Omnigrid ruler is my new favorite tool. Six-and-a-half inch squares are easy-peasy! The squares are for a new quilt for our bed. Our bed is currently covered with this quilt, which was originally supposed to go on a spare bed. A twin size spare bed. You can probably guess what the problem is. The quilt just barely fits the top of the mattress, which leads to some crazy half-asleep tug-of-war in the middle of the night. I usually wake up in the morning with all of the sheet, while Shawn has all of the quilt. So I’ve been slowly working toward a solution.

You may remember this fabric that I picked up in Kyiv. I’ve been gradually picking up other pieces that go with it. Many were purchased on our trip to Portland last spring. And last week, I got my birthday present from my mom, which included (I’m sure you guessed it) several yards of fabric. Two of which match my Kyiv/Portland collection and put me into the necessary variety and yardage needed to make a quilt top.

So I’ve started. Photos to come.

In random life-in-Nassau news, I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it before, but we have a security company that sends guards around throughout the day to check on all of the Embassy residences. While this is comforting, it can also cause some problems for us because Laika really doesn’t like strangers in the yard. And now our house is known by the guards as having a “scary dog.” I’ve seen guards turn and run at the sound of Laika’s bark. And they often enter the yard with their nightsticks drawn and ready for action. (All of this despite the fact that Laika is never out in the yard unsupervised, or not behind a fence that prevents her from actually getting to the guards.) One of the guards just came by and Laika was playing ball, which meant that she didn’t care that there was a stranger in the yard, just throw the stinkin’ ball already! So we could actually talk with the guard, who asked us what kind of dog Laika is. Apparently all this time, some of the guards have thought she was a greyhound, which quite a few people have mistaken her for. But my thinking is, if they’ve been that scared of her all this time thinking she was a greyhound, what are they going to think now that they know she’s a doberman?

And finally, look what came today!

My very own Kona Cotton color card! (Insert squeal of delight here.) I need to pick fabrics for my quilting guild challenge quilt and with my mom’s expert advice, decided that the only way I could pick the perfect set of blues (it’s a monochromatic challenge) was to have the actual swatches in front of me. A few of these colors are going to be making their way to my house pretty soon: