Lynn Carson Harris

Crafting in 2012

It's fun and always makes me feel more productive to look back and see what I made during the year.  Do you do that?

I've been feeling very unproductive the last week or so. I've enjoyed having lots of family time but I haven't spent any time at all at my sewing machine. I pulled out a couple of long lost knitting projects to work on in the evenings because I can be a bit more social while still "making". Mostly I've not been crafting. I'm really feeling the itch.

This is MOST of what I did this year. 

1. ladybug mittens, 2. Crazy Love quilt, 3. estonian-socks-colorwork, 4. Abbey-Road-outside, 5. Pinwheels-and-Strings-close, 6. Lynn's hexagon quilt, 7. baby quilt whole, 8. happy drawing pattern, 9. Nancy, 10. bluebirds of happiness, 11. Paris on a Shoe String, 12. pixie hat side, 13. pixie hat girl, 14. hexagon flowers, 15. rug, 16. slip n slide 1, 17. Bento bag, 18. frame purses first, 19. frame purse monkey, 20. Flower Power close, 21. new dress action, 22. Washi front, 23. birds and the bees washi, 24. Anna Maria Horner Washi, 25. frippery washi, 26. ruby finished, 27. pink pixie, 28. Point Me big, 29. skinny tee P, 30. Cloud 9 frame purses, 31. Little Stitches embroidered, 32. Happy Land close, 33. Swiss Chard close, 34. chick on mushroom, 35. medallion top, 36. sneak peek

Excitement Mounts

Happy Holidays!

Winter Wonderland

To celebrate the start of winter today we went out to enjoy our freshly fallen snow.

We live on a glacial moraine that is filled with interesting geological features. Today we walked up a kame in the state recreation area. You can see the cone shaped hill there in the right side of the photo below.

Michigan is really a pretty interesting place to live. You may remember when I wrote about the kettle hole in our yard.

"The hill in front of you, known as a kame, was formed thousands of years ago when water from melting glacial ice flowed through a large crack in the ice. Glacial melt water carried sand, gravel, and rocks, depsiting them at the base of the crack to form the kame.  To help picture this, imagine how sand flows through and hourglass and creates a rounded pile of sand in the bottom of the hourglass."

I'm thrilled to have everyone home for a few days. Let the festivities begin!

Happy Solstice.

New Leaf

I received some very elegantly packaged materials for a fun new project. Thanks for including me Jan. 

Flashback Friday - the monkey edition

1978 - Indonesia - at a monkey temple.  

I must have had monkey chow in my hands. 

Holiday Sewing

I've been busy with some holiday sewing. I made another Flashback Skinny Tee for miss P and then added a bit of embroidery from Aneela Hoey's Little Stitches. The shirt is made from a thrift store woman's top and I was able to save the neckline and sleeve hems. Yay for quick sewing projects. 

The design was one that P had marked in the book so I'm pretty sure she'll like it. Since this is a knit fabric, I left the interior of the bird free of stitching. I didn't want the fabric to become stiff from the extra stitching.

Miss P has been doing a little holiday sewing of her own.

Now, I must get back to Santa's workshop...

Are you working on any special holiday projects? I'd love to hear about them.

Wordless Wednesday - the Architextures edition

Getting Festive

We put up and decorated our tree two weeks ago but didn't find the icicles with the other tree decorations. P and I went through all the other boxes (there are many boxes) of decorations today and chose some things to put out other places around the house. We STILL have not found the icicles for the tree. I miss the way they twinkle with the air movement in the room.

I wonder where we put that bag last winter when we packed all of the decorations away. It will probably turn up six months from now -  like that Easter egg we found a few weeks ago....

Flashback Friday

1978 Indonesia

Swiss Chard - Rossie Made Me Do It

This week I finished the Rossie Made Me Do It quilt. You may remember that I chose this group of fabrics as a blogger bundle for Pink Castle fabrics. The pattern is from Elizabeth Hartman's Modern Patchwork: 12 Quilts to Take You Beyond the Basics   

I tried my hand at quilting pebbles. I had attempted this before but wasn't happy with the results. On this quilt I quilted the pebbles in the white background fabric. I was having fun with it and not rushing and I think the pebbles turned out pretty good. I have to keep reminding myself not to hurry with the quilting. I'm always happier with the end product when I take my time. 

I really liked the way the colored hexagons seemed to float above the background pebbles or bubbles sort of like lily pads on a pond. In an effort to keep that look I just stitched in the ditch around each triangle piece. 

The binding was a little fussy but also worth the effort. I used straight cut binding strips like always but did inside and outside miters. The inside miters required a little bit of origami-like folding before stitching them down but I love the look.

Here's the whole thing.

And another look at some of those miters.