Grandma Alert

Off to Reno this weekend to give these baby booties to my son and daughter-in-law. 

Trying to restrain myself to making one baby item a month. (and not overwhelm the parents with an out of control grandmother).

Chalk Bag Number 2

 I made a chalk bag for my son's girlfriend. Her request, via my son, was for a Hawaiian-style fabric.

***UPDATE on missing christmas package at bottom of post.

I didn't quite get this done in time to ship (hallalujah! see two previous posts on The Missing Package). I was also sick most of December, finishing out my year with a bad case of bronchitis and flu (and the usual forced overtime which didn't help).

I had made one before in 2010 (!) for my son and the link to the tutorial had broken so I spent most  of November searching for another pattern.

Thankfully, someone else had saved the original tutorial that I liked, and this time, I printed it out to save. The internet is so capricious.

Anyway, most chalk bags patterns are round cylinders with a round bottom. This one is more ovoid-shaped with a gusset. It's narrower because of the gusset. It sits closer to the body.

Oh - for those who don't rock-climb or do gymnastics -- the chalk bag hangs from your climbing belt. You can dip your hand in to chalk up so you don't slip as much. Especially useful in rock climbing gyms. The inner bag cinches up tight to keep the chalk inside of the bag when in storage.

The Happy Face cord lock was bought in Japan

Fortunately, the son and girlfriend drove home for New Year's and I was able to present this, in person, to the girlfriend who wins the very appreciative award. 

I love giving handmade but the properly appreciative recipients get more.

This is the one I made my son, 7 years ago.




These chalk bags are pretty easy to sew - I can get one done in an hour. They require some specialty parts - elastic cording, sturdy grosgrain belting/ribbon, tie strap or something similar.
I saw some newish inspiration while searching for a tutorial online of making them with anime features. Gets  my mind percolating.



***Update on missing Christmas Package. Thursday afternoon we heard some (excuses) words about the parcel lockers. "They appear to have been tampered with."  They did find a package addressed to ds from a while ago. They didn't say from whom.

My question is WHY have no parcel locker keys been given out? And, if someone is tampering with the parcel lockers, why is a package mailed more than two months ago  - not taken? Not given a key either?
Why did it take three weeks to get to this point?

We are still awaiting word on this "Launching a big investigation."

uh-huh.
I read this to mean I will have to go through the claim process to get $50 out of USPS. (priority comes with automatic $50)  --- To buy more fabric and re-make.
On a good note, ds put an offer on a house this week so we won't have to deal with apartment package delivery anymore.

The Missing Gift, Part 2

Supposedly this gift to my son is in a parcel locker at his apartment complex. The postmaster geo-tracked it, it must be so.

We are still in 'negotiations' to get the postmaster to get off his duff and go open the parcel lockers.

My sister also sent ds a christmas package and it too is in a parcel locker.

We blame everything on Lester.

Lester is a postal worker who threw everyone's packages into lockers and is holding the keys hostage.
We might be making that up. maybe. Not the Lester part. Who names their kids Lester nowadays?

After ascertaining that the package(s) are in the parcel lockers, the son's girlfriend actually got home in time to meet Lester. He threw all the keys on the ground amidst serious grumblings and moanings and basically refused to find the package.

Then ds met two newish postal carriers on another day who tried to open what lockers they could. They didn't have all the keys.

What keeps us hopeful on this 9th day of January is that two packages for my son are in there. Not just mine. With the handmade quilt. But my sister's (his auntie) as well.

In my despairing moments, someone else got the locker key and is now in possession of beautiful handmade gifts.

We are still negotiating with the local post office for the release of our packages.

Inside were another of my handmade gifts this year. Both my kids are amazing Instagram photographers. I took their photos and printed them and then attached them with double-sided tape to quality A4 paper and made notecards for everyone.

L to R: Bridge in Nevada, Yosemite, Seward, AK hwy. Top left is Mt Jefferson Wilderness

 Another image I printed: My daughter in our Stearman biplane.

 My niece in Glacier National Park.

My kids still write letters. My mom was a noted letter writer (haha - pun!)

These are all gifts I can re-create.

My UPS package arrived safely to my son but we have had trouble with the post office at this apt complex. I probably will utilize UPS in the future.

The Gift That Went Missing

Wonder clips holding binding in place. While it was foggy outside, it wasn't raining on this sunday for a photo shoot. I work during daylight hours, so this was my opportunity to get the whole quilt photographed.

 I made a quilt for my son and his girlfriend. A huge gingham style flannel throw.

A while back, he sent me a photo of their living room and the used rug his girlfriend had just bought on ebay.
A few days later, I saw my inspiration quilt over at SOTAK's site and I started planning a quilt.

What could go wrong?

Other than the fact that I don't quilt. ahem.

I carefully worked out the yardage and then grabbed Pencil Girl for a Fabric Depot visit.
We found the gingham colors of black, grey and white right away. The backing fabric in a deep red was easily located as well.
But then it took an hour and a half to decide on the binding fabric.
(this is number one of my reasons for why I don't quilt - endless fabric decisions that take hours).

Pencil Girl saved me by reminding me there isn't an even amount of squares of each color. We had to find an actual gingham and pen out a mini-map of the squares.

Then I washed  my flannels - cuz they shrink. Even though they were quilter's flannels, they still shrunk and not in the same way.

I cut my first squares with no problem. The 2nd fabric wasn't long enough to yield the same squares because the stupid fabric shrunk widthwise instead of lengthwise.

I left plenty of time for this quilt . I started it in October for a christmas finish knowing how busy I am during the holiday season at work.

This super easy large-block quilt required way too many overnight decisions. I decided to piece my squares on the 2nd and 3rd colors to get the right amount instead of going back to the store and hoping they still had the same fabrics.

It's flannel and no one would notice.

Uhhh...did I mention that flannel stretches? Each time I handled it, or ironed the seams flat, it stretched. It was a fun party attempting to get my squares to line up as I sewed the rows together.

 I wanted to add a small gingham motif to the backing to break it up but because of the afore-mentioned piecing of the squares, I barely had enough scraps to create a smallish motif.

I thought I had pieced my backing to the same size as the front. 70 inches x 70 inches across for a square quilt. But I didn't.

More overnight decisions. It's coming on Thanksgiving and I need to be further along on this project.
I decided a square throw is over-rated and decided to lop off one column of the gingham. Each square is 10" wide. So now my throw will be 60" wide x 70" tall. Better all around.

I finally get my quilt sandwich together and because of the stretching I encountered while piecing, I decide to hand-quilt this puppy. Machine quilting would probably result in wonky and wrinkly on the other side.

The hand-quilting went very well - probably the only thing in this darn quilt that did. I was contemplating stitching on both sides of the seams but it's flannel and there's enough nap to hold the fabric layers stable.    And the christmas time-crunch.

 I used a sashiko stitch which is really just a running stitch but a tad more refined.
For instance, in sashiko, you don't meet at intersections. There's a little space left in the middle, by design.

 For the binding, I used pillow ticking fabric to recreate the stripe
This fabric behaved as expected.

I hand-stitched the binding down. I zig-zagged my edges of the quilt to compress the layers.  I machine-sewed one side of the binding down and then folded it over to hand-stitch and finish.

And got it finished in time to ship to ds and girlfriend to arrive before christmas. Which  the tracking showed it did.

But it didn't.
Stay tuned for part two of why I don't quilt.

Another Super Quick Christmas Gift

 A Portland Timbers Soccer Team Pillow.
Done as a no-sew fleece cover.

 I had a 20" Ikea pillow form - which is not lofty enough folks. Instead, I used a pillow form from a garage sale acquired pillow that was fuller.

To begin with, I bought enough polar fleece fabric to cover the pillow with fringe.
20" plus 3" fringe all around. 20 + 3 + 3 = 26". Fleece is generally 60" wide. I bought 27" aka 3/4 yard and had enough to cover one pillow.

I squared up my two pillow sides (back and front) and started cutting my fringe. 1 1/4" wide snipping 3 inches in. I used tape to make my snips even.

Then I folded one fringette back and snipped a small hole in the middle of the four layers and fed the end of the fringette through, thus securing it.

 When you have three sides done, slip your pillow form inside. If you need to cut more to tighten up the cover, this is your chance. Mine was fine and I continued flipping the end of the fringettes through the small slits.

 Twenty minutes. Promise. Easy peasy.

And off it went, mailed to Alaska and the only Portland Timbers Soccer team fan up in the far north.

Easter Basket

I needed a fast gift for Easter.
To hold all the candy.

I turned to my clothesline and 45 minutes later  --Ta Da!
Very satisfying craft.

 I went with pink and purple threads. I wanted the basket to be big enough to hold the candy and tried a racetrack oval for the bottom with success.

I switched out thread and bobbins several times to get the striping and then I wanted the beefy handles at the end - utilizing three rows of clothesline. 

I use my wonder clips to mark the start and end of the handles and eyeball it to make sure they are evenly sized. For this, I find using the white/natural color thread to be useful. If you make one handle super gigantic, it's easy to sew it down more to match without anyone knowing.

I finished it with a swirl and hand-tacked the swirl down. Very nice work.

  We are taking easter dinner over to the sister who is deeply depressed. We're trying for a group - en masse - all six of us - effect.  No pressure - just doing what you do - on Easter.

This will be supportive without being threatening.

I've got a spiral ham and scalloped potatoes in the oven warming up. A pretty tablecloth and napkins, some flowers, and some easter candy for the nephew. 

My pretty tulips despite the daily drizzle. We're all whining about no sun here. Although, I am glad we are not moving house in the daily drizzle (Like someone I know) and this type of winter weather only comes around every ten years or so.

Happy Easter everyone.