Winter Projects, Part 5 - The Rest...

Besides the previously described projects, I am also currently working on painting the inside of our house, a few gifts that are secrets at this point, scrapbooks, and several other small projects. There are always several things that I can pick up at any point and work on, if the mood strikes. I love to have projects going, and usually have at least a few unfinished projects at any given time. But for now, that's about it. I guess I'd better think of something else to start blogging about, eh?

Parker's newly-painted blue room (my project this past week,

along with painting our bathroom)

Winter Projects, Part 4 - Placemats

Another thing I've recently decided to make is some placemats. The kids have their plastic placemats, but we don't have anything pretty to make the table look nicer. So, I am making reversible placemats. Like most of my projects, they are not finished yet, but the fabric is cut. I just need to get some batting (for many of my projects) and sew them up. I am also making a few more sets of placemats for gifts.

Winter Projects, Part 3 - knitting

I love to crochet! It is so relaxing, and even therapeutic. And I've made some neat things. But there are some things that are just better knitted, so I decided that I wanted to learn to knit. I looked up a few "how-to" videos on YouTube, and began my journey. At first it was incredibly frustrating. I just couldn't seem to do it right! But then I practiced a little more, and got a few pointers from my mom. I have only knitted a few rows, and it's really slow-going, but I think I am getting the hang of it. I still can't say that I love to knit (or that I'm very good at it), but I am going to continue to try for a while, and I just may change my mind. Now to figure out something I want to make, using my new-found knitting knowledge!

This is my practice knitting so far

Winter Projects, Part 2 - Apple Core Quilts

I am not a quilter. I would love to be, but thus far in my life I am not. Yes, I have made "quilts," but they just consisted of squares of fabric machine-sewn together, with batting and a backing fabric, and then yarn tied in each square to hold the batting in place. My grandma makes beautiful quilts. She makes them for each couple in our family who gets married, and for each baby born. And now my mom also quilts. And her quilts are fabulous, too. Quilting has always been on my "someday goals" list, but this winter I decided I might as well start now. So I am making two quilts - one for each of my kids. I am using only scraps from things that I've made for my kids, such as jammy pants, curtains, pillowcases, etc. I am using the "Apple Core" pattern, which technically is not supposed to have any repeated fabrics. However, some of my fabrics I am using twice in each quilt. Because I use so little of each fabric, it will take my a long time (probably years) to accumulate enough fabric scraps to make two quilts. So this will be an ongoing project for some years to come. I plan on doing all hand-stitching, which will also take me a very long time. So far I have just gathered my scraps, ironed them, and cut a few pieces out. But it's a start!

The scraps that I have so far...

A couple of the pieces that I've cut out

The first two pieces I've stitched together (although if you look closely, you'll see that they're not centered very well - this was just a practice - so I will take out the stitches and do them over)

Winter Projects, Part 1 - T-shirt Quilt

I like to do crafts. All kinds of crafts. Sewing, card-making, scrapbooking, crocheting, beading, you name it. And winter-time is the perfect time for crafting. Especially January and February. All the busy-ness of Christmas is over, yet it's still too cold to spend a lot of time outdoors. So usually in January I start several new craft projects. This year I think I've started more projects than usual, and so I thought I'd spend a few days explaining each one.

Jared and I have lots of t-shirts that we no longer wear (mainly staff shirts from our previous camp, but some others as well). We decided that we wanted to purge our dresser drawers, but we didn't want to throw away the shirts. So I decided to make a t-shirt quilt. I cut squares from each of the shirts that we didn't want anymore, and sewed them together to make a blanket. At this point I'm done sewing the top, but I need to purchase some batting and a backing fabric, and then finish the blanket. But here is the top: