cozy-wozy

Apparently late 2011/early 2012 is the time of the blanket for me.

I started this while I was away over the holidays, and it’s been growing ever since I got back. The pattern is the Hourglass Throw, which looks complicated, but is actually fairly easy to remember after the first repeat or so (I don’t have it memorized, but I’m at the ‘quick glances at the chart’ stage). I’m using Custom Woolen Mills Mule Spinner 2-ply, which is the sheepiest yarn I’ve ever worked with, in the best possible way.

finally!

Snow! I don’t have time to play in it today, but I sort of wish that I did.

sewing?

So, one of the things on my Crafty To-Do List has always been to make myself a quilt. A proper, double-bed sized one, that I can use to sleep under in the spring and fall, when my big duvet is too warm.

But I’ve always been intimidated by the idea of making one – I have grown used to knitting, where mistakes can be ripped out with virtually no consequences (except more knitting), and the idea of cutting fabric and then sewing it and not being able to start over entirely if something goes wrong is a bit scary.

So I came up with a plan: last Christmas, (as in, 2010) I bought some ridiculous, deeply-discounted, oh-god-this-fabric-is-vomiting-Christmas fat quarters, with the idea of using them to make a practice quilt. The sort of quilt where, if something went horribly wrong, it would not be a big deal.

I put the top for this together in, quite literally, an evening. It’s little – 36″ by 36″ – made from six fat quarters. I sat down with my square ruler and cut the fabric into squares that were the size of the ruler, then arranged them in a pleasing fashion and seamed everything. And things turned out okay! (Also: sewing is so fast you guys, I always forget.

I brought it with me over the holidays, with the goal of finding a shop that sold backing fabric and batting, and learning to quilt by hand.

Turns out, hand quilting is kind of really, really fun.

I’m not so much in love with the process of sewing the quilt top – I don’t like having to sit at the sewing machine, and I’m still at a skill level where I find cutting fabric and working to patterns kind of intimidating.

But hand-quilting, like tiny hexagons, is something I can get behind. It’s repetitive and straightforward, and the basic technique of it isn’t very challenging. I love the look of it, and I can do it while I sit on the couch with the TV on. There is nothing not awesome there.

Anyway.

All of this is a very long way of explaining that I’ve worked through my issues with sewing for quilts, and made a much bigger quilt top.

I also figured out how to lay it out to sandwich the backing and batting together with the top (in my apartment, finding that much space is a big deal, and involves moving furniture) and that’s why my couch is covered in a half-finished quilt.

I’m very sorry.

It won’t happen again.