It’s a big rectangle, with some seaming up the sides to create sleeves. It allows you to fold over the collar any which way and change the look quite a bit (as a side note, every single time I try to type “quite” I do “quilt” first. Ha.)

Excuse the bizzaro look on my face. My neighbour was looking for me and came around the back of the house to find me with the camera propped up on the BBQ taking pictures of myself. She must have thought I had lost my marbles.

I can see that I am going to get lots of use out of this one, particularily when we are all cuddled up on the couch in the winter. We keep the temp really low (68F) to save on heating costs, but it means when you sit still it tends to get really chilly. It will be just like a big hug from Mom! Thanks again Mom, I love it.

The front door of “Copper Ridge” in Cobbly Knob, TN.

Awesome full kitchen

Living room where we spent lots of lazy mornings relaxing.

Nook with water feature (and an antique yarn winder. That gave me a chuckle)

Pool table. It was sooo great to play pool again. It has been much too long. I love pool, and I am not too bad at it. TJ fondly reminded me of the time we went to the pool hall right after we started dating and I smoked him. He was duly impressed. Someday I will have a pool table of my own, someday.

Awesome bedroom with huge windows and giant beams. Seriously, look at the size of these things! They run the full height and length of the house. (also notice the tile on the right? That was the huge jacuzzi tub. In the bedroom).

Everything in the place was logs. It was quite the thing to see. I would definitely go again, maybe in the fall so I could see the colours. We also spent lots of time in the hot tub out on the big wrap around deck, and in the little screened in enclosure.

We did some touristy things, like shopping the outlets and driving the strip. And mini golf – what US destination vacation spot is complete without mini golf?

Adventure themed mini golf at that. I had my first hole in one, so I was in a good mood. We checked out the upside down building thingy too, cause, well, it was pretty neat.

We did a lovely drive on the Arts and Crafts trail, where I got some Alewine pottery and also my first cola in 8 years. And not just any cola, a Vanilla Coke Float, made with real fountain coke and amazing ice cream.

If you are going to do it, do it right!

After the touristy stuff, we really wanted to explore the national park.

We drove some really amazing mountain roads:

saw some incredible views:

and wished that the camera would do them justice.

TJ mentioned before we left for the trip that he remembered swimming in the mountain streams along the roadside of the park . Once that was in my head I was determined to go swimming, no matter how cold that water was. The first day we swam near a pretty waterfall in a well known swimmin’ hole.

The second day we decided to try out this place we had been told about, that was much more remote and farther into the park.

It was absolutely gorgeous. There were literally hundreds of butterflies all over the place. Flying, landing on you, in big clumps on the ground

We did have a very very scary moment though. TJ slipped on a rock and put his hands out to stop himself, and has he did his wedding ring went flying off his hand into the fast moving, very rocky river. We FREAKED out. TJ was shaking, I just kept saying ‘oh my god, oh my god’ over and over again. I managed to sort of block the flow of the river and flatten out the water so we could see, and after too long searching TJ’s eagle eyes spotted it between two rocks. I dove down and got it – I swear I have never gripped something so tight in my hand in my life. The weirdest part? When I went back up to the car to put in, I looked at the time and realized that it was almost 5 years TO THE MINUTE from when we had said our vows. Isn’t that insane? Good omen that we found it I think.

After that we did take some time to relax and calm ourselves down while snapping some more pictures and having a dip.

The next day we went horseback riding, which was my new years resolution for the year – to ride a horse. Horses sort of make me nervous, so I was glad when they put me on Moseby, this completely relaxed former dinner theatre performer. He was great. We rode all around the trail in the national park and had a great time. There also might have been copious amounts of eating on this trip, including a brownie the size of my head. (Thanks Robin for the recommendation to the Park Grill!)

While all of that was amazing, it was truly made perfect by the fact that I shared it all with my hubby. I love you so much! Let’s do it all again next week, k?

The pattern is one I saw somewhere and then made the dimensions for myself. I thought it looked modern without being weird. Do you know what I mean?

The backing was actually the first fabric I picked out, because I knew it would go in the living room well.

Here’s a shot TJ’s Mom took after she got home with it:

The binding is a little tribute to something I learned years ago from my MIL – every room needs a touch of black in it somewhere. I thought it just framed out the quilt nicely, while being a little different from what you normally see.

The quilting is a favourite of mine – circles!

I thought it lent itself well to the geometric shapes of the piecing.

I did label this one, but I have to say that I have still not found a way to label quilts that I like. Does anyone have any suggestions on what they use?

I am still glad that I managed to get both this one and my sister’s quilt done in time to take home with me. Really, I had plenty of time, but it just got away from me, as it often does.

I hope you like it mom and I hope it gets lots of use!

A while back the group of weavers that I meet with once a month socially decided that we would like to start a study group. I was definitely in on this because I really needed something that was going to force me to sit down at my loom and get over my fear of things not working out. So regardless of what we were going to study, I was in. But when I learned that the first thing we were going to cover was colour? I was SO in.

Our first meeting we had a presentation on colour theory. We studied colour harmonies in detail – split complimentary, hexad, triad, double split complimentary and so on. In our second meeting, we decided on a project. We would all pick two colour harmonies, and we a bunch of samples.

Rather than going with subtle colours, I decided to go all out. And I learned SO much from the process! I started by doing a sample for myself, weaving off with all the colours, with black, white, charchoal. I played with how hard I was beating the weft, I figured out how to fix broken warp threads, it was great. Even the moments that we frustrating were great. It has really helped me get my weaving mojo going.

Now I have a couple of projects in my head that I really want to start. I am thinking about messing with the materials that I use for the warp and then washing it – giving lumpy bumpy texture to the piece. And since the summer is almost over and things are beginning to calm down, I might actually have time to sit at the loom! I also need to do our second project for the group, which I will be planning today.

Where do you get your colour inspiration from? Are you someone who works with subtle colours or loves the bold world? Do you like to combine or work in single colour families? Do you use colour different depending on the craft?

Pattern: Rec Center Quilt
Fabric: Various cottons from the shop, demin from Joann’s on the back
Quilting: Wind Swirls (done on Laura‘s machine)

This is designed to be a big picnic quilt, as the backing is demin. Much more durable and stain resistant than a usual cotton backing

I liked the pattern, but I had one problem with it. The instructions have you cut the red sashing strips longer than they are needed and then it has to you trim them after you sew them on. This is done to avoid having to pin a bunch of little tiny pieces, but what I found is that it caused some of my blocks to be slightly out of square. This is a beginner thing I am sure, but I like having that extra chance to square things up when you are adding more pieces. I would make this quilt again, but I would just adjust the cutting of the strips to be shorter. Does that even make sense to anyone?

The wonkiness added to the overall look of the quilt in the end, and I really like how the quilting shows up on it.

The pattern has instructions for an attached strap, but since I wanted my sister and her hubby to be able to use this on the couch without getting scratched by velcro, my strap was just removable.

And with it all rolled (or folded up) I put it in a cool picnic basket thingy instead of a gift bag for delivery to the wedding.

My sister called the day after the wedding to say that she loved it. I hope they get lots of use out of it! I would love to see it years down the line all worn in and loved.

I wish them both many years of happiness!

Pattern: Umbilical Cord Hat
Yarn: Berroco Comfort

I just love these little hats. They are so easy to make, but they really look cute on wee one’s.

I made a card to go with this one too:

Ah, sheep. I hope she likes it!

Pattern: Burnished Leaves Cowl
Yarn: Unplanned Peacock Sport, about 0.7 balls.

This yarn is soft but durable, and feels wonderful around my neck.

I think it has just the right texture for showing off the lacey leaf pattern.

I have some fingering weight in the stash as well, and I am thinking of making some gloves to match. I think they will go well with my white winter coat.

As usual, when the photo shoot involves my sweetie behind the camera, laughter ensues. I am looking forward to cooler temps so I can try it out without sweating.

Pattern: Ariosa Wrap Cardi (Rav Link)
Yarn: Cascade Eco Wool
Needles: US 9

This is a great little pattern that works up so quickly in the bulky yarn. While I have a bunch of Eco Wool in my stash, I had never used it before. Definitely loving on the Eco. It is soft without being too soft, and not fluffy or splitty at all. I can see why it is the most popular yarn at the shop.

I generally do not knit a lot of large gauge projects, because I think sometimes they can make my feel a little “teddy bear-esque”. But the difference with this pattern is the lace repeats. It makes it look pretty and feminine, and keeps it cooler. I love the little teeny cap sleeves too.

The bow is just a fun accent, but it could be easily worn with a shawl pin too. I think I will get lots of use out of this in the early fall. Right now it is displayed at the shop if anyone would like to have a look.

I used some Moda Freebird fabric from the shop that has a pretty brown and black pattern on it. It was a super easy and really quick pattern to make, but I love the little details it has.

The pleats both in the front and the back give it a playful and moveable look.

I am wearing it here with some capris, but I am looking forward to wearing it in the fall with some of my skinnier jeans. You could wear it without bottoms, but for myself I would need to add a few inches of length.

I will definitely make this one again. I think the next one will be the shorter length though, and maybe with the gathered sleeves.

Pinwheels, 4 in 9, saw tooth star, HST’s and borders. That is a lot of knowledge learned in one set of quilting classes. When we were finished making this one, I had a lot of bits and pieces left over. I decided to make another quilt to use up what was left, while trying not to cut any new fabric.

This is what I managed to come up with, and I only had to cut additional fabric for the borders. I really like the strong diagonals made by the 4 in 9 blocks.

For the back I used up the strips I had left from the 4 in 9′s to make some more interesting diagonals.

One of my favourite things about this quilt though is the little brown strip between the border and the blocks. It is a folded over piece, so it is actually only attached one side. Sort of like a little flap (there is probably a proper name for this, but I don’t know what it is).

Because of this little flap I could not do edge to edge quilting on Laura’s Statler, so I did separate borders and individual blocks.

I did a different quilting for each block. Some daisy blocks, some leaves – generally florally. You can see more of the quilting if you click on the picture of the back of the quilt above.

I was really happy to be able to use up so many of the pieces that were leftover from the first quilt. My first foray into somewhat scrappy quilting.