My vintage apron, all splattered with strawberries!

Pink binding with brown quilting:

Orange binding with green quilting:

Teal binding with white quilting:

These were a real effort in stash quilting. Everything but the batting came from my stash. Which is why each one has a different color of binding and different color of quilting. I used up so much random thread making these quilts!

Each one is about 55″ wide (the width of the front fabric) by about 65″ long. The quilting was free motion, and I was really happy about 1) how it turned out and 2) how quickly I was able to execute the design! And in the end I’m really happy that I didn’t have any fabrics for the bindings that actually matched, because I love the random bright colors of these bindings.

Between these three quilts and the two others I recently finished, I probably have homes for three of them. Anything that I can’t find someone I know to take will be donated to charity.

I’m super happy to have finished all of these so quickly! I’ve also finally gotten all the needles for the sweater project and cast on. I wonder how long that project will take!

It may be a little quiet around here for the next few weeks. Just warning you. I have a second job interview coming up that will involve an entire day with dinner and I will be required to give a presentation on a topic provided by them. And shortly after that I am planning a week-long trip to Kentucky to visit family. But I will be taking my computer on the trip, so, who knows, maybe I’ll blog from there!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

After browsing the jacket cover, I decided I would like to read this book, but I was also really attracted to the cover art itself. Then I was browsing my “to-read” list over on Goodreads recently and this cover really stood out from the crowd. I realized that it has a very similar style to artwork that I saw when I was in Vietnam.

This is the reproduction propaganda poster on rice paper that we bought in Hoi An on the last trip. We have this hanging in the living room. It says “Water is silver. Rice is gold.” I love the bold and basic color palette and the big blocks of color. Very similar to the book cover above, though the book cover’s color palette is a little less primary.

And these are photographs of a bunch of propaganda posters that I saw on the streets of Vietnam (many in Hanoi, which this book is apparently about).

I love that this book cover is so true to the style of popular art that you actually see in the place where the book is set. And, incidentally, wouldn’t this be a great color palette for a quilt??

(Incidentally, this cover art was designed by Terri Nimmo, who is a book designer for Random House.)

For which I bought this yarn at Stitches West 2012?

I’m finally getting started on this project!

Step one: wind yarn into balls (one of which is smaller because I’d already done step 2 by the time I took this picture).

Step two: gauge swatch.

This pattern unfortunately calls for 5 different needles in three different sizes (the others are different lengths). I usually knit really tightly, so I started by swatching the larger needle I would need, one size up. It called for a 6 and I tried 7. This looked pretty good.

I use a technique I read in my Little Red in the City book for keeping track of gauge swatches. When doing stockinette stitch like this, you just put in a few purl bumps in one row that equal the size of your needle. So, there are 7 purl bumps where the arrow is above, because I was using a size 7 needle. Cool, huh?

I started a size up for the smaller needle as well (called for a 4 so I tried a 5), but this was clearly too big, so I switched to 4′s, which look to be perfect, for some unknown reason. On this swatch there are two rows of bumps. Everything above the 5-bump row was done with size 5 needles, and below that was the size 4 needles.

Step 3: Plan for alternating skeins.

I have never had to alternate skeins before unless I was changing colors. But this is hand-dyed yarn and a whole sweater, and I don’t want it to look patchy. And if you can’t tell from the photos above, one of these skeins is obviously lighter than the others. So, I did a bunch of research on Ravelry, and decided that since I’m knitting flat, it would work best and look best to alternate three skeins. Problem was that I have four skeins, and I didn’t want one left at the end without anything to alternate it with.

So, I devised this plan.

I’ll start with balls A, B, and C, and knit until the balls are about 1/3 gone. I can determine that using my kitchen scale. Then I’ll switch to using balls B, C, and D until all the balls are (another) 1/3 gone. Then I’ll switch to using balls C, D, and A. At this point, I will have basically used up ball C. I will then switch to using the last 1/3 of D, B, and A. I actually think this will work!

Unfortunately, after swatching and buying needles, I have decided that I am still short one pair for making this sweater. And of course it’s the ones I need to do the cast on. But I’m ready to get started once I get that pair of needles!

I DID manage to finish the bindings on all those quilts, which means I owe you pictures of the last three still. Sadly, it has been too windy to get photos. And today it’s just yucky. I’ll have them soon, I hope! And then I’ll be finding them homes. I have some possible takers for a couple of them already!

On the job front, that video-Skype interview I had? Well, I have been asked back for a day of in-person interviewing, followed by dinner. The date has not yet been set, but I was asked for my availability in May and June, so the process will not be lightening fast. But I’m excited!

Also, I thought I’d let you know that the Bobbin’s Nest is having a HUGE Warehouse Moving SALE! Details are on the home page, but basically, every single thing – yarn, fabric, needles, notions, patterns, pinking shears – is on sale!! And the more you buy, the more you save, up to 40% off your ENTIRE purchase!!

And, as you can see from the pictures at the top of the post, I haven’t been working a lot on making nine-patch blocks, but every once in a while I do get one made!

So, this week I started off by making the Spring Sandwich again. Though I forgot to toast the bread. Still tasty and super easy to make!

Then I made Green Lentils, Asparagus, and Watercress from the lovely Plenty, by Yotam Ottolenghi. Those are chunks of pecorino romano cheese on top.

I have never been a person that liked beans, except for green beans. And I do like edamame these days. But I don’t like what I think of as more traditional beans, like kidney beans. Which is why I generally think chili is disgusting. But I digress. And since I also don’t like nuts, it makes it hard to come up with vegetarian dishes with a little protein in them, unless I eat a load of tofu (meh). But lentils. Lentils may be a kind of gateway drug. I have twice recently made moong dal as part of the big Indian feast, but I’d never made any other kind of lentils. And friends, I definitely liked this!

As a bonus, this dish seems to be good both cold and reheated. I tasted it cold last night and thought it was fine, but opted to reheat it with a little leftover rice and it was yummy that way too!

Also in the lineup for this week is another recipe from Plenty, the Asparagus Mimosa, though it looks like more of an appetizer/salad type of dish and less of an entire meal. Similar in a way to the sandwiches, but with boiled egg and capers (something else I’ve never bought before!).

And to round out the week (if I need it – the lentil dish may last much longer than I had planned, especially with the leftover rice!), some potato leek soup, maybe with some quickie (Jiffy) corn muffins made with last bit of buttermilk in the fridge.

Hope you are all eating well this week too!

I finally have photos for you! These are the first two of my stash quilts I’ve been making. I think they turned out really well! They are nearly identical. Each is made from a single piece of 55″ wide fabric from IKEA that I had in my stash.

The backings are made from some grey fabric I had in my stash as well. Above is the first quilt, for which I used a dark grey binding fabric. On the second quilt below I used a light grey binding fabric. It’s what I happened to have enough of in my stash!

The quilting was actually done with a regular walking foot, not a free motion foot. I was able to do this because the flowers I was quilting around were so ridiculously big. In fact, I don’t think free motion would have worked well on these because the design was really TOO big for that. The finished sizes of these quilts is around 55″ x 75″. I plan to give these quilts away either to friends or to charity.

And the other three stash quilts I’m assembly-lining right now? I DID get the bindings all made and attached to the quilts on Friday and I’ve been working on hand sewing them to the back sides, in between working up another resume/cover letter version to send out for yet another job posting! Hopefully I’ll get those finished and photos to you a little more quickly than I did these!

Unbelievably, I am making really fast progress on my stash quilt project. I finished the first two (when was that? last week? and still no photos) and started on the other three this week, assembly-line fashion. Wednesday I pin-basted all three of them, and yesterday I got them all quilted. See photo above for proof of quilting.

My plan is get the binding made and attached to the fronts by the end of the weekend. Ideally, I’d like to get that done today, but I’m not sure how my day is going to work out yet. If I get that done today, then I’d like to get most of the hand sewing on the binding done over the weekend. But I’m trying not to set my bar too high. I’d rather be pleasantly surprised than disappointed!

I hope your weekends are just ducky!!

What’s up with all of you? I don’t have anything major to report today. At least not with photos.

I finished the two stash quilts I was working on and I’ve started the other three, but I have not been able to get any photos. But I’m very excited about the progress I’ve made on those quilts. Looks like I might actually be able to get them all done. I know I’ve only just assembled the backs for the other three and cut the pieces for the tops, but getting started is often the hardest part in my opinion!

On the food front, we had a lovely dinner tonight – Spring Sandwich: Boiled Egg, Seared Asparagus, and Pickled Onion. The perfect thing to have during the brief asparagus season in the spring. I only wish asparagus stayed in season longer so I could make this in the middle of the summer when I don’t want to generate any (more) heat in my kitchen. I toasted the bread in the toaster (and could skip that), boiled eggs (which I could do really early when it isn’t sweltering in my kitchen yet), and seared asparagus (which I did in a skillet for maybe 5 minutes, but could easily be done outside on a grill as well). Very yummy!

You may also be wondering what the photo is about. It’s my latest drink. A while back someone gave us a big bag of lemons. People do that in California, because they have lemon trees in their yards and don’t know what to do with all the lemons. Anyhow, we juiced a bunch of them and I saved them as 1 tbsp aliquots in ice cube trays.

Fast forward to now and I am needing an alternative to my usual hot tea, and plain water seems so dull. Then I had the idea to just put a lemon cube in a glass of water. It gives the water a little pizzazz and cools it down just a touch (I generally like my drinks around room temperature – never iced down). It’s perfect!

The last question I got asked at the interview? “Are those quilts that you made behind you on the wall?”

Why, yes, yes they are!