Quilted Kindle Pouch

It occurred to me that I hadn't posted that the instructions on how to make a Quilted Kindle Pouch are now available. That's what happens to the brain when it is overloaded.

Anyway, if you would like to make a pouch for your Kindle, or they can even be used for anything, really!!!, you'll find the tutorial for this and other great free projects at Three Creative Studios. Click on the "free projects" link and you'll see many great things to keep you very busy.

Progress on #4

I've been working almost every day on this quilt and now have the quilt top completed. It's ready to layer into a quilt sandwich and start quilting. I need to see if I have a backing fabric that will work and in the right yardage. If not, there will be a trip to the quilt shop. I'm pretty sure I have enough batting. I also need to think about thread color for quilting the background. Oh so many decisions!

I'm also still knitting scarves and the latest count is 20. I definitely don't need that many for gifts for Christmas, so either I have a lot of scarves for myself or I will stash them for when I do need a gift for someone.

I want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and would like to give my thanks to those of you who stop by here to read my blog and leave comments. May you all be safe, healthy, happy and have full tummies.

Growin' Tulips

I finished stitching the binding last evening on Growin' Tulips. At this point I am declaring it finished even though I don't have a label or hanging sleeve on it yet. I'll do that later.

Here is detail on how I quilted the bottom border.

And now I've got quilt #4 in the series started and up on the design wall for background option consideration. I have decided on my purple flower fabrics and in this quilt the panels will be staggered with a border section added at the tops and bottoms. All I need to decide yet is if I want the background gradient to be flipped around like this photo.

Or do I want the background gradient to have the blue side up in all panels. Oh the decisions!

Pile of Scarves

The scarf pile is getting bigger. That's a good thing as I'm not quite at the number I need for gifts yet, and each new one I make is my latest favorite and I don't know if I'll be able to part with them. Makes me wonder why I've waited this long to make them. Silly me!

Here is the latest new yarn off the spinning wheel. I am unable to spin for long periods of time as the process is very fatiguing on my hands and while I've been tested for carpel tunnel and found not to have it, I just can't do some things without lots of aches and pains. So it takes me a while to create one skein of yarn. I very much enjoy spinning and wish I could do it more often and for longer time frames. Sigh!

I also wanted to let you all know that I'm having a holiday sale in my etsy shop. All items are on sale at 10% off (discounts will be refunded after checking out with Paypal). The sale will expire on December 25. AND....if you are a subscriber to the Three Creative Studios newsletter, you will see a second special offer by me in my etsy shop. The next newsletter is due out on November 16 (only two days away). If you aren't a subscriber, it's easy to become one. Click here to sign up.

Also, be sure to check out Vicki's fabric sale....it's fabulous!!!

Quilting Frenzy

I've been quilting like crazy this week and I'm almost done with this quilt...Growin' Tulips. Today I'm finishing up the quilting on the bottom border.

I finished this quilt...Growin' Poppies, this week too. I have the binding all done and I just hung it up on my design wall for now. I need to get it blocked.

Did you notice that blue ribbon hanging on the design wall in the photo above? It's made of fabric, very cute. Anyway, I won that in the local quilt show last weekend for the following quilt, Growin' Posies....which you may recall I shared with you a few months ago.

These three quilts are part of my Growin' Flowers series and I have one more planned at this time. And who knows, maybe a fifth version will pop into my head at some point. I've had inquiries about the patterns for these quilts and I am in the process of writing up the patterns for publication. I'm hoping to have them ready by the first of the year. Sooner if I'm lucky, but with the holidays approaching that may not happen.

All of these quilts feature background gradient fabrics by Vicki Welsh. Vicki's fabrics are so gorgeous, the colors are so fun to work with. She sells her fabrics in her etsy shop.

Knitting Progress

I'm still knitting scarves. I've been working on these in the evenings while sitting with hubby in front of the TV. I've got the fifth scarf started. I really like knitting with the large knitting needles.

All of these scarves include yarns that I spun myself...along with some novelty yarns mixed in. I really enjoy knitting with my hand spun yarns and making the yarn into scarves is perfect since the hand spun yarns aren't enough for a large project. I've even gotten inspired to start spinning again. My spinning wheel was collecting some dust and I actually think the last time I used it was last winter. Here is what I am currently spinning.

Poppy Quilt Almost Done

I set aside the orange and blue tulip quilt because I ran out of bobbin thread and need to go pick some up. In the meantime, I've returned to quilting on the red poppy quilt that has been up on my design wall for a few weeks. I shared a full view of this quilt here.

I had all of the background quilted but was having trouble deciding on what quilting design I wanted to do on the red flowers. I finally decided and got going. The design you see on the flowers is my variation of one I found on an excellent free-motion quilting blog found here. I also incorporated this design into the border. As I write this post, I have one side border finished and have one left and then it's completely quilted.

You can sort of see the leaf and stem design I quilted into the background here.

I hope you can see the quilting lines. I was having trouble taking photos that would show them.

My New Toy

I love to read and when my friend Sue told me about her new kindle from Amazon.com, well I knew I wanted one too. It's a pretty cool device and my hubby loves it because when I read before falling asleep at night I don't have to have the lamp on, or what hubby refers to as "the beacon".

I told hubby all the good things about having one of these...less trees being cut down (he's an avid tree lover and plants at least 50 young trees every year), less noise when flipping pages while he's trying to fall asleep, and of course the light (beacon) issue.

So he bought me one for Christmas. And of course we are the type of folk who say "Why wait until Christmas?"

I've been enjoying my new kindle very much and there are some added bonuses to it besides those I listed above. I love that I don't have to try and hold the book open if I'm doing something, like eating a meal. I love how it remembers exactly where I left off when I turn it back on. And I love how long the battery power lasts. I did purchase a book light for it which I use when reading in bed and hubby is as happy as can be.

But, one thing I wanted for it was some protection when I want to toss it into my handbag to take with to run errands or go to appointments. I didn't want it just floating around in my purse getting scratched up. So I created a kindle pouch or sleeve. Okay, so I made more than one.

I made these last week and they should do the job of protecting my kindle perfectly.

I'm writing up a tutorial for the pouch, in case you'd like to make one too. Watch this space or watch for the announcement in the Three Creative Studios newsletter.

Edited 11/24/10: You can find the Quilted Kindle Pouch tutorial on the Free Projects page at Three Creative Studios here.

That Time of Year

Every year, around this time, I get the niggling to do something with yarn. Usually it's knitting. I know how to crochet and I am more experienced at crochet than I am at knitting, probably because I've crocheted for years. I've crocheted many things, from small blankets to lace doilies...but knitting intrigues me more. Perhaps it's a need to conquer it, or perhaps not. Anyway, I pulled out the yarns and the needles and started a scarf.

I'm thinking scarves just may be Christmas gifts this year. We'll see. I had been knitting on the beginnings of a cardigan, but that has sort of been set aside for now.

P'Tina

Today is reveal day over on the Twelve by Twelve blog. Our color scheme this round was called Rusty, which included rusty colors along with blue/green patina. I was the one to choose the color scheme this time.

I've named my rusty kitty P'Tina and she is romping in the flower garden. Hop on over to the group blog to see all the great Rusty quilts.