From Mr. A - Did you Marry a Crafter?

Tickled pink at having been featured here back in July, my sweet husband has been trying to find other ways to make an appearance. He recently showed me a top 10 (well top 12) list he's been compiling since July. I thought the list was hilarious and I figured it was worth sharing so here you go!

12 signs you've Married a Crafter

1. Nondescript packages arrive at your door from companies with the words "designer, love, asylum, and loopy" in their names. You sign for them without thinking twice.
2. The local postman comes to the door and makes a comment about having "yet another package" for your spouse.
3. You've spent the night on the guest bed (or couch) because the master bed is being used to perfect a quilt layout or to block the latest knitting project.
4. When your spouse asks you if you want to go to a baseball game, you know a Stitch n' Pitch must be coming up.
5. You've had to pause your date night movie to deal with a crafting emergency.
6. You've opened your closet and been attacked by falling yarn, fabric, batting, and ribbon. Upon hearing the commotion, your spouse runs to see if you broke any of the craft stuff.
7. Your vacation destinations are approved based on their proximity to crafty points of interest (shops, museums, exhibits).
8. You've learned never to ask "what do you plan to do with all of this yarn?" and avoid suggesting "maybe you should give some of this to Goodwill".
9. You know that when your spouse says "I'm planning to stipple this quilt" that it's time to pack up the dog/children and head to the cottage for a week.
10. Upon learning that your spouse just acquired 8 balls of yarn, 2 cross stitch patterns, 60 skeins of embroidery floss and 15 yards of fabric you think to yourself "that's all?"
11. You've had to do the kitchen-limbo to get to the fridge because the loom is being warped.
12. You carry the TSA list of prohibited items with you when you travel to show airport security staff that your spouse can indeed bring her favourite embroidery scissors, her sewing machine and her knitting needles on the plane.

From K - Craft Room Reveal (Part 3 - Design Wall)

Welcome back to the third and final episode of my mini craft room reveal. The last and final wall of my craft room is the wall that has me most excited... why you ask? because it's a ginormous design wall of course (emphasis on gi-nor-mous)!

When you first walk into our new craft / sewing space, this is your typical first glimpse of the room:

You'll notice that two of the walls are pretty bland, and pretty white... but that's all to ensure that the main feature of the room is always ever changing, and consistently remains the main feature. Right now that wall is looking a little something like this:

Look progress on my first of two Ghanian wax print quilts! But I digress... so back to the topic at hand.

This design wall has been a work in progress for some time now. I am fortunate to have an amazingly handy husband and he took some serious time planning this sucker out to make it just right. It didn't always look like this... actually to be quite frank, it looked a lot like this for some time:

The hubs used a combination of three foam insulation boards, two sheets of white laminate, and some remnant wood to create two portable 6.5' x 4' foot design panels (6.5' x 8' feet when combined). Each design panel is hung using hardware found at a local hardware store, and the panels can be moved about using handles that are attached to the outside edges.

  

Undoubtedly my favorite aspect of this design wall thought is that it's multifunctional! When I hang the board batting side out, I can lay out a project. If I hang the panels laminate side out I can spray baste a quilt, and if I lay the panels out on the ground, I can use the laminate side to pin baste on (saving our hardwood floors from future scratches).

Because our walls are near white right now, the back of my design board doesn't show up prominently, but here is a peek to settle your curiosity:

I count myself truly lucky to have my own sewing space, and a giant design wall is definitely the cherry on top. This wall is going to get some major use!

From A - Crawling is Movement

I'm out of town again this weekend and was looking for something portable to bring with me. I finally started quilting the Toronto skyline quilt that I showed you way back at the beginning of summer.

This project has a lot of new challenges for me. It is the first time I've drawn a cityscape, the first time I've made my own pattern and the first time I've done any hand quilting since I was about 12.

I have a bad habit of avoiding things when I'm not 100% sure of how I am going to tackle them. I have this constant (and irrational) fear of doing something "wrong" or messing something up. This fear generally results in me just putting things aside when they get tricky, only to dust them off months later, buckle down and realize that it wasn't such a big deal after all. That is exactly what happened with this project. I had a few problems when I transferred the design onto the fabric, started thinking about how difficult the hand quilting was going to be and then promptly shuffled it onto the back burner.

Apparently all that was needed to get me to rescue this quilt from the timeout room guest room was the prospect of two 5 hour train rides over four days and the thought of a long weekend away without a project to keep me company.

It's not much to look at yet but I'm so glad that I am working on this. I was starting to worry that I would might never get back to it. In addition to the relief at finally overcoming my fear based procrastination, I'm finding that hand quilting is every bit as relaxing and satisfying as i dreamed it would be. I still have lots of quilting left to get this done but at least I'm finally moving.