Quilting, Knitting, Baking, and Soap-making!

 Since I got off IG, I haven't shared much of my craft work that I've been doing, so I thought I'd take a moment in this post to remedy that.

First off, 2020 was the year of quilts. I don't think I posted pictures on any of my regular pages of the quilts that I'd been working on, so here they all are in their full glory:

1. African Squash Blossoms - this squash blossom quilt was inspired (when I was supposed to be meditating in a class from my work, lol) and occupied me for most of the summer, then paused while I waited for it to be cool enough to handle having a quilt on my lap for hours at a time. The squash blossoms themselves are navy and off-white, and in the other blocks it features fabric that a friend bought for me in the Congo, and I gifted this one back to that friend. Don't worry, I've still got plenty of that African fabric left for further crafting for myself! 

 2. Ravens in the River Canyon - I started working on this one before I had even finished the first - I was bitten by the quilting bug for sure! Jack asked for a summer quilt (a quilt with no warm, fluffy middle) that he could take with him in the backcountry and use when he's backpacking. This particular quilt was inspired by a baby quilt with strips of fabric broken by white and hot air balloons drifting up the white segment (off-center). My version, the quilt top being made entirely out of stash fabric (!!!), features two banks of a canyon (one more green, one more brown/red), with a "river" running between them and ravens flying along it. I couldn't be more pleased with how it turned out! Given the beating I expect this quilt to take, I backed it with a lightweight canvas (which also gives it a nice drape/heaviness without being warm) and machine-quilted it (a first!). 

 

Close-up of one of the ravens - I designed the pattern for these myself! :)

3. Winter Bears-in-the-Cabin - I'm not sure what else to call this quilt block which is a mix of bear paw and log cabin but which I absolutely love! I've had a Pinterest pin similar to this on my inspiration board for a few years and was excited to bring it into reality. I'm embracing the large block concept (making one or just a few large quilt blocks instead of umpteen small ones) and this was wonderfully easy to cut out and sew together. Once again, I was able to use ALL STASH FABRICS for this quilt - even the backing! The top is flannel (most of which were gifted to me by my grandma from her stash!), and the backing is this epic fabric that I got ~10 yards of for $1.50 at a thrift store when we lived on the coast. It's been put to work as a gathering apron, a sleeping bag stuff sack, and now a quilt backing! I'm really pleased with how this quilt turned out, and just might have to do another one in the future. This lap quilt was a birthday gift for my mother-in-law, who has a winter birthday.

Showing off the backing fabric

After going through a period in which I tossed all my fabric scraps because I couldn't be bothered with more things, I've started to save my "cabbage" with the intention of doing a "cabbage patch quilt" someday from all the little bits leftover from things. The extra little bits are going into a separate container that I can use when I want to stuff something instead of having to rely on nasty polyfill.

At the end of December I whipped up a batch of soap with very little recipe to it... the result was a good soap that unfortunately melts like butter in the shower. I don't think we've had a single bar last longer than a couple weeks! Oh well, at least they smell good. :) Next go around I will be sure to do a properly calculated recipe. On the bright side, I was able to use up the last of Jack's shea butter - which has been around longer than I have in our 7-year relationship and which I'm also certain has a shelf-life...

In January I finally started to shake off the quilting bug, but only to be bit by the knitting bug! I've got a pair of socks for Jack under construction, made a little gift for a friend's baby shower, and started working on this lovely shawl from a pattern on Ravelry called "Fantastitch". All of these projects are being made with existing yarn in my stash. Like the quilting, I'm finding it so satisfying to be putting to use what I already have. The shawl, in particular, is going to be a grand stashbuster project. As of right now (about a month beyond when this picture was taken) I've used up 7 partial skeins that I had in my stash, and counting!

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't share with you a bit of Scandinavian Baking that I did. I haven't been doing much lately, at least not from that recipe book. If I've baked of late it's tended toward the practical. Although I did make the mini Finish rye breads... but those were not photo-worthy :D Anyway, pictured below are the Saffron Rolls which were my first time (maybe? maybe just the first time I knew it, thanks to watching Bake-Off) making an enriched dough bake, and also my first time using saffron ever. They turned out ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS!!! In future, though, I think I'd do a half-batch as, even with sharing and freezing, we were not able to consume before they got a bit dry. Still, these were a delight just plain, or with butter and jam.

And that's all for now! Until next time!

Happy (Belated) Candlemas

 

Candle in a windowsill in a turf house museum in NW Iceland

When Candlemas weekend came around I had requested the day off, but with 5 feet of snow and numerous hours of shoveling, we were both too pooped out to properly celebrate. Another weekend came and went, then I decided that we would try again 10 days after the fact because this holiday is still important to us and I think we were both missing it a little bit.

You might be wondering at this point what Candlemas is. Instead of going all encyclopedia on you, I’m going to instead tell you what Candlemas is to me, because it’s not a holiday I grew up with. Rather, it’s a holiday that I learned about when I was setting up my first-ever adult household (not in government housing!) and Jack and I decided to adapt it for our own.

Candlemas to me is the last festival of lights for the winter. Christmastime is, of course, peak lights-in-the-darkness; Candlemas is a sort of welcoming back of longer daylight hours by lighting all the candles and Christmas lights one last time before packing them all away until Halloween, when they can start making a comeback in jack-o-lanterns lighting up the darkness.

Candlemas is also, like most of the traditional holidays, a cleaning holiday. For us, this means doing a proper deep clean of the house - getting the dirt and dust out of the nooks and crannies, sorting through catchall, and thrifting what we can do without so that we go into the spring a little lighter and a whole lot cleaner!

While the hope is to do the holiday in one fell swoop, we’ve spread it out a bit this year. Mainly because I started doing work in the loft and only got through about a quarter of it (and that’s being generous) by the end of day one. For reference, the loft is a lot like our basement… although we do have an unfinished basement in this house too… So we’re stretching it out - the loft this weekend, and next weekend we’ll focus on the main floor. Who knows, maybe we’ll stretch things out one final weekend and go through the boxes that are in the basement… of course, that would be largely dependent on whether or not it’s safe traveling up and down the outside stairs - we’ll see what the snow situation is.

Well, that’s enough time spent pondering (procrastinating) - I’d better get back to work!