T-Shirt Quilt Finished!!

My dh had his birthday over the weekend and we celebrated with the whole family. My mom and sister and her kids came over as well as my in-laws - it was such a fun time.

My husband asked me to make lasagne - one of his favorites - so that's what he got. I forgot how good lasagne is!

Bean salad

Homemade bread

AND individual mint ice cream and chocolate cakes for dessert!

I wanted to do something fun for my husband instead of just wrapping his gift. So....I made lots (12 in total) of these cards you see above.

This was the top card that he received

This is the inside. Then he opened the gift and this is what he found...

Another layer of wrap...

With this note attached.

Then he opened the orange one and this zebra one presented itself....

With this card.

And more wrapping.....

And another card.

The last layer of wrap....

Revealed this note. He proceeded to the 12 yo's room and opened those gifts and promptly found another note...

Sending him on to the 7 yo's room. There he found a gift and yet another note.....

Onward to the 10 yo's room with more gifts and another note....

Obviously he was starting to figure out that he was going to have to go to each kid's room to find the last gift.

Ah...the last room! This note was on her bed...

But wait....it wasn't on the bed...now what?

FINALLY!!

He was thrilled with the quilt. And he loved that it was made from his old running shirts. This was such a pleasure to make, all the time thinking about him and how much he was going to like it. He has already been using it - every night when we sit and watch our shows after the kids go to sleep, he wraps himself in it.

The whole front. Each of the kids signed a square.

The back. I have really enjoyed making quilts this past month and boy have I learned a lot! I can't wait to start a new one - I already have a couple of ideas......

One-a-Day Tallies

This week was a really good knitting/crochet week! Soccer games started with scrimmages each an hour and a half. 3 hours of good knitting time!! Also, the first grader still reads to me for 30-45 minutes EVERY day - he is getting more and more confident, though so that knitting time is soon to disappear. It's ok if he's still reading to me when he is...oh....say...23, right??

Without further ado, I show you 7 more hexi puffs!

7 more squares for the Gingerbread Bear Afghan

More kites - now these are truly addictive. The smaller ones are approximately 500 stitches to make, while the larger one is 2,000 stitches to make, so therefore the larger one should count as 4 kites. BUT I just couldn't stop, so I present 1 large kite and not 4 smaller ones, but..
5 smaller ones - see that orange one with the stitch marker on it? That one is new also! That brings the tally (if you count the large one as 4) up to 9 kites. WAHOO!!
This is the whole thing - I do think it is wide enough - now I just keep building up until I think it is long enough. If I keep going this way, it will be done in no time at all!!
Because I was on a roll, I pulled out the Whirly Gig that has been languishing for a LONG time and started work on it. This hexagon was done, but not sewn up, so I finished that in short order.
I went on to make another one because I figured that since each hexagon is made up of 6 wedges, if I added it to my one-a-day projects, I would complete more than 1 of them a week.
Then I just couldn't stop at one wedge, it just looked so lonely all by itself! So three more wedges were made.
Here are all of them together. I just love the way the colors meld into one another. I need 33 of these puppies and then they need to be sewn together. If I keep up with 1 hexagon and a bit more each week it shouldn't take all that long to finish it up! Although finishing is not my strong point - think of the fish blanket!
THEN, I wanted to try out a new crochet pattern that I had found on the internet a little while back. I printed out the pattern for it and put it in the "I Love This and must do it soon" pile. That pile is just way, way, too big :o) Thank goodness for Pinterest - now instead of printing these out, I just pin them!
All the yarn is left over from the Granny Stripe Afghan except for the white which I just had to have for these squares. You know, they would have looked so weird with a different color in that spot!
I made 7 of them and love them to bits! The pattern is called "Circle-y Granny" and if you click on the name it will bring you to the pattern. The pattern is super easy and really well written. I made the first one without a hitch and did not even have to rip at all. If you have been reading this blog for even a little bit, you know that almost all of my projects need to be ripped back at some point. These are not slated to become a blanket. I think a pillow for my couch will be perfect!! See you soon!

Popsicle Stick Dolls

My 13 year old daughter pulled out a couple of our art bins over the weekend and whipped these up!! She was done with her homework and we were just hanging out for a bit trying to decide what to do.

This is what she came up with!!

I don't know why I get such a kick out of these ones in bikinis, but I do. She is way more creative than I will ever be. But now I have another idea for the kids at noon art :o)

See more finishes over at Tami's.

Another Quilt

Another quilt in progress!! After the last two, I finally got up the nerve to work on the T-shirt quilt I had been wanting to make for my husband. His birthday is coming up and I needed a gift for him. He is an avid runner and just can't bear to part with any of the shirts that he gets with each race, so I bravely chose 12 of the older ones to use. I ran all but 1 of these races with him so it's kind of a memory quilt of us (before kids :o) also.

As I was uploading I kind of got them out of order, but here is the top pieced without a border.

First I chose the shirts that I was going to use, cut off the back, sleeves and collar and ironed them flat.

Then I attached interfacing to the back to add stability and cut each shirt into a 15"X15" square.

This is the fabric I chose for the sashing, border, backing and binding.

The quilt top is a little farther than you see here - all the quilting has been done and the binding is ready to be attached.

I will be working feverishly the rest of this week to get it finished as his birthday is on Sunday. We are having everyone over to celebrate the February and March birthdays - there are 4 of them - on Sunday and I have some great ideas on how to package it.

By the way, the quilts brought in a respectable $115 for the 4th grade quilt and $125 for the 2nd grade quilt. Not bad!

More works in progress at Tami's.

One-A-Day Progress

This week was fairly productive. Doesn't hurt that we had an extra AP Chem tutoring session (those are 1 1/2 hours each) and we also went to the beach where I got some fabulous knitting time in. What could be better that spending time running in and out of the waves with the kids and then sitting for a bit knitting?? Not much!

My 7 hexies - a couple of them are a little "special".

Love this one! Will be making more of these in different color combinations.

I tried something new with these. The one on the left is knit intarsia like where I actually knit the green and orange stitches with the background stitches. The hexi on the right is done with duplicate stitch. I can't figure out why they are so differently shaped - the one on the right is the right shape, but you can see the one on the left is way skinnier and taller. What happened??
I like the duplicate stitch a bit better because it sits on top of the stitches and therefore produces a more 3-D like picture. It was not as fiddly as I thought it was going to be and actually took the same amount of time as the other one.
This one was way fiddly - with the threads constantly twisting and tangling in the back. Still it did not take as long as I thought - approximately 50% more time that just a regular hexi.
Naked needles :o( This is the first time in a few years that there have been no fish on these needles. They have served me well (and will again in the future). I am happy that I am done knitting the fish, but a little sad also. How crazy is that?!! I hope someone understands me because my husband thinks I am bonkers.
The last 5 fish - I will organize the last 5 rows needed probably this week and continue to crochet them together. Now......to border or not to border that is the question
The required 7 mini grannies for the teddy bear afghan. These whip up so quickly it is almost embarrassing that I am including them in my one-a-day projects.

This was the kite afghan as it stood last week.

This is where it is at now. I kind of had a problem stopping at just 7 kites! It is almost wide enough now so a few more on the outsides and then I will just keep building.

I just love some of the colors - That magenta, orange and white one is a favorite

as well as this crazy green and purple one.

I just knit this big one last night. They are the equivalent of about 4 of the regular kites so they take a bit of time.

Well, I'm off to make lunches for the kidlets to take to school. Have fun today!