Mini-fail

In my last post I mentioned working up some crocheted hexagons to finish a project I started a while back. Well, I made about 20 in the past week and guess what? I used the wrong hook. I don't know why, but for some reason I thought I made all my other hexagons using a 5, but really I used a 4, therefore the newest hexagons I made came out 1.5 times larger than all my others. I had to rip them all out. ALLLL OF THEM. It hurt my feelings. I didn't take pictures because when I realized that this happened, it was Sunday morning (my only day off) and I ripped out every single one and re-did them all. I had to.


I am not sure how big I plan on making this afghan. By the end of the week I should have 98 completed. I might just crochet them all together and see what it amounts to - a summer lap blanket maybe?


xoxoxo

In the meantime...

Last week I was forced to put away ALL OF MY QUILTING (which occupies all of our dining room) in order to make room for some guests that will be staying with us until the end of March. Remember the adorable little lady and her wonderful mommy that I visited in this post? Well, they are moving to Germany in a few weeks and are staying with us to get all their visiting in before they cross the pond. 

Since I knew that they were coming (months ago) I have been trying to think of what to craft while we have company. I couldn't get inspired to knit wintery things like mittens and scarves, because I am SO OVER winter. 

Given that, I pulled out this item from my bucked list. It is the "Finish crocheting hexagon granny square afghan". This project was entirely inspired by one of my favorite bloggers, Lucy @ Attic24. She is a wonderful blogger and she inspired me to learn how to crochet a few years ago when I saw this post.

I immediately went to the yarn store and grabbed lots of yarns in lots of colors and started going on this project. I know that I needed 7 colors (thought process: a hexagon has 6 sides, plus one for the center = 7. But I didn't want any of the 6 sides, to be the same color as each other or as the center, so I needed 7 colors total, if that makes any sense at all to you). I wanted this afghan to be a summer blanket, so I made it out of cotton yarn so that it was nice and light. I used 100% Cotton Cotton Ease yarn in these colors:

 (White, taupe, celery, off-white, coral, mustard, navy)

The accountant in me knew that I needed a plan of action to tackle all of these colors, so this is what I came up with to keep this project organized:

 (Yes, I do understand that it might not make any sense at all to you, but it basically tells me which order to use the yarns, for each grouping of 7 hexagon squares. It really does make sense, I promise!)

Did I mention that I started this project long before I got engaged, so that makes it almost, umm, 2 years ago? I kind of lost my steam with the project and planning a wedding was a perfect reason to take a break. This is what I had accomplished already:

(There are 5 groups of 7 hexagons each which = 35 hexagons done!)

(I also had this group done, however, they weren't organized at all. This required some patience, as I had to match up each hexagon to the excel spreadsheet above and organize them as I did the others)

Ok! So here are all my hexagons, all sorted and organized so that I know how many rows I have done and how many I have left.

I have 8 stacks of 7 hexagons = 56 hexagons total. If you look at the excel file, you may noticed that I have 7 groups or rows of hexagons lined up. I mapped out what the hexagons will look like for 7 groups of hexagons. See the pic below... from left to right... that is row/group 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Notice that I have 2 stacks under row 1, that's because I plan on doing each row/group of hexagons two or 3 times to get a blanket big enough. So eventually I will have 2 or 3 of each row/group 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Makes perfect sense right? Sure....

I hope to make good headway on this project while my girlfriend and her daughter are visiting. I might just stop at 2 stacks for each row/group, which means that I will need to have 14 x 7 = 98 hexagons total. I have not yet tried to put the hexagons together and considering I am new to crocheting (like, this is my first project) I have literally no idea what I am going to do. I would really love some advice from all you crocheters out there!

xoxo

More Bento

I'm making good headway on the bento box quilt. I only have a little under an hour to work on it a night, so that's why there are so many posts about this one little quilt.

I quartered the boxes I already made:

Obviously not going with this layout, but wanted to lay everything out before I started playing around with the bento layout:

After a few tries, I finally settled on a layout that I like a lot! 

Stay tuned for more!

xoxo

Bento Box - Quilt Top

I left off with the quilt in the stage where I still had to pick out my white-ish tone fabric. I was stuck between white white, off-white, or a natural color. I decided to go with off-white. I purchased some Kona Cotton Bone and cut it all out accordingly.

I finally had all of the fabric cut out for the quilt and got some piecing done this weekend.

 (Step 1: piecing 2 3x6 strips to the 6x6 square)

 

 (Step 2: sew the 3x11 strips on)

 (Step 3: sew the white 3x11 strips on)

(Last Step: add the 3x16 inch strips)

I have all 12 blocks pieced and ready to be turned into bento box blocks! Stay tuned for the rest of the quilt top!

 xoxoxo

Bento Box - Chopping It Up

Yesterday I showed you the fabrics that I selected and my attempt at trying to be a better fabric cutter. Guess what? Mapping out all of the cutting really did work!

I kind of knew it would be a struggle to get all of my pieces out of the 1 fat quarter (an 18x21 piece of fabric). So I did a mock up of how I would cut all of the fabric pieces out:

(I know that I needed 2 3x16 pieces, 1 6x6 square, 4 3x11 pieces, and 2 3x6 pieces and that I would BARELY make it)

(Yesssss, I cut it out correctly!)

 (All of the fabrics cut out and ready to go)

(I think that the "Hot Pink Disco Flower in the middle there is my favorite. I think it should be called "Electric Pink" instead of hot pink.)

I am still unsure which shade of white to use in the quilt!! I am leaning towards a middle of the road white, what do you think? Vote on the sidebar!

xoxo

Bento Box Quilt

I might be jumping on this bandwagon a little late.... but who doesn't love a Bento Box Quilt?

(from Red Pepper Quilts)

I started my very own this weekend. So far I have mapped out my pattern, picked out the fabric, and mapped out how I am going to cut it up.

I am going to use part of the fabric from my fat quarter pack of Amy Butler's "Soul Blossoms" line in the Bliss colorway:

(From top left to bottom right: Cyan Buttercups, Hot Pink Disco Flowers, Deep Water Temple Doors, Periwinkle Laurel Dots, Azure Twilight Peony, Lime Delhi Blooms..... phew, that was a mouthful!)

(They do look fantastic don't they!!)

Then I mapped out how I am going to chop up these lovelies. I am REALLLLLLLY bad and cutting up fabric. I ALWAYSSSSSS mess up. I don't know exactly what my problem is, I just don't pay close enough attention I guess. So I thought that maybe if I thought about the cutting ahead of time, then maybe I will give myself a better chance at not ruining things:

I still haven't figured out one thing though..... which shade of white should I use? I was thinking either plain white, or a more off-white/natural/bone color.... 

Can you help me choose? Vote on the sidebar!!! 

Thanks friends....

xoxoxoxox

New Interests

Embroidery seems to be everywhere lately, and I love it! I have been following this blog for a while now, and it has totally inspired me to try out embroidery. I bought this kit a while ago and decided to pull it out for some much needed quick fun. 

Then I started practicing some embroidery stitches:

From left to right.... 1) French Knots 2) Split Stitch 3) Stem Stitch 4) Back Stitch 5) Running Stitch 6) Satin Stitch 7) Chain Stitch 8) Scallopping Chain 9) 2 Daisy Chains 

 

I really really realllyyyyyyyy enjoyed practicing some stitches. I definitely need some more practice before taking on anything big, but have about 400 ideas floating around in my head that I want to do NOW. 


xoxo