an owl haikoop

Have you heard about the Embroidereading Contest, hosted by Melissa at Checkout Girl?

Alex is into owls—like really into owls—and loves to ask me again and again about where and how they live. One day on a forest preserve walk, he asked, “why don’t we see owls?”—even though he knows they’re nocturnal. It’s as if it fascinates him that there are creatures that are allowed to stay up past his bedtime. That question became this (haiku) poem about what an owl is doing while we’re up and living.

The only things I bought for this project were the floss and the hoop—all the appliqué fabrics are scraps or cut from thrifted things…the cloud is batting, the owl’s body is from a wool herringbone blazer. My fabric is less than organized, but I just knew I had this tiny scrap of yellow dots, and I was miraculously able to find it to make the sun.

My one regret (besides the fact that the word "sleep" looks a little bit balloonlike--I was using my own handwriting!) is that the weather here is dreary and so therefore is the photo. He is much perkier looking in real life.

I'll be celebrating my birthday and my blogiversary in Amarillo, Texas...see you next week!

as promised...

What most people would call the guest room, we call Grandma's room.  Other people have stayed in it, but she is our most frequent guest.  Since I try to keep our room relatively gender-neutral, Grandma's room is the landing spot for all things pastel. 

When I was pregnant with Alex, my nesting instinct zeroed in on his room and this room--I was obsessed with tiny details that she probably didn't even notice when she stayed with us after he was born, but they were critical to me.  I'll never forget how I forgot to buy flowers (difficult to do with a newborn and a c-section), and was crushed.

Fast-forward two years.  71 to1, I was the winner of this giveaway from Ashely at Film in the Fridge; in my comment, I thought I'd try a pillow if I won.  This was early in my quilting life.  I didn't have a sewing machine that could handle free motion quilting, and so once I got them in the mail, they sat.

















Fast-forward six months.  A new machine, a first quilt under my belt, and a little courage in my heart since I hadn't inserted a zipper since about 1997--and the blocks are, as promised, a pillow.
















I spent a really long time deciding how to arrange them (which I'm OK with because in the process I came up with another really fun idea), and finally settled on this design, where the centers face up on one side and down on the other.  I think it best spaces the prints, and adds some movement to the front.  I know the actual bento block design doesn't use sashing, but since the quartered blocks weren't switched out with others made of different prints, I liked the way it broke things up.

The sashing and back are Kona muslin, and I tried a kind of longer stipple on the diagonal, to both echo and contrast the design of the blocks.  Ashley was kind enough to include her scraps, and I used them in the pieced binding (with tips from Malka of A Stitch in Dye) and for the back,




















which I love because it's like the butterfly is flying through the pillow.

These photos employ the time-honored blogger photo technique of cropping out the disaster that surrounds the subject.  When you're remodeling the basement, everything has to go somewhere, and somewhere at our house is Grandma's room.  She had to climb over all of this junk as she made her way to bed on a recent visit, but our Grandma is a good Grandma, and she doesn't complain.  Of course, the pillow is hers.

making progress

Well, I didn't quite finish the entire thing...but I did do all the knitting and start the blocking, which I'd say is pretty good for someone who's just finally over a nine-day stay from the swine cold (I never had a fever, but apparently this is possible?).  This is my first time blocking a knit (embarrassing to admit, but there, I said it!) and I have to say that I'm really enjoying it.  The blanket's visual success depends, I think, on corners as perfect as I can get them, and with so many knitters making the individual panels, some coaxing was required to get everything to match up.  I'm about a third of the way there (maybe some sort of faux pas in blocking? but such is life with a preschooler) and am really excited to see the difference the process will have made.

Back on task.

Another item from my November to-do list was that leaf wreath...which I contemplated giving up on till next year, because (did everyone know this but me?) the leaves are about finished falling before November even starts.  I have a door decoration for Halloween so I figured I'd wait till that was finished...but the leaves were mostly crackly and dirty and faded.  We made the best of it, and of the glorious day, by taking a family leaf collection walk yesterday, made all the more official by the fact that we were accompanied by a zookeeper who started out reluctant but took the "leaf collection" very seriously by the end.

I felt a little odd just walking up to people's parkways and taking their leaves, but nobody seemed to mind and I even met a new-to-me neighbor who asked me to please take them all. :)  It was actually kind of a rush to see a big pile of fresh-looking leaves (ooh! an apartment building!  They don't rake!) and then scurry over and bag as many as I could.

I ended up needing to make a repeat leaf run because, as Mollie mentioned, this thing took a lot of leaves.  I made the frame as suggested by Britt on her post at Infarrantly Creative, and then just started threading 'em on there.  What gave me the most bang for my leaves was using the taped sections for the sides, since the tape kept the leaves from falling and clumping at the bottom.  I actually added some extra tape at intervals along the sides and then again on the corners. 

We went to JoAnn's last night for some ribbon, but the line was way too long, so I went with this orange satin ribbon from a grab bag I bought a while back (best investment ever!).  Not my favorite, but for this year, it will be just fine.  Once I had it hung, I trimmed the stems, and it was finished. 

 Next year: brighter, fresher leaves...and maybe I'll splurge on the fancy ribbon.