July 29th, 2010
by Julie Hirt
My iPhone 4 finally arrived yesterday after what seemed like eternity (12 days). I’m happy to say this site actually looks really decent on the browser and works well with the PULSE app. That app is awesome -I’m going to add all my favorite blog feeds and I already have a bunch of news sites added.
Crafty news: I made a little dress for my niece this week. It’s the Little Mademoiselle pattern from ManiMina’s shop. Since I did fairly well, and even added an additional color splash along the bottom and buttons, I also made her a little shirt and skirt. No pattern on that – just from eyeballing things I’ve seen on flickr and etsy.
A picture I took of Bojangles using the Hipstamatic app for iPhone.
I love the different lenses and film options.
I’m heading to the lake for the weekend – will upload some photos of the outfits and progress on the Make Life quilt when I can.
Other / Misc | 
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July 25th, 2010
by Julie Hirt
I haven’t worked on much this week because I wasn’t feeling very good. I thought I’d upload some pics of things I’ve made in the past and the Make Life quilt I started for Tori.
Here are some colorful cotton coasters that I LOVE. I used this pattern but with a G hook and for the last round I switched out the color. They work up pretty quickly and I love that they’re square rather than round.
Here are some embroidery/cross stitch things I completed a few months back. Not sure what I’ll do with them but I may turn the sugar skull into some kind of pillow.
Lastly… a couple of market bags I crocheted last winter. We really just use them for library books and the girls use them for different things.
Crochet, Embroidery, Quilty Stuff | 2 Comments »
July 21st, 2010
by Julie Hirt
I made this for my brother and started it back in February. He asked me to make him an afghan when I started crocheting. I only had a few hours left to go when I got tired of working on it. So I decided to finally finish it up this past week. I used a larger needle and 2 threads of yarn so it’s a thick, tight, blanket. The yarn definitely won’t snag.
I made up my own pattern:
106 sc across
each color block is 32 rows of sc
the ends are 6 rows of sc, 2 rows of the bubble, 6 rows of sc
On the edging I did 2 rows of this bubble pattern.
It ended up roughly 4′ x 6′. It’s my first crochet blanket and possibly my last. Felt like it took FOREVER.
Crochet | No Comments »
July 19th, 2010
by Julie Hirt
I wonder how other people decide what their next quilt design will be. How do they know if they have enough fabric? Or if it will be big enough?
I’ve just been using Adobe Illustrator to layout a grid and play with it on the computer. Much easier for me to visually see what I’ll be working on and I can easily write notes on the side.
The next project(s) will be quilts for Tori and Liz using the Make Life fabric by Sweetwater for Moda. I have 3 charm packs and it happened to work out that my first design needs 63 charms. Exactly half! I’d like to make their quilts different but they are so close in age (10 & 11) that it may be easier to make them similar. I definitely want the same fabric for both – the Make Life is just cool for their age. I can always use different fabrics for binding and backing.
Now I’m just trying to decide if I want to sash with white or a color. I just don’t know if I have the guts to stray from white! The blocks will definitely be a charm cut in half and pair with white. I think this is called an hourglass pattern?
I don’t know if I’ll take a break tonight or start working on one of these. I think we have Daybreakers coming in Netflix and I could cuddle up with my Whimsy quilt!
Quilty Stuff | 1 Comment »
July 18th, 2010
by Julie Hirt
I can’t believe I finished it already! Yesterday I spent…. oh, I ‘d say about 6 hours finishing up the quilting and it took me about 4 hours to do the hand binding on the back. I was *determined* to get it in the wash and sleep with it last night. It was a pretty big job to tackle and finish up but I’m glad I did – I love this quilt.
I used the Whimsy by Fig Tree Quilts for Moda jelly roll and a lot of Kona cotton in white. Each block is roughly 10.5 and it turned out to be a rather large quilt. It almost covers the entire top of our king size bed. It’s bound in Whimsy’s Grass Clover Daisy which turned out pretty nice. I originally wanted one of the red fabrics but now I’m glad the fabric store didn’t have one available.
It’s a simple pattern, the blocks are just strips of white/color/white/color/white and turned every other one. I chose so much white because I didn’t want to use patterns butted up against each other. It gets to be too busy looking for me. You can get almost 2 quilts out of a jelly roll using this method – I have just less than half of them left. Each strip was cut into 4’s so I got the most mileage for the fabric. The remaining fabric patterns are more kid friendly so I may make a stripey baby blanket with them.
This is my 3rd quilt and first big one – I think I’ll try to make them larger like this. It’s more work but so much better to wrap up with.
Quilty Stuff | 8 Comments »
July 17th, 2010
by Julie Hirt
Whew! This is a big quilt. I wanted to share a little of what I’ll be working on all weekend. It measures 72″ x 72″.
I used a Whimsy by Moda jelly roll alternating with Kona white. I backed the quilt in Kona coal (inspired by Film in the Fridge) with a large strip of what the binding will eventually be.
This is a really big stipple job for my machine – trying to roll half of it into the arm AND be able to move around. I’m doing a large strip vertically and horizontally first, then it will get easier.
Penny Lane refused to be left out of the picture so I added one of Bojangles for good measure.
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