Viktor's Blanket

Being in the crafting mood, I just finished this quilt for my brother's new little bambino to be, Viktor. He's due in a week or two. I'm hoping my brother doesn't give me crap about it not being masculine enough, which he will. There is no pink, but there is some purple and a few flowers on it... but that will just put baby Vik in touch with his sensitive side, right? If not, then I have plenty of babies who would adore this blanket and not mind the colors. And I have the fabric picked for a brown and blue version that has no flowers, just haven't cut, sewn or done anything but wash and iron it at this point.

In typical me fashion, this is another quick project. Instead of piecing a whole bunch of tiny fabric bits together, I just made them much bigger so the project went faster. And the back side is similar without the two strips of "quilted" squares cutting out most of the labor, yet still looking nice. This is the second one of these I've done and I'm happy with the result. I know we've gotten a ton of use out of the quilt my friend Heather made for Ada and hope Viktor will get some good use out of this one too.

Moral of the story: Quilts don't have to scream "Grandma made me". And they don't have to take four months to make either. I did this one in under two weeks and I don't consider myself a quilter, or a patient person, but I do have a sewing machine, and Ada helped.

Ada's Scarf

I made a purple scarf for Ada. I didn't use a pattern because, frankly, patterns tend to annoy me and are more like guidelines anyway. And it's a scarf which is knitting 101 and doesn't really need a pattern.

This one is two skeins of yarn(I don't know what weight - something in the middle I'd say) at once to make it double the thickness. I used size 10 needles because I'm too impatient and want to make these for all of my friends' kids so they have to be quick - like a two or three night knitting project quick. It's about 23 inches long, 2 1/2 inches wide, and I knit the whole way in stockinette stitch (really basic knitting). I left a long tail at the end so I could fold over about 5 inches of it and sew it to the rest of the scarf to make a loop for the tail to slide through. This way, Ada can wear a scarf all winter and I don't have to worry about a) her tripping on it b) getting the ends caught in her zippers or c) I don't know what point c is but I think you're supposed to have three points.

Ta da. NowI need to make some fingerless mittens for her and Isabelle when they are playing at the park. We'll see how that goes.

Moral of the story: Craft projects can be modified for speed. That makes me happy.