handmade by stefanie

 Last week, I went up to Hamilton, MO (aka Quilt Town USA) to see some of my coworkers, get a tour of the machine quilting department, and pick up my new sewing machine, a Baby Lock Jazz II!  It was a gorgeous day and I ended up popping into a few of the shops as well. Not only did I snag the very last May the 1/4" Be With You shirt, I also got a sweet deal on some skeins of Manos Clasica at One Big Happy Yarn.  Over the weekend, I took the plunge and started my first project on the new sewing machine, a periwinkle table topper:  It's really a dream to sew on. The threading and bobbin are completely different from what I'm used to, so I was intimidated to dive in at first. After watching a bunch of YouTube videos and consulting the manual, I feel like I'm getting the hang of it, and I can't wait to explore all of the different stitches and features after I master the basics! 

Seems like I've been sharing a lot of sewing/quilting projects here lately, but I assure you, I am still knitting, and have recently completed a couple of hat projects, a scarf, and even a pair of socks! First up is the March Hat by Meghan Babin, which I made using some Plymouth Yarn Homestead Tweed I was gifted during the holidays and a Knit Picks faux fur pom. This pattern, which is available for free on Ravelry, features a simple yet stylish design that's easy to memorize as you knit. I also knit another hat for the donation bin using two strands of fingering weight yarn to create a tweedy effect. I based this project on the Mash it Up pattern by Babs Ausherman, but went a little off book as I knit, especially when it came time to do the crown decreases. The gold color is Shibuiknits Reed in Pollen and the lighter color is reclaimed from a past project, I'm not 100% sure of the name of the indie dyer or the colorway but I think it might be a sock yarn from KnitCircus. ...

Well, that was an unintentionally long blogging hiatus. I've had this tab open on my laptop for several months, but just couldn't figure out where to start - the longer it went on, the harder it became to write this post! Actually, I am still not sure where to begin, but I've decided to just. start. writing. So here goes. The biggest thing that's happened since my last post is that we bought a house! Back in January of this year, Tyler and I stumbled across a house that was about to go on sale in our neighborhood, and we were able to make an out-of-market deal. At the beginning of April, we closed and by mid-month we were ready to move in. We have been getting settled and making improvements ever since; it was built in 1935 so there is no shortage of home improvement projects for us! The second biggest piece of news is that Lulu moved with us and surprised us all by becoming an indoor cat. She loves her new life, which is filled with Cat TV, lots of snuggles, and comf...

Well, that didn't take long. I started working at MSQC last December, and I've already completed my very first quilt project, a quilt-as-you-go hexagon tree skirt!  While I was waiting for more border/backing fabric for my quarantine quilt (which is also a quilt-as-you-go hexagon project), I decided to use all of the fabrics left over from making holiday masks last year by pairing them with a bright red solid fabric for the backing/border to make the hexagon tree skirt from BLOCK magazine (volume 7, issue 3 2020 for anyone who's interested). BLOCK is a Missouri Star publication, and when I started they gave me a few issues to page through to get a sense of what they were like. Right away, the tree skirt project jumped out to me, but I was hesitant to give it a try since I've never quilted anything, and my sewing skills are limited.  With the help of the tutorial video below, I started sewing hexies with leftover fabric and precut hexagon batting...which ended up being ...

A new year is always a good time to jump into something brand-new with both feet. After hitting the 300-mask milestone last fall, I've continued to sew face masks for anyone who needs them, but I have slowed down production from the frenzy I had earlier in the pandemic. Of course, I still have lots of fabric, and now that I'm nearly to my one-month anniversary of working at my new job , I've been feeling the urge to give quilting a try.  So when I came across this free tutorial for a quilt-as-you-go hexagon quilt , I figured it was worth a shot. What better way to use up all of my leftover bits of face mask fabric than sewing my very own quarantine quilt?  So, I bought a hexagon template set and some precut hexagon batting and some neutral gray fabric to use as the backing fabric...and now I'm totally obsessed with making these fun little hexagons! The process of cutting out the shapes and then pinning them together is incredibly satisfying. And then when you press do...

Last Friday afternoon, I took a few hours to check out the International Quilt Festival at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, IL. It had been a very long and somewhat stressful week at work, and to be honest, I didn't feel like I could spare those few hours...but I was SO glad I went anyway. It ended up being a much needed break from spending too much time at the computer, and I came home feeling refreshed and ready to return to work (which can be hard after you've left the house to do something fun). I ended up crossing off everything on my to-do list, even some of the things that had been eluding me all week. The show was smaller than I was expecting, but it was probably for the best because each booth was stuffed with colorful fabrics, notions, sewing machines, and gadjets. I thought that 2pm on Friday would be slow, and it probably was,  relatively speaking. Considering that there was quite a crowd and walking the floor was an exercise in patience at t...