A productive "happy housewife" day!

Three weeks ago (I think?), after the craziness of finals and the end of the semester, and before the craziness of teaching a three-week class started, I took a whole Saturday and played happy housewife.  First, I finished up a cover for the electric pancake griddle that Robert and I got as a wedding gift (Thanks, Julie!) I used the 12" Swoon block that I made several months ago, and a month or two ago I machine quilted it to a piece of scrap batting I had lying around.  I lined it with some plain light grey fabric I had leftover from the background of the arrow quilt I made for my grandcousin last fall - but I didn't have quite enough.  So I pieced in the last of the green fabric from the outside and a scrap of purple from Elise's quilt.

I'm very happy with it!  I got to practice machine quilting, and I made a cute cover to protect the griddle from dust while we're not using it - we don't have enough cabinet space, so we store pots and pans and things on an open bookshelf just outside the kitchen. 

The next thing I did that Saturday was quilt my jelly roll race quilt.  I decided to do one huge spiral, and at the beginning it was pretty tough to turn the quilt through the tiny throat space on my machine.  You can see in the photo above how tight the space was.  I could barely fit my hand in to guide the quilt!

I didn't mark the quilt top at all.  I used the quilting guide bar that fits into my walking foot, and checked that the distance was about two inches after every few spirals.  It turned out really well!

Here's a close-up of the back.  It's not perfect, but it's pretty good.  This is one of the worst "wobbles:"

Now I just need to make the binding, and the quilt will be finished!  It's definitely going to have to wait until I'm done teaching this class, though...

Crochet edged receiving blankets

 One of the post-docs in my department is due to have a baby boy next week, and last week we had a little baby shower for her.  I made two crochet-edged baby blankets.  I had such a great time choosing the fabrics to make these!  I based them on the tutorial from Sew Chic, but I wanted to make them double-sided, so I used one yard each of flannel and quilting cotton, and serged the edges with right sides together.  Then I turned them right side out and pressed the edges, and then crocheted the edging.  Unfortunately I didn't start them until the night before the shower, and so I didn't finish them in time!  I wrapped them up anyway, and told her that she had to give them back after opening them so I could finish.  I finished them last weekend and gave them to her last Monday.  Here's a picture of the finished product:

The blankets finished at just under 34" square, and they are machine wash- and dry-able. 

Last CMS/Colloquium of the semester!

This picture is two weeks old now - it's from the last CMS and colloquium of our semester.  This piece is now about 16" long.  The week before this picture was taken, I thought about starting this strip over, but as you can see, I decided not to.  Instead I just switched back to the larger needles and hope that the crooked edge will straighten out in the sewing/washing process.