Dot Couture quilt top finished

I took these photos on Monday before leaving for my business trip to Barcelona in hopes that I'd have time to post one day this week - even a brief one to show the progress on a quilt/sewing project.

This is my "Dot Couture" quilt - made from Urban Couture by Basic Grey using the "Dot Party" pattern that was published in Quilts and More (now available as individual pattern from Jaybird Quilts. Actually I think the pattern name in the magazine may be different. But I'm 99% sure the actual pattern is the same, but without options for other sizes figured out for you. 

I used a Kona Ash for the background fabric and one Layer Cake of the Urban Couture - pretty fast and easy if you use the circle ruler and tiny rotary cutter recommended. I'm sure I'll make good use of those tools again in the future.

This is a nice look - I am happy with the Ash background fabric.  I bought some Brown Basic Grunge fabric for the backing, and some green for the binding. 

Summer 2010 issues of Quilts and more in case anyone wants to look through their stash of magazines rather than paying again for a pattern.

I'm going to attempt to link up to Sarah's Whoop Whoop! party  and also at TGIFF hosted this week by The Peony Teacup!

oh, is it really Friday? okay, lemme show you my Honey Cowl

I haven't had much time to do anything crafty lately - and when I do it's back to 10-15 minutes here or there. Or portable knitting (and crochet as I shared last week!).

So, this week I finished my Honey Cowl.  I really like it. I like the whole "cowl movement" that seems to have happened. I love my scarves, but they seem to drift around on my and then next thing I know I'll have a long tail getting caught in the car door. Flapping in the wind. yup.

I think I showed this way long ago as a WIP - it has been an on again/off again project for me. Nice and portable, but lower priority than, say, learning to crochet to make Piggy slippers (big hit! yay!)

Super easy but interesting stitch - the pattern is called "Honey cowl" - I'm thinking because of the honeycomb look?  Anyway, it's available as a free download on Ravelry.com if you want to check it out.  This one is made of Rowan Cashsoft which has some amount of cashmere. It's a really neutral color and that's very unusual for me unless I'm knitting for Mr. Wonderful. But I'm loving it so far.

 Cody thinks it should be a cat cowl. But he is sadly mistaken.

Have a great weekiend!  I'm going to do some link-ups for this Friday evening post:

Whoop Whoop! with Sarah


TGIFF is over at Quilt Matters today



And if you want to see what I've been up to with the Health Activist Writer's Month Challenge - that's been pretty interesting with a different writing prompt each day. Haiku, letter to my 16 y/o self...all kinds of shenanigans!

This little piggy went to Market...

Actually, THIS little piggy has been to Tucson, Nutley NJ, and San Diego all in the space of 3 weeks. The last trip was a spring break family mini-vacation...but my point being that I haven't been at my sewing machine or craft space for over 3 weeks.  But fortunately, knitting is portable so I usually have something on the needles to work on.

I've also taken on a couple of writing challenges lately - one was to write in a Gratitude Journal every day during Lent. The other is that I'm participating in the Health Activist Writers Month Challenge over on my other blog.

My Friday Finish this week are these "Pudgy Piggy Slippers" (I'm playing with my camera settings and post-processing, so the colors are a bit different. I guess the bottom photo is more accurate, but I like the top photo.

Here is the story about these slippers. My super cute niece and god-daughter sent me a letter several weeks ago with one of those free patterns that you can pull off a tablet hanging in the yard aisles at Michaels.  For these slippers.  She "fell in love with them" and her mom told her that while she couldn't make the slippers, her Aunty Janet could. (!)

Only problem?  I don't know (or didn't know) how to crochet.  So I went back and reviewed some of the Crochet School lessons at CraftyMinx. Then I had to go to redheart.com to download a full size version of the pattern because my old eyes couldn't handle the teeny version from the craft store. The pattern is all done in SC (single crochet), so I thought I could tackle it.

And of course because it's my first crochet experience, I had to rip out the first slipper after the second one looked better and more correct...so it was actually a fairly "big" project. But I can single crochet like nobody's fool now - increases, decreases, circles...Next project needs to use some other stitches so I can learn those too.

Miss Thing's Birthday was Sunday, but we were out of town - and the slippers weren't finished yet. But I'll see her on Easter - I hope they fit! I hope I remember to take a photo with them on!  Here is the Red Heart photo she fell in love with.

Happy Friday - time for some Friday Finish link-ups:  Go check these out!

Whoop Whoop! with Sara

Finish it up Friday with Crazymomquilts

TGFF is over at Dreaming in Patchwork this week