Summer happenings

Summer just started in SF. July and August had been unusually foggy and chilly, so I ended up spending more time indoors working on projects. Sorting through my fabric storage I came across a few yards of Kona cotton in bright greens and blues, destined for a quilt I was no longer interested in making. But the longer I looked at it I realized that one of my best friends, who also happens to be my cousin thrice removed, loves these colors. Though we live thousands of miles apart we are very close and I decided to make a quilt for her, big enough to cuddle under on the sofa, or take outside for a picnic. Using five colors total, I paired each dark or cobalt blue triangle with a green, jade, or light blue one and put them together randomly. Unfortunately I discovered the awesome half-square-triangle (or hst in quilter's lingo) technique after I was done cutting my squares into triangles. I read somewhere that triangles aren't maybe the best project for a novice quilter because the bias edges can stretch, and yes, my resulting squares don't all line up perfectly. But she won't care, and I, despite my perfectionist tendencies, don't really either, and love how the quilt turned out, crooked squares and all. For the back I used what was left of the green and jade Kona cotton, divided by a band of blue. I machine-quilted it with turquoise cotton thread and diagonal lines, and applied the binding using this awesome technique by turning*turning. Voilà!


It felt good to use supplies I already had that were perfect. I started the quilt in July and completed it just last week.
Back in July I also won this beautiful owl softie in a give-away hosted by Emma, creator of the wonderful blog the marion house book.

I recently cleared out a lot of style blogs from my reader, because I got tired of looking just at stuff. The marion house book though has a wonderful mix of interior design (love the hello! neighbor house tours), recipes, art, and diy projects, and every post is inspiring. The beautiful owl is one of a kind made by artist Becky Lane, you can see and read more about her work at i beast you.

Gina asked after my last post what ever happened to the Aaren dress I was knitting last year. Hmm. So this is what happened: I knit both the front and back up to where I needed to decide on the neckline (didn't feel like the crew neck, didn't want a turtle neck either) and then totally lost steam. I know it wouldn't take that long to finish it, but at this point I'm not even sure if I still want to make and wear a knit dress, even though the pattern is so pretty. So I plan to wait until it gets cold again to get in the mood for cozy knits and revisit the dress. Finish or frog, that'll be the question.