Novemberrrrrrr

It's almost the end of the month which means I'm about out of time for making my two-post-a-month goal. So here I am.

I have two things to talk about. Thing the first: I am attempting to fix my motorcycle by myself this winter. I started the job earlier this month by taking the carbs off. Here is a picture of my bike all mutilated. The boat in the background isn't mine in case you were wondering. The metal thing on the ground next to the bike is my carbs and the air chamber. I spent an afternoon trying to take them apart, but there are 8 screws that hold the air chamber on and one of them is completely stripped. I spent an hour trying various things to get it out and nothing worked. So that's where I'm stuck right now. I'm pretty miffed that I can't get the damn screw out. If I don't find a way, I'm basically completely screwed.

The second thing I have to talk about is sewing stuff. I finished a project for my step mom for christmas and a gift for the exchange at quilt club. When I first started quilting my aunt gave me a little kit to make a table runner. I gave it to annette when I finished it. She liked it a lot despite the very poor construction on my part. This year she asked for a new one. This one is a million times better put together than the old one. It's nice to realize that i've actually made progress in the quilting realm.

For the gift exchange at quilt guild everyone who wants to participate is supposed to make a small "kitchen" item. I decided to get a basket from the thrift store and make a fun lining for it to use for rolls or fruit or a key/change basket or something like that. I kept running in to problems making it. I had no pattern and have never pieced anything with such an odd shape. It took some creativity to make a pattern that fit the basket properly. I had planned on crocheting the boarder, but it didn't work out since I needed finished edges (which to get would require me to shorten the sides) so I ended up just binding it. I never put a binding on a rounded edge before, but I watched a tutorial on youtube, and I think it went pretty well.

X-mas ?

So it appears to be approaching the holiday season again already. I've been thinking about gifts and what I will give and make people this year. So far I have made three things to distribute as gifts and have two more halfway done.

Spoiler alert for Ali. Do not read this or look at the following picture or your present is ruined....I'll put it at the bottom just in case. So first I'll show a picture of the gift I made for Andy's mom. I saw a lady at quilt club working on this and asked if I could have the pattern. She brought it too me at the next meeting. I'm not thrilled with the colors. The lighter orange reminds me of mac and cheese. I think it ruins the scarf, but Andy's mom likes the burnt orange color and this yarn was the best I could do.

I think the scarf is neat, but it's more of a spring or fall scarf. The yarn is light and thin, so it won't really offer a whole lot of warmth when it is 10 degrees outside.

I made another gift for my friend Erin, but I don't trust her self-control so I'm not going to post any pictures of it on here until after I give it to her.


So for Ali, I made this pillow case. I got the pattern for free at Joann Fabric. I thought it would be pretty easy. The pattern was really small and had instructions to increase it to 12". But you needed two patterns across and two down. Having not used this type of pattern before I thought I was going to end up with a giant pillow, so instead of following directions, I made it 8 inches. When all was said and done, each block was only four inches, so I had to add some sashing. After finishing everything the whole pillow was only 14 inches. I'm not thrilled with my sewing job. The seams are terrible, but I added yo-yos to hide the seems. I'd never made yo-yos before, but people always ask me if that is what I'm working on when I do this paper piecing project I do, so I thought maybe I'd try it so I knew what they were talking about.

I'll post picture of the other things I'm working on once they are complete.