Dang, it's cold here! Elie just half-jokingly offered to use some of my felted crafting sweaters for weatherstripping and door wadding.

This weekend was all about two things: relaxing and doing chores that you'd rather put off. The relaxing was awesome and the chores were even fine because now they are done. Remember how I made Eva a beautiful redwork quilt? I put off washing it forever (if you look up the date of the post where I shared it, I will be shamed) because I knew I was facing bleed issues. This was my first quilt, and it was red and white, and I didn't prewash my fabrics. Gasp! I didn't realize how bad I had been until a rainstorm poured into Eva's bedroom window and soaked one little corner of the redwork quilt. Oh, did it bleed. It looked like melted blow-pop, and it was enough to shock me into very bad laundry practices.

This weekend Eva asked me if I would please wash the quilt. It had gone to far. I suppose there's no time like the new year for this sort of thing, so I bit the bullet and washed years of hand quilting and embroidery work with white right next to red. I started it off in my bathtub using cold water and a gallon of vinegar along with a cup or two of salt. My science is fuzzy, but maybe this is supposed to set the dye? I read it online and I thought it couldn't hurt. I also added 3 shout color catchers. It made the tub water so pink. After some agitation I squeezed it out then threw it in a laundry basket a whisked it down to the basement to the waiting washer filled with cold water, soap, and 3 more color catchers. The water was still bright pink on the second rinse cycle. It came out OK. The white is not pure and there's a general pinky glow, but I'm sure it's not as bad as it could have been

I think I'm going to try to write the post I was thinking yesterday.

Yesterday, we returned home from a week away with family. We hit snowy roads both coming and going and ending in a few inches of fresh snow at my doorstep. After you've been cramped in a car for hours on end, shoveling snow feels wonderfully fresh and fun. All three of us were out shoveling or brooming the snow and generally feeling glad to be home Afterward once inside, I got that feeling that I should immediately start unpacking and going through the mail, but I let myself wait. Instead, I sat in my gray armchair and knit the last ribbed inch of the sock I've been working on, as the last half-hour of sunlight-on-snow lit up my window.

I love the December holidays and the busy, merry-making parts of winter, but I've also come to love the coming months, the cozy months of winter, because there's really no reason not to sit and make things and have a little tea and watch a movie snuggled on the couch. I plan on being here plenty during the cozy time. During the busy time, there was just too much going on for me to have very much good to say!

But I did make a lot. These little sewn things were gifts for my nephews, ages 1, 3, and 9—an artist and two boys who certainly are not adverse to tossing a ball. The pencil case is of course Kathy's pattern as seen in Last Minute Quilted Gifts, and the balls were this pattern from the purl bee.

Maitreya sent lots of fun green fabrics for her one quilt block, and really the only thing she asked was that we incorporate the letter M, for her love of typography. I decided to do four different Ms using embroidery, and because I tend to dawdle with embroidery, it took a while to complete, but here it is—Yay!

I am thoroughly enjoying the long weekend. This is the third day of sleeping in, and it feels pretty good. I don't really even have an agenda for today, which is so unlike me, but I did a lot of the agenda-type stuff yesterday. Maybe we'll do a group craft—who knows? Hope things are equally chill in your neck of the woods.

-Dorie

I didn't think I would ever buy a jelly roll, which if you don't know are 2.5 in strips of fabric of all the fabrics in a given fabric line all rolled up into a bundle. If you're a fabric lover, it does look sweet and delicious, like the pastry it's named after. Moda invented the jellyroll method of fabric packaging and has copyright on the name. The reason I didn't think I'd ever buy one is that it's too much like a kit. One of the things I like best about quilting is mixing fabrics and finding interesting combinations. Making a quilt from a roll would seem to take some of that creativity away, particularly if I were also making a pattern by the same company. It would be almost like making a doll designed to look licensed character—if I had really good execution, it might look just like the picture on the box in the end, but there would be no "me" in it.

OK, but I did buy one (two), some months ago, and now I'm making a quilt with it. Why make the jump? There are some fabric lines for which I would really like to have a little piece of each fabric. (Can you imagine if Mendocino was available like this, or maybe as a layer cake? Not Moda, though. :-)) I am such a fan of Lecien's Minny Muu fabrics that when I saw them all rolled up and sorted by color like this, I really just couldn't resist. I love them all, every tiny little mousey print of them. And, the other thing that made me go roll was that when browsing the craft section at Barnes, I found a book of jellyroll patterns that looked really good—Jelly Roll Quilts by Pam and Nicky Lintott. I think a lot of jellyroll patterns seem to be straining—trying to balance out a roll that just might not have it, but these look great. Plus, with my favorite pattern in the book, I can stretch my jelly roll to make a bed quilt.

I'll let you know how the quilt goes (of course). If you're looking for more perspectives on the jellyroll, Jan at Bemused just did a post on buying her first jellyroll, and the comments have a lot of really great pros and cons.

So did you catch that I said that Moda does all the jellyrolls, but then mine is Lecien fabric? Right. Lecien's is actually called a Sushi Roll, and I'm guessing that since they want to be careful not to stomp on Moda's copyright, the strips are 2.75 in. instead of 2.5 inches. This is a bit annoying because it means I have to re-work all the math in my quilt, bu it's OK—I'm not afraid of math. Plus, that makes it more mine, right?

Amy wanted some cute little woodland redwork for her one quilt block, and I am very happy to oblige. (I do love redwork.) True, Amy's month was back in February, but better late and properly done than on time and half-assed, right? I traced the squirrel from a Sendak illustration in the Little Bear books. Those books are so sweet, they kill me every time. I really used to love reading them to Eva. I liked Mother Bear's furniture—I imagined myself living in her house quite comfortably.

This block is the first time I've sewn for someone else in quite some time. I didn't intentionally set out to be a selfish sewer, but I had very little time for myself during the early months of this year. I guess I sewed for myself all summer as a way to make it up to me. Glad I did, but now I'm ready to move on—I do enjoy making things for other folks, and at this point I have quite a backlog.

Aloha! We're just back from an island paradise. Elie had a conference to attend in Honolulu and Eva and I got to tag along. Lucky us. Going to Hawaii seems so made-up—I never really thought I would end up going there, but the opportunity presented itself, so...!

It really was as beautiful as you might expect, and I had dreamy ideas of Hawaii, so I thought I might be disappointed, but I wasn't. During the conference, we stayed in Honolulu and Eva and I explored while Elie conferred, but then we did have one day to take off together after the conference ended, so we drove up to the North Shore and then along the coast. Just so nice. There was plenty of time on the beach, and as it usually is, my favorite beach time was a little before sunset, when the water gets all opalescent and the sun is not so fierce. It reminds me of times growing up when my sisters and I would walk to the beach after dinner, or in college when I'd jump into the ocean for a swim before going to wait tables or scoop ice cream. So calm.

I took some pacific blue sock yarn with me and started knitting up my very first sock ever. I've just done the heel turn now, and I can see why there are so many sock knitting addicts out there—socks are both portable and sculptural. I also packed some patchwork for the plane. Even in paradise, a girl's got to keep her fingers busy, right?

You may have seen it on the sidebar already, but I wanted to post about Quilts, Baby!, a new baby quilts book from Lark, edited by Linda Kopp. I've contributed a pattern to this book, but before I get into those details, I want to say how much I like the other patterns in the book. Lark really did a great job in putting this together. They wanted us to focus on fresh quilt ideas that a beginner can handle, and I think the book really hits that nail on the head.

I am in very good craft blog company in the book. if you have a minute, check out the sites of these other great quilt makers:

• Aimee at www.dreamfollow.com
• Laura at www.lkdDesigns.etsy.com
• Julie at www.julieknoblock.com
• Carly at neststudio.typepad.com
• Laurraine at www.patchworkpottery.com
• Glynis at www.dandelionquilts.com
• Kajsa at syko.typepad.com/syko/
• Erin at houseonhillroad.com
• Victoria at thesillyboodilly.blogspot.com
• Jude at judestuecker.com/
• Marne at www.heylucy.net/
• Malka at stitchindye.blogspot.com/
• Christina at jamtartbaby.etsy.com (not up at the moment)

For my quilt I did a traditional bricks quilt (easiest one in the book!), and then turned the "bricks" into the idea of stairs, because playing on the stairs is really fun. Then I made little redwork kitties who galavant up and down the stairs—they march, they slide, they jump... The cartoon-ish kitty shapes are easy to adjust, if you want to customize one. Or, if you hate cats, you could change the ear shape and make a dog/mouse/bear/etc. It was a lot of fun to make.

If you've been around here long enough, you know that I'm fan on contests, particularly creative making-stuff contests. There's something about a set of rules and a deadline that gets my creative juices flowing. When I saw that Instructables was hosting a a mother's day sewing themed contest, I got all excited, especially when I saw that some of the prizes were dress forms. Mmmm...Dress forms. So I did something I haven't done in waaaaay too long—I conceived, started, and finished a project all in one day. Then it felt so good, I did it again. Mwah-ha-ha! I'm getting my zest for making back. It was really nice to make something that hadn't been sitting on my mental to do list for ages. Whipup really knew what they were talking about when they did the whiplash contests.

My actual instructables are a box pleat apron, and a cute fireflower Nintendo DS case. (Eva has a DS now. More on that later, I imagine.) In case you're not sure what an instructable is, I will tell you that it is basically a managed tutorial—step-by-step instructions on how to do something. If you're down with instructables and my projects, you can vote for me. Actually, instructables contests are interesting in that you can vote for as many entries as you like, so you could vote for me and 12 other people too. Other entries I like include Fastest Recycled T-shirt Tote Bag, Summer Visor (my mom loves visors!),and really you should probably check out the sleeping bag suit.

I've got a killer head cold, and yesterday evening I felt soooo yucky, and what I really wanted was teevee on the couch. But we don't have the teevee. Alas! Usually I don't care, but yesterday I wanted Talk Soup or reruns of Seinfeld or America's Next Top Model. Quality. Instead I dug out a DVD that my mom had given me for Christmas—9 to 5, you know with Dolly Parton? It was just about right. Late 70s working-lady and boss-guy fashions are so fun and painful. Elie and I had a discussion about this where he wanted to call them 70s fashions and I wanted to call them early 80s fashions, but the movie was made in 1980, so I really think he's right.

So here's the deal with why my mom got me this movie: When I was in High School, my mom was into New Country or maybe it was called Modern Country. My sisters and I thought this was hysterical. We lived in New Jersey. There was so much good fodder for mocking sing-alongs. (All My Exes Live in Texas, anyone?) Anyway, one of my mom's Dolly Parton mix tapes had the song 9 to 5 on it, which is actually a great song to get you going in the morning. (It is in my head while I'm in the shower on more mornings than I care to admit.) We would listen to it in the van on the way to school, and we'd crank it up really loud, and we'd drive by my boyfriend who was smoking with all the aloof smokers just outside school property, and we'd wave. It just cracked me up so much. It probably made me the biggest dork in the world, but we were so entertained.

Up there, that's my newest border. I went a little lighter.

Quilting again. Thanks goodness! I am still surprised (although at this point I probably shouldn't be) at how therapeutic quilting is for me. Ahhhh.

I've been behind on my one quilt blocks, and it's given me that nagging feeling of owing, even though I know that the whole one quilt project is rather relaxed and that no one is up-to-date. Really we're all just a bunch of sweet, talented, and very busy people working in what we can into a combined project. Anyway, I decided to do a one-for-you, two-for-me on the blocks to get me back into it, while still allowing me to be excited about some spring projects.

This particular blocks is Nanette's genius. Flour sacks and Japanese navy—how awesome is that? My quilt blocks are usually geometric or follow a pattern of some sort, so trying this freehand style was new (and fun) for me. No wonky seams though. I couldn't quite get it right in my head, and there was something funny about trying to get wonkyness and failing.

And, I'm back to making border on my medallion quilt. I am bound and determined to be not too far off when the quilt a-long ends in May.