Pink crocheted baby set

My cousin is expecting a baby in the fall. We don't know the sex of the baby, so here is a pink set I made. I already made a blue one--so all bases are covered, so to speak. I designed this myself, so no pattern is available. I like to use Patons Astra yarn. It's sport weight. And there happens to be a completed baby quilt tucked away in my closet.
On another subject--we had an earthquake today. The place really swayed, and I did get scared. But the quake didn't last long, and there was no damage in my place. The chandelier really was swaying, though.
I'm sewing together my crazy quilt. I made 48 squares, and you would think that there would be a dent in my mess of fabric scraps--but no, there's still tons of the stuff.

Time is getting away from me here, and only a few more quilt blocks to show for it. At least I did finish that silly chicken pillow. And I have collected some fabric for a thing that's been in my head for ages--a wall hanging. But it's still there, in my head, although I did make a preliminary drawing for it. Meanwhile, I love surfing around on the net, finding all kinds of interesting blogs out there. I tried to reset some of my preferences on my blog, and I hope that I have made it easier to comment on my blog. Frankly, I don't really understand half of what they tell you to do on the settings. Good old Google--some of it is clear as mud to me.

Chicken pillow

Yep! A chicken can play baseball. This is what happened: I had a craft emergency: I needed plastic eyes, wild colors of felt, and yarn for my amigurumi animals (most of them have been posted here). I drive a car, but the craft and yarn store is kind of far for me, so my daughter took me over there. And we had to look at the books. Well, my daughter was laughing so hard at the book "Chicken Buffet" by Linda Huber and Bonnie Collins, published by Leisure Arts. She just had to have the chicken in the baseball catcher's outfit, called "chicken cacciatore". I made it into a pillow. I'm not used to working with fusible web. I usually make needle turn applique. I managed to do it, after several false starts. But I got that glue gunk all over the iron. Fortunately, a friend told me to run the hot iron over a dryer sheet, and that worked like a charm--the further adventures of Roz will be continued--

I haven't been doing much sewing lately, just a few more of the crazy quilt blocks. And I crocheted a rather silly panda bear from a Leisure Arts book called "Cute Little Animals." My life has been kind of hectic lately.

Little toys

I made these toys the other day they are number 2 and 3. There was a teddy bear some time ago. I've had some luck finding directions on the Internet. The ugly duckling is from www.freepatterns.com and the bunny is from www.lionbrand.com web site. Meanwhile, I'm making progress on that Roman Stripe crazy quilt, having sewn a few more blocks. I'm not sure how big the quilt will be, I guess until I get tired of sewing it.
There have been a lot of real bunnies around here lately. The condo grounds seem to be home to them. I guess it's like bugs, if you see one bunny, there are ten more just like it someplace nearby. My favorite two books about rabbits are of course, The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter and Watership Down: a novel by Richard Adams.

Krazy Kats quilt

This is one of my favorite quilts. I made it some time ago. It's the right size to throw over a sofa or easy-chair. I like to do embroidery--by hand. I don't have one of those sewing machines that does embroidery, although I do use some of the fancy stitches on my regular machine sometimes. My grandmother taught me to embroider when I was a little girl. But I don't recall seeing her embroider or sew anything. She had a treadle sewing machine that was all painted with a lovely flower design. I remember that I used it on rare occasions. Grandma was a queen in the kitchen, though. She could bake bread that was heavenly, make pickles and pickled salmon. It wasn't easy to make pickles then, first Grandma had to hire a farmer to grow the pickling cucumbers, and we had to go out to the farm and walk around in the field while she looked at them and he picked them for us. Grandma had some of those big old-fashioned candy jars, the kind with the slanted tops. She would put the pickles and solution in the jars and then she had a special flat rock (that she had of course cleaned very well) and she would weigh the cucumbers down with that. To be continued--someday I'll tell you about the cherry wine she made.... The quilt pattern is still available from http://www.whitepicketfencequilts.com/

Crazy patch handbag

I made the above in one day! Well that's a fib--because I made the crazy patches some time ago. I put them aside and use them later, as I find a use for them. Anyhow, I made this bag for my granddaughter. I like a handbag with a zipper--then your stuff doesn't fall out every time you get in a car or whatever. It's meander quilted. I got the pattern from http://www.lazygirldesigns.com/ and I made the bag shown below for myself last year.

Three little bags.

Here they are--three little bags for three little girls! I found this pattern in the magazine "Quilts and More" winter 2006 edition, designed by Cindy Taylor Oates. I used really bright colored fabrics. And I have a collection of really old buttons, and found a good use for three of them here. To be continued--I have one more granddaughter! These things were really quick to make, too. I had a great Fourth of July--spent the time with my family, barbecue and watching fireworks show. I put out my little flags in my flower pots on the ledge of the patio.