Welcome to the Jungle

I wrote the blog post below long, long ago, before I finished all of the projects mentioned. Then I forgot I had written this post and wrote new ones as I finished projects. I almost deleted this when I stumbled upon it. I didn't have anything better to publish today, so I might as well take a fun and memorable step back in time!

Before I began piecing together the lime green batik remnants of my treasured bag, skirt and dress, my goal was to use up a good portion of my leftover stash. I've always had great difficulty throwing away pieces of fabric that might be big enough to make into something. Some day.

My remnants stash has overgrown its boundaries many times over. It was time to make a dent in it.

2011 green batik stash

2025 green batik stash and leftovers

As I began working on Welcome to the Jungle, I began running out of some of my favorite bright lime green batiks. I caved and bought two more yards because every quarter block has at least four different bright lime green batiks. As I began working on the French braid border (my first pieced border ever), I began running out of the darker and lighter green batiks.

Oh, was I tempted to buy more!

The day I began cutting the strips for the main squares, Lizard asked if I was making another dress. Oh, the inspiration that swirled through my entire core! I could make a dress of the strips! It would be beautiful!

Now I was running out of everything, and I wouldn't have enough left over to make yet one more dress.

I had to give myself a time out to prevent me from shopping for more lime green batik.

The purpose of Welcome to the Jungle was to use up remnants! To make them go away. To completely run out. To not have enough left over to make anything else.

After a bit of attitude adjustment, I realized I could do the strip dress from purple batiks. Or turquoise batiks. While making this quilt, I kept thinking how much fun it would be to do another one, different pattern, with purples. Or blues.

And yet, each week when I receive an email ad announcing new fabrics in stock, I find myself drawn to luscious new lime green batiks. Again, and again, and again. And again...

My next quilting project goal was to finish Leaf Me Alone, also inspired by dress remnants. My sister-in-law's admiration for the leaf quilt pushed me to finish it before Welcome to the Jungle.

Now, Welcome to the Jungle takes front and center. It must be finished in time for the Denver National Quilt Festival. (2025 Edit: Which ended about a decade ago...) Then comes fun. Then comes sewing and quilting without deadlines.

The next project I wanted to do after Welcome to the Jungle and Leaf me alone was a scrap happy quilt. To use up even more remnants. To make them go away. To completely run out. To not have enough left over to make anything else.

At which point, I can begin using stash fabric that had never been cut.

I have so much stash, I can make a new dress without buying a thing except maybe a zipper or button. By making a new dress, I might ignite new dress-remnant quilt inspirations. I might replenish my remnant stash. Without buying a thing.

Sigh. How much of this will actually get accomplished while bright lime green fabrics continue to call out to me so loudly?!?

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What Shawl I Do?

I don't have as much time to craft these days, and I'm so far behind, I don't need new patterns. Or new fabric. Or new yarn. So what did I do last December but buy a large crochet octopus pattern that will use up at least 246 of my 2,000+ pony beads? I HAVE to have a crocheted octopus in my garden, right???

I already have more WIPs than I can finish in one lifetime. Why on earth did I buy a new pattern??? Because it was so friggin' adorable!!!

So I HAD to buy (online) some beautiful gradient worsted yarn to make the octopus. Turns out, though, the yarn is not worsted. It’s thinner (and way splittier) than sock yarn. (I actually plan to try making an octopus with thread, but I'll wait until I've finished a few more WIPs.) (Maybe.) I could easily make this pattern work with sock yarn, but this new yarn is just too splitty to work tightly. Yes, I tried. And I truly gave it my best shot. I literally wanted to throw my embryo octopus out the window before starting the second tentacle.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t wait to use the gorgeous new (splitty) yarn because the colors are so pretty. Yes, you guessed it. I started yet another new project. Because I really like the pattern. Actually, I LOVE the pattern. It's one of my own. And I can crochet loosely, which makes the yarn a little tiny bit easier to use. If I work on the new shawl a bit (almost) every night before bed and don't skip too many nights, it's not really a WIP, right???

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Legends of Calypso

Confession: I was totally seduced by the blue Color Calypso fabric line (that isn't even available anymore). I don't think I even waited for a sale to snag my fat quarter bundle. I loved the colors and the individual designs from the very first time I saw them in a magazine ad. I didn't unpackage my June 2018 bundle until late 2022. I still am not sure what I should do with it, yet I love to look at the gorgeous hues when I need creative inspiration.

I adored the "color-kissed" flower print so much, I decided I need a dress made of it. I bought four yards. Again, I didn't wait for a sale. But I also still haven't gotten around to selecting a pattern for the fabric. (I have so many blue floral fabrics for which I haven't yet chosen dress patterns!) I can't decide if I want this particular dress to be a jumper I can wear in all seasons or a summer-sleeved frock that will get put away in winter.

I didn't expect to see any of the collection go on sale ever, but more than one year after I bought that initial bundle, a handful of the jelly roll strip packages landed in a popular online sale bin. I wasted no time in adding one to my collection.

I knew from experience one package of 40 or 42 jelly roll strips is not quite enough strips to make the entire skirt for a dress I designed with my own Spoonflower fabric designs back in 2014. (Man, I can't believe it's been that long ago now!!!) I knew must supplement. When I buy a set of jelly roll strips I intend to fashion into a dress, I typically buy a yard of my favorite fabric in the collection or in a coordinating solid to add half a dozen or so more strips to the skirt and to create a dress bodice. Pockets typically are made from whatever I have in my scrap bin that goes along with the dress fabric as close as possible. After all, my deep side pockets don't show.

I modified my strip skirt design just a bit with blue floral fabric leftovers from other projects and cut from worn-out dresses I made about as far back as high school.

The Color Calypso fabric line was so dated (most fabric collections - except for Moda Grunge and various solids - don't tend to be on the shelves longer than a few months), I knew there wouldn't be much yardage selection anywhere to add to my dress, so I thought a coordinating solid might be a nice addition. I used an online store's color matcher tool and bought a couple of yards of the recommended blue.

I wasn't impressed with the solid shade when it arrived. In 2021, I used the solid in my Painterly Charms quilt, then used the leftovers in a table topper for my mom for Mother's Day.

I haven't had enough time to make anything for me for so long, I'd set aside all my planned dress projects. I hoped a better Color Calypso coordinating solid option might materialize one day. At the end of 2019, I needed a tiny bit more of one specific fabric to finish an unrelated quilt. I got online to find the fabric, and there in the daily highlights was what I considered the perfect match for the Color Calypso dress! Moda Grunge, of course.

When this new fabric arrived, I couldn't wait to sit down to my sewing machine! I could not wait to wear this new dress! I cut the strips I needed several months later, and the following year or so, I cut out the bodice, lining and pockets. The unfinished project has been on my dining room table-turned sewing table since March of 2020. I never touched it again until now!!!

It likely will take a while to finish the piecing, and then I'd like to topstitch each seam with row of fancy embroidery. I went through my thread stash and don't have anything but a blue solid for the topstitching, but I guess I have a while before I have to make that decision. Each skirt panel will be at least 24 strips wide, and I'm only 9 strips into the first of two panels. Sadly, this isn't a dress I'll be wearing to church this coming weekend. How I wish I could finish it that fast!

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All Grown Up

Back in 2010, I crocheted socks for each of my female friends and family members. I was SO thrilled, and I thought they were the best gifts I'd ever given. Not only did I love crocheting socks, but who else had ever done such a cool thing???

Some of the recipients loved the gift. Some never said whether they liked their socks. A couple told me they were allergic to wool and never said thank you or anything appreciative. (That happens to most quilt-givers at least once, too.) One recipient told me her daughter quickly adopted her socks and asked if I might make one more pair... (Of course I would!!! And I did!!!)

I liked making socks SO much, I began making baby socks. One co-worker asked if I could make baby socks for her dog to wear in winter. I thought about all the quilts (including one I made) that wound up on the floor as a sleeping pad for a beloved dog. It wasn't my idea of how such a treasured gift should be used, but I tried to remember how much my mom has always loved her dog(s). The "child" who never talks back, who never sneaks out the window in the middle of the night, who never wrecks the car and who never runs up a $200 phone bill (LONG before cell phones).

I think I listed three pairs of handmade adult socks in my Etsy shop over the years. (My Etsy shop has been paused since Lizard's December 2019 total knee replacement because I have been so overwhelmed as a Parkinson's caregiver ever since.) (But I hope to re-stock and re-open my Etsy shop this summer...) But who wants to spend $30 (the cost of wool fingering at the time) for a pair of socks when you can get affordable footwear at Target and Walmart and you can get wool socks for $18ish at REI? To date, I've sold only baby socks (and four baby socks for a dog).

I designed a fingerless glove pattern to match my sock pattern. Both patterns were designed to match my hat pattern. I began making matched sets for Etsy and my annual office Christmas craft fair. (I also designed a key chain, cowl, phone cozy and even a snowflake to match...)

Again, I don't think I ever sold any of the sets. I did break up a lot of the sets, though, because buyers wanted only the fingerless gloves or only the hat. I tried to replenish the missing itens as I was able to replace the fingering yarn I'd used for each broken set.

I think most of the sets were given away as gifts after several years of no sales. No complaints. I got no complaints for these gifts. Perhaps I've become more selective in who gets handmade gifts from me... Ha ha ha!

One of the now-grown girls I taught way back during my sock days recently announced she will be serving a church mission in Finland. In two weeks!!! Her mother was looking for wool items to send along. I did NOT have enough time to make another set!!!

I kept thinking I might have at least one pair of adult socks left. They took a while to find because I haven't tried to sell any of my creations in the last five years except for a neighborhood craft fair back in December of 2022. (The reason I didn't try to do the 2023 neighborhood craft fair is I didn't sell anything but quilted table toppers and a couple of crocheted snowflakes at the first one. Definitely not worth leaving Lizard alone that long.)

I found the final pair of adult socks and was surprised to find a matching hat... complete with crocheted flowers I'd intended to sew onto the hat before listing it on Etsy. I never finished the embellishments because I couldn't find yarn to re-make the fingerless gloves (or the full-finger gloves!!!) that had sold at my last office craft fair back in about 2017.

I quickly attached the flowers and wrapped the set in snowflake wrapping paper. My gorgeous hat and socks are now on their way to Finland!

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Flaky Flimsy

(affiliate links to my designs)

I know. Last thing I needed is another unfinished quilt. But I'm going to be an aunt again any minute, and for this particular baby, nothing in my UFO stash seemed quite right.

Meanwhile, I finally printed my final 2023 digital snowflake temperature quilt segment, and it was itching to be made into something.

First, I finished the mini panel crafted from entire month-long segments printed on fat quarters. Then I put on a black sashing to make the center stand out from the planned border.

Then I cut off the extra rows on my five-inch, full-yard panels and used them to create the border. The 11 already-printed fat quarter panels were already cut and pieced. The rest was all completed in one night. All I need to do now is layer it, quilt it and bind it. I am one super happy camper. I think this might make a perfect baby quilt!

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