Jeff and Mary's cabin quilt

You've all probably seen many pictures of this quilt at various stages of development. Here it is in its finished form, on the night that we gave it to Jeff and Mary.

SHOW OFFS!!!!

OK- you are all a bunch of show offs! How anyone can go anywhere near a needle while raising two kids is beyond my imagination. Anyway, I will be staying at home with the girls this summer so be prepared, you will have to look at pics of gardens, bad origami, 1001 project with cotton balls and glitter glue, and some very ugly baked goods. I just had to share the picture Jedy got done for mr for Christmas. I know I sent it to some of you already, but I just love it! Trust me, Laney is all I have had time to make in the last 3 years!

Denyse Schmidt crafts

These are two of the crafts Emily and I worked on over Christmas...they are both from patterns in the book "Denyse Schmidt Quilts". I made this zigzag change purse and Emily also made the matching zigzag bag. They're both made from vinyl. We had never sewn vinyl before and we found this vinyl in a little fabric shop in San Francisco's Chinatown (of all places). It was really easy to sew with just regular thread and needle on the machine. We also found another type of vinyl-like shiny material we liked, but it was impossible to sew - we're still trying too think of ways to use that stuff!

I used Insul-Brite batting in the oven mitt, so it's heat resistant. We made a bunch of mitts and potholders, using different fabric combinations in pathwork a la Denyse Schmidt - her book has great little projects as well as quilts, and great use of fabric!

I blame my mom

I have a problem finishing projects. Where does that come from, I wonder???? Anyway, Martha Stewart has a pattern for a simple knit scarf on her website http://marthastewart.com/page.jhtml?type=content&id=channel172064&site=
and I started it about 2 years ago. I got about 2/3 done and stopped--probably because it was Spring and I only knit in the winter for unknown reasons. In the interest of removing clutter from my life, I decided to finish the scarf this year. The problem was that I couldn't find the same yarn again. I chose another nice color and decided that if it looked intentional it was okay. I started knitting and quickly realized that the circular needle I stored the scarf-bit on was not the same size as the needle I started with. The result is a different-colored, larger end. It is ridiculous.

Diane's Prayer Shawl

I finally finished my first prayer shawl. The prayer shawl idea is that you pray for someone while you're knitting it (the stitches are in groups of threes, so theoretically, you pray "Father, Son, Holy Spirit" unless you're watching Comedy Central while you're knitting and then you forget) and then when you give them the shawl, it's full of your prayers (and in my case, mistakes).
I made this for my friend Therese here in Lexington, whose husband is very sick with MS.

You can't really tell from the photo, but it's a really pretty shade of green. It's made with that Homespun yarn, which is a little bit rustic looking.

Lace votive candleholders

I tried out these lace votive candle holders from the February Martha Stewart magazine. The lace with the scalloped edge came out looking the best, but I later trimmed the tops of the other two, and they looked better. They were messy to make, but fun. We're going to make them at our "craft club" meeting in a couple of weeks.

golf covers

These are the knit golf covers that I made for Zac for Christmas. They were finished in order from left to right and they definitely improved as I got more practice. The pattern is free from lionbrand and I can send it out if anyone is interested. They look like sad mutant socks until you add the pom-pom and then they look fabulous!

Welcome

Hi Laney family crafters and associates! This is the inaugural post so I should explain the purpose of this space. First, the name is deceptive. This is not only for Laneys and not only for crafts. I think there is plenty of space here for vacation pictures, life updates, and whatever else seems interesting enough to post about.

When I was home in San Francisco for Christmas, Mom and I had two fun days of only crafting. We made bags, potholders, coinpurses, and we did some knitting. Shouldn't we be able to show off without sending a hundred separate emails???? That's what this is for. Let's post pictures of our new fun projects and keep each other up to date on good things to try.