I like balance in my weekends—a certain amount of social time, a certain amount of family time, a certain amount of creative time, and also some “good work” and “getting stuff done”. This past weekend balanced itself out nicely, and might have really outdone itself if somehow “drinks with friends” had also made it in.

Eva and I made a Valentine’s Day cake on Saturday. Hooray for special dessert! It was a toss-up between 4-layer cake and trifle. I think cake won because of all the Netflixed Cake Boss we’ve been watching lately—Eva is pretty into it. It has whipped cream between two layers, and then a layer of raspberry jam and a layer of blood orange. Elie doesn’t really like cake, but he liked this one because it has fruit in it. That feels like such an accomplishment.

And then, on Sunday I went to the Ann Arbor Modern Quilt Guild (A2MQG) meeting for the first time. It was great! Yes, I had to drive an hour to get there, but it was totally worth it. It has been too long since I did any crafting with other people, and the experience was like live action looking at blogs. It must be how gamers feel where they go to their first LARP. “I do this online all the time, but now I’m doing it in real life!” Such a great group of quilters. I’ll be back.

Our new house is even older than our old house, and like our old house, it needs plenty of work. But in this house, we’re going about things a little differently.

It’s going to be an iterative approach to renovation. In our last house we labored for months (years!) on some parts of the house making those parts a mess, and there was always some part that was waiting about in an ugly way until we had time to deal with it. Each room that was finished was whole and lovely, but it wasn’t all lovely until it was time to go. This time we’re going around, around, around, around. Item number one is white paint. If we paint all the rooms white, they will be brighter, happier, and we won’t have to think about the last person’s paint choices (Butter, Tangerine, Lavender, Calypso Mermaid…) Then after paint comes leveling the floors, then sprucing up the woodwork, then finishing the floors. And between cycles we’ll take care of the outside, and at some point we’ll redo a bathroom…

I realize as I’m writing that the big thing is I don’t feel like I’m waiting to make this one pretty. It think we had to do our last house the way we did because it required so much more demo and tear-out than this one does, but there’s something different about our attitude too. With the other house we had something to prove—that we could manage and make it beautiful, and with that under our belts, I think we’re enjoying the ride here. We wanted the last house to be perfect and each choice had to be just so, but I think with this house we realize that houses can change and grow like people do, and if we focus on the process and work in cycles, we’ll enjoy living in something we really like.

We talk about process when we make things—the why and how of piecing together a quilt or making the pieces of a pattern fit. I always find others’ process posts interesting because they’re such good windows into who that person is. They’re little stories about about something made. And so, I want to talk a little about why I made quiltr.

At my job when I lived in Illinois, making work “good” was important to us. We wanted to play to our strengths and give individuals space to develop their own ideas. We talked about Daniel Pink’s Drive and how people are motivated. (Possibly you’ve seen this video? It was a top you tube video for some time. Really interesting. Go on and watch.) It turns out we’re motivated by three big things: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. We talked about these things at work. It was great.

Then I moved. (You know, moving takes a heck of a lot more time and energy than you think it will, even if you understand that it will take a heck of a lot of time and energy.) During the shuffle I thought, what if I took this time to work on things near and dear to me, what would I do? That’s where quiltr bubbled up. It just fit so nicely into what motivates me: Autonomy – that’s obvious. I was choosing what I wanted to work on. Mastery – I really wanted to make quiltr and be the one who actually made it. I didn’t just want to have the idea, I wanted to put it together and execute it. Through the process I’ve come to understand the HTML5 canvas tag, oAuth, and lots of other little things. Purpose – I wanted to make quiltr for this online community. I thought other people who like what I like would think it was fun. Making quiltr became important to me as an expression of my motivations—it allowed me to join my crafty and my code-y sides.

It’s so interesting to me that it turns out making a web app was a lot like making a quilt, or sewing a top. I didn’t expect it to be as creative a process as it was, and I didn’t expect myself to be turning to my text editor when I had a full day to myself and could have grabbed the rotary cutter. Gosh, I sure do enjoy the work I’ve been doing for years. Funny how that is.

Now where do I go from here? I liked making quiltr so much that I want to do more of the same. I’m piecing out where to go next.

This is the second time I’ve made this hat, same yarn and all. I don’t think I’ve ever done a repeat knit project like that before. The first time I knit it was for my sister for Christmas, and I so liked the way it came out that I cast on for another for me. Then my grandmother saw my sister’s hat and liked it, so this new hat is for her. How often is there an actual thing, let alone a handknit, that I can give to make her smile?

The next hat will be for me, a different pattern I think, though, and maybe red. Other people at the shop are knitting Ysolda berets, so there’s a pretty good possibility that I’ll be sold on that too.

This hat is Rosebud from Brooklyn Tweed. Rav link.

You all know Mimi Kirchner, yes? Really, no one does dolls like Mimi does dolls—the detail, the texture, the shape, the cleverness… She does patterns too.

I wanted to make Eva a special softie, and even though I had been thinking of one of the many knit critters I have in my ravelry queue, Mimi’s owl pattern won out. I’m so glad it did, because let me tell you, even two days before leaving on Christmas vacation, with all the assorted finishing and packing, it was still a pleasure to work on. The instructions were smart and detailed and I felt inspired in a way I hadn’t been for some time. It was very gratifying work.

Are you having fun with quiltr? I do hope so!

Meg pointed out that quiltr really ought to have a flickr group. Duh, of course it should. The quiltr flickr group is here. I hope you’ll add your quiltr quilt images. I’m working on making that easy for you and putting it right in the “upload to flickr screen”. Tidy, right?

I have been working on something, a big project.  I’m thinking (hoping!) that it will be a lot of fun for you, and I’m really happy to be able to share it today.

Professionally I’m a web developer, and when we made our big move to Michigan, I decided to take some time to work on dev project ideas that had been stewing in my head.  Quiltr is one of them.

So what is it?  Quiltr is a website that lets you make little digital quilts (quilt images, that is) using your flickr photos and a color picker.  It’s somewhere between a tool and a game for quilt lovers and those who just like to play with color, pattern, texture, and shape.  Interested?  Find quiltr here.

Using quiltr, I made this:

And this:

And this, using my flickr photos.

I want quiltr to be the beginning for other similar projects.  I’m having a lot of fun with this technology (I’m using the HTML5 canvas tag), and I see the possibilities for projects that are even better tools.  I would love to have real fabric libraries, and more options for scale and placement, and yardage calculators, and on and on…

I hope you think its’ fun.  I’ve done a lot of testing, but if you run into problems, just drop me a line.

I’m pretty sure I made it through that blog update. It got a little dicey there for a minute or two, but ta-da, here we are! I’m now running on Wordpress and looking forward to some easy upkeep. I am hoping you are seeing this post in your readers!

As a reward to myself for making it through this (and a reward to you if you were trying to access the site over the last hour), I get to share these little felt tea bags. I received the book softies years ago, but this is the first pattern I have made from it. I’ve always thought it was cute, and I decided to make up three this past Christmas for friends’ three girls. Eva helped with the color choices and the all-important who-gets-which.

I’ve done something new (for me) in knitting—the Baltic braid. It’s also called the Latvian braid, at least I think they’re the same exact thing. I love how it looks as a border or a trim, and it’s really easy even though it looks like it could be complicated.

My Baltic braid is part of the Inspira Cowl I just started. I pretty much love every Inspira I’ve seen, so I though I had better knit one for myself.

Lookout though. I may be putting Baltic braids on everything from here on out.

Pre-braid crazies, I knit some little things for Christmas presents. This cowl and this hat. I enjoyed them both, really, and I liked the hat so much that I’m knitting another one exactly the same for myself.

I’m on twitter now, have been for a bit, and I actually do some hanging out there. Find me there as @tumbling_blocks, if you’d like.

A move will really suck up all your energy and free time. It should not be surprising—it always sounds like a big effort—but I am still amazed by how much attention a move needs. I’m happy to say we’re done with that for quite a while.

We’re all tucked into our new house, mostly unpacked and trying to figure things out. It’s going to be a good fit, even if the cats are still freaked out. More craft stuff soon.

-Dorie