Author Archives: Jennifer Ofenstein

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About Jennifer Ofenstein

Owner of sewhooked.com and fandominstitches.com. #quiltforgood advocate. Quilt designer, instructor, Talk to Me Tuesday founder & contributor, cat mom, and craft enabler.

2010 UFO – How’d I do?

On January 2, 2010, I posted UFO Round Up with photos and descriptions of UFOs I hoped to complete in 2010, or at least make some progress on in 2010.

Here’s how I did! Current status of each project is in red.

To Be Quilted:

Friendship Quilt by Jen's Grannie & friends
January 2, 2010 – Grannie’s Autograph Quilt – This was my Grannie’s and was previously a tied quilt. I’d like to hand quilt it, but I’ve been reluctant to start until I finish my Electric Amish project (see below).

January 5, 2011 –  This top has borders and is in the process of being quilted.


Lost & Found Flour Sack Quilt
January 2, 2010 – Lost and Found Flour Sack Quilt – A quilt top my mom found when she inherited my Grannie’s house. It was originally much longer with holes in several of the squares. I removed a few rows across the bottom (which is not how it was pieced, so it was a pain!) and the damaged fabrics, then replaced those with some of that fabric salvaged from the bottom. The border is muslin, which is also what I’d like to put on the back.
Grannie's Trunk Quilt
January 5, 2011 – Renamed Grannie’s Trunk Quilt. This top was quilted by my friend Linda and then returned to my mom. Read all about it here.


in progress quilts for Linus
January 2, 2010 – Yellow/Green Linus X-Quilts (from fabric donated by Laci L) – made from the Layer ‘Em Up book by Sharyn Craig. Easy peasy tops made from just 2 yards of fabric, both are baby-size. To finish by the next Linus meeting, January 16, 2009.

2 of 2, made from fabric given to me by Laci Donated January 2010

January 5, 2011 – Both quilts were finished and donated to The Linus Connection in January and February of 2010.

Electric Amish by Jen

January 2, 2010 – Electric Amish (hand quilting project, about 1/3 complete) – modified Storm at Sea pattern. This is the first large quilt top I completed that I intended to keep for myself. I’ve been quilting on it for at least five years.  To say that hand quilting is not my strong point is an understatement!

Electric Amish

January 5, 2011 – Done, done, done and VERY happy about it! Blogged about here and vlogged here.

Tops to Finish:

Bear Paws in progress
January 2, 2010 – Brown Bear (blocks are done, need more borders and to be pieced) – from a pass around with my bee. We made the bear paws for each other.  I’ve pieced the units, which still need borders.

January 5, 2011 – Sadly, no progress at all on these. They look exactly like they did a year ago.


HP block swaps all together

January 2, 2010 – HP swap received (blocks are done, need layout, piecing) – from various online quilt block swaps 2007-2008.  Not all of these will go in the finished quilt because a few were the wrong size.  I’ll save those for something else.

January 5, 2011 – No progress here, either, though I have thought about these blocks a lot over the last year. I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to split them into two groups and make two different quilts. Now, I just have to decide how to do it!

Christmas Cottage Swap, blocks rec'd Christmas Cottage Swap, blocks rec'd Christmas Cottage Swap, blocks rec'd Christmas Cottage Swap, blocks rec'd Christmas Cottage Swap, blocks rec'd

January 2, 2010 – Christmas Cottage swap received (blocks are done, need layout, piecing) – blocks received from the 2009 All About Paper Piecing Christmas Cottage Swap. I’m not in a huge hurry for these since I just got them all, but they’re officially a UFO, so they’re on the list.

Christmas Cottage swap blocks with whimsical Christmas trees
January 5, 2011 – I pieced the top, added the trees and the first border at my bee’s annual retreat in March last year (photo taken there on our portable design wall). I plan to do piano keys out of my stash of sparkly Christmas fabric for the last border. The original idea was to be done by this Christmas that just passed, but that didn’t happen!

Layer Em Up for Linus
January 2, 2010 – Layer ‘Em Up 2 for Linus (blocks are pieced, need to be squared and top pieced) – To finish by the next Linus meeting, January 16, 2009.

Layer 'Em Up made at Linus Work Day

January 5, 2011 – Top finished in January and then quilted by my friend Marge and donated to Linus in February 2010. I love the way this quilt turned out. As a bonus, I got to meet Sharyn Craig in October and tell her how much her patterns have meant to our organization!

New York Beauty Block

January 2, 2010 – Batik Beauty (finish blocks) – this will likely be my quilt retreat project for March. I’d like to have this top done by April in order to show the NYB class I’m teaching at Honey Bee.

January 5, 2011 – I have a whole stack of these blocks done, which I did take to my class, but the top has not yet been pieced. The class was fun to teach,  mainly because I had awesome students, but New York Beauty blocks are not my favorites and I doubt I’ll teach them again any time soon. For now, this project is staying in the bag.

Sewing:
January 2, 2010 – Pillowcases to donate to Honey Bee for the 1 Million Pillowcases Challenge.

Pillow made with the "hot dog" method...so cool! 10 Pillowcases

January 5, 2011 – Not only did I make a stack of pillowcases to donate (over 10 total!), I wrote a tutorial to share with Honey Bee, which was posted both here and on the Honey Bee website. The Hot Dog Pillowcase Tutorial was my most viewed post on the Sewhooked Blog in 2010!

January 2, 2010 – New Bag with pockets for BB & camera

Monk's Bag 2.0 Tutorial

January 5, 2011 – Done in form of Monk’s Bag 2.0, completed February 2010. I’ve been carrying this bag ever since and am constantly having people ask where I got it. This was another popular tutorial from last year.

Crochet

Black & Red Swap - Received
January 2, 2010 – Twilight Crafts Black & Red Swap Received (layout and finish) – knit and crochet squares.  I might make a few more, or I might just border these and make them into a lapghan.

January 5, 2011 – In progress as my “carpool crochet” project. I’m making simple white squares to set between each of the red & black ones. I will likely donate it to Linus when I’m done, though I hate to say goodbye to these blocks!

In Progress - jeweled "Turn Around Granny"

January 2, 2010 – Turn Around Granny Square ‘ghan (more rounds? and finish) – Oh geez, these have been sitting for at least a year. I’m uninspired as to what I need to do next. More rounds? Just put them together? No idea!

Jewelled Granny Ghan

January 5, 2011 – Completed and renamed Jewelled Granny Ghan. Gifted to my in-laws for Christmas 2010 because they are awesome.

That’s it for the 2010 UFO Round-up update. Would you like to see a 2011 version? Let me know and I’ll get to work on what needs to be done this year!

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TTMT 91 – Crazy Hands

I referenced a photo in the video that I totally forgot to add….

Three Year Old Jedi

Three Year Old Jedi
He still makes that face when I take his picture and he’s trying to be serious! Notice the pod-racer made out of Legos on the floor.

Let me tell you, do not try to learn to use a new camera and new software all in the same day that you want to post a video. What happens? You start at 9 am and don’t finish until 8:30 pm. That’s what happens!

That said, Windows Live Movie Maker 2011 is quite awesome. If you’re a WMM user, definitely upgrade (it’s free!) and try it out! The previous version I used was always locking up on me, but this version was smooth sailing and there are lots of new widgets.

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2010 in review

This was too cool not to share…I hope you all enjoy this as much as I did! I promise to try and keep it up for 2011…there’s lots to come!

Look for a 2010 UFO status update, coming later this week.

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The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

Featured image

A helper monkey made this abstract painting, inspired by your stats.

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 170,000 times in 2010. If it were an exhibit at The Louvre Museum, it would take 7 days for that many people to see it.

In 2010, there were 166 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 384 posts. There were 19 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 3mb. That’s about 2 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was February 4th with 886 views. The most popular post that day was sewing: Hot Dog, A Pillowcase!.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were crochetpatterncentral.com, sewhooked.org, ravelry.com, stumbleupon.com, and myhq.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for christmas stocking pattern, stencil, fangtasia, harry potter party, and paper piecing.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

sewing: Hot Dog, A Pillowcase! January 2010
14 comments

2

crochet: Loopy Shells Blankie September 2009
7 comments

3

crochet: Two for One Heart Square, 6″ & 12″ variations October 2009
3 comments

4

crochet: Eye of the Vampire 6″ Square August 2009
2 comments

5

crochet: Chained Compass Motif with variations August 2009
4 comments

2011 Project of Doom

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Chances are pretty good that, if you follow my blog, you like Harry Potter. Why? It could be because of my Harry Potter quilt, or maybe the Hogwarts-themed birthday party, my daughter’s Harry Potter bedroom or maybe the costumes or buttons, or scarves or crafts or….you get the idea.

I love Harry Potter and I love to create.

In 2011, as a Thank You to all of those members of the HP fandom that have been my cheerleaders and my friends over the years, I will be hosting The Project of Doom over on my quilting community on Livejournal, hp_paperpiecing.

The Project of Doom is a Block of the Week (BOW) Mystery Quilt to create an entire Harry Potter-themed quilt top.

We’ll be starting the week of January 12, 2011 and you’re invited, too!

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Baking Day

toffee close up

Today was the beginning of holiday baking. I’ve been wanting to make candy and treats since the first day of December, but it just has not happened.

2010 found me not only going back to work part-time after being a stay-at-home mom for almost fifteen years, but it’s also the year that I turned Sewhooked from humble blog and website into my own pattern publishing business. It’s been a crazy, exciting and very busy year!

The new (and exciting!) demands on my time have kept me out of the kitchen. With Linus over for the year and my kids out of school, I decided today was going to be The Day.

I broke out my favorite old cookbooks and hand-scribbled recipes and started cooking. These are today’s accomplishments.

english toffee

Toffee, adapted from a recipe found in and old church cookbook.

Chocolatey Butter Toffee

  • 1 c butter
  • 1 c sugar
  • 1 c chocolate chips
  • 1/2 c pecans

Place parchment paper on a cookie sheet, sprinkle pecans on the paper.

Cook butter and sugar in a heavy saucepan until it reaches 300 degrees F on a candy thermometer. Remove from heat and pour over pecans. Spread the mixture with a non-stick spatula. Sprinkle chocolate chips on top of hot toffee. All to sit for several minutes and then spread with the spatula. Move cookie sheet into the refrigerator for 1 hour to set chocolate. Remove, break into pieces and store in an air-tight container at room temp.

drying mints

Holiday Mints, from a company cookbook found at a thrift store. This is a new-to-me recipe.

No-bake Holiday Mints

  • 1 pound powdered sugar
  • 3 Tbs room-temp butter
  • 3 1/2 Tbs evaporated milk or 1/2 & 1/2
  • 1/2 tsp peppermint extract
  • 1/2 tsp almond extract
  • a few drops of food coloring

Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl (I have upright mixer – it worked a treat!); knead mixture in bowl until smooth. Shape mints in candy molds placed on a baking sheet. Cover with a towel and allow to air dry.* Remove from molds and store in an airtight container.

*note – there is no time listed for how long these take to dry. I’m going to try overnight and I’ll get back to you!

ETA – These tasted like toothpaste…I even tried dipping them in chocolate to save the batch, but then it tasted like chocolate-covered toothpaste! If I did this again, I would omit the almond extract.

cracked ginger cookies 2

Cracked Ginger Cookies from Reader’s Digest Cookies – 1001 Mouthwatering Recipes from Around The World, another new-to-me recipe!

peanut brittle

Jennifer’s Best Peanut Brittle – Yes, I did name this after myself. Follow the link and you’ll see why!

fudge

Fantasy Fudge, right off the back of Kraft’s Jet-Puffed Marshmallow Creme. I’ve been making fudge my entire adult life and this always, always gives me the best results!

Am I done for the holidays, you ask? Not by a long shot! I still have bon-bons and cookies for Santa to make!

Add your Sewhooked-related photos to my flickr group and you might be featured in a future post.

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A Year of Blankets

The Linus Connection‘s 2010 A Year of Blankets. Enjoy the gorgeous handmade goodness and consider helping out a blanket making charity in your area in 2011.

Learn more about The Linus Connection, my favorite charity:

My December Donations:

Modly Layer 'Em Up
The Ugly Quilt, a quilting experiment gone wrong. I just could not make myself like this. I tried. Eventually, I just gave up and stitched the blocks together. Several people told me it was very striking. The two redeeming qualities of this quilt – it lay perfectly flat for quilting and it squared up exactly. I’m sure someone will love it, I was just very tired of looking at it.

Blue Granny
Blue Granny – I love this ‘ghan. It is made of leftovers from Blue Bricks and the last couple of skeins of blue yarn in my stash.

Blue Granny
Also? Picot edges make me happy.

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Project for Awesome 2010

If you’ve been following me for any length of time, then you know that The Linus Connection is a big part of my life. This year, I’m participating in The Project For Awesome in order to help raise awareness for my favorite charity. Please watch, comment, share with your friends and please Thumbs Up on YouTube!

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