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Monthly Archives: September 2012

scrap break

27 Thursday Sep 2012

Posted by Laura C in quilts

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

pillow, quilting, quilts, rainbow scrap pillow, scraps

Stash-Up 2012 has begun this week. So far this week I’ve placed two smallish orders; I’ve got 2-4 more in planning for next week. My goal is to get STASHED UP. The kind of stashed up where I don’t have major color gaps (my biggies right now are red, orange, and purple) and where I can spur-of-the-moment start almost any project from stash.

Yes, I told my husband.

In all this thinking about what fabrics I don’t have, I took a little break and looked at what I do have. I labor under this delusion that I don’t even HAVE any scraps, I use them up all the time, la la la, remember those scrappy pillows? Only, I dumped out the scrap bag and had this:

And then I dug around in my pile from my momma (I knew she had some purple; d’you know I’ve never bought one. single. bit. of purple fabric? Weird.)

 Why, yes, I know this pile from my mom makes me an *excellent* prospective scrap vomit scrap swap partner. I’m keeping my eye peeled for another swap.

With this and this in my head, and with a little sorting, a little sewing, ironing, and trimming, and much “help” from my chief 17-month-old scrap sorter (who did not nap today), I have the below. Deadline for having this pillow cover DONE, quilted and backed and everything, is Wednesday. I think I’ll probably make it.

Here’s hoping the seam allowances don’t eat most of my little colorful corners…

nine blocks

26 Wednesday Sep 2012

Posted by Laura C in quilts

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

quilts, spinning stars quilt

I’ve finished my Spinning Stars blocks, though I haven’t yet set them. Whew. Feeling very love-hate about this project.

 

(Feeling mostly hate-hate about the tiny apartment/crummy cloudy weather that makes any size quilt IMPOSSIBLE to photograph. Also: didn’t I reproduce so I’d have someone around, all, the time, to do my bidding? When will this child be big enough to hold up quilts?)

Here’s what I wish: 1) That I’d had enough of that Lecien Folk Heart in the center stars to do ALL the C block stars. I bought that on clearance! I should have bought bunches and bunches. Lesson learned. For $5 or less a yard, STOCK. UP. The end result is a little too scrappy for my taste. 2) That I’d turned the steam OFF of my iron waaaay earlier in the project. I finally wised up by blocks 5-9, and they were less baggy in the center. I originally thought it was the A pennant-shaped pieces stretching and acting wrong, but I ended up believing it was those pesky C pieces, with that long bias edge.

All in all, though I’m happy to have done this project and used up some more of my Peacock Lane fabric. Even if this ends up as a utility quilt rather than a show off quilt like some of the gorgeous ones people have done on Flickr, I’m okay with utility. I used scraps! (Like, not even stash, but pieces I’d already been cutting on!) I’ll use and use and use and love it, instead of badgering people not to put their feet on it/please not to NO PLEASE DON’T wipe their snotty noses and chocolatey mouths on it/don’t drip soy sauce on it.

And I think I’ve learned some priceless lessons about bias edges.

 

it’s a sickness

24 Monday Sep 2012

Posted by Laura C in quilts

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

crafting, fabric, quilts

Here’s a stack of fabric I pulled for a fall project. I’m thinking chevrons, the design element of the year! In little leftover bits of repro fabrics! I’ve been meaning to pair those pinks and yellows for years, and the green and orange just go along. I bought most of these fabrics when I first started quilting years ago, and feel ready to use them up.

Last night I dreamed that I had the *perfect* idea for my Flea Market Fancy 2012 stack (that has been carefully stashed in my closet since April). I woke up and the idea was, of course, derivative. And I don’t want to copy anyone’s idea for this special fabric, I want to do something on my own. I don’t think I mind using a pattern, but I don’t want to straight-up reproduce a quilt I’ve seen floating around Pinterest, you know? No matter how divine said quilt.

I have “good” things and “everyday” things. Ask me where my Tiffany crystal candlesticks are, and when I used them last. My kid wears the Garanimals yoga pants I pulled off the $1 rack at Walmart, not all the lovely Bailey Boys clothing her Mimi buys her. Even when I cook, I tend to choose crappier, more beat-up looking bowls from the cabinet instead of my “nice” ones. The end result? I haven’t seen my crystal candlesticks in ALMOST A YEAR. Lucy outgrows her best outfits before I can get them put on her.

And I end up with fat quarter bundles of FMF 2012 and Chicopee, untouched, packed in plastic bags in my closet.

Part of this is that I’m afraid that any idea I have for this lovely fabric won’t do it justice. I want to make JUST the right projects with it. I want to stretch it as far as it will go.

Part of it is I’m just a chicken.

Today I woke up resolved to make the first cut in that FMF 2012. That didn’t happen, and it won’t, today. But as the year draws to a close, and as I start to evaluate what I want to have done by the end of it, I’m thinking…

that I need to use my good things. And not just my crappies, my leftover repro prints (even though I think these’ll make a cute little throw, one with a sense of humor).

That goes for the candlesticks and the baby clothes and the red J. Crew pants, too.

six blocks

22 Saturday Sep 2012

Posted by Laura C in quilts

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

quilts, spinning stars quilt

Six sick chicks tick. Six sick wonky blocks tock.

Not much to say except…still trucking! Still struggling! Today I turned the steam OFF of my iron (why did it take me this long to try this?), did NOT spray starch, and came out with one wonky, and one less-wonky block. So…is it just luck? Or what?

I’ll be glad to see the end of this one. I’m not so frustrated that I can’t see that this will be a lovely bright cheerful quilt, though. I LOVE how saturated and bright the colors are, something I’ll be grateful for this Massachusetts winter (can you smell it? It’s coming).

Off to lay out the last three blocks. Maybe I can knock them out this weekend, pin this thing, and put it to rest. I’m thinking an easy project next. And then another challenge. (Elizabeth Hartman’s Fire Drill quilt, yes?)

 

repro granny squares: a finish

21 Friday Sep 2012

Posted by Laura C in quilts

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Tags

quilts, repro granny squares quilt

 

This morning (in between reading Fox in Socks for the zillionth and zillion-and-one-th time) I finished tacking down the binding on my granny square quilt. In and out of the washer and dryer, and I have a finished quilt.

 

I’ll be happy to have this live on my sofa this winter. Lucy already loves it, running to sit on it every time I spread it on the floor. I can’t wait to wrap her up in it.

And read some more Fox in Socks.

all those balls in the air

19 Wednesday Sep 2012

Posted by Laura C in quilts

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

HST baby quilt, quilts, repro granny square quilt, spinning stars quilt

balls in the ayee-aiRRR.

ahem.

Here’s what I have going today:

1. Finished piecing the top of this baby quilt. I’m SO on the fence about this one. Sometimes I look at it and LOVE it. Sometimes I look at it and think it’s dull, like it’s missing…something. I plan to bind it in Kona Tomato OR a beach chair stripe from Riley Blake’s Seaside (used in the quilt top), and I think that’ll give it what I feel it lacks.

Image

I found inspiration for this top on Pinterest, and have continued to think of it as my “Smazoochie” quilt top. (I also *heart* finding new quilt/sewing blogs to follow via Pinterest. I have such a problem. Post one cute quilt picture and I’ll follow you, forever.)

The baby this belongs to is due at the beginning of October. Here’s another waffler: the parents elected not to find out the sex of the baby before birth. While I admire their fortitude, it makes quilt-making a stumper. Unless you do a decidedly green or yellow quilt, anything you make “unisex” looks so boy-ish. Navy’s my favorite color, and I thought the red and yellow would girl it up a bit, but…it ends up looking nautical and little-boy. Maybe I’ll make a girl top to have in the hole just in case?

2. I’m also trucking along with my Spinning Stars quilt. I’m going to gain nine pounds making this sucker. One pound for each blasted block. Everyone on the Flickr group posts these lovely photos of flat perfect blocks. Mine are all poofy in the middle, and I’ve tried several things to fix it: starch. Squaring up the four “square” units before joining them. Not yanking so hard on the fabric as I pull it through the machine. (Type A.) I’m so depressed I didn’t even make the effort to take a good photo of what I’ve got done.

I think the plan here is to JUST FINISH. I hand quilt everything, so I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to redeem a non-perfect wavy-ish top with a little hand-stitching love. And all I want out of this quilt is a replacement for the only quilt of my granny’s that I have that my husband wads up on the sofa and puts his feet on *ahem.*

3. Binding the Repro Granny Squares–finished hand quilting this one a few days ago, made the binding today, and will have a finish to show by the end of the week, wheee!

Here’s sort of what it looks like around here during naptime. You can see all three of my main WIPs here. In my hurry to get to the sewing machine, I just shove all the toysbooksandjunk to one side so they don’t get too much in pictures. Sighs.

recommended reading (lucy edition)

17 Monday Sep 2012

Posted by Laura C in books, family

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

baby, books, childrens' books, kids' books, reading

Whoo boy. I just might have messed up my kid. Just a little.

Image

(No, not her face. She messed that up herself. Yesterday. At the park. On the asphalt, throwing a tantrum so intense that she BARFED. And then scraped up her face. Yeah. We’re still reeling. Given that the kid has a 50+ word spoken vocabulary, tries to sing along to the ABC song, understands 120% of what we say to her, and has the two most stubborn willful people on the planet as parents, we suspect the Terrible Twos have just begun a little early. My mom claims I started them at 18 months, and we’re close to that.)

This kid is a READER. In an intense way. This kid would rather be read to than watch TV. She’d rather be read to than eat. If she had to choose between oxygen and one more go at The Cat In The Hat…well. Let’s be glad she doesn’t get to make that call.

Here are some weirdo non-classic kids’ books that she totally digs right now:

Here Comes the Cat, Frank Asch and Vladimir Vagin (please be more mature than me and don’t giggle at the authors’ names. They didn’t ask for my immaturity. Or yours). When we got this from the mail from McSweeney’s, I basically grunted and put it way up on the top shelf. The only text in the whole book is “Here comes the cat!”, which a bunch of little mice run around shrilling at each other until, well, the cat comes. Then the cat leaves. Riveting. But to a 17-month-old? This stuff is fascinating. Lucy finds the book especially fascinating if you read “Here comes the cat!” in your shrillest mousiest voice. The pictures are also lovely with lots of detail and movement.

Bink and Gollie: Two for One, Kate DiCamillo, Alison McGhee, Tony Fucile. I’ve discussed this book before so I will just say that this book has been promoted from “one Dad reads at bedtime because he likes it but Lucy would way rather read The Monster At The End of This Book again” to a book that Lucy slings at us, over and over again, hooting and whimpering until we read it again. Why? I think she likes the part where the woman and the cat “sing” at the talent show. I think she loves understanding the pictures where the Whack-a-Duck man gets honked in the face with a baseball. She loves finding Bink and Gollie in any of the pictures. I’m glad I bought the hardcover, because her ARC is going to bite it any day.

I Must Have Bobo!, Eileen Rosenthal, Marc Rosenthal. Holy cow. We got this book from Amazon on a Thursday. By Friday morning, Lucy was spending half an hour at a time on the floor with this book, shouting “Gibberish burble blub BOBO!!!” She’d hold up her hands, look at me pleadingly, and say, “Bobo?!?” And then she’d shout “EARL!” Seriously. The plot of this one is also simple, but the drawings are line-based, comic-book-ish drawings (think Tin Tin). A little boy, Willy, wakes up missing his sock monkey, Bobo. The prime suspect is the family cat, Earl. Hilarity ensues.

Don’t get me wrong, we do our share of The Bear Snores On, Where’s Spot, and Elmo’s entire literary oeuvre. Lucy’s taught me, though, not to automatically decide she’s too little or too young to understand some more big-kid type books, and she has gotten so much more enjoyment out of these “real” books lately than she has her old board books. I’d encourage any parent of an 18-month-old to branch out. I’m thinking we might even try some poetry with her next?

Any weirdo kids’ books your baby loves that you’d love to recommend? I love buying books other people have enjoyed and raved about.

apple picker

16 Sunday Sep 2012

Posted by Laura C in family, out and about

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

baby, family, photos

The skinniest, baldest, and–dare I say–the cutest? apple picker in the orchard yesterday:

Image

I had so much fun taking pictures, and then even MORE fun playing with the photos in Photoshop. I downloaded the Pioneer Woman’s Photoshop Action Sets and had just. a. blast. last night.

I’m super-late to the Photoshop Action party, but I have a feeling I’ll make up for lost time this week.

progress (questionable)

14 Friday Sep 2012

Posted by Laura C in quilts

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

quilts, spinnin, spinning stars

This week I sweated and worked and bent over my kitchen island cutting out the little rascaly pieces for the Spinning Stars quilt-a-long. I was pleased that I had so much Peacock Lane left–maybe enough for a baby quilt? (Someone will have to have a girl first.) I was less pleased about how far my pinks went for my C pieces–the long awkward pieces that form the secondary stars in the “background.” My secondary stars will end up a little…scrappier than I had planned.

The whole quilt may end up crappier than I had planned. Maybe I was super-careful with my test block, or maybe my for-real fabrics are a slightly lighter and stretchier bunch, but making my first real block just made me want to cry.

Image

I was so frustrated when I finished that first block (left) that I didn’t even move it next to the window to make a real show-off picture. Shame, first block! The fabrics are so busy that it looks kind of OK here (giving me hope for the final product). But…

Image

…when I switch to my “show-off-the-texture” angle, you can see how not-flat the center is. The ring and the pink background lays flat fine, but those triangles in the center are all a mess. I’ve read from someone in the QAL that my steam iron is to blame? Probably so. I just haven’t the heart or the patience right now to unpick, after another 5:30 am toddler wakeup call, complete with theatrical fake-y crying (they learn the fake cry so early!).

So now I’m on the sofa with a cookie. That’s a lie. I already ate the cookie. But I am going to give this project a rest until tomorrow, when I’ll either have the heart to get out the seam ripper or the gumption to move forward and live with a little imperfection.

Looks less horrible here, right? RIGHT?!

you know you love me

12 Wednesday Sep 2012

Posted by Laura C in quilts

≈ 1 Comment

Only, HST’s, I don’t, so much, love you.

Not until you’re squared up, that is. Then I love you lots.

Image

For now you are just a good excuse to watch Gossip Girl and drink gallons of Diet Coke while the baby naps.

XOXO.

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