nametag

Tags

christmas card, nametag, quilting, sewing

We’re ALL SHOCKED that I didn’t get my Sparkle Punch top done by today, right? Good thing Seacoast Modern Quilt Guild’s December meeting tomorrow morning is a sew-in. Maybe I’ll get that sucker pieced up. (Maybe…even backed and basted?)

Here’s what I did get done:

That’s my guild nametag! I used Steam-a-Seam to fuse teeny snippet scrap letters to a 5×5 square of Kona. I outlined the letters with one strand of black DMC floss in a blanket stitch, trimmed to about 2”x4”, backed it in an actual feedsack scrap (wearing my vintage fabric close to my heart heh), and bound it in the last shreds of a pink-and-orange chrysanthemum print that I bought at a LQS in Groningen.

(The fabric behind it is my “ugly” FQ for an ugly FQ swap, an Alexander Henry print that looks better online than in person. It was either this, or something hideously rust-colored with stars and oars–yeah, oars–, and hoping for good guild karma, I decided this is ugly enough but not…too ugly.)

I also got the Christmas card photo taken yesterday. Then I picked the cards and ordered them. In amateur-photography toddler-land, this is QUITE an accomplishment. Even though yeah, it took all day, wore us both out, and we spent the rest of the afternoon in our pajamas.

What a rotten mess.

Enough blathering; Fire Drill’s sitting next to me asking for some handquilting. Good luck sewing your gifts and photographing your toddlers-cats-dogs-uncooperative spouses-goldfish as we enter December crunch time!

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scrap cleanse?

Tags

quilting, quilts, scrap cleanse, scraps, sewing

I pride myself on keeping sewed up with my scrap bag. I have one teeny little plastic zippy bag from the FQS, and it holds ALL the snippety and odd-shape scraps. (And I have a detailed, bizarre-o system of Chipotle bags that hold all the Kona scrap, all the string scrap, warm-cool string scrap for a specific project, and the selvedges, so really…ok, it’s not just this one scrap bag.)

But if there’s a scrap bag I’m most fond of, it’s the snippet bag. I love saving teeny tiny scraps that a sane person might trash.

Lucy loves the snippet bag too. She found it, in its current stuffed-full state, and I was like, OK, harmless. I’ll let her play, take her pic for her sewing-nut Nana, and go to the bathroom.

 

A quick bathroom trip later, the dining room floor:

 

I especially like the scrap stuck to her butt.

Though I realize such thoughts are akin to dreaming of salad-lentil-soup-and-smoothies while eating pumpkin pie straight out of the pieplate (not that I did that last week ahem), I’m really looking forward to some scrap cleansing in January, after all this stash-yardage-special-fabric sewing of the Christmas season.  I’m thinking a scrap vomit quilt is in order, and I’ve got my eye on several use-em-up patterns from Sunday Morning Quilts (like the “wine gums” one, though I’m not sure what they call it in the book, or the ticker tape quilt, or the cover quilt…) At heart I’m a scrap quilter, not a stash quilter. I get way more satisfaction out of using things up and combining little bits in creative ways.

Maybe this is another reason my Denyse Schmidt FQ’s remain perfectly folded and untouched in my fabric box? While I keep ordering scrap packs from the shops and opening them like it’s Christmas day? (Speaking of, Southern Fabrics has 30% off their rainbow scrap bundle today. Makes it $18ish including US shipping. I ordered one for myself and will turn it over to the hubs to stuff in my own stocking. 🙂 )

Anyone else planning a scrap cleanse for January? Any scrap quilts in your queue? Any scrappy patterns I should know about?

Annnd one final snippet thought: I did finally finish squaring up my Sparkle Punch stars yesterday. At some point during the process, I started refusing to clean up my trimmings until I had finished all of the stars. 

 

Like a 13-year-old boy refusing to change his underwear until the end of the Little League championship, this hurt those around me way more than myself. I thought my pile was pretty impressive by the end! (And yeah. I threw these out. It was hard, but the right thing to do.)

squaring up

Tags

quilting, sewing, sparkle punch quilt

29 days left?!

Eeep.

I’m still squaring up.

 

Like, STILL squaring up. Turns out that this Sparkle Punch quilt isn’t so much 80 blocks plus some edges, it’s like, 80 times 4 blocks plus some edges. I’ve been working hard core on this the whole long weekend, and…am still not particularly close to a quilt top. Goal! Quilt top by Friday! Or bust!

Also I have to do a quilt guild nametag by Saturday morning, which has been kind of a stumper. I dislike embroidery. Reeeeally dislike. This is surprising given how much I like handwork, I know. I used steem-a-seam to applique some fabric letters, thinking I’d blanket-stitch around the edges to applique, but it may look super-sloppy on a small scale. We’ll see what I come up with.

Besides Sparkle Punch and nametag, my Handmade Christmas 2012 list looks like this:

1) Fire Drill quilt: finish handquilting (half done), trim, bind

2) aprons: have 5 complete, need 1 (possibly 2) more

3) quilted totes: need 2

4) makeup rolls: need 3

Can I do it? We’ll see. I keep picking up my Honey Cowl to knit at the end of the day (handquilting can be so physically exhausting) so I’m going to have to shape up if I’m going to pull it off.

Lastly, Thanksgiving! It was awesome. I hosted my SIL and her new husband here, and we had a low-key, low-stress dinner. And yes, I bought a Honeybaked Turkey Breast, and I am not ashamed; in fact, I am proud. I’m happy that all the leftovers are gone as of yesterday. And I’m happy the weather cooperated for a little outside jaunt to Breakheart, to walk off some of those homemade rolls.

not lying down on the ground, having given up

Tags

quilting, quilts, WIPs

Oh, Paris Review Daily, right quote right time yesterday:

“Writing or making anything—a poem, a bird feeder, a chocolate cake—has self-respect in it. You’re working. You’re trying. You’re not lying down on the ground, having given up.” — Sharon Olds

Yesterday I struggled mightily to sew this.

 

Three piddly Sparkle Punch blocks from Elizabeth Hartman’s early 2012 (it’s still that year! I’m not SO behind!) Sparkle Punch QAL. This one’s for my momma. And do you see the FMF on the top of that right hand stack? And the Pearl Bracelets? That’s because my momma is awesome. She taught me to love fabric, so only fabrics I love get to be here.

Anyhow, it took me an hour and a half to sew these three blocks. After I spent an hour knitting half a round or so of this:

 

My Honey Cowl, which is really a quick, easy knit, but. But. has been sloggy and desperate and with weird stitch-count problems. Did I drop a stitch? Did I make another one, or just find it later? Beginner knitting.

So, I’m not making any progress on Project Handmade Christmas. And, get this 19th-century problem: the baby was up with the croup last night! I think she’s fine (she’s still sleeping it off, though I have a mother’s fear that SHE’S NOT SLEEPING SHE’S COMATOSE–no, really, it’s hard-won sleep and we’re all okay). But today is probably shot. And I need to make rolls and piecrust for Thursday, which I am desultorily hosting.

To help my plight, this morning I officially back-burnered these two barely-begun projects:

 

Citron-berry-and-coal AMH Feather Bed block. Meant to be a quilted pillow for SIL. I love this block so much it and some of its friends are going to be our queen-sized bedspread, replacing our pitiful much-washed-and-be-holed PB duvet cover.

A crappy, doesn’t-do-it-justice picture of my fall-colors Bargain Basement blocks. I love them, love them (may also do a queen-sized of this, as it seems to grow fast) but, as they’re for me, have got to shelve it.

So today! Before Thanksgiving! While we are sick and overwhelmed by Christmas already! I will make something, or sew a stitch, or knit a round, and I will not lie down on the ground, having given up!

Happy Thanksgivings, all. 🙂

finished: illuminations pillow

Tags

fall for solids contest, illuminations pillow, improv piecing, pillow, quilting, sewing

The color orange cures the common cold.

Science.

We’ve all been down since Friday with a nasty, hateful cold. Thankfully, the toddler seemed to have it the easiest this time around. Nate and I? We assume that, like hangovers, colds get worse as one approaches 30. A crate of mandarins, a crockpot full of beef stew, some chili gifted by a dear friend (when in doubt, give chili!), and sooo much Sesame Street later, we’re all on the mend.

When I’m sick, I get super-restless. I want to get up and move and do and go and make. So this pillow went from pile o’ fabric and a book-cover inspiration to finished pillow rather quickly. This pillow is a few firsts for me: 1) first all-solid project: I’m entering it in the Pink Castle Fabrics Fall For Solids contest over at Threadbias;  2) first improv piecing: I’m MOST pleased with the way the design came together. Having just heard Alissa Haight Carlton speak about her quilts and her process definitely made this click for me!; 3) first non-quilt inspiration: I didn’t see something on Pinterest, Flickr, or a blog and make a quilt just like it. I did it all myself!;  and 4) first binding on a pillow: ahem.

I’m showing you the back because we’re all friends here and you won’t make fun of my crappy pillow binding, yeah? I tried to sandwich the binding between the front and the envelope back layers, which was bass-ackwards of me (should have put on the back, and then attached the binding…right?), I did a crappy job tacking it down, my corners are sad, sad, and…to beat the band, I sewed the private layer on top of the public layer so I had a raw edge I had to try and bind off at the end. Even that I did upside-down, so I have the ugly shoulda-been-private side showing.

Sick, congested, and fed up, I shrugged, refused to seam-rip, and am just going to enjoy it.

Here it is with the book cover that inspired it, Walter Benjamin’s Illuminations. Honestly, I haven’t read any Benjamin since grad school, but that cover stuns me every time I walk past it on my back bookshelf. I think it turned out pretty neat, huh?

 

Edited to add stats: 18” pillow cover. Konas: tangerine (yum), bone, aqua, coal. improv pieced, circle and “stem” off circle are machine-applique, bone inner circle is raw-edge applique. machine quilted, meandering.

finished: spinning star test block pillow

Tags

free-motion quilting, machine quilting, quilts, sewing, spinning star pillow

Against all odds, I did finish one (or two) of my ridiculous pile of projects this week!

I sewed another apron (up to four now, need…eight? nine?). I finished another seed stitch cowl that went in the Christmas present pile. I’ve gotten compliments wearing my blue one out on the town, so I hope that #2 is indeed good enough work to gift.

And I put on my big girl britches, attached my brand-new FMQ foot to my crappy inherited Singer, and quilted up the test block that I did before starting to piece my Spinning Stars quilt. And I proceeded to do my first free-motion quilting.

You’ll notice I’m too chicken to post a photo where you can actually see the quilting, ha! It wasn’t altogether that bad. Sure, I need practice at regulating my speed and making smooth, uniform curves instead of little gnarly turny places. But I expected disaster–and got an entirely usable pillow. A usable pillow that went from pieced block to pillow cover in an hour flat. People: you can’t argue with that.

I’ve always been a little wary of machine-quilting (my grandmother: “It’s not really QUILTING, IS IT?!?”). I grew up with hand-quilted quilts. For almost three years, I’ve made exclusively hand-quilted quilts. It’s just my thing. But I’m finding that hand-quilting limits my quilting-pattern potential (I’m sure as heck not going to trace a stencil all over my dang quilts), and hand-quilting SEVERELY limits my production potential. Let’s face it: I have ideas and buy fabric at a much quicker rate than I can hand-quilt.

My goal over the next couple of months is to finish piecing and machine-quilt a whole quilt or two (I’m hoping to be good enough by the second one to gift it). I’m familiar with Elizabeth Hartman’s machine-quilting tutorials and information. Honestly, her dogwood quilting is at least half the reason I bought the foot and am trying this new skill.

BUT, does anyone have any additional tutorials they’d like to share with me, or advice as I continue?

Edited: to link up with Crazy Mom Quilts’s Finish it Up Friday. Seriously, I LOVE spending Friday night with a glass of wine, clicking through everyone’s finishes.

little bits of lots of things

Tags

aprons, bargain basement quilt, illuminations mini, knitting, quilts, sewing, teacup apron

Maybe it’s Christmas crafting doing this to me.

 

(fabric stack for Bargain Basement–Value Added QAL. Books for…when? when I’m not sewing or feeding the kid? Ha.)

Or, maybe it’s the thrill of just having finished my challenging Spinning Stars project, and having safely basted my Fire Drill quilt. (Once basted, I’ll quietly work on quilting for 3-4 weeks, so it’s effectively on the back burner.)

 

(knit cowl #2, paper-pieced blocks for Bargain Basement quilt, and a glimpse of the insano to-do list. And a squash we need to eat, and book page bits I need to tape.)

Or maybe…it’s just one of those weeks when I don’t really know what I’m doing

(Solids pull, inspired by Alissa Haight Carlton’s talk at my MQG this past weekend. This little pile wants to be entered in Pink Castle Fabric’s Fall for Solids contest, yeah?)

Or what it is I want to work on

(Another Teacup Corset Apron, ready for cutting.)

Or what exactly needs to get done first.

(My Spinning Stars test block, ready for FMQ practice.)

If you’re still reading (I’m not), thanks, and, I hope I have a more gathered-together post with some actual progress to show in a few days!

finished: spinning stars quilt

Tags

quilting, spinning stars

I love it, I love it: two “finished” posts in a row!

(Now it’ll probably be three weeks until my next one. :[ )

 

It took me about two and a half-three weeks to handquilt this mess. But I think handquilting saved it, don’t you? Here’s where I was. I shuffled around the blocks, deciding that having differently-printed pink stars was better than the single-print pink stars (especially since I ran out of both the pink Petite Point dot and the Lecien Folk Heart flower and had to cut further into my Peacock Lane scrap, totally wrecking any design I’d intended).

And then, because the points were mushy and the blocks were poofy, I handquilted the heck out of it. I outlined each pink star three times, went around the grey rings three times, and outlined the “pie pieces” in the middles.

 

See how my shoes match? The laces are Kona Coal grey. Yep. I bought them while I was in the midst of quilting this.

 

In the end, I’m so glad I did this project. I hated it three weeks ago. I didn’t want to look at it, it was embarrassing, and I was just so ready to have it finished and put it away so I wouldn’t have to see it anymore. The funny thing is, though, that I finished it, pulled it from the dryer, and couldn’t wait to curl up under it.

And so, the Spinning Stars.

finished: tova and seed stitch cowl

Tags

garment sewing, knitting, seed stitch cowl, sewing, tova

When I started out needing a crafty hobby back in 2009-early 2010, I picked quilting. I needed a new hobby because I was moving to the Netherlands, where I knew I’d be oven-less, and filling my time with baked goods just wasn’t going to be an option. I quit my publishing job to follow my husband’s postdoc to Groningen, and, frankly, I knew I’d pull out all my hairs if I didn’t have a hobby. I knew two things: knitters were weird. (Still haven’t changed my opinion on that one, but “weird” is much more a positive thing to me now than it was then. 🙂 )  And I didn’t want to wear any garments I had managed to sew. And everyone needs quilts! Especially in the Netherlands where it’s 50 degrees F in August! IF you’re lucky!

So quilts it was.

Until now!

 

You’ll, of course, forgive the dark, gloomy November photo, the Fisher Price rotary phone in the background, and the fact that yes, I am indeed wearing leggings as pants. This Tova? A watershed moment, much like quitting my job in 2010 was. I can sew something wearable! Something I’m proud to wear, that feels like “mine.”

Parts of it were a little difficult for beginner-garment-sewing-me, sure. I almost died when putting the inset in the front is like, step 2. I sewed that placket on in Step 1, felt pretty capable, and then my jaw dropped when I had to do those gathers and pin that whole thing together and then SEW IT all together in Step 2. And it’s not perfect. And I skipped the sleeves, because I’m a weenie. But! But, it’s lovely and I’ve loved wearing it today.

Another first: my first knit.

 

I made the “One Skein, One Night, Seed Stitch Tall Cowl” from knitandbake, which I, of course, found on Pinterest. Was I nuts to choose this as my first knit? Probably. Did it ever work out, though! Here’s the thing about knitting in the round: I didn’t have to worry about my stitches all falling off the circular needle. You just keep knitting, around and around, knit purl, then purl your knits, knit your purls, blammo. Of course this isn’t perfect either. The gauge in my first eight rows or so is totally off, and the yarn is all frayed in the beginning because I started knitting backwards (don’t ask) and had to pull out all my work.

I’m so happy with this cowl. I’ve found an excuse to wear what my husband calls my “hipster neckwarmer” every day since I finished it.

To new things! To wearing my work! And to awkward bathroom-mirror self-portraits! (And Fisher Price rotary phones, boy, the hit of the day around here.)

 

I’m linking up to Finish It Up Friday over at Crazy Mom Quilts. I LOVE clicking through all the links every Friday! Go make some clicks too!