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Monthly Archives: December 2012

a tale of two totes

21 Friday Dec 2012

Posted by Laura C in quilts

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

patchwork totes, quilting, sewing

It’s Christmas!

The season of…multiples.

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A quick post about these two quilted totes I whipped up using this tutorial by Plum and June for Sew Mama Sew. Okay, number one, they’re TO DIE and I want one for myself, badly. (Does anyone else suspect they’ll spend January frantically making up zippouchesmakeuprollstotebagsquiltstovatops JUST FOR THEMSELVES? Just me?) Number two, this is an excellent tutorial, so you should grab your string scrap bag and get on it, if you find yourself with three or so spare hours over the holiday week.

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Having never made a bag before my Stamped tote, I was a little spooked about the lining. Lined bags = easy peasy. I used two prints from The Simple Life by Tacha Noel for Riley Blake. I think they are quite appropriate for my grandmothers, both of whom love to sew. (One is a lifelong quilter, one is an experienced garment sewist who MADE MY WEDDING DRESS.)

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One note if you do grab your scrap bin and go for it: for the first tote bag, I used the suggested strap length of 36”. Maybe I’m short (I am a little) but I found those straps much too long for my comfort. I think for an 18” x 14” tote bag, I’m much happier with 27”-ish straps. I made the second one with 27” straps and it’s exactly perfect for my 5’4” frame. Otherwise! I think this tutorial is perfect, and it’s one I’ll revisit a bunch in the future.

And with that, we’re off to the South! It’ll be quiet here until after the new year, but I can’t wait to write about all the for-me things I’ll be making in January. Happy New Year’s, all!

a tale of two quilts

20 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by Laura C in quilts

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

finished quilts, fire drill quilt, quilting, sewing, sparkle punch quilt

Warning: after three-ish weeks of not posting any real content, I’m about to overload this post with pictures. So, if you’re faint of heart, opt out…now.

Quilt #1: The Mother-in-Law quilt Back in October, I started what I knew would be one of two Christmas gift quilts: my rainbow Fire Drill quilt, pattern from Elizabeth Hartman’s Modern Patchwork, color plan inspired by totally copied wholesale from this pin. Again, I reiterate, I COPIED this color scheme. I didn’t come up with it on my own! I wish I’d had the smarts, but I’ll take this quilt however I came by it. Because it’s gorgeous.

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(You’ll please to ignore my husband’s pajama pile in the right corner. I’ve tried, and can’t really do anything about it, so now I don’t really see it anymore either.)

Piecing this one went quickly and fairly easily, though if you look closely, I had some moderate troubles making my diamond points meet. This is a shrug-and-move-on trouble, though, because when you pull back, all you see is glorious color.

SONY DSCAnd when you look closely, all you see is lovely texture, from hours and hours of careful outline hand-quilting. With Gutermann’s handquilting thread and a #11 Black Gold quilting needle, natch.

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This is also my first ever pieced-back quilt. I love, love, love it. Scraps from the front to make spectrum “drips” across the back. The neutral is actually a sand-and teal colored dot from a Riley Blake line that I picked up on clearance. It’s perfect.

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And the binding is Chicopee Bleeding Heart. It was *made* for this quilt. (I actually purchased a Kaffe dot to bind this, but the Denyse was so much more appropriate, in spirit and in coloring.)

Quilt #2: The Momma quilt It wasn’t quite fair to make a quilt for my MIL when I’d never made one for my own mom. My mom quilts, though she has primarily sewn garments. When I first started quilting she gave me a HUGE box full of pre-cut scraps to start with, including about 500 axe-heads that I hand-pieced into a queen-sized monster. As my second quilt project. Ahem. Needless to say, I owed her one.

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This is, coincidentally, another Elizabeth Hartman pattern, her Sparkle Punch quilt. I chose turquoises, light blues, tans, and browns to match my mom’s living room. I love this pattern. It’s a perfect marriage of traditional and modern, and I thought it was a way to make something for my very traditional mother while still expressing my own quilting style.

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The “first” for this quilt is that it’s the first machine-quilted quilt I’ve ever done. I used a walking foot on my new Janome to do “straight” line quilting. I assume my lines will get Red-Pepper-Quilts-straight with more time and practice. For now? Good enough to gift, I think. (Don’t tell me if you think otherwise.)

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The backing is a Denyse print from Joann’s, that I picked up off the red dot rack for less than $4/yard (I know!). It’s perfect. I chose not to piece the back because I ran out of time because I thought that might be pushing it just a little too much on the modern quilting. You know. For my mom. The binding is that brown Posie print from Flea Market Fancy Legacy, and it’s all I can do not to go and buy like ten more yards of that stuff.

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Thoughts: When I went to take pictures of these (inside on a grey Massachusetts day, sorry sorry), I thought I knew which one I’d like to keep if I were being totally bad. My heart, I thought, was totally with that Fire Drill quilt. But, as I spread out the Sparkle Punch quilt, I really appreciated the texture that the machine quilting created, and I found the color scheme soothing and easy to look at.

Really, I love them both. Just like I love both my momma and my mother-in-law. I hope these quilts are much-loved, too!

Edited to link up to Crazy Mom Quilts’s Finish it Up Friday. participa

but we’re all still alive

19 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by Laura C in other sewing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

sewing, stamped, stamped tote

Glad to be dashing out the door with Croupy Lucy ™ to The Little Gym. Thankful for health, safety of all my family, and…

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the beginning of the end of Christmas crafting. This is a tote using Ellen Luckett Baker’s new fabric line, Stamped, and a tutorial she wrote to go with the fabric. Google pleated tote the long thread, and you’ll find it. Despite jamming my new machine, making my pleats too deep, and the lining not fitting (deep pleats), this turned out so cute I almost kept it.

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But I didn’t. Only because I have another yard of Stamped, for me!

I’m hoping to post my Christmas finishes this week! Stay tuned, and good luck giving your projects away.

12/12/12

12 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by Laura C in quilts, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

fabric, lizzy house, stash up

Back in October (maybe, MAYBE, the first day of November?) I ordered Lizzy House’s 50 fat eighth bundle from her holiday shop. It was a bit of an impulse buy; I have PLENTY of new fabric to cut up, and I had already indulged in a brown Liberty Lifestyle bundle “for my birthday.”

I knew I shouldn’t have done it.

But today, this came in the mail.

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And? I cried. On my unmade bed, in front of my piles and piles of dirty laundry, which are functioning as quite effective metaphors for my life right now.

While Lucy, Nate, and I are fine, there’s some serious baloney going on in my background right now. To beat it all, it’s 12/12/12, and my 29th birthday. I’d always said I wanted to have a huge party on 12/12/12, a celebration of the best time of my life. The cards just haven’t fallen that way. I’d be happy if I could sit quietly on my sofa tonight knitting, instead of trying desperately to control a situation I’m 800 miles away from, and unable to help, much less control.

I had already decided these would make a good toddler big-girl bed quilt, and am even more sure that’s where they’re headed. The way I cried over these? They’ve got to become something great.

Today, I’m grateful for a pop of beauty, for a rainbow of good design, and for the possibilities of the future. And for 29 years on 12/12/12.

crunch time

10 Monday Dec 2012

Posted by Laura C in quilts

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

christmas sewing, fire drill quilt, honey cowl, janome 3160, quilting, quilts, sparkle punch quilt

Christmas is two weeks from tomorrow.

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We leave for TN in 12 days.

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It’s crunch time.

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So, while I haven’t been here in 10 days, I’m certainly still trucking. I have a lot left to do, but on Saturday, I felt for the first time like I’m actually going to get it all done. Or…enough of it. I’ve finished handquilting my MIL’s Fire Drill quilt, and have chosen the binding. I’m halfway-ish through quilting my mom’s Sparkle Punch quilt–more on that in a moment. I have about eight rounds left to knit on MY honey cowl, and then two small half-versions of the honey cowl to knit for my sisters (in the awesome highlighter-yellow and shocking pink MadTosh yarns above). And I have two quilted tote bags to piece, quilt, and finish, using this tutorial. And one or two more aprons. And one makeup roll.

It sounds like a lot! It is a lot. You may be all, I’m not optimistic it can be done. But I don’t take “not optimistic it can be done” for an answer. Because I have a new sewing machine:

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It’s a Janome 3160 QDC, purchased in a sheer panic at Marie’s Sewing Center in Woburn after my old 1996 Target Singer (inherited from my great-grandmother) broke on the way to my guild’s SAL on 12/1. I’ve had it 9 days. I think I’m in love. It’s the reason I’m already halfway through quilting the Sparkle Punch quilt that I couldn’t even get put together a couple weeks ago. (Did I mention I think my Singer was on the fritz? What I thought was acting funny–the tension in the presser foot–was what finally broke, I think the spring gave–and, really, it was time for a “real” machine.)

I hope to write a more detailed review of my thoughts on the Janome after I’ve used it for awhile. And I’ll definitely post as I finish this pile of projects!

Good luck with all of your crunch times. Will you make it?!

About Me

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