finished: lizzy house glam garlands quilt

Tags

finished quilts, lizzy house glam garlands

I sewed the final stitch in the binding at 3:41 pm today; by 4:30, we had it outside making its glamour shots:

Oh, you know I could blather on, but all we really care about is the pictures, right?

Quilt is for: Lucy, on her 2nd birthday (4/11!) It is a toddler-bed-sized quilt. (I didn’t have to change the pattern at all. It was just magically the size the internet says a toddler quilt should be. Meant to be!)

Pattern is Glam Garlands by Elizabeth Hartman, published in her book Modern Patchwork.

Fabrics: Lizzy House designer shop fat eighth bundle, purchased Nov-Dec 2012; Timeless Treasures Sketch in Cream (background); Timeless Treasures Sketch in Coral (backing background); Lizzy House Pearl Bracelets in Peach (binding)

There are 48 (!!) different Lizzy House fabrics in this quilt.

One final brag, and then I promise I’m done. When we took this out on our walk at Breakheart Reservation today, Nate handed me the camera and asked me to check his quilt photography. “Make sure you get a really good picture of this one,” he says. “You should be proud.” It’s great when someone who doesn’t give two hoots about quilts notices and compliments your hard work, huh?

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still trucking

Tags

DS HST pillow, glam garlands quilt, lizzy house glam garlands

Funny how all of my projects ended up in a long wasteland of “just keep chugging” this week. I’m on the stockinette body portion of my moth cardi (just when you thought it couldn’t get duller than stockinette raglan increases!), and I was stuck quilting Lucy’s Lizzy House-Glam Garlands. And I have some picking-out to do on my Asbury challenge project, yech.

 

I still have two out of three inches of stockinette left (well, before I get to do some waist shaping OMG so thrilling), and am pretending the picking-out doesn’t exist, but Lucy took a long nap today and I crashed through the rest of the straight line quilting. It’s all done but the binding! I’m hoping I can slap it on tomorrow and take the quilt out for some pictures when it is 50 degrees this Easter Sunday.

 

And then I’m hoping to get started on this little fun project! Teeny tiny low-volume Denyse HSTs for a pillow. I plan to do some more FMQ practice. I’m also testing out the low-volume thing for a couple of wedding gift quilts I need to make by June 29th.

Happy Easter weekend to you all! May your ham be precooked (so as to optimize sewing time), may your children not cry in photographs, and may you find all your Easter eggs.

the back

Tags

lizzy house glam garlands

A quick post. Tuesday is known as “New Girl and White Wine Day” around these parts.

I knew it was important to work in some sewing time today after leaving the cover on the Janome for three days straight. I whipped together the back of Lucy’s Glam Garlands quilt:

 

I’m so glad I did the pieced back (sort of) as written in the pattern (found here). Maybe it’s the Coral Sketch. This color is making me feel springy inside! Maybe it’s the improv blocks. Most likely it’s the Cream Sketch sashing around the back blocks.

Right now I’m digging the back of this quilt much more than the front!

I’m dense-straight-line-quilting this sucker, so will be buried under a quilt pile most of this week. Already starting my next project in my head, though (no, it’s not Feather Bed; I need an attack strategy for that one!), so stop back this week!

monday thoughts: LATE march ed.

Tags

liberty stile, monday thoughts, moth mo cardi

One of these Mondays it will be spring! Until then…

1) Liberty Stile! I bought mine here. A completely unsolicited and unsponsored opinion: those are REASONABLE prices on this line. I waffled for a few days about which colorway to buy (having recently been put on a fabric-fiber budget, I could only choose one, womp womp) but took a wild hair and went for the pastels! I’m craving spring colors. And unreasonably craving baby quilting. Not a baby, mind you. I’m only in the mood to make baby quilts? These fabrics should do it.

2) I cast on that spring cardi. I knit the swatch last Friday and this yarn? is a dream. I’m pretty inexperienced, but I’ve never knit with a fiber quite like this. I’m so excited to wear this sweater. Stating goals in public means they get met, right? So I’m aiming to have it finished up for Mother’s Day weekend, when I will visit my good friends in Phoenix. (Will I need a merino-mohair sweater in Phoenix, however springy? Well.)

3) More fabric came today! I left it wrapped up because…it’s not for me! Can you see what it is? Or guess what it’s for? Hint: I’m coming up on 100 posts here. (And I’m totally keeping that scrap of Type for me. Neener neener.)

4) I am rewarding myself for some VERY good behavior today with a naptime half glass of chardonnay (don’t worry, the hubs is home to toddler-wrangle when she gets up). Adding in some knitting and some Call the Midwife, which I love much more than Downton Abbey shhh, and it’ll be a good hour and a half for me.

Happy Monday to you! If it’s spring where you are…I don’t think I want to know about it. 🙂

finished: bottles pillow

Tags

bottle pillow, finished, FMQ, smqg

I finished up my SMQG “bottles” pillow cover yesterday.

For the March meeting of the Seacoast Modern Quilt Guild, Amy of During Quiet Time (our fearless leader!) brought her Sizzix cutter and taught a lesson in Sizzix cutting/curved piecing. Curved piecing! SO not the big deal! Another quilty thing people get worked up over that really is not difficult. When you sew curves you must 1) cut accurately (yay Sizzix) and 2) sew slowly. The end.

During the same meeting, I timidly volunteered to quilt a charity top that’s lingering in one of our members’ piles, adding, “But only if I don’t have to FMQ, I can use my walking foot, right?” Amy gently reminded me that quilting a charity top would make for great FMQ practice.

Pillow covers ALSO make great FMQ practice, as you can see in the above shot. Not so awful, you think? Look closer.

If there’s a visual equivalent of plugging your ears, now’s the time. Shew. I’ve wanted to try Elizabeth Hartman’s dogwood quilting technique for a very long time. I patiently marked my 2” grid on this top, and went at it. It could have gone worse (the top photo up there doesn’t look so awful) but it could have gone a heck of a lot better.

I’m going to park this little blue pillow on our gray sofa, though, and keep it there for awhile. I will also keep practicing! There may be a lot of scrappy throws-pillow covers-doll quilts etc in my future, because I’m not going to let this FMQ thing beat me. I’m also not going to beat myself up over ugly quilting until I really have tried and practiced and worked at it, for a long time.

(I also think I’m justified in posting pictures of really ugly quilting, because otherwise, people who don’t FMQ–me, six months ago, for example–might get the idea that the process is simple, intuitive, and leads to perfect results the first time and every time. HA.)

But for now? I think I’ll be quilting “special” quilts (Lucy’s Lizzy House quilt, for example) with my walking foot. 🙂

Linking up with Finish it Up Fridays at Crazy Mom Quilts (aka Amanda Jean Nyberg, whose awesome book Sunday Morning Quilts I consulted just this week!)

wip wednesday 3/20

Tags

glam garlands quilt, improv piecing, lizzy house, wip wednesday

WIP Wednesday!

Instead of cranking through my WIPs, how about a peek at what I’m doing with just one of them?

I mentioned on Monday that I was feeling a little sickish about improv piecing. I’m working on Lucy’s Lizzy House-Glam Garlands quilt, and I’ve decided to do the backing (almost) as Elizabeth Hartman has written it in the book (Modern Patchwork, in case you’re new here and you haven’t yet read my crazy raving about this book). 

See, I’m a measurer. A piecer. For the longest time, I did HSTs the hardcore dumb way: I actually sewed together two triangles of fabric. I may have even thought that paper piecing was cheating. And that improv piecing was lazy.

Ahem.

It’s time to admit that sometimes I scoff at things because I either can’t do them or I’m nervous to try and fail. For two weeks I worried and fretted about these back blocks, trying to come up with a plan of attack. This morning I woke up, it wasn’t snowing anymore, and I remembered the whole “improv” part of improv piecing, which means you’re just supposed to do it.

I still needed backup. I consulted Cheryl Arkison and Amanda Jean Nyberg’s fabulous scrap book, Sunday Morning Quilts, and studied the “Sewing a Slab of Fabric” section.

90 happiness-and-Lizzy-House-filled minutes later, I had my blocks:

It was SO FUN. I wish I’d had the guts to work with the whole Lizzy House bundle this way; I had this sense that this is really how the fabric is meant to be used. I’m a long, long way from the gorgeous improv piecing many of you do, and even further from the incredible Denyse-style piecing I wish I could learn, but hey, look:

I am not going to argue with this orange-purple-yellow block. Not a bit.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I created some little snippets that need to be pieced into a fabric slab, like, now.

finished: millwater cowl

Tags

knitting, plucky knitter primo worsted

If I thought it was hard to take pictures of a quilt, well. Photographing a knitted accessory is even harder!

This is Millwater. The pattern is by Beth Kling and can be purchased at Ravelry. I knitted it in Plucky Knitter Primo Worsted in Message in a Bottle, a new-ish colorway that is incredibly difficult to photograph.

I think it’s gray, but it reads bottle-green most of the time, and looks downright purple on occasion. There’s cashmere in the blend, making this cowl incredibly soft and squishy–a lovely luxury for my neck. I’m wearing it now to make myself feel better about the six inches of snow March just dumped on us.

(See, not even setting it against Lizzy House makes the green show!)

The pattern is worked flat and is mostly garter stitch. The cable looks terrifying, doesn’t it!? It’s so easy. I’d never knitted a cable before and look how beautifully mine came out. To make it an infinity scarf, it is seamed after being knit. I was scared of this project, but probably could have handled it months ago. Honey cowl was just as difficult!

Wear it doubled for maximum Primo exposure.

And don’t let your husband touch it. Or he’ll start talking about when you think you’ll be ready to knit sweaters and what colors does that yarn come in and really he has no need for scarves and hats JUST sweaters.

PS: it would appear it’s time to start Ravelling. I’m littleandlots over there, too.

monday thoughts, mid-march ed.

Tags

and then it's spring, magnolia society, quilty

Instead of thinking about the snow (!!) we’re due to get tonight into tomorrow (March, you’re on my list too), I’m determined to think happy spring project thoughts. Ready to think spring with me?!

In my mailbox on Friday was the MA issue of Quilty. Love this new magazine by Fons and Porter! It’s filled with do-able projects–some of which are, yes, less “modern” than others, but that’s a minor flaw I’m willing to overlook because it’s a new magazine aimed right at young quilters like me! Already I’m thinking of overlooking piles and piles of wips (ahem FEATHER BED) in favor of this:

How funny it is that the ranunculus I bought on Friday outlasted the tea roses I also bought on Friday! Mums, of course, are cut-flower champs, but I’m so happy the pink ranunculus are hanging around.

This yarn wants to become this sweater. It asked. Politely. Madelinetosh yarn, of course, from the March shipment of the Magnolia Society, which I joined in a moment of real snow-related weakness. It’s a new base, Tosh Mo Light (merino-mohair, I think), and the color is called Moth. Perfect for a spring cardi. I may be overly ambitious, but my Holden shawlette is coming along so beautifully, and really, I could’ve made my February Lady Sweater work if I had been feeling more into it. I think I can cardi, ya’ll. 

Lucy and I have been reading this book obsessively for about three weeks. Here is a super-cute book trailer that is well worth one single minute of your still-brown March. I get choked up at the end when the whole world goes green. Every time. I also get a little teary reading “there are seeds and they are trying.” Oh my.I’m also thinking about how nervous improv piecing makes me, as I’ve got to do three big improv panels for the backing of Glam Garlands. Terry cloth is also making me a little faint, and I’m really ready to take on a FMQ challenge for a little pillow cover. All coming this week!

If we all think thoughts of spring, maybe it will come?! Good Monday to you all.

and then half of March flew by

Tags

asbury challenge, glam garlands, holden shawlette, lizzy house, lizzy house glam garlands

and I didn’t blog once!

When I go long periods of time between blog posts, usually I am one of three things: 1) busy sewing, 2) outside, or 3) pregnant. While I PROMISE I am NOT #3 (toddler. making. me. dumber.), I have been very much #1 and #2! It’s not exactly spring yet, but it’s been warm enough for some long outside walks and some mud puddle stomping.

And that toddler? Her second birthday is coming up in early April. I put my head down last week and came up with this, the top of her big girl quilt:

 

The pattern is Elizabeth Hartman’s Glam Garlands, from Modern Patchwork. Have I mentioned here how much I love this book? This is the second pattern I’ve used, and it was so quick and dreamy-easy. The piecing was a very pleasurable, low-stress process. No points or seams to match! Even the squaring-up of the units was easy.

The rainbow of prints are from that lovely 50 fat eighth bundle that I bought from Lizzy House in December. I used 47 of the 50 prints (I saved out two of the low volume PB prints for a forthcoming low volume quilt, and the darker brown PB seemed a little repetitive). I’m realizing I may have a bit of a spectrum quilt compulsion, as I also did Fire Drill in a rainbow! This gray time of year, though, I need the colors. (Tangent: once I finally figure out how to photograph a quilt in the smallest apartment ever in the dead of the MA winter, I will write a wonderful and useful book and become famous. Ha.)

I hope it makes my “luck-or” (color) loving girl happy!

also in the works are a Holden shawlette:

 

It’s my first lace pattern! Though I am weenie-ing out and using the written instructions and not the chart. Yarn is Plucky Feet in Edwardian.

 

I’m surprised at how well the lace is going so far!

and here’s a sneak peek of my SMQG Asbury challenge project. Can you guess what I am making?!

 

I am keeping the piecing super-duper simple on purpose, for laundry reasons. 🙂