roy g. zig string top/festival of strings

Tags

roy g. zig, scrap attack string fever

Oh, Rachel @ Stitched in Color imagined that our Festival of Strings might be ladies in sunhats in a backyard, slinging our quilts over a clothesline and swilling lemonade. So lovely! So southern!

Never having been one to play along, I chose to sling my quilt overa huge metal rhino, natch.

I usually don’t make much of finished quilt tops, but Rachel’s deadline is midnight on 5/30 and I’d be cutting it close to have this quilted by then. And no rhino pictures.

I did make a back

 

and this is ready to baste

 

and the Seacoast Modern Quilt Guild meets this Saturday, so I really want to have it quilted and bound to show off. Can I make it?

 

Really, I used all string scraps, from various Trader Joe’s bags in my closet. The white is Kona Bone. I used Rachel’s Ziggy Strings tutorial (so fun! DO IT). My husband helped me pick off the foundation paper backing.

And the rhino lives at New England Biolabs in Ipswich MA, where Nate works. He does not have a name. Roy?

 

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still zigging

Tags

audiobooks, roy g. zig, string fever, washi dress

I’m back from Phoenix and East TN…

and I spent Thursday and Friday working like mad to finish the last 22 blocks I needed for my “Roy G Zig” quilt. The top has to be done by Friday to enter in Rachel’s String-A-Long contest/giveaway! I was worried but now I think I might make it. (Though really, I think my Sunday Morning quilt also qualifies.)

A revelatory sidenote: though these blocks are super-fun and -relaxing to make, there are a lot of them to crank through (I made 56 for a throw size). When I held my 100th post giveaway a few weeks ago, I asked people to recommend a book. Several folks recommended listening to audiobooks while quilting. Beth @ Plum and June recommended, in particular, Candice Millard’s Destiny of the Republic, which, frankly, did not sound like my kind of book at all, but I gave it a try and it. was. so. awesome. It’s about the assassination of James Garfield, but is so fascinating. I probably made 20 blocks before it ended!

Then, on my own, I found Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects, available as an audiobook from my library through Overdrive, which I’d meant to read after enjoying Gone Girl last summer. I’m 3/4 of the way through and told my husband last night that I wished I had more laundry to fold so that I could finish listening to it instead of watching TV. Yep.

I love quilting, but have been a little sad that it’s cut into my reading time. Audiobooks, though–you can cut, sew, iron, whatever. Awesome. Do you listen to audiobooks while you sew? Do you have any specific recommendations? (I’d be especially interested in hearing about books you think are good AUDIObooks–some are much better than others.)

/pointless interlude. Here are my Zig blocks laid out:

I’m supposed to give this away, BUT. We’ll see!

Also on the strong-a-long front: Marla @ Sew Hungry wrote an awesome String-A-Hex block tutorial that I’m hoping will help me eliminate this pile:

 

This is way more string scraps than I thought I’d be left with after finishing 56 Ziggy Strings blocks! They’re mostly uglies, so I am super-ready to part ways with them. String-A-Hex next?

Well, after I do some more Washis.

 

Top print is a Kokka strawberry print from Trefle, which I bought from Pink Castle’s Skinny Sale (holy moly, an insane deal I got on this stuff, and it already came!). It’s going to be a Washi for my mom if I have any self-control at all. Bottom print is from Sew Fresh Fabrics, and it’s a Lizzy House Constellations print. For another me-Washi. 🙂

Enjoy your long weekend! I hope you are doing better than picking paper off zig blocks while it is 45 degrees and raining cats and dogs. Not that I know anything about that.

a woman possessed (or, finished: washi dress I)

Tags

washi dress

While everything is really just dandy here at littleandlots, I’ve been a little angsty lately. Who knows. I have my secret and not-so-secret suspicions about the reasons.

After a particularly angsty day/evening/night, I woke up yesterday morning possessed by the desire to sew myself a dress.

 

And I mean PO-SESSED. I went from 3.5 yards of Flea Market Fancy that I’d been hoarding for a quilt backing (yeah, sorry, Roy G. Zig quilt) and no pattern to a dress by dinnertime.

 

You probably recognize this as the Washi Dress. I’ve wanted to sew this dress since the pattern came out last year, but hemmed and hawed mostly about the elastic thread and the back shirring. After making Lucy’s Geranium Dresses, I felt sure I could hang.

 

(Pardon the wrinkle across my backside, but you CAN see the not-at-all scary shirring.) I made a size M. I’m wearing the dress for realsies right now, like out to the Target-post office-library-whatever, and gapping around the neckline and the armholes makes me want to make a size S next time. This dress isn’t hugely big, but I have very narrow shoulders and a smallish bust, and my measurements were right in the crack between a S and a M. I made a muslin, but couldn’t tell how much the back would get taken in by the shirring. The skirt is so generous that I think my S-on-top-M-on-bottom self might do better in an S.

 

And oh, yes, there will be a next time! I’ve already ordered the fabric (Sew Fresh still has plenty of Constellations, if you feel like you missed it and are in despair) and can’t wait to get started.

A lipstick note: I read in the new bio of Sylvia Plath (Pain Parties Work, one of the best books I’ve read in a while) that Sylvia always wore red lipstick and very little other makeup. I bought a red lipstick last winter after seeing my sister Mary wear it so gracefully, but then got too chicken to really wear it. Well! If it’s good enough  a look for Sylvia, it’s good enough for me. I’ve got FACE Stockholm in Chili Flake.

With that, my new dress and I are off! I’ll be back in this space at the end of May, after some southern and southwestern travels. I will be watching your-all’s blogs, though–plenty of internet time, just no Janome time. Happy spring sewing!

blocks for Boston

Tags

blocks for boston

Have you done your block(s) for Boston?

 

I finished mine up last Thursday, and now need to take a trip to the post office to send them slightly south. This block is a “Road to Tennessee” block. How could I resist? A block named for my old home, sent to cheer and warm people in my new home. Perfect. I used a tutorial posted at Sew Me.

 

For my second block, I dug up Allison Harris of Cluck Cluck Sew’s Suburbs pattern, available for purchase here. I ordered this pattern the minute she published it and have been dying to give it a try. This is a huge block, more than 20” long (but it is 12.5” high). The little houses came together very quickly, and this pattern is so smartly written! I can’t wait to have time to make a big quilt out of it.

But.

 

I hope there are no quilt police in Boston who will come after me for my missing point. (Of course it WOULD be the middle house).

If you are going to make a block for Boston, the BMQG blog has a post with all the instructions and information you will need. Blocks are due in Boston by May 24. I know the BMQG is working hard to schedule sew-ins to complete the quilts. I also know the quilts are very needed, and will make a big difference.

Linking up to Let’s Get Acquainted, this week at home with Plum & June.

 

finished: my sunday morning quilt

Tags

finished quilts, low volume, sunday morning quilt

Warning: so many pictures ahead. After an awful Feb-April, this week we have finally been blessed with weather so beautiful as to almost be obscene.

I packed up the kid

and the just-finished quilt

and headed to Endicott Park in Danvers for a real outside quilt-photo session.

I made this quilt to be a wedding gift for either my cousin or my little sister’s childhood best friend, both of whom are getting married on June 29. I figure I’ll make two quilts and get my mom and sister to help me decide who gets what.

Even as I sewed down the binding last night, I had doubts: is this quilt too scrappy to gift? (How DO we feel about gifting scrap quilts? Do you gift scrap quilts, or do you only gift “special” quilts?) Is it a quilter’s quilt, in that only someone who’s looked a lot of quilts will appreciate its low-volume gorgeousness? Is it too modern?

But these pictures of the quilt spread out on the green, dandelion-spotted grass did it for me. If I saw these pictures published by anyone on any blog or on Flickr, I’d covet this quilt. I’ll trust that one of the brides-to-be will, too!

Quilt stats:

Pattern: Cheryl Arkison’s Sunday Morning Quilt, published in Sunday Morning Quilts (Nyberg & Arkison, 2012). Blocks constructed as written, but I did 6×7 blocks to make a throw size, ~60”x70”.

Fabrics: all kinds of low-volume scraps and stash from just about every place you can buy fabric. The big pieces on the back I scored from Pink Castle Fabric’s Sale section (swoon) and were like less than $5/yard. (Marked down to $5, and they were running one of their super-awesome 20% off any purchase promotions.) The binding was also from the PCF Sale section, though it was slightly more than $5/yard. It’s a print from Simpatico, I believe, and was a perfect frame for this quilt.

Quilting: is just more straight-line quilting, .75” apart. I actually used that weird measure bar thing this time. I’m not crazy about that little bar, but it allowed me to make my lines further apart. Quicker quilting, a softer, drapier quilt.

Linking up to: Amanda Jean @ Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it Up Friday (hey, this quilt’s from her book!); Pink Castle Fabrics Blog

ETA: also linking up to Rachel’s Festival of Strings, as this was a string quilt I finished in 2013 (started after she announced the contest idea, so I feel definitely on the up-and-up)!

giveaway winner + a bit of eye candy

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giveaway winner

I should probably have asked one of ya’ll how you do the little screen captures that prove you’ve really used random.org and put them neatly on your blog.

Because I even had to google “screen shot mac,” eyeroll.

 

Can you see it? SOO tiny. But the winner is #1, which I LOVE. (Encouragement to comment quickly!) Samantha at Making Life Prettier wins the two Architextures charm packs. She’s already done amazing work with this line, so I’m excited to see what she will do with them!

I got some yarn treat mail this week.

More Plucky. It’s a problem, I know. (Trust me, my husband has LET me know, ha.) These three colors came yesterday, from three different sources. The blue, Vintage Icebox, and the pink, Lollipop Guild, I picked up off of destash, which is a GREAT way to try Plucky yarn if you’re interested and don’t want to sit around waiting for a shop update. The green came straight from Plucky: Whistlestop Cafe, April’s Classics yarn club color.

I love the colors together but they are all different bases so are headed for three different projects. Turns out you can’t quite buy yarn like you buy fabric, a little piece here, a piece there, it’ll mix in somewhere later. You have to like…sort of have a plan when you buy yarn.

Good thing I have fabric, and can pull a pile of these colors to play with. 🙂