planning (and, paying it forward)

Tags

christmas penny sampler, giveaway

Last week I signed up for Rachel’s Penny Sampler class, for which we will make this quilt.

So, yeah, pick your jaw up off the floor and help me already.

We’ve spent both Christmases of Lucy’s life with her grandparents in Tennessee or Georgia. While last year we bought a tree and decorated it with a box of ornaments my mom had saved back for me (including an angel topper that my late granny crocheted), we haven’t done a great job at establishing family Christmas traditions with Lucy. Presents free-for-all, or one person at a time? Cinnamon rolls or breakfast casserole? Turkey or ham? Pecans or marshmallows on the sweet potatoes, people. This is important stuff.

It’s not a big thing. But I think it would help our family to have a special quilt that only comes out in December, that we snuggle under to watch Home Alone and Charlie Brown. It might take a few years but eventually you’d know you were home when you saw the quilt.

But. A traditional Christmas quilt isn’t quite my style. And, more and more, I’m not sure I like single-line quilts at all. The Aneela Christmas fabric is, for example, super cute–but I’m going to be bored sewing it. So help me with my fabric selection for my Christmas Penny Sampler quilt. Please?

I have two questions about this pile I dug out of my stash:

1) Does the aqua belong? (or do I need to choose, say, a golden yellow as my off-color?)

2) What Konas do I buy? (or, do I just buy a bunch more Sketch in the grass green, lime green, dark red, and light red over on the left?)

And to motivate your responses, how about that pay it forward giveaway?

In honor of Hydee, these are 9 fat quarters of fabrics from my stash, which needs serious thinning if it is to continue to fit in one bin (and fit in one bin it must). They’d make an awesome pillow–I’m currently obsessed with Cari’s Palatina Pillow–or they might be a start to your own Roy G. Zig quilt.

So, comment below. ETA: I’ll close comments on Friday, August 2. Help me with my Christmas quilt fabric selections (and Kona suggestions, please!), and maybe win a little rainbow stack of fabrics for right now!

PS: having lived a year in Holland, where it was frightfully hard to get ahold of fabric, I am overjoyed to ship internationally if need be. 🙂

ends and beginnings

Tags

lga blog hop, scrapbeelicious bee

It’s still July, right? Today it was 70ish degrees, and even though it was mid-eighties yesterday, I swear the light had that early-fall quality the light gets when it’s time for the summer to end. Um? Hello? I’ve only been to the beach once this summer. It can’t be over.

Here in MA we might get three or four more weeks of summer before winter sets in again. But this summer’s Let’s Get Acquainted Blog Hop, organized by Beth at Plum and June, is coming to an end. Join me in visiting the last nine quilters who are closing us out with style:

A Quilter’s Mission
RobinSue Quilts
In the Boon Docks
Sew Fresh Quilts
fabric and flowers
Sewing by Moonlight
Lovelea Designs
A Note to Follow Sew
Sew E.T.

I’ve had so much fun meeting other new bloggers from around the world this summer. So much fun, in fact, that when Ashley at Wasn’t Quilt in a Day emailed me and asked, “Can we start a bee?!” I was all, why the heck not?

Long story short, we now have a lucky 13 quilters lined up for our ScrapBeelicious bee. Some amazing talent is represented in this list. Many are already good friends of mine; all are lovely bloggers. Just about the only con to this scenario is that I have to wait until August 2014 to have a quilt made by these talented folks! Each of us will be Queen for a month, and the other bees will transform our scraps into blocks at their bidding. Here’s who’s involved:

August: Ashley @ Wasn’t Quilt in a Day

September: Gwendellyn @ The Rainbow Revolts

October: Cath @ Wombat Quilts

November: Alyce @ Wonderland by Alyce

December: Nicole @  Modern Handcraft

January: Rachel @ Likes to Sew

February: Nanette @  Yeah, I Made That

March: Liz @ beadqueene’s bits and baubles

April: Robin Sue @  RobinSue Quilts

May: Stephanie H @ Simple Sewendipity

June: Stephanie A @ Quarter Incher

July: Michelle @ Factotum of Arts

August: Laura @ Little and Lots

I can’t wait to see which block Queen Bee Ashley picks for this coming August. My scraps are ready!

loot, and gratitude

Tags

pay-it-forward

I’m almost afraid to write this post, because I am afraid all of you will ban me from your giveaways because I have too much! too much!

A couple of weeks ago I won Hydeeann’s Lucy Giveaway for a copy of Alexia Abegg’s book Liberty Love. Hydeeann held the giveaway as a pay-it-forward-style thank you to Lucy, who had gifted her some much-beloved hard-to-find fabric.

So there’s that. Projects I’m dying to make from this book include but are not limited to: the Michelle My Belle Dress; Classic Thread Spool Quilt (the queen size, natch); and the Seashore Baby Quilt. Thank you so much Hydeeann!

And I’ve been staring at this fabric for at least six weeks, trying to plot just the PERFECT, most worthy project:

There’s kind of a long, amazingly sweet story here. About a year ago I found Marla’s blog, and was immediately hooked, because she was using pieces of that little vintage airplane print you see above. I commented that I loved the fabric, and she’s been a lovely blog friend ever since. Fast forward to her Mellifera quilt, about which I commented that she had collected some lovely fabrics. I wondered if they were repros–and they WEREN’T. 100% vintage fabrics. Of course I expressed jealousy.

Enter Kim, who’s moving, like, kind of now. Kim had a bundle of vintage fabrics that she was ready to part ways with. Marla sent her to me, and Kim sent me those two huge Ziplocs stuffed full of these gorgeous vintage fabrics. And they are gorgeous, aren’t they! They make me remember why purple was my favorite color as a child–those lavender prints would be an amazing little-girl quilt.

Isn’t it wild how we online quilters function in this community where we not only trade encouragement, praise, and advice, but we send complete strangers fabric?!

Finally, last weekend, I couldn’t stop thinking about Amy‘s recent paper-piecing pattern, Coneflower with Butterfly. I’ve never done any real paper-piecing before, only some simple paper piecing, and I asked Amy if she thought I could handle this pattern. She shared her pattern with me, encouraging me to try it.

I’m so glad I did! It turned out beautifully. Amy’s digital drawing is so amazing, and this made for a very impressive finished block. I made liberal use of my seam ripper, but it did turn out pretty great in the end. I maybe wish I had chosen a better fabric for the coneflower petals? I hope to turn this piece into a wall hanging for my bedroom soon! Amy @ During Quiet Time’s patterns are all available for purchase in her Etsy shop. I may be trying some more after this success!

What’s to come of all this kindness? Stay tuned for my very own pay-it-forward giveaway! I’m plotting and cutting and waiting for a little bit of mail to come. Can’t wait to share something with one of you!

leftovers

Tags

leftover HSTs, ocean waves quilt, x-plus quilt

(sorry for the post-without-words. iPhone! *shakes fist*)

 

So, if you’re thinking of making an x-plus quilt using Amy @ Badskirt’s tutorial, here’s a thing you should think about before you start:

leftovers.

Let’s review. Here’s the block you’re making.

OK, see the Madrona Road text print + the Sketch units? Those are created by laying a smaller square on a bigger square, sewing along a pencil-drawn line, and then trimming off the excess .25” to the right of the seam line. Amy’s tutorial shows two little trimmed-off triangles going to scrap.

Don’t scrap those. Don’t even separate them. After you’ve made all four X-leg units, take your 8 trimmed-off paired triangles RIGHT BACK TO THE SEWING MACHINE and just SEW THEM UP RIGHT AWAY. I just treated this step as part of block-making, so that I didn’t even have a chance to procrastinate.

And, when you’re finished, you’ll have not only an awesome x-plus quilt, you’ll have a huge pile of half-square triangles like in the top photo. If you make 36 x plus blocks, you will have 288 HSTs, just waiting for you to press and trim them. My HSTs measure 2.75” trimmed (about 2 7/8” untrimmed). (Remember I made 12” x-plus blocks.) (And I actually have 296 HSTs, because I can’t count and actually sewed 37 x-plus blocks. Grrr.)

That’s a baby quilt’s worth. Out of leftovers.

I’m choosing to make the Ocean Waves quilt out of Denyse Schmidt’s book Modern Quilts, Traditional Inspiration. This means I am having to make some pattern recalculations, and I am actually having to unpick 2 HSTs per block set of 12. This does not bug me; it might you. You can do whatever the heck-o you want with your leftover HST wealth.

But tell me this isn’t tempting:

 

(PS: I can’t and won’t take credit for this idea. Quilters have surely done this forever and ever amen, but I read Allison Harris talk about this method in February. She’s such a smart lady.)

finished: liberty stile x-plus quilt

Tags

finished quilts, x-plus quilt

(Oh, I just want to PICK that leaf out of the lower left of that photo.)

I started making blocks for this quilt back in early June, after digging through a pile of fabric and feeling that this was truly the only project I wanted to be doing, at all. By the end? I was starting new projects not to have to finish it. I emailed Kelly (who just finished an AMAZING Carnaby Street x-plus quilt, that is featured on Quilt Story!) whining, “it’ll never be done.” She encouraged me to keep trucking, which I did, and now–

It’s done, it’s done, hooray and whew.

It’s a generous throw size, about 72” x 72”. I like these big quilts. You can snuggle more babies under them. (#notpregnant.)

I added some non-Liberty prints in the mix, just for dimension. Holler if you need an ID on any of the prints!

I quilted it in a free-motion wonky square pattern. I think my free-motion quilting is truly improving. For awhile, I really felt like I was going to stink at it forever–but this time I sat down and just did it, and it felt so much more natural.

I bound it in the charcoal Madrona Road Memoir print.

I’m especially proud of the back of this quilt.

 

I backed it with an Amy Butler print from Cameo. I love the blue-grey colors with the greys and pastels of the front of the quilt. When I bought it on 50% off sale at FQS, I dumbly and blithely bought 3.5 yards, which is almost always what I auto-pilot buy when I am buying quilt backs. Of course, not enough for a 72” square quilt. I think I managed brilliantly. Looks intentional, right? The romantic story of the Memoir print plays out in the Amy Butler print, framed by some pretty sweet Liberty florals–like all these fabrics were meant to go together.

If you’re looking to do your own x-plus quilt, I used Amy Badskirt’s tutorial but cut sizes from this pin to make 12” finished blocks. I made 36 blocks, 6 x 6.

Stay tuned this week for a tip if you’re planning to make an x-plus quilt. It’s a leftovers/scrap management tip. (The idea isn’t original to me. But I love it so much I’ve got to share it.)

 

finished: tiny tea leaves cardi, first socks

Tags

first socks, tiny tea leaves cardi

I always let knit finishes pile up a little before I take photos and post them to Ravelry. And then, I don’t want to do SO many knitting posts here, because most of you-all are quilters.

But the way that I got interested in knitting was reading other quilters talk about their knitting projects. So, here you go.

1. Tiny Tea Leaves Cardigan for Lucy

Pattern: Tiny Tea Leaves cardigan, available for purchase at the Madelinetosh website

Yarn: Madelinetosh DK Twist, Mag Society colorway Doe Eyes (insider info: there was some general griping on the Ravelry discussion board re: this color. Some squeaky wheels said it looked too undyed, and one person even said it looked like a band-aid. !!! I love this color for a basic staple garment, like I hope this will become for Lucy. Plus it makes her hair look super-blonde.)

Notes: I made the smallest size, which turned out a little big for Lucy. I can’t decide if it’s because she is pretty tiny (she is) or if my gauge was like half a stitch off (it was). At any rate, for knitted garments for a child, too big is okay. Maybe we’ll get two winters out of it.

I think she likes it. We are living (what I dearly hope is) the hottest week of the year in Massachusetts, and she fought like an animal flatly refused to take this sweater off to go run our errands. She wore it all the way through her toddler dance class, facepalm.

She’s got sweet moves.

2. First Socks

Pattern: A Nice Ribbed Sock, by Glenna C, available free on Ravelry

Yarn: The Plucky Knitter Plucky Feet, Princess Phone

Notes: Not many. These are cuff-down (as opposed to toe-up) socks. I used size 2 40” circulars and knit one at a time using the Magic Loop Method. They fit fine. I screwed up the second toe by not reading the pattern (a theme here at l n’ l) and frogged back to re-do. I love how they feel on my feet–more handknit socks are in my future.

 

Ravelled here and here!

wip wednesday 7/17

Tags

color affection, luminous halo quilt, wip wednesday

It’s been so long since I’ve had my wip act together enough to link up at WIP Wednesday–hooray!

I had hoped to turn this little project that possessed me last week into a quilt top by now–but some toddler-milestone-type intense parenting has gotten in the way. (We are very proud of Lucy–she’s doing great.) I’m more tired than I’ve been since Lucy was nursing, so there’s been a little more TV-and-knitting and a little less sewing-machine.

Last Thursday, I dumped out a pile of scraps, pulled some yellow I got from Pink Castle’s Stash Stack Club, and, using the book Tonya Ricucci’s Word Play Quilts, I sewed up these letters in two naptimes.

I think the capital A is my favorite!

I’m hoping to fill in with some yellow sparkly stuff, a la this:

The quote is one of my favorite pieces of English writing ever. It’s from Virginia Woolf’s essay “Modern Fiction,” and the whole thing goes: “Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.”

I started this project when I should have been piecing the last few x-plus blocks last week. Sick of symmetrically arranging gig lamps, I itched to sew something more chaotic and spontaneous. I’m hoping to use this wip to spell myself in between some more challenging projects I have going. Nothing renews my energy for careful piecing like an afternoon spent digging through scraps and improv piecing!

And how about that TV knitting?

I’m two stripes into the “color” part of my Color Affection. 100% garter stitch (I still hate to purl, even though I’m now doing it correctly) = lovely TV knitting. Our summer project is The Wire, which I’ve never seen. I can only watch one episode at a time, because it is sort of work. So we also indulged in season 1 of New Girl on Netflix, and last night, started watching Orange Is the New Black, also on Netflix–the first episode was awesome!

Hope to see you over at Lee’s WIP Wednesday!

on round robin quilts (and, finished: indian summer baby quilt)

Tags

indian summer baby quilt, quilting, round robin quilt

Awhile back I posted about a group project my guild is doing using a donated bundle of Sarah Watson’s lovely fabric line Indian Summer. Sarah Watson herself donated the Indian Summer, and Peg of Sew Fresh donated some perfectly coordinating Konas. We decided as a guild that we will donate our quilts to babies and mommas in need in Moore, OK.

I took some lame iPhone photos of my started project just to post to my guild’s Flickr group, and then quickly passed the project on to Amy‘s mom Judy. Judy added to the front, pieced the back, and Amy quilted, bound, and photographed the quilt. PLEASE NOTE: all photos in this post are borrowed from the talented Amy of During Quiet Time, with her permission.

Judy riffed on the outdoor-summer-camp theme I borrowed from the fabric in the center: she added a border of trees, with animal faces peeking out. 

And she added a bottom border with the blue mosaic print and two solids: a river!

Judy also pieced a back using every last bit of scrap from the bundle we had. I love use-it-all-up backs. This one looks so good it really could be a quilt front.

For the quilting, Amy borrowed from the river motif, quilting the quilt in a soft wavy FMQ pattern. Because Judy and I between us managed to use every bit of fabric we were given, Amy pulled a binding from her stash. It is a DS Quilts print from Joann Fabrics.

How do I feel about my first collaborative quilt project? I am busting with excitement. I was lucky to be able to start the quilt, to set a creative direction for it. It was fun to see what Judy did with the rest of it–I was able to pass it on when I got stuck for ideas, and she took over and added much more creative piecing than I would have been able to come up with. Then Amy gave the quilt the professional quilting and photography treatment.

Now, I’m trying to decide who to con into doing another round-robin style quilt with me. 🙂 Any takers? Have you ever done a collaborative or round-robin quilt? Did you have a good experience?

(PS: If you asked me before what the Kona colors were, and I flakily told you I didn’t know, I do now: that center blue is Glacier, the peach is Ice Peach, and the light grey is Ash.)

behind the ball

Tags

lga blog hop

so, here is a nice photo of my next few projects. You see the potential, no?

Yarn is *sighs* Plucky Feet, Ballpoint, Dandy Lion, Oatmeal–those Addi Turbos are going to make it into a Color Affection. Fabric in the basket is for a Roly Poly Pinafore for Lucy. Background fabric is Liberty Stile Mackintosh. Lucy and I get to duke it out over this cut–we’ll see who wins. She’s awfully scrappy.

This coming week I have to share: a finished x-plus quilt (I hope I hope); an improv-pieced top that POSSESSED me on Thursday; a collaborative quilt I was so lucky to get to work on; and Lucy’s Tiny Tea Leaves Cardi, all finished and modeled by the cutest curly-headed Jeopardy-watching toddler ever.

For more Sunday blog eye candy (aren’t we all sitting with fresh-fruit flavored seltzer drooling over blogs? just me?), keep hopping in Beth’s Let’s Get Acquainted 2013 New Blogger Blog Hop. I’m pleased to say that not a week has gone by when I haven’t seen one of my favorite blog friends featured on the list! This week’s featured bloggers (no exception, hi guys) are:

Karen @ Karen, {Novice} Quilter

Anne @ PlayCrafts

Rachel @ Let’s Begin Sewing…

Jan @ Sew And Sow Farm

Anna @ Quilting Along The Grain

Cath @ Wombat Quilts

Sarah @ {no} hats in the house
Christen @ Love by Hand
Julie @ 627handworks

come back for lots of finishes and eye candy this week, pinky swear!

towards handmade

Tags

colette ginger skirt, constellations washi, tiny tea leaves cardi

All the cool kids are doing it, you know.

Lizzy House is. (Consider the above Constellations Washi–my third Washi!–an homage to her inspiring handmade wardrobe.) Carolyn Friedlander is (follow her on Instagram, she is posting some amazing garments and home dec projects made from Architextures. And you thought you were just going to quilt with it). Jeni Baker is. (Her Nordika garments? Unreal.)

Suddenly, we’re all making dresses and skirts, not just bags and quilts. Or is it just me? Has everyone been doing this all along, and just not really saying much about it?

All through vacation (it was lovely, I am not tanned, and I am way behind on everything blog-related, so thank you very much), I plotted and planned and dreamed, and even bought a little bit of fabric.

And when I got home? The second thing I did (after going to guild meeting on Saturday, natch) was sew up my Tsuru motif madness Ginger skirt.

I’m still a zipper chicken, but I managed to install the invisible zipper in this skirt with a minimum of teeth-gnashing. It doesn’t look awesome, but it looks fine, you know?

Zipper-gnashing and cutting included, I sewed this skirt start to finish in 2.5 hours. So much payoff, for so little time invested.

When I first tried it on, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know if the high waist was flattering on me (Lucy left behind some serious luggage, if you know what I mean), and I thought the print might make me look…crazy. Keep your thoughts to yourselves re: the crazy, but I’m wearing this skirt for-real today, and I love it. Going to make the next one out of some Liberty. Yep, sold out, I cleaned ’em out again.

I didn’t forget Lucy in my wear-homemade mania.

I’ll put this on her and take real photos as soon as I sew on the buttons–but this is her Tiny Tea Leaves Cardi, knit from madtosh DK Twist, Doe Eyes (the April Mag Society yarn club “neutral” colorway). I tried it on Lucy yesterday to see how big it was on her skinny shoulders, and she flatly refused to take it off. Good sign!

And…of course, there’s still quilting going on. Plenty of it. I have 20 out of 36 x-plus blocks done. I have the last 16 cut and ready to go. Need to apply my rear to the chair and just get them done.

How about you? Are you making garments too? Have any favorite patterns to share? I’m particularly interested in patterns of the “flattering blouse” variety.