finished: a sewing machine cover for Samantha

Tags

finished quilts, garden district pattern, sewing machine cover

Oooooooo. It was so hard not to spoiler this project.

I kept thinking “just a sneaky peek like this!” Or, “just the back!”

But I had made a gentleman’s agreement. So I kept my mouth shut. And my photos off of Flickr.

Early this summer, Samantha emailed me to ask if I would be interested in swapping sewing machine covers. She was busy moving into her new home (and her new sewing room) and knew she would miss the deadline of the one she wanted to join on Flickr.

Of course. I love Samantha’s work, and I jumped at the chance to have a piece in her new, long-awaited sewing space.

I used some of the bright Liberty Stile I’ve been saving for just the right project–this definitely qualifies! There’s a Tsuru print in there, if you can spy it, and I’m not sure the last project I made without Pearl Bracelets in it.

I used the Garden District pattern, written by Corey Yoder of Little Miss Shabby, and published in the book Pillow Pop. Because I worked from stash instead of scrap, I chose to strip-piece the fabrics for the petal segments. This left me with enough leftover “slab” to make the skinny vertical borders, and to piece a little bit of color into the back. I made 8 blocks and laid them out 4 sets of 2, to make a 17”ish by 28”ish machine cover. Then, I used a sewing machine cover tutorial by Randi of i have to say to finish it off and add the binding and ties.

I sent it last Friday the 23rd from Massachusetts. It arrived with Samantha in British Columbia, Canada, today, the 28th. Record time! The USPS must have known how badly I wanted to share.

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photography skills, or, just enough to be truly dangerous

Tags

fabric, plum and june quilt photography workshop

When Beth at Plum and June started writing about her Quilt Photography Workshop, I knew I was all in. I’ve struggled mightily with my blog photography. I know the quick shortcut of taking my finished quilts to gimmicky outdoor locations, but I have a lot of dirty little photography secrets.

The first is that before today, I’d only used my entry-level (Sony alpha-series) DSLR on auto no-flash mode. Yep. I can hear you clicking “unfollow” from here. Above is a fabric stack, shot how I’d normally shoot it. Auto no-flash, natural light, in my bedroom, afternoon sun.

Here is the same fabric stack, shot after having switched my camera to Aperture Priority mode (A), which allows me to tinker with a few things but doesn’t QUITE set me adrift like Manual mode does.

(For the record, here’s what I got when I switched to Manual.) (I don’t know which buttons to push to make it not do this.) (No, I don’t know where the camera manual is.)

I kept taking photos, tinkering with three main things: ISO, exposure, and aperture. Much else is beyond my skill set at this point.

I think you’ll find that many other people in the link-up can provide many more technical hints than I can. I strongly suggest you visit around this month’s Quilt Photography link-up for specific suggestions re: camera settings. Beth herself has a pretty good post up with specific tips.

What do I bring to the table? I really love to stage a photograph. I love combining a fabric stack with other things, and I love to see what kind of mood I can draw into a blog post simply by putting my fabric stack somewhere different.

First of all, here’s my setup. My main tip is to find a camera angle that leaves out the mess. Really. All that crap was around everywhere, in every single photo I took.

YOUR SPACE DOES NOT HAVE TO BE CLEAN TO MAKE A GOOD PHOTO. You just have to know how to…frame things. Pull right up on that fabric pile. Get in its face.

(I’ll solve the “why is this yellow-looking?” problem eventually, right? Advice-givers: any ideas?)

One of my favorite things to do is put a fabric or yarn stack right in a sun spot, partly in shadow, and take a photo. Sometimes this turns out bad. Sometimes it turns out great. I love this shot of Tule.

Here’s Tule with some thread. Thread not in focus, Tule in focus. Love it.

Fabric + yarn is another one of my favorite combos. The yarn is The Plucky Knitter Primo Fingering in Buzz Lighter.

Fabric + wine? (and perfume?) Buddy. (I promise no day drinking was involved, I put my glass right in the fridge for dinner later.)

My favorite, though, turned out to be fabric and books. No surprise there. I dashed through the living room and pulled “white” books, piled them up, and got this:

I had a ton of fun taking these photos, and playing with the settings on my camera. I encourage you to try your camera on a more flexible mode, and play around a bit–every one of these photos is straight out of my camera, and I don’t have a clue what I’m doing, but I’m quite proud of several of them. Don’t let yourself be hampered by the no-clue thing. Play around, keep trying, and be proud of what looks good to you. Even if you don’t know what white balance is. (ahem)

Linking up with Beth’s Quilt Photography Workshop. Head over and check it out–many quilt bloggers seem to be photographers first, and there is a wealth of real information to be had.

finished: ocean waves leftover quilt

Tags

finished quilts, ocean waves quilt

Sometimes I’m not sure what to say about a quilt that I haven’t already said.

1) It’s 50”ish by 50”ish. That’s baby quilt size. I’m keeping it. (#notpregnant)

2) I bought grey minky to back this quilt. When the day came to baste it, I couldn’t bear so much grey. It was one of those bright days when you could smell that autumn was around the corner, one of those days that makes you want to RUN OUTSIDE and find a way to preserve the sunshine for the long winter ahead. Canning? Tanning? At any rate. This quilt screamed for an orange back.

3) Because the front was seamy in the extreme, and the scrappy pieced back was also seamy, I quilted it with a very minimal, simple wavy FMQ design. (I borrowed Amy’s idea for our Indian Summer Quilt.)

4) The quilt is completely made of leftovers or small bits of stash. The binding is left over from my first Washi Dress. The batting is leftover bits. (I always piece batting together with a zigzag stitch. This isn’t great for FMQ, truly, but it always worked for me when I used to handquilt.) As I wrote in this post, the blocks are made from leftovers from my x-plus quilt. Even the back was leftovers from this little Twister quilt I made, my Liberty geese quilt, and every bit of reddish orange scrap I found in my pile.

5) I took these photos (with my husband’s help) at Crane Beach in Ipswich MA. I think this beach may be my favorite in the whole world. (I love it more than Aruba.) The water may be cold, but that view from the walkway onto the beach and the roses blooming in the bluffs just scream New England to me. Speaking of storing up sunshine, Lucy and I are doing our best to make as many “beach days” as we can before it’s wool-sock-weather again. Hope you are soaking up the August sunshine too!

a fail, and a challenge

Tags

linen top, phoenix quilts

A couple of Mondays ago it was raining cats and dogs. 

So, instead of taking Lucy to the “woods” for a walk–I push her up and down the hills at Breakheart Reservation in her umbrella stroller while she heckles me about why I’m huffing and puffing–yes, my 2-year-old heckles–we went to Joanns. Naturally.

McCall’s patterns were $.70 each. No type-o there. As in, thirty cents less than a dollar, seventy cents more than free. In a recent push to make more of my garments (which may just be an excuse to buy more fabric, ahem) I made a plan for my fall wardrobe that involves a lot of sewing. And a lot of voile.

More on this later, but I left the store with three patterns, two yards of linen-cotton blend, and some polyestery lining fabric. I wanted to make McCalls 6565, like, right away.

As things do, the fabric and the pattern sat for a couple of weeks. This past Monday, though, the day before I had jury duty (thankfully, a one-day affair) I decided to whip the top together and wear it to court the next day.

Everything went fine, it’s a super-cute and smart pattern. And then I tried it on. And got stuck in it. I cut a size 8, but apparently needed a size 12 or so. (When  I buy a fitted shirt at the mall, I usually buy a 6.) And I had to seam ripper myself out of the WIP.

I haven’t touched it all week except to pet the pretty linen. I’m thinking I need to add a gusset to the facing/lining (the part that was actually too tight) and insert an invisible zipper in the side seam.

This is reaching quite a bit out of my comfort zone.

OK, part II, then I’ll tie this all together I hope.

An email landed in my inbox from my professor friends who live in Phoenix and who are brand-new homeowners (!! hooray!!). They asked me to design and sew two twin-size quilts for beds in their guest room.

Yep. DESIGN and sew.

S (the wife) has a fabulous idea that the design should read across the tops of the two twin beds–like I’m designing a king-size quilt and breaking it up with borders so that the design falls correctly.

The logistics of the design placement notwithstanding, this is a pretty challenging assignment for me. Since February, I’ve been trying to push myself to make quilts that are a little different. A little more “me.” This isn’t the easiest thing for me. It’s not the easiest for any of us, I think. It’s work! Designing a quilt is work. It doesn’t just fall out of the sky like divine inspiration. It’s sketching, and math, and how-much-yardage-to-buy.

Oh but. I can make me a fabric stack.

And I can tell you that instead of being scared of designing these quilts, or of trying to solve my linen top crisis, I’m actually excited. I’m feeling challenged, in a really good way. Bring on this fall, bring on the challenges.

I can’t wait to see what I come up with.

(And, if you have any tips on fixing a too-small linen top. You know where the comment box is.)

where I sew; or, for the love of small spaces

I’ve so enjoyed Jennifer at Ellison Lane’s Studio Spotlight series. It’s wonderful to see the studio spaces of quilters I admire–I find their spaces as inspiring as I find their quilts!

However. It’s time to get real. This, friends, is what I see while I sew on THE VERY BEST of days. The days when we have bread and bananas, the days after our five-year wedding anniversaries when we have zinnias (to conveniently hide the toddler pot).

You see, we live in an apartment. A really very small apartment. We barely have room for a queen bed, much less a sewing studio. This will change, yes, but change takes time, and I’m not going to put off quilting while I wait for a lovely light-filled studio space with a hardwood floor for basting. (Raise your hand if you’re in the “I baste on filthy carpet and it makes me a stronger person” club with me.)

Here is my kitchen island, on a fairly clean sewing day.

That’s it! That’s my space! See the Janome? The filthy ironing board cover? I *did* treat myself to a new cutting mat recently, that was a major improvement.

My sewing machine perches permanently at the very end of our (small Ikea) dining table. WIPs get draped over chairs.

In the corner furthest from natural light in our matchbox apartment, my stash. (And a yo-yo clown doll that my aunt made for Lucy, that Lucy has since destroyed and I need to re-string.) I moved my stash out of the bin after getting rid of 200ish books. That’s right. It’s like pouring out your Jack Daniels to better store your cartons of cigarettes. Or something like that.

In case you didn’t catch it, I have WIPs piled up literally to the crown molding. In this small a space, you learn to use every bit of vertical storage space.

I am really happy with the quilts I’m turning out lately. I think I’m doing good work, and I’m proud and satisfied. AND YOU KNOW WHAT? I’m doing that good work in this really teeny, imperfect, messy space. And basting on grubby carpet. I’m here to tell you that’s OK! You don’t have to have an impeccable studio space, filled with gorgeous light and fabric.

You just have to DO, and sew, and make quilts you are happy with. No matter the space you’re in.

(A thanks, and a shout-out, to Marla at Sew Hungry, who shared her unfiltered sewing space this past weekend and encouraged me to do the same. If you also have a make-it-do space, we want to see it! Let’s represent the kitchen-island dining-corner quilters!)

Linking up with Ellison Lane’s Studio Spotlight Link Up, which is open until August 23!

love HATE?

Tags

bee blocks, grace circle, quarter inch foot

breaking the radio silence to ask:

 

quarter inch foot.

Do you love it?

or do you hate it?

Mostly over here I’m spinning my wheels and unpicking/remaking bee blocks, because I HATE this little piece of metal and plastic. OK. Perhaps one shouldn’t blog when one has a pile of 20 HSTs to pick apart, re-square, and reassemble.

I’m trying to make these for Grace circle of do. Good Stitches (more on this later, I’m saving up for a bee post) and I’ll be honest, I looked at the block and thought, piece of cake.

And then my first block was 12.75” x 12.25”. When it was supposed to be 12” square. We all know that big odd blocks are bad bee karma. So I will need to unpick and re-do.

But here’s the thing: before I started, I checked my 1/4” seam by moving the needle and measuring my “normal” seam. (I like to sew very scant, which works fine when I am the one making all the blocks.) And the block still came out large!

For the second block I hauled out my stupid quarter inch foot and, because IT DOESN’T SANDWICH THE FABRIC TO THE FEED DOGS TIGHTLY ENOUGH, I spent a lot of time digging weird eaten fabric out from the machine and fixing wonky seams. But then the second block was 12”ish, and I could shave off little bits of fabric to make it perfect. (I remembered to leave seam allowances!)

So. Sew bad blocks with my A foot? Or struggle mightily with the stupid quarter inch foot? How do YOU achieve your perfect 1/4” seam?

finished: lucy’s soft blanket (or, patchwork frames quilt)

Tags

finished quilts, lucy's soft blanket, patchwork frames quilt

I just put my kid to bed with a blanket I suspect was a bit damp.

It got dirty and I had to wash it–and I yanked it out of the dryer at 8 pm, no matter what, because I knew there’d be a scene otherwise. She’s cried over this quilt at least twice in the two weeks I took to make it.

I finished stitching down the binding with her parked next to me on the sofa, butt wedged against mine. She wanted the “soft blanket” and didn’t quite understand why it wasn’t finished yet.

Maybe I shouldn’t encourage the melodrama, but I’m pleased as punch. You see, every time I try to put her to bed with the Lizzy House Glam Garlands quilt I made for her second birthday, she begs, “Not that one not that one.” She loves the tied fleece throw my mom made her for her first Christmas. When it was in the wash, there were bedtime tears. And while Lucy still loves her Elmo blanket from Nana, I’m glad to have some of the laundry pressure taken off! And…I’m glad to have made a blanket she totally loves.

I backed it in cream double-sided fleece, as suggested by Allison Harris of Cluck Cluck Sew. Per her suggestion I did not use a batting. This quilt is so soft and so drapey, that despite the little-girl fussy cuts and the peachy color scheme, my husband almost stole it for his own couch blanket. I have washed it twice and it is holding strong.

There’s much more minky in our future.

(And I definitely pin-basted this sucker before FMQing it. I had all intentions of spray basting but totally forgot to buy a can in my frenzy to buy the Juliana Horner fabrics at Joanns. Pin basting went fine for me, but I am a fastidious pinner and use hundreds of pins.)

Lucy’s love for it isn’t all that’s special about this quilt.

This quilt is really very special to me, too, because it’s a pattern that my friend Beth at Plum and June wrote! It’s her Patchwork Frames Quilt Pattern, available over at the Birch Organic Fabrics blog. I chose to make twelve blocks, unevenly spaced, and it made for a perfect toddler-throw size. (Folks: I didn’t have to piece the minky backing. Hallelujah.)

 

The pattern was a lot of fun to stitch up. In the pattern version, which will be available shortly, Beth includes instructions for strip-piecing the outer patchwork frames, which means that the quilt top goes together super-fast. I love the combination of the fussy cuts with the sweet patchwork. The skinny inner frame plus the patchy outer frame work together to “grow up” a kiddo’s novelty quilt, don’t you think?

Thanks, Beth, for sharing your pattern. And all of you–I hope you will share photos if you decide to make up this block in any size!

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts‘ Finish it Up Friday

and TGIFF, this week over at BedTime Quilting!

stash: i

Tags

stash up

When Sarah invited us last Thursday to “show me yours, show you mine” our stashes, I was all, “OK, this is just fine. I only have this teeny pile of Juliana Horner that I bought at Joanns with a COUPON so I have been totally virtuous this week. I can link up WITHOUT SHAME.” Then I came home, read her actual post, and got a little quiet-feeling. Actually we are supposed to show our whole stash.

No longer a without-shame proposition.

So I’ll talk shame etc. at the end (if you’re still around); for now, the photos.

Here’s my fabric-catcher table. This is where hibernating WIPs land. This is also where handfuls of fabric scraps that “I can’t deal with because the baby is awake now” land.

Open that door to the right, and behind the vacuum and a bag full of yarn (we’re not talking about the yarn today, RIGHT?)…

is the MOTHERLODE.

I’ve spoken before about my one-bin husband-specified-credit-card-limit system. It’s a deal I struck with my husband that encourages me to be a little economical. It also encourages me to USE what I buy rather than cherishing the precious fabrics. Let me just say I am more or less successful on the credit-card-limit front.

Using it? Well.

Stash blenders and random half-yards:

Briar Rose and coordinating solids (that I chose MYSELF):

Color Me Retro, purchased in a moment of severe snowstorm-related weakness (it snowed 3 feet on the day I was supposed to go on my first mommy-get-away to Phoenix; I was sad, and stuck, so I bought fabric.) (see also: madtosh mag society yarn club subscription of March-May ’13)

Two 1.5 yard cuts for me skirts (I washed these up today!):

Liberty Lifestyle random:

Liberty Lifestyle Bloomsbury Gardens, brown (I know! but it looks so 70’s and awesome to me. I’m waiting for fall to come and I’m going to rock this pile).

These are just larger scraps. So I don’t feel guilty about this pile at all.

Echino from guild swap. Yes, I do feel a little guilty about this pile, because I think this fabric is too lovely to sit in a bin.

Sketch pile, which was purchased as a bundle last November but is reduced to mainly scrap by this point. If you’re wondering what you can do to quickly enhance your stash, I recommend Sketch, early and often. I use this pile all the time.

Uggos that I don’t know what to do with. (“Uggo” may be unfair. I love that vintage woodland print; I bought the three large cuts of the green Punctuation to do my daughter’s nursery and changed my mind/ran out of time/was cornered by my MIL in Pottery Barn in my 35th week of pregnancy and forced to choose a crib set.)

AND PILE OF SHAME: DS edition. I bought Flea Market Fancy as a Lucy’s-first-birthday gift to myself. My husband gave me I bought Chicopee as our fourth anniversary present last summer. I wanted to make Denyse Schmidt’s Cog & Wheel pattern. (Didn’t we all?) I love this pile of fabric and it is just sitting.

Besides a pile of Ziplocs full of scraps and the pile I pulled for the Penny Sampler, this is it.

Please tell me I’m normal(ish).

This week I worked on a stash re-org project that I’ll share later this week. I’m also plotting how I can make a plan to USE all this gorgeous stuff. It’s doing me no good in the piles.

How are you feeling about your own fabric pile at this point? Are you a saver, or are you really good about cutting and using all of your fabrics? Do you buy full-line FQ bundles, or just the prints you like? We want to know!

Linking up with Sarah at Theory Thursday!

(giveaway winner)

was #27, Willit Neverend, who commented:

Personally, if I were going to use the red and green, I would leave out the aqua, but, personally I’m not really fond of the red and green Christmas colours.

I would make it out of colours that say “Christmas” to me. For me in Australia, that would probably be yellows for the sun and the golden decorations, greens for the Summer grass and the Christmas tree, and whatever other relevant colours I could think of (but I’m not going to think too hard, because I doubt I will be making a Summer quilt  )

For you it might be white, if it snows, light blues for frost and ice, yellows for decorations and warm hugs, or whatever else it is that reminds you of Christmas with your family.

Good luck.

I’m happy to add Australia to the list of places I have mailed stuff!

Thanks, one and all, for your Penny Sampler fabric stack advice. I’m going to admit that you’re not all going to get emailed responses to your thoughtful comments this time, but know that I did read each comment and appreciate your taking the time to offer advice.

(And it goes without saying, but I want to see any Christmas quilts you-all make for your families this year.)