finished: fancy fox quilt

Tags

fancy fox quilt, finished quilts, liberty

I have procrastinated writing this post almost as long as it took me to actually make this quilt. Which is to say, I’ve been sitting on a finished quilt and photos for almost a week. And this little quilt took me a week and a morning to make.

When Elizabeth Hartman started instagramming about her Fancy Fox quilt pattern, and mentioned it was perfect for Liberty fat eighths, I knew it was for me. I had joined Westwood Acres’ Liberty club in January, promising myself that I’d actually USE these luxury fabrics instead of just collecting them. The first month I did great, cutting into a couple of the fabrics for a small pillow project. The next few months I maybe played with a few fabric pulls including the Liberty, but mostly I let these fat eighths sit on the shelf.

I have been buying some Liberty yardage too. A yard here, a yard there. I did a Liberty and Peppered Cotton Ruby dress (I should really blog the three Rubies I made!), and I made some Liberty napkins for a friend’s birthday. I wasn’t letting big pieces of Liberty sit on my shelf!

In the spirit of applying maximum Liberty directly to my person, I pulled thirteen club favorites, added some scraps of a separately-purchased Liberty favorite (Kayoko, oh my) and whipped up the throw size quilt. Just for me. I used Peppered Cotton in Fog from Sew Fresh Fabrics for background and sashing. Kona Pepper and Snow were the muzzles and eyes.

If you’re considering making this quilt, know that it sews up SO FAST. It’s a fast cut, and a fast sew, and it is so fun and satisfying to see favorite pieces of precious fabric made into these funny cute fox faces. I was done with the quilt top before I expected to be, and was caught without a backing plan. I had two meters of Liberty Scilly Flora from the first Massdrop buy (ended up being $23/meter, shipped, which is crazy a good deal) and had dragged my feet about the right dress pattern for it. Turns out it was the perfect amount to back and bind this quilt.

Quilted with some Aurifil 2600 and a dense vertical squiggle, this quilt became luxuriously textured. It washed great and it is a super-light, smooth, cool-feeling quilt to use during the summer months.

I can tell you this: I won’t be sharing this one. Not even with Lucy.

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finished: snake trail quilt (the cerise beast)

Tags

cerise beast, finished quilts, snake trail quilt

As I edit these photos, I’m still not sure quite how this quilt happened.

Of course, I’ve wanted to make this quilt since Denyse Schmidt’s book Modern Quilts Traditional Inspiration hit my doorstep a couple of summers ago. I had this FQ bundle of the Flea Market Fancy Legacy reprint–only the second FQ bundle I had ever purchased!–and really needed to do just the right thing with it. I thought of copying Angela at Fussy Cut’s amazing, bright elongated long cabin take on the original line. I thought about making Sew Crafty Jess’s Lucky Square pattern. I thought about making a fan quilt; Suburbs; a Red-Pepper-Quilts-style simple HSTs-with-white quilt. But really? In my quilter’s heart I knew it had to be Snake Trail for this fabric, fabric that seemed too good and too special to cut into.

But when I decided this a couple of years ago, I wan’t quite a skilled enough quilter to make it happen. I just didn’t have the chops. I struggled with FMQ. I struggled to make some blocks lay flat. I kept not making the quilt, and I kept not being quite able to use the Flea Market Fancy fabric for anything. In the meantime, though, I made a whole bunch of quilts. I made some harder quilts, like Penny Sampler and Bargain Basement; I made some easier quilts, like Briar Rose Boy’s Nonsense. I free-motion-quilted a whole bunch of quilts–charity quilts, quilts for Boston, my own quilts. I developed a set of quilter’s skills and a quilter’s eye, and this year, when I started thinking about “all the hard things” I wanted to do this year, Snake Trail topped my list.

And buddy was it worth every bit of the 2+ months (on and off, of course) I spent making it.

I made the quilt exactly as Denyse Schmidt calls for in her book. The quilt is twin-sized (I dream of one day having a guest room with a twin bed to put this on!) and took 48 blocks. Each block takes 14 snake “segments,” which had to be more-or-less hand-cut off a template. I used that clear, flexible no-melt template plastic, and stuck the templates to my fabric using scotch tape. Then, I used my ruler and rotary cutter to cut the straight edges, and my scissors to round off the top and bottom. 672 times. Then the pie pieces and weird maxi-pad middle pieces had to be cut (they were bigger so I rotary cut those around the same template-plastic-scotch-tape mess).

I had every intention of sewing the whole top up over the Boston MQG/Seacoast MQG retreat in March in Kennebunk Maine. Three days with no kid, no dishes to wash, no macaroni to make, no laundry to wrangle? I could make five quilts. No, but I forgot to factor in that I really need to sleep and actually I still need to eat and oh yeah this quilt is actually a hoss. A beast, if you will.

Though it did take longer than planned, the cutting was really the only tedious part. I found that the sewing went mostly smoothly. When I pieced together the blocks at the end, I had to be VERY careful to line up the snakes. It took a lot of unpicking. It took help from friends on Instagram.

The quilting was a bit of a challenge too. I had seen Don’t Call Me Betsy’s tutorial for Baptist Fan free-motion quilting and knew I really wanted to try it. Why I chose a monster beast of a twin quilt to try it out I’ll never know, except: could there be a more perfect quilting motif for this block design? It took two days and 2.5 Frixion pens, and quite a lot of positive self-talk at the sewing machine (if you look up close, my fans are WON KY) but holy cow you guys, the texture.

A final thanks should to go Sarah over at Smiles Too Loudly because SHE was the one who (maybe a little joking? I can’t tell) suggested that I try using the Kona Cerise as a background when I found white fabric JUST TOO BORING. She made me look super-smart but it was all her idea. Now, I can’t imagine this quilt any other way but cerise!

Now I can’t wait to take on my next challenge quilt. I cut an easy project to keep my hands busy while I plot and decision-make, but I have big ideas already 🙂

advice for new bloggers: community {plum and june 2014 blog hop for new modern quilt bloggers}

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advice for new bloggers, community, new blogger blog hop 2014

Last summer, I participated in the Plum and June 2013 New Blogger Blog Hop, run by Beth over at Plum and June. In many ways, it was a whirlwind. It’s easy to feel sometimes that modern quilt blogging is a saturated, overly competitive field. I mean, you already figured out you weren’t going to be the next Smitten Kitchen. But the sheer number of modern quilting blogs can be surprising if you’re just starting out. It’s easy to feel like you are writing into a void–like you’re alone in a crowd of established bloggers and no one cares what you are doing and writing about.

Take heart, you of small sewing machine and small blog. Your voice and your blog are vital in this wide and growing community of modern sewists and makers. Your. blog. matters. Because someone out there reading it just might be your new friend. “How can I make blogging friends?” you wonder. “The only person who ever comments on my blog is my cat.” Your cat notwithstanding, there are some habits you can develop as a blogger that can make you feel like you are part of this thriving, chatty community.

Community-building Habit #1: Respond to comments. (via email.) If you’re a WordPress blogger like I am, this may take just a bit of extra copy-paste email address action in Gmail. But it’s so worth it to respond to even a few comments on every post. Isn’t it fun when you get an email from Rachel, or Beth, or Molli Sparkles? Sometimes a blogger’s reply to a comment can even spark a further email conversation. Be open; be willing to keep talking, if you’re feeling it.

 

Community-Building Habit #2: Be a Joiner. (within reason.) When Ashley emailed me in the midst of the blog hop last summer, saying “can we start a bee?” I was a little foot-draggy. I’m not…a good manager of people. But Ashley’s enthusiasm is, as you may know, contagious, and we ended up asking the participants in last summer’s blog hop if they would be interested in starting a bee. The response was quick and solid–after a couple of hours we had a baker’s dozen participants, and a whole year and a month’s worth of quilting ahead. (And I think some of the international quilters even started their own global bee!) We’re winding down now, on our last four months of Scrapbeelicious blocks, but it’s been so fun to make blocks for these skilled and creative quilters every month.

This is not to say you should say yes to everything. If you’re already feeling like you don’t have time to do your own work, you know you need to say a kind, firm, “no thank you but you guys have fun without me.” But if you’ve never joined a collaborative effort such as a bee–it’s a great way to get to know some people a little bit better. (Just ask me how I feel about the ladies in my do. Good Stitches circle.) (hint: it’s all pink and purple hearts.)

Community-Building Habit #3: Join a guild. (no, really just do it.) No excuses. We are all wallflowers who would rather sit at our sewing machines. But real-life connections can help you grow your quilting community AND your blog, all at once. There are a handful of really talented and creative likeminded bloggers in my guild and putting faces to their blog handles helped me feel much more connected to them. Plus their quilts are all so much more amazing in person. Go to a guild meeting and be nice, and I promise they will be nice back.

No local guild? Think about starting one. I have a brave friend who is starting one up in the coming month. The guild I am a member of was started once upon a time by three people who were tired of driving, too. These things start somewhere; why not with you? At the very least visit your local quilt shop, buy a spool of Aurifil, and try to strike up a conversation with the person who takes your money!

Community-Building Habit #4: Remember that other small bloggers are people too. That means when someone you haven’t yet met comments on your blog, their blog is worth a visit (and perhaps a Bloglovin’ follow, and maybe a comment on their next post). I’ve gotten out of this habit lately and it’s like missing out on a daily run–it is a great way to see what other people are up to, and a fantastic way to meet other people who are doing the same thing you are doing in the same space.

Community-Building Habit #5, and the last: Be open. (True Colors, and all.) It took me thirty years to learn this, but friendships don’t happen unless potential friends sense that you’re open to them. Blogging friendships follow this rule too. It’s easy to be standoffish and closed-off. Be open (within reason, within safety, within comfort–we’ve all seen Catfish) to other people with similar tastes, interests, talents, friends, and you’ll be surprised what develops.

PS: for more information on the 2014 Blog Hop, please click the button at the tip-top of this post! I 100% recommend participating if you are a new modern quilting blogger.

mathilde blouse: an all-the-hard-things finish

Tags

garment sewing, mathilde blouse

I’ve written only briefly about my “all-the-hard-things” goal for this year. It’s a nebulous goal, and the phrase “all the hard things” really sums it up more nicely than a whole bunch of bullet points or detailed goal lists ever could. Plus, an open ended goal leaves room for expansion and modification. I might make a bunch of quilting goals but then decide to take up, say, tatting (hint: likely not what you think–click the link!) or wild-yeast sourdough bread making. With me, you sort of never know.

One of my firm goals this year was to finally make the Mathilde Blouse, pattern by Tilly Walnes of Tilly and the Buttons. I had seen this amazing version done up in Liberty lawn over at the Workroom’s blog (Liberty junkies: this blog is nearly as essential a follow as the Purl Bee) and I just knew–though I barely had Washi under my belt–that it had to be mine. I bought the pattern, I bought some beautiful Yuwa lawn because I’m not about to goof up $35/yd Liberty and…

…I let the whole pile sit for a year, almost. Part of the issue was that the pattern, designed for A4 paper, printed super-weird and I had to hand-draw in many of the lines so that I could even cut it out. And that Yuwa lawn? Well. It came, and was supposed to be less-nice than Liberty, but it was the most beautiful fabric I’d laid my hands on to date, and I was terrified to ruin it. Plus there had been the Buttonhole Incident surrounding the Geranium Dresses I made for Lucy last year that made me love-hate-dread-fear my Janome auto-buttonhole feature. Let’s just recollect that Mathilde’s key feature is that lovely row of seven buttons closing the back of the blouse–romantic, dreamy, old-fashioned–but they had to be done RIGHT.

What is there to say except, reader, I finally sewed it?

This sew took me every bit of four whole sewing days, at 2-3 hours a day, to complete, but it was so worth it. I loved every minute, from french-seaming every part I possibly could, to carefully hand-finishing the cuffs (stitch in the ditch was too sloppy a finish for this beauty–hand sewing was definitely called for), to sewing on the bright, coral-pink buttons that Lucy insisted were the right choice for this blouse. (She was right.) Even setting a seam with my iron was a joy.

The best part? It fulfilled my childhood Anne-with-an-e dream of ridiculously puffed sleeves on a garment. Mathilde Blouse: check.