a tale of two quilts

Tags

finished quilts, fire drill quilt, quilting, sewing, sparkle punch quilt

Warning: after three-ish weeks of not posting any real content, I’m about to overload this post with pictures. So, if you’re faint of heart, opt out…now.

Quilt #1: The Mother-in-Law quilt Back in October, I started what I knew would be one of two Christmas gift quilts: my rainbow Fire Drill quilt, pattern from Elizabeth Hartman’s Modern Patchwork, color plan inspired by totally copied wholesale from this pin. Again, I reiterate, I COPIED this color scheme. I didn’t come up with it on my own! I wish I’d had the smarts, but I’ll take this quilt however I came by it. Because it’s gorgeous.

(You’ll please to ignore my husband’s pajama pile in the right corner. I’ve tried, and can’t really do anything about it, so now I don’t really see it anymore either.)

Piecing this one went quickly and fairly easily, though if you look closely, I had some moderate troubles making my diamond points meet. This is a shrug-and-move-on trouble, though, because when you pull back, all you see is glorious color.

And when you look closely, all you see is lovely texture, from hours and hours of careful outline hand-quilting. With Gutermann’s handquilting thread and a #11 Black Gold quilting needle, natch.

This is also my first ever pieced-back quilt. I love, love, love it. Scraps from the front to make spectrum “drips” across the back. The neutral is actually a sand-and teal colored dot from a Riley Blake line that I picked up on clearance. It’s perfect.

And the binding is Chicopee Bleeding Heart. It was *made* for this quilt. (I actually purchased a Kaffe dot to bind this, but the Denyse was so much more appropriate, in spirit and in coloring.)

Quilt #2: The Momma quilt It wasn’t quite fair to make a quilt for my MIL when I’d never made one for my own mom. My mom quilts, though she has primarily sewn garments. When I first started quilting she gave me a HUGE box full of pre-cut scraps to start with, including about 500 axe-heads that I hand-pieced into a queen-sized monster. As my second quilt project. Ahem. Needless to say, I owed her one.

This is, coincidentally, another Elizabeth Hartman pattern, her Sparkle Punch quilt. I chose turquoises, light blues, tans, and browns to match my mom’s living room. I love this pattern. It’s a perfect marriage of traditional and modern, and I thought it was a way to make something for my very traditional mother while still expressing my own quilting style.

The “first” for this quilt is that it’s the first machine-quilted quilt I’ve ever done. I used a walking foot on my new Janome to do “straight” line quilting. I assume my lines will get Red-Pepper-Quilts-straight with more time and practice. For now? Good enough to gift, I think. (Don’t tell me if you think otherwise.)

The backing is a Denyse print from Joann’s, that I picked up off the red dot rack for less than $4/yard (I know!). It’s perfect. I chose not to piece the back because I ran out of time because I thought that might be pushing it just a little too much on the modern quilting. You know. For my mom. The binding is that brown Posie print from Flea Market Fancy Legacy, and it’s all I can do not to go and buy like ten more yards of that stuff.

Thoughts: When I went to take pictures of these (inside on a grey Massachusetts day, sorry sorry), I thought I knew which one I’d like to keep if I were being totally bad. My heart, I thought, was totally with that Fire Drill quilt. But, as I spread out the Sparkle Punch quilt, I really appreciated the texture that the machine quilting created, and I found the color scheme soothing and easy to look at.

Really, I love them both. Just like I love both my momma and my mother-in-law. I hope these quilts are much-loved, too!

Edited to link up to Crazy Mom Quilts’s Finish it Up Friday. participa

crunch time

Tags

christmas sewing, fire drill quilt, honey cowl, janome 3160, quilting, quilts, sparkle punch quilt

Christmas is two weeks from tomorrow.

 

We leave for TN in 12 days.

 

It’s crunch time.

 

So, while I haven’t been here in 10 days, I’m certainly still trucking. I have a lot left to do, but on Saturday, I felt for the first time like I’m actually going to get it all done. Or…enough of it. I’ve finished handquilting my MIL’s Fire Drill quilt, and have chosen the binding. I’m halfway-ish through quilting my mom’s Sparkle Punch quilt–more on that in a moment. I have about eight rounds left to knit on MY honey cowl, and then two small half-versions of the honey cowl to knit for my sisters (in the awesome highlighter-yellow and shocking pink MadTosh yarns above). And I have two quilted tote bags to piece, quilt, and finish, using this tutorial. And one or two more aprons. And one makeup roll.

It sounds like a lot! It is a lot. You may be all, I’m not optimistic it can be done. But I don’t take “not optimistic it can be done” for an answer. Because I have a new sewing machine:

 

It’s a Janome 3160 QDC, purchased in a sheer panic at Marie’s Sewing Center in Woburn after my old 1996 Target Singer (inherited from my great-grandmother) broke on the way to my guild’s SAL on 12/1. I’ve had it 9 days. I think I’m in love. It’s the reason I’m already halfway through quilting the Sparkle Punch quilt that I couldn’t even get put together a couple weeks ago. (Did I mention I think my Singer was on the fritz? What I thought was acting funny–the tension in the presser foot–was what finally broke, I think the spring gave–and, really, it was time for a “real” machine.)

I hope to write a more detailed review of my thoughts on the Janome after I’ve used it for awhile. And I’ll definitely post as I finish this pile of projects!

Good luck with all of your crunch times. Will you make it?!

nametag

Tags

christmas card, nametag, quilting, sewing

We’re ALL SHOCKED that I didn’t get my Sparkle Punch top done by today, right? Good thing Seacoast Modern Quilt Guild’s December meeting tomorrow morning is a sew-in. Maybe I’ll get that sucker pieced up. (Maybe…even backed and basted?)

Here’s what I did get done:

That’s my guild nametag! I used Steam-a-Seam to fuse teeny snippet scrap letters to a 5×5 square of Kona. I outlined the letters with one strand of black DMC floss in a blanket stitch, trimmed to about 2”x4”, backed it in an actual feedsack scrap (wearing my vintage fabric close to my heart heh), and bound it in the last shreds of a pink-and-orange chrysanthemum print that I bought at a LQS in Groningen.

(The fabric behind it is my “ugly” FQ for an ugly FQ swap, an Alexander Henry print that looks better online than in person. It was either this, or something hideously rust-colored with stars and oars–yeah, oars–, and hoping for good guild karma, I decided this is ugly enough but not…too ugly.)

I also got the Christmas card photo taken yesterday. Then I picked the cards and ordered them. In amateur-photography toddler-land, this is QUITE an accomplishment. Even though yeah, it took all day, wore us both out, and we spent the rest of the afternoon in our pajamas.

What a rotten mess.

Enough blathering; Fire Drill’s sitting next to me asking for some handquilting. Good luck sewing your gifts and photographing your toddlers-cats-dogs-uncooperative spouses-goldfish as we enter December crunch time!

scrap cleanse?

Tags

quilting, quilts, scrap cleanse, scraps, sewing

I pride myself on keeping sewed up with my scrap bag. I have one teeny little plastic zippy bag from the FQS, and it holds ALL the snippety and odd-shape scraps. (And I have a detailed, bizarre-o system of Chipotle bags that hold all the Kona scrap, all the string scrap, warm-cool string scrap for a specific project, and the selvedges, so really…ok, it’s not just this one scrap bag.)

But if there’s a scrap bag I’m most fond of, it’s the snippet bag. I love saving teeny tiny scraps that a sane person might trash.

Lucy loves the snippet bag too. She found it, in its current stuffed-full state, and I was like, OK, harmless. I’ll let her play, take her pic for her sewing-nut Nana, and go to the bathroom.

 

A quick bathroom trip later, the dining room floor:

 

I especially like the scrap stuck to her butt.

Though I realize such thoughts are akin to dreaming of salad-lentil-soup-and-smoothies while eating pumpkin pie straight out of the pieplate (not that I did that last week ahem), I’m really looking forward to some scrap cleansing in January, after all this stash-yardage-special-fabric sewing of the Christmas season.  I’m thinking a scrap vomit quilt is in order, and I’ve got my eye on several use-em-up patterns from Sunday Morning Quilts (like the “wine gums” one, though I’m not sure what they call it in the book, or the ticker tape quilt, or the cover quilt…) At heart I’m a scrap quilter, not a stash quilter. I get way more satisfaction out of using things up and combining little bits in creative ways.

Maybe this is another reason my Denyse Schmidt FQ’s remain perfectly folded and untouched in my fabric box? While I keep ordering scrap packs from the shops and opening them like it’s Christmas day? (Speaking of, Southern Fabrics has 30% off their rainbow scrap bundle today. Makes it $18ish including US shipping. I ordered one for myself and will turn it over to the hubs to stuff in my own stocking. 🙂 )

Anyone else planning a scrap cleanse for January? Any scrap quilts in your queue? Any scrappy patterns I should know about?

Annnd one final snippet thought: I did finally finish squaring up my Sparkle Punch stars yesterday. At some point during the process, I started refusing to clean up my trimmings until I had finished all of the stars. 

 

Like a 13-year-old boy refusing to change his underwear until the end of the Little League championship, this hurt those around me way more than myself. I thought my pile was pretty impressive by the end! (And yeah. I threw these out. It was hard, but the right thing to do.)

squaring up

Tags

quilting, sewing, sparkle punch quilt

29 days left?!

Eeep.

I’m still squaring up.

 

Like, STILL squaring up. Turns out that this Sparkle Punch quilt isn’t so much 80 blocks plus some edges, it’s like, 80 times 4 blocks plus some edges. I’ve been working hard core on this the whole long weekend, and…am still not particularly close to a quilt top. Goal! Quilt top by Friday! Or bust!

Also I have to do a quilt guild nametag by Saturday morning, which has been kind of a stumper. I dislike embroidery. Reeeeally dislike. This is surprising given how much I like handwork, I know. I used steem-a-seam to applique some fabric letters, thinking I’d blanket-stitch around the edges to applique, but it may look super-sloppy on a small scale. We’ll see what I come up with.

Besides Sparkle Punch and nametag, my Handmade Christmas 2012 list looks like this:

1) Fire Drill quilt: finish handquilting (half done), trim, bind

2) aprons: have 5 complete, need 1 (possibly 2) more

3) quilted totes: need 2

4) makeup rolls: need 3

Can I do it? We’ll see. I keep picking up my Honey Cowl to knit at the end of the day (handquilting can be so physically exhausting) so I’m going to have to shape up if I’m going to pull it off.

Lastly, Thanksgiving! It was awesome. I hosted my SIL and her new husband here, and we had a low-key, low-stress dinner. And yes, I bought a Honeybaked Turkey Breast, and I am not ashamed; in fact, I am proud. I’m happy that all the leftovers are gone as of yesterday. And I’m happy the weather cooperated for a little outside jaunt to Breakheart, to walk off some of those homemade rolls.

not lying down on the ground, having given up

Tags

quilting, quilts, WIPs

Oh, Paris Review Daily, right quote right time yesterday:

“Writing or making anything—a poem, a bird feeder, a chocolate cake—has self-respect in it. You’re working. You’re trying. You’re not lying down on the ground, having given up.” — Sharon Olds

Yesterday I struggled mightily to sew this.

 

Three piddly Sparkle Punch blocks from Elizabeth Hartman’s early 2012 (it’s still that year! I’m not SO behind!) Sparkle Punch QAL. This one’s for my momma. And do you see the FMF on the top of that right hand stack? And the Pearl Bracelets? That’s because my momma is awesome. She taught me to love fabric, so only fabrics I love get to be here.

Anyhow, it took me an hour and a half to sew these three blocks. After I spent an hour knitting half a round or so of this:

 

My Honey Cowl, which is really a quick, easy knit, but. But. has been sloggy and desperate and with weird stitch-count problems. Did I drop a stitch? Did I make another one, or just find it later? Beginner knitting.

So, I’m not making any progress on Project Handmade Christmas. And, get this 19th-century problem: the baby was up with the croup last night! I think she’s fine (she’s still sleeping it off, though I have a mother’s fear that SHE’S NOT SLEEPING SHE’S COMATOSE–no, really, it’s hard-won sleep and we’re all okay). But today is probably shot. And I need to make rolls and piecrust for Thursday, which I am desultorily hosting.

To help my plight, this morning I officially back-burnered these two barely-begun projects:

 

Citron-berry-and-coal AMH Feather Bed block. Meant to be a quilted pillow for SIL. I love this block so much it and some of its friends are going to be our queen-sized bedspread, replacing our pitiful much-washed-and-be-holed PB duvet cover.

A crappy, doesn’t-do-it-justice picture of my fall-colors Bargain Basement blocks. I love them, love them (may also do a queen-sized of this, as it seems to grow fast) but, as they’re for me, have got to shelve it.

So today! Before Thanksgiving! While we are sick and overwhelmed by Christmas already! I will make something, or sew a stitch, or knit a round, and I will not lie down on the ground, having given up!

Happy Thanksgivings, all. 🙂

finished: illuminations pillow

Tags

fall for solids contest, illuminations pillow, improv piecing, pillow, quilting, sewing

The color orange cures the common cold.

Science.

We’ve all been down since Friday with a nasty, hateful cold. Thankfully, the toddler seemed to have it the easiest this time around. Nate and I? We assume that, like hangovers, colds get worse as one approaches 30. A crate of mandarins, a crockpot full of beef stew, some chili gifted by a dear friend (when in doubt, give chili!), and sooo much Sesame Street later, we’re all on the mend.

When I’m sick, I get super-restless. I want to get up and move and do and go and make. So this pillow went from pile o’ fabric and a book-cover inspiration to finished pillow rather quickly. This pillow is a few firsts for me: 1) first all-solid project: I’m entering it in the Pink Castle Fabrics Fall For Solids contest over at Threadbias;  2) first improv piecing: I’m MOST pleased with the way the design came together. Having just heard Alissa Haight Carlton speak about her quilts and her process definitely made this click for me!; 3) first non-quilt inspiration: I didn’t see something on Pinterest, Flickr, or a blog and make a quilt just like it. I did it all myself!;  and 4) first binding on a pillow: ahem.

I’m showing you the back because we’re all friends here and you won’t make fun of my crappy pillow binding, yeah? I tried to sandwich the binding between the front and the envelope back layers, which was bass-ackwards of me (should have put on the back, and then attached the binding…right?), I did a crappy job tacking it down, my corners are sad, sad, and…to beat the band, I sewed the private layer on top of the public layer so I had a raw edge I had to try and bind off at the end. Even that I did upside-down, so I have the ugly shoulda-been-private side showing.

Sick, congested, and fed up, I shrugged, refused to seam-rip, and am just going to enjoy it.

Here it is with the book cover that inspired it, Walter Benjamin’s Illuminations. Honestly, I haven’t read any Benjamin since grad school, but that cover stuns me every time I walk past it on my back bookshelf. I think it turned out pretty neat, huh?

 

Edited to add stats: 18” pillow cover. Konas: tangerine (yum), bone, aqua, coal. improv pieced, circle and “stem” off circle are machine-applique, bone inner circle is raw-edge applique. machine quilted, meandering.

finished: spinning stars quilt

Tags

quilting, spinning stars

I love it, I love it: two “finished” posts in a row!

(Now it’ll probably be three weeks until my next one. :[ )

 

It took me about two and a half-three weeks to handquilt this mess. But I think handquilting saved it, don’t you? Here’s where I was. I shuffled around the blocks, deciding that having differently-printed pink stars was better than the single-print pink stars (especially since I ran out of both the pink Petite Point dot and the Lecien Folk Heart flower and had to cut further into my Peacock Lane scrap, totally wrecking any design I’d intended).

And then, because the points were mushy and the blocks were poofy, I handquilted the heck out of it. I outlined each pink star three times, went around the grey rings three times, and outlined the “pie pieces” in the middles.

 

See how my shoes match? The laces are Kona Coal grey. Yep. I bought them while I was in the midst of quilting this.

 

In the end, I’m so glad I did this project. I hated it three weeks ago. I didn’t want to look at it, it was embarrassing, and I was just so ready to have it finished and put it away so I wouldn’t have to see it anymore. The funny thing is, though, that I finished it, pulled it from the dryer, and couldn’t wait to curl up under it.

And so, the Spinning Stars.

under the wire

Tags

quilt, quilting, sewing, spinning stars quilt

I admitted last week that my goal for finishing my Spinning Stars handquilting was today.

There’s nothing like admitting to a goal in public to hold you to it. Against all odds, and just under the wire (i.e. ten minutes ago, i.e. thirty-five minutes before the end of Nap Time), I put the last hand stitch in this beast today.

 

I had hoped to bind it off by today, too, so I could sit under it this weekend. Alas! Life gets in the way. Oh and also, in the way, the cowl I started knitting. Which I only might share if it turns out okay. I’ve ripped it out and redone it probably 7 times so far. (Funny. The pattern claimed it was an “easy, one-night” cowl. *shakes fist* damn you Pinterest!)

And I caved and bought the Tova top pattern today. Someone was wearing one at quilt guild this past weekend and I cannot. stop. thinking. about making one. I’ve only been coveting the Liberty J.Crew Perfect Shirts since, oh, the very moment they hit the shelves, so I’m thinking a Liberty Tova? It’ll be about $100 cheaper if I can make it work. I ordered the fabric today (Liberty Lifestyle Bloomsbury Gardens Catherine Colorway A), so so so…

from a weekend

Tags

fire drill quilt, quilting, sewing

Thursday into Friday, we had a little ol’ flu scare.

Not. fun. Especially for Momma, who cleaned-fed-clothed-laundered-Lysol’ed-consoled (Lucy did NOT understand why Daddy was shut in the bedroom by himself! Why no Lucy love?) for 48 hours, solo. There’s not enough wine in the world.

Saturday Nate woke up feeling better. So I dragged him to the outlets in Kittery, ME and spent a bunch of money at the J. Crew. And I made him go get Chipotle. And we drank a bottle of Pinot Grigio. And on Sunday, I put my foot down and I cut and sewed.

 

I rotary cut and then pieced and then hand quilted until my hands and wrists were stiff and swollen. I’ve never been happier. On the cutting board/in piecing: my Fire Drill quilt, cut using the templates I won in EH’s blog giveaway. “In quilting” is my Spinning Stars quilt which is looking MUCH better with some block rearrangement and tons of hand-quilting. No sneak peeks; you’ll just have to trust me. It’s going to be gorgeous.

 

I’ll post more this week about piecing the Fire Drill, but cutting it? Whoo dogies, this one’s intense. I chose a rather involved color scheme so it doesn’t really have to be this bad, but by the time I got all my little strips rationed into bags, I felt like some kind of drug dealer.

Eh, fabric. Drugs. Same diff sometimes. Digging in the stash certainly improved my weekend!