Quilting Fever

Dora

2012-01-31T22:48:00.000-06:00

The finished top!

This baby quilt has been a while in the making as well, though not quite as long as my previous post. I began it at quilt retreat in November, but was unable to finish it at the time as I needed to order backing, border, and binding fabric. Have I mentioned that I really like to use white in baby quilts of late? I do recognize that it is not necessarily the most practical color to use for babies, but at the same time, I do associate white with babies. Perhaps it is the idea of newness and a clean slate, etc.

This pattern, Dora (which I assume has nothing to do with the television show), is from the Leisure Arts book 3 Times the Charm! by Barbara Groves and Mary Jacobson of Me & My Sister Designs. This $10 book has a lot of great ideas and I have a feeling I will use it a fair amount for smallish baby quilts in the coming years. I chose the Kate Spain line Terrain as I loved the bright colors and designs and hoped that they would be fun for both mom and baby, providing some visual interest to look at.

The pattern in the book used a setting of 5x5 blocks, but I chose to make the quilt a bit larger, with a 7x6 setting and a slightly wider border (6" versus 3 1/2") to show off the large-scale print. I hadn't realized how much of a line the border fabric had to it until I had cut the print and applied it! My finished version of the quilt is approximately 42"x38" (book quilt finished at 30 1/2" square).

I quilted the center part of the quilt with white thread and chose a pink thread to meander with in the border. This was the first time that I used two different threads and rolled the quilt through the frame more than once. Needless to say, the pink thread required some tension adjustments and I had to rip out a good portion of a row of quilting after I discovered the tension issue. Note to self: check on the tension more frequently to avoid this in the future! Ripping quilting out while it is loaded on the frame is painful work (in more ways than one). In the end, I think I could have meandered the entire piece in white and it would have been fine, but I now have more confidence in my ability to do some thread changes on my frame.

This quilt is in the mail and I hope the recipients love it! It sure feels good to be finishing up some of these projects that have been lingering on my sewing table.

Call Me Crazy!

2012-01-31T22:27:00.000-06:00

Finished quilt with sashing between all blocks.

This quilt has been a little while in the making. I began it in a workshop with Weeks Ringle offered through my quilt guild in May 2011. I enjoyed being able to use some wonderful blues from my stash to crazy piece (improvisational sewing) fabric for the blocks, and working from my scraps allowed me to reflect upon and remember previous projects that used some of the same fabrics.

In the end, I didn't end up following instructions terribly closely, however. Blocks were supposed to be trimmed to 6 1/2" square, but I made a error with my ruler, so they were all trimmed at 5 1/2" square. No big deal, right? I further departed from the instructions provided in the workshop as the blocks were to be set side-by-side in rows and I decided I preferred to sash them all white. Finally, I opted not to use the super-wide 7 1/2" border around the entire quilt, choosing instead a 3 1/2" border, which was closer in size to the 2 1/2" sashing strips I employed.

Quilt as pattern directed.

I quilted it on my frame in the basement, meandering over the entire piece with white thread. Aside from running out of thread in the bobbin a couple of times, I didn't have any problems, thankfully. I washed the quilt in Dreft after binding it and love how the cotton batting puffs up after a wash.

In the end, my quilt finished at approximately 47" x 57", a bit smaller than the napping size the pattern finished at 50" x 73"! In my mind, it's just the right size for a baby boy and it's off on its way as of this morning. I hope he enjoys it a lot (even if it is months late), and that his mama will let him love and play with it (yes, I do know it is white!).

Closer view of the quilting.

Shimmer

2011-08-21T22:21:00.000-05:00

Amy and Tim open the quilt!

I've been wanting to make this quilt called "Shimmer" from the February 2004 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting for a long time (since the magazine debuted). Ben and I decided that it would be a good pattern to make as a wedding gift for Tim and Amy, and with a bit of a last-minute push, I was able to finish it in time. Their wedding yesterday was beautiful (at least what I saw of it, when I wasn't rushing out with a screaming Jonah), and we gave them the quilt this morning. I hope they enjoy it for many, many years to come!

The full quilt (queen).

Close-up view of the quilt.

While I personally liked the pattern, I didn't much care for the color palette used in the magazine and decided to make it entirely out of batiks for a more contemporary look and feel. I was able to make the entire quilt (except backing) from my stash, which was an added bonus and probably attests to my need to continue my fabric "diet." The pattern itself was well written as it appeared in the magazine, though had I actually purchased fabrics following their materials list, I think I would have been a bit put off by the excess they wrote into the pattern (I was able to get nearly twice as many stars from the yardage they suggested).

I did my best to work within a color palette of blues, purples, blue-greens, and burgundies, and I'm guessing there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 or more different fabrics in the quilt, as most of the fabrics I used were fat quarter cuts. I realized later on that I could have used some left over jelly roll strips, as some of the units were based on a 2.5" grid.

The label, using a bit of leftover fabric to tie to the design of the front.

While I normally choose a cotton batting, I opted to use wool this time and may be a convert, as the loft and feel is nice. In this case, there wasn't a huge difference in price due to the size of the quilt and the widths in which the battings are sold.

I have four extra blocks left over (they are large, at 19" square) that I plan to sew up into a separate project, perhaps for one of the handmade gifts I promised in a Facebook challenge earlier this year. We'll see whether I can bear to part with them.

Wishing Tim and Amy many, many years of happiness!

Convoy

2011-08-05T21:58:00.000-05:00

The full quilt. Isn't Ben doing a great job holding it up?

My nephew Grant turned two late last month and I made him Convoy as a new "big boy" quilt (I made one at the time he was born too). The pattern is from The Buggy Barn book "Those Crazy Kids" and when I saw Lisa Garms' completed quilt, I'd known it would make a great quilt for one of my nephews. I picked up the supplies and pattern not long after Grant was born, using gift certificates that Mom and I received from a quilt shop hop to help offset the costs of the supplies.

Given that I have much less time to quilt these days, I began work on the top during the Door County quilt retreat I attended in March. I liked the pattern a lot in that it involved a fair amount of piecing, and the Buggy Barn instructions were excellent, as usual. It was a bit down to the wire, but I dropped off the top to have it quilted at the end of June (I had made a reservation for the quilting; I'd wanted to have a fun pantograph used on it and I'm only up to meandering on my own frame). I sewed the binding down while on the drive to Ohio for Grant's birthday party and the label was applied at Mom and Dad's house after we arrived there.

Detail view #1.

Detail view #2

The label Ben designed.

Those who know me well might have been surprised that I chose to make this pattern, as applique of any sort really isn't my thing. That being said, there are an awful lot of really cute patterns for kids that feature applique, so I figure I'm going to continue to work on my skills in that area and push myself to the limits of my comfort zone. I don't intend to become an expert needle-turn appliquer, but hope to at least be somewhat competent at machine applique.

Happy birthday, Grant! I hope you love your quilt! (And I'd best think about getting your big brother a "big boy" quilt lest he become too jealous!)

The birthday boy with his quilt.

Slide Show

2011-04-14T23:10:00.000-05:00

Slide Show quilt, completed for West Suburban
Quilters' Guild charity challenge.

I was undecided about completing a charity quilt for this month's quilt guild meeting. We've been given a fat quarter of fabric at the September meeting and were told to incorporate it in our finished product. I wasn't particularly fond of mine and also was afraid to commit myself to completing a project because it's more difficult to calculate how much free time I might have these days.

Around about the 2nd, I decided to fiddle around in my stash and patterns to see what I could come up with. I figured if I chose something simple and worked with what I had, I might be able to get it done in time. I told myself I wouldn't stress myself out about getting it done, but would do my best (more on that later).

I opted to use Atkinson Designs' pattern, Slide Show because it was simple and I was able to pull everything but the backing and border from my stash. The top went together really quickly and I ran into the quilt shop on a weeknight after work to pick out the border and backing fabric. I wasn't totally in love with it, but it was the best I could do in the time I'd allotted and with a husband and infant in tow! I loaded it on my frame last Saturday night and thought I was pretty good to go, but suffered a bit of a setback when I discovered I had to rip out the majority of a row of quilting due to tension problems.

At that point, I didn't think there would be any way that I could finish a charity quilt in time for last night's guild meeting. I had a number of other commitments and didn't want to stress myself out too badly. However, I was so close to being able to finish that I couldn't stand it. I stayed up just a bit later, had Ben watch Jonah himself a bit longer, washed the quilt to try to hide some of the needle holes from the stitching I had to rip out, etc. and was able to drop the quilt off with Kelli on Tuesday night because I wasn't able to go to the guild meeting last night myself. I'm sad I wasn't able to see what others did with the challenge fabrics (mine was the multicolored print in the lower left hand of the photo below), but am hopeful that images will be posted to the guild site.

My challenge fabric was the multicolored print in the lower left.

As usual, the Atkinson Designs pattern was well-written, easy to follow, and a pleasure to sew. It was a great way to do a bit of stash busting too! Hopefully the recipient loves this quilt and feels its warmth in more ways than one.

Confetti!

2011-03-07T21:08:00.000-06:00

I'm beginning to figure out how to manage time for sewing in addition to caring for little Jonah, working, and doing all of the other things adults have to do. I have a number of works in progress that I should be able to blog about soon, but I'm very excited to share this quilt because it is one that I pretty much began (and finished!) this year and it's also the first non-practice quilt that I quilted on my own quilting machine! Granted, I just quilted it with a meander, but still, it's a learning curve to switch from the domestic sewing machine to the midarm (plus, I had to sew the darned leaders for the machine, which definitely did not motivate me)!

The full quilt. I really love white quilts and bright colored bindings!

The quilt I just finished is called Confetti, from the book Four Patch Frolic by Barbara Groves and Mary Jacobson of Me and My Sister Designs. The pattern was sized a bit larger than what I wanted for a baby quilt, so I just bought two charm packs and sized it to a more baby-ish size (44"x53"), using their fabric line, Dilly Dally. I quilted it with white thread on top and bottom.

Close up showing some of the quilting.

This quilt is set to go out in tomorrow's mail to a new baby, born Jan. 3 (only 2 months late, but better late than never, right??). Hopefully she enjoys it!!!

Here's some video Ben captured when I first tried the quilting machine on a test quilt sandwich. Looking forward to doing more soon!

My Family Quilt

2010-11-23T20:33:00.000-06:00

I've been on a bit of a sewing and quilting hiatus, as the arrival of Jonah Robert on June 28th commanded the vast majority of my attention. Now that he's a bit older and is sleeping longer stints through the night and going longer between feedings, I've been able to make little pockets of time to work on some craft projects. At the top of my priority list was a project for Grandma and Grandpa's 60th wedding anniversary, October 1.

While Gabby was out and we were at the IQF in Chicago in April, we visited a booth with a display of a quilt called "My Family Quilt" from the Whimsicals book, If Quilts Could Talk. While it featured applique, a technique of which I am not fond, I thought it was perfect as the pictures printed to fabric and text were appropriate for a 60th anniversary, and the size was such that it didn't seem too overwhelming. Gabby was kind enough to buy the book for me as a gift, and I began thinking about what exactly I might want to do with the project.

I started on this very shortly after Jonah was born, but it has taken me until Sunday to completely finish it. The main challenge was in getting the blasted photos printed to fabric. It should NOT be that hard, but our home printer - the ink jet one required for printing to fabric - was having major issues and refuses now to render color properly. I took the files to work to print on the printer there, but the files were corrupted somehow in the process and I had to recreate them all. Then, when I was finally able to print again, I discovered that the work printer was also refusing to render color properly. So the project sat and sat until Ben was able to print them on the neighbor's printer (thank you a million, Kathy Cayen)! From there, it went pretty quickly in terms of the construction.

I used almost exclusively Daiwabos and Daiwabo scraps from my stash. The trims were purchased from Etsy (thanks to Susan Sponberg for her suggestion to look there). I'd purchased additional trims, but to be honest, wasn't exactly sure how to apply some of them. And others had means of application that were just too large for the scale of this project (most of these images are in the 2-3-inch square range and the entire project is about 40" wide by 16" tall). I love the oversized rick rack, one of several color options I purchased from Tammy Tadd Designs, and the manner in which the border, rick rack, and center were applied was really slick, even if it does "waste" fabric. The rick rack just lies so flat!!

I presented it as a gift to Grandma and Grandpa this morning, and I think they loved it, even if it was nearly two months late.

Lil' Twister

2010-06-27T11:36:00.000-05:00

As I'm not entirely certain when my sewing time will come to a halt, I've been working on finishing up some projects and starting only smallish projects. Or at least I've been trying to motivate to do so. I did drop two quilts off at the shop yesterday to have them quilted - the State of Grace quilt I finished last week and the Just Before Dawn top that I finished a year ago May and have just had sitting around!

I'd picked up a pattern and template called Lil' Twister (by Country Schoolhouse Designs of Superior, WI) at the IQF show in Chicago in April and thought it looked simple enough to give a start. You begin by sewing together charm squares in a pleasing arrangement with a narrow border, like so:

And then you use the template to cut squares out from the sewn piece to give the illusion of pinwheels, like so:

Not terribly difficult to do, but I'm wondering if it wouldn't have looked better with fabrics with more contrast. I do love the Martinique line by 3 Sisters that I used, but the pinwheels aren't necessarily all that apparent. Once I sew the blocks together, I'm thinking of adding on a narrow cream border and a slightly wider red border to finish it off and brighten it up a bit.

State of Grace

2010-06-22T19:35:00.000-05:00

I've squeezed in a bit of sewing here and there for the past several weeks, working at a project that I''d had sitting around and cut out for some time. It's the State of Grace pattern (a Moda to Go jelly roll project) using the Shangri La fabric line by 3 Sisters. I'm thinking that part of the reason I'd set the project aside (because I love the colors and design!) was that I had come up way short when I originally cut it out from the jelly roll. The good news is that I had significant portions of a jelly roll of a more recent line by the same designers - the Glace line - that mixed and matched well enough to allow me to finish the top.

Here's the full quilt (poor Ben did his best to hold it up, but it's on the larger side):

And a close-up.

I love the colors and can't wait to get this one quilted. Ordered some backing fabric and might be able to drop it off this weekend. Time will tell, though.

Bathtime Hoodie

2010-06-10T22:11:00.000-05:00

At our guild's show in March, I purchased a really cute pattern for a baby bathtime hoodie, designed by RoseHip Lane (two guild members joined forces as this creative duo), along with the yard of toweling required to make it. On Sunday, I finally made time to sit down to make it up, using 2.5" squares left over from baby's Pearls 'n Pinwheels quilt (isn't it fabulous when you can directly incorporate pieces from one project into the next?).

I love how quickly and easily it came together and plan to stock up on toweling so that I can make more as gifts in the future. The most time-consuming part is sewing down the binding and trying to keep the thread from being visible on the opposite side through the toweling (I wasn't always successful at that).

Sailboat Panel Quilt

2010-06-07T21:16:00.000-05:00

When Mom and Dad were out a couple of weeks back, Mom pieced a quilt for the nursery to go with the sailboat theme. We found the pattern and panel at the Fat Quarter Shop. It's the Nautical and Nice line by Sandy Gervais, which matches the Anchors Away hanging I made a few months back. Unfortuantely, due to all of the activity of the weekend, we ran out of time for layering, basting, and quilting the quilt before Mom headed back to Ohio, but I was able to finish it up this weekend so it's all set for the baby's arrival.

Here are a couple of photos.

The full quilt, hanging on the wall:

Just the center portion of the quilt:

Thanks so much, Mom! He's going to love it!

Baby Quilt Finished

2010-05-29T20:16:00.000-05:00

I finally finished sewing down the binding and hanging sleeve (not really needed right now, but it will if I want to enter it in the quilt show next time around!) on the baby's quilt. Here's the finished product:

Patched Works quilted it for me and the quilting design features little sailboats, which fits in with the nursery theme:

The pattern, in case you missed earlier posts, is Atkinson Designs' Pearls 'n Pinwheels. Images of the quilt in the room before the binding was sewn, as well as nursery decorating progress are available here.

Charity Quilts

2010-05-20T22:35:00.000-05:00

I'm finally taking a little time to post pictures of the two charity quilts I was able to complete recently. I hadn't necessarily planned to make two quilts (a third is in the works as well), but after I made a mistake and cut the batting too small to allow me to quilt the first one during a charity quilt work day, I started on the others and well, that's how things snowball, isn't it?

Both are quilts from the Atkinson Designs' Yellow Brick Road pattern and used fat quarters from my stash. The border for the purple quilt was left over from a baby quilt I made last summer. Always nice to use up some of the stash, and hopefully some young child and teenage girl enjoy receiving these quilts. Our guild's charity this year was the Child Protection Center of the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, which protects children from abuse and provides resources to help them heal.

IQF Chicago

2010-04-19T22:46:00.000-05:00

April is flying by and I haven't had much time for sewing this month. I did take last Friday off of work, however, to head down to Chicago for the final IQF - Chicago there (boo hoo... I'm not sure I'll get to the new location in Cincinnati unless I can combine it with a family visit). Gabby made the trek out from Boston and joined me for a weekend filled with quilty inspiration!

There definitely aren't as many quilts in Chicago as in Houston, but there's still plenty of amazing work to admire:

I got into some trouble with vendors, buying a few fat quarter packs, some patterns for baby-inspired gifts and notions, and a few small project kits.

We each spent Saturday in a different day-long class. I took a Color Play class with Anne Lullie; Gabby took a curved piecing class with Philippa Naylor. Here's the project I made. I must say I'm not quite certain I'm really up to quilting down all of those squares...

Of course, this quilty inspiration was all augmented on Sunday when Gabby and I headed to Patched Works and hit their Fat Quarter Frenzy sale, where I was able to score some additional fat quarters for some small projects I hope I might be able to work on this summer. Naughty, naughty!

Anatomy of a Quilt Show

2010-03-31T08:08:00.000-05:00

It's been almost two weeks now, but I'm finally getting around to posting some photos from the quilt show. I helped coordinate the set-up again this year, and it's just amazing that what takes an entire day to come together comes down in less than an hour. It's all worth it, of course, to see the amazing work created by guild members, to earn funds for the guild's programming, and to get to know the other quilters better. But the amount of work that goes into pulling off this two-day event is unbelievable.

First, a few photos from set-up day:

Our car loaded with some of the racks we used:

The main room at Mount Mary, empty at about 7:15 a.m.:

The stack of racks and poles after we carried them in:

Progress putting up racks and quilts, taken at some point mid-morning:

Hanging curtains in the smaller room (to which we would pin the wall hangings):

Hanging quilts in the hallway:

Having a good time:

After a long day's work, it was great to see the fruits of our efforts in the nearly 350 items hung. Ben did a great job photographing all of the quilts; if you weren't able to attend, here is a slideshow with images of everything in the show.

Pearls 'n Pinwheels

2010-03-25T21:58:00.001-05:00

So a week after my half-square triangle catastrophe, I've completely started over and finished this quilt top. I LOVE IT! Gotta get backing soon and get this off to the shop to get it quilted before the baby arrives.

Pinwheel Progress

2010-03-23T07:56:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Jen's help in obtaining replacement red and white fabric for the center pinwheels, I've been able to make a bit of progress on the Pearls 'n Pinwheels quilt!

Here's a photo of four of the blocks, completed through "round 1" of piecing around the center square. I'm really liking it thus far and am amazed at how quickly it's going together due to the pattern's strip piecing instructions for constructing the side units.

Looking forward to more sewing this week and am crossing my fingers that this doesn't turn out to look too patriotic (I don't think it will)!

Reading Instructions is Important...

2010-03-18T20:54:00.001-05:00

and advisable before you sew 160 or so half-square triangles and trim them up and then realize that the pattern designer did NOT want you to sew on each side of the diagonal line you drew on the back - you were supposed to SEW on the line! So I have twice as many half-square triangles as I needed, and they're all the wrong size! ARG.

And I no longer have enough of either fabric to continue work on this quilt. This is a major bummer - I'd wanted to make some progress and can't really do anything else until I make the center pinwheels. Here's the project - Atkinson Designs' Pearls 'n Pinwheels.

Maybe I can sneak out from the quilt show on Saturday to pick up some replacement fabric from Patched Works... and now I've gotta figure out what to do with all of these ill-fitting blocks!

Anchor's Away!

2010-03-14T19:42:00.000-05:00

Amidst the quilt show preparation, I found a bit of time to put this quick little project together. It's not large (about 25"x29"), but I think it'll be perfect to hang on a nursery door, and it was nice to finish a quick project and feel like I'm getting somewhere!

Pattern is "Anchors Away" by Sandy Gervais, and the fabric is her Nautical and Nice line. I resisted this for a while, but ultimately, had to order the kit from the Fat Quarter Shop. I may be in trouble - when I just created those links, I discovered there's another pattern for a really cute sailboat quilt!!! Can I resist temptation?

Strips 'n Curves

2010-03-04T22:34:00.000-06:00

About a year ago, at a quilt guild meeting, we were asked to write on a notecard a quilt-related "resolution" to finish a UFO (or more than one) and told to plan to finish it for a meeting at some point this year. I decided to write down the Strips 'n Curves quilt from Louisa Smith's book of that name that I started in a class a few years back at Fabric Fusion in Brown Deer (unfortunately, no longer there). It got set aside because I needed to make some more strata and had to find some additional light batiks to do that. Never mind that I did find some light batiks at the Chicago IQF not that long thereafter, yet I didn't pick up the quilt again!

Well... the show and tell reveal is next week, and I hadn't made much progress on my resolution by about 6 weeks ago. I managed to get a few strata sewn in late January and then life got in the way once again. I found some time this week to lay out the units and sew them together. Here's the current progress:

I really do love the colors and need to decide if I want to put on a border of the orange-red batik. Not so certain about the layout and geometric nature of the work. It's certainly a bit of a departure from my normal work.

I'd originally thought there was still some hope of getting this done by next Wednesday. But now that I've got quilt show preparation duties taking up some time on both Saturday and Sunday, I'm not certain how reasonable that goal is (the top is about 45" square). But I can still try. Anyone have any good quilting design ideas? Thoughts about thread colors?

Tuffets

2010-02-28T16:38:00.000-06:00

I've squeezed in some short bits of sewing time over the past few weeks and completed the pincushions pictured here. They're all from the Tuffets pattern by Miss Rosie's Quilt Co. The pattern was great and I was able to make all six out of leftover charms from the Chocolat line by 3 Sisters for Moda that came out a few years back. I filled them with crushed walnuts (walnut bird litter), as recommended by the pattern and I have to admit it has a nice heft, fills the pincushions well, and wasn't as messy as I thought it might have been.

While I'm not personally much of a pincushion person (I keep all of my Iris pins in the tins they come in), these will go to the upcoming boutique for the West Suburban Quilter's Guild's show on March 19 and 20. I'd actually be half tempted to buy (or keep) one or two of these... hopefully someone will be willing to pay $5 to take them home!

Where does the time go?

2010-02-14T17:15:00.000-06:00

This month has been off to a pretty crazy start, which has not allowed for much sewing. However, I'm a bit behind on the blog posting, so I figured I'd take a moment to post one of the projects I worked on a couple of weeks ago.

On the 30th, a small group of us from guild got together to work on making quilts for the guild's charity, the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin's Child Protection Center. I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to work on, but decided to try to make something from my stash. A fun pack of 12 fat quarters that I received back in February 2008 when I received the Fat Quarter Shop's Moda fat quarters every month caught my eye as it seemed perfect for an older girl who might receive treatment at the Child Protection Center. Twelve fat quarters is perfect to sew up a lap sized version of Atkinson Designs' Yellow Brick Road pattern, so that made my decision for me.

The great thing is the pattern whips up quickly, so I pretty much had it done at the end of our session. I looked briefly for a border for the quilt, but have decided to wait a few more weeks until I should be able to find yardage of Deb Strain's next line, Cherish Nature, which looks like it will be the perfect complement to this earlier line, called Daydreams.

Art Quilt Challenge

2010-01-31T22:05:00.001-06:00

For our upcoming guild show, there's a challenge to design an original work inspired by a piece in an art museum at a size of 24x28 (+/- 2 inches). My art quilt group visited the Andy Warhol exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Museum and decided that we'd choose one of Warhol's works as our inspiration.

I decided that I wanted to choose some of his work that probably isn't as well known (i.e. not his pop art). I liked the oxidation paintings that were included in the exhibit, which Warhol created using metallic paint (which oxidized when urine was applied). Now I have no plans to use any of the latter substance in my quilting, but I did really like the effect.

Here's an example of one of Warhol's works (Oxidation, 1978, Urine on copper metallic painted canvas):

I wasn't quite sure how to approach this type of work, but the Warhol Museum had a great resource for teachers to use in discussing these particular works of art and the science behind them. The activity sheet suggested using Modern Masters Copper paint on a canvas and then applying a variety of acids and bases to see how they might react. I thought this seemed like a reasonable enough place to begin, although I wasn't certain how I might quilt through fabric that had thick paint applied.

Local art supply store Artist & Display unfortunately does not keep the paint in stock and the very helpful salesman was worried that the oxidation process would not stop and that my quilted piece would simply fall apart. He's still trying to talk to the vendor for me to see if they know of any uses of the paint on regular cotton fabric. So I had to abandon that avenue for the time being.

One of my art quilt books had some information on gold leafing, and I discovered that Artist & Display sold copper leaf. I purchased a packet of this and sprayed some lemon juice on it, just to see whether it would have any effect and whether any oxidation might occur. Unfortunately, the lemon juice dried and one really could not see any effect, although if you did get up really close to the sheet of copper leaf, you could see tiny bits of color change in a few places. But you'd never notice unless you practically studied it under a microscope. I was also uncertain how this would look once I'd actually ironed it on to fabric - would the wonder-under or adhesive product eventually show through the copper leaf? That couldn't possibly be appealing.

So on to another plan. Could I get some sort of similar effect by bleaching some black fabric, recognizing that you don't know what color might be revealed in the process? I'd not done any bleaching before, so decided to opt for Soft Scrub with Bleach and a bleach pen as two alternatives. I wasn't certain how best to apply the bleach, but played around and in the end I don't think this process will work either. Unless I use straight bleach (diluted, of course), I don't really know how I'll get the splatter/spray/random effect I'm looking for. I was also shocked at how long I had to leave these products on the fabric to achieve much of any effect - close to 5 hours or so, I think. Of course this fabric discharged to a ever lovely brown color.

All but the one on the right were done with Soft Scrub with Bleach; the one at right in the photo was done with the bleach pen.

It also occurred to me that maybe I could get a decent effect by simply dying my own fabric. About a year ago, I purchased supplies to dye some fabric in the microwave using RIT, based on an article in Quilting Arts magazine. So I figured, what the heck. I ended up trying a few different color combinations and while I have some nice fabrics, they're still not quite what I was hoping for.

Here are photos of the fabric I did dye.

Color combo #1 (violets, blues, teals; the third from left is a combo of the two to its left):

Color combo #2 (green and red on either end with a combo in the middle):

Color combo #3 (orange and blue with the combo in the middle):

My art group met last week and Karen suggested that it might be worth an attempt at rusting one or more of the pieces. I think this has promise, but I need to dig up the articles I've seen on rusting to refresh my memory on the process. And I'm not certain what I'll actually use for the oxidation process. If I lived closer to my parents, I'm sure there would be all kinds of wonderful things I could steal from the barn. But I don't really keep around a stash of random metal objects. I think steel wool might work...

Hopefully all of this experimentation leads somewhere. I'm running out of time and ideas, however. And I don't know if I have the energy to resort to a completely different project. I probably could do something inspired by his Pop Art works, but most others in the group are doing the same, and I'm not sure what every day item I'd want to elevate to quilt status. Anyone have any brilliant insights into how I might achieve the effect I'm looking for?

Thistlepod Top in One Piece!

2010-01-30T18:25:00.000-06:00

I'm very excited to have completed the piecing of Thistlepod as of Tuesday night!! It's been a busy week and I've been rather tired, so I've just now found a few minutes to post a photo. This turned out much better than I anticipated, which I credit to a really good pattern design. The curves went together really well, and while there are a few puckers in the curved piecing, I've not always had such an easy time, depending on the pattern. Thank you, Judy Niemeyer!

Wasn't Ben a genius in his method for hanging the quilt top for the photo? He mounted two quilt hangers on either end of a 2x4 and then just held the board in the middle, which was much easier than trying to hold just the top itself (and not having the wingspan)!

I've got backing fabric but need to wash and piece it before it's off to be quilted. And there's quite a bit of extra fabric from the top; in some cases, a rather ridiculous amount. They are beautiful fabrics, so I'm not all that upset, I suppose. I'm thinking an complementary table runner would be nice, it's just a question of finding the right pattern (unfortunately, I have no extra foundations from this project, as they were all preprinted).

Thistlepod - First Half Together!

2010-01-19T21:38:00.000-06:00

I've made some good progress on Thistlepod in the past few days and now have a full half of the quilt together in one piece! Yay! I'm so excited, as I really love how this looks and it does seem completely realistic to think that I can have this quilt pieced and quilted in time for our quilt show! Thanks to Ben for standing on the chair to hold up the top so I could take a photo. It's pretty large - 96" from top to bottom.

I picked out backing fabric last weekend, so I'm set on that front. Now I'm torn about having it quilted. I'd originally planned to have it custom quilted - for all the work that went into it, an edge-to-edge design seems like taking an easy out! But then, I'm not really sure what I'd want done custom, other than loads of feathers in those light areas. And I saw another Thistlepod with an edge-to-edge design and it was still gorgeous... Decisions, decisions! With everything else going on, it may be another week before I'm able to get the other half together anyways. I can't wait to see it!

Moda U Blocks of the Month

2010-01-18T19:48:00.000-06:00

Saturday was my monthly meeting for Moda U. at Patched Works. I decided to do the "big quilt" this year because I loved the fabric line the shop is using for it, the Rouenneries line by French General. Wonderful reds and pinks and taupes and the finished product should look really nice in my living room or hallway. Here's the luscious fabric line:

I was a month behind in the blocks-of-the month because I was in New Zealand during the November meeting when the fabric kits were distributed, but I was able to get all 8 blocks sewn up prior to the meeting. I'm really loving how these turn out, and the amazing thing is that the blocks in each column are the same, but can look so different, depending on which fabrics I chose.

I'd kind of forgotten what the finished quilt looks like, so I did some searching online to find it again. You'll see that most of those online showing the pattern - called Green Piece - are made up in a different fabric line and feature loads of applique. I guarantee you mine will not have that amount of applique. I'm figuring I will make myself applique the center "medallion" section and call that good enough. Honestly, I think all that other applique is just a little over the top and a little too busy.

I'm making some good progress on Thistlepod. Hopefully I'll be able to share a photo and update tomorrow!

Four Patch Shuffle

2010-01-10T16:31:00.000-06:00

Amongst all of the holiday preparations and goings on, I had a little bit of time to sew before going to Ohio for Christmas. I wanted a quick project, something that I could just sit down and sew on without any complications or bother. I probably should have worked on Thistlepod, but I just wanted to sew, so I grabbed the Four Patch Shuffle quilt kit that I bought a couple of years ago and that I had cut out before November's quilt retreat (but which I had no time to begin then).

It was just what I was looking for: a quick, easy project allowing me to feel like I was making some progress while not adding another UFO to the pile. I just sewed the borders on this afternoon.

The quilt is approximately 67"x78" and uses the Fresh Air fabric line by Chez Moi. It'll be a nice complement to the Butter Charm & Jelly Quilt I made a couple of years ago with the same line. The Four Patch Shuffle pattern is a Moda University pattern.

Hopefully I can find a good backing fabric at the quilt shop this coming Saturday! I'd like to get this baby quilted and off the pile soon!

Visually Representing My Blog...

2010-01-09T08:41:00.000-06:00

It had been a while since I'd checked out Wordle, the cool online program for generating "word clouds" from text you provide. The larger the word appears in the cloud, the more frequently it appeared in the source text. I figured I'd throw my blog at it and, lo and behold, guess which words had the most prominence??

I can't say that I'm at all surprised by the words that are most prominent, but this is a fun little program to play with - you can tweak the colors, font and alignment to suit your tastes. I'm going to print this one and post it near my sewing machine - I especially love how the words "make" and "time" appear next to one another towards the center of the image.

Have fun!!

Happy New Year!

2010-01-08T18:16:00.000-06:00

Yes, it's hard to believe that we're already a week into 2010. While I haven't felt terribly motivated to post of late, I have been getting in some quality quilting time, mainly trying to plow through the Thistlepod quilt in the hopes of having it hanging in my guild's show in March. We'll see how that goes... I think I'm down to about 10 units left to piece, and a ton of papers to rip off, but I have a Netflix movie and a couple of Mad Men seasons on DVD that I got for Christmas (jury's still out on how I feel about Mad Men).

I did finally quilt two of the three table runners I showed in early November as somewhat belated Christmas gifts. I'll get to doing the third one for myself sometime in the future...

Here's the first, which I quilted using a grid.

With a close-up:

And the second, which I stippled in the large squares (a good idea in theory, but I broke two needles trying to cross over at the corners, where there is quite a bit of bulk):

And a close-up:

I've been busy with a couple other things too, but I'll save those updates for another day.

Flag Quilt Completed

2009-12-21T07:55:00.003-06:00

One of the few things I've managed to finish this month is the flag quilt I showed back in early November. It took me a while to settle on a quilting design because some of my initial ideas didn't work well, given the odd number of rows in the upper half. I wanted a pattern that would give the feeling of movement on the quilt but wouldn't be too sharp and angular.

I ended up deciding to use a flame-inspired motif, but I turned it on its side so it looks more like a wood grain (at least I hope), as I don't want anyone misreading this as a "flag burning" motif. Not the intent at all!!! Here's a close up of the quilting through the stripes (I stippled the blue banner and stars):

Ultimately, I think the modified flame worked well, as I could free-hand it and didn't have to work in rows or change the scale from the upper to bottom rows. (I did do much practicing, both on paper and small sample pieces.) The most challenging aspect for me was figuring out how to move from one knot/flame to the next.

Here's a picture of the completed quilt before I wrapped it and shipped it off to its intended recipient:

New Zealand and Australia

2009-12-20T09:26:00.006-06:00

I've taken a somewhat extended break from blogging, in part because I haven't done a whole lot of sewing, in part because I was out of the country for a fair piece of time, and in part because holiday preparations have taken most of my free time since I returned from vacation. Finally, today, I think, I may have an opportunity to catch my breath and relax a bit.

We were in Australia and New Zealand from November 14-30. Both countries are beautiful and we'd go back in a heartbeat as there's still so much more to see. Highlights were most definitely the outdoor activities: snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef, hiking a portion of the Routeburn Track from Glenorchy, going down (and UP!) the Giant Stairway at Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. We almost got used to the opposite-side-of-road driving, seeing deer farms, and the possum fur-merino blend clothing and accessories. We took WAY too many pictures - on the order of 1,600. On Friday night, we found some time to narrow them down and posted a little over 100 on my Picasa album.

While there are most definitely some amazing Australian and New Zealand quilters and quilt shops, we didn't have time in our schedule to get out to visit them. My one stop at a sewing center in Cairns was to purchase a thread cutting pendant because the Brisbane airport wouldn't allow my sewing scissors through security and I had to forfeit them as I wouldn't check my backpack (luggage was already checked). I was rather ticked and pointed out that the American security hadn't batted an eye at them, the New Zealanders had measured them and ascertained the blades to be short enough to fall within legal range, but it didn't make a difference. They were "too pointy" for an Australian domestic flight. And even were I tempted to purchase fabric at the sewing center, the prices were exorbitant compared to what we're used to paying here, prices like $22/meter for Moda lines, $50+ for jelly rolls, etc. The conversion rate isn't that favorable, believe me!

I did find some quilt design inspiration, particularly among Maori carving designs. Check out these traditional designs. Wouldn't they be perfect for quilting?

I'd taken along a bit of handwork to keep me busy, but didn't get as much done as I'd have hoped (I got caught up in a couple of books on the flights, etc.). However, I did make some progress on 1-1/2" hexagons using Daiwabo fabrics:

I'm not really sure what I'm going to make with these, but it's nice to have a small grab-and-go hand project for those in-between times or to work on in the car. I'm thinking of using it sometime as the background to another design, but really it's all up in the air. And I'm sure it's likely to be years before I've done enough to amount to anything.

I hope all of your holiday preparations are going smoothly and you're able to find time to relax and enjoy the season!

Joy

2009-11-05T07:45:00.001-06:00

The final small project I've squeezed in some time for is the Joy wall hanging that I picked up the pattern for a little over a month ago. The design is by Pam Puyleart of Cottage Creek Quilts and I like the whole seasonal "inspiration series" of patterns she has out right now (which includes similar layouts for "grateful" and "create").

The photo is rather washed out, but the flash and lighting just wouldn't cooperate with me tonight.

It was very easy to make this pattern; the most time-consuming part was having to redo the snowflake because the fusible just didn't want to play nice when I went to remove it from the first snowflake I cut out. So I had to cut out another, with slightly better results. Honestly - I don't know what my problem is with fusible of late. But I had problems with the "joy" text in this project as well and in September with the text on the Punkins 4 Sale quilt too. I've heard fusible can "go bad" and that you can get a bad batch, but I've used three different purchase of fusible with not ideal results. Fortunately, things went better with the Ginkgo quilt. Was that just a better batch of fusible? Or because those were batiks? I don't like the fraying I seem to be experiencing and don't know how to solve it. Ideas?

Point Setta Tablerunner

2009-11-04T21:12:00.006-06:00

Another quick project I've been working on are these "Point Setta" table runners. I picked up the pattern at last year's quilt retreat (this year's retreat is at the end of this week - yippee!), figuring that although I didn't really need the pattern to figure out how to do this, I'd support the pattern designer, Crooked Nickel Quilt Designs.

The pattern uses charm squares, a background fabric, and fusible grid. It's really not difficult to make, but as you can see, I can manage to have two of the same grids come out at different sizes (I intentionally made my runners smaller than that which the pattern called for). The top one in the photos is made from 3 Sisters' line Glace; the bottom one is made from April Cornell's Nostalgia line. I have another one all fused from the Glace line and just need to sew the seams.

I'm not fully convinced that using the grid is any faster than if I had simply pieced them all using normal techniques. But it's always worth trying something new and learning a new method! I'm hoping I might be able to finish these as Christmas presents, but am not sure how I want to quilt them. It seems like too much work to put a design element in each square, but I'm not sure an all-over meander is really what I'm looking for either. I have time to decide: while I might be sewing at retreat this weekend, I won't be machine quilting on tables in a resort - too painful!

Scrappy Flag

2009-11-04T06:46:00.003-06:00

I haven't had tons of time for sewing of late, but I did put together an hour here and there to piece together this flag wall hanging.

The pattern is called "Scrappy Flag," and it's designed by Glory Daze Pattern Co. The pattern features an eagle in the blue section, but I won't be adding it in, as I don't honestly care for it. I've had the pattern forever and thought I'd made enough of them - this is the 7th one of these that I have made (I definitely didn't want to see this after a few Christmases ago when I made 5 of them as gifts) - but I had a request to make one as a birthday/Christmas present. I'll have to quilt this after I get back from vacation, but I've already got the backing fabric and a lovely gold thread that I think will work really well. I'm still undecided on the quilting pattern, but have a month or so to figure it out. Any ideas or suggestions?

Charity Quilting

2009-10-19T07:53:00.005-05:00

[Note - I started this post about 2 weeks ago and got completely sidetracked by life...]

At our guild meeting mid-October, I received blocks back from members to piece into a quilt we're donating to the school where we met for quite a number of years, up to this fall. The quilt will be donated to the school so that they can use it in their holiday auction in December.

I'd passed out packets in September with instructions and a consistent background fabric. I was pleasantly surprised to see that nearly all of the blocks came back and were usable (I just had two that I couldn't use due to size or being totally warped out of shape), as the meeting had been crazy and I hadn't really been able to document who had returned blocks to me. In the end, I had to sew only one block in addition to the two samples that I'd showed at the September meeting.

Here's the top (my apologies for the crummy photo. Poor Ben was doing his best to stretch out and make the top viewable):

People's notions of red and green certainly vary - there are some oranges and pinks in this quilt, as well as odd greens - but it certainly emphasizes the scrappiness of the quilt. Dropped it off at the machine quilter's yesterday and hope to get it back and bound before heading out on vacation.

If you're interested in the Craft Fair and Silent Auction, more information is available on the Fairview South School's home page.

Ginkgo Leaves Quilt

2009-10-11T14:52:00.004-05:00

After doing some household chores yesterday, I decided to start the Ginkgo Leaves quilt that I purchased some fabric for on the Shop Hop earlier this month. The pattern is in the book Batik Gems by Laurie Shifrin. I started around 3 p.m. making fabric selections (I decided to use a few from my stash in addition to those I bought on the shop hop), and even with a bit of a break, by 7 p.m., the quilt was at this stage - totally quilted and ready for binding!

I love how this quilt turned out and can't wait to go sew on the binding now (my apologies for the weird angle on the photo - it's what you get when you hold the camera above your head to shoot something on the floor). I'm sure I'll finish this up tonight - those darned Yankees are still in post-season play and you can't miss Yankees or Red Sox post-season games in this house ... even though I don't really follow any NL teams that made it, I'll root for whomever makes it to the World Series.

Zen Redux

2009-10-07T22:06:00.003-05:00

Mom and I never quite have enough time to do everything on our list while she and Dad visit, but we do try to fit in some time for sewing. On Sunday afternoon, we layered and pin basted the tree skirt that she started on her last visit and she got to work quilting it by stitching in the ditch (I think this is her first time quilting a quilt!). Unfortunately, we ran out of time to finish, but she now knows how to make bias binding and should be able to finish the project on her own (Mom - you can always call too with questions!).

While she tackled that, I decided to arrange and sew together the blocks for the Zen quilt I posted about a few weeks back. I'm really loving the completed top and am toying with the idea of adding a border. I'm undecided; it's a nice size as is, but I tend to like borders on quilts. What do you recommend??

Quilt Shop Hop

2009-10-07T21:11:00.010-05:00

It just so happened that Mom and Dad's visit from Ohio coincided with the Southeast Wisconsin Fall Shop Hop and I treated Mom to the bus trip last Friday for her birthday. I'd not participated in the bus trip previously and hadn't been to over half of the shops on the tour, so thought it would be a fun opportunity. Aside from a few logistical improvements that might have been made, we had a great time and managed to make our fair share of purchases.

At Material Matters in Cedarburg, I found the Dressed to the Nines pattern by Bloomin' Minds. I doubt I'll have this done for this Halloween (unless I finish the charity quilt for guild miraculously quickly), but there's always next year. I also picked up Karen Montgomery's pattern to take make a table runner with a striped fabric and a 60-degree ruler (it's called Easy Striped Table Runner), and the Prairie Blossoms pattern by Tea for Two (seen here). I'll do it up in some slightly brighter colors than those pictured, but it finishes at a nice size (16"x18"), and I probably have enough scraps at the right size that I might not even have to cut separately for this.

I'd not been before to My Sisters Quilt Shoppe in Sheboygan, but would definitely go back. Mom and I both loved the kits they had for Sherri Falls' pattern book Frosted Memories, which features Holly Taylor's new line of the same name. Mom grabbed the last kit for the Christmas Morning table runner, but I was able to pull yardage for it and also picked up the kit for the Cinnamon Twist topper. Both projects wouldn't take too long to make, but I also have this serious conundrum: read about Australia and New Zealand before our trip there ... or sew. I should do more of the former, so these are probably projects for next year.

At The Sewing Basket in Plymouth, Mom picked up two Nativity panels (we purchased backing fabric later), and I snagged Cottage Creek Quilts' pattern Warm Winter Wishes (shown here), which is more applique than I will usually attempt, but I so love this design (and it's on the small side at 44" square) that I'm willing to give it more of a shot. I really like a number of other patterns by this company, having previously purchased their Joy pattern and fabric to make it.

At Bigsby's, I purchased a collapsible container that Mary and Sandi and others have used at retreat as a catch-all. I know I got something else there too, but it totally escapes me at the moment.

And finally, at Patched Works, I selected some batiks to make the Falling Ginkgo Leaves quilt from Laurie Shifrin's book, Batik Gems; bought some fusible grid for some simple table runners from charm packs, and bought a large yo-yo maker.

We'll see how soon I actually get anything done with any of this... it wouldn't be called a stash otherwise, would it?

Half Marathon and Quilt Store Visit

2009-09-22T22:17:00.003-05:00

As many of you know, Ben and I have been running half marathons for a little while now. This past weekend was the fourth time we've run the half associated with the Fox Cities Festival of Races (the sponsor for the half has changed a number of times). It's a great race: well organized, a pretty flat course (that last bridge incline always kills me, however), with some nice scenery. We had a beautiful day for the race, although the 7 a.m. start time wasn't my idea of fun (5 a.m. shuttle pick up at the hotel). My finish time wasn't a new PR (bummer), but it wasn't my worst time either, and overall, my positioning within my division and amongst women was similar to or slightly improved from last year because the size of the field was quite a bit larger. The first 7 miles were fabulous; miles 9 and 10 were bad. But even though parts of it were painful, in the end, we always seem to be thinking about the next race and are eager to do another. Right now we're considering the possibility of the Rock 'n Roll Half in Phoenix in January (MLK weekend). Long training runs outdoors in Wisconsin in December could be problematic, however, and I cannot fathom motivating to do a 12 mile run on a treadmill!

An added benefit of driving up to the Fox Cities is an annual visit to Primitive Gatherings quilt shop in Menasha. This year I had a completed "punch card" to spend, which gave me $20 of free merchandise (which of course I exceeded in no time). I focused on pulling fabrics to make a quilt based on Sharyn Craig's book, Half Log Cabin Quilts. Here's a photo of the fabric I pulled - I love these colors and think they'll look great in our living room. Can't wait to make this quilt and am hoping that I can incorporate sewing a few blocks here and there into the flow of sewing for my other projects.

Punkins 4 Sale

2009-09-22T21:51:00.005-05:00

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I hope to finish a few fall projects I've had sitting around as UFO's for some time. Given how the past few weeks have gone, I'm not sure how close I'll come to that goal, but I did finish the binding on this small wall quilt last night and it's now hanging at the entrance to my cubicle at work.

The pattern (Punkins for Sale) appeared in the September/October 2005 issue of Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting, designed by Avis Shirer of Joined at the Hip. I completed all of the piecing a year or two (maybe three?) years ago, and then it sat, waiting to have the letters appliqued and for the final layering and quilting.

I'm not entirely pleased with the applique - must have had a bad batch of Wonder Under, as it didn't want to stick to the fabric and ended up fraying a bit at the edges (contributing to the folk art feel, right?) - but done is better than perfect! Happy Fall!

Zen

2009-09-15T21:39:00.005-05:00

About three weeks ago I needed to find a project to take with me to my monthly guild sewing bee. I wasn't about to try to quilt the baby quilt on a table at a community center, and I didn't feel like taking on the paper piecing for Thistlepods in a temporary set-up that probably would have required lots of ups and downs to the iron (I love the set-up I've arranged here at home).

So I reached for one of my bins of quilts that I cut out over the summer and decided to work on the Zen quilt, designed by Amy Walsh of Blue Underground Studios and appearing in the February 2009 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting. I was drooling over this quilt when reading the magazine on the Cape at Christmas and have been dying to make it (dying so much that it's taken me 9 months to get to it, LOL!). At any rate, here are some of the blocks (they alternate with solid rectangles when sewn together). I have managed to finish all 32 pieced blocks, in between everything else going on.

The fabrics were all left over from this quilt that I made earlier in the year. Hopefully I can piece these together soon; I'm also committing myself to working on a few fall-themed projects that have been languishing unfinished for a couple of years.

Baby Quilt Summer is Over!

2009-09-15T21:13:00.004-05:00

I just sewed the label to the back of this quilt and it will head to Madison Faith on Cape Cod tomorrow! Ben makes fabulous labels for me - hand drawn, usually. I'd share, but it probably contains more personal information than I should place online (full name, DOB, etc.). No need to start the poor girl off with identity theft at two months!

Here's the finished quilt:

And a close-up:

Hopefully the quilt will be well-loved and I don't find myself again with another three babies born in the same month, all deserving of quilts!

Dizzy (Baby Quilt #3)

2009-09-01T23:04:00.003-05:00

I managed to get all of the blocks for this baby quilt sewn together during a Brewers extra-inning game last week (unfortunately, a loss to the Reds), and had two of the borders on prior to the busy weekend. However, after sewing the border strips on, I was rather bothered by the way the floral pattern was interrupted by the 45 degree seam line. Ben said not to worry about it, and I thought about it for a few days. Here's what I'm talking about:

See how the flowers were noticeably cut in half on the bottom left corner? Ultimately, I decided it was going to bother me too much, so I ripped that part of the seam and sewed strips back together at 90 degree angles, being careful to select an area where the seaming would be less noticeable. While it doesn't totally fix the problem (I didn't have the fabric to try to cut an identical strip and seam it together for a perfect match), it does mask it and make it much less noticeable, at least until I sewed on the third and fourth sides, which don't match to the ends of the other strips and I don't think ever could.

The moral of this story: sometimes fabric that doesn't seem to have a "stripe" to it does. I wish I'd have picked a more all-over type of pattern, but what are you going to do? It's still cute and I managed to get it layered, pin basted, and approximately half way quilted last night!

Roman Stripez

2009-08-31T12:09:00.003-05:00

I just got back from putting baby quilt #2 in the mail and thought I would share some photos as it makes its way to its intended recipient. Here’s the finished quilt (sorry, the light was not good last night):

I showed the quilt a couple of weeks ago sans outer borders. If you’re a very careful observer, you might notice that the blocks that make up the border do not continue the same directional alternation as the blocks within the quilt. In the pattern, those exterior blocks were all cut and designed to continue the alternation, but the book did not instruct you to lay the interior part of the quilt out beginning with a certain orientation so that the pattern would continue into the border. Of course I started it out with the wrong orientation, and at the point I realized there was a problem (after I had pieced all of the exterior blocks and sewn them together in rows), I really didn’t see the point of going back to change it or cutting and sewing new blocks for the borders. I don’t honestly think it distracts that much, but had I known in advance, I would certainly have laid it out so that the pattern could continue.

I quilted the quilt with large swirls and the occasional star using a red-orange-yellow variegated thread which I think worked really well. However, I do wish that the variegation had been irregular rather than at regular lengths throughout the spool. It just would have been a nicer overall effect, in my opinion. Something to think about the next time I purchase threads!

It just keeps going, and going, and going...

2009-08-31T11:52:00.003-05:00

A blog post about the Energizer bunny?

What’s that got to do with quilting?? Well, nothing, but I think the tag line is appropriate for Aurifil thread as well. You see, I piece pretty much exclusively with Aurifil thread. And every time I put on a new spool, I worry that I’m going to run out soon and usually pick up another spool or two of thread right away. But over time, I've come to realize that the thread always lasts longer than I think it will. So, the last time that I put on a spool of Aurifil thread, I marked down the date and all of the projects that I’ve pieced using the spool since that time.

So… drumroll, please. That spool of Aurifil thread lasted me from January 27 until last Thursday, August 27. Seven months!! My first thought is that I have not done nearly enough sewing in that time. And it may be the case that I’ll never have as much time to sew as I wish, but the list of projects pieced with that spool is pretty impressive:

Checkerboard Challenge
Sugar Candy (a finished top that I realize now I never really blogged much about)
Hot Flash
Indigo Girl
X Rated
Sleepy Baby
Fleece Charity Quilt
Just Before Dawn
300 Parade
Thistlepods
Roman Stripez
Crazy for Baby (post later this week, I promise)

Sometimes my jaw drops when I pay the $10-11 per spool of thread. But when you divide that by 7 months or 12 projects, we’re really only talking about the $1 range per project for thread, which honestly isn’t all that bad at all!

Baby Quilt #3

2009-08-25T21:33:00.003-05:00

Here's a preview of baby quilt #3, a current work in progress. I've got all of the alternating blocks sewn and started laying it out on the floor. Should go together quickly; I've just got to stay motivated!! Nice to work on something with more "girly" colors and fun florals.

The pattern's from the Me & My Sister Designs booklet Crazy for Baby for Leisure Arts, and fabrics are from their Clementine line. Hopefully I can pick up some thread on Saturday and have this quilted by the end of the weekend!

(In case you're wondering, baby quilt #2 just needs a label; hopefully I can post about it tomorrow.)

Roman Stripez

2009-08-10T22:15:00.003-05:00

Seeing as I won't be working on any quilts for around a week (Austin, here I come for the SAA Annual Meeting!), I thought I'd post pictures of progress I made on another baby quilt. Most of this was sewn several weeks ago and then set aside in the race to finish Grant's quilt and in all of the overtime I had to put in at work.

I made the mistake of putting away all of my bright fabrics thinking I'd cut the entire quilt, but I need to go back to cut pieces for a pieced border to go all around. I'm sure it'll go together quickly once I get a bit of time to work on it.

The pattern is Roman Stripez from Jan Mullen's book Cut-Loose Quilts. It's an older book (2001) and my copy is autographed because I had the pleasure of taking a class with Jan at IQF Houston about 5 years ago, I think. While I love Jan's patterns (and her accent!), I find the book a bit frustrating in that finished block sizes weren't provided so that I could check my work as I went along. But making the blocks all wonky - simply stacking, slicing, stitching and sewing - is quite freeing.

Time to go see if there are any quilt shops in Austin that I should check out.

Thistlepod Update

2009-08-09T21:40:00.004-05:00

Today was the third session of my Thistlepod class at Patched Works. Given the heat here in Milwaukee, it was a good day to stay indoors and quilt. I'd missed the last class, so feared I'd be a bit behind, and I suppose I was a bit, but then Mary had told me that the only homework was what was listed on the sheet and I had done all that, plus a bit more. But several people were apparently overachievers. Oh well...

It's very nice to actually begin to sew together some of the units. I still have plenty of paper piecing to do - don't get the impression that I am ANYWHERE close to being finished with this quilt - but it was a nice break from the paper piecing to sew together some of the units. Here's what I sewed today, which will be one of the corners of the quilt:

And a close-up of the same (if you look closely, you can see I haven't sewn the long horizontal seam yet)

It's a bit slow going because loads of pinning is required, but it's so nice to see it begin to come together. I'm definitely liking the quilt (this one's for me!) and figure I still have plenty of time to finish it to enter in the guild's show next March.

Grant Matthew

2009-08-04T18:05:00.005-05:00

We took a long weekend trip to Ohio to meet our new nephew, Grant Matthew, who was born on July 26. Isn't he a cutie?

I finished tacking down the binding on Grant's baby quilt on the drive out (the truth comes out). Big brother Alex clearly ached to open the package and was the helpful big brother in showing it to Grant, laying it out on the floor, and identifying all of the animals for us.

I really liked how the quilt came together in the end. I won't be rushing out to add loads of machine applique patterns to my to-do list, but I did improve with this quilt, for certain! I meandered around all of the animals with a light blue thread and then went back and meandered over each of the animals with a clear thread. I'd considered using the blue thread over everything, but am happy that I chose not to do so at Ben's urging (he'd actually suggested not quilting them at all, but it became obvious that was necessary, which was what I suspected to begin with).

Compared to the baby quilt I made Alex, this one is ginormous; hopefully Alex doesn't develop a complex over it. I'm certain it's going to get lots of love. Here's Tina, Alex and Grant with the quilt shortly after opening it.

And just two more photos (taken on Route 15 between Bryan and Defiance), because only in Ohio...

Stitch and Pitch

2009-07-30T07:57:00.002-05:00

Kristin and I had a fabulous time with the Stitch and Pitch group at the Brewers game last night. We got free t-shirts, picked up information and goodies from various local shops, and enjoyed being able to socialize with others and see all of the cool projects they were working on while seeing the Brewers score a victory (rather hard to come by these days).

Here we are with Brewers first baseman Prince Fielder. Doesn't he look thrilled?

I was pretty surprised at how many men were there with their significant others (but I didn't see any men "stitching"). And everyone around me seemed to be pretty into baseball (rattling off statistics, etc.). It wasn't too difficult to both stitch and pay attention to the game and I'm glad that I was able to make some progress on the binding on the baby quilt (although I made it more difficult by forgetting my regular needles!! I managed to make do with some very tiny beading needles I bought in a workshop in May and which happened to still be in my bag).

Kristin worked on knitting a sweater for herself:

There were a couple of Brewers-themed quilts behind one of the tables and I took photos for inspiration because some day I think I'd like to make up some sort of pattern and surprise Ben with one (while he reads this blog, I bet I could still make a quilt in secret!). This first one is by Amy Stolowski of Milwaukee:

and this second one is by Donna Andrews of Mukwonago:

All in all, a very nice night. I look forward to doing it again next year.

Fabric Diet - Blown

2009-07-26T12:30:00.004-05:00

I honestly have done pretty well with my fabric diet this year. A few minor purchases, largely using accumulated points or gift certificates and the like and the rest of my sewing coming from stash (baby quilts and Thistlepod aside). But when I saw David Walker's Oh Boy! line for Free Spirit and kept returning to look at it at various online shops, I knew I had to pick some up.

I must say that most of the fabrics out there for kids do very little for me, especially those that are created with boys in mind. But these fabrics were just too cute to pass up, and with all of the little boys popping up of late, I figure there will be plenty of sewing for them in the not-do-distant future. I don't know what destiny these might have - and I might have gone a bit overboard, buying 10 different 2-yard cuts - but it won't go bad and I'm envisioning pillowcases, quilts, and other fun projects.

The Pressure's On!!!

2009-07-26T12:16:00.005-05:00

I'd planned on today being a mega sewing day anyways, but the stakes have been raised as the intended recipient came into the world earlier today! I hope to meet him later in the week, so must complete the quilt by then!

After a long day of work yesterday (9.5 hours), I managed to muster the energy to machine applique the last of the animals (the zebra), sew the blocks with the alternating 9-patches, and machine applique the elephant's trunk.

Here's where the quilt stands as of this moment.

I'm hoping I can put on the narrow solid border, then the pieced border, and get this baby quilted today! It helps that there's a Brewer's game this afternoon to help keep me entertained (after that, it might be some podcasts or audio books, as I'm tired of the crummy TV options). And if all goes according to plan (does it ever?), I'm hoping to be able to sew down binding at the Stitch 'n Pitch game on Wednesday night. I'm taking Kristin for her birthday (last month); we've never gone before so aren't quite sure what to expect... While the top is somewhat on the large side, I think I can keep it folded so I can work on it manageably in my lap without having it drag on the potentially nasty floor.

At some point, I'll need to add on the eyes too... I figure that since Alex didn't get to play with his baby quilt, this one will likely be hung too, so buttons shouldn't be an issue. And I trust buttons will look better than my attempts to hand or machine stitch something approximating the correct proportions for the eyes.

As I want the finished quilt to be somewhat of a surprise, I probably won't post any photos until after the quilt is presented. While it might be safe to post photos as I don't know how much Tina and Mark read my blog (or how much they would likely read it this week with the new baby!), I'm going to err on the side of caution. I'll definitely share pictures when I can!

Thistlepod progress

2009-07-21T07:56:00.001-05:00

Well, life has been rather crazy of late, but in mostly good ways. I haven't had as much time for sewing as I might like, but I have engaged in many typical summer activities, including preparing loads and loads of jam (39 jars of strawberry, 38 jars of peach and 37 jars of blueberry), canning 7 quarts of sliced peaches, bumping back up to long runs on the weekends - up to 10.6 miles this past one (we even had the pleasure of seeing two deer in a wooded area we ran through and they didn't mind us at all, beautiful!), taking weekly swimming lessons to prepare for our trip to Australia and New Zealand later this year, and attending plenty of Brewers baseball games. No wonder quilting has hit the back burner!

I have, however, made some scattered progress on the Thistlepod quilt, as well as several baby quilts, and while I missed the last Thistlepod class, I learned that I misunderstood the homework to be done for that class and I actually have everything done for class #3. How cool is that! For once I'm not doing something last-minute!

Here are some of the units I've been working on:

I hope you're all enjoying your summer and finding time for quilting amidst everything else too!

Allium

2009-07-05T16:22:00.005-05:00

My small art quilt group met late last month and I'm just posting now because finishing up my small project took a wee bit longer than expected. Go figure.

We didn't really have a theme this time around, but the chapter in the book was on embellishments, which fit in really well with the recent workshop I took with Mary Stori through my guild. However, because we didn't have a theme, I really struggled to figure out what it was that I wanted to make this month. In the end, I settled on attempting to create an allium out of fabric, as I was seeing them in a number of gardens throughout the neighborhood and the flowers very much intrigue me. In fact, I think I may have to plant some bulbs and include a few of these lovely plants in my garden next year.

My original plan was to feature the allium plant in three different stages of growth in my small quilt, but things rarely go according to plan, do they? I began by thread painting the base of the allium that would still be in "bloom." And here's where I went wrong. I guess I really DO need to hoop up my fabric for threadpainting, as the central portion of the project got incredibly warped. Check out this picture showing just how "unflat" the piece was. Clearly, time for a Plan B.

I cut out the central square of the threadpainted piece and then ironed and starched the heck out of it. In the end, I was able to get it relatively flat, and when quilting it, I did have to leave just a couple of puckers/tucks along the outer edges. I probably should have started over, but by that time, I felt like I'd invested enough time that I was going to make it work, as Tim Gunn might say.

After playing around a bit, I came up with the final composition above, which I'm okay with, although I don't feel like it was terribly inspired or creative. I'd hoped to figure out something to put in the small squares at the bottom, and I do think I'll take it with me to look for some beads or other embellishments that might work; the closest buttons I had on hand were designated too blue by the art quilt group. The bugle beads were added as a final step, as I didn't want to deal with them on top of the other issues I was encountering as I quilted down the central portion of the quilt.

Not sure what I'll tackle next, but I'm leaning toward tackling one of the varieties of hostas we saw at the Boerner Botanical Gardens when we visited with my MIL last Tuesday. Perhaps this one:

Red, White, and Blue!

2009-07-03T09:01:00.004-05:00

In between some paper-piecing and machine applique, I decided to finally quilt this lovely little project that I'd pieced last October. I thought that perhaps I could get it hung in time for the 4th of July and just this morning hung it in the hallway downstairs (another WIP finished!).

The pattern is called Decoy, a Schnibbles pattern by Miss Rosie's Quilt Co., and the fabric is Minick and Simpson's Prairie Paisley, a line that I still love, love, love! As for the actual quilting, I opted to meander in the background between the stars. In the stars themselves, I used the pattern shown in the "Ribbon Star" block from Ranae Allen's book, Skillbuilder Mastery for Quilting by Machine. It probably wasn't the best choice in that the leaves don't really go with an Americana theme, but the pattern fit in the block, it was a doable quilting pattern for me, and I was able to freehand it by marking just a few major points on each block with my chalk wheel (it was so nice to NOT have to rip out Golden Threads paper at the end!).

Have a wonderful 4th of July, all!

Paper Piecing Along...

2009-06-21T21:29:00.004-05:00

For a complete change of pace, I'm mixing in some paper piecing on my Thistlepods quilt while working on all of the baby quilts. I thought this would be a good way to stay motivated; while I enjoy paper piecing, I do find that I get bored with long periods of it, so need to mix it up a bit.

On Friday afternoon and evening (amongst other things), I was able to piece together 16 of the arc sections seen here (4 of each color), as well as 7 of the center arc units. While I've yet to trim them up or remove the paper (I'll save that for some TV night), it's nice to be able to lay them out and get a better sense of what part of the final product will look like.

Loads more paper piecing to go on this project; I can't even estimate how much that I've completed represents. Hopefully I can stay motivated. Tomorrow night I need to focus my efforts on a new project for my art quilt group. All I need is the perfect idea!

Appliqueing a Menagerie

2009-06-20T17:01:00.005-05:00

Some relatives' and friends' babies are due in the near future and I figured it best to actually get some of quilts started as gifts. Yesterday I had fun pulling fabrics from my stash to applique the following small zoo of animals:

Giraffe

Zebra

Elephant

Bear

Monkey

Lion

Tiger

In addition to the ever-nearing due dates, I was also motivated to get the blocks to this point as Jo-Ann's had a thread sale ending today and I knew I'd need to pick up at least a few spools to match these little animals (no, I don't have a lot of orange and yellow in my thread stash). Hopefully I can get the machine applique done over the course of this week, as well as the alternating nine-patch blocks. Can't wait to see how the animals come alive as the thread and eyes are applied.

Oh, and the the pattern is called 300 Parade Crib Quilt, from Kim Schaefer's book, quilts, bibs, and blankies ... oh my!

Endless Horizons

2009-06-13T18:07:00.004-05:00

I absolutely love this quilt - Endless Horizons - and finished putting the binding on last night while watching the Brewers win against the White Sox (unfortunately, today was not a repeat).

I know I didn't post anything about it as I made progress, but the quilt went along quite quickly and I was working on other things too, so figured I'd just save it as a surprise. I bought the kit at the Cherrywood Fabrics booth at the International Quilt Festival in Houston last October. The pattern is by Karla Overland and uses one of Cherrywood's gradations, in this case, the North Shore bundle. I discovered in March when I initially wanted to start this project that the kit did not include all of the fabric that was supposed to be a part of the kit; I wrote Cherrywood and explained the situation and they got the missing fabric out to me right away. I really was impressed with their customer service and that they sent the fabric, no questions asked.

The quilt was so easy to make because the pieces that make up the central part of the quilt were all cut freehand from the fat quarter bundle and then they were laid out in an overlapping fashion on a muslin foundation and sewn down with thread. So they are raw-edge, but I'm not terribly worried about it, as I don't intend for this piece to get a lot of wear and need lots of washing. I quilted the quilt following the same lines as the central portion of the piece and extending them out into the borders, drawing at least a rough placement in advance with my Clover chalk wheel. Honestly, where would I be without that tool? I can't believe that I didn't know about it for probably half of my quilting life. I use it so often now that I'd be lost without it.

I'll admit that I quilted this top and bottom with Bottom Line thread in a medium brown color (Yes, it's polyester. Oh well. I loved the way it looked, it was on hand, and did not require that I go out to buy more. Keep in mind, I was on a roll and did not want to stop.) An added benefit is that I have enough leftovers from the central part of the quilt that I may at some point make another version of this. We'll see. I love how one project can morph into 2 or 3, depending on how many leftovers you have and what form they take. (I also gained a project out of my Just Before Dawn quilt, which may or may not be finished in time for Christmas.)

I can't wait to hang this piece, but I'm torn. The perfect place to hang it in the house currently features a patriotic quilt that I hate to put away before the 4th of July. What to do, what to do?

Thistle Pods

2009-06-09T21:18:00.006-05:00

I'm challenging myself this summer to work on a Judy Niemeyer paper pieced quilt that features curves as well. The quilt is called Thistle Pods and here's the view of the quilt from the pattern box.

Yes, I did say pattern BOX. This is no quick-and-easy quilt, that's for sure. To help motivate and commit to getting this done, I signed up for a three-session class at Patched Works. The first session was held on Sunday afternoon, and I'm still working on getting all of the fabric cut out! (Never mind the four or five hours it took me to cut apart all of the foundation papers and template layout sheets prior to the class session! I cheated and purchased a kit with the approximately 30 yards of fabric required for the project.)

You know you're in for a challenge when you have to organize pieces in 12 different gallon-sized bags so you don't lose them! Here's what my progress looks like to date:Not a lot to look at, is it? I can't wait to get to the actual sewing! But I have managed to cut out 17 out of the 18 fabrics required (all but the background fabric). The instructor provided a 10-page Excel spreadsheet with all of the cutting instructions; the background represents 3 full pages of this, so I'd like to think that I'm close to 70% of the way through the cutting! Sigh.

Here's a close up of the fabrics in the quilt. Mmm.. yummy purples and greens and blues.
I have some vacation days coming up, so I definitely hope to get some significant paper-piecing done this month. I'll post some pictures as I get through some of the piecing. Do you think I can stick with this one?

Geraniums

2009-06-04T22:10:00.003-05:00

This week I've been trying to finish up some projects that have been sitting around for long periods of time, which generally means that I need to machine quilt them. The threadwork I did on my hummingbird quilt earlier this year convinced me not to be afraid of finishing this small quilt depicting geraniums (pattern by Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts).

I did some threadwork on the blossoms as well as on the leaves and was quite fortunate that I could go out and rip a leaf off a live geranium plant for reference as to how the veins on geranium leaves actually run. I never would have gotten them correct if I hadn't referred to the real thing and had instead worked from my memory of leaves! This close up below should give you a pretty decent idea of what I did.

I used a wash-away stabilizer for the first time and it really worked like a charm! I wasn't certain whether it really would wash out, but the gooey-ness disappeared after you rinsed it for long enough! Amazing what they can do these days!

Finally, for the quilting, I tried a few new things. Along the right-side vertical band, I tried a watery-like quilting pattern that I thought would echo the grain of the fabric. I really liked the technique, found it was pretty easy to get good stitch length and I love the feel and texture it creates. I was stumped by how to quilt the table underneath the flower pot and in the end, decided to quilt it following some of the lines in the batik, which meant a very free-form design. Ben expressed some concern, but in the end, I was quite pleased with how it turned out.

I did do all of my free-motion quilting without my BSR, mainly because I was too lazy to get up and find it and attach it. But it's also getting to the point for some of these projects that I don't need it! And that's very exciting!

Christmas in May

2009-05-31T10:21:00.004-05:00

That's definitely what it felt like at my sewing bee last Thursday night! After much cajoling, one of our bee members convinced us to get up from our sewing stations and go to her car in the parking lot to check out all of the home decorating fabric samples that she had stashed in the back of her car and was giving away for free. And while we were all somewhat reluctant to go out to the car with excuses such as not really using home decorator fabrics, not needing more fabric in our stash, etc., we pretty much all walked away with some GORGEOUS treasures, and some of us with huge armloads full.

Check out some of these wonderful pieces I came home with, and these are just a few from many:

I'm still trying to imagine what anyone driving by must have thought about seven or eight women standing in a parking lot around an overflowing suitcase, holding up fabric samples, loading them in their arms, creating little piles of them, etc. It must have been quite a sight (did they think some kind of deal was going down?), but I don't think any of us minded. Thanks to Judy and her daughter (who works in the industry) for providing us with some future fun (I'm not promising when I will finish anything with these beauties)!

Ideas for what I should do with this? None of the pieces are terribly large, but I'm envisioning some pillows and bags. I would love additional ideas!

Just Before Dawn

2009-05-31T10:01:00.005-05:00

The only thing I do just before dawn is ... sleep. But it won't prevent me from making a quilt by that name, designed by This & That Patterns' Sherri K. Falls.

Yes, the fabric I used is distinctly Christmas-themed, and it's May... I'd cut out the project and taken it with me on retreat last November, but barely started it. Recently, I was looking to work on a project and didn't feel like machine quilting or cutting out another project, so I grabbed this as something that I could just get going on. The pattern uses Moda's pre-cut jelly rolls; I chose Holly Ta ylor's Birchwood Lane and made it in the larger lap-size version instructed by the pattern (requires 3 jelly rolls!).

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the quilt, and found the directions to be relatively straightforward (you just have to watch out because the instructions vary for the two different sizes included in the pattern). Because there is so much piecing, I do wish that some ironing directions had been included; I tried to plan ahead to think about how to keep the seams abutting so that it would lie flat, but I wasn't always successful. And many of my star points are nowhere close to being nice and pointy. Most of them float, some are cut off. Not sure what happened there - perhaps the stitch-and-flip method for creating them was the culprit for me.

Here's hoping I can get this quilted and bound in time for Christmas this year. I think it'll look great hanging in our upper hallway.

Beading Basics and Beyond

2009-05-18T22:43:00.006-05:00

Last week our guild had the fortune to host quilt instructor Mary Stori, who made the trip out from North Carolina to give the lecture for our monthly meeting and a day-long workshop, "Beading Basics and Beyond." I had the privilege of spending lots of time with Mary, picking her up at the airport, eating meals with her, and helping her set up for the meeting and workshop. What a pleasure! I am definitely inspired to put more beads on my quilts as embellishments and am trying to figure out how I can incorporate beads into my small art group "assignment," due next week.

In the full-day workshop, we learned all kinds of techniques for how to bead on different objects. Here are a few pictures of what we accomplished in the morning, after learning about needles, thread and other important practicalities:

And a close up of the same:
In the afternoon, we learned all kinds of really cool edge treatments, which are pretty much based on what we'd learned in the morning. Unfortunately, most of my photos aren't turning out very good, which is disappointing, as the edge treatments are absolutely amazing and don't really seem all that difficult (easier said than done, right?). Here's one that seems somewhat decent:

I picked up copies of Mary's Beading Basics book and her All-in-One Beading Buddy to help me remember how to make the various stitches, learn others, and to keep me inspired by all of the creative ways you can use beads in your quilts. Unfortunately, I was so busy with everything else that was going on that I didn't take any real pictures at the workshop or guild meeting and I even forgot to get her to sign my books. Bummer.

My lucky week

2009-05-16T10:08:00.005-05:00

A week ago yesterday, Ben and I went to the Brewers/Cubs game after work as part of our 20-pack of tickets. Right after returning from the bathroom midgame, I was asked if I wanted to be the contestant in one of the regular between-inning contests: the Crazy Cap Shuffle. I usually do pretty good at this when playing along, so agreed to participate, the scariest part being that I'd be live on the Jumbotron before the 40,000+ fans in attendance. Even with the staff allowing people to cut in front of me while the game was in action, I was able to pick the correct cap and won a $50 gift certificate to one of the restaurants at the Potawatomi Bingo Casino downtown. I've heard they have pretty good food there; perhaps we can try it while Julie visits Memorial Day weekend.

One cool outcome of being on the Jumbotron was that our friend Jeff, who was at the game and seated several sections over, saw me on the big screen and came over and said hi. And our neighbors, who were also in attendance, took a few pictures of the screen, one of which I've included here (the Brewers also gave me access to photos, but I have to pay for them!). We also were lucky enough to see ourselves on Fox News (which we don't usually watch) that night, as they were there to cover the Brewers/Cubs rivalry as well as the Danny Gokey hoopla at the game. They did the bulk of their in-game coverage from the area directly behind our seats, so we weren't surprised when we could see ourselves in the background of the broadcast.

My second awesome gift of the week was a HUGE basket of batik fabrics that guild members presented me at our year-end potluck and meeting on Wednesday night. Seriously, look at all of these lovely half-yard cuts of batiks donated by members as a gift to me as outgoing president! I truly am humbled that everyone gave these batiks and for the really nice notes that many people included with the fabrics. I'm guessing there are close to 70 (if not more) fabrics in this basket and I don't think any of them are the same, which just blows my mind. Now I need to search out some more pattern ideas to use up these yummy fabrics... if you have suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

More quilting posts soon (I promise!), including a post on Mary Stori's visit to the guild.

Another Charity Quilt

2009-04-27T07:52:00.003-05:00

My quilt guild hosted a sew-together again on Saturday. You could bring whatever you wanted to work on, and I chose to sew another charity quilt as I'd written a column in the guild newsletter committing myself to doing so. As I hadn't had a lot of time to prepare for the day, I was glad to rediscover in the attic some flannel kits that I'd purchased at Jo-Ann's a couple of years back when the neighborhood was hosting a monthly art night.

The quilt was really simple to make: the blocks were already cut and fringed. But the sewing method is entirely opposite to traditional sewing and you have to sew with the WRONG sides together... Let's just say I did a fair amount of unsewing. And while it was a nice feature to have the blocks pre-fringed, it made it that much more difficult to actually sew because the fringes could get turned the wrong way and fall into the seam, and you had to sew a wider seam because they were at times cut to differing depths.

Nonetheless, I'm sure some little girl will come to love this blanket. I have six more similarly styled kits so won't run out of charity projects anytime soon!

Raspberry

2009-04-26T11:53:00.005-05:00

If you know me well, you already know that raspberries are my absolute favorite fruit. If something has raspberries in it, I am extremely likely to order it. We had a pretty large patch of them when I was growing up and I used to love to go out to pick the raspberries, probably eating close to as many as ended up in the bucket (sorry, Mom!). While I don't have space for my own patch right now, I've found an absolute heaven about an hour's drive away, where I can pick loads of raspberries each September, freezing baggies and baggies, and making many batches of jam. Ben will testify that getting me out of the raspberry patch can be something of a challenge.

So it only seemed fitting that at some point I make a quilt in honor of my favorite fruit. Here's my raspberry quilt, made for my art quilt group's meeting last week. We were working on Chapter 7: Thread Work of the Art Quilt Workbook, by Jane Davila and Elin Waterston, with a theme of "food."

The raspberry includes two different colors of reddish thread, plus a bit of white on top. I created one row of "seeds" using a straight stitch on my machine, dropping the feed dogs, and moving the fabric around under the machine. This worked well, but I ended up with some puffiness from going around and around in a semi-circular fashion that I didn't really like. I remembered that Ann Fahl had mentioned in a workshop I took last spring that she free-motioned with a zigzag stitch, so I decided to do that throughout the rest of the project, and it worked really well, filling the areas a bit better and eliminating the ridges/puffiness.

The most difficult part of the task for me was figuring out where to put the darker and lighter colors and to make the highlights. I worked from a photograph I found online and used Photoshop to convert the image to grayscale, which allowed me to see some of the contrast a bit better. I also played with adjusting the contrast of the photo so I could gain a better sense of where I needed to use the lighter and darker threads. After some study, I realized that the object was lit from both sides, which had created part of my confusion.

While it's not perfect, I think this turned out "berry" well!

Easter Weekend Sewing

2009-04-14T07:54:00.004-05:00

I had the opportunity to get a bit of sewing in over the long weekend. First off was finishing up the Indigo Girl Quilt that I previewed in late February. The central blocks had been pinned to my design wall for pushing a month and I had the border pinwheels together after my "finishing bee" group met last month.

I really like how this project turned out - it was purchased as a kit from the Fat Quarter Shop, and uses the Urban Indigo line from Fig Tree Quilts. The pattern is Jelly Roll Jive from A Graceful Stitch - Quilt Designs by Denise Sheehan. I have fabric from this line to make another quilt, but I'm not sure it'll materialize this spring or later. I have so many projects I want to do right now that I might put that one off for a year or so... (yes, it's sad when you talk about putting things off for a whole year!).

The method for putting together the above project results in a lot of "waste" half-square triangles. Knowing they would simply sit around if I didn't do something with them right away, I threw together this little arrangement.

It's small, but I'm fine with that and am considering whether I want to frame it and do some more half-square triangles or just keep it like this. We'll see.

Finally, given that my design wall was cleared off, I sewed this pattern (called "X-Rated") from Schnibbles by Miss Rosie's Quilt Co.

This is a quilt that requires planning from the get go because you sew it together in rows on point, so I really and truly needed the design wall. I started it Friday night after getting home from the baseball game and finished it on Saturday night, which is pretty good! Now I just need to figure out how to quilt it; unfortunately I can't tell from the picture in the pattern how that one was quilted, so I can't steal any ideas. I love the fabric too - the Portugal Collection by April Cornell. It uses charm packs that I bought when I visited Erica in Michigan last August. Finished, it will look lovely hanging in our spare bedroom (yellow walls).

I've also been working on some thread painting for my art quilt group, but I need to make some much more significant progress before I have something I can show you.

Play Ball!!!

2009-04-13T18:55:00.004-05:00

Ben and I are quite thrilled that baseball season is once again under way. We're just not into other sports and the six months when there is no baseball are arguably the coldest, dreariest months of the year, so baseball also signals that spring (and warmer weather) may soon be back. As for that warmer weather... it sure hasn't materialized here. The thermometer seems to be stuck in the 40s.

On Friday we attended our first ever opening day for baseball, being totally converted Brewers fans at this point (yes, I think I will root against my beloved Reds when they play the Brewers this week). We've had opportunities to go to opening day in the past, but knew that the crowd would be different than a regular game day, namely drunker. Not being fans of drunken fans, we hadn't gone. Plus we really don't get the hours of tailgating that they do beforehand in these parts and the thought of showing up hours in advance just to get a parking spot wasn't thrilling either. But we decided to give it a try and hoped that the weather would be decent enough to allow us to ride our bikes to the ballpark.

Well... the weather was clear. But it was cold. About 40 degrees and windy. I think that is probably the coldest day that I have ever been on a bike and willfully riding around outdoors (so cold at times that my eyes teared up). But it worked really well to ride the 5 miles or so to the park and pull right up to racks along Friday's, aside from drunken people yelling at us from cabs and Ben getting his tired kicked by someone post-game.

The good news was that opening day actually felt like a BREWERS game. We had tickets again yesterday (yes, Easter Sunday evening game, an ESPN Sunday night baseball game in Milwaukee, the first in 12 years), and at least half the crowd were Cubs fans. It's not fun to be buying coffee to warm up during the game, hearing screaming, and wondering whether that means something good for your team or the opponents. I don't so much dislike the Cubs so much as the fact that their fans are way too numerous in our stadium. You're supposed to have a home field advantage!

We've been present for some pretty notable (and rather dubious) highlights already:

1. The Hot Dog had a bit too much to drink before the game on Opening Day. How else do you explain falling down at the end of the race?

2. A come-from behind win on opening day, 4-3, final!

3. Reed Johnson robbed Prince Fielder of his first grand slam last night. (MLB needs to get with embeddable video. Really this was an amazing play, even if the difference would have meant a Brewers win.)

4. Brewers pitching walked in 4 straight runs to the Cubs last night. Apparently this has been done only 9 times since 1969; twice within the last five days (Braves vs. Atlanta last week and Brewers vs. Cubs last night). Not fun to watch. What the heck is up with Suppan? And who is going to step up? Hopefully Gallardo will get it going tonight!

I hope you all enjoyed your Easter and that you have time to enjoy a little baseball as well. Sewing updates to come later, I hope (time to go catch the game for an inning or two).

Sleepy Baby - Linus

2009-04-07T22:34:00.005-05:00

On Saturday, the guild had a charity quilt workshop, which basically meant bringing along whatever project you might want to work on for charity. We had a decent turn-out of about ten members over the course of the time I was there - from 8:30 to 3. This year our designated charity is Project Linus, whose mission is "to provide love, a sense of security, warmth and comfort to children who are seriously ill, traumatized, or otherwise in need through the gifts of new, handmade blankets and afghans..."

I decided to start on a kit that I'd picked up at Patched Works in December because I thought it was just too cute. The pattern is called Sleepy Baby by local Milwaukeean Connie Griffiths (at least I'm guessing local based on the 414 area code on the back of the pattern). The pattern uses the Sleepytime fabric line by Lori Gardner. This was a pretty quick and easy project that looks fabulous too. The pattern is definitely straightforward, but could benefit from a bit of spellchecking and editing. (Not that I ever make mistakes in my blog posts...)

In contrast to yesterday's post, the quilting on this went quite quickly as I just meandered all over. Interestingly, the same threads used to quilt Swirly-Gig worked perfectly for this project!

The guild meets tomorrow night, so I'll be showing this quilt and it'll make its way to some deserving child. Tina, if you like this one, I have an extra set of the panel blocks and could make something similar for nephew #2...

Swirly-Gig

2009-04-06T22:31:00.009-05:00

Over a year later, I have finally finished this small spring project!

The pattern is called Swirly-Gig from the Paula Stoddard booklet Hooked on Charms. The fabric was from the Folklorique line by Fig Tree Quilts.

As I mentioned not too long ago, I'm not always in the mood to machine quilt. And I also struggle to decided exactly how I want to quilt something, so that's part of the reason why this sat for so long. But the colors in this project were definitely calling to me and this is the year I'm trying to finish projects, I forced myself to give it a whirl.

I think I might have quilted it to death, and it definitely was a project that I wondered when I would ever finish, as it kept going on and on. In the plain blocks, I quilted a feathered wreath and cross-hatched the centers, sizing them up from a pattern in the book Skillbuilder Mastery for Quilting by Machine by Renae Allen. In the pinwheel blocks, I stitched curves from corner to corner of the triangles (I don't know what this pattern is called, maybe orange peel or something like that). And I just did lines in the border to keep it simple.

I used a lovely green Aurifil thread on the top and a blue on the back; there are definitely some pop-throughs, but it was difficult to tell at the time because I was also using Golden Threads paper for the wreath outlines.

Here are some close-ups:

It's not perfect, but you have to start somewhere, right? While I've been quilting for about ten years now, I still consider my machine quilting skills to be relatively elementary. I still have a small stack of tops to machine quilt myself; we'll see how soon I tackle them. I can definitely promise you some piecing is in my future later this week!

I'm going to hang this in my cubicle tomorrow; perhaps the Dean will stop pestering me about the Valentine's project I still have hanging...

Painting & Decorating

2009-04-06T22:04:00.005-05:00

Seeing as winter isn't in a hurry to leave us here (at least we didn't the the snow that they were calling for yesterday!), we've had plenty of time to work on putting the house back together after the painting was completed last Tuesday.

We've had a lot of questions about how things have gone with the painting and what things look like now. Here are photos of the living room, dining room, upstairs hall and a look up the stairs (changing the paint color from black to white on the risers lightened up that area remarkably!!!). We're still playing with layout in the living and dining rooms - we'd brought in some, but not all - of the furniture for a large quilt guild meeting last week and came upon the current setting, which we like a lot (with the love seat in a corner). The new curtains are from JCPenney, the curtain rods from Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and the rug from Pottery Barn. Had loads of fun trying out different samples from a variety of stores (and even more fun returning them later!). We're really, really liking the new colors and decor.

Built-in corner cabinet in dining room:

View from living into dining:

Looking towards the front of the house in the living room:

The fireplace and mantle:

Looking toward the back of the house in the living room:

View up the stairs (like I said, the white is amazingly different! the handrails are a different color now too):

Second floor hallway:

What do you think? I think Ben might be going into withdrawal as he no longer has the painter here during the way. But two weeks was long enough!

Going Bananas

2009-03-29T16:47:00.005-05:00

Last month, after I finished my hummingbird quilt, I wrote that my small art group would be switching themes from birds to food. We're working through the Art Quilt Workbook, by Jane Davila and Elin Waterston and this month's assignment was to make a project based on chapter 6 - paint effects.

I did a pretty good job of obtaining the supplies relatively early on. After some difficulty in figuring out where to obtain fabric paints (I wasn't sure about RIT, which was all I could seem to see at Jo-Ann's that didn't look like puffy paint for other kinds of artistry), I discovered that Artist and Display carries Dye-na-Flow paints, and I also purchased some Polished Pigments by LuminArte (ground pigments mixed with micas, which give it some shimmer) from Quilting Arts magazine's web store, and I purchased some plain white fabric (I forget which brand) from the LQS.

But then it the supplies just sat there. Because I was afraid to start. I knew what I wanted to paint - I had to have an idea so I knew what colors of paints to purchase. I'd settled on bananas from the time of our last meeting. But I waited until the night before our meeting to actually attempt painting as I suspected I'd do something remarkably horrible. Painting's similar to drawing, right? And I can't draw ...

While I have not yet turned these into completed projects, here are my results.

First, the Dye-na-flow paints:

And the Polished Pigments, for comparison:

As you can see, I'm not great with control; I don't know if I needed a thinner brush (I was using a "1") or if I used too much paint, or what. The paints were quite thin, so the paint definitely "wicked" across the fabric. Thank goodness I had thought to purchase some resist! I do think that I can turn these into something interesting with a bit of thread-painting, and I'm glad I tried both brands of paints because I think I could use each of them in different kinds of ways (the Dye-na-Flow colors are stronger, but the others have a very nice shimmer to them).

Earlier in the post I mentioned that I wasn't certain about RIT. One of the others in the group followed an article in the December/January issue of Quilting Arts to dye fabrics with the RIT dyes, and it looked pretty good. So I purchase a few packets at Jo-Ann's yesterday and look forward to giving those a shot as I hadn't yet had a chance to peruse the article (and I 've been carrying it around in my "Mary Poppins" bag). I'll definitely post results!

No, it's not Valentine's Day, but ...

2009-03-29T16:37:00.005-05:00

This is the year I'm dedicated to working on projects already in my stash. Amongst the stack are a good number of small tops that I'm convinced I can quilt myself and don't need to send out to complete. As I mentioned in another post recently, I've been motivated to do some actual quilting rather than piecing, even if the tops I'm working on aren't exactly seasonally relevant.

All of that is preface for this small panel that I quilted in literally half an hour.

I'd spray-basted it BEFORE Valentine's Day and then couldn't motivate to actually quilt it. So when inspiration strikes, go with it, right? Now I've got another cute little project ready for next February. And to be honest, I find it difficult to finish Valentine's projects in time because it comes so close after Christmas, at least in terms of sewing timelines.

Nothing complicated about this one, but at least it's off the pile! Another check off the list!

House Painting

2009-03-22T09:44:00.006-05:00

We've finally gotten around to painting the downstairs area of our house, something we've talked about doing since we bought the house and moved in 4 years ago. And it's only getting done now because we opted to pay someone else to do it! We spent last weekend moving pretty much everything either out to the garage, to the spare bedroom, or down to the basement and the only things currently remaining in the rooms are the sofa, love seat, and oversized chair. After one attempt at getting the love seat out the front door, we decided to leave it sit.

The painters started on Tuesday and will be back this week. I guess I never really asked how long it would take, but assumed the week from some other comments the gentleman had made. While we're anxious to get back into the rooms - especially the dining room as we have been eating at either the desks in our office/sewing room or from a third chair sitting in the kitchen. Fun times!

So here are some in-progress photos for the dining room, entry hall, and living room. We really are loving the colors and I spent a good deal of yesterday looking for a new rug for the living room and curtains that will both match the paint but also fit stylistically with the rug. This is no easy task, apparently!

Living room before:

Living room now:
View from dining to living before:

View from dining to living now:

Dining room before:

Dining room now:

We're loving the colors and can't wait to move back into the space. Hallways into the upstairs space will be painted as well as the risers, handrails, and spindles, so it really is a good amount of work. I'll keep you updated on the progress!

Hot Flash!

2009-03-16T07:47:00.004-05:00

No, I'm not experiencing hot flashes. Not old enough for that yet! But I did make some progress on a quilt called "Hot Flash" this weekend. I showed you a few of the blocks a couple of weeks ago in this post. The pattern is from from Brenda Henning's book, Strip Therapy and I used a Mint Chip Bali Pop.

As I finished the blocks, I wasn't quite sure how much I liked the quilt. And for some reason, my blocks were very different sizes. It could be that some of the strips from the Bali pops clearly were not straight (in some ways it's nice to know that even the machine-cut fabric has issues, but then... aren't I paying for it to be "perfect"?). It could also be that I didn't use the suggested template to cut out my triangles and opted instead to simply use the 45-degree angle on my ruler and my cutting board's lines to make my cuts. At any rate, I cut all of the blocks down slightly so that they fit together right (just don't pay attention to how the angled seams come together at the corners!). I like it much better now that it is finished and think it makes a nice complement to the Native Rainbow top I pieced earlier this year. Now I need to get them both quilted!

Speaking of quilting, this week I will be devoting my sewing time to machine quilting some of the many smallish tops I've had hanging around for some time. I'm inspired, so I'd best act before the moment passes and I'm back to piecing away.

Suffragette Completed!

2009-03-11T07:44:00.002-05:00

I am very excited to report that I finally completed the Suffragette quilt that I previously posted about here and here. I really love this quilt and am happy that I'll be able to use it this summer for the patriotic decorating. The photo isn't the greatest, but Ben was a willing quilt "hanger" for me as we had horrible weather all weekend long and thus terrible lighting and no where to really get a great photo. This was the best I could do, given the circumstances.

The pattern is by Heartspun Quilts and the fabric is mostly Minick and Simpson's Prairie Paisley line. While a lot of piecing, I love the scrappiness of this quilt and the colors (as evidenced by the fact that I also bought - repeatedly - multiple charm packs of this fabric line).

Sandi quilted it for me and did a wonderful job. The central part of the quilt features an all-over pattern with stars and curvy banner-like details:

and I had her put feathers in the border, which I love, love love.

It certainly feels like winter today, but this quilt has me thinking summer!

4-Layer Cake

2009-03-01T17:29:00.005-06:00

Last fall, while I was taking a course at MATC, I didn't have a lot of time for sewing. However, I was able to piece very quickly in December - right before heading to Cape Cod - this lovely quilt at right.

The quilt is made with one layer cake of the Winter fabric line by Minick and Simpson. I loved this line a lot - it's definitely for Christmas (wonderful poinsettias and candy canes!), but doesn't necessarily scream Christmas. And the blue is one of my favorite colors.

The pattern is called 4-Layer Cake, by Legacy Patterns, and finishes at approximately 57x75. It whips up really quickly and could be a very nice option if you're in a pinch for a gift, want to make something quick for a charity quilt, or want to use larger-scale focus fabrics.

Sandi quilted it for me and I love the little Christmas presents (at least I think of them as Christmas presents!) that are in the quilting design I selected.

This now makes two Christmas-themed quilts that I've finished since Christmas (read about the other one here) and can look forward to using later this year!

Piecing Away

2009-02-28T12:48:00.002-06:00

I'm not quite sure what's been up with me lately, but I haven't been particularly motivated to finish any one project that I've been working on. I just keep piecing away on different projects - and have even finished all of the blocks for two out of the three projects I've got going right now - but I can't seem to motivate to actually sew the blocks together into a top. Hopefully I can get up the wherewithal this week.

So here are some photos of quilts in progress:

1. Sugar Candy Quilt
Purchased as a kit from the Fat Quarter Shop, this quilt uses the Simplicity fabric line by 3 Sisters and the pattern is designed by Deborah's Designs. The blocks are a good deal of piecing, but laying them together like this, I actually appreciate it all the more. Hopefully I can have it finished soon because it does make me think of spring and I've pretty much had it with the cold weather.

2. Hot Flash Quilt
These blocks will make up the Hot Flash quilt from Brenda Henning's book, Strip Therapy. I'm using one of the Mint Chip Bali Pops my parents bought me last year. I pretty much pieced these blocks in one evening, so that's not bad. Obviously, not a particularly difficult project, but I'm really liking it. Here you see the "dark" and "light" versions of two different strip sets.

3. Indigo Girl Quilt
Purchased as a kit from the Fat Quarter Shop, this quilt uses the Urban Indigo line from Fig Tree Quilts and the pattern is Jelly Roll Jive from A Graceful Stitch - Quilt Designs by Denise Sheehan. I'm currently about 40% finished with the blocks and this one has me yearning for spring too.

I'll keep you posted on progress this week as I do hope to find myself with some evening sewing time in the coming days.

Hummingbird #2

2009-02-12T21:11:00.009-06:00

Last night before our regular quilt guild meeting, my little art quilt group met again over dinner. It has been a long time since we got together, and I've been rather delinquent in general, as I didn't really do anything for the group since I made my first hummingbird quilt in September. Blame it on that class it took at MATC and the holidays and all!

If you remember, we're working through the Art Quilt Workbook, by Jane Davila and Elin Waterston. I knew that we were still working in the "birds" series as a group, but had no idea what chapter or technique we were doing, and seeing as I started it Monday evening (for a Wednesday meeting...), I just decided to do whatever I wanted.

Here's my quilt:

When doing research late last summer, I had found a photo on iStockphoto that I knew I wanted to use as the inspiration for a quilt at some point, so I decided to have a go at it. I first reversed it in Photoshop, as there was something that I just liked more about having the bird oriented to the right. I printed out the image at approximately the size that I wanted the quilt to be (remember, our projects are literally the size of a piece of paper), and then rough cut pieces of fabric using the printout to help me with scale. I threadpainted a bit on top of the fabric to tone down some of the colors (like the green on the hummingbird's back as well as to make the white on the throat and belly less bright). As for the flowers... well, I have to admit that I cheated a bit on them and used the leaf shapes that are in Edyta Sitar's pattern "Geran iums," which I finished ages ago, but still need to quilt. In some ways, quilting these was a good test case for how I will quilt them in that project.

At first, I wasn't sure about this project, as the wings aren't quite placed properly, and I don't think the striping across them looks real. But in the end, I am rather happy with how it turned out and am very glad that I had the group to challenge myself to even start such a thing.

Next month, we're switching themes. The new one: food! The technique: painting. I may be in over my head (but at least I could use food to paint!).

Checkerboard Challenge

2009-02-11T21:51:00.004-06:00

Tonight was my quilt guild's checkerboard challenge program. The challenge was to create a checkerboard that could be used in actual play, using whatever style, inspiration, etc. you might want. Pretty much the only limitations were on size (no larger than 45" square) and that it had to include checkers (which could be purchased) and a means for storing the checkers. All of the finished checkerboards went to a local charity, Sojourner Truth House, and all members voted on a number of categories, in which awards were presented.

We had 15 members complete the challenge, which is much better than we've done with many of our other recent challenges. I wish I'd taken pictures of some of the other entries, as there were many fabulous ones. Here's mine:

My design inspiration was the "Game Board Quilt" in Kathleen Tracy's book Prairie Children and Their Quilts.

I pretty much simply resized her pattern so that you could really play checkers with it. I originally attempted to do that with EQ6, but kept coming up with really bizarre measurements for the flying geese (seriously, does someone know how to get just a single flying goose from the block library - all I can find is a unit of three flying geese!), so in the end, I did all of the math by hand, which wasn't terrible. I did miscalculate the width of the red inner border once and had to tear it off and put on a new one, but in the end, it wasn't too difficult. I think the final measurement was about 31.5" square.

I made the top (with the exception of the corner half triangles and inner border) from charms of Minick and Simpson's Coming Home line, which came out a while ago. They had just been sitting around, so I decided to finally use them up, and the only thing I had to buy for this was the fabric for the backing!

My checkers, while not always perfect circles, were functional. I made them as if you were sewing a case for a pillow: I cut one circle for the front (thanks, Olfa, for your circle rotary cutter) and two slightly larger circles for the back. Folded the ones for the back in half, right sides out, overlapped them, and placed the smaller circle right side down on top. Sewed a quarter inch from the edge of the smaller circle, clipped the seams, and turned them inside out. No need to hand stitch seams closed and finished edges all around, thank goodness!

Oh, and one final thing: I did win a prize tonight for the "pieciest" quilt!

This Takes the Cake

2009-02-03T19:57:00.005-06:00

I'll admit it. I bought something new that wasn't required to finish a project I already had in progress (my new year's resolution is to not buy new things). But... I did have a gift certificate from my birthday that covered all but $2 of it, so I think it is a fairly legitimate purchase (Susan also helped convince me that this was good reasoning). And the good news is that it's not just sitting in my stack: I've finished it already!

The truth of the matter is that when I saw it on the Fat Quarter Shop's email newsletter, I thought it was incredibly darling. And I don't have much in the way of Valentine's decorations. And it fits perfectly on the fabric "wall" at the end of my cubicle, which desperately needed a quilt to replace the pumpkin one that I still had hanging there (hanging my head ashamedly)! And did you even know that they made rick rack that wide?!

I still think it's a cute project. However, I have to admit that I was incredibly disappointed with the pattern. It's a Pieces from my Heart pattern, so I figured it would be good, as they are, as far as I know, a reputable pattern design company. However, the math is JUST ABSOLUTELY WRONG if you want your major vertical seam lines to match up. And the thing is, there is plenty of fabric to be able to do make this happen if the designers would actually have you trim the pieces before you sew them together, rather than having you sew pieces together and trim the excess length from the ends so that the rows are all the same length.

Of course, I didn't realize that this might be a problem until after I'd sewn the rick rack onto all of the layers of the cake and sewn them into the rows. Fixing it up so the seams matched vertically would have required taking apart all of the seams and taking off the rick rack, which seemed like a lot of effort. I was able to come pretty close to getting things to match as I had hoped by taking out a couple of seams and resewing them with very skinny seams.

I wouldn't have been so annoyed about the rows not matching if there was no way to make it work with the fabric at hand (just one of Sandy Gervais' Candy Kisses charm packs). But to design them be to mismatched like that - even if it is just a little bit - really seemed lazy to me. In the piecing guide that accompanies the pattern, they draw vertical lines as if to indicate where each piece of fabric should end, and these make it appear that you should have one vertical line, but in the fabric "drawing" behind these lines, it is clear that one fabric "bleeds" into another's quadrant.

Sigh. Sorry for the long vent. In the end, it finished up quickly, I have a great new piece of art in my cubicle, and I have over a week to enjoy it before the holiday is upon us! It pretty much was a "piece of cake".

Floragraphix III - Avian

2009-01-28T19:51:00.005-06:00

I finally got the binding sewn on this quilt that I pieced at my quilting retreat in early November! The pattern is called Avian and it's from the Floragraphix III Quilt Designs book by Jason Yenter. The fabric is the Floragraphix line and I pretty much made it exactly as it was in the book. There's something to be said for not having to think every once in a while! I'll even admit to being lazy and purchasing the kit from Hancock's of Paducah.

The quilt was really easy to piece and went together quickly. Sandi quilted it for me and the quilting design includes some birds flying amidst ribbony swirls, which seemed appropriate, given the pattern title and fabric theme. The quilt is approximately 70" square and will be presented soon to a special student who worked very diligently for me for a couple of years. She's yet to graduate but her student teaching this semester conflicts with our work hours, so priorities are priorities! I do miss her, but we'll have dinner soon.

Here's a close-up so you can see it a bit better.

Sweet Treat Bag

2009-01-24T13:45:00.004-06:00

Another small project completed! This Sweet Treat Bag was the project that Katie taught at last week's Daiwabo Club at Bigsby's. I think it's the first project that I have actually completed from the club (mostly I go to collect fabric, I think), but it was too darling not to work on it!

The project is based on a free pattern distributed by Moda. Katie's modifications included using only a half-length strip set and an uncut piece of fabric to make up the other side of the strip set (which becomes the interior of the bag anyways) and sewing an actual buttonhole closure rather than a decorative button plus Velcro as the real securing measure. I thought that both of those modifications worked pretty well.

However, I made a few further modifications, largely centering on what I thought was an overuse of stabilizer. There is a layer fusible batting applied to the pieced half of the bag, which I think gives it a nice weight. But there was a second layer of stabilizer that gave it way too much "crunch," in my opinion. So while I'd originally sewn it in, I pretty much ripped that half out wherever I could. I don't think it will matter as the whole purse is lined and is stabilized everywhere via the batting.

This was another quick, easy pattern that may find its way out again, come time to work on holiday gifts. And I did get to learn something new on my machine in making this project - how to make buttonholes! I must admit, however, that the instructions in the sewing machine book made little sense to me and it was mostly by trial and error (thank goodness I practiced first!) that I got it right. I also again used that lovely button sew-on program!

Crayon Roll

2009-01-21T22:08:00.005-06:00

Here's another project that I had intended to make and give as Christmas presents to two young girls, but alas, I ran out of time and am just finishing them now. I probably could have figured out some way to have finished them on time had I realized how simple they really were! I started these last night and finished them tonight and think it took 2 hours (or 2 1/2 tops) in total in the pair. Not bad!!

In the future, I think I might lean toward making the roll a little bit longer so that each of the slots could be slightly bigger. I don't know for certain, but suspect that it might be a bit difficult for smaller hands to feed the crayons into their slots.

Nonetheless, a fun project that I'm sure I will make again in the future. The pattern - "Color Me Happy" - is by Linda Lum Debono and appeared in the Fall 2008 issue of Quilts and More.

Batik Quilt with Borders

2009-01-19T20:22:00.004-06:00

I asked for opinions earlier this month as to what color I should use for the narrow border surrounding my batik quilt center. I did listen to your feedback and bought some teal in addition to the gold I ended up using as well as a third option. It just turned out that when I auditioned them on the design wall today, the gold really sang to me, especially with the wide purple outer border.

I hadn't necessarily wanted to put purple in the outer border, but in the end, it was really the only option as my trip to the quilt shop was not terribly successful in identifying fabrics that would actually work with my center. I wanted a multicolored fabric to pick up some of the other tones of the center, but it also needed to be a relatively dark fabric. Unfortunately, not may options were currently in stock that fit the bill! However, I guess that made my decision-making process that much easier, right?

In the end, I do really like it. I have plenty of fabric left over in this palette and am trying to decide if I want to make one of the quilts from the February issue of American Patchwork & Quilting - Zen - using this grouping. I'm very much itching to make this pattern (I have the magazine and was dying to make it since I first saw it while on the Cape last month) and have these and loads of other batiks that I could choose from. But do I want my next quilt to be a bit lighter? Or will I like having two that are very complementary? Decisions, decisions!

Star of Wonder

2009-01-13T07:57:00.003-06:00

Yesterday I placed in the mail the first completed Star of Wonder project! I'm so excited to be nearly finished with these projects. The next time I decide that it is wise to make 3 of something, someone please knock me upside the head! I'm sewing the binding on the second one, and the third is almost completely quilted.

The pattern for this was called "Reason for the Season," uses Nancy Halvorsen's "Star of Wonder" panel, and is free from Quiltmaker online. I think it's probably important to remember that you sometimes get what you pay for. The pattern had a few issues - why in the world would you let the squares in a square float around the border? I trimmed mine all down. And of course, their math was a bit fuzzy - add in spacers to make things fit, which I do understand when you are using a panel - but if you squared the blocks down, you were able to get in one full additional block on each side, and had a much smaller spacer segment as a result. I'm all in favor of using as many blocks as possible and fewer spaces. This was my first time using a panel this large and building a lot of quilt around it, rather than simply quilting the panel with some unpieced borders. Panels are not always square! Nor are the lines on them necessarily straight. I found that annoying, but I guess just one of those things you have no choice but to deal with if you want to use panels.

As you can see since my last progress photo, I sewed on the 36 buttons and tacked down the flange so that it "wobbles" back and forth. It's a very nice design element, and not as time-consuming as it might have been, given that Mary or Sandi suggested that I use the button sew-on program on my sewing machine! I honestly had no idea there was such a feature and it never occurred to me to sew on buttons with my sewing machine, so I'm forever in their debt for saving me a ton of time in getting those buttons sewn on! I took the same approach to tacking down the flange in the opposite position - just set a narrow zigzag with the feed dogs down and a quilting foot and I was good to go!

I'm hoping to get the second one bound so I can show it at our quilt guild meeting tomorrow night and to its new owner on Thursday, but we'll see how I do. And if I can finalize the third over the long holiday weekend, that will be awesome!

Progress Update

2009-01-06T22:13:00.005-06:00

Last night I had time to sew together the 50 blocks I pieced on the "Native Rainbow" quilt, and this evening, I sewed together the second of four borders. Here it is on my design wall! I'm auditioning the gold as the color for the inner border and am thinking I like it. The same color goes outside the pieced border and then there's a wide border surrounding it all. Unfortunately, I don't have enough gold in my stash to make anything work so I might just have to go to the quilt shop this weekend!

I know there's not a lot of contrast in the fabrics in the center, but I'm really liking it. There are 16 different fabrics used and I have to admit that my only complaint thus far about the pattern is that it called for 3/8 yard of each fabric. Considering the fact that I only had to cut 6 1/2 inches from each of the fabrics, I have no idea why it was suggested to buy twice as much! I guess it's good fodder for another batik project. (Actually, one other niggling complaint about the pattern: why would you instruct someone to cut 2x9 inch rectangles and then subcut so that the cuts only add up to 8 1/2 inches? It's just silly and a waste of that half inch.)

Should I go with the gold inner border? Let me know. Earliest I'll make it to the quilt shop is Saturday, so you still have time to influence my buying!

Christmas Projects

2009-01-02T14:39:00.003-06:00

As I mentioned, I didn't do much of a crafty nature in November and December. What I did accomplish were the following two projects, both of which involved rehabbing Goodwill finds with supplies from Jo-Ann's and elsewhere.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

I'll admit that this really still needs a bow, but I couldn't find a premade one that seemed to work and I am generally helpless with bow making. Perhaps I'll get one figured out by the time I hang this for next Christmas!

Happy New Year!

2009-01-02T14:13:00.003-06:00

Yes, I know it's been ages since I posted anything on my blog. Part of the reason is that I really didn't do anything creative in a long, long time. Between the class I was taking this fall and traveling and preparations for holidays (Thanksgiving in Ohio, Christmas on Cape Cod), I simply didn't get much accomplished in Nov. and Dec. that was blog-worthy. I vow to be better this year!

Speaking of resolutions, I have a few quilt-related ones this year, including attempting not to buy anything new at the store unless it is something I need to help finish a project for which I already have the majority of the supplies. I have loads of projects around here (and loads of WIPs), and it's time to get some of them done and save my money for some other fun thing. Ben told me he thought it was a stupid resolution: I couldn't just stop buying fabric when I was inspired. I told him he probably didn't realize how many projects I had around the house and I'm torn between being upset at his lack of support for my resolution (OK, not really) and thrilled that he thinks I should continue my fabric purchasing habit! We'll see how long it holds; yesterday I had to buy some fabric online because I'd made a really stupid error in calculating what I'd needed for that particular WIP. I'm not in violation yet!

I am fortunate to have family members who totally support and enable my quilting addiction. This holiday brought me a new portable Sew-Ezi quilting table, a rechargeable OttLite portable task lamp, a gift certificate to Keepsake Quilting, a beautiful Mint Chip Bali pop, a Michael Miller Fairy Frost fat quarter pack, an OmniGrid portable pressing and cutting station, and a couple of quilting books. Am I set to have fun or what?

I have dug in and gotten some things done in the sewing room in the past two days. Yesterday, I pieced together three backings and cut batting for quilts to drop off to be quilted in the near future, and I quilted the first of three of Star of Wonder panels that I sewed at my quilting retreat in early November (unfortunately none of these were finished for Christmas). I still need to apply 36 buttons to the yellow inner border and bind it up, but I'm really quite pleased with how the quilting turned out.

Today, I sewed fifty blocks like these three to make a quilt from the Batik Beauties book by Laurie Shifrin. The blocks went together quite quickly. I think it might have taken almost as much time to cut out the pieces on Wednesday night while watching one of the Pierce Brosnan James Bond movies (seriously, he has got to be the hottest James Bond)! I'm not sure how pleased I am with the overall color combination, but I'll share photos soon, I'm sure.

Happy New Year and happy sewing!

IQF - Part 3

2008-11-13T07:53:00.003-06:00

My posts on IQF to date have focused on the workshops I took. Obviously, the show is about a lot more than that, including a huge show of quilts. Today I thought I'd write about some of them and share photos with you. The winners were amazing, as usual, but none of them were really my cup of tea.

One of the more interesting sections was one of quilts focused on politics, especially given that the election here in the States was the following Tuesday. This one showing now President-Elect Obama was pretty impressive:

From IQF 2008 - Quilts

and there were quite a number done over the years by Fran Soika, with quite a distinctive style:

From IQF 2008 - Quilts

The Texas DAR had an excellent exhibition of 20 quilts from the organization's Washington, D.C. collection, titled The DAR Museum Collection: Quilts of a Young Country. The quilts dated from the 1750s to 1850s and were real treasures. Unfortunately, I was unable to take pictures, but after asking a couple of docents, I did learn that you can view the images on The Quilt Index by searching for the DAR Museum as a contributing institution. The search turns up 360 quilts, well more than those in this exhibit. While the quilts in that section were beautiful, I have to admit that I thought the docents treated me rather rudely. Apparently, if you look young, you couldn't possibly know anything about quilts. I'd asked a question of the one docent and she answered it and then grabbed another visitor and told her, "Oh, you know about quilts... Look at this one. Can you imagine she did all of that applique using the straight of grain rather than the bias?" as if I couldn't possibly understand what that might have meant. Well, there's nothing that turns me off more. In close to 9 years of quilting, I've picked up a few things, including an understanding of what the bias can do and just because someone looks like they have more experience doesn't mean that they know one iota more (some people don't even start quilting until they're older). Is it any wonder that young people might be turned off by women like this? I'll step off my soapbox now.

I think it is interesting to see what I end up taking photos of at each show I attend, as the photos seem to show trends over time. At some shows, I seem to take photos of bright quilts, at others, floral quilts. I'm not sure there was really a theme this time, and I think that many more of my favorites this time around were in portions of the exhibition where photography was not allowed. Nonetheless, here are some of my favorites:

From IQF 2008 - Quilts

Many more photos are available in my Picasa album. Ben also took some with his camera; I'll let you know when and where they become available.

IQF - Part 2

2008-11-11T12:32:00.003-06:00

Yes, I know it's taken me a while to get to writing my second update about the quilt festival in Houston. But my delay doesn't indicate in any way a lack of interest or enjoyment. Life gets busy sometimes...

Today I thought I'd write about the second class that I took while I was in Houston. This class was with instructor Melinda Bula, to make a new daisy project based on the techniques and style of her book, Cutting Garden Quilts. I'd purchased the book a while back because I thought her flowers were amazing, and I probably could have made the quilt on my own without taking the class. But you know how it is: sometimes you need a class to give yourself the opportunity to set aside time to actually work on something.

I love the cover quilt on the book. It's a coneflower. And as many of you know, that's my absolute favorite flower. Unfortunately, her one-day workshop for that quilt was already filled, so I "settled" for the daisy class. After 6 hours of class time, here's how far I got.

And here's the finished project:

As you can see, I am nowhere close to being finished. And I was probably one of the people who got the most done. It's not a difficult technique, but it is time-consuming. You have to trace the patterns onto Steam a Seam 2 (her preference), fuse that to your fabric, cut out your pieces, and then position them on your background. I'll admit that I wasn't too exacting about the process and if I went off the lines when tracing or cutting, so be it. It's organic, right? (Some people were simply unable to break from the need to draw exactly on the line and cut exactly on the line, which is why their progress was much slower).

She had a beautiful grouping of her quilts there for us to see. Here's that cover one that I said I really loved (I bought a fabric kit so I can make it myself).

More images are available on my Picasa album.

What did I think of the class? My major complaint is that there weren't enough irons for a class based on fusing, and those that were provided were absolutely crummy. The Teacher's Pet for the class was able to secure additional irons for the afternoon, but it's amazing to me that the IQF staff people didn't understand that a fusing class would require more than 2 irons for 22 people! Given that this was the first time Melinda had taught this pattern (it'll be published soon), we were the guinea pigs for it and we did find a few minor errors. Hopefully she'll be able to take that feedback and incorporate it into her published product. I think it must have been a difficult class to teach because people worked a very different paces and she attempted to allow those who work quickly to continue to move along, rather than waiting for others to catch up. But I think that led to her forgetting to point out some important details along the way because she had to repeat herself to different people at different points in time and she probably couldn't remember whom she'd told what.

Overall, it was an enjoyable day spent looking at pretty quilts and making progress toward one that I'd had on my to-do list for some time.

ALQS

2008-11-09T18:59:00.003-06:00

I'm putting in the mail tomorrow this little quilt I made for my partner in the Another Little Quilt Swap. I'm sad to see this one go as I really love it and especially the buttons. (Random aside: did you know you can sew buttons on with your sewing machine? I had no idea. But Sandi and Mary assured me on retreat this weekend that it can be done; if I'd had my sewing machine manual with me, I would have given it a try. These 20 buttons were sewn on by hand!)

The quilt pattern is called Box of Chocolates and it's done up in pinks, creams, and browns in the book Bits and Pieces by Karen Costello Soltys. A great little quilt and it makes up quickly at about 16"x20". Makes me think that I actually could make a few more gifts in time for Christmas, but I'm going to stick with a plan to avoid extra stress this holiday season (Hah! Is that ever possible?).

I'm not going to mention the recipient's name quite yet, as she doesn't know who has her name and she may read my blog. I'll reveal once I've heard she's received it. Wonder if she'll like it...

Willkommen! Quilt from Germany

2008-11-05T23:58:00.003-06:00

I arrived home yesterday to a package from Germany, which I knew could mean only one thing - I'd received my quilt from my ALQS partner. How exciting to be matched with someone internationally!!!

I opened the package and was pleased to find this beautiful Log Cabin star quilt made by Gabriele of Waghaeusel (sorry, I don't know how to do the umlaut in Blogger), outside of Heidelberg.

It's done in lovely blue batiks and white tone-on-tones with quilting in the ditch. I feel lucky to have received such a fine piece of work. The only thing I have to decide is whether to hang it here at home or take it in to work and hang it in my cubicle. It'll look great either place. Decisions, decisions!

Vielen Dank, Gabriele! Der Quilt gefaellt mich! (Apologies for my poor German.)

Watch soon for pictures of the quilt I'll be sending off on Monday (I finally began tonight!).

IQF - Part 1

2008-11-04T12:29:00.003-06:00

I had the privilege to attend the International Quilt Festival in Houston last week! It's not the first time - I've been twice before - but my last visit was in 2005. Even though I've been a couple of times, I still find the experience to be exciting and full of inspiration and fun. I've tons of news and pictures to share so will update you on my time there in a couple of posts over the coming days. I have much to do this week, so please bear with me as I write the posts in my spare time.

One of Ricky's quilts from the workshop quilt show
From Ricky Tims' Super Quilt Seminar

We flew to Houston last Wednesday afternoon so that I could take workshops Thursday through Saturday. I started off with a 2-day workshop Thursday and Friday with Ricky Tims, Alex Anderson and Libby Lehman. I was certainly looking forward to time with some of the bigwigs in the quilting world and assumed it would be a pretty small class. WRONG. I think there were close to 100 people in the room. However, it was actually really well-organized so that everyone could see. They had the speakers on a raised platform, had a videographer and a projector and screen so that you could really see the demos that the instructors were doing, etc. I was fortunate enough to get there early enough on both days to get a seat in the third row.

While we didn't do any actual sewing over the course of the two days, we did receive a 120+ page "syllabus" (not available for sale) that described how to do all of the things that they showed us. And we covered a lot of ground, including Ricky's Caveman, Convergence, Kaleidoscope, and Rhapsody Quilts; Libby's applique and sheer ribbon illusions techniques; Alex's hand quilting, color and fabric shopping tips; as well as techniques for flip 'n sew, paper piecing, curved piecing, set-in corners and circles, and piped bindings. Whew! That's a lot!

At the back of the room, there was a small "show" of Ricky and Libby's quilts hung just for us to look at, and they had two tables with samples that we could touch, feel, and inspect. If you'd like to see images from this private quilt show, you can check out my album from the workshop.

While I have a lot going on right now and won't have time to start any of the projects covered in the seminar, I really, really, really want to make one of the kaleidoscope quilts. It's way easier than it looks, and you can see Ricky putting one together on a design wall here.

Ricky shows the Kaleidoscope Quilt Process
From Ricky Tims' Super Quilt Seminar

All of the instructors were good and put a lot of humor into their presentation. I was also impressed with how well they managed time and the transition from slides to live action and back. And the PowerPoint slides, while duplicating some of the material in the "syllabus," weren't copied exactly word for word, so it was entertaining and you felt like you really got something out of being there, as opposed to having gotten the same thing out of simply reading the syllabus. I especially liked the personal stories that the instructors told about how they got into quilting, what their sewing space looked like, mishaps in design and sewing processes, etc. All that being said, there were a few times where I felt like we were in church and the seminar was being run with call and response tactics to "make us converts."

It was also quite interesting to see the demographic represented. At one point, Ricky determined the age of the oldest person in the group. Would you believe that one woman was 81? And another was 80! Good for them! The next day, he did the opposite process and had people stand by decades of age ranges, moving downwards to see how many people were in each group. There was one woman in her 20s, and two of us in our 30s! Being amongst the youngest was enough to score me a free DVD. Isn't that cool?

Libby Lehman Quilt From Ricky Tims' Super Quilt Seminar

More about other aspects of the show soon. But most importantly, don't forget to exercise your civic duty today: get out and vote!!

Modern Quilt

2008-10-26T15:57:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I took a workshop through my quilt guild with the quilt artist Norma DeHaven. She was the lecturer at our last guild meeting and does some impressive stuff using freezer paper templates.

I'll admit that I wasn't so sure about the particular design we were going to make (a bit too abstract for my tastes), but was interested in the process and in supporting the guild's efforts, so I signed up to take the workshop. It was nice that the instructor provided a diagram in advance so that we could plan ahead and color in what fabrics we wanted to use where, etc. Of course, I did very little of that. Plan ahead? Color in a diagram? That requires too much work.

I did go to my fabric stash on Thursday night and pulled the suggested fabrics: three colors with a light, medium and dark value of each. I opted to work entirely within my existing stash (I had no time to go to the quilt shop for more fabric anyways) and took some other fabrics along with me as well, as I wasn't a true believer in the notion that this pattern required three different colors or that there had to be hard and fast distinctions between the values. I'm glad that I took those extra fabrics, as I did dig in and use some. Do you notice that one of the biggest areas - in the bottom right - is made from fabric I used as the backing to Russ and Shannon's quilt?

Preparing the template and cutting out the pieces was pretty easy, although I think we devoted way more class time to this task than was necessary. The afternoon portion of the workshop was devoted to sewing and if you pay close attention, you might realize why. See those rectangles on my finished top: they are all sewn in. Yes, sewn in, as in around a "u" to do those corners, etc. The ladies at my table - Caren, Sandi, and Diane - we all had issues with the technique taught to do this and experimented with our own. Caren came up with a pretty good one, although after I fought and fought and fought with my first seam sewn in this manner, the others flowed much more smoothly.

See the big circle inset at the right? She showed us a really cool technique for that requiring no pinning or matching registration marks. But it does involve a glue stick. It was pretty slick, other than I managed to catch fabric from the other side when sewing mine in and had to rip it out. Sigh. It was probably because I was in a hurry at the end of the workshop, attempting to sew it so that I wouldn't forget the process, which I think they'd showed us at Bigsby's a while back, but I'd forgotten, of course (really, how often do you inset a full circle into something else?). I'll probably forget again, and I'm sure that I can't explain the process well enough here for you (or for me). I tried Googling for other instructions to point you to, but to no avail. Just know that there is a really sweet technique out there...

I was impressed at how flat my finished project laid, given the number of curved seams and the fact that I cut it out of my fabric pretty haphazardly, with absolutely no attention to grain. Did I get lucky? Or is paying attention to all of that just overrated?

Now I have to think about how I want to quilt this... any ideas?

2008-10-25T09:04:00.004-05:00

My parents visited last week and Mom and I squeezed in a little bit of time for sewing. It's hard when we have so many other things planned and only a few days to do it all! In addition to sewing, we hit Goodwill (where, yes, we managed to spend a full 3 hours!), DSW, Christopher & Banks, a baby clothing resale shop, the quilt store, Bigsby's, the farmer's market, a craft show in Menomonee Falls, etc., while also canning up 42 quarts of apple-pie-in-a-jar and just having time to chat, play cards, fix meals, etc.

We went to Patched Works on Saturday and picked out some fabrics so Mom could make a new tree skirt. She decided to go with a beautiful range of blues and use Linda Marcou's pattern based on Marilyn Doheny's 9-degree circle wedge. Let's just say that it probably would have been easier if I'd had the correct length version of the circle wedge. I had the three smaller versions, but not quite the right one. Ever the creative bunch, we just added an extension onto the wedge using another ruler and followed the same cutting line. Mom got the entire top pieced in the afternoon! Doesn't it look great? Perhaps I can help her with quilting it at Thanksgiving time.

I chose to work on yet another new project (it's no wonder I haven't gotten anything finished lately - I keep starting new things!): this batik table runner kit featuring some drunkard's path variation (anyone know the actual name of this block?).

Now I know the layout doesn't look like a runner, but I ran out of room on the design wall (the top three rows represent exactly half of the runner) ... and I'm kinda liking the possibility of making it into a wall hanging rather than a runner. We'll see, however. I bought this as a kit from Keepsake Quilting. I ordered it in May and it just arrived about three weeks ago! (Not sure what the delay was, but I had to confirm once or twice that I did in fact still want it. At least they threw in for free the backing fabric to make up for the delay.) I'd also purchased one for Mom as a Mother's Day present and thought I'd work on it so I'd be able to help her out with suggestions when she gets to working on hers.

More quilting posts in the near future; I guarantee!

Works in Progress

2008-10-09T07:49:00.005-05:00

While I've been busy with fall activities, baseball, and homework for my class at MATC, I have found a bit of time to work on a few sewing projects. I finally put the last border on my Suffragette quilt, but I'm going to make you wait to see a photo of the finished project until I have it quilted.

I did use charm packs from the same fabric line - Minick & Simpson's Prairie Paisley - to make a small wall hanging - Decoy, a Schnibbles pattern by Miss Rosie's Quilt Co. I love this line and this pattern and can't wait to quilt it, although I suspect it may be a while until I am able to get to it.

I also sewed the guild's block of the month. I haven't done this in a couple of years because I would always leave it to the last minute and it was one more stressor to add to the mix on the night before a guild meeting. But I've vowed to be better this time around, and it probably didn't hurt the the first block is literally one of the ones from Suffragette, and it uses the Prairie Paisley fabric. It turns out I was about to follow-through and I actually had this done EARLY. Unfortunately, I didn't win any of the blocks in the drawing last night, but there's always next month!

Finally, I decided to pick up the Moda U. Postcard quilt that I began in the Moda U. club at Patched Works two years ago. I had three more of the feature blocks to finish (there are 13 total), and here are the ones I recently finished. I'm hoping I can pull this off as a Christmas gift for a special someone.

Fall Weekend, Birthday & Brew Crew

2008-10-05T18:11:00.007-05:00

It's been a fun and exciting weekend here in Wisconsin. I'd purposefully scheduled some relaxing and fun activities, because when one turns another year older, I think it makes it a bit easier to forget that fact.

Yesterday, Ben and I started the day off by going to Barthel Fruit Farm to pick apples. We picked three bushels of Cortland in practically no time at all. I'm going to make some into sauce and perhaps a cranberry/apple crisp or two, but most are slated to be turned into "Apple Pie in a Jar," when Mom comes out in two weeks. While at Barthel's, we also picked up a few pears to eat, a package of Galas, a package of ginormous Pippins to turn into a fresh baked pie, plus four nice-sized pumpkins for seasonal decorating.

We headed from the orchard to Azana salon in Brookfield where I treated myself to a 50-minute massage with the gift certificate Ben gave me last Christmas. It was wonderful; I have some money left on the gift card and should schedule another soon before the holidays come around again. The two of us followed this up with lunch at Le Cakery in Elm Grove, where I had my favorite: BLT salad and we split a tasty Turtle Brownie.

Then it was off to the farmer's market in West Allis where I snapped up two huge and beautiful mums before they were gone. We also bought some Roma tomatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, basil, lettuce, mixed sweet peppers, potatoes, two more bunches of Globe Amaranth (Gomphrena) for drying, and I think probably some other things that I've forgotten. I have to admit that I love the farmer's market and am sad that it will soon be dying down. I'll definitely be heading there next weekend and every weekend I can because I know the end is near. I was seriously tempted by the beautiful squashes but am waiting another week or two because I know they'll have a deal soon where I can mix/match in a basket for a really good price.

We came home and I took a few minutes to arrange the decorating purchases in front of the house. Here's a photo taken this morning. The straw came from the farmer's market last week. Good thing I got it then: I didn't see any this week. And it won't totally go to waste; I figure I can put it on the garden before the first snow (which I won't even want to think about).

Then it was off to the Brewers game at Miller Park. They made it to the postseason for the first time since 1982 and everyone here was really pumped up about it. The atmosphere in the park was electric and I am very glad to have had the opportunity to experience it. We had amazing seats in the Terrace Box level, pretty much right at third base. (Unfortunately, my camera died so I got only a few few photos - including the one above of the lineup for both teams.) I was crossing my fingers for a Brewers win because it would mean another game - one on my birthday - and I've always wanted to go to one on my birthday (the only way for this to happen, however, is for the team I follow to make it to the postseason). Yesterday's game was nerve-wracking, but they pulled it off, and it was just amazing to be a part of the crowd afterwards. People were making tons of noise, waving the free towels they provided at the door, high-fiving, chanting, etc. all the way to the parking lots.

Tam and Steve came to the ball game with us today (here I am with Tam). We got pastries on the way to the stadium from Cranky Al's (and a hazelnut latte that will beat Starbucks any day). It was great to go with our friends and spend time catching up with them. While the end result was unfortunate (the Brewers lost 6-2 and have been eliminated), it was awesome to be able to go and to experience the crowd and baseball again for one more day. And I can now say I've gone to a baseball game on my birthday!

Post-game, I opened some generous gifts from family members. Ben and I played a game of cribbage (he didn't even let me win on my birthday!) and finished reading the Sunday paper that we couldn't read this morning because we left for the ballpark so early to get parking (it's also raining outside, so no more outdoor activities today).

Tonight holds in store some pasta with fresh sauce and, I believe, just a wee bit of sewing.

What a wonderful weekend!

Hummingbird

2008-09-26T17:07:00.001-05:00

A small group from my quilt guild was inspired after a workshop with Amy Climer last winter to form our own group to encourage (force) ourselves to work toward creating our own designs and making art quilts. We first met in July and decided that we would meet once a month (to hold ourselves accountable) and work through the Art Quilt Workbook, by Jane Davila and Elin Waterston. The book is nice in that it breaks the world of art quilting up into workable chapters, each of which focuses on a different technique.

We decided we would all make quilts with the same theme so that we wouldn't have to come up with our own and so that we could compare experiences. The quilts are small: 9x12 inches, with an orientation of our choosing. We'll work in series of 3 before switching themes. The first theme selected was "birds."

I missed last month's meeting because I was in San Francisco for my conference and I had no time prior to that due to work on Russ & Shannon's quilt. This month, I combined ideas from the chapter on collage and the chapter on photos on fabric to create my first quilt (above). Everything came from my stash, which was nice. I purchased the hummingbird photo from iStockphoto and printed it onto fabric. The horizontal trim is from an "Adornments" pack I bought ages ago, intended for use on purses or fabric bowls, or who knows what. I like the overall effect, but it strikes me as something a third grader could do. Hopefully I can challenge myself a bit more for next month's meeting.

More images of my quilt are on my Picasa album. You can see pictures of last month's quilts on the group blog.

A New PR and Fabric Shopping!

2008-09-21T20:54:00.004-05:00

Today Ben and I ran for the third time the U.S. Cellular Half Marathon in the Fox Cities (Appleton, Menasha, Neenah, Kaukauna, Kimberly, etc.). We typically drive up on Saturday and spend the night in a hotel before the 8 a.m. race start on Sunday morning. It's not too far up there - about 90 miles - and spending the night in a hotel means one less thing to worry about on race day.

This morning was chilly (especially a 6 a.m., when the shuttle bus picked us up), but gorgeous, and I regretted the fact that I decided to keep on my long-sleeved running shirt for the race about 5 miles in. But really, you couldn't have asked for a nicer day. We weren't really expecting to have a great race - most of our longer runs this summer haven't been particularly good, and even our shorter runs have been frustrated by pain. We went out planning to finish and just enjoy ourselves. Well... when we were still running sub 8:45s six miles in, I realized we might be better off than we thought.

We were running really well until about mile 10, when I started to have some issues, but I hung in there and we were able to finish in a new PR: 1:56:45, shaving about a minute off last season's PR and averaging 8:55s throughout! Woo hoo! While our official places were 770 and 771 (edited 9/25: they just changed it to the chip times, and our places moved up to 764 and 765... the right direction, in my opinion), I'm still thrilled. You can see more placement information for me here. (Note: the difference between the reported time and our chip time was a minute and a half. It always amazes me how long it takes from the start gun going off until you actually get to the starting line in these fields!)

An added benefit of driving up on Saturday is the opportunity to visit Primitive Gatherings in Menasha. I certainly found lots of things to love, and if I did more applique, I'm sure it would be an even more costly visit. Here's photos of my purchases:

Several Christmas prints from the Whimsicals line Snow Wonderful:

Several lovely teal-y blues and coordinates from Brannock and Patek's Hemming House and the Collections for a Cause Heritage lines:

And finally, a number of cream and brown fat quarters for use in the Going in Circles quilt pattern by Buggy Barn (in the book Certifiably Crazy):

These creams and browns will join a variety of browns I'd already collected over the past year:

Finally, I finished shopping early enough on Saturday to work on cutting out some Christmas quilting projects while sitting in the hotel watching the Brewers game (unfortunately, they lost...).

What a great weekend!