Another one down

Posted on 4 Comments

I finished this quilt top.

new wave quilt top

Calling it Blue Wave and Emma called dibbs on it. For her “new” room (Sarah’s old room) she wants to paint the walls blue. It’ll be a while until we get to it though. We have to do Meaghan’s room first. 😉 I’ll piece the back from some of the scraps (not much) and use a LOT of what. No idea on the binding or the quilting. I would *love* to do an allover stippling or waves, but my skill level is not there.

I also finished this top last Friday, but didn’t get a recent pic.

sunshine & shadow

All that needed to be done was sew two borders on the side. The blocks had all been sewn together, and the first two borders were on. They are also black. I will back this with black fabric and quilt it with black thread. No idea on the pattern yet though.

I sewed with Jo

Posted on Leave a comment

Our local quilt store, Christmas Crab Quiltery, has a free sewing afternoon pretty much every other Friday. they have a wonderful large shop with a second room all laid out perfect for classes. It’s HUGE! It is also heavenly to sew in.

it had been snowing all morning, and while it was not stormy (at least by Maritimer standards), it was steady so I got Ron to drive me in. I was the only gal who showed up, which was fine, because that meant I got the BEST table all to myself. I also brought in a few quilts tops that were all finished so I could show them off. Jo & Shelly have a slightly different style than I do, and many of the fabrics in the shop reflect that style – deeper, darker colors, lots of beige, brown, rust navy – great colors, but not always me. 😉 I prefer brighter colors and modern contemporary patterns. even the pattern I bought there I did different than their sample. That’s the awesome part about quilting.

Shelly has a blog here, go read it. She noticed I use a lot of cherry fabric when I can find it, so I joked that she’ll probably call me as soon as they get any fabric in with cherries.

I got a LOT of work done. The central table was large enough for me to spread out the way I like and work best. The iron was all set up, hot and waiting. Company was awesome, and there was even hot chocolate. What more can a gal ask for? I did not even get upset when I discovered I had sewn some quilt blocks in the wrong order and will have to take out three seams. It was no biggie because everything else went that much smoother. Probably not a good idea of me to wear my polar fleece sweater though. I have thread snippets stuck all over me.

No, I did not take pictures, or bring my netbook to check on tweets, or even tweet from my phone. It was a good three and a half hours away from technology, just talking and sharing and sewing, and even quiet times. At one point, I broke the silence by saying, “Wow, I have sewed for more than ten minutes and nobody has interrupted me. Not once.”

I am going to make this a regular habit, as I can see how very useful it will be when I finally get around to quilting some of these tops. At least it will be sooner than it is possible for me to get a new craft room. Kinda like having my cake and eating it too, even if it’s at someone else’s place.

Added bonus: when I run out of things, I am RIGHT THERE in the shop! 😀

My back hurts from being hunched over my machine, and I am really tired & sleepy (plus wound up from the chocolate) but my creative soul is happy. I have half a chapter left to edit, and a pile of screenshots to sort out, but after a good night’s sleep I’ll be refreshed. At least I hope so.

Worked on:
– quilt back for Dandelion Girl Chinese Coins, prepped binding, discussed quilting ideas
– trimmed back for rainbow quilt, cut binding
– 4 or 5 rows for red & yellow Disappearing 9 patch quilt
– 3 half rows for purple & blue New Wave quilt (minus mistakes, ran out of white fabric strips)
This one takes longer to sew, because of the angles, so I spent about half my time on it.

the process

Posted on 3 Comments

I guess there’s this process pledge running around the quilt bloggers.

While not exactly pledging, per se, it does at least give me a jumping off point for stuff to blog about. I mean, surely at least my mom will read this post… all the way to the end….

Some quilts take a long time to make. That might seem to you one of the biggest understatements of the year, (“It’s like saying Hitler was a tad disagreeable,”) but there you go. Some quilts take longer than usual because, as my mom says, you have to live with it for a while, before you actually live with it all finished.

(and when all else fails, give it away! Oh how generous, we made this just for you, I SWEAR we did…)

So once upon a time we wandered in a quilt shop and I fell in love with some fabric. *shrug* It happens. It happens with alarming frequency, actually. I bought a jelly roll of it. I convinced my mom to buy me a charm pack of it.

Charm pack

It very quickly mostly sold out before I figured out what to do with it. Also: I am cheap. I don’t want to by yards of something unless I really really (really) need / want it. And I realized afterwards when my local quilt shop owner does her own packs, they contain half the quantities. So I have a smaller stash. And I am stuck.

But still we get back to the process – I have these limitations, almost like a challenge or a trick algebra question on the final exam. You have X amount of 4″ squares and Y amount of 2.5″ strips, 44″ long. Your challenge: make a usable quilt that is both visually appealing and leaves as little leftovers as possible.

I get the fabric in April. By July, I figure out the blocks.

Oh hey, new quilt in progress

All the rest of the summer, I try different variations with the remaining bits of the strips used on the blocks set up on a felt design wall in the craft room. I’ve only done a few blocks to start, while I make up my mind. Then we discover the craft room wall is leaking, mildew is building up, and I pack up all kinds of things. That, in fact, was summer last year, not this one. It sits in a pile until now, shuffled off. Sometimes you need to do that – stuff it in a pile where you can’t see it. Hide it so your subconscious can turn the puzzle around.

I have new fabric coming, and the piles on one end of the production line are getting bigger, and things are not progressing down the queue. I resolved about a month ago to actually sew, instead of the real fun part – cutting stuff out.

Eventually this pile came to the top, neglected and bawling, and I pressed and I sewed and I plowed through the really quite small pile, whatever took me so long, now really Andrea, sheesh. I lay things out on the floor, when reasonably cleared, sometimes just out of trafficway but where others can see it and make suggestions.

testing layout

Here I am last weekend, testing out fit and the layout in general. Now that I’ve made up my mind on assembly and working on this quilt in particular, I can see that some squares need to be reorganized in terms of color and value, but while doing this, my main point was to figure out where to sew strips in relation to the blocks themselves. I just tossed them down, willy-nilly, spinning them quickly with one hand to line up the edges next to each other. Before I sew the rows together, I’ll get Ron to help make sure color and value are distributed evenly all over the quilt. No two prints touching, like cartographers of fabric.

Four rows of five blocks, and using strips means making sure I have enough for a border all the way around. There are two rows of strips between the rows of blocks, but not through the middle itself. The strips as rows are added deliberately to make the quilt more square, instead of along the other way, where there are more blocks. I overlapped them slightly to account for seams. The upper left shows one remaining strip, and if I guesstimated this correctly, I will have probably a 6″ strip left over.

Not accounting for backing and binding, that is. 😉

Next steps:

– sew strips together in groups of three
– test layout of blocks & strips
– figure out block layout and sew rows of blocks together
– test layout again
– sew rows of blocks and strips together
– test layout with strips as borders
– sew borders on

And then, THEN it can sit in the “finished tops” pile, which, although growing at a substantially slower rate than the “to cut” pile, is at long last growing. I can decide on the binding (leaning towards a dark color here) and backing later, either finding something in my stash or breaking down and actually buying yardage from the same line if I can find some. This one, I think, would be worth it. And lets face it – my mom doesn’t have any yardage of this line in her stash. No ideas yet on the actual design of the stitching when I do get around to quilting the layers together. I think I’d like to do swirly more so than following lines, though my free motion skills are laughable right now.

It is a small-ish quilt though, literally only covering your lap, or a small side table or a section of floor for a very special indoor picnic with your best play teacups, the antique ones in the cupboard that belonged to your auntie.

Oooo! Another one!

Posted on 3 Comments

So, the quilt is progressing.

More on the Amish quilt

Two more little corners, then I can swing into the border. I’ve had to retrace the design THREE TIMES. Because I used chalk. Well, the first time I used cornstarch because I read some stupid tip. One white me later, I decided it was a stupid idea.

Anyway. Despite the apparent struggles of the chalk lines wiping off, I am looking forward to doing the swervy interlocking border lines. I’m thinking of binding it in black, what do you think?

(I will also add a label & a sleeve for hanging, as it’s wall-sized.)

***
Emma has been crafty lately.

Emma's pets

As you can imagine, being a long-term homeschooler who used to own a craft store, I have a tons of supplies. you know, just in case a crafting emergency breaks out. You never know.

So I’ve been encouraging her to do more creative exploring and independent work. (She countered with “How about you teach me to sew on the sewing machine?” Smart kid.) Now she has something like 16 of these puppies. I got the Klutz book at a yard sale where these kids tried to sell it with half the supplies left, couldn’t then tossed it in the (clean) trash at the end. Yes, I snagged it.

There were cardstock pages of small items to punch out and fold together, but these were gone. Emma traced the outlines and made her own. We got new eyelash yarn for the bodies and OF COURSE we had a plentiful supply of pipe cleaners and googly eyes or beads.

If you would like to adopt a wonky-eyes pipe cleaner dog (or kitty!) just let Emma know. Carrying case may or may not be included.

***

And in case you are of the 20% of my readers who are NOT related to me, you may be unaware it is my birthday on Sunday. A very dear friend that I work with occasionally sent me a “little something” from my Amazon wishlist.

Books!

I KNOW! I was pretty jazzed.

And thankful. 🙂

I’ve been quilting

Posted on 10 Comments

Last count (I made a list) I have 22 quilts on the go.

Over the years, I have completed three quilts.

I fall down at the actual quilting part. I *love* picking out fabric. I *love* sewing the tops together. I fight & struggle and OW and moan about the sewing together of the layers. Hand sewing takes so long. I’ve been working on a hand-quilted twin sized quilt for Sarah since she was about 6 years old.

machine quilting? My machine hates me. My other machine? Well, it had feed issue. As in, when you release the feed & drop the feed dogs, it still feeds. (Yeah, I know.) I am surely kicking myself now.

So with a looming pile of quilt tops, and the fabric re-sorted into piles, half of which are uncut, things were urgent. Emma says I shouldn’t cut out any more quilts until I actually, you know, quilt. There are four completely finished tops waiting. There are six quilts tops in progress. The rest are piles of carefully stacked fabrics no one is allowed to touch.

Except for one.

One I am actually machine quilting.

I had started trying to machine quilt it with what I had, then wound up unpicking it all.

oops

Yes, my family thinks I am nuts. I’ve basted and re-basted this puppy, trying to find what works best for me.

properly thread basted

I finally broke down, bit the bullet, scrounged up the thirty whole dollars for something for myself, and bought a walking foot for my machine. (The one that hates me, but it may fit on my other one too)

walking foot

My friend Jo said “omg, you didn’t already have one?! “ I KNOW!

I sent my mom an all caps email & told her I was in love. I’m sure she’s deliberating which ones of her tops she can convince me to quilt for her.

Last night, I did a substantial amount of some heavy quilting on this particular quilt with my brand new walking foot. I took small breaks, put Emma to bed and kept going till I was too tired and made a boo-boo I really had to pick out. It was only one straight line.

This was earlier in the evening. The blue areas are all done now.
machine quilting

This morning my arms ache. But it’s a good ache, you know?

***

A word on the planned quilts: Like many sewers I have piles of fabric. My mom & I share fabric back & forth, plus I scour second hand stores & yard sales, as well as fabric shops, for any piece that “speaks” to me. This means I have a stash of fabric that needs its own room. If you knit, just replace “fabric” with “yarn” and you’ll relate.

So, since I have also been on a cleaning tear lately and ready to chuck out half our belongings, on one of my much-needed mental breaks from work things, I played around with my fabric, got inspired, and groups things together in nice stacks for future quilts. I’m using what I have here, even for the backings. Some in the stash have people’s names attached to them too.

piecing the back

The only thing I really need now is quilt batting.

Also, I’ve been sketching some designs too, because I said at the first of the year I should do more art.

red & yellow disappearing 9 patch

It’s a nice break from work, and some days sorely needed. This is how I recharge, and I need to make sure I do it.

Quilty Fabricy bits

Posted on 3 Comments

Seems weird to be right into quilting when the weather is getting increasingly hot out there. But I can hide in the living room, the Cave we call it, where it is still cool and blissfully dark.

Oh, but I need a light for stitching.

Amish Sunshine & Shadow

This quilt I kept having endless issues with. In an effort to use up some scraps, they were far too short for any speed strip piecing techniques. I would up spending more time fiddling with strips and ripping out seams than I did putting blocks together. I forged through until I got 16 blocks, then I stopped. It’s lap sized or wall hanging sized. It still needs a border, and then quilting. Not sure how I’m going to quilt it yet, or even what color thread. Then I think I may sell it.

The process of hand quilting

I am quilting my daughter’s quilt, on my mother’s quilt frame, with my grandmother’s tools. I have decided that while I like speed piecing techniques, I adore old-fashioned patterns and quilting. I like some machine quilting as long as it’s on a small machine. I don’t like long-arm computerized machine quilting. It makes the quilt look store bought, and then I think what was the point in that?

And I am cursing myself over Sarah’s quilt. When I pieced it together, I had a new serger and sewed many of the strips together with that. then decided to hand-quilt it. If you don’t just go “ow” I’ll tell you why: serged seams are bulky and stiff. My stitches mostly skip them entirely. And there is a lot, as I also pieced the back. Yes, I have learned a ton of stuff since then.

There’s two stacks of fabric waiting to be cut for quilt tops. One, the old soft florals for Ron & I, another, reds and yellows with white. Can’t wait to see it. I keep swapping out fabric until I am satisfied, and I have an idea for the block layout, but I’m not sure I can pull it off without overthinking, and I don’t want to mess it up either.

It has to be enjoyable for me, this piecing together of fabric and pattern and color and shape, so they all work as a whole. I see it in my head, this quilt. The hard part is getting it out.

Not sure if I want to hand-quilt a third quilt, especially a big one. But either of my machines are to cranky to machine quilt with. My mom will be loaning me hers to try, as an instructor told her it would do machine quilting quite well. If it does, and I get the hang of it, I’m sure I will be doing all mine and mom’s too.

tally:
– one quilt on the frame (Sarah’s blues and pinks)
– 3 finished tops needing to be sandwiched and basted, then quilted (blues, baby and navy/yellow)
– 3 tops in process (purple pinwheels with Nanny’s dress, Amish sunshine & shadow, rainbow stripes)
– 3 stacks of fabric waiting to be cut (faded florals, red/yellow/white disappearing 9 patch, green florals for triple Irish chain)

Oh wow, that’s ten. I’ve got it bad. Right now, I’m mostly trying to use up the stash, and picking out fabric combinations and trying to be inspired.

More weekend stuff.

Posted on 3 Comments

I uploaded a bunch of pictures to my flickr. I seem to do them in batches.

And I’m annoyed at ebay buyers. I sold a small pile of stuff, answered a HECK of a lot of questions about shipping (yes, I’ll combine) and then after they won, I sent combined shipping charges, no payment. I sent a reminder. No payment.

If it was one person, that would make sense, but out of 4 buyers, two have neglected to pay after a week. Both for multiple items. One won two auctions, the other won 4.

I may have to threaten them with neutral or even negative feedback.

But! I sold an item on etsy! I was pretty happy ’bout that.

Faaaaabric

Posted on 3 Comments

I am lost in fabric.

Mom was here on the weekend and we played with fabric. We also bought fabric, but only a little bit. I sewed some stuff for her, but I’m not supposed to tell because it was for a class and she sucks at binding. She gave me some fabric, and it wasn’t even part of my (belated) birthday present. Aw, she loves me. 🙂

And today I got up from the computer, went to start supper, then sewed. And sewed. I sewed for two hours because I was inspired to make a tote bag from a charm pack and some scraps. (Also Ron figured out why the plugs out there weren’t working.) Mom brought me some scraps from her local shop that the lady there was throwing out. I KNOW!  I can’t bear to just toss out fabric – the amount of one print and a bit was enough to completely line my tote bag. All it took was some creative piecing.

I am also jazzed that my library now emails me to tell me when my books are due. Library trip tomorrow, who’s with me? And to tie it in, I’ve made a couple of totes for the library to sell so they can raise money. I’m nice like that.

Anyone need a tote? 😀 “Seams” like I’m on a roll. 😉

Charm pack tote:

Using moda’s Natural Garden charm pack, I made two disappearing nine patch blocks  from this tutorial.

Nine patches

I think the charm pack had 32 or 40 5″ squares, all different. I arranged the patches in a pleasing manner first, saving the ones I didn’t like so much for the sides of my box tote. I had 4 blocks left over, which I eventually used on the inside.

nine-patch variation

After I did the block, I sewed nine patches in a very long row for the sides and bottom of the bag. I had to carefully piece one long edge around three edges of one block, then the other edge to the other block. Then my outer bag was done. Since I need to work on my accuracy, I was extra careful to iron, pin and align seams. Iron every seam before it crosses another seam – this is the difference between something looking handmade and it looking hand crafted.

Bag lining

I pieced all of the scraps I had from one coordinating print all together, continually holding them up to the blocks as I went to best take advantage and minimize waste.

bag inside

When I saw that I needed a bit more, as luck would have it 4 of the leftover charms fit right in. I put that strip right up the middle of one inside panel. Since the inside is pieced differently, I boxed the bottom by pinching the corners and sewing a triangle shape.

Inside and outside of bag all done

I still have to make the handles using a scrap piece and some plain fabric from my stash. All in all, given half of the fabric was free, and mom got a discount on the charm pack, this is my $7 CAN tote. 😉

(Not counting the two hours to sew it together, and the other hour to arrange the fabric and do the math.)