Black, White + Aqua

Posted on September 15, 2011

I’m feeling pretty rusty at this blogging thing! I’ve written so many blog posts in my mind in the month (wow!) since I last logged in, but there always seems to be something else more urgent to do. And frankly, at 33 weeks pregnant, I have a shortage of energy to expend.

This quilt is the result of my first online bee. I asked for square in square blocks, thinking that I might cut them up for a bento box style quilt or leave as is. When I got all of the blocks back in the mail, I decided to do a bit of both. Half of the blocks were quartered and re-pieced with teal strips in the center to make up for the loss of seam allowances – and to add a jolt of color, too. I played with the idea of using something contrasting like yellow or lime green, and kind of wish I had now.

Dimensions: 54″ x 54″

Fabrics: Tufted Tweets by Laurie Wisbrun, Flea Market Fancy by Denyse Schmidt, Ta Dots from Michael Miller, Darcy by Anna Griffin, Woodland Delight by Paula Prass, and many others

Started:November 2010

Completed: August 2011

The back is a mix of prints used on the front plus two blocks that didn’t make it in time to go on the front.

It’s nice to have this one crossed of my WIP list, and I am pretty happy with the results. It’s definitely a departure from my normal color palette and aesthetic, but it was fun to try something new.

Hot Bobbins

Posted on August 8, 2011

My bobbin was literally hot last night after a marathon of quilting. Good thing Berninas use metal and not plastic. I managed to stipple quilt a 45″ square quilt in a little over an hour. Notice the Polka Squares quilt has moved from my “completed tops” list to “quilting & binding.” I’m so proud.

I set aside the red and aqua string quilt I showed last time. That quilting method is taking me a long time. I can’t get into a fluid movement and I struggle with the scale. I should probably have attempted it on a much smaller quilt than that one to start with. We’re going on a long road trip and I wanted to take it to bind in the car, but until we get back it will just have to be a glorified dog bed:

Summer Quilting

Posted on August 6, 2011

Summer is definitely not made for quilting – especially not a summer as hot as this one has been. As I’m writing this, it’s nearly midnight and still 97 degrees outside:

And we’ve got another hot week coming up. I am thankful that almost 28 weeks into my pregnancy I still don’t have any swelling or major aches and pains because this would be a tough summer to be feeling unwell. Thank you, baby, for letting me feel almost normal [the growing belly is undeniably a bit awkward, but having a temporary beer belly is kind of fun. I definitely notice people giving me those sidelong "is she pregnant or fat" glances. Like tonight at dinner when my husband ordered a Cobb salad and I had a bleu cheese bacon burger with fries.:)]

Even though it is not quilting weather, I’m desperately trying to get some of my WIPs done in the 12 or so weeks I have until my life is no longer my own. While prettifying this new blog layout, I decided to rebuild my WIP list in the side bar and whoa, Nelly, it’s a big one. This is probably the first real WIP list I’ve ever made because it was not done from memory, but by actually pulling things out of boxes and drawers. There are 29 items on the list (not counting my embarrassingly overdue bee blocks). How did I get to this point? And knowing just how many things I have unfinished, I can still think of a half a dozen more quilts that I would like to start. Never mind de-stashing and purging to make room for baby - I’m going to need my own quilting house before the year is out at this rate.

For those of you who only work on one or two projects at a time, how do you do it? Is it self-control? Lack of hiding space? Other hobbies that keep you busy? Do I need to take up tennis or bridge so that I have less time to think about quilting? I know I’ll never be a one-project-at-a-time girl, but 29 WIPs is about 20 too many. It probably doesn’t help that my method for getting things done is to list all of my to-dos, prioritize them, and then never look at that list again.

I was at a retreat last weekend and that helped me jump start the process. I am making some progress. I have two bee blocks ready to mail, I basted two tops, quilted one last weekend, and I have another big one on my machine right this minute. I’m even trying a new technique:

It’s not as fast as stippling but I think I’ll speed up as I get more comfortable with the motion. At least that is what I keep telling myself.

It’s Been One of Those Weeks

Posted on July 24, 2011

This week my website was hacked (again!) and my car was damaged in a hit and run. The hacking details are tedious and boring, but I am now blogging on a wordpress.com interface (instead of my own hosted site) so that I don’t have to worry about security anymore. Blogging is supposed to be fun, and dealing with a hack is not fun. Google had my URL blacklisted for most of the week, but now everything is up and running and okay. Many links are broken and photos are missing, but I should have all of that fixed in a week or two. If you visited my site in the last week, please run a virus and spyware check on your computer. You can download a free one from Microsoft.

So after dealing with that mess for 5 days, I was awakened at 5:00 am Friday morning by the police knocking on our door. Apparently someone hit our car and abandoned their car a few houses up the block. One of our neighbors called the police when they saw the abandoned car and the police were conscientious enough to check all cars parked on the street for damage. Police often get a bad rap but I have to say that my experience with them (though minimal) has always been positive. They had an accident investigator at our house making a report before they even woke us up. Sadly, my car is not drivable and had to be towed to the dealer for repairs. I am driving a rental for a couple of weeks, and my wonderful husband is dealing with all of the insurance and car repair issues. He literally spent all day Friday on the phone. The people that hit our car did end up coming by the house and giving us their info. They were a couple of college kids who were driving down to the lake near our house and got lost. They were genuinely shaken up by the accident, but thankfully not hurt. Everything will be fine in the end and I am not a superstitious person that believes bad things happen in threes so I am expecting only good things for a while.

I’ve been mired down in purging and organizing my sewing room because in a few short months it will be a sewing + baby room. I’ve gotta make some room for our little guy so a bit of de-stash is in order. Hopefully I can get some things listed in my Etsy shop this week. Meanwhile, I’ve started a new just-for-fun project because I needed some cheering up.

I am taking some of my Moda mini charm packs (charmlets?) and pairing them with a vivid pink to make 9-patch blocks. Then I’m going to quarter them and sew it all back together for a super scrappy quilt. (this one was my inspiration) I’ve got a combination of It’s a Hoot, Hullabaloo, Summer in the City, Central Park, and Buttercup. All of the colors are so happy together and it’s definitely cheering me up.

Baltimore Album Quilt

Posted on June 16, 2011

I signed up for a year-long Baltimore Album quilt class at a local shop called Happiness is Quilting. This is actually the first quilting class I’ve ever taken, and I’m very excited about it. Our first class was a couple of weeks ago and I’m already feeling very inspired and full of ideas. If you’re not familiar with the style, this is a Baltimore Album Quilt:

It’s all needle-turn applique and each block has a lot of symbolism for the woman who made the quilt. I think traditional Baltimore Album quilts are lovely, but I was really inspired to make one after seeing the wide variety of traditional and contemporary ones on display at Quilt Festival in Houston last November. I really like the idea of personalizing the traditional blocks to tell the history of my family.

Our homework from week one was to choose our background fabric and our focus fabric, and to create a papercut block. I’m still stuck on the fabric choosing part. Background fabric is traditionally white or cream on BAQs, but for a truly modern quilt, a colored background would be gorgeous and unexpected. The focus fabric sets the color palette for the whole quilt so it’s important to choose a fabric that you truly love. Here are the options I’m considering:

Option 1 is a Jo Morton 1850s reproduction print that is very traditional, with that rich poison green color I love so, so much. My background options are Kona Ice Frappe and Sage. I think the Sage is probably the one I’d choose. I can imagine myself always loving this fabric and the colors really are timeless so this option is very tempting.

Option 2 is an Anna Griffin print from her Darcey collection paired with Kona’s Nightfall solid. The colors in that floral print are pretty timeless as well and not that different from the Jo Morton print above. The print is a whole different story, though. It’s not a traditional floral, but it reminds me of a 1950s dress. The dark blue background fabric would make for a pretty dramatic quilt.

Option 3 is one of the wallpaper prints from Amy Butler’s Belle collection paired with Kona Bone. I’m already working on a quilt featuring Belle, and this fabric is impossible to find so that’s a vote against it. The colors in this fabric are just divine, though. Kona Bone looks really good with the rusty orange color in the Belle fabric. The whole palette is just spot on. On the other hand, the fabric is a large scale so most of the pattern would be lost on a 12″ to 14″ block.

It’s going to be hard to choose!

20 Weeks

Posted on June 15, 2011

20 weeks means that this baby is halfway done baking! I can’t believe it’s gone by so fast, and yet I’m a little scared that the next 20 weeks will go by even faster. I suddenly feel like I have a million things I want to check off my to-do list before this little boy arrives. And even though it seemed like it was never going to happen, my belly is finally starting to show! I was wearing my regular jeans until two weeks ago so I’m pretty proud of this little pot belly. (though if you ask my husband, he’ll say that I’m pushing it out in this photo)

The baby boy’s first quilt is well under way. I’m adding a linen border and then it will be ready to quilt this weekend. (I used this stack of fabric from Monaluna’s organic collection, Circa 60.)

My pieced curves are absolutely perfect, and though I’d like to take ALL of the credit, I can’t. Those perfect seams are courtesy of the amazing Curve Master foot. I heard about it from my friend Michelle and saw my friend Melanie use it to piece her king sized Single Girl quilt in a weekend at our last retreat. Every quilter must own this foot. No pinning, no squaring up. The only special tool you might require are some long tweezers to hold the ends of your fabric as you reach the end of the seam. I spent an couple of hours chain piecing the curves in this quilt and every single one came out perfect and I didn’t have to trim a thing. (Also recommended, the June Tailor Perfect Circles rotary templates. I bought mine at my LQS Quilt Asylum.)

Love, love, love the Curve Master! (the name sounds like an aerobics class, don’t you think?)

Popsicle Posies

Posted on March 23, 2011

I made this quilt using a pattern called Popsicle Posies by Sandy Klop (of American Jane). It’s a pretty easy pattern, but the final results look complicated and intricate which makes all the time it takes to assemble it well worth the effort. You will need some undisturbed space to lay out your pieces while you sew the top together (I did not have that luxury). But as a bonus, you will have some nice orphans – I used mine in this baby quilt.

The back is made of leftovers from the front and a bit of extra yardage. I didn’t plan to hand quilt this when I made the back, but I would have made a plain solid backing if I’d thought ahead.

Dimensions: 56″ x 56″

Fabrics: Sweet by Urban Chiks for Moda, coordinating Bella Solids by Moda, Ta Dots in Minnie from Michael Miller

Started: January 2010

Completed: January 2011

I used Perle cotton in size 8 to outline quilt each pinwheel (in colors that coordinated with the fabric in each block). That took me ages to do, and for a while I thought I’d never finish. After I was finally done, I thought very briefly about fan quilting inside each pinwheel. Instead I opted to stipple inside each one so that the final quilt would have lots of texture. My friend Michelle is working on this quilt using Nicey Jane fabrics and she is hand quilting the whole thing. It’s going to be gorgeous. You can see hers here.

Gridlock Quilt

Posted on March 6, 2011

I love the colors in this quilt. Looking at it reminds me that spring is right around the corner. I finished this one in January, but I didn’t like the snow photos I took of it.

The wind today didn’t allow for such great photos either, but at least the colors are more true to life. Here is the back:

I quilted this with my favorite thread – Aurifil. I used a variegated type for the first time and I loved seeing it work it’s magic on the quilt. Major oops on not getting a detailed shot of the quilting because the thread is very pretty (Aurifil 3920) and variegated is a nice complement to stippling.

Dimensions: 53″ x 72″

Fabrics: Lotus and Belle by Amy Butler, Ta Dots by Michael Miller, Oz by Sanae, Red Letter Day by Lizzy House, Dolce by Tanya Whelan, solids from Kona Solids by Robert Kaufman

Started: May 2010

Completed: January 2011

On a side note, it feels good to be blogging again! I’ve been in a creative rut lately, but I do have another finish to share soon that I’m really, really excited about. (Really, really! )

create! challenge

Posted on February 1, 2011

My blog and bee friend Kelly is having a February challenge to do something creative every day this month. I kind of already do that since I do sew every day, but I’m going to push myself a bit further and try to do something creative that is NOT quilting. Today I was lucky enough to get in a bit of crewel and some quilting.

This crewel kit is going to be a pillow for my sofa someday. I’ve been working at it on and off for nearly a year now. I’m kind of ashamed to not be further along because the most difficult part about it is threading the needle. (Note – when using wool threads for embroidery, don’t lick the end of the thread to make it easier to get in the needle eye. You will get a wool hairball. I swear.) Maybe this challenge will inspire me to finish it! There are also a few projects from the Martha Stewart sewing book that I’d love to work on.

I’m also finally quilting one of the projects from my end of the year WIP challenge.

The colors in this quilt combined with the 19 degree weather we’re having today make me so ready for spring. Will looks ready for spring, too, don’t you think?

wonderland

Posted on January 25, 2011

This makes Wonderland quilt #3 (#1, my second-ever quilt, and #2). I am still hoarding quite a bit more fabric from this collection so I bet Wonderland quilts will be showing up around my house for years to come. Need I say that this is one of my favorite fabric collections? What’s not to love? Look at all that color.

I actually already have a fourth Wonderland quilt planned using some of the orphans from this one. It’s going to be petite so maybe I can whip it up quickly and show you. I’m very excited about it.

I used a cool Anna Griffin print on the back of this quilt. My photo is very shadowy so it’s a bit hard to see but the detail image below shows it quite well. I bought it on a mega discount at fabric.com. It was something like $2.50 or $3 a yard. You really can’t beat that for backing.

Dimensions: 52.5″ x 64″

Fabrics: Wonderland by Momo, solids from Bella Solids by Moda, Flora by Anna Griffin for backing

Started: March 2010

Completed: January 2011

This is actually my second finish of 2011, but I have yet to blog about the first. You can see it here, if you’re interested.

Tomorrow I am teaching a modern quilting class at Make (a cool DIY boutique here in Dallas). I’m really excited to see what fabrics the students bring for their mini quilt. Introducing quilting to newbies is so much fun! If you’re in the DFW area and want to take a class, check out the schedule here. Later this year we’re going to be adding some more advanced classes for those that already quilt. I’ll share details when I know more.

Category Archives: Quilts