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.

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?)

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?

future WIPs

Posted on January 7, 2011

Have you seen the episode of The Office where Jim sends Dwight faxes from “future Dwight”? I have a note from my future self. She’s kindly listed out the WIPs I’ll be scrambling to finish at the end of this year.

So thoughtful, right?

I’ve been working on my resolution to get organized this week. The first day was frightening for everyone. My husband walked into the room and all he could say was “whoa” as he backed away slowly. My little Moosey, who has his own bed in pretty much every room of the house because he likes laying down and being with people, kept looking at me like this:

His bed was buried behind a sewing room explosion and everything he laid on kept getting moved into a new, [supposedly] better organized pile. After three days of this chaos, we’re all ready to finish up so I can get back to sewing. There are some super late bee blocks waiting in my inbox that I plan to tackle tonight.

Show Your WIPs + Resolutions

Posted on January 2, 2011

I seriously underestimated how little time I would have this holiday season. My WIP list is decidedly unimpressive, and none of my excuses are very good.

1. Love Panes quilt {binding}
2. Plume Charms quilt {quilting + binding}
[adding hand quilting]
3. Fussy Cut Bee {piece top}
4. Modern Siggy Swap 2 {piece top}
[ran out of white sashing. worst excuse ever.]
5. Wonderland in Aqua {make backing + baste}
6. Gridlock: Summer Palette {make backing + baste}
7. Happy Campers {piece top}
[my heart wasn't in this one. I fell out of like with the fabric and can't get motivated to touch it.]
8. Red + Aqua Strings {make backing + baste}
[all of my safety pins were otherwise occupied]
9. Far, Far, Away 2 plum {piece top}
[see below for the excuse]
10. Evangeline in Paris {complete all cutting}
[No excuses, but wanted to mention that I'm liking my test block more now that I read some feedback comments. Thanks!]
11. Black, White, and Aqua {piece top}

6/11 completed. I sort of sabotaged myself with number 9, the Far Far Away quilt. In my head, the layout was going to be a simple boho design with lots of over-sized, irregular patches but when it came time to cut the fabric, those princesses wanted to be something else entirely. I’ll share a photo once I finish another block or two.

So how do you do on the challenge? I’ll be perusing blogs and comments to find the winner tomorrow. I’m thinking of a couple of options for a prize (one of them is a Sherbet Pips charm pack!).

Now on to my resolutions for 2011.

No more squares. Square quilts can be cool, and I’ve made my fair share of them. They’re attractive to beginners and they’re very popular all over the modern quilting blogosphere, but I’m starting to find them a little boring. I want to challenge myself with more complicated piecing in 2011.

Use that fabric! My fabric stash is constantly growing, and I’m almost to the point where I look at it and wonder what the point is. There’s no way I can ever keep up at the rate I’m hoarding it. I’d have to make a quilt a week. I attempted to guesstimate the yardage, but when it got well into the triple digits I gave up. This resolution is twofold – to not only use the fabric I’m stashing away at an alarming rate, but to also cut back on new purchases. I’m limiting myself to a yard a week (or $10). That means that if I need backing, I have to hold out for 4 or 5 weeks to buy it. Any monies not spent will be added to my fabric piggy bank.

Branch Out. Before quilting infected my brain, I loved to embroider. I knit and crochet (very little) as well, but I never do any of those things because the quilting fever has got me bad. I’m going to make an effort to do more tactile arts this year. My wonderful parents gifted me with this gorgeous kit at Christmas and it combines quilting with embroidery so it’s a good start.

Get Organized. This means you scrap basket! My scraps and WIPs are overwhelming but I already have them organized in my head. Isn’t that half the battle?

There were so many unexpected blessings in my life in 2010, and I know that 2011 will also be full of happy surprises. I hope your new year is as well.

New Year's Eve

Posted on December 31, 2010

2011 is right around the corner. Tonight we will be celebrating with family and there will be lots of food, fireworks, and champagne (plus a little quilting for me). My WIP list is smaller, but not complete so I’m trying to take advantage of every spare minute. I finished all of the cutting for the Evangeline in Paris quilt, but I’m not loving the test block I made today:

[This block measures 8.5" inches square and there are a total of 32 of these in the quilt (plus 32 8.5-inch half-square triangle blocks.) ]

For the rest of the blocks, I’m going to be more careful about the contrast between fabrics and substitute solids where needed to make sure that both stars really pop. I got a bit lazy towards the end of my cutting marathon and had a rotary cutter incident. Just FYI, you don’t need all of your index finger to sew. A little notch out of the tip doesn’t make much difference.

Let’s meet back here Sunday to see how we all did with the challenge. Get to sewing and celebrating!

progress

Posted on December 21, 2010

Two and a half bobbins and many hours later, I’m one fourth of the way done.

This straight line quilting is brutal. I’m going to need a shoulder transplant after all is said and quilted.

While I’m mindlessly quilting straight lines, there are visions of fat quarters dancing in my head. Yes, I’m already thinking about my next quilt. It really is an addiction.

A little French, a little sweet, a lot awesome fabric. Caleb Gray’s new line, Suburbia, was just released and I love, love, love this tea print:

It’s my inspiration for my next quilt (okay, the one after the next one…or second….or third one). It would also make a charming apron, if you’re into that sort of thing.

a quilting marathon