On the process of quilting...

How do you choose your quilting design?

Do you draw on a picture of the quilt/block?

Do you use the quilt motifs that can be found in quilting programs to lay over your design?

Do you quilt what you know/are familiar with?

Do you practice on something else first? [I almost never do that because I have the patience of an ant. As you can clearly tell in the below picture of my remarkably imperfect pebbles]

How do you choose your quilting design?

A 25 hour quilt. Ish.

If you're looking for my Sew, Mama, Sew! Giveaway, please go here.

So yesterday I shared the story surrounding my friend's wedding quilt. And today I promised you the process. Now, just a warning, if you get stressed by time deadlines, you might want to avert your eyes from this post. Also, I swear I'm not normally like this, but the universe just did not smile on me making this quilt!

Sometime in January I decided I wanted to make a quilt for my friend Rachael for a wedding present. Her wedding isn't until July, so I thought I'd take my time and get to it later in the year.

On May 1st [the day I moved into my new place] I got the invitation to her bridal shower [on May 20th] and decided I wanted to give the quilt to her then so I could see her open it. I'd make it in her wedding colors of blue and gray with a pop of yellow.

May 3rd-5th I chaperoned a conference for my sister's high school newspaper, and took my blue fabric with  me to start cutting out the pieces. Except I forgot the templates. No cutting took place.

The rest of May was a whirlwind and I was incredibly busy, and barely got my sewing room up and going and my house in order. Which brings us to...

Thursday May 17th:

Finally perfected my enlarged templates [#18 Century of Progress block from Farmer's Wife Quilt]. Or so I thought.

Friday May 18th:

Cutting, cutting, cutting. Cutting all my previously cut pieces smaller. Way to go, Rebecca >.<

Ran to my LQS [30 min drive] to get whatever true blue fabrics I could find and hopefully a light gray. I ended up with a Moda Bella gray of some sort.

More cutting. Seriously. I got a blister. It was all cut by hand after I traced my templates.

Sewed together a couple of pieces and realized my templates were off, but if I sewed 3/8" seams then they were good to go. This should have been foreshadowing.

Saturday May 19th:

This is what I had at noon. I had 25 hours before I had to leave for the shower. Ready, set, go!

4 pm: Realized that I wanted it to be bigger than 3x4 blocks, and so I needed 5 more blocks.

 6 pm: Went to Joann's to buy all the blue DS Quilts prints that they had that were blue and white. Also refueled on caffeine. Note: thousands of teddy grahams gave their lives during the making of this quilt.

 7 pm: Throwing possible backing fabrics on the ground. Thinking I should have just bought a sheet for the back.

 8 pm: Stephen walked in the room and said I needed to get rid of the rockets in the bottom middle because it was the only block with colorful blue fabric [since when does he give quilt input?!]. I replaced it with the only blue and white fabric I hadn't used, a Riley Blake chevron.

9 pm: The backs looked pretty good considering I was sewing as fast as I possibly could.

6 am on Sunday: I don't really liked colored borders, and I had just enough white to make the quilt about 5 inches bigger on each side.

 7 am: Backing is pieced, and quilt is basted. Stephen even offered to help, because he had just gotten home from work. I was astounded once again, but really appreciative. Basting was [I thought] so much easier on this longer carpet! It was so smooth and nice!

11:45 am: FINISHED. 1 hour and 15 minutes early. Long enough for me to stick it in the washer and dryer, for me to take a shower, and then to take pictures of the quilt. It was a quilty miracle.

There was really only one moment when it was tragic. When I realized my basting on the back got messed up. I blame this partly on being very tired because I didn't re-check the backing when I was done basting. And then didn't realize it was bubbly/puckered until I was DONE quilting. I didn't have any option but to go with it, because I had no time left. After I washed it it got a little better, but there are still spots like this fold that makes me so sad.

Stats:

24 pieces per block x 20 blocks = 480 pieces.

That's 480 hand-traced and hand-cut pieces. Plus sewing the blocks together. Plus the borders. 500 seams.

Approx. 60x70" finished.

The majority of it [everything except those first 6 blocks] was done over a 25 hour period. I was awake a total of 32 hours from Saturday morning to Sunday evening.

After the shower, I went home and slept for 14 hours.

*Linked up with Quilt Story

Smorgasbord in my brain.

Dear Internet,

Please stop being so awesome because my brain is on overload.

Love,

Rebecca

Seriously, my brain is buzzing with ideas. I can't help it. I read about a contest or challenge, not because I'm seeking them out, but because bloggers that I read daily are mentioning them or hosting them, and I think of an idea. And then I can't get that idea out.of.my.head.

1. Tangerine Tango Challenge - the idea wouldn't leave me alone; thankfully it just needs binding though

2. The Modern Mini Challenge - instantaneous plans involving either clamshells or diamonds; maybe I should make 2 minis?

3. Sew, Mama, Sew's True Love contest - creating my own paper piecing pattern; the idea was actually my second, after I discarded the first for being too easy/expected

4. fabric? must. stash. cross-stitch idea - had to draw it out and make it once it took hold in my little brain

5. Moda Bakeshop's sewing version of Chopped? - love it; buckles have been on my brain since I read about it

The point of this is: Heaven forbid I even get a job at this point. All I want to do is sew until my ideas come to fruition. But more exciting contests keep popping up! More ideas! I don't even do it for the chance to win a prize, although that would be nifty. I do it because I feel compelled to compete and challenge myself. 

Oh, and I know you're reading through this and thinking that I should probably just get some brain self-control and that you really just wanted to see the interlocking stars quilt that I said I'd be showing today. Well, sadly, Florida weather is awful today. It's not always sunshine, and today is particularly dreary. So no photos of the full quilt. But I have a consolation prize! Sort of. Not really.

Apologies for the crappy photo, I told you today's weather was bad.

You see that fantastic fabric right there? Well, it's awful to quilt over. I couldn't see my stitches at all. I thought I was doing fine, and then when my bobbin ran out I turned the quilt over to see this:

Also, I'm apparently not so good at large stippling.

Devastating. Nothing I can do about it now, but man does it show up so well on that solid backing. I was quite aggravated, because I've never looped over my stitches before when stippling. First time for everything?

On a final note, they started announcing Sewing Summit teachers today. Attending the Sewing Summit was one of my goals for 2012. Apparently registration starts in March. Anyone thinking of going? I think I'd want a friend to bolster my courage, and if I'm going to take a leap and attend a sewing conference, I might as well take another leap and think about rooming with someone I've never met in person.

Now I need a nap. I'm sure you do too after reading all that.

Tumbler table topper

 Remember that stack up there? It became something!

But before I talk about that, let me mention something about the Kitchy Kitchen fabric.

The picture is blurry because I was trying to iron and take the picture at the same time. The fabric changes color with heat! Instead of being lime green it turns to an olive green, almost goldenrod. It's not permanent, but is a little worrying. I haven't put the fabric in the dryer yet, so hopefully nothing bad happens!

 I had 12 tumblers. And wanted to center them in some Essex linen. This required sewing the tumblers together into strips first. It took me a couple of tries to get the angle of the Essex strips correct so that they would follow a straight line after I pressed the seams flat. 

 But hey! Look! It worked! [And I'm LOVING the color combo, if I do say so myself]

I have had a half yard of this Secret Garden print since right after the line came out. I LOVE it. I love everything about it. But I was having the darndest time figuring out how to use it. I certainly didn't want to cut that beautiful large print up into smaller pieces. So I cut out a solitary circle to use in the back of the topper so that it will be reversible. This layout was one of my attempts to figure out what fabrics to use with it.

 I quilted echo lines right outside the tumblers on each side, then quilted another set of 3 lines about 2.5" from the first set.

This is pretty small at approximately 16x24", but my table is only 38" square, so I wasn't looking for it to be overwhelming. It still needs some binding, of course, but I need it to be the perfect match for both the front and the back. I'm thinking a hot pink? We shall see. I'll probably use this on the table anyways until I get the binding on it.

I adore how the back came out! I can totally image a candle sitting in the middle of that circle. But, as you'll notice, the square ended up crooked. I thought I was so careful in placement. It's driving me nuts. I'm trying to decide if I should trim it square from the back and hopefully not notice the subsequent crookedness on the front...

So hooray for finishing projects! [or almost finishing...] I'm linking up with Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story so that my table topper is in good company!

Next up: more work on the Tangerine Tango Challenge and my For The Love of Solids Swap :)

At what point do you throw in the towel...

...and let something not be perfect?

See that bottom right-hand corner? The most frustrating part? Look at the top right corner...it matches perfectly! I'm not quite sure what happened, but this isn't a 100% cotton [it feels like it could have some sort of linen in it], and you can see the subtle warping of the fabric throughout, so I guess that equals completely off by the time I got to that corner.

I worked so hard to make the 2 vertical sides match up. Each of those sides is 2 pieces because I only had 1/4 a yard of this fabric, and therefore it wasn't long enough for me to have a single-cut piece. Sigh.

I'm going to instead focus on those adorable reindeer who are just head over heels in love with each other!