Free-for-all Friday

That title really explains this post. It's kind of all over the place, sewing-wise.

First up, the commissioned quilt using the American Jane ABC fabric. The customer requested a disappearing nine-patch. We sat down the other day and I gave lots of options for fun and interesting designs, and he picked the design from the quilt sitting on my couch. I'm not complaining exactly, as a disappearing nine-patch is about as easy as it comes, but from a creative aspect I'd have liked something with a little more challenge. That being said, I hate these four blocks. HATE. Obviously this was just one block that I cut up to see how it looks, so the same fabrics are right next to each other [soooo many polka dots], but I think I'm despising how "primary color" it looks.

What's happening with the DWR this week? Nothing so far. My pile sits on my table, looking forlornly at me while I ignore it in favor of other more exciting things. Poor DWR. Hopefully I can work on it tonight as I have zero Friday night plans. 

Hundreds of HSTs to be trimmed. And trimming is bad for my soul. Seriously. It kills me a little, so I can only do 20 or 30 at a time before it feels like my brain is oozing out of my skull. I felt that way about calculus back in the day too.

And finally, some autumn care packages. I love sending packages. If money was no worry I'd constantly send packages to friends. This is why I love Christmas so much. I love picking things out for people that I know/hope that they'll love, packaging it up all pretty, and then waiting in anticipation for them to receive it. Seriously, is it Christmas yet? Anyways, my closest friends have slowly been moving out of the state for bigger and better things, so I thought I'd celebrate the season by sending out some goodies to them all. Variations on this package will be heading to Atlanta, LA, Berkeley, and Raleigh!

I hope I'm a florist in a future life. This is just some picks from the craft store [you often buy these to put in wreaths], some raffia to fill the jar, and a little twine to "tie" it all together. If you're not dying laughing at my wit...

I bought a 4-pack of flour sack towels at Target for $4 and embellished each end with a strip of patchwork. Simple!

To round it all off I made some simple hoop wall art with teensy scraps of autumn-colored fabrics and a touch of hand embroidery on natural colored Essex. Which is perfect, since today is Handmade Parade day at There and Back!

DWR Dilemma

"What the hell is that?"

That's the weather mapping that is over Orlando today. And no, I'm not in the little white section. Add in the fact that my car is at the shop and you've got a very dreary stuck-inside kind of day. A sewing kind of day!

So Jennifer and I have been working on DWR quilts, and cheering each other on. She's making hers out of Fandango, and I'm taking the opportunity to reduce my scrap bucket. Sadly, that meant that my cutting experience was probably a million times longer than hers, since I had to cut each piece individually.  I got 120 squares out of my tiny scraps without any apparent difference in the volume of the bucket!

I did have to supplement my stacks o' scraps with some yardage too.

Source

So here's where you come in! I'm having trouble deciding on my background fabric. The picture above is a DWR from a class at the workroom so you have an idea of what the final piece will look like.

Should I put my arcs made up of blue/green/grays/black&white prints on this background of the black and white pin dot...

...or this light blue and white pin dot?

Pictures are a little dull in color due to the aforementioned weather conditions, but hopefully you've got an idea of what it will look like. Help a girl out, and let me know what you think!

The Evolution of a Queen-Sized Quilt

A queen-sized quilt? What was I thinking?! Only for Kelly...

Kelly has been my best friend since sophomore year of high school. We were just people who went to school together and had classes together until then, but we slowly realized that we both loved crossword puzzles [and were consequently the coolest of people]. We were still just sort of friends when she invited me to NYC over Spring Break with her and her mom. She wanted me to go so she wouldn't be alone with her mom for 5 days, and I wanted to go because her mom said she'd pay for everything but the plane ticket. Best decision ever. We spent 5 days touring art museums and cemented our friendship over coffee, puzzles, and the ability to pack for a vacation in just a Jansport backpack.

College came around and she went to MIT, while I stayed in Florida at UF. She came home once a year and I visited her twice up there. I spent summers working and she spent them in places like Sierra Leone, India, and Singapore doing internships for her architecture program. I hope you can tell by now that she's super awesome?

Last year when she graduated from MIT she decided to go to grad school at Berkeley for urban planning, so now she lives out in CA, and we still only get to see each other for about a week a year. Plane tickets to CA are pretty hefty, so I haven't gotten to visit her yet. Whenever she comes home I clear my schedule and try to spend as much time as possible with her.

At Christmas she mentioned how much she liked Stephen's simple patchwork quilt and sort of asked for one. Then later in the spring she said she wanted to pay me to make one, but felt weird paying me, so she'd send me presents in exchange for a quilt. I said sure, and got started collecting fabrics. And then in April she mentioned she wanted to use it on her new queen-sized bed.

And I stalled. Feeling very unsure of tackling a queen-size quilt.

But for Kelly...

This quilt is made up of 510 five inch charms. It measured about 95x108" before washing. Stephen is oh-so-nicely holding it up when it's damp, because I plum ran out of time for it to finish drying before I had to meet Kelly. Which is why all these pictures are just "meh". Hopefully the quilt crinkles more!

Many people expressed interest in what I ended up doing for basting. I had to move all my furniture as far back as possible in my living room in order to accomplish this. I've tried taping the backing to the carpet as you would for hardwood floor basting, and it does not work for me. So I lay the batting out on the floor, then spray baste each side to it individually. This time I tried pinning the batting pieces into the carpet so that it would remain taut...it didn't work exactly how I'd imagined it would, but maybe that was just user error.

Apologies for the picture, but this was an afterthought as I was running out the door. There was no way in hell I was going to piece a backing after piecing the top, so I pulled out a queen-sized flat sheet I had on hand. Too small. I had to run out and get a king-sized sheet, and it was juuust big enough.

How long did this whole quilt take me? Well, I sewed the first 28 [out of 56] nine-patches, and then I was SO BORED. So I pulled out my computer and Season 1 of Veronica Mars. Kelly and I LOVE this show. Love. Spunky female detective played by Kristen Bell? Yes please. Watch it, love it, thank me later. I watched the entire first season [22 episodes at 45 min per episode] while piecing the rest of the top together and quilting it. I had to bind it without any TV distractions. So I would say the whole thing took about 25 hours to piece, quilt, and bind.

The picture above shows a few things: 1, the quilt is clearly still wet, so I hope it ends up looking better from the back when it's dry, and 2, that it's fairly lightly quilted and looks like it could be basted better. I can't wait for the day when I'm a professional baster and those quilts are as flat and smooth as can be.

Because this quilt was a beast, I knew I wouldn't be able to quilt it as much as I might normally quilt. So I put some straight-lines down the quilt every 4 rows, following the seam lines. Then I added some free-motion flowers using the squares to help guide me. I quilted a single petal in each square. Every other row I alternated where the flowers started so that they would be staggered on the back of the quilt. The flower part of the quilting actually went really smoothly...during the straight-line part I could feel my soul shriveling up inside. Ha!

There are a few special fabrics in this quilt just for Kelly: the Children at Play rocket print that she loved from Stephen's quilt and is a nod to the smarties at MIT, the Etchings blueprint fabric for her architecture degrees, and the gray Michael Miller Catherineholm enamelware print to celebrate our obsession with coffee at any time.

It was certainly tough to make this quilt this huge, and it may not have turned out as awesome as I wanted it to be, and I may have cursed at the air quite a few times during the process, but I would absolutely do it all over again for seeing the appreciation on Kelly's face when I dropped it in her lap :)

Oh, and then as my last present in exchange for the quilt she gave me Adobe Creative Suite, which has Illustrator and InDesign and is super expensive. She gets it on the cheaps through her architecture program. As soon as I learn how to use it all you can expect some exciting things!

"Sendin' out an SOS..."

*This post is brought to you by the song 'Message in a Bottle' by the Police. Rock on.

This quilt may look small and cute, my friends, but I took this photo from the 2nd story. That behemoth is 95"x108". I need a kitten for scale. Please feel free to give me a kitten for this purpose. And for cuddles.

So how do I quilt it?! And no, not what design do I quilt on it? I mean literally, HOW do I quilt it. My machine has a whopping 5.5" of throat space. I'm no math whiz, but I do realize that 5.5 and 95 are not the most compatible of numbers.

Things are about to get reaaaaal creative around here.

[Spoiler alert: I've already started quilting it. I've only torn out one chunk of hair so far. And there's only been one major pucker. I need to learn the secrets to perfect basting...did you hear that basting gods?!]

**PS, thanks for all the super nice words about my Winterkist gnoma advent calendar. You guys rock.

Friday Fun Day!

Woo! I finally got my bee block made for Marian!

The block is from the Sunshine Sparkle quilt from the Fat Quarterly Community Retreat Issue.

The thing that took me the longest?

Choosing the fabric for the little points!

I hope Marian likes it :)

I'm cutting and sewing more charm squares for the rest of the afternoon/evening. While I had originally laid all the squares out and was going to sew them in the order I'd decided, I've since found out that my friend wants a queen-sized quilt, so I've had to cut more squares and I think I'm going to sew 9-patches and then arrange those. Luckily I've also gotten some more fabric in the necessary color scheme since the first time I cut charms!

And then this evening I have to pick up some Newcastle [to celebrate London, duh] and watch the Olympic opening ceremonies :)

TGIW and a winner!

TGIW folks! I realize that not too many people get excited about Wednesday, but I've had a pretty bad week so far, starting with a nail in my 2-week old tire that I had to drive an hour home on back roads at 1 am [by myself]. But hey, when you start the week off like that then things can only pick up, right?

And it's definitely good for one of you...

The winner of the JOY charm pack from Urban Stitches is Robyn! Remember, she's hosting a huge Christmas fabric swap right now if you're interested. I know she's making a quilt and hoping to have all different fabrics, so hopefully this charm pack helps in that goal! 

And for those that didn't win, remember that you can use the coupon code SewFestive10 at the Urban Stitches shop until the end of July! Thanks Anna :)

As for me, I finished up this triangle log cabin table topper last week:

I had already made the top and just needed to quilt and bind it and get it to the store so they can hang it up. The class starts August 2nd, so I needed to get going!

If I'd had time to sit and ponder the quilting for a few days I think I would have done something different. I quilted straight lines in a concentric triangle in the center of each log cabin and then I FMQed in every other area. All in a light gray thread. I think it needed something a little more geometric, but oh well.

I used a great Kona teal color for the binding and I think it really frames the whole thing well.

Tune in tomorrow as I have a tutorial for my stop on the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop! :)

Top 10 Finalist and a WIP!

Eeeee! Remember my Nautical Striped Skirt from this past Sartorial Saturday?

I entered it in the Full Skirt category over at Crafterhours and it made it to the Top 10! The judges pick a winner out of the Top 10, but there is a Reader's Choice Winner too. So, if you don't mind, take a moment and go vote for your favorite skirt! You don't even have to pick mine, although I won't complain if you do!

I think the best skirts out of the contest are in this category :)

So for today's sewing?...

I ended up going with jewel tones, added in some more fabrics and scraps that I found, and got to cutting last night!

I have to go to the LQS today to pick up the fabrics that I'll be using for my class samples, so I'll pick up some more jewel tones while I'm at it!

And on Monday my friend Amanda finished up her t-shirt Polaroid quilt. She now has more respect for quilters in general [this took us about a month, working in 5-6 hour shifts two or three times a week], and is proud to give her friend a birthday present that she worked so hard on. And I'm proud to have survived teaching the making of an entire quilt to someone that had only sewn once before!

Today is a happy Wednesday! :)

*Linked over at Freshly Pieced for the last regular WIP Wednesday of the summer!

Llamalicious - Finished!

*Today is the last day to enter the giveaway that corresponded with the Christmas in July schedule and prizes! You have until midnight :)



I know that llamas are not generally nice creatures in real life. But on fabric they're so so soooo cute! Laurie Wisbrun is a genius.
As a result of this, there is a picture overload that follows. I'm not even sorry about it.

See?! So I was more than happy to add them to the mini that I made for Jessica in our personal swap. I completely revamped my idea to work the llamas and the flapdoodle hats into the mix. Jessica requested colors of blues/turquoise/greens/yellows/grays, and then I think the hat fabric throws in that little punch of red to keep it from being too "matchy".

 I made the strips in groupings of 4 print fabrics and 4 white strips. The white finishes at just 1/2" and the prints are 3/4" finished. Then I sewed them into rows.

 The middle part did require Y-seams around the llama diamond, but it really wasn't difficult. In fact, I had to sew seams multiple times during the making of this mini, but the Y-seams I did all in one go.

 And hey, look at those matching points!

 So the hardest part of making this...? Going from the above picture, which is everything all sewn together...

 ...to this squared off version. Seriously. I had to stop sewing and go try to relax first, because I was that nervous about it!

 And, in the spirit of keeping it real around here, this is the back. I almost always press my seams open, but I must admit it was tough with this because the strips were so narrow.

 I also really debated when I got to the quilting. I didn't want to quilt over the llama, and the mini is already pretty busy, so I didn't want to add to that either. What do you all do when your quilt doesn't have a lot of negative space?

 I used my go-to straight-line quilting marking tool...my pattern tracing wheel that I use for making clothing. I marked lines half an inch apart going against the grain of the direction of the strips.

 I auditioned several options for binding, which I usually do by pinning strips to the quilt to see how it looks. Stephen even weighed in, although he chose the gray. In the end I'm so glad I went with white.

 Jessica told me she's spending a little time with our llama friend before she names him. I suggested Larry or Ferdinand. I love pets with absurd people names. It cracks me up. 

 My favorite part about this design [other than the llama, duh] is the fact that when the strips are going in the same direction that they don't match up from row to row, which you can see in the above picture. But then when they go in opposite directions that's when they match up perfectly. I think it gives the overall design a lot more movement. In fact, I think it kind of looks like anime cartoons when they have the little character flying through the air and have those sound or movement markings around them. I'm not sure a lot of quilters are too familiar with anime...Full Metal Alchemist anyone?

 I used leftover bits of the rows that were cut off on the back. It's like itsy bitsy stacked coins! It rounds out in size at around 16x20" [I think, I was very tired when I measured it...]

 And hey, the quilting shows up great on the back!

 I'm getting pretty good at catching all the binding the first time when machine sewing it all on.

Jessica, I hope you don't mind that I might make this exact mini over again and have it in my own home. We can be twinsies :)

*Linked at SewHappyGeek, Pieceful Life, Canoe Ridge Creations
*Also linked at Quilt Story