Project Recap

I've been feeling the usual springtime flood of new quilt ideas, so I thought I'd do a recap of my current projects here. Maybe it'll keep me interested in the present, instead of running wildly at the future.

First is my cottage floral quilt, which is my current priority. I LOVE the design I'm stitching into it. And now that I've started watching Game of Thrones all over again, I should be able to knock this one out soon.

Quilting the borders will be the most laborious part, and may get a little more repetitive than I like. But as long as Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are around, I should be okay!

Gemini is pinned and ready for the quilting hoop. It's been waiting more than 8 months.

I have no idea how I'm going to quilt this, but I am fighting the urge to jump right in and start brainstorming and trying out my stencils. I also have some appliques I'm thinking of adding to those bare spots. I'm going to have a really good day planning the future of this quilt, just as soon as the floral is done.

Both of these are waiting for the hoop.

And now I have a newish piecing project. That sampler I started a while back started getting boring. So I decided to throw in some aqua. I loved it at first, but the more I look at it, the more I question it.

I think it's possible for this to go horribly wrong, or shockingly spectacular. Can't decide yet, but I'm going to keep going and see what happens.

For me, just going with the flow is difficult with a craft as structured as quilting. I haven't found a class that teaches that particular skill yet, going with the flow. But maybe I can pick it up naturally by making these kinds of spontaneous left-hand turns more frequently.

To close, this is my new favorite picture of my cat. Periodically, she gets sick of us and faces the wall.

a whole year?

Since my last post a year ago, lots has happened.

We got rid of our carpet, and that makes it easier to wheel my sewing machine around. But I've decided I don't like wheeling it around. I want it to have its own spot. So we are turning the dining room into my sewing room. It's going to take some time to decide how to make the best of the furniture I have in the tiny space I'm using. But I'm happy about it.

Over the summer, I started a baby quilt for a lady I've known for quite some time. I bought the fabric for this very quilt so many years ago, I was happy to spring into action when she told me she was finally pregnant! But then I found out that most of these prints are pretty hard to find, now. And I needed more of a certain one. Thank goodness I have a friend with my same appreciation for these prints, because she happened to have exactly what I needed for the backing.

I put this quilt top together in a weekend, I was so excited to be making it. The quilting didn't take very long, so I was able to get it finished up and mailed off before the baby was born. 

I've been working on my vintage-ish floral quilt, too. The more I work on it, the more I love it. I wasn't feeling the design for a long time, and some of the colors were rubbing me the wrong way. But I'm starting to really fall in love with it as I quilt my pattern into the blocks. And I know who's getting this quilt now, which makes it even more fun to work on.

Erica's quilt top is finally done!! I just ordered the backing, which is being shipped to me next week. I feel relieved and extremely proud to have finally gotten to this point. I have gone through a lot of insecurities while working on this one, but I couldn't be happier with how it turned out. It is, without a doubt, the best quilt I have ever done, and I'm jumping out of my skin to start the quilting on it!

I promise to provide a much better picture of it once I baste it. I added a dark purple border all the way around it after this picture was taken.

And here's a little teaser for the project I just started. It's my first sampler quilt. My brain needs this challenge, and maybe I should learn to follow the rules for once. I am learning new techniques and doing a lot of math. I am even measuring my seam allowances for the first time ever! And I'll be damned if this isn't a ton less frustrating than the wing-it way I've been doing it for so long!

quilting acrobatics

I forgot how hard this is. I was so excited to get this thing done today, but it's taking me forever. I've already injured my elbow dodging furniture, and I was starting to feel a little dehydrated. So I'm taking a break for water and a little blog updating. Luckily, the husband took the kiddo to Peter Piper Pizza, so no one is walking on it except me and the cats.

I'm glad to get started on the quilting here. I've been trying to catch up with Game of Thrones and Vikings, and watching tv is very difficult for me when there's nothing else to do at the same time. I get a little itchy and restless. So I'm very happy to have something to quilt.

You know, this quilt isn't really my style. I thought I would like it more. Also, terrible timing. I like having the big ones ready in time for winter, because quilting something heavy and warm is much more pleasant then. And here we are on the foothills of summer...

I guess it's not exactly ugly. Hmm. Maybe as I quilt it, I'll like it more.

Dreamer and Cottage Charm

Wow, five months? Mostly, I've been busy finishing up my big Dreamer patchwork. The quilting alone took over a year of on again, off again dedication.

This project is Mitten's favorite thing, has been since the beginning. Now she's pretty sure it belongs to her. I finished up the binding a couple of weeks ago, but just took pictures of the finished project this morning.

That took a long time. But it grew very soft over the hand-quilting process. I'm definitely keeping this one for myself. This project taught me a lot about spacing between lines of stitches. When two lines are too close together, particularly in a grid pattern, it doesn't come off as attractive as you'd expect by looking at the stencil. There was a grid pattern inside the square at the center of the star motif. But I stopped quilting that grid after the first star. It just looked bad. I like the puffiness of just the open square much better.

Almost two years ago, I bought this really beautiful flower stencil, and a matching border motif. Now that the patchwork is complete, I've been able to design a quilt specifically for these stencils!

I spent a few hours today arranging, rearranging and taking hundreds of pictures. See, in the store, you could see a much clearer difference between the seafoam of the green block borders and the white background. But from these pictures, I was worried it isn't defined enough.

So I made a quick trip to Joann's and was shocked to find almost everything in the store on sale. That took up the rest of my day. But I brought home the darker teal shown above. I think I like it, but I'm still deciding.

I'm trying to take my time and get it just the way I want it, but my eagerness to get to the fun part (the hand-quilting, of course) is hard to deny.

I'm calling this one Cottage Charm. The blocks look like little charms, and I've always wanted to do a quilt that looks like it belongs on the wall of a cute, whitewashed cottage. I think the finished product will be 4 blocks by 6, but I haven't made anything final. (If I'm being totally honest, I want to throw out all those blocks and start again with all new, hand selected fabrics, but my goal is not to waste money, time and resources. I already had all of these fabrics, except for the seafoam and dark teal...)

In other news, the Gammill Charm I managed to win a few years ago, and subsequently realized I hated using, has finally sold. I feel it's important to put that in here. It's been a long and weird journey with that machine. It's not that I was ungrateful or picky. I simply came to the conclusion that my favorite part of making a quilt is the hand-quilting. The machine took that out of the equation. And I just didn't want to learn a whole new skill separate from that. I'm sure many quilters out there would have adored this machine, but it wasn't for me.

I'm just not a career quilter. One or two quilts a year is about all I want to manage. I am very glad I learned that about myself. Possibly, if I'd never won the machine, I'd still be wishing for one, staring longingly at the precision work of a machine-quilted piece. But now I can admire that precision work and be glad that I'm going home to my embroidery hoop and Roxanne #9 betweens needles.

my only completed project of the year

Even as I was creating some tester blocks, I knew this was going to be one of my favorite quilts.

It was supposed to be a baby quilt. But I found myself unwilling to compromise the design. I would have had to remove a row to make it reasonably baby-sized.

I wanted stars in each corner, and one in the middle. Since I also didn't want the quilt to be too small to use, I had to just go big. Then of course I had big dreams on the border, so I couldn't reasonably call it a baby quilt anymore. But I was thoroughly pleased with the design.

Next, I pulled out all of my quilt stencils. I picked my only stencil that doesn't have flowers or a scroll pattern.

I decided to do this motif in each all-white block, and thought I'd find something easier for the pieced blocks. But then I decided to just try the same motif in a pieced block, and...

Yeah, I loved it. That's why it took me all summer to hand quilt. That's also why I haven't done a post in a long time.

After doing this design in every block, I decided the motifs had to connect somehow. I didn't like having the quilting just floating in each block. So I pulled out all of my cups and rulers, and eventually came up with the right combination.

Sewing up the binding was the worst part! The fabric I chose was a little stiff, so two of my finger tips are still in the process of growing their skin back. I stabbed myself so many times. I just cannot work accurately with a thimble. But by the time I was done, I didn't even care. I SO fell in love with this one. And while quilting it, I discovered that it adequately covers an adult who is sitting on a couch watching tv. The new owner will have some options in how she would like to use it.

Here's the completed quilt. I believe you can click on the photos for a bigger image (someone tell me if that's not the case).

I was so pleased when I pulled it from the washing machine. No color bleeding, and no funky puckering. I hung it up and stretched it, let it set for a couple of hours, then threw in the dryer for a few minutes.

Folding it up and packing it into the box was the hardest part. I found myself coming up with reasons to keep it... And I have a lot of good ones. But in the end, I know it's going to a great home. I know it will see a lot of love and a lot of life. And really, if I keep every quilt I make, we'll have to move into a bigger house.

This was just mailed Monday. So of course, I am periodically checking the tracking information for anomalies. I do not want this getting lost in the mail or falling out of a truck and landing in a mud puddle, forgotten forever. Okay I'm scaring myself, because I know I can't actually find out those scenarios with just a tracking number.

I'm now imagining a Tom Hanks character opening up this box after a horrible Fed Ex airplane crash over the Rocky Mountains, and discovering that while he found the quilt to be adequately warm, his feet will stick out because it is too short for a reclining adult!

There may just come a day when I stop ignoring standard quilt sizing.

project updates

The month of March has begun, so obviously the quilting portion of my brain is exploding all over the place with new ideas. The winter lag has been shaken off, and this is where I traditionally bite off more than I can chew.

It's a good time for me to overview my current projects. I don't want anything getting too neglected.

The Gemini quilt hasn't progressed at all. I have been trying to find the perfect border. The idea I had in my head while I was piecing this ended up being a little bit stupid, so I need to find something else. As you can see, I have a new idea. I've been working on some combinations that will fit in with the design, but won't be so over-complicated that I won't want to work on it.

Then there's this little gem. A good friend of mine pieced this wall hanging from a collection of peacock inspired fabrics she fell in love with. I got the chance to do the quilting and binding. All that's left for this one is a good washing and a sleeve for hanging. I've never done a sleeve before, so naturally this has been sitting around at my house for a couple of years, now. Haha... Sorry Trish!

The same friend has not had much time to work on the blue and white Christmas quilt she's been planning for quite some time. So she turned over her fabrics to me, and I'm going to play around with them. These are amazing fabrics that I'm excited to work with. Also, I found a few in the box that clearly did not belong to the Christmas quilt... I am planning to barter for them later on. (Or maybe just steal them.)

And because I didn't have enough to work on, I decided to start a new project with some scraps I've been wanting to play with.

I haven't definitively decided exactly what this will be, but I know who it's for. We'll see if I can get it together and at least have a few of these quilts done before 2017.

There are three other quilts that aren't making this update. My Dreamer patchwork quilt feels like it's never going to be done (still actively quilting it). But it's something I will continue working on in my down time. There's also my big, red Aries quilt, which has been on the quilting frame since my son was born (5 years, if you're counting). Then there's my mothers heirloom quilt. That one is freaking huge, and must be hand-pieced. It's hexies, so hand piecing is really not slower than machine piecing.  Plus, when you're hand piecing, you can hear the tv :) But I put off working on it most of the time. It's so big, it feels a little hopeless. That'll be one I'll have plenty of time to work on once I'm checked into a retirement home. (For reference, I'm going to be 35 next month, so the heirloom quilt remains on the high shelf in the closet.)

Stockings

I don't remember when I started these. I tried looking back through this blog, but I don't see a mention of them. 2013, maybe? Anyway, these are finished now, haha.

They were almost finished when I dug them out a month ago. They just needed the cuff and a hanging loop. The only motivation I had to finish these, though, was the prospect of buying new fabric. Then I let them sit for a few more weeks. My husband was getting worried I wouldn't finish them in time for Christmas, and I purposely left our older store-bought stockings in storage to push me.

And I finally did!

They are happily hanging on the mantle now, all ready for Santa to fill.

I've been making progress on my patchwork. Of 300 (5"x5") blocks, 81 are quilted!!! I've put over a hundred hours into the hand-quilting. This is why I don't sell my quilts. By the time it's done, I will have spent more time on it than I could reasonably charge for. So it continues to be a fun hobby for me, and one I will never expect to be compensated for in any way but my own entertainment.

Here's a picture of the front, back before it was properly basted, to remind you which quilt I'm talking about.

And here's a picture of the back, which I took about 2 months ago. It's come a long way since then.

Okay, I need a cup of coffee and a good tv show. Everyone in the house has a cold, currently, so it's been a chill night with lots of coughing, sneezing and nose blowing. Not the exciting night of Christmas cookie decorating we had originally planned :\