WIP Wednesdays

Portland Modern Quilt Guild
I went to the PMQG meeting Thursday night. Click the link to see what we're up to. Want proof I was there? Third picture down (on the PMQG blog), that's me in the black hat right behind the lady in green. What? You can't tell that's me? lol Sadly I didn't win anything this time around but it's still fun to be excited for those who do get the give-a-ways.

For the FQ swap I wound up with a cute little green one - my favorite color!

Hexagon Quilts
Also it was *awesome-possum* to see Tania finish the bulk of her squid hexagon quilt - so cool! We both started our hexagon quilts at the same time. She's super speedy. I loved getting a chance to look at all the fabrics close up. We had a nice little chat after the meeting about hexi's. (Yay for crazy english paper piecers!)
And I didn't know they took a picture of my hex in progress... ::grin:: Yeah, it's been stalled out a little bit but you can see I've finally finished the orange star. Next up with that project is to add in the diamonds around the blue star and attach the teal and orange stars so it's all one big piece. Then I can start working on the outer stars. What? You thought that was it? No, no. I am insane. Ha.


Kaleidoscope Quilt
Sunday was not a good quilting day. I was in the middle of working on my sister's quilt when...

...my kiddo comes into my sewing room with a red permanent marker. Yes. You can imagine what happened next. I nearly knocked her over in my rush to run from my sewing room to the laundry room, quilt in hand, to hit the effected area with a stain remover. The good news is, I was able to get most of it out.

You can hardly see where there's just a little bit of the red pen mark left.

The bad news, it was sitting there mostly stain free but also with a couple of spots of stain remover on it. The stain remover isn't supposed to dry on the fabric so I really needed to wash it out. However, because it's still all mostly pinned together, there's no way I could put it in a washing machine. I knew if I didn't treat it right away though it'd have a permanent mark. So after I sprayed it, I tried my best to rinse out just those spots. There was a big drippy chunk of it that then needed drying. I draped it over the shower curtain rod in the bathroom where it took all day and night to dry out enough to move back into the sewing room.

After all the rinsing and scrubbing I couldn't find any mark once it was dry. Whew~!

Apron
So in the meantime, instead of working on my sister's quilt I started the apron my daughter's been begging me for.

The Lola Apron

She picked out the pink fabric and I chose the coordinating fabrics to go with it. I'm not planning on any rick-rack (as shown in the pattern) since she said she didn't want any. I love how sophisticated this will all look together.

The pink will be the main body, the light grey patterned one will be at the top chest and for the pockets, the solid as the binding.


Here it is all done and sitting on the work table long after everyone else had fallen asleep.


She tried it on the next morning and it fits her perfectly!

WIP Wednesdays

Slowly but surely working on my sister's quilt. There's so much quilting to do still. (Why do I feel like a broken record? Heh.)


Also I'm sure you all remember this lovely little top I pulled together? I'd asked Andi to share her modified pattern with me.


Well I have to laugh because it turns out I didn't need to after all. I'd done the BIG clean up of my sewing room which I've talked about a wee bit but what I haven't really mentioned was the residual activities of that.... I've gone though and sorted all my magazines and patterns, I've updated containers (from shoe boxes to nice little plastic pull out drawers) inside my cupboards, etc. Anyway, I found this pattern in one of my many piles of things. Look familiar?! Guess I really like it... but just not enough to remember I already had it. Ha!


The only other thing I've worked on the past week are the QAYG blocks which I posted a bit about. I was surprised that my Bernina could not even put a DENT in trying to sew the binding between blocks. It was just too much fabric for the poor little delicate dear. I did however manage to get them all sewn up. How might you ask? The mighty little Spartan is how. Even though this was gifted to me a few months ago I haven't really had the need or excuse to use it until now. I had to fiddle with it a bit and I don't think it'd been oiled in an age! It was much happier after a bit of a cleaning and a newly wound bobbin. It had no problem plowing through all those layers of fabric then.

WIP Wednesdays

THE BIG PURGE
So besides the BIG CLEAN UP that I was doing last week - aaah so clean - I also went through all my quilting magazines that have been lying around for ages and figured out which ones I want to keep (some have patterns I'd like to make someday) and others, while fun, I'm now done with. That was a pretty fun "task". ;^)

I also went and did something I've not ever done before. I went through my *entire* fabric stash and purged. I've got two grocery bags full of fabric ready for the curb. I might go donate them to Scrap since there's one close by. At least there I know they'll get used properly. I never know what happens to stuff that goes to Goodwill or similar. I guess I could bring it to a guild meeting but I don't know that I want it sticking around the house that long.

KALEIDOSCOPE QUILT
Besides that I've mostly been working on my sister's quilt:


I finally picked out the last of the last of the dark stitches and have been able to move forward with actual quilting (in the cream colored thread). Yay progress! I think I might want to sneak in some writing somewhere and not tell her, to make it fun. I'll have to wait to see how long it takes her to notice it. Heehee.

POSTAGE STAMP QUILT
In mid-fabric-purge I also went though the fabric I was getting rid of to see if any of it would work in my crazy-making postage stamp quilt. I know I've put this one down for such a long time but I'm still in love with the idea of making it so it was nice to go back and revisit it. I was able to match up a few more colors. Someday I might even be able to start assembling. I have a lot of cutting left as well.

WIP Wednesday

So until my serger died I was working on an apron for myself at the same time as I was making one for my mom... see previous post to see the one I finished for her. Anyway, here's the pile of would-be cute apron I now don't have time to make. Foo. The pattern is Indigo Junction's The Ruffled Chef.


I also sit in the coffee shop on Monday afternoons and quilt while Snookie is in school for a few hours. There is a group of spinners and knitters who I usually sit with and one of them made this lovely pumpkin cowl. I bought it off her and just need to add buttons. I had the big coat button which I think goes in such a nice way. I needed two more buttons and it's taken me a while to remember to pick them up. I have them now and just need the ten minutes to sit down and attach them all.


The thing that's been really keeping me busy is my sister's quilt. OH the trouble this quilt has given me! Sheesh.


Now, as a disclaimer before I became a SAHM I used to quilt by check (yay for having extra $$ from being employed) of course I can't afford that now so I've been left up to my own devices. Fortunately before I quit my last job I had enough forethought when buying my sewing machine to get a stitch regulator with it. I've been using it to quilt with for the past few years. So while I've been piecing for a long time, the whole quilting aspect is rather new to me. I admit the SR is a bit of a crutch.

Now back to the problem of my sister's quilt. For whatever reason the SR is not happy when I sew over seams while also having a flannel back. I love flannel on the back of a quilt... it makes it so warm and cosy. My friend Heather has been encouraging me to let go of the SR and learn to self regulate. Well I had the thread bread six times while trying to quilt just one of the 12" motifs. I knew then that there was no way I could make it all the way though all the quilting I had to do if it was going to keep going that way. So I let the SR go. It wasn't as hard as I imagined it would be! How wonderful that she had more faith in me then I did in myself. Thanks Heather! See? My stitches are pretty even and small. Yay! Of course I still have a long way to go and need loads more practice but it's a start.


I also was planning on using two different thread colors for this quilt. I stitched up four of the 12" motifs before I realized that the dark teal color looked ghastly. I had done a wee bit of the border in a cream thread and decided it was loads better.... SO last night I started picking out all the thread and starting those sections all over. Maybe you can see the difference in this picture... the light triangle block in the lower right has the cream thread while the light triangle block in the upper left is using the dark teal thread... yack. I still have to pick that one out and redo it.


So all that to say there's no way I'll be done with this quilt in time for Christmas... so I broke the news to my sis this morning and happily she was cool with it. Thankfully her BD is in late January which *should be* just enough time to actually get it done. ^^

Updates

Well, I've managed to get my sister's top finally all pulled together. I swear some quilts just go smooth as silk and others burden you with so much grief. Can you guess what kind this one is?! Grief is all I've gotten from this thing! I wasn't paying attention when building my blocks originally and did half of them wrong so I had to rip them and remake them. Then I planned out a border that I realized I've have to buy three extra yards of fabric just to make it all fit and return the queen size batting for a king, so I redesigned it but now I've got extra fabric I didn't need to buy, etc. etc. etc. Even pinning tonight I ran out of my curved basting pins (this AFTER buying an extra pack of 100 before I started). I have a gut feeling that the quilting itself isn't going to go smoothly either but I'm putting it off till tomorrow because I'm just tired tonight. I will make the long trip to the one fabric shop tomorrow I know has machine needles that my sewing machine adores - hopefully that will stave off any difficulties I might get while trying to quilt over seams (which is where my machine gets cranky). It's a large queen size... I think it's 90" x 100 and something. I'll have to measure when it's all done. Sorry the lighting is terrible on both these pictures... it's dark in the house and there isn't an overhead light source in the living room.


Also thought I'd share an update on the hexi hand project. It's coming along slowly but surely. It takes a while but I really enjoy it. I left the iron in the frame just so you could get an idea of scale.

Fabric Fix

Well I made it to the fabric store and managed to only find one of the former cream fabrics that I was using before. I found a second one in the same pattern but a slightly different colorway. There are so few blocks left and they'll still be intermingled in with the other lighter blocks that use the older creams, so I don't think it'll be overly noticeable. I also have just enough of the dark teal pieces left to finish the inner part of the quilt. Whew~ I also found a beautiful fabric for the outer 7" border.

I got a few minutes to work on it tonight. It was so nice to sit and sew with Snookie (who's just turned five). We hit up a craft store this afternoon and I got her a beading kit. She LURVED it! She made little necklaces for her cousins for Christmas while I sewed. She also wanted to listen to Harry Potter audio books. Sweet! So we hung out together being all crafty and geeky. I love that my little babe is turning into such an awesome kid. ^^

Oh and I think I've finally figured out what quilting I'm going to do once I get it all basted together. While I really wish I had a long arm (saving, saving, saving!) I'm still shoving all my quilts through the Bernina which is a bit more challenging then putting it on a frame but I'm hoping for help from a few quilting stencils. It feels kinda like cheating but then again, not. Heh.

And just so this post is not totally devoid of pictures I'd like to share a lovely little quilt that I might have to stick in NU list. This fun little jem is from Barbara Brackman's Blog. I believe she refers to it as Fireball. In my head though I like to call it Dots and Diamonds. I'd love to make it in a bunch of really bright whimsical fabrics and colors. Maybe the strips a collection of dots on white/light ground? The big dots hot pinks and the diamonds in... blacks with dots? That's just my off-the-cuff idea for it.

FAIL

So *sometimes* I don't really plan out the quilts I make but just sort of start making them. This is lovely most of the time and works out if it doesn't really need to be a specific size or if it's really scrappy (have I mentioned I like scrappy?) so I can just chunk in fabric or two if I run short. Well... this time? Not working out so well. Ug.

I promised my sister I'd make her a quilt so back in June, so I bought some fabric, picked a pattern and off I went thinking I'd just add a bit more if I hadn't bought quite enough. Well... then I was working on it and you saw the picture from the last post. I finished more then half of it and (foolishly) sewed together what I'd done. Now I realize that I don't have enough to make all the dark squares. I'm a dozen shy of finishing it and thought I *must* have some of the left over cream colored fabrics somewhere. I ripped apart my sewing room looking for them yesterday afternoon. Alas, I either don't have them or can't find them. With a limited amount of space and lack of planning I'm thinking I just ran out. I was able to find a few scraps of them in my scraps bin but nothing substantial.

So last night I ran off to Fabric Depot to see if I could find any of the original fabrics from the cream set I'd bought in June. HA! Fat chance.

I was really surprised to actually find one. Their turnover is amazing (being the largest fabric/quilt shop in Oregon and possibly the US) they bus people in to shop there. So yeah. I had to buy more fabric than I probably needed just to get the variety of scrappiness. I guess there's always a need for light/cream colored fabrics in blocks so it probably won't go to waste.

Anyway now my beef is I'm going to have a whole new set of creams to mix in - which would be lovely, except to say that I've already sewed up so much of the quilt. Gah. I've got four rows of seven blocks left. I guess I can sew two to the top of the five rows I've already sewn and two to the bottom. I just really do NOT want to have to rip seams to get a better mix. Meh. I just really, really hope I have enough of the dark teal fabrics left to finish the dark blocks.... It's gonna be close. Guess I need to go count triangles.

Next time I am SO pre-planning! lol

Progress

Making progress on my sister's quilt for Christmas...

I have about half the inner part of the top pieced.


Still am not entirely sure how I'll quilt it - always the hardest part for me.

Fabric Friday

I probably won't do a fabric friday very often but since there's new fabric in my life, what the heck?

First off my sister has been bugging me for a decade to make her a quilt. Okay, so - I'm finally getting around to it! She's a big fan of batiks which is nice since I really like them myself AND she let me pick the pattern (she chose the colors) so it should be a fun little project. I'm making her a kaleidoscope quilt. Here are a few of the fabrics...

I still have four more yards to buy just to get all the blocks made (never mind the border, backing or binding...) What I've purchased so far I've also cut out. I really wanted to have all the fabric bought, washed and cut before heading out to Sister's next weekend. I'm excited to work on it.

I'm also quite pleased to corrupt my 8yo niece by teaching her how to quilt. I can see she's already got the bug bad. We were picking out fabric for her first quilt and she was talking about making a second one! lol I'd asked her to pick out one fabric that we'd build her whole quilt around. She chose the hedgehog fabric which will be the outer border...

The little red polk-a-dots are for a small inner border and "chimneys" the white fabric is for a large background area in the Hip to Be Square pattern that she picked out.
These are all the fabrics that will make up the strips around the chimneys.

It's been fun watching her discover the dangerous world of rotary cutters and hot irons. ;^)