Mirror Image
Posted on | March 11, 2010 | 1 Comment
Here it is – my first completed quilt of 2010. I actually finished it back in January, but you know how it is. Besides, it’s been too cold to be outside taking photos. Wednesday was the perfect cloudy, dry picture-taking day so I headed to a local park and grabbed some photos.
This is a crib-size quilt, featuring lots of favorite designers. I bleach discharged the fabric to create the two-tone look of the blocks. I’m getting the hang of free-motion quilting, even on my wimpy little machine.
Sadly, I don’t know any baby girls on the way, so this quilt is in the shop.
I Made Something!
Posted on | March 2, 2010 | No Comments
It has been quite a couple of weeks for me. Midterms, finals (at the same time – I have some full-semester classes and some half-semester classes). Other busy stuff. I have been in a destructive, rather than constructive mood. For me, that means lots of cleaning, organizing, and decluttering and not much making.
I finally got around to making my first two blocks for the Pinwheel Sampler Quilt Along. I’m so behind! These are from the Sandy Gervais Merry and Bright colorway. I’m making a second quilt in Hope Valley. Hope to have those soon!
Little Thread Bag
Posted on | January 25, 2010 | No Comments
I was procrastinating today on a super secret (but rather tedious) project, so I made a little bag to catch my thread snippings. When my Mom taught me to sew as a girl, she told me it was hopeless to try to contain all the thread bits – they just end up on the floor anyway. We just threw them on the carpeted floor beside the chair and vacuumed them up when we were done sewing.
Now that I’m grown there are two problems to this method. One, I am never done sewing. Two, my dedicated sewing room has a hardwood floor, meaning all those little thread bits like to travel. We’ll see if I can keep them under a bit of control.
The Kitchen Floor Project
Posted on | January 22, 2010 | No Comments
Note: The rambling, circuitous logic of this post probably explains why I have a to-do list a mile long.
So, I was mopping my kitchen floor the other day getting ready to baste a quilt. And I realized, with no small amount of shame that the linoleum in the kitchen hasn’t had a good, hands-and-knees-with-a-scrub-brush cleaning since I bought the house. In March. Of 2006. Once I realized that, I could think of nothing else until I needed to scrub that kitchen floor. right. now.
As I was scrubbing, it started to bother me how grungy the rug in front of the sink gets. I typically buy the rag style rugs from Target (like you see in the corner of the photo below) and they start to look bad pretty quickly. Throw rugs don’t vacuum too well, and you can only wash them in the washing machine a couple of times before they start to fall apart. Plus, they have to air dry and that takes days. I then became so obsessed with the idea of making washable kitchen rugs that I could think of nothing else until I made some. right. now.
I ran to Wal-Mart, grabbed a set of coordinating dish towels, and got right to work making a quilted rug. My plan is to make a half dozen or so, that way I can swap them out when they start to look dirty and wash a big batch of them together. I’m still perfecting the technique, but I may post a tutorial for these once I get the bugs worked out. Now I need to resume scrubbing the other half of the kitchen floor!
Craft Hope for Haiti
Posted on | January 15, 2010 | No Comments
Craft Hope has opened a shop to benefit Doctors Without Borders in Haiti. Donations are being collected for sale in the shop. Click here to find out how to donate.
They have some *cute* stuff for sale and it’s going fast!
Modern Siggy Swap
Posted on | January 13, 2010 | No Comments
I have so many projects in the works right now, and I just signed up for two more. Rachel over at P.S. I Quilt is hosting a Modern Siggy Swap and a Pinwheel Sampler Quilt Along, and I’ve signed up for both. Ya’ll have to get in on on this quilt along, her Pinwheel Sampler Quilt is fabulous!
The photo shows my pieces for the Modern Siggy Swap. Everything is from my scrap basket, which makes me really happy. Signups for that swap are closed, but stay tuned because Rachel has promised to host another one soon!
2010
Posted on | January 3, 2010 | No Comments
A while back, I became totally frustrated with my fabric stash. It was full of fabrics I had purchased because they were on sale or cute but with no notion what I would use them for. Whenever I found a cute project I wanted to make, I would ransack the stash but never find anything suitable. If the fabric was right, I hadn’t bought enough. It sounds silly, but it was so stressful. I donated, and I am not kidding, about 100 yards of fabric to a local charity shop (unfortunately, it was about 3 weeks before I heard about IBOL – how cool would that have been). And I swore never to buy fabric again without a specific project picked out.
I have, shockingly, been very diligent about that rule. With the exception of a half dozen fat quarters I couldn’t resist, and a yard of Lizzy Dish I found just last week, all other fabric purchases have been deliberate, with plan in mind.
Of course, I can think of projects faster than I can crank them out. My little to do bin is full. What you see there is four quilts, a few small Christmas decorations, and an apron. I’m going to guess there is nearly 20 yards of fabric in there. I guess I need to impose a new rule: no more buying fabric until the basket is almost empty!
Wishing everyone a happy and creative 2010!
Happy New Year!
Posted on | January 1, 2010 | No Comments
For the first time in my life, New Year’s actually has some significance for me. 2009 was, in many ways, a very painful and difficult year. The reality is that little has changed to improve that, but as December 31 approached, I decided that I was going to draw a line in the sand. I have never been one for resolutions, but this year feels a little different. So much went wrong in 2009, it just feels easier to wrap it all up into a bad year, and move on. So this year, I have decided to seek joy. I don’t entirely know what this means, or how I will go about it. I just know that the stress and the sadness and the frustration need to stop.
Christmas Gifts
Posted on | December 27, 2009 | No Comments
I somehow managed to finish all the Christmas gifts I had planned, although I only made 9 types of cookies this year. The first gift was for my sister in law, and I finished it on Christmas Eve so I don’t even have a picture of it. I made her the Daily Spice Apron by Heather Bailey and it turned out darling!
The other gift was for my Mother. I bought her the mixing bowl set like this set of bowls from Crate and Barrel, and I wanted to give her something to tie them in with her kitchen decor. I made the blue potholders without a pattern (fabric is Good Folks by Anna Maria Horner, Hope Valley by Denyse Schmidt, and something I can’t recall from my stash). The yellow and pumpkin potholders are from the Amy Butler book In Stitches (Fabric is Hope Valley by Denyse Schmidt and something from my stash).
Do you know how hard it is to find off-white colored kitchen towels? I couldn’t find any for less than $8 apiece, so I bought a white cotton set from Wal-Mart and tea-dyed them. They matched my off-white potholder fabric surprisingly well. These were quick and gratifying projects, and I did the hand sewing bits on the plane to New York.
For a while, I felt so relieved that all the projects were done (and in time). Now I’m ready to start something new. Maybe some Christmas decor projects for next year, as well as a couple of quilts I’ve been meaning to get to. Hopefully it will be a productive new year.
Exhausted
Posted on | December 22, 2009 | No Comments
Well, I finished the quilt. It took me just over two weeks and was delivered just in time for my friend to give at Christmas time. I haven’t yet heard if the recipient liked it. I hope so. I used the Old Red Barn Co. Quilt Along pattern for the top. It went together quickly, especially because I used two Jelly rolls which saved some cutting. The fabric is Crazy 8 by Sandy Gervais for Moda.
I pieced the back because the quilt shop did not have enough yardage to do all one fabric. I always prefer a pieced back anyway, but I was trying to make this quick. I really, really love how it came out. One of these days, I need to make a quilt for me!
Here it is, all washed folded and ready to give away. I’m so glad I got it done in time.