Isn't it just

So I have been meaning to get back to the blog for some time now, but life just keeps getting in the way really.

First distraction: the lovely little Matilda Hazel Anne born nearly a year ago now on Halloween 2012. She made herself known every time I tried to sit down to sew by doing gymnastics on my bladder or practicing her goal kicks into my sides. I think it is safe to say she was not a fan of me sewing.
Now that she is a little mover she wants me to explore, climb, crawl, and dance with her instead of sewing. My plan is to get her into sewing early so we can do that together. {Maniacal Laugh}

Second distraction: my hubbie opened a southern BBQ food truck. The Big Smoke Food Truck. I knew it was coming I just didn't know how much time and energy it would suck from us to get things rolling. I think it was a bit of our own fault for wanting to do so much ourselves, but the end results made it worth it! A bonus of this was I ate like a southern queen, the downside was no time to sew.

Third distraction: at 4 months old Matilda took her first plane ride. We made the trek to Melbourne, Australia to see my hubbie's family and introduce her to the Aussie crew for a month. She was a trooper & charmed her way around the world. I think it helps when your baby is the youngest flying but the best behaved. The flight crews always loved her and would cluck over her throughout the flight. One of them even held her for me while i went to the loo. Amazing!

Fourth distraction: no plan, no motivation. This is completely my fault. I had the fabric, thread, rulers, machine, but no idea what I wanted to do. Actually no, too many things I wanted to do but no solid plan on how to do them.

Enter stage left - the amazingness that is Tula Pink's new book City Sampler 100 Modern Blocks. I fell in love. Hard. I knew it would get me out of my funk & back into my sewing room. So after digesting it cover to cover I made a plan & went to work. I am not great at remembering to take photos. I will have to learn to stop here & there and photograph what I'm doing. I made enough blocks to do a baby quilt for a friend and that was that. I am hooked on quilting again.

After that quilt got the juices flowing I stumbled on an old project I had on a shelf. Echino 1/2 yards just waiting for the Stained QAL I wanted to do so badly. I got to work figuring out the pieces since i was using directional fabric (would NOT do this again for that pattern!!) and ordered lovely linen for the sashing bits from the lovely Pam at Mad About Patchwork. She has the best shipping. It can get here in no time at all.

Anywho, I will make sure to get a few photos of this man quilt shortly. I'm calling it the Man Quilt since it is a quilt for my hubbie. He thinks it is about time we kept a quilt I made so voila.

First Pillow - a few lessons learned

I decided to make a pillow for my secret partner in the For the Love of Solids Swap. I don't really know why since I've never made one before, but I dove in and went for it. I had a few parameters. Most were taken from my partner's sign up form with dashes of her mosaic mashed in:
- Ohio stars pattern
- make it improv/wonky
- include log cabins
- use blue, green, lime, aqua, grey, etc
- use only solids (obviously)
- make each block different in some way.

So here is the front:

Yep, my small item is a zippy pouch!

 For the back I used her mosaic as inspiration:
- abacus blocks
- use a berry colour + those above
I decided that I wasn't confident enough to attempt a zipper in my first pillow, so I opted for an envelope style adding binding to each flap sewed on with one of the machine's fancy stitches I rarely use. I found one with blocks (greek keys?) and went for it. Well, it adds to the wonky and a little character that's for sure. I think I'll need a bit more practice on how to get those stitches straight.

Here is the back:

Lots of wonkiness in these blocks

 Hubster helped me out with some photos so they would have decent lighting, but then the camera battery died and I haven't been able to find the charger. Sheesh. So these photos will have to do. Hopefully my partner will be a better photographer and share some photos with me.

Next up: the small item I made. You can see it in the collage of the pillow front. I made my second zippy pouch. Good thing I have had recent practice with the Mouthy Stitches Zip Pouch Swap.

Lessons Learned:

• You do have to have a game plan when making something a certain size. I was aiming for a pillow about 16" and ended up with it at 22" (I trimmed it down to 20")
• I'm not so good at teeny tiny piecing
• I'm an over presser. There are some seams where the threads show more than I would have liked
• I love solids, but I still need practice with values so I get them a little more varied
• I really need to plan out the placement of blocks for the pillow - the back on this pillow is where the abacus blocks needed to be centered a little better
• I spend too much time playing on Picasa, and should invest more time in taking better photos to begin with. I sense an online photography course in my future, or a search for useful info on blogs...I know I've seen a few recently. A light box will be in my future as well.

Well, maybe I'll still spend time on Picasa for things like this:

Love the neon filter

 Now I'm off to watch the red carpet coverage for the Oscars - lame I know, but it is a tradition. I need a Tim Gunn fix for the night.

Crushing on Kona Crush

I am loving working with Kona Crush fabric lately. I've used it for both swaps, and still have piles left. woo hoo. I actually bought it without knowing it was Kona Crush - I thought it was normal Kona Solids fabric. I'm so glad I made that happy accidental purchase from Pink Chalk Fabrics. Unfortunately it seems it isn't being restocked, which probably accounts for the wicked sales price I received. I'll have to find a new source with decent shipping rates to Canada. It doesn't come in as many colours as the straight up solids range, but they do have a few gems (I got Aqua & Red). I think Julie at Jaybird Quilts uses Crush in some of her projects. I really do love it. It's soft, and adds texture and interest. L O V E.

We will be hosting my father and sister in law next weekend visiting from Australia so I knew I needed to get a move on with the pillow. I was so gung ho I made the project a touch bigger than intended. I've ended up with a pillow that would measure 22 inches square finished. Hurumph. I was aiming for 16 or 18 inches.

I've popped a picture up on the Flickr group for feedback and asked if my partner would rather have it still be a *large* pillow or a wall hanging (something she did not ask for in her questionnaire) and I'm hoping she'll comment or the project might be on hold until the weekend after next. Yikes. I'm super happy with the results so far, but if my partner says its a no go I will just finish this as a wall hanging for myself. So win-win.

This shows a truer colour of the border, and teals/aquas in the blocks

These are truer colours in the blocks, but the border is actually aqua

I really should try to finish a project in the daylight so I could take a decently lit picture. Pshaw. I've tweaked it with Picasa to compensate. The colours are greens, aqua, teal, blues, greens, yellow and olive. Oh and touches of grey just because i put grey in everything for some reason.

Finished Pouch or Practice?

I finally got some photos together of the pouch i finished with the intention of sending it for the Mouthy Stitches Swap. Now after seeing the perfection of other projects I am tempted to just call it a practice and do another one, but I will have to make sure I don't run out of time. Decisions decisions.

If I do a redo pouch i would focus on the pattern specifics and getting all of the blocks to be shown as I intended. i think it would involve more planning and less improv - things i'm not usually known for. I'm waiting to see if my partner comments on it and go from there. I still have time to finish another pouch, though I might have to go a bit smaller given the scraps i have left of these fabrics.

I need to get my scraps together for this swap too. I want to give them some of the leftovers from the pouch because i know she likes these colours, and i have a few more things in mind.

Now on to my For the Love of Solids creations. I'll try to get my sketch scanned tomorrow and up, but i know i'm unlikely to get any sewing done until next weekend. silly day job getting in the way of my crafty pursuits. maybe i should check those lottery tickets - i think someone won the jackpot after all.

Giddy Up Partner

I forgot to post about receiving the Mouthy Stitches partner assignment. I lucked out again with a wicked person. I did a fabric pull for her pouch and will get that posted after work tonight. I think its going to be a decent zippy pouch in blues, aquas and oranges with a little grey thrown in too. Oh and an owl and acrorns. I guess a little woodlands feel will be the go. I can't wait to get cutting and sewing. More to come.

Chevron Quilt

My little sister decided she wanted to make a quilt for one of her teachers, so I set out to try to find something simple she could tackle and fast enough to make that we could get it done in the 2 weeks notice she gave me (silly sister). We decided to keep costs down we'd do it in solids on the front and a solid piece of patterned fabric for the back.

She was inspired by a quilt she saw online in greys black white and yellow with scattered half triangles. It was beautiful but when we picked up the fabrics we forgot  picture and both of our goldfish memories forgot it needed 2 shades of grey. We came home with just yellow, off white 1 grey and black. The result wasn't great - too dark with either no contrast (the black & grey) or too much (the black & off white). It was a big pile of yuck on the design board and we had already sewn all of the blocks together. My sister went to work in a less than delighted mood that night and I kept at it trying to make it work. Then it hit me - I had seen a sweet pattern on Cluck Cluck Sew for a zig zag baby quilt that used up half square triangles, so maybe with a few tweak I could make something out of our mess.

I ran over to her shop and purchased the pattern - and was i lucky - she was having a half price sale one day only. i picked up 4 patterns while i was there (I'm a sucker for a sale) and within the hour was fixing up the quilt with this result (pre-quilted):

I echo quilted the zigs and zags and got it done just in the nick of time to machine sew on the scrappy binding using a decorative stitch and scrappy binding. Hew teacher loved it (she cried) and told her it was perfect for her baby's room as she was having a boy. I wasn't able to get any of pictures of the finished quilt myself so my sister took some on her iPhone before she wrapped it.

 

Mission complete. Mr Malcolm agreed.

Geo Grand Coasters

The one thing I love and hate about doing napkins are the scraps they produce. Mostly I tried to use the biggest scraps up making more napkins (here), but there are always scraps too small for this, so I decided to make some scrappy coasters to go with the napkins.

I realized after I finished the napkins that I missed one whole fabric from the Geo Grand line, so I made that the main fabric. I used a tutorial I found online (When I find it again I'll link to it). I got the measurements a bit out of whack as the main fabric is supposed to be wider (like the one bottom right), but I liked the greeny-blue fabrics better anyhow, and they are solid on the back so there is lots of brown there. I think next time I try this I would make them all differently sized & play around with the scraps a bit more getting more contrasts maybe with a few solids thrown in.

And as a bonus I got to use up some of my batting scraps to boot. Happy times!

Next set of Napkins

I wanted to use up the leftover bits of fabric left after the first set up napkins so I whipped up 4 more. I think I actually prefer these scrappy ones to the original ones. Isn't that always the way?

I think making napkins might be a new favourite since there is instant gratification. The more I quilt the more I realize I am all about the instant gratification. I love making each block, but get bogged down in the actual construction and cutting. I think that's why I lean towards improv quilting most where there is less precise cutting and more playing around.

Up next will be the coaster set I made to go with the napkins, and a practice union jack quilt block. Oh and an owl pillow. I guess I was busy during my holidays.

Baby Quilt Bonanza - Part 1

After a marathon of sewing the quilt for my sister in-law is finished. I've quilted it, did the binding, and washed it to make sure there are no dyes left in it, or loose threads. Phew.

I must say that my husband was a trooper for taking care of the pets, and feeding me on Friday while I sewed all day - last day of vacation. So now the package is ready to be delivered to Melbourne in the coming weeks when my father-in-law goes back home after a whirlwind visit.

The front pre-binding. I used this pattern because I think it looks like stacks of books, and my brother and sister in-law have so many books at their house, or did when I visited in 2009. Perhaps some have gone to make room for the upcoming bubs, who knows. I think I'm going to call it 'Red Riding Hood' as that was my inspiration for the colours, and say 'to the bookworm to be' since I don't know what her name will be.

For the back I used selvedge to selvedge strips of the fabrics from the front. I think that make it more useful as a baby quilt to be totally reversible. I did straight-ish line quilting so it would look good on the top, but I don't think it looks too bad on the back. The one pre-planned aspect I did get right was to have these stripes facing the opposite to the 'books' on the front so there were seams lying on top of seams. For the spacing I just eyed the front of the quilt to try to make the lines look good against the 'books'. All in all I'm pretty happy with the results being this is my 2nd completed quilting project.

I will get some photos of the binding and the washed completed project up soon. I copied a technique I saw on an antique quilt in Perth where they had zigzag sewed the binding on. It looked so wonky & adorable I knew I had to try it. I won't lie - the binding did not go well as far as it being super equal all the way around. I cannot sew in a straight line to save my life. Hence all of the 'wonky' quilt patterns I like. I think more of the problem came from my squaring up not really being square, but who wants a cookie cutter quilt - right? This one has heaps of personality. Or so I keep telling myself.

Here is one of Crosby at the end of the day of sewing. One tired little guy.

Baby Quilt Beginnings

I got the fabric finally for the 2 baby quilts I am creating for the first babies of my sister and my sister-in-law. Exciting times as they are having the first sets of grandchildren on both sides. Craziness.
For my sister in-law in Australia:

She requested a red quilt, so hopefully she will like this combo of red, aqua, and grey. They are having a girl, and I think this is a good colour combo for the red room she will have. I'm going to make a pattern from Modern Quilting Bee Block Party. It will be the Uneven Coin block, but I'm going to call it a book block since my sister-in-law has a thing for books. Fingers crossed I can get it done in time to send it to Australia with my father-in-law to save on shipping!!

The second one will be for my middle sister. She is having a boy, so I've decided to bust out the brown Teeny Tiny Zoo I've been hoarding. I grabbed some solids from Perth on my road trip earlier today, and now I'm ready to go on it. Just need to decide on the pattern I want to do. Forgive the rubbish photo - need a new camera so I don't have to try to keep using Photobooth on the laptop. Not easy.

There is a brown, blue, green, orange and white solid to match all of the animals in the zoo fabric. My sister is doing a safari theme for the nursery so I think this is a good choice.

I will either be doing wonky log cabin blocks or rectangle blocks like on page 116 of the Winter 2010/2011 International Quilt Festival: Quilt Scene magazine. I've been waiting to try this pattern out, and I think I am always more successful at quilts that are irregular as I can never seem to cut a truly straight line. Just one of those things - I know my weakness.

Actually just looking at Moda Bakeshop I think I might have found something I like called Building Blocks. Love love love. I could alternate the teeny tiny zoo as a center & surrounding fabric. This could very well be the winner :) I might have to do them a bit wonky just to shake things up.
From Moda Bakeshop:

Will try to post updates as I get on with the quilts, but will be limited by the lack of a camera!