I'm bringing (machine) quilting back

I've been doing a LOT of hand sewing lately, but very little machine work (and blogging), despite the fact that I've got a LOT of projects that are in various stages of completion that really need to get done. Today I finally got back in the groove of things since I have to make a baby quilt for a girl. And fast. Like the baby was due today. Or actually yesterday since it's now like 3 a.m. Anyway. I found the cutest panels online a few months ago and just fell in love with them! It's from the What a World line by Jill McDonald. They are so, so cute. Here's one of the 15 different panels:



I don't have the best plan for this quilt; I've kind of been winging it so far. So far I've added a really thin border of white around each square and then am adding a thicker border of a black fabric with white polka dots. After that? I'm still figuring it out. Here's a preview though!



(And of course there's one of my quilting day essentials - a TV show on DVD that I love that I don't have to pay too much attention to, this time the Gilmore Girls.) Here's hoping I keep making progress tomorrow, er, today.

A finish!

I've been busy working on a top secret project lately: a quilt for one of my sisters for her birthday! This is the first quilt I've made for anyone in my family other than a wall hanging I made for my mom, so I was really excited to give it to her. My sister Michelle has got a great eye for color and design and has a gorgeously decorated house, so I also was a little nervous to make something for her. I'm happy to report that she loved it!

I was inspired by one of her guest rooms, which is painted a vibrant orange. She now uses it as a craft room when she doesn't have company, so I wanted to make something bright and modern. I bought all the fabrics the last time I went to quilt camp. They were already bundled together and I thought of her right away.



I quilted it very simply in orange thread with straight-lines about a quarter-inch from the seams of the zig zags.



And I had this awesome green chevron fabric in my stash. I bought a couple yards of it a few months ago from Connecting Threads on clearance. It was perfect for this project! The quilt washed really well and was really soft and wrinkly when I pulled it out of the dryer. Even though I'm normally somewhat selfish about keeping things I make, mailing it off to my sister made me really happy! Here are a few more photos of the quilt in progress, since I haven't been able to blog about it at all.



Am I the only one that loves looking at color-coordinated trimmings?

Look familiar?

I have no clue how many times I've posted about this quilt, but heaven knows I've been working on it FOREVER. Like so long that I'm on my third sewing machine since I started this. I started it with my first machine that died way too young, then had an interim machine that a friend gave me when my first one went kaput. Now I'm on Buster, who so far has proved to be a very trustworthy companion. Knock on wood.





One of the reasons as to why it is taking me so long to finish (other than my obsession with hand quilting all these multicolor circles of different sizes on it) is that the strips aren't sewn together all that great. The tension on my first machine was off and a lot of the strips aren't very secure. So much so that I've been having to go back and hand sew a few of the seams together better so the white stitches are no longer visible.

You can kinda see it in this photo:



Anyway, it's been labor intensive to say the least. But I love it so much. I can't wait until it's finished and on my bed.

Hello again

There are a few reasons why I don't blog regularly. One involves me being super unproductive, another is that I'm in a serious funk.

Luckily, neither of those is the case recently. :D I've just been busy. And happy. And productive. At least I am most of the time.

This week I finished one of the projects that has been hanging over my head like a cloud, the butterfly baby quilt.

I am so, so glad I kept at it though. All the time I put into it was worth it because it turned out SO good! I really hope my friend Kathy, who paid me to make it for her second daughter, is happy with it. It went in the mail earlier this week.









On to the next unfinished project!

Guess what I'm working on ...

Hand sewing the binding on this quilt! I know it's probably hard to remember, since the last time I posted about it was in June of 2009!

Here's a sneak peek:



I knew this quilt has been a work in progress for a long time, but that's even longer ago than I thought. Last I had posted about it, I had put it aside after realizing that the fabric I bought for the back was not big enough, so a pieced back was going to be needed. I started the back a while ago, but it got lost in the queue again. More recently - I took it with me when I went to the October quilt camp and had my friends help me layer it and pin baste it so I could get the quilting started.

While at camp, I started quilting it, but didn't make much progress. I had originally planned to quilt it in loops going across the front, but since it was so large, wrestling with it was crazy hard. I tore out the stitches I had tried and started again, this time doing loops in individual blocks, changing the direction of the loops between each block. It was easier to do a block at a time, but it was still a challenge.

I got back from January quilt camp yesterday, and after a full day and then some quilting (!!), it's finished! Now I am hand sewing the binding on, then need to cut a million and a half threads from the top, and then to wash it dry it and it will be done. I can't wait!

This is the largest top I've machine quilted yet, and I am really excited to have a quilt that truly is large enough for my bed. I've been using my dog quilt (which has been done for ages, but I'm such a lazy blogger that I never posted a picture. Oy.) which is big enough to keep me warm, but isn't really big enough for my bed. It's so loud fabric- and pattern-wise it doesn't show dirt, which is awesome.

Anyway, I hope to finish this soon and post pictures! This will be my first finished quilt of 2011, and will be my first positive points for our second stashbusting contest. (I accidentally went into the negative on the way to quilt camp, when Natalie's mom Cherry stopped at a fabric shop on the way and found white Purdue fabric that is really hard to find anymore. So I told her to get me a yard and a half, forgetting my fabric diet. Whoops.)

Moving right along ...

Thankfully, this quilt IS on my list of works in progress! So, so close to being done.

The good and the bad

The good news is that I finished my first charity quilt! I am so excited to have this project done, because I have wanted to make a charity quilt for ages. This quilt was made for the Downy project, Quilts for Kids, which sends quilts to hospitalized children or kids that are abused. It's a really cool program that sends out fabric to volunteers, who then make a quilt and mail it back.

The bad news is that it took me sooooo long to finish the dang thing. Long enough that I got an e-mail from the organizers wondering if I was ever going to send the quilt back. I had good intentions. Really. When I got the kit in the mail, I got started on it right away and was making progress until I realized that some of the pre-cut pieces I had received were cut so wonky that it as impossible to assemble the quilt like it was supposed to be done. And heaven knows that I couldn't find any more of the fairy fabric they had sent me (that I thought was super ugly, but I think that's a personal issue of mine. I'm sure some kid will like it. I hope.). So then it sat. And sat some more.

After I got the e-mail about the delay, I finally pulled the quilt out again and improvised. I found some fabric in my stash that looked OK with the ugly fairies and got going again. I have to admit I like the changes I made, and I'm glad it will be a bit different than the other quilts made with the kits.



If you couldn't guess, the three center blocks with the appliqued hearts are the parts I improvised.

And a close up of the creepy fairies, complete with weird eyes and visible butt cheek.



I so wanted to name the quilt Fairy Lust, or Fairy Butts, but was able to restrain myself and stick to a more kid-friendly name of Fairy Dust. If you decide you'd like to make a quilt for the charity, don't worry ... almost every other fabric I've seen for these kits is much cuter.

I was so glad to get this sent out in the mail yesterday!

Edited to add: Another bad point - This wasn't even on my list of works in progress, so that means I still have 20 projects that I need to finish. Sigh.

You might think ...

... That my lack of posts indicate my lack of quilt- and craftiness lately. Definitely not true! I've been working on all kinds of projects (lots of knitting, especially.

You also might think that after spending the entire weekend at quilt camp that I'd be ready to take a quilting break. Not true either! There's just something about spending a weekend at camp that invigorates my creativity and urge to do more and more.

I am really happy with what I was able to do during my time. While it's not usually my style to be really organized and know exactly what I will do during quilt camp weekends, this time I made it easy on myself. UFOs ONLY! (My secret title was UFO No Mo' - just a tad different from their '60s theme). So challenging to only bring those items, especially when there are like 70 other quilters around with piles of fabric, new patterns and fresh projects. By packing strategically though, it really helped me focus. I only brought supplies needed for already started projects. No extra fabric whatsoever. That was tough! (Although a heck of lot easier to pack.)

My tally during the weekend:
- finished the machine quilting on this quilt. (This photo was taken at a previous weekend at quilt camp!) I was able to get the binding cut and sewn on. Working on hand stitching it to the back now. Yay!

- Was able to sew together version No. 2 of the quilt I made as part of the Old Red Barn Co. quilt-a-long in July. (I just went on a search to find a post about the first top and realized I've never posted about it. Great blogging there, Christy!)

Anyway, back when I decided to do the quilt-a-long, I wanted to use my jelly roll in the Charisma line.



I wanted the fabric to go a long way though, so I added some other fabrics that I found in my stash and a few that I got at Joann's. That, plus I like using a variety of sources and usually prefer to not use fabrics all from the same line. I'm also usually too cheap to buy "designer" fabrics! This gave me enough strips to make two lap-size tops with mostly the same fabrics, but with different color placement. I have two different fabrics for the backs of them and think I will piece the backs to use both kinds on each.

- And finished the top of the disappearing nine-patch that I am making with the four charm packs I bought a while back.



Go me! I hope to download some of the photos I took later this week.

In the meantime, however, I'm joining lots of other quilt bloggers and am going to pretend that I will do a Sunday Stash post every week. The stash isn't the problem at all, it's the me remembering/getting around to do the posts!

This is waiting for the "perfect" pattern. I adore these patterns and colors!

It's a Hoffman Bali Pops in Kiwiberry.



I also, ahem, added a teeny tiny little bit to my stash this weekend. More details on this later. :D

A new look

I've decided to change my blog background. I'm not sure yet if I like it, but I've been wanting to give it a bit of a facelift for a while. I'm sure it will grow on me!

It was a busy weekend ... I've been working on a baby quilt for a friend who is expecting a baby ... very soon! So it's been a good thing I got so much accomplished. Now all I have to do is finish hand sewing the binding on and then clip strings. Then the big decision - do I wash it or not? That's a tough one; both options have their positives. What do you normally do for quilts? Or if you're not a quilter, would you prefer to get a more crisp-looking quilt or one that's kind of wrinkly and soft-looking?

Anyway, I've just spent over an hour messing with the blog design. I better get back sewing!

Another finish

If I was one of those people that purposely spelled words wrong just to make them all start with the same letter, I might have titled this Krazy Kansas Kwilt. I am so NOT one of those people though, so hence the lame (but correctly spelled title).

This was another quilt I made for a friend. She is really into the University of Kansas and dogs, so I combined the two in a wonky log cabin pattern. I really enjoyed making this quilt since it was so random, but it took a really, really long time to make the blocks. Maybe my strips were too thin? Either way, it was nice to not stress about having a perfect 1/4" seam on everything.

The wavy lines I machine quilted turned out really good, I thought. They made the quilt significantly wrinkly but also were pretty easy to do.

Here are a couple pictures. (sorry, the photos always suck!)

Rhymes with purple

In a continuation of an unusual stream of productivity, I finished another quilt! And almost odder, it was a gift. I'm usually a selfish quilter, not wanting to give up any project that I spent so much time on. Non-quilters may not realize it, but making quilts often includes blood, sweat and tears.

Anyway. It was a gift for my friend Kim and her soon-to-be husband Collin. They are getting married in about a month, but I decided to give her the quilt at her shower.

While I was working on the quilt, it kind of reminded me of purple Kool-Aid, which in turn made me think of Jim Jones. I secretly wanted to name it "Don't Drink the Purple Kool-Aid" but figured that wasn't really the impression I wanted to make. I obviously have quilt naming issues.

I started the project at the last quilt camp and got the top done and started the quilting. Then I realized that the back was puckering and that annoyed the crap out of me. So I got out my trusty seam ripper. Lots of fun tearing all that quilting out.

Natalie helped me re-pin it a couple weeks ago and then I got busy with the machine quilting. I did wavy lines going across and down. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I love the fabrics and color combination!

Can't wait for the wrinkles

No, not the face kind of wrinkles, the soft wrinkly goodness that comes after sending a just-finished quilt through the washing machine and dryer! It's past 11 now and I just put it in the dryer, so I won't get to see the final product until tomorrow. It's like unwrapping a present. You don't really know what it's going to look like.

I love watching the transformation projects go through, from the pile of fabrics to a soft quilt in the end. It really makes a bit difference even from just quilt top to quilt.

Other than getting the label sewn on the latest project and getting it laundered, I haven't been very productive tonight. The pain in my feet has been bad tonight, but I am trying not to take too much pain medicine. I feel like I am running low this month and I don't want to run out. The pain makes me crazy. And crabby as hell.

Jimmy John's had subs for $1 today during lunch time! I was super psyched, since I am a sucker for any kind of bargain. Not all the sandwiches were that much though, so I branched out from my normal turkey club and got a veggie sandwich. It was so good! It had provolone cheese, avocado, tomato, lettuce, sprouts and cucumber. I definitely plan to order it again.

After that exciting bit of lunch news, here's my latest acquisition that I am thrilled about:



Glitter! I love glitter so much. Mom used to always make us go out in the garage to use glitter when we were working on craft projects because she didn't random bits of glitter all over the house. Me? Not so much. I like glitter in just about situation. When I was a kid, I used to dream about getting a car that was painted with glitter paint, like the kind that is used on speedboats. Wouldn't that be awesome? Hell, my wheelchair du jour has a fuchsia glitter seat back. I love it. It's about as cool as a wheelchair could be, in my opinion. Unless I could get a Snoopy or Hello Kitty themed one, I guess. :D

I'll have quilt photos to post soon. Yay!

Finished - finally

I am so happy to have finished a project this weekend! It's my bright squares quilt, which is the first bed size quilt I have ever pieced and quilted by machine. It was definitely a struggle at times, but I'm glad I stuck with it. I did free motion quilting and it was really hard at first to keep going even though the quilting looked kinda messy and there were some puckers on the back. Oy.

But I just pulled it out of the dryer - so yummy smelling and warm! - and it looks better. The wrinkling effect make it look less like it has mistakes.

I'm especially happy to join the Spring to Finish 2 challenge on the Tallgrass Prairie Studio blog. I adore Jacquie's work and am excited to have some extra motivation to get some projects done for a change. Makes me feel less guilty to start new ones. (I accidentally typed in quilty there at first, which made me giggle.)

I don't have any new photos since the camera bit the dust, but here's the top after it was put together.



I cut the edges so it ended up being a plain square. Good thing since it shifted a bit while I was quilting it!

Here are some of the fabrics I used in the top:



I based the whole quilt on the fabric below on the left. It's got some gorgeous colors in it. The black pattern on the right is from a fat quarter from Joann's. I wish I could find yardage of it. I love it so much! I would have loved something like that for the back. I was good though, and used something from my stash ... an orange fabric with scattered white dots. It looks OK. I used leftover fabric from my bright strip quilt for the binding. (Notice a trend with the lame quilt names?) :)

Back in the saddle

So I got back into the quilting groove a couple weeks ago at the monthly Sunday quilting gathering. I started working on a wonky log cabin quilt I am making for someone as a gift. I was moving along at a decent clip until it happened: I sliced my left index finger open with my rotary cutter. Ouch! There was actual bloodshed over a quilt project -- that was a first. I bandaged up though and kept sewing, but laid off the rotary cutting for the day.

My injury really put me out of commission for a while! Not only did it make my rotary cutting complex worse, but the cut was right where I put my yarn on my left index finger when I knit! I was pretty much not crafting at all there for a week or so.

The Band-aid is finally off, and it's hardly noticeable that I was ever injured, minus a tiny scar. Just what I need - more evidence that I'm accident/injury prone.

I have lived to tell the tale though, and lived to quilt another day. On Saturday I climbed back into the quilting saddle and got back to work on the wonky log cabin, which I am doing in red, yellow, blue, black and white. It's not as gaudy as it sounds, at least I hope not!

After working on it all day Saturday, on and off Sunday and then a couple hours tonight, I am SO close to having the blocks done! I have 36 blocks, and will be cutting them down to 8.5" squares. I am not sure yet if I will do sashing or not ... I'll have to wait and see how they look after I lay them out. (The colors are inspired by a focus fabric, I didn't just pick them randomly.)

In other news, I'm headed back to my parents' house this weekend for my sister's birthday! I am excited since I don't go there too often and there's a couple of fun options this weekend, including a scrapbooking mini-retreat or a big quilt festival/lecture/show/market. Both sound like lots of fun. And possibly a lot of temptation to spend money!

And in other other news ... I got a new job! Not an entirely new job, since our areas are getting reorganized, but still, a lot of newness! I am really excited, since I will be working in the online experience and new media group. It sounds like it will combine a lot of my interests and my experience into one. I hope it all goes well. Our new group is meeting up for the first time tomorrow, so I am looking forward to meeting the other people I'll be working with. I am going to miss a lot of my current coworkers though! We may end up in the same building, but right now that's still up in the air. I will miss going for Den pops with my friends, for sure.

Quilting pile up

Oy, my pile of unfinished projects is growing rapidly! I have a big stack of UFOs on my spare bed ... probably a good five or six projects that range from almost finished tops to some that are partially hand quilted. This doesn't even take into account all the other quilts that are in progress, with blocks here and there.

Normally I am much better about finishing projects, but with the stashbusting contest last year, I started churning out quilt tops (because I could do those on the machine) and not getting them quilted, since a) I kinda suck at machine quilting and b) hand quilting takes forever and a day.

For the last week or so I have not done any quilting, but have been working on a variety of knitted dish cloths. I know they are a good project for me, since I am FINALLY making myself learn how to do something beyond scarves with a basic knit, purl pattern. So far I made one a heart design, one with a Snoopy design and have started one that has a lacy mock cable design. While these are fun, I don't really get the same sense of accomplishment as I do when I quilt. Sigh.

I know I need to get back on the wagon. My small group of quilting friends is getting together on Sunday ... I definitely have to be back in the groove by then.

Until I actually do some quilting, here's a few inspirational pictures. I heart this quilt so much, and I love, love, love how I'm quilting it. It's just such a pain to do!

Finally, visual progress!

Being a shut-in all weekend has finally shown to be a boost to my productivity! I spent all weekend "relaxing," or in other words, hanging around the apartment doing productive, but semi-fun things. Along with the laundry and dishes I finally made a dent in, I put together a quilt top that I've been cutting pieces for the last week or two. Hard to believe the cutting took more time than the sewing, but that's what happens when I'm a wimp about the rotary cutter and revert to old style tracing and cutting with scissors.

Anyway, since I finally did take a few in progress shots, I'll add those in.

A stack of the nine patch blocks I did for the inside and outside borders.



The ROYGBIV spread of my 6.5" blocks laid out.



The fabric on the left was my "inspiration" fabric. It's from a new Joann's line that I had a special coupon for. I only bought half a yard, so I didn't have a whole lot of options design-wise. I really like all the colors in it though. The other piece is a fat quarter from Joann's that I LOVE.



A look at the top ... all done except I need to trim the points off of all the squares along the border. It will be 78 inches by 78 inches when it is trimmed. I have no idea yet what I'm going to do with the back.



And, just a random photo from my trip to the Fort Wayne/Auburn area in July -- This cool bush/tree at the Fort Wayne Zoo. I wanted to take more photos, but my camera batteries died early on!

Losing my motivation for photos

I've been really bad lately about taking photos of my current projects. I blame that on the fact that I lost my camera connection cord and have mostly been loading photos onto my work computer since it's much easier than doing it to my home PC. (I won't mention the fact that my digital camera had slid underneath my bed and had temporarily been MIA. It's been recovered now through.)

This kinda makes me sad though because I've been engrossed in cutting a bunch of squares for my next project, which is kind of hard to describe ... which is why I should have taken photos of my plan! Well, anyway, I had a plastic container full of the some of the pieces I had cut ... hundreds of bright 2.5" squares. Plus, I had them arranged in rainbow order - ROYGBIV anyone? :) - so they looked soo cool. But I was impatient and wanted to start sewing them together before I found my camera. Sadness.

Although now that I've made this confession I feel more motivated to go home tonight and snap some pics of my other stack - in ROYGBIV order as well, but not quite as stunning - for the other portions of the quilt. Plus, I finished the 40 nine patches that will serve as the outside-ish border and inside central area. I've used so many bright, pretty fabrics for this quilt, I'm excited about it. I'm not sure what I think of the actual design, since it's really, really simple and not typically "me," but if nothing else, it should serve as a good "extra" quilt ... for my guest room or quilt camp or something. I also hope to machine quilt it, since I am not so scared of "ruining" it with lackluster, inexperienced machine quilting. I've never machine quilted anything larger than a wall hanging, so I am kind of nervous about that prospect.