A tan. And about five novels worth of reading (finished books 2 & 3 of the Kate Shugak mysteries, Inferno by Dan Brown, and am in the middle of re-reading Outlander by Diana Galbadon and book 4 of Kate Shugak).
Here’s a little thing I made before our vacation for my niece. Who is absolutely ADORABLE. And the best part? I earned her FIRST official smile. My sister is still sort of mad about it, but oh well! I win at aunt-ing!
Onesies are from Target, and Star Wars fabric is (naturally) leftovers from my Star Wars quilts. The waistband is from a knit remnant I found at JoAnn’s.
In truth I am taking it easy with the sewing this week for two main reasons:
It’s the last week of school and we’re going on vacation and my lady times are upon me and it’s really hard to see through this veil of tears, which are a result of aforementioned reasons.
I’ve also gotten caught up in a jigsaw puzzle. As has Morelli.
Not surprising to anyone who knows me, it’s a puzzle with quilts and a cat on it.
I have plodded along on a couple other projects, though, and have finished the setting triangles (both side and corners) for Easy Street Redux. The main colors are teal, purple, and a warm brown. My constant is a paler green with a floral print on it, and I’m using the same cream tones for my background. I’m hoping to get the B blocks pieced before vacation, if only so I don’t have to leave them out on my sewing table where the cats will frolic with them in my absence.
When not piecing I’ve been cutting out some pieces for another Scrappy Swoon, which will be a wedding present. I’ve got the blues and the creams cut out for it, but need some more white on white prints for the background (I’m doing a low contrast on the background and the ring part of the star with blue in the middle to help me figure out value contrast). I’m in the “readying to sprint” phase of this project, and will probably whip it up after Beachwalk and Easy Street Redux this summer. Morelli has been extra helper-ful with this as well.
Morelli, you have been charged with too much helpering. Back in the box.
One quilt and a couple small gifts finished this week so there’s been steady progress. In addition I’ve finished the setting and corner triangles for my Easy Street Redux quilt, and have everything ready to sew the blocks. It’s a toss up whether I want to work on Beachwalk or Easy Street, though, so I guess we’ll see which mood strikes me!
Used this Week: 7 yards
5.5 yd for WERQ that Swoon
0.5 yd for baby stuff
1.5 yd for gift for a friend
Used year to Date: 172 yards
Added this Week: 0.5 yards
0.5 yd for 2 FQs
Net Used for 2013: 94 yards
YTD Used for Charity: 78 yards (45% of total used)
In my podcast today I mentioned the Swoon quilt I had made for a friend this week.
Most of the fabric comes from the Sophie line from Moda, which is a couple years old. I know she likes retro prints, so it was a perfect fit (plus I had made her other things from the line which she liked).
Rather than do the straight sashing, I added some cornerstones to help me keep the blocks lined up, and added some star points to the center one to make a little tiny Hunter’s star.
I used the waste triangles from the flying geese for top/bottom borders, as well as a row on the pieced back. I’m happy with how it turned out, and hope it helps her feel a little better. The name comes from RuPaul’s Drag Race, which is a common interest of ours (and is honestly the tamest of the phrases I could use!).
Having resolved the Camerapocalypse, here’s what caused the Lintpocalypse in my machine last week.
When Quilting Jenny had her blogaversary giveaways, I won the one on the last day, which was a kit for a denim quilt. The finished quilt measures 60×60″. To make it you, pair a denim square with a flannel square (wrong sides today) and stitch them together with an “x” on each block. Then you piece the individual squares together into blocks that measure 12″ and then stitch them into chunks and then voila! you end up with a quilty-blanket sort of thing (with no batting since it’s rather heavy already).
I used some red flannel for mine, mostly since that’s the flannel that I had on hand. I had thought I would finish it last week to use for the finals of baseball, but wouldn’t you know that the weather over the weekend was warm enough not need it. So there’s that.
(everyone go buy a fat quarter! I used one of my catch phrases!)
Also, in her instructions, Jenny said you could speed the “fringing” of the seams by clipping the seam allowances. I found that wasn’t necessary since a good wash and dry cycle fringed it up nicely.
KitchenAid Mixer Cover
My mom was nice enough to send me pictures of the covers I made for her for Mother’s Day since I forgot to take pictures before I mailed them.
The fabric I used was the leftovers from her kitchen curtains, which I had previously used for her Pineapple quilt, Iz. I’m sure my mom has already figured out that, given the opportunity, cats will enjoy using those covers as forts.
Before sharing what I sewed this week, I wanted to share what happened after I sewed last week. This what my bobbin case looked like after sewing the denim quilt. The denim itself wasn’t too bad, but the red flannel was pretty heinous, and the thread I was using (not Aurifil, which is my usual piecing thread, but a thicker cotton) took a big linty dump all over my machine.
Also, I got a new camera and I’m liking it very much. And I don’t even have to use Velcro and SuperGlue to keep the battery door closed!
Here’s the Lintpocalypse after. I used my LED light to really spotlight the horror. My machine felt much better afterwards, and was back to its normal quiet self.
Anywho, this also has been a WIP for the house - the fence to enclose the new Bunnywind Downs! We need to put in a gate on our wrap-around porch so Fred can’t escape that way, and then he’ll be free to explore the backyard to his heart’s content. The human kids are also excited they have a new place to “explore” this summer since we didn’t really encourage exploration of the woods behind our house before, and now there’s lots of secret tree stands and forts to build.
And now actual sewing, which is sort of a secret since it’s a quilt for a friend.
I’m sure you all can imagine that of the 30 pictures I’ve taken with the new camera, about 25 of them have cats in them.
This week I had a couple small projects and the denim quilt finish, so racked up a little bit of yardage usage. The blender and mixer covers (which I forgot to take pictures of) were the Mother’s Day presents for my mom. Semi-related, my MIL really loved the pie pan cozies that I made her and I think we’re getting a pie out of the deal next weekend!
Rather than dive in on the Beachwalk quilt, I’m making a small detour for some gifts for friends this week, so I’ll probably get back to that by the end of this week.
Used this Week: 8.5 yards
6 yd for denim quilt
1.25 yd for mixer cover
1.5 yd for blender cover
Used year to Date: 165 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Wahoo!
Net Used for 2013: 87.5 yards
YTD Used for Charity: 78 yards (47% of total used)
