Monthly Archives: July 2013

WIP Wednesday: Quilting Sand Is For the Birds

State of the Sewing Room, WIP Wednesdays, ,

Well, I’m sort of stuck with Beachwalk quilting.  I’ve “finished” quilting 4 out of 9 blocks, but reserve the right to go back and quilt in some areas if it looks uneven when the center is done.  I’d love to take a break and piece something, but I have the superstition that if I move my machine back into piecing mode from quilting- with- monofilament- mode (change the bobbin case, adjust stitch length, change the needle, etc.), catastrophe will happen. So I suppose I’ll power through, and maybe set up my Featherweight if I really need to piece something?

Here’s what I need to be piecing to stay on top of the Star Surround quilt along.  I think I’ll get a chance to mark my HSTs today, but at least I have all my pairs set up.

In pairing my fabrics I was a little leery of some of my fabric choices but ultimately decided to go with my gut and keep my fabrics in there. Also, if I changed my mind that meant I had to do more cutting and NUH-UH. Not doing it. So I go with the feeling that “well, it’s only a Christmas quilt, so if it’s truly hideous we only have to look at it for a month!” I suppose I could also give it a real kick-ass back if we want to turn it over instead. 🙂

And side note, if you follow my Stash Reports, you know I’ve been steadily using up my stash. Lest you think I’ll run out of fabric, let me show you this.

It used to be that all three shelves were full and I couldn’t fit those green boxes on there.  I’m excited to have it at this level because it means that those green project boxes are off the corner of my cutting table, and onto the shelves so I have more room to spread out on the cutting table.  This picture does not include my novelty drawer, holiday fabric, or batiks.  Each of those live in a plastic drawer unit next to this shelf.  On the whole, I’m glad I’ve reduced my hunter greens down to half a stack, but feel like I need a little more aqua and “regular” browns (which I’ll need for my parents’ quilt next year anyway), and some more yellows and regular reds. However, I don’t know if I don’t use those colors because I don’t have them, or if I don’t have those colors because I don’t use them.  It’s a real chicken and egg question!

WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

Sunday Stash - The One That Almost Wasn’t

Sunday Stash

I sort of wrote this in my head yesterday, yet forgot to actually commit it to keyboard and just now remembered. The good news is I finished a quilt this week, and broke 250 total used! But then I bought some fabric to finish two other projects, so…. yeah.

  • Used this Week: 8.75 yards
    • 8.75 yd for Northern Beach Lights
  • Used year to Date: 251.5 yards
  • Added this Week: 8.5 yards
    • 4 yd of Kona Sand for Star Surround
    • 4.5 yd backing for Easy Street Redux
  • Net Used for 2013: 128.25 yards
  • YTD Used for Charity: 113.75 yards (45% of total used)

See more stash reports at Patchwork Times!

HtbaS - Episode 139

This week I talk about fitness progress, the Northern Beach Lights quilt, getting started on the Star Surround QAL, and how Newton’s Three Laws of Motion apply to quilting, fitness, and life.

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Star Surround Progress

State of the Sewing Room,

Once the magical package delivery man arrived with the remainder of my background fabric (Kona Sand) (which I accidentally over-ordered and now have 3 1/2 yards to spare) (oh well!), I was able to finish cutting all my bits and pieces for the Star Surround quilt.

To recap, I’m doing a 4×5 block layout of 16″ blocks.

I have around 3 different variations of this photo; Nina’s was the least obtrusive, Morelli’s has him draped over the cut colored squares, and Jett’s has him knocking over the stacks of the background fabrics.  They have since been safely tucked away into a project box to avoid further cat hair contamination. Honestly, that’s sort of a losing battle since all three cats go in the for wake-up call when it’s time to wake up my daughter, on whose bed this quilt will ultimately reside.

In other sneaky peek news, I finished the top for Easy Street Redux.  Here’s a preview to see how I did borders on it to make it king sized. The extra HST border is on the two sides to give it a little more drop on the sides of the quilt, to protect our precious piddies when they hang over the sides from certain aforementioned cats.

WIP Wednesday - Quit Yer Naggin’

WIP Wednesdays,

I am putting the final stitches on the Easy Street Redux top. Well, not at this moment… at this moment I am clickety-clacking on the keyboard and trying to tear my eyes away from the final chapters of The Cuckoo’s Calling while simultaneously answering “How much longer until we leave for camp?” from my daughter every 30 seconds.

Ahem.

So two more seams and that top will be done, and I think I’ve worked out when I can long-arm the center of it on my friend’s long arm machine.  In the mean time, I’ve picked out fabrics for the Star Surround Quilt Along.

Now before anyone shrieks in horror, the 12 Cats of Christmas fabric is over a decade old, I think, and will be used as a border on the quilt.  The quilt will be a Christmas quilt for my daughter’s full size bed, hence 1) cats and 2) Christmas.  I’m going to do a 4×5 block layout of 16″ blocks, which means although Melissa has done an awesome job of providing all sorts of math already worked out, I’m still going to have to be a math nerd and do some myself.

My plan is for each star block to have a red in it, and it will pair with either a blue or a green from the other stack.  The Kona Sand is the background.  I have a feeling her method for HST and Flying Geese construction is to pair squares and rectangles instead of triangle pieces so there will be some “waste” triangles, which I suppose just means I’ll have little bits leftover to make pillow covers out of.

WIP Wednesday at Freshly PiecedAnyway, enough worrying about that! In between the steps for the SSQA, I’m working on Beachwalk next. FINALLY. Thanks to Katie’s post about fear of failure.

 

Northern Beach Lights - Finished!

Finished Projects

Northern Beach LightsWell, I finished the quilt and picked a name. One of my best friends moved to California several years ago, thinking it would only be for 2 or 3 years, but now it’s going on over 7 and they just bought a vacation beach house an hour north of San Francisco.  When they first moved out there I was still figuring out quilting and made her a quilt out of silk dupioni (entirely impractical in retrospect, although at least they didn’t have kids or pets in their small apartment).  So with the beach house I figured it was time to re-quilt her with a new quilt.

Hence, Northern Beach Lights.

The pattern is Picnic in the Shade, from the Moda Bake Shop, using a mix of Robert Kaufman linen print in beige and a variety of batiks.  I resized the pattern down to a total of 42 blocks (the original is 8×8 blocks). The finished quilt measures 69 x 78″ with these new dimensions.

The fabrics themselves aren’t exactly beachy in the Miami sense of the word, but the low contrast and blues and greens gives it a more northerly beachy feel, which is exactly where her new house is.

I auditioned quite a few fabrics for the border, ultimately settled on a piece of blue for the inner border, and a purpleish batik print with jellyfish or squids on it (or some other shape that just looks like squids- sometimes it’s best not to ask!). Of course I was about 6″ too short to make it all the way around the quilt, so I used some cornerstones of the same linen print to make it work.

I mentioned on my last podcast I was not sure about using another batik for the backing, but I ended up using it anyway. I’m pleased to say I didn’t have any problems with it, just made sure I had a new needle and had dipped my thread in mineral oil and it all came out okay.

One more off the Q3 Finish Along list!

 

Sunday Stash - Momentum

Finished Projects, Sunday Stash,

I have very little in the way of finished usage to report since I was working on a larger quilt, but I did eek one small project this week.  This is the Noodlehead Divided Basket. Bonus Helper Cats in background are contemplating if they can fit inside of it. Note: they cannot, but it didn’t stop them from trying anyway.

  • Used this Week: 1.25 yards
    • 1.25 yd for divided tote
  • Used year to Date: 242.75 yards
  • Added this Week: 0 yards
    • I should note I have some fabric on order. 🙂
  • Net Used for 2013: 128 yards
  • YTD Used for Charity: 113.75 yards (47% of total used)

See more stash reports at Patchwork Times!

Here are two of my favorite pictures from our hike this week, at the site of an abandoned mill near a river and a railroad track.

 

HtbaS - Episode 138

I talk about climbing a mountain, finishing charity quilts and Scrappy Swoon, some books, and some cooking.

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WIP Wednesday: Solar Charged

WIP Wednesdays

We’ve managed to have a couple days of sunshine here finally, so after I got done putting the ark back in the basement I was able to work on my next project.

I’m using the Picnic in the Shade pattern from the Moda Bake Shop, scaled down to be 6×7 blocks (using 7 FQs).  I’ve got all the pieces cut, and the HSTs made for 2 out of the 7 batik prints.  I’m pairing the batiks with a Robert Kaufman linen print in a beige.  There’s a pretty low contrast between some of the batiks with the linen print, but I think the texture between the two still makes it interesting.

Scrappy Swoon Redux - Finished!

Finished Projects,

I finished this late Sunday, but it took me until tonight to get it washed/dried and decent pictures taken.

Scrappy Swoon Redux

The scrappiness of this one is much more controlled than the last one.  The white-on-white prints, versus a mix of low-volume prints makes it a cleaner look.  I think I could have expanded the beiges into tans more and been okay, but wouldn’t want to go lighter and minimize the contrast with the background.  I’d also love this with a teal instead of beige, but didn’t have enough fabric in that color to make it work.

For the quilting, I used matching thread in each section, with meanders in the blue and white, and radiating parallel lines in the beige.

The back of the quilt is a white on white print, so the quilting stands out a bit in those blue and beige thread colors.

Now to show it off at guild and then pack it away until the wedding date is set for the lucky couple. I got a little ahead of myself in making it, but I’ve always been one to plan ahead!

EDITED: Forgot to add the link to the original tutorial so those who want to make one of their own. It measures 72×72″ finished.