Monthly Archives: August 2014

Sunday Stash - Finally!

Sunday Stash

The Birdie quilt is done! And I forgot to take pictures today! Oh well, tomorrow is a holiday so I’ll try to take them then.  I’m also about halfway through with a bag test pattern, which I think I’ll get done tomorrow, too.

Big progress on the Wellspring quilt front - all tops are done (last one shown to the right), two of final four are done, one still being bound by guildmate and one will get returned to me for binding. Final stage is affixing the labels to 29 quilts, and I’ll stitch five of them on myself.

  • Used this Week: 6 yards
    • 6 yd for Birdie quilt
  • Used year to Date: 252.25 yards
  • Added this Week: 0.25 yards
  • Net Used for 2014: 169.75 yards
  • YTD Used for Charity: 96 yards (38% of total used)

See more Stash Reports at Patchwork Times!

Painting for Illusion with Esterita Austin

General Quilting

I had the privilege of taking a class from Esterita Austin today through the East Cobb Quilters Guild on “Painting for Illusion”;  I wanted to take it because my art quilting skills could use a little improvement; wait, that’s a lie. They could actually use a LOT of improvement, and I’ve always wanted to paint better.

Esterita is an excellent teacher and I would definitely recommend taking a class from her if you get the chance; she is entertaining and charming and very knowledgeable about techniques and theory behind design and painting on fabric. Also, she invented MistyFuse, so she’s smart, too.

Anywho, our class project was a still life of three pots, which were fussy cut from her hand dyed fabric.  The goal was to have light value on the left and dark value on the right to mimic a light source somewhere on the left.  Here’s a picture of my piece after fusing, but before painting:

UntitledWe then worked on painting using some ProChem paints Esterita provided and learned about blending, tints, shading, and all sorts of Fancy stuff. And voila!

Painted Pots - After Painting

 

I’m happiest with the pot in the middle - the leftmost one is still a little jacked up.  On the rightmost one with the handle, I’m happy with the painting I did on the lid to give it definition.  Esterita was impressed the skinny dark line was done with paint and not a Sharpie marker.  A+ for skinny line drawing!

I’m done with the painting, but I’m not sure if I’ll quilt it.  The colors are not something I’d normally decorate with, but if I do quilt it, it would be with some sort of humorous background to depict the psychedelic nature of the color palette of the pots. And possibly play off the word “pot”, if you catch my meeting.

HtbaS - Episode 193

This I catch up on a couple other stories from earlier travels, talk about the day retreat for the AMQG, making charitable tops to finish out a guild commitment, and what I’m planning for #LDSI (Labor Day Sew In)!

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Sunday(ish) Stash: Appearance of Progress

Sunday Stash

Still no finished quilts this week, but fabric left the stash for projects that are being finished by others.  We’re in the final push to finish the 29 quilts for the Wellspring Living recovery house (they help girls rescued from human trafficking), and we were three quilts short.  That means crunch time to put them together!  The guild received a grant to help with the project, so we’ve used every last penny from the funds to buy a 20 yd bolt of Kona Snow, two layer cakes, and backing fabric to meet our commitment.

Two of the three are giant disappearing four patches, and the final is a big old checkerboard pattern with Kona Snow opposite 9″ blocks in a variety of designs that came from my stash - strings, 4 patches, 9 patches, giant HSTs, etc.  So, the fabric from my stash was for those blocks, and the binding for 4 quilts (another member had parts for a top that I finished on Thursday, but it lacked binding).

A big shout out to my guildmates who joined me in the sweatshop this week to make these quilt tops! Now we need to channel our energy to propping up Lynn, who is quilting all four (well, after I get her the final top on Thursday!). Sadly, no pictures of anything because the lighting was not good, so I’ll try to get pics when they are all done and bound.

And because I felt like being a little selfish, I made two luggage tags on Saturday at retreat as well. WOOOOO!

  • Used this Week: 4.75 yards
    • 2 yd for binding for 4 quilts
    • 2.5 yd in blocks for Wellspring top
    • 0.25 yd for luggage tags
  • Used year to Date: 246.25 yards
  • Added this Week: 3.5 yards
    • 3.5 yd for bag test pattern
  • Net Used for 2014: 162.75 yards
  • YTD Used for Charity: 96 yards (39% of total used)

See more stash reports at Patchwork Times!

HtbaS - Episode 192

Is this thing on? I dust off the microphone and cast the pods to talk about where I’ve been the last few weeks, share some anecdotes about dogs, cookies, dresses, and a little bit of quilting!

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WIP Wednesday: Fancy as…

WIP Wednesdays,

Family Fun - August 2014Well. Here I am, back in the world of the living. Most of the four pounds I gained over the last two weeks have slid back off. My roots are being replanted in my home soil, and I’m feeling more normal.  Correction: as normal as can be with the ramp up of fall baseball season for my son and a wrist injury for my husband from a fall at work.

Speaking of family, here we all are, looking Fancy at the wedding last Saturday. Fun story: I was afraid the dress I bought wouldn’t fit since it was a size I hadn’t worn since college.  Even though I know I weigh the same as in college, there’s still a fat girl in my head telling me to quit fooling myself. I shoved a cookie in that fat girl’s mouth (and my own) and tried the dang dress on and VOILA it totally fit.

Moral of the Story: Sometimes the voices in your head are full of crap. And cookies.

A Little Birdie Told MeHaving recovered from the travel, I finally dove back into sewing last night and made some more progress on the quilting on “A Little Birdie Told Me”.

This is the center panel, shown from the (pieced) back of the quilt.  I’m mostly outlining the design in the printed panels for those parts and adding loops and circles in the frames. For the outer border of the quilt I’m doing feathers. I started off in one of the printed fabrics on the border so it wouldn’t be so obvious if I goofed up the feathers.  I’ll save the solid fabric border for last!

I’ve got our regular guild sew-in this Thursday, a full-day retreat on Saturday, and then a full day class the following Saturday. I think it’s safe to say that I’ll be getting in some quality sewing time in the next few weeks!

WIP Wednesday: A Little Birdie Told Me

WIP Wednesdays

Birdie Christmas Quilt in progressOh hey, an actual quilt I’m working on!  We issued a challenge in the AMQG to make something creative out of a panel. I made this top for a sample, so I can’t actually enter it in the challenge since it was technically started/made before the challenge started, but it’s turned out pretty cute.  It’s supposed to be a Christmas quilt, although a different color palette than traditionally done: orange, turquoise, lime green, etc.  I used a LOT of squares from my 3 1/2″ and 5″ scraps to frame everything up.

I’m quilting the charm square portions right now, and still have the borders, green, and white background portions to quilt.  I’m trying to branch out from my usual stipple, but my rut is very comfortable!  I’m trying to pick up the motifs from the panel prints, but my free form pear shapes are a bit too… squashy. And I need fruits, not vegetables!

 

Sunday Stash - Pausing

Sunday Stash

Just a smidge of usage this week as I made a quick cross-body bag for my business trip.  I also got the units for row 6 of the Diamonds in the Sky EPP quilt done, and am assembling them into a row this week (and in the next trip at the end of this week). I’ve also started quilting my panel challenge sample, which is a very bright and girly Christmas quilt.

I’m not feeling particularly productive, but rather the need to huddle and focus on maintaining mental health since I don’t travel particularly well - lack of sleep, out of my routine, weird food, inconsistent exercise, etc. If the mood strikes, I might record a podcast in the next few days, but I wouldn’t expect to hear my voice until August 22nd; the lack of sewing and surplus of unsettledness means I would only be whining about stuff, and that’s not fun for anyone!

Remind me to tell you all about the vikings and the giant Reese’s peanut butter bar in Las Vegas!

  • Used this Week: 0.75 yards
    • 0.75 yd for the Catnip cross-body bag
  • Used year to Date: 241.5 yards
  • Added this Week: 0 yards
    • Woohoo!
  • Net Used for 2014: 162.75 yards
  • YTD Used for Charity: 91.5 yards (38% of total used)

See more stash reports at Patchwork Times!

WIP Wednesday: Working for a Living

WIP Wednesdays

I’m out of town this week, so I’m mostly working on a massive set of blisters from walking from one end of the Vegas strip to another. Because I could. And today I get to stand up for nine hours at a trade show booth for my company. Yowza!

IMG_20140806_064000Of course I decided I needed a crossbody bag to take with me on this trip at the last minute as my usual purse was a bit too large, but I needed more than a wristlet.  I finally dipped into my stash of Catnip FQs and made this little bag with some Lizzy House Pearls as well.

It’s sitting in the poorly cropped photo with my Sew Together bag since I brought a batch of EPP sections to work on. Row 5 got attached before I left, so these are for row 6 out of 13.