Friday Round-Up

Happy Friday!  Fun fact: I have a coworker who starts every email written on Friday with that line.  It drives me bonkers.

Here's my round-up this week.  What good sites have you seen lately?

Moon River Brewery in Savannah last week

• I'm a huge fan of Rifle Paper Co. (I've priced them out for our wedding announcements...our tight budget will need to become even tighter) (oh yeah!  I got engaged last weekend!  I forgot to mention that.), but Quill and Fox is like Rifle's younger, less refined sister.  The Chupacabra postcards are too awesome.
• Did anyone else see this dresser renovation on Cluck Cluck Sew?  The woman has endless amounts of talent.  I want one just like it now!
• And I can't let this week go by without a mention of Anna from Noodlehead's black and white quilt.  Jeni's tutorial is originally made up in patterns--and lord knows I love a good pattern--but black and white, with that background, is simply stunning.  Such a modern take on this design.  I've already pinned it!
• This Mexican vegetable soup will definitely be on our table next month.  Thursday Night Soup Nights starts in three weeks!
• Finally, because obviously a wedding is on my mind, I think these announcements are perfect for us quilters!  And they don't cost nearly as much as the Rifle ones...

Have a great weekend, everyone!  See you Monday with some Chicopee!

Looking back

As I was finishing the circus strip, I snapped a pic of the lay-out and sent it off to my quilting partner-in-crime, Emily.  I was ridiculously excited about my progress and I hoped she would be impressed as she is a much more competent sewer than I.

She came back with suitably supportive exclamations and then asked about what I was thinking for doing about the back.

That stopped me cold.  I had no idea.

As I spoke about last week, up until that point I hadn’t really thought about the rest of the quilt, or even the quilt as a whole.  I was just going piece by piece.

That was when it occurred to me to try and make the back out of the t-shirt scraps.  Emily thought it was a great idea.  To begin, I went through my scrap bag (I have a scrap bag.  Am I a quilter or what?) which is just a large Ziploc.

I pulled out anything I thought had enough square area to be useful and then started trimming.

I started with the smaller pieces, creating a lot of strips of various sizes and then moved on to bigger blocks of various sizes.  These were mostly remnants of shirts from the first two sections as they were already cut out.  Finally, I moved onto the remnants of the circus shirts which were mostly almost whole pieces.  I left a bunch of large pieces and then salvaged every little scrap I could.

However, I left one shirt untouched.  I can’t say why.  I also left the sleeves of each shirt intact.  Again, I can’t speak to the decision making process.

When done, I had quite a variety.  Admittedly mostly of the circus shirt pieces, which to be honest aren’t a great colour palette, but what’re going to do, eh?


At this point I realized I had no idea how large the back needed to be or how I would lay it out.
Unlike the front sections, this was one entity.  All these scraps were going to go together in one large piece as opposed to working in serendipitous sections.  I froze a bit, unsure where to start.

Despite this hesitation, I didn’t want to stop my serendipitous style of piecing by resorting to measurements and math, so I laid out the top pieces as neatly as possible on the living room floor.  I then used drafting tape to mark the corners and edges.  I now had a permanent ‘pattern’ on the floor to shape the back.

I started with the big blocks in the corners and attempted to lay out smaller ones in the left over spaces.  I wasn’t feeling it.  Nothing seemed to be quite fitting right.  Not the colours, not the shapes, I wasn’t happy.

So instead, as with every other section thus far, I decided to just start piecing together scraps as I found them.  I ended up with three ‘scrapy’ blocks I was really happy with and just kept going.

In the next eight hours I went through three bobbins and two spools of thread.  I finally stopped when I sewed two pieces together back to front and my final bobbin ran out.  It seemed  a sign that I had become a bit too feverish in my piecing and it was time to take a step back and look at what I had to work with now.

The blocks seemed to be taking on a vertical orientation and all about a third of the width of the quilt.  It looked like my pattern had again been decided for me.


Join me next week for a lesson learned...

Unreliable Internet!

Hi!  It's Labor Day here in the States, and Nick and I are in Beaufort, South Carolina, visiting my parents.  I had started a new quilt last week, and even took pictures while working on it, so I could schedule today's blog post and keep everyone up to date!

Well, there was a slight problem: before we left Thursday, the internet died at our apartment.  No matter what I did, it wasn't coming back!  So my pictures are on my computer in Maryland, while I'm in South Carolina until sometime Monday afternoon.  Oh well!

Due to the unforeseen circumstances, I'm going to leave you with some pictures of my mom's Sparkle Punch quilt (graciously held by Nick), as well as a gratuitous picture of me and Nick in Savannah Saturday.

My mom used this sewalong/tutorial from Oh Fransson! to make the Sparkle Punch quilt, and she used lots and lots of scraps from both of our stashes to make all 100 blocks--stars or partial stars.  I look at it and see so much of what I've made: clothes, accessories, whatever!  She plans on making a coordinating scrap quilt (different pattern, though), as she wants both used in a guest room that has two twin beds.

Here are the pictures!  If you have any questions, let me know.  I didn't make it, but I can always ask her!  I also took these with my phone so I could put them on my dad's computer for this post, but I should have better pictures up on Flickr sometime this week.

Her only messed-up block!  I think it's hilarious.

Hot and sweaty in Savannah, after a few beers, no less

Next week, barring any other bizarre technological problems, I'll have my progress on a Pow Wow Chicopee quilt, and maybe even some fun stuff from my Modern Quilt Guild meeting this week!  How was your weekend?

Friday Round-up

Each Friday, one of us does a little round-up of stuff that has stuck in the brain this week.  Kind of like an ear-wig, but with stuff.  Ear-wigs are okay, too.  It's not always sewing related.

Emily started last week's round-up with her favorite autumn brew, I thought I would continue the trend.  Meantime Brewery is by far our favorite beer provider.  It is our local micro-brewery and by local I mean it is a five minute walk from our flat.  They also have two local venues (20 and 30 minute walks from the flat).  If it is a sunny afternoon, chances are we are enjoying a London Lager and whichever seasonal brew they have on offer in their beer garden.  If you visit count on an evening at The Old Brewery.

photo by AB Chao from her blog

To continue the refreshment theme, Hurricane Isaac is creating a bit of havoc in the bayou, but some are trying to make lemonade out of lemons, or more accurately, A Dark and Stormy out of rum, ginger beer and limes.  I have to admit this is probably in bad taste, but that Kraken Rum looks delicious.

My yoga class this week was cancelled.  These cookie cutters by Baked Ideas are going a long way to making up for a missed 90 minutes of twisting, stretching, omm-ing.

photo by Serenah Photography

Sausage and Mash.  

Hilarious.
Seriously, I laughed so hard at this I might have cried a little.  I mean, are you kidding me?  I wouldn't say I am a huge fan of pet photography (my pictures of the adorable and devilish Trinculo aside) or dogs in general, but Serenah Photography in Brisbane is coming very close to changing my mind.  But a fair warning, the cat photos feature those weird hairless things that I don't really believe can be categorized as cats.



Are you hungry yet? Thirsty?  Now you know where to go.  Have a great weekend.

The show must go on

Soundtrack: The Greatest Show on Earth (film)

Inspiration: You can shake the sawdust out of your boots but you can never shake it out of your heart.  


The day I tackled the remainder of the circus block, I wasn't planning to quilt.  But, as I flipped through the TV channels, it just so happened “The Greatest Show on Earth” was playing.  How could I pass up a sign like that?

After the frustration that was the socks and fishnet piece, I wasn’t thrilled to get back to it.  I wasn’t even sure how that piece was going to work with everything else.  I had been so out of whack making it that I didn’t really think about how it might translate to the bigger project.  So I left it aside when I started.

Much like my time in the circus, this block proved to be a turning point in the larger project.

First, I moved my work space from the dark kitchen to the slightly brighter living room.  At the time this was to watch the film while sewing, but now it works for floor space.
Second, I began to see the quilt as a whole instead of focusing on each section.  This block was created with the resulting quilt (or show) in mind as opposed to just fitting it to itself.
Third, this section was the first to be created solely out of pieces yet to be cut, which left me with a lot of excess material.


But let’s get to the sewing.

As I said, this piece needed to be cut first.  This caused me a bit of pause.  It’s one thing to put aside shirts you know you won’t wear again, it’s another thing to cut them up when they are perfectly useable.  I didn’t have nearly as much to work with in this section as I did with the others.  Only five shirts and a pair of rainbow striped underwear.  Two of the shirts had only pocket designs.  I started with those and cut out a simple square leaving the rest of the shirt relatively whole.

As I have said before, once the first cut is made, it all just becomes a bit of material.  The pocket designs freed of their excess, I moved on to the larger designs.  Soon I was left with just a few squares and rectangles.

I began as I always do and started laying them out in some pattern.  And again, I couldn’t see where I wanted to go.  And again, I started by connecting pieces of similar shape to create larger shapes.  

Let me pause here to note how similar this repetitiveness is to the experience of the circus.  Every day is a new town and new set up, but every  day is also the same routine again and again.  Every time I start a block it is a new set up and experience, but the steps that get me to the end are surprisingly similar every time.  This isn’t unique to circus life, but it is a relationship I spent a lot of time observing and recording.  Those observations and resulted writings earned me a PhD, so I guess it is something I notice.

As I moved on with the block I noticed other ways in which this particular section reminded me of the circus.
As I began to piece this section together, I realized this would be the last section of the quilt.  This caused me to pause in my usual improvisation.  If this was going to be the last section, it needed to be built in such a way to stand on its own but also connect to the others (just like a singular act in the circus).  Before now, I had created each completely independent from the rest.  That couldn’t happen here.

The other pieces came out and I began, for the first time, to think about the whole of the project.  How would these pieces fit together?  Would they fit together?

It turns out they would.  Those extra strips I had left from the ‘zen block’ proved to be the perfect pieces to work as connectors between the previous two sections and this last one.

What started as a block, became a long strip to anchor the other sections.

In order to finish this section I had to work in the moment as well as think ahead and remember what I had done previously.  Again, a relationship I observed during my time on the road and which translates beyond the ring of the circus.

What I’m thinking ahead to is what I am going to do for the back of the quilt?  As I said earlier, this section left me with a lot of excess material as it was the only one to start as whole pieces.  Have I learned enough over the last few weeks to make a back piece completely out of scraps?

It seems a tall order, maybe impossible.

But as they say, "nothing is impossible when you work for the circus."

Christmas Stockings in August

Surprise, surprise--I've completed yet another Christmas project.  I promise my next patchwork undertaking won't have red, green, or Santa anywhere near it, because I realize just how insane I am.  To be fair, I was raised this way, and in South Carolina right now, my mom is quilting her Christmas stockings and planning her Christmas tree skirt, so obviously it's hereditary.

It's been a couple weeks since I've updated you on my Thimble Blossoms Merry stockings.  I seemed to make very little progress on them for various reasons, but most of all, it's the end of the fiscal year and I'm pretty much just exhausted every day.  The last thing I want to do is work more when I get home (even if that work is more play).  I want to make dinner and read magazines and watch TV.  Finally, last Friday, I decided to end this craziness and just finish everything.  Just do it, Emily!

This sounds completely ridiculous, but I really worried about Nick's stocking.  I make a lot of things for myself, and I know I can fudge it and still be happy.  No one else will notice!  But making something for Nick, who I never make anything for, really worried me.  Thankfully, he loved his stocking front when I pieced it earlier this month, and that was half the battle.

To quilt his, I followed the chevrons: each one is quilted right through the middle.  I did use a "hand-quilting" stitch on my machine, which used a lot more thread than I expected.  Also, it isn't shown, but both stockings are lined with a red Kona, a little darker than the red shown here (JoAnn's doesn't have the best selection).

I also didn't want to fully quilt the backs of each stocking, so for Nick's, I just freehanded a few snowflakes here and there--just enough to keep the stocking back and lining attached.

I made myself the pinwheel variation, and I have to say, I'm not totally in love with it!  I think it's really busy, which is totally my fault.  However, I am still proud of myself for trying it, and I'll still use it at Christmas.

I quilted mine using the lines of the pinwheels: I did two straight lines on either side of the diagonals.  Simple.

To quilt the back, I went a little crazy and outlined a few Santas freehand.  It's subtle, which is fine.

My last steps may be to embroider our initials--I still haven't decided on that.  What do you think?

Also, I wanted to show you a picture of my sewing area:

I've been using my mom's Husqvarna Designer I since May, but she's decided she wants it back, so I've packed it up and am taking it with us when we leave for South Carolina Thursday.  (Don't worry--I'll still have a post for you Monday!)  My poor little table feels so empty, even with everything on it!  I share this space with my dining room table and fabric/cookbook storage, which is why everything looks crammed in--it is.  But it's mine, and until I have an actual sewing area, it will work!

How was your weekend?  Anyone else working on Christmas stockings, tree skirts, or presents?

Friday Round-Up

Oh my good lord...why did Friday take so long this week?!  

• Wild Olive's printable quilt cards are adorable.  How would I use them?  I can see them becoming note cards (perhaps writing down notes about projects, things you've learned, etc...), little handmade calling cards, bookmarks, whatever!  So cute.
• Dessert!  I found some great recipes this week, from brownies on Smitten Kitchen to fall apple cake from Martha Stewart.
• Speaking of fall, as you can see from the above picture, it's pumpkin beer time in these parts!  I don't remember it coming so early, but boy, am I thankful.  Post Road Pumpkin (Brooklyn Brewery) is my favorite, but this Punk'n from Uinta Brewery in Utah stole my heart with its label and its taste.
• I am in love with Aneela Hoey's Cherry Christmas, and Amanda made an awesome pillow with it this week.  I may grab a charm pack and make one just like it!
• And because I mentioned Aneela Hoey, did you see her sneak peek of Posy?  It's quite different from her usual look and reminds me more of Heather Ross, which is right up my alley.  I can't wait for January!

What are you sewing this weekend?  I have some great projects to show you on Monday, but tomorrow I'm heading to an LQS (over an hour away...not so local) with a friend from my Modern Quilt Guild.  Here's hoping we find some good stuff!  (Because we definitely both need more fabric...)