Wordless Wednesday

Summer Break

Hi!  Ariel and I are going to soak up the last days of summer by taking a hiatus from this blog for a month or so.  You can still follow us at Queen City Stitcher and Chronicles of a Reluctant Housewife, if we decide posting isn't unbearable in the heat.

See you in the fall!

Packed away

This time last year I wrote about the B*tch Block. The first block of my first quilt.

How excited and inspired and motivated was I back then?  In two weeks I would find out that my life would forever change.

Today I packed away the squares I cut two weeks ago. They sat untouched for too long, mocking me. I have no idea when, or if, I will get back to them. It is one of the many parts of me that are being packed away for awhile. I think that is the hardest part (after the sleep deprivation), temporarily losing the things that made me, me.

I no longer have time to write, or run, or quilt, or practice yoga, or even dry my hair.

I will try to keep writing here, but it will not be about my own quilting adventure for awhile yet.  I may have been too ambitious to think I could return so soon.

Finished: Meow Quilt

Another finish!  I know, things are getting pretty crazy around here.

I made this quilt for my friend Kelby, who had worked on some graphics for me.  She asked for some embroidered projects in return, which I gave her, but I wanted her to know how much I appreciated her work and her friendship!

This is the Meow pattern from Aneela Hoey.  It's so fun and easy!

I used 16 different prints, mostly black because Kelby's cat is black with green eyes.  With a block this large, it was great to showcase prints without having to fussy-cut or compromise larger repeats.

I backed the quilt with a print from Anna Maria Horner's re-released Hand-Drawn Garden.  I hate the skinny stack in the middle, but you have to have a seam somewhere, right?  It adds character.

I quilted in straight lines around the cats and on either side of the seams.  I started quilting in free-motion loops but the white thread interfered with the black prints too much.  It's amazing how 10 minutes of quilting can lead to two hours of un-quilting!

Kelby got this on Wednesday and loved it!  She said it's her favorite gift ever and that she'd never use it, for fear of getting it dirty.  I assured her it can be washed over and over and I can fix it, so she should love it instead of just looking at it!

What'd you finish this weekend?

Getting to Know the Farmers' Wives

If you're at all interested in modern quilting--or really any sort of quilting--chances are, you've heard of the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt.  This book of 111 six-inch blocks has excerpts of letters written by farmer's wives in the early 20th century, in response to a prompt about their daughters' futures.  That may not sound thrilling, but if you've seen the quilts that have resulted, you too would feel the pull to this book.  In fact, the multiple Flickr groups for makers of these blocks have provided hours of inspiration, even before I bought this book.

My Sewing Buddy sent me a bag of scraps from Denyse Schmidt's Hope Valley line.  Everyone should know how much I love DS by now--her fabrics, her books, herself--so this gift made me ecstatic.  Because the fabrics had originally been used in a log cabin quilt, there were some odd shapes and sizes.  I had to be creative in how to use them, though I did know I wanted to use them ASAP.  I ran out to Barnes & Noble, bought the Farmer's Wife book, and got started.

I've wanted a mini quilt for my cubicle, so I chose nine blocks and used a white background (as always).  I knew Hope Valley would make me happy every time I saw it, even while working!

The blocks are small, as I said, and use templates for all the piecing.  Some of the templates are so ridiculously teeny--that led to a lot of odd cuts from my rotary blade.  You can also see that my piecing isn't perfect, and I was perhaps a bit too trim-happy with some of the blocks.  But, as I'm the only quilter at work, no one is going to notice.

I free-motion quilted in lots of loops, which was mostly just fun!  I wanted to try something new.  I should've changed my needle for it--dang.

I backed the mini-quilt in Hope Valley that I used for Modern Maples, and bound it in a DS Quilts print (also used in my Modern Maples).  I added little loops at the top to hang it in my cubicle.  Genius, right?  I'm going to get a patent.  (Just kidding, I'm 100% sure I'm the last person in the world to think of this.)

The mini-quilt matches the Denyse Schmidt mug rugs my buddy made me, so my cubicle is extremely coordinated.  I love it!

In other news, I started another baby quilt!  For those of you counting, that's...five?  Is that right?  All for babies I know, or mothers I know.  That's crazy, right?  2012 and 2013 have been very fertile years.  Be careful out there, kids.

I'll have more information and pictures when it's done, but I decided to use Timber & Leaf for this new baby girl. I'm waiting on two more fat quarters to arrive, but so far I love it.  I hope she does too!

Squares

Prepare yourself.

This quilt is going to drag on and on.  Gone are the days of feverishly cutting and piecing, getting lost in the fabric and calmly hand-stitching while watching TV.

It took me a week to cut the pieces for this small quilt.  I have no idea how long it will take to actually piece it together.  I'm not sure how much I can wax on about the incremental steps each week, but I'll try to keep it somewhat interesting.

As I said last week, this is a quilt for Pruin's best friend down the road.  It seemed only fitting that Pruin help.  Of course he couldn't do much more than babble his agreement or criticism from his spot on the floor next to me, but at least I don't feel guilty about neglecting my son while I try to do something unrelated to his upkeep.

During last week's heatwave we camped out on the floor (where is was coolest) and cut out squares.  Despite picking out seven fabrics, I concentrated on the shirt given to me by my mama friend.  To my mind this is the centerpiece of the quilt so the other fabrics should act as compliments instead of stealing the show.

This decision made it easier to figure out how many squares I needed.  Actually, that makes it sound organized and intentional.  Really, I cut as much as I could out of the shirt and that is going to be enough.

I can't bring myself to plan the design.  I find I enjoy the quilting process a lot more when I just let it flow a bit.  Of course I have yet to follow a pattern so maybe I would enjoy the direction and structure (especially as my time is now limited) but there is something about the serendipity of working with 'non-traditional' fabrics.  I'm never quite sure how it's going to turn out but I find it makes the process just as satisfying as the end result.

Because the materials are somewhat wonky shapes I made templates to ensure I got every usable bit out of each shirt piece.  This doesn't always work.  I tend to slowly shave a bit off during each pass which means later pieces aren't the same size as earlier pieces.  I'm hoping it washes out in the seam allowance.

I am going for a Flying Geese pattern in this quilt.  This pattern has called to me since we started this venture so it seemed the right time to give it a go.  This is as close as I got to planning a design.  The design will come once the 'geese' are sewn together and I see what evolves.

Completed: Christmas Quilt!

I have another completed project today!  And yet again, it is woefully out of season.  But I guess that's what happens when you pick up WIPs eleven months later?

This Easy Bake With a Layer Cake quilt top was my first quilt top, completed last August.  I meant to quilt and bind it before Christmas, and even sent it to my mom's house for her to work on, but then she gave it right back to me!  To be honest, I never really knew how I wanted to quilt it.  There are so many angles and lines, so straight-line quilting wouldn't be a great choice.  I didn't know how to use the built-in free-motion quilting feature on my old sewing machine (the classic stipple), so waiting really didn't affect anything.  I knew I'd come up with something eventually.

My Bernina came with the Bernina Stitch Regulator, a fancy little foot that hooks into the machine's computer.  It reads the fabric and the sewist's motions to keep stitches as consistently-sized as possible.  For a newbie, this made things extremely easy!

Bernina Stitch Regulator

In action!

I used the BSR to quilt chains and stars going vertically down the length of the quilt.  It was definitely a learning experience--the machine would beep whenever I'd move things too quickly, and it beeped a lot!  I used a new 90/14 quilting needle to help with skipped stitches and I got the hang of it about four or five chains in.  I'm no expert, but I feel a little more comfortable now.

All the fabrics used are Dear Mr. Claus from Cosmo Cricket, a Moda line from 2012.  I really love the snowflakes for the backing--they're so simple!

Now I just have one unfinished quilt top.  I'll have some other projects to show you in the meantime, but I'm so excited to be done with WIPs!