Stymied

I was all set to baste my new quilt.  I was looking forward to quilting.  That never happens.  I love the piecing and the designing, but not the finishing.

I got my batting cut. I put together the backing.  I think I like the backing better than the front.  I got my sandwich all laid out, only to discover I hadn't made the backing big enough.  I think I'll just see what's on the DVR and deal with making the backing bigger tomorrow.

Framed Values or something like that

I've been working on a aversion of this quilt with more contrast.

I came up with this.

 It's really hard to come up with a four shade gradation of one color with the stock available at the smallest JoAnn's EVER.  the light shade is a bit light when next to the white sashing and the two darker shade are a bit too close.  I still think it works pretty well.

Then I decided I should try a more complicated border.  I did half square triangles (HST's) for the first time.  Pretty easy except for the trimming.  I won't be trying those again, until I save my pennies for a lazy susan cutting mat.  Now that I think about it, I have a large lazy susan on the dinning room table, maybe I should try that out.

 I liked how the border plays with values in a completely different way than the center blocks.  However, I think there's too much going.  Next time I'm going to go with a simple piano key border.

My HST's didn't turn out too badly for my first try.  bigger would be easier too.  Those little HSTsuckers are only 2.5 inches on a side.  The whole quilt is 45 inches on a side.

Next I'm going to try the pattern in different colors.  Stay tuned.

can't sew today

Tomorrow is the first meeting of my MOMS club quilt group.  We are meeting at my house, which means that I can't continue to ignore the growing pile of dirty dishes and the disaster area that is the living room.  I hate housework.  You wash dishes and they just need washing tomorrow.  A quilt stays sewn and you can look at it and admire your handiwork.  So no sewing until the house is presentable.

Instead I'll leave you will my favorite find from the clearance section at target.

 These little condiment cups are the perfect size for a small snack, or some crafting supplies.  I keep them all over the house for holding safety pins, bits of thread or sewing supplies.

I've been working on organizing my fabric using comic book boards.  They fit very nicely in a canvas bin I got at Target, one of the itso line.

Aren't they purdy?

Finally, I never posted pictures of the wee monsieur's 5th birthday.

 I embroidered tee shirts with rocket ships on them for favors.

 Of course the birthday boy was sporting one for the party.

These little cuties were made for me, by my good friend Nikki at Tradewind Tiaras.  She makes the most amazing cakes too.  These little cupcakes are my humble efforts.  Nikki made the robots.

Work in progress

I'm working on a new quilt design.  I usually come up with an idea, figure it out on graph paper and start cutting.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.  This one looked great on paper.  The fabrics were luscious.  Then something happened when I started sewing it together.  I'm just not sure if it's going some where good.  Let's take a look, shall we?

It's hard to go wrong with this creamy lusciousness.  There's some Moda Pure in there among other yummies.

 Something isn't quite working.

I'm not feeling this one either.

What about a completely different direction?

I built some new blocks for the center and used the old ones as a border.  I love the optical illusion of the color gradation blocks.  I love the creamy color story.  I think I need more color contrast and to be honest I think the original blocks that I used in the border need to be changed.

What do you think?

Trio of delights

What better way to start the evening than with a little fabric porn.  I got a yummy box from FatQuarters.com.  From left to right we have Prayer Flag by Moda, (it was all on sale), a neutral Moda jelly roll, a Kona snow jelly roll and  some random stripes and patterns.  I can't resist a fabric sale, especially Moda.  Anyway, I got a prayer flag jelly roll, a layer cake and some yardage cuts of whatever they had left that looked good.  I'm rather tempted to try the postage stamp quilt from p.s. i quilt.  I know the quilt along is over, but whatever.  

Once a month my M.O.M.S. Club has a craft group that meets.  Today was craft group and the project was a pillow case using the magic, hot dog or burrito pattern.  I'm slowly collecting fabric for Baby Girl's quilt and thought I'd do some pillow cases to coordinate.  That's the great thing about shabby chic, mo' patterns, mo' better.

 I picked up a yummy green and white damask and paired it with a tiny rose and pink stripe.  I also used a big pink rickrack instead of a 3rd fabric.  A solid white would also have been good, but I didn't think of it at the time.  Don't be afraid to mix patterns.  I get into trouble more when I fail to mix patterns sufficiently than when I do mix them.

 This is a close up of my first french seam.  Manifique, oui?!

Finally, I finished up a name tag for myself.  When I went to my first quilt guild meeting, everyone had the most beautiful handmade name tags.  It's a name tag, so it can't be very big and it has to be legible.  Those are hard parameters to work with.  I finally decided on something simple and used my embroidery machine to whip something up.  The pattern is from Urban Threads.  I got to use some truly tiny scraps for the applique.  I've been in a neutrals mood recently, so this fit the bill to a T.   The binding was another too thin to use scrap that I had saved.  There was just enough to turn under on both sides and catch with a needle.  The purple ribbon in the bottom left corner is for bringing a completed quilt for show and tell.  You get a ribbon for every quilt you bring in, but it has to be completely finished, binding and everything.

leftovers

I LOVE leftovers.  I always cook too much so there is leftovers and I buy too much fabric so there is leftovers.  I took some of the extra blocks from the zig zag quilt and whipped up this little one for a friend who had a baby girl recently.  This is their 3rd girl, so I know she is totally set for clothes and toys, but one can never have too many quilts.

I love this color palatte.  It's so fresh and girly, but goes with any decor.  I didn't have enough of the lavender feather to bind this quilt completely so I added in some yellow.

 I also did a scrappy back.  Gotta use up every square inch of fabric.  when you are making a lap or baby quilt, both sides will be seen so you might as well do something pretty on the back.  I was careful when I did the binding to get the yellow binding over the lavender fabric in the backing so it would show up nicely.

I even quilted this one.  I did straight lines on either side of every seam.  I honestly don't like the quilting to be too dense.  The piece gets really stiff.  I'm still practicing my free motion quilting, but I probably won't tackle the real thing for quite a while.  Straight lines are completely acceptable for quilting.

I'm just waiting on some new labels I ordered before I mail it off.  I ordered some twill tape labels  that are embroidered from a seller on etsy to use on my quilts.  I ordered some with the date and some with out.  I'll use up the dated ones first and use the non dated ones on older pieces.  Hopefully, I'll have to order a bunch more soon!  I'm on a roll.  This makes 3 start to finish completed quilts so far this year and 1 pieced top and back delivered to the long arm quilter.  I'm going to count that as 4 quilts so far this year.  Coming up I have my Modern Quilt Guild challenge quilt, a lap quilt for my MIL and FIL's 40th anniversary, a full sized quilt for baby girl's big girl bed plus various other projects.

Where the water meets the land completed

I finished sewing the binding this morning.  I curled up on the couch with a big mug of tea, the quilt and the remote.  I let the kids watch cartoons so I could sew in peace.

My quilter had suggested I try a 2 inch binding.  (She says she cuts hers to 1 and 7/8.)  That's 2 inches wide folded in half and sewn down to the front.  Then you fold the fabric over the raw edge and hand sew it to the back.  I think I'll stick with a 2.5 inch binding strip.  It was so tiny that I had to trim the edge of the quilt down to bare nubbin in order to have enough to fold over and cover the stitching line on the back.  Now I know I prefer a 2.5 inch binding and there's no shame in that.

Here we have "Where the water meets the land"

 Do you like my new photography studio space?  It's the hall closet.  Our house is open concept and has high ceilings and huge windows.  There are basically no walls.  I finally found that the crown molding over the hall closet is reachable and nice, but indirect light.  Those spiffy quilt hangers were very expensive and hard to find.  They clamp gently but firmly to the top of the quilt and then can be conveniently hung over the molding for display.  No, I'm just kidding.  Those are wooden pants hangers from target.  You get 4 for $4.50.  Wait until I show you my custom designed quilt display...

 Can you guess why I'm showing this image?  It does show the quilting nicely, but I also shows some of the more egregious places where the corners don't even come close to lining up.  Yes, I could have gone back and fixed them, but the pieces on the quilt are about the size of a quarter or smaller in some places.  Even if I fixed those pieces then other pieces would have gotten off.  So the lesson here is match up the corners where there is a dramatic color change and let go the corners where the color shift is subtle.  Even then you'll never see them once the quilt is quilted and hung or used.

Today's lesson- Don't sweat the small corners.