Sew-tastic Week-end!

Around these parts, it's still technically the week-end (yes, I know this post is dated Monday). It's a civic holiday for lots of people in Nova Scotia. Long week-ends don't have quite the same oomph when you're on vacation, but I can appreciate them on others' behalf!

The past three days saw me sewing away as though they were my last days on earth. Would I sew if it was my last day? There's a good possibility of it!

On Friday afternoon, I decided to start a paper pieced project I bought on Craftsy called Crabby. Himself spends a lot of his worklife with these little darlings, so I'm drawn to fabric and patterns featuring crabs. This pattern had a lot of small pieces... the finished block is only 8½ by 11. If you decide to make it, be forewarned. The sections are lettered and numbered, with the numbers representing your piecing order. But there's no shading or coding to tell you whether the piece should be crab or background. Hence the numbers circled in blue on my pieces.

I intended this to be a project I could pick away at over time. Paperpiecing is perfect for that. (Q-A would disagree, heartily.) But once I got going, I just couldn't stop. He's all finished and ready to be quilted into something lovely... perhaps this week.

 Now for the fun bit... tearing off all that paper. Perfect for television time.

Then the urge to make some HSTs hit me again. They just came together so nicely on that baby quilt I made earlier in the week. I had these beautiful fabrics left over from a recent baby quilt. I added some of my favourite new tone on tone - Rain. It's the second from the bottom. I have it in three colours already and fear I will be unable to resist buying more.

I forgot to take pics of the blocks in process, but I used the same technique as my last HST adventure. This is how it looked when I went to bed... very late. Please note the use of the design floor ☺and that my pedicure matches the quilt.

Saturday saw my living room/dining room/kitchen taken over for another Quilt Therapy session with Q-Squared. Q-A and Q-D were in attendance and working away on their projects while I sewed together my HST... I'm calling it Citron Twist.

I love a striped binding! One of these days, I'm going to end up planning a quilt around a striped fabric for the binding.

On Sunday, I spent some time layering and quilting the asterisk tree skirt... here's a sneak peak. You'll see more another day!

Then there's today's project. This one's been layered and ready to go for a while, I just needed some fire in me to take on the quilting.

 

I was inspired by the front cover of Quilting Modern (soon to be added to my quilting library courtesy of Himself. I was leary of the pebbled free motion quilting, but Q-D urged me on. And away I went!

I paced this work by bobbins. As each bobbin ran out, I'd get up, take a pic, stretch, and do some little jobs around the house. I knew from the first few minutes of pebbling that this pattern was going to be rough on my neck and shoulders. Lots of breaks needed!
Bobbin 1

 Bobbin 2

 Bobbin 3

 Bobbin 4 - I am becoming less proficient in keeping my feet out of the shot!

 Bobbin 5 - Into the borders!

With only a few square inches left to quilt, catastrophe! When you buy 800m of thread, you just don't think it's ever going to run out.

But I found a solution. Lucky for me, the tension in my machine is excellent and didn't seem to mind a bobbin on the thread spool!

 The last section to pebble... roughly 4 hours later.

And here she is - all done! Mother Nature turned off the thundershowers for a few minutes and put out some blue sky and puffy clouds for me.

Like I said, there was a lot of sewing around these parts!

Hope your week-end was sew-tastic too!

J

Finish up Friday - Inaugural edition!

So yeah... I might be over Work In Progress Wednesday. Sometimes a weekly accounting of the stuff still to be done is disheartening.You know what's doesn't cause my heart to sink? Finishing stuff! Which I have been doing like crazy the past two weeks! There is no longer anything on Gotta Do portion of The List (January 2013 edition). I've finished Miss K's Dare.... just a little peak of that since I'm saving the full photo essay ☺ for Miss K's birthday!

And, I've finished the quilting and binding on Mme S S's retirement quilt. Now all I need to do is schedule a night for her to come for dinner.

Since I finished those two projects, I felt free to just make some stuff. I sewed up another baby quilt top using orphans from my Jewel Square quilt. I positively hate to throw out blocks that I worked so hard on (but on this one, I couldn't face any more paper piecing)! I opted to use them with my signature solid (not plain, Q-D, solid!) Kona Ash. I like to think I was working on the modern quilt aesthetic principle of asymmetry here. How quilt pretentious is that?

Speaking of orphans, I made this nine patch from bits left over from Miss K's Dare and my Transformer quilt (and few others thrown in). I really just wanted to use up some sections of 2½ inch strips that were already sewn together. I liked the colours, but the top was just a little... meh. Then I quilted it! I wish I'd taken a before and after shot because the chevron/zigzag quilting really makes it!

Also in the baby quilt department, I quilted the roman stripe quilt that I've been calling Whoo likes pink? So cute... wish someone would have a baby girl.


You know that point on a project where the enjoyment of working on it is overtaken by the overwhelming urge to finish it? I completely felt that one on Mme S S's quilt. It happened about 2/3 of the way through quilting! There's just this moment where you want to be done so you can either send the quilt-gift on to it's new home or start enjoying it for yourself.

Do you get that feeling? Tell me all about it, quilt-y people!

J

A large week!

I prescribed myself a little quilt therapy this week... it's been productive! This is the kind of self-medicating I should practice more often!

I'm meant to wear a name tag at my guild meetings, but I've always baulked at the prospect. Then I came across this little gem on Pinterest, a tiny paper pieced sewing machine. It was fiddly, but worth it! Then took a couple tips from a lanyard tutorial (also a Pinterest find).  I cannibalized a lanyard I already had and... voilà!

Lovin' the orange and grey lately! I'm a little behind on the Pantone of the Year (2012) but maybe I'll be more with it this year!










 There's also a new addition on the way for the family of my pal, SuperKate. So I decided that the best looking of the orphan baby quilts had her name on it (even though the new addition doesn't have a name yet!) Though still done on the diagonal, I quilted this one differently from the two large quilts made for Miss E and Miss O. The diagonals touched the small rectangles in the white blocks on each corner. It ended up forming diamonds with the stitching.

And then, one of my co-workers made a comment whilst knitting that she was missing her knitting bag (which was too large to bring for travel projects). So I whipped up a little basket/bucket from this tutorial... though I added an over the top handle instead of side handles.



I also got some time in on an item from the Gotta do list. I finished the appliqué sections of my Maui purchased sashiko fish. I'm not an appliqué person, much less hand appliqué, but Himself really liked this one when we saw it at the Maui Quilt Shop. I've started on the sashiko stitching and it's really coming along nicely. I'm enjoying it so much that I'm thinking of finding more of these projects. Not an easy task in our local quilt shops. Oh well, I might have to go back to Maui!


And to top the week off.... my first Kona fat quarter bundle arrived!!! Yes, three exclamation points are warranted here. It's exciting to get fabric in the mail. If you've never experienced it, but it on your bucket list for this year. Anyway... here they are!
From darkest to lightest: Pacific, Water, Alegria, Lake.

I can't hardly wait for next months batch!

Thanks for reading!

J

Happy New Year!

Ah... the first post of 2013! I am proud to say that my New Year's resolutions of 2012 still stand. I have continued this blog for months now AND I purchased absolutely no quilting magazines, patterns, or books for an entire year. I was sorely tempted by some new releases, but stayed strong. Santa was kind and brought me two of my favs - Block Party and We Love Colour. I've had my nose stuck in them since Christmas morning!

I managed to whip up a couple more projects before 2012 drew to a close. My Mom's birthday falls between Christmas and New Year's, so Christmas themed presents do make their way into the mix. I used a tutorial found on Ellison Lane Quilts via Pinterest and made this in roughly three hours. 

 I had a little trouble with the strips of squares not fitting perfectly with the centre block (I suspect at times that my 1/4 inch seam allowance isn't scant enough). I was down to scraps of the cream Holiday Flourish, so a do-over was not a possibility. I quilted it every 1/2 inch (the tutorial suggested every 1/4 inch... ack!). I had so much fun that I made another for friends. This time, I made the strips of squares first, then measured and cut my centre blocks. Much more successful. Though my quilting had to be curtailed to every 1 1/2 inches... I was low on thread and it was far too late to go the store!

One would think this would hit my Christmas stash pretty hard... alas, no. It's still considerable. Though I may stop in at my local fabric store tomorrow in search of Holiday Flourish on sale!

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And the last project of 2012...pillow cases for my camping pals. I love a project that puts orphan blocks to good use. Orphans are the blocks I have left over at the end of a project. I had a LOT from Miss E and Miss O's quilts since I did a very poor job of re-sizing a pattern from a magazine. I started out just planning to edge the pillow cases in the white blocks, but quickly discovered that I didn't really have enough of any one of the fabrics from their quilts to make a full pillowcase. Opting to be thrifty (Old School Girl Guide that I am!), I used blocks for the top/front, and pieced the backs. I was worried the tops/fronts wouldn't be durable enough to withstand weekly washings, so they're actually layered and quilted!

Almost time for my newest quilt convert to arrive... she's only made one quilt so far, but I'm pretty sure she's hooked! Time to quilt!

J