Quilt for baby Patrick!

Warning: if you are one of Patrick's parents, stop reading. I want you to be surprised. :)

Well, big news! I'm an aunt! And as a New Englander "aunt" rhymes with "flaunt," not "pant." Just saying. I found out almost 9 months ago that Patrick was on his way and it was such a big secret to have to hold in for those first few months! My brother called me at work and asked me if I could make a baby quilt. I thought this was weird because my sister in law also quilts, but then it all came together in my (slow) head and I started crying, so happy!

I started his quilt when we first got to Seattle. I know this because these first photos were taken in my then-"studio" before the neighbors told us it was right above their bedroom. So because I like to sew late at night I now have a permanent setup in the living room. I'm not bitter or anything. Okay, blah blah, let's get to some pictures.

I decided I wanted his quilt to be scrappy, but I don't really have enough scraps, so I cut strips from my stash. I only bought a few fabrics for this quilt - sashing and fabric for the backing, which I'll show later - so I felt good about really using fabric from my stash. I used a few solids, which I sort of regret now, but all-in-all I like how it came out.

Even though I hand selected this palette of fabrics, I still wanted it to look random, so I put all the strips in a bag and picked from it to determine placement of the strips. I allowed myself a few vetoes, though. I can't give up all the control!

I considered laying it out like this with no sashing, but I decided it would be too small, or would require way too many blocks and might be a little crazy. I added navy blue sashing and this thing is HUGE! Granted, Patrick is already almost 2 feet tall, but he could probably take this thing to college. I'll show finished pictures once I finish the binding.

You can see a photo of the quilt pre-basting "by the hearth" in this posting. I got real photo-happy that day and showed too much too fast. I thought I'd go a little more into the process of making this quilt in this posting. Looking at this picture right here I think I do want to do a nice scrappy log cabin quilt with no sashing. Maybe I'll add that to my ever-growing quilting to-do list!

Thanks for looking!

Busy bee!

Now that I have time on my hands I have been so busy sewing! I was very sad to leave my friends at the New England Modern Quilt Guild, but am really happy about the new friends I've made in the Seattle branch! To stay connected, I'm participating in a bee with the New England folks and I wanted to post pictures of my blocks here.

Jill asked for blocks based on the Friendship Star block and sent some great old Amy Butler prints. I just had to make 2!


And Jen wanted a star block on this white grunge fabric I hadn't seen before and sent along these jewel-toned fabrics for it:


This is my first bee and I think it's really fun figuring out a block that the person will like but that also has a bit of yourself in it too.

The wonky star block that I made for Jen is a block I just learned the other night at a class with Katie. It's easy and a fun way to use different scraps together! Being the first to arrive at her class I even got to take a goodie bag of scraps away with me! How lucky am I! I have decided I love Amy Butler now that I have a good chunk of her fabrics in my stash!

Here are some of my fave new scraps!

Thanks for looking!

Quilt "to remember me by"

I showed a little bit of this quilt back in the summer before I moved and now since my mom has received it I can show more of it! This pictures are from when I gave it to her at our going away party. She bought me a gift earlier in the summer and said it's to "remember her by" when I am living far away (like I could forget about her!) so I joked with her that this quilt held the same purpose. The funny thing about this is that she had sort of seen it before because it was folded up in my old apartment and every time she came over she would say "Oh, I LOVE that one!" (even though she could only see one row of blocks) Well, that made me feel more confident that she would love the whole real thing - even though she's absolutely the type of mom who loves anything I make for her!

The fabric is all from the Nouveau by Sentimental Studios line for Moda. I don't usually make quilts all from one line, but this was an online purchase from way back when and the fabrics really go well together. I pieced the back, as usual, and I did add in a light green polka dot not from the line (also from my stash! Don't ask me why I had almost 3 yards of anything "on hand."). I used the no-triangle zig zag technique and although it took a lot of space to lay it all out, it was super easy to piece together. I will say it was difficult to predict how large it would be. I ended with a fairly narrow quilt that was freakishly long. I had to hack some off the end and it will still be plenty long enough to cover toes on the couch.

I quilted it by following the zig zag lines with the outside edge of my walking foot. Quilting was minimal for a few reasons - one I wanted it to be really soft and sometimes a lot of quilting makes it feel stiff to me. And two, I was under a bit of a time crunch since I was about to move!

I miss my mom! (Can you tell we both like green?!)

Thanks for looking!

Unemployment

So I have moved to a new city where I don't really know anyone and don't have a job. Well, day to day that is really scary, but overall I'm trying to look on the bright side. When else in my life will I have free time, with a (dwindling) savings, in a beautiful city, with a giant stack of fabrics in my stash. I have bought some fabric since I got here, but pretty much only to finish projects - maybe a fat quarter or two just to treat myself... Since I arrived in Seattle a month ago I have finished a quilt top for me and Buddy's bed....

started and finished a quilt for my brand new nephew Patrick (only a sneak peak here until he receives it)...

And I started my project to submit to the Project Modern competition.

I have done a few other things that I might blog about later. Considering I pop up on here so sporadically I should probably spread it out a bit.

Anyway, I thought unemployment would give me all this time to quilt and blog and be free. Turns out the blogging part has been missing, but I'm going to try to do better. I wonder what percentage of my posts involve a sentence or two about me committing to blogging more. haha. Well, to my 3 readers out there, you might have something to look forward to in the coming days.... Might!

Thanks for looking!

Getting in the mood...

For Christmas, that is! Get your mind out of the gutter! I bought some Christmas fabric awhile back, and also last Christmastime, and actually, to be honest, I have a separate box of Christmas fabric because they don't really go with the rest of my stash... I just saw this giveaway over at Stitched in Color that is making me excited for Christmas (especially as the days are starting to get a little shorter, this is the next big thing to look forward to!) and because every Christmas I realize that if you are going to make gifts for people you really need to start before December 1st. Being that I'm unemployed for the next unknown period of time, I think it would be pretty smart of me and non-procrastinatory of me to start now. (p.s. I know that's not really a word) I always like to include a picture, so I guess I'll show some of my favorite Christmasy fabrics from my stash. I have so much I think I better start cutting and stitching soon! Yikes! I think these dots could make an awesome binding!

Unemployed productivity

Friday was my last day at work, and now the clock is ticking for our big move to Seattle. There is so much to do, but I gave myself today to have fun and do whatever. I dressed for the gym, and never made it. Oh well. I was amazed to find out how much you can get done when you don't work (and don't have kids, etc.)! Today I pieced the back of a quilt I started long ago, basted it, AND quilted it. Ridiculous. I mean, it's a pretty simple quilt, but to have such a long stretch of time to work on it was such a luxury! More pictures to follow - it's a present for someone! :) I kept reading about people who use a spoon to close their safety pins while basting and I'm totally amazed and converted! It made that slow and physically painful process so much quicker and easier! Now I'm watching Twilight and finishing the hand-stitched binding on my paintbox quilt - this is taking me forever to finish!Here's a picture of a pincushion my friend Laurie made me. What a generous person she is. I really will think of her every time I use it even when I'm very far away from her! That apple fabric is her signature. :)


Thanks for looking!

Wearing gloves in July

I am SO happy to say that I finished stippling my first big quilt yesterday ( I had practiced on a small baby quilt before ). I picked up a pair of quilting gloves at Jo-Anns and they worked pretty well so I wasn't gripping and pulling the quilt the whole time! I'm very happy with the end result, but there were definitely a few fumbles along the way. I took pictures, but they didn't really come out. All I can say is that I definitely need to take my safety pins out!! I thought I could scoot around them but I ended up sewing one of them to the quilt, ugh, and another one got completely punctured by my needle. I have to say I am so lucky that nothing broke/flew out at my face. I have never seen anything like that. Because I used spray baste there weren't too many safety pins to navigate anyway, and I don't see any puckers! I think I'm sold on spray basting now, although we'll see if my next project yields the same result.




This is a bad flashy picture, but I'll take better sunny pictures when it's done.

Another thing I learned is that even if you're anxious to finish, take a break! I had sore arms and shoulders all night because I just quilted for 2+ hours straight. Yikes. I also need to learn to not be so tense in my shoulders and jaw. I'm glad no one has video of me because I know I make weird faces while I quilt. :) So now I'm cleaning up loose threads and trying to decide which fabric to use for the binding. Yay! I can't wait to show my peeps at the NE modern quilt guild meeting next week!! My next projects are some little gifts for my sister-in-law's baby shower next week. I'll post pictures after she receives them. Can't wait to meet little Patrick! :)
Thanks for looking!