The Silent Treatment

People are starting to ask where I've been.

Awww...I've missed you too.   No, it wasn't something you did or said.  And you don't deserve the silent treatment.  The truth is I just haven't felt particularly chatty.

(insert collective gasp sountrack here)

Yeah I know.  Husband is enjoying it I bet.

Anyway, in lieu of my typical gab-a-thon, today I'll present a Wordless Wednesday.  a.k.a a bombardment of photos from what I've been filling the silence with.

Girly Wallet

Learning Shirring

24-Hour Quilt

Mmmmmm....Homemade Donuts

Reading Nook for Daughter

Ginny Weasley Cardigan that she wears in the Harry Potter movies.  No pattern.  Made it up.

Flower Pincushion

Felted Wool thing-a-ma-bob (was supposed to be the front of a  Bermuda Bag; might actually be a trivet)

Sweater out of my head.  Really wish I'd written the pattern down.

Zipper pouch made from an upholstery scrap

Super Secret Fortress for Son

Cuddly sweater for son.  Didn't write that pattern down either.  I never learn.

Quilt Blocks are like Mogwai

Sure he looks cute and harmless, but remember what happens when the three rules weren't followed?  They multiply.  Everywhere.

That is kind of whats happened with the Craftsy Block of the Month around here.

My Mom visited just over a week ago, and she is also doing the BOM.  April's blocks were those nasty little hexagons which involved English Paper Piecing, and needed to be stitched by hand (she's a rule-follower, which is probably why her block looks so much better than mine).  So she brought her blocks along to work on while she was here.

Perfect, aren't they.  She is using a fat quarter bundle of coordinating prints.  It's going to be just stunning!   Especially if she uses hot pink sashing between the blocks.  But this is her quilt, not mine, so I'll try not to insert myself into her design decisions (too much).  These are all Mom's blocks so far:

On to my quilt.  Remember the drama around the hexagons?   I absolutely did not want to English Paper Piece anything, let alone hand stitch all those stinkin' hexagons together.  Well, my Mom was diligently working on hers, and my Daughter said, "I can do that!" and she did!  She learned the paper piecing technique, and she hand stitched my second April quilt block.  I am eternally grateful and I owe her Something Important for doing that block for me.

This is the block she did.  Fabulous job!  And she's only NINE!  

I finally found time to go back and assemble the March blocks, and they were delightful!  Scrappy, mis-matched, creative little bundles of fun.  Check it out:

These are all my blocks so far:

Lastly...

Having block patterns and colorful fabrics all over the place motivated my daughter to launch her own block of the month journey.  I bought her two fat quarter bundles in pink and lime coordinates, and she got right to work.

She's learned a lot about geometry, seam allowances, chain piecing, and pressing technique.  She also loves the steam feature on the iron for some reason.  Weird kid.

She has the above four blocks finished so far, and the octagons are ready for hand sewing. 

At the end of this journey, we will have three multi-generational quilts to display!  I'll post pictures throughout the process.

When Quilting Goes Bad

Have you ever looked at a travel brochure with white, sandy beaches and palm trees waving in the breeze?  Blue skies with white cottony clouds.  Not a soul in sight; just you and the warm sun on your skin.  Make you want to grab a margarita and hop on a plane right now, doesn't it?

And then you get there, and realize that the beach you so coveted in the brochure is actually covered elbow to elbow with  sweaty people and swarming sea gulls ready to attack and grab that hot dog right out of your hand.

I feel that way about the Craftsy Block of the Month right now.

The brochure promised FUN!  RELAXATION!  NEW SKILLS!  Instead I got frustration and seam rippers.

Ok, January and February's blocks were fun and exciting to make.  March is still in the to-do pile, and April made me jump out my seat with joy because the April blocks are all about hexagons!   I do so love hexagons.  Geometry is the only math subject I actually excelled at, because of all those lovely shapes with oh-so-many possible combinations.

Tingling with anticipation, and carefully cut out my hexagons and started on April's blocks.  

And then the swearing began.

I was instructed to carefully hand-stitch (gasp!) around each hexagon to turn it's edges under, and then glue them onto my background and applique them on.  Well...I have a little issue with the hand sewing.  1) I find it tedious, and 2) it hurts the carpal tunnel in my right hand, and 3) I thought we were going to learn to piece hexagons, something I'd always wanted to perfect, and this felt like cheating.

Being the rule-breaker that I am, I started assembling the blocks my own way.  Instead of hand sewing, I used Wonder Under on the backs of each hexagon, and fused them to the background fabric.  Then I satin stitched around each one with a big fat stripe of color.  Yes, the fabric puckered a bit.  No, I don't care.  When it's quilted at the end it'll even out a bit.  Besides, I like the way they are outlined now.  Sort of like coloring and staying in the lines.

(GAH!  The picture is upside down!  On my computer it's right side up, but when I load it here it flips.  This is the day for frustration, apparently.  Well turn your head to the side and picture the green strip at the bottom (like grass) and that other bit is the sun and rays.  Got it?)

On to block #2 for April.  It is two stripes of hexagons, again, hand-pieced and then appliqued on.  This time I tried using Anna Maria Horner's Super Circles technique, which is amazing.  If it works for circles it should work for hexagons, right?

You cut out your shape from cardboard, and cut a larger piece of aluminum foil.  Put your fabric on the foil right side down, put the cardboard on top, and carefully fold in the edges of the foil.

 Press it with your iron.  The foil gets hot, so let it cool a minute before unwrapping it.  

Out pops your shape, with the edges perfectly pressed under.

I made 13 of these little things, and then had to applique them on.  That's when things got really squirrel-y.   They kept shifting around and not staying in place, and the thread kept knotting up, so I just abandoned the whole thing and set off to crochet instead.

The moral of the story is:  Sometimes the Most Important part of doing a quilt block-of-the-month is learning what techniques drive you bonkers.  Better to figure that out when there is only one block to complete and not a whole quilt-full.

Labels!

I've had these for a couple of months now but I kept forgetting to share with you all.  For Christmas I ordered myself some custom labels to stitch into completed projects.  They're actually yellow but my iphone took a rotten picture.  It's nice to finish a project and have a label to give it that finished look.

In addition to being just plain cute, they also help my kids figure out which side is the back on their pajama pants.  :-)

Yesterday Craftsy loaded the March Quilt Block-of-the-Month patterns.  I'll update with pics once those are done.  I'd love to work on them today, but first I need to catch up on Real Life.  Groceries, errands, never-ending laundry mountain, overdue library books, blah blah blah.  I need a house elf.

If we ever get some sunshine around here, I'll take pictures of the new sweaters I finished recently.   Gloomy winter skies abound.

February Block of the Month

The February block tutorials are posted now in Craftsy's Quilt Block of the Month!  It's not too late if you haven't signed up.  Just click the big button over there at the right.

Here are my February blocks.  I particularly like how the stripe fabric in the second block changes to mitered squares when you cut it into triangles and lay it out just so.

Extreme Makeover - Crafting Nook Edition

You might want to go refill your coffee and make a sandwich, because this is going to be One Huge Post.  Today's Show N Tell is the kind you'd get in trouble for in Kindergarten, because hogging the spotlight isn't fair to others.

But...today is my BIRTHDAY so I am gonna take up the entire 20 minutes anyway.

First, today's post is dedicated to my wonderful husband of 13 years.  He is all sorts of awesome.  Mostly because he does 90% of the cooking around here and doesn't complain about my crafting mess or mild OCD traits.   He's also an amazingly creative man, and for my birthday, he built me a new sewing/crafting area.  Really, he did.    And I looveee it!

He installed this a couple of weeks ago, and I've been just bursting at the seams to share it with you all.  I've been using all my spare time to sort, organize, and move in to the new space.   I have not finished going through the sewing books and magazines, but there is a shelf all ready for them in the right side cabinet there.

I get all giddy just looking at it!  It's so refreshing to have everything organized.  I've been sewing some things for the new space, too.  Now that my sewing machine and serger get to sit out all the time, I thought they might want some covers.  (It also keeps the cat from chewing the threads which he loves to do.)

See it?  Look close.

I made quilt block letters, stitched them together and quilted it, then quilted panels for the backs and sides.  The whole thing is easily assembled with a little precise measuring and bias binding.  I forgot to take a picture of the backsides!  They've got some crazy fabric goin' on.  But the fronts are the best.

A co-worker (Hi Carole!) gave me an old cork board she no longer needed.  A boring old brown board just wouldn't suit, so I painted the frame a pretty blue, then attached a piece of fabric to it with the old-fashioned style flat thumb tacks.    Now I have a place to hang those little inspirational bits that get torn out of magazines, or design ideas that get scribbled on restaurant napkins.

The kids liked this idea so much, that we did the same to the cork boards in their bedrooms.  My daughter now has a lovely geometric flowered design on hers, and my son is sporting Batman comics on his.  Its a very easy, no-sew project.

Oh, remember the Blooming Flower Cushion I took apart last week?  Well, it had a crocheted backside, which was re-purposed into a topper for the little stool I sit on when sewing.  Look how bright and cheerful a boring black folding stool can be!

Ok, moving on then.  You might be asking yourself where all this crafting paraphernalia was housed before the grand makeover here?  Believe it or not, I was working out of a dresser (with a topper, so it wasn't all that bad)  Here's the old space:

That front panel is hinged and comes down. That's where the sewing machine used to sit, and that's where I'd make all the things.

This dresser has been painted about 45 times.  Ok, that may be a slight exaggeration, but this dresser does have a long history.  My mother bought it years ago from a garage sale, and painted it in 1970's colors for my brother's bedroom when he was a baby.  Later it was painted again and used in another room in the house.  Eventually it was repainted white and used in HER crafting/sewing nook.  Some time after that it was painted taupe (ack!) and hauled around to craft shows as a display piece.  When I grew up and moved out, it came with me and I used it as a dresser in the spare room.  When my daughter was born, I painted it purple to match her nursery.  Three years after that it was painted to the colors you see here and used in my son's nursery, then later as MY crafting/sewing nook.  And now, it has undergone yet another transformation, and is now my daughter's desk.

She loves to play school, and this is the perfect piece for that.  All her "teacher things" are organized and she folds everything up at the end of the day.

Some families hand down antiques.  We hand down garage-sale dressers.  I wonder what form this dresser will take in the coming years?  Maybe it'll go off to college with one of my children someday.  Maybe it will be in a grand-baby's nursery.  Maybe it'll even end up in another garage sale looking for a new home.  Who knows.

In other news, my son was with me in Jo Ann Fabrics over the weekend, and he saw this world map fabric panel.  He really enjoys geography and reading about the world in his National Geographic Junior Atlas, so I caved and bought the fabric.  Plus, I had a 50% off coupon.  ;-)

My daughter was equally delighted when she saw it, and she declared that we must quilt it!  The printed latitude and longitude lines really do make for logical quilting.  I agreed.  Lucky for us,  a co-worker friend had given me a substantial amount of yellow fabric that she no longer needed (Hello again, Carole!) and the yellow matched perfectly with the United States and other assorted countries.  I finished the edges with a bit of quilt binding leftover from another project, and voila...Map Quilt.

The whole thing took about three hours, so this would make a quick and easy gift idea for a child.  Pair it with a geography book and it would be a big hit, at least with kids like mine.  The panel is exactly the right size for a twin bed topper.

Ok, Show N Tell time is up no doubt.  Next post I hope to be finished with the tunic sweater I'm working on.  It's coming along just beautifully!   Tonight we're going out for my birthday dinner, and I've requested Mexican food.  Specifically, chicken enchiladas with a giant margarita.  Oh yeah.

January Block of the Month + a Sample

If you haven't signed up for the free Quilt Block of the Month workshop through Craftsy.com, go do it now!  I'll wait here.

*humming along to some elevator muzak in my head*

Good.  Cross that one off your to-do list.  Today I selected fabrics and made January's blocks.   The fabric is all stuff from my stash and it's a mix of many different lines and designers, but since I seem to collect oranges and pinks they all coordinate pretty well.  Tossed that green bit in as an afterthought, just for a color punch.  The background for all my blocks will be Kona Cotton in White.  

January's Blocks

I'm excited to put all 20 blocks together and see how this quilt looks!

I also spent 55 minutes (yes, less than an hour) making the Easiest Tunic Ever.  It's real name is McCalls Pattern 6244, view D.  See, I'm loving the leggings with boots fashion trend because it's oh-so-comfortable, but my wardrobe is severely lacking in tops that cover my rear.  Being a woman over a certain age (ahem, 35) I probably shouldn't let that hang out.    This pattern is for a basic hip-length knit top with optional drapey things to layer over them.   Once I find a pattern that fits well, I can whip out a whole seasons worth of tops.

M6244

This pattern meets the being-easy criteria, but fit is a different story.   It's HUGE!  I made my size according to the pattern measurements, but the thing hung off my shoulders like a tent.  One quick swipe down each side seam with the serger removed the extra bulk (about 3" from each side from armpit, tapered in to 5" down at the waist, then flared out again at the hips) and it fits much, much better.  My alteration won't win any fashion awards, but it's comfortable, took less than an hour, and cost about $3 in knit found in the clearance bin.

One More Thing...

Oh, I almost forgot!

Craftsy.com is offering a FREE block-of-the-month quilting class.  Go sign up if you're not already a member.  I'm going to do this right along with you and I'll post pictures of each block I make.  It's going to be a great way to explore different quilting techniques.

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

Betty and I are through.

It was short and intense; one of those relationships that starts with a lot of excitement and promise, but quickly fizzles.

It turns out that Betty likes to keep things simple.  She likes to sew straight, flat things.  And only on cotton.   That just didn't work out well for me, because I needed her to sew fleece, and to create beautiful quilt bindings.  It wasn't meant to be.

Betty and I did manage to complete the doll quilts today, but don't you dare look too closely at that edge binding.   Please, avert your eyes and look instead upon the details of the doll sheets, with the little row of flowers embroidered down the hem (that little bit of delight was done with the machine that's out for repair, before The Breakdown).

This is my 8-year-old daughter's project.  She choose the fabrics, designed the two quilts, and pieced the tops together.  She started quilting the first one, but then decided that quilt-making takes soooo looooonnnngggg and the project sat for a bit in the studio.  When she was ready to tackle it again, the sewing machine began The Breakdown and she couldn't finish. 

So, I finished it up for her today, but I still consider this her project because I just love how she pieced those blocks together, with their edges sorta-matchy-but-not-quite-perfect. 

Her dolls will be sleeping in blissful slumber tonight my friends, complete with fitted sheets, flat sheets (with oh-so-delightful flowery details!), cozy quilts, and matching pillowcases.  Now that's doll luxury.