Yay!!!

This week I finished the top of Ryan’s quilt! You can see previous posts about this quilt here, here and here.

The quilt measures 80×92 inches and will go on our bed.

That center section took so long, that it was shocking to me how fast the borders went together. Originally, I had planned to do several pieced borders to frame out the compass stars, but as I started working on it I realized that simple was going to look best.

The night I finished it I totally cried. I poured a lot of love into this one. I’ll be piecing a back soon and researching longarmers in my area.  This will be the first quilt that I send out for quilting and I’m pretty nervous about it.

Another thing I did this week was these cute Home is Where the Heart is Blocks. I got these after taking Amy Gibson’s For Keeps Pledge. It’s a nice commitment to more mindful sewing. Amy is taking donations and will be making these blocks into quilts for an organization called People Comforters of Evergreen, Colorado. I will be sending them out soon.

This week, I’m linking up to:

Hi guys! I hope everyone’s summer is treating them well. Here in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, we’re getting a little break in the middle of a long stretch of hot weather. I’ve been enjoying the heat, but it sure does suck my motivation for working with fabric!

 I did manage to (almost) finish one of my WIPS this week. I just need to hand stitch that binding up and it’ll be ready to go. I love the DESIGN of this one, but there were some technical difficulties that made it hard to want to finish it.

Several months ago, I decided it was time to get rid of or use all the cheap fabric I bought when I first started quilting, and this project was born. I took all the cheaper fabrics that went well with the elephants, donated everything else and started to work.

I cut, pieced, basted and started quilting. At first, I was using a disappearing ink pen to mark some quilting lines. I dabbed it with water to get rid of my marks and……..that’s when THIS happened.

WAAAAAHHHHHHH! Poop, darn!

I should have just donated this fabric, apparently. Major bummer. I had to put the quilt away for a while. I was really bummed.

But, I made a commitment to myself to finish some WIPs before I cut into any more fabric. So my plan is to finish this one, wash it with a color catcher or two and pray fervently that it doesn’t get totally destroyed!

Now, I have to say that this quilt wasn’t a total bummer! I’m very excited about the way the border quilting looks, especially at the intersections.

I embroidered a couple of the elephants.  I love the designs on these.

And the horizontal striped binding made me so happy, I went crazy and made another 600+ inches of it! It’s my favorite thing to come out of this whole project. I’ll be using this for my son’s quilt and will still have enough for baby quilt or two!

Lastly, I know I promised an update on Ryan’s quilt, but I was stuck all week making a decision about the next border. I’ve made a choice and will be going for it this evening.

This week, I’m linking up to:

Happy quilting!  ~L

This weekend, I did a few quick projects that I had been putting off for much too long. In the midst of all the WIPS, it’s been too easy to neglect some quick, little things that I could do to make my studio more joyful and efficient.

Since starting my quilting life a couple of years ago, I’ve been using the cheap little pincushions from the store and the plastic cover that came with my sewing machine. And I hate to admit that my ‘pressing board’ was simply a folded towel on my table. So it was definitely time for an upgrade!

I’m not usually into cutesy things, but I adore these little houses and flowers and had to use them in my studio!

The pressing board isn’t very visible, but i used Sharon Schamber’s Tutorial. One change I made was that I used a thinner wood material to make it more lightweight. I wanted a big board and I move it off the table a lot, so I really needed it to be light.

For this, I used the Sprocket Pincushion pattern on Cluck Cluck Sew. It’s the first time I’ve ever made a pincushion, and I can see why people get so addicted! What a fun, easy and QUICK project! It originally had a lighter pink button that matched the houses background, but it was too pastel for me…. give me hot pink any day! After the instant gratification this project provided, I foresee many more pincushions in my future.

Lastly, I made a proper sewing machine cover. I found the pattern here. Following the instructions to adjust the pattern for my machine was easy, but I think that because I was worried about making it too small, I erred on the side of making it a little too big. I think next time I make a cover, I’ll do one that’s pieced or a bit more structured, but I’m really happy with it!

Lastly, this week I’m working on the binding for another quilter’s project. One of my kid’s coaches has a family member going through cancer treatment, and another mom asked if I would be willing to help finish off this comfort quilt for them. I feel very honored to be asked and was happy to help. We will be trading off working on the binding during practices.  Since it’s not my work, I’m just going to be showing you the binding today!

I’m still working on my other WIPs, but am saving a progress report on those til next week.

This week, I’m linking up to:

Happy Sewing!

~L

Oh my gosh you guys… I am FINALLY done paper piecing the compass stars for Ryan’s quilt! The blocks are 12 inches in a 4×4 grid. As you can see, I’ve also done the first border. I will be improvising these as I go, but I know there will be solid colors intermixed with pieced borders. It is now too wide to fit on my design wall, so from now on, all pictures of this quilt top will be at wonky angles or clipped to my fence!

Other than that there’s not much sewing happening around here. Last week was the first week of summer break and we’ve been doing a lot of work to the exterior of our house, so  my sewing to-do list is piling up! I’m hoping to get a little selfish sewing done this week, but I’ll share more about that next time.

This week, I’m linking up to:

Happy sewing!

~L

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

Friday was the last day of school for my kids, so I haven’t been sewing nearly as much as I’d like to be. Here’s what I’ve got going on this week:

I finished the baby quilt for my friend’s shower, but I was sick and unable to go to the party. 😦 The quilt is all wrapped up and waiting til I see her next.

I’m plugging away at Ryan’s quilt. The compass stars take a long time to complete, so I’ve been breaking up the monotony by chain piecing borders. I’m planning on improvising the border pieces, alternating some complicated piecing with plain, solid borders. I’m getting to the point where I need to start thinking about a possible backing for this one. This Alison Glass print would be perfect, but I think it’s a little too purple. I’ll probably bring the top to my LQS in the next few weeks and compare the two.

Here is my current hand piecing project. The pattern is called Windows Into My World by Geta Grama, and is pretty amazing. She has some of the best modern quilt patterns out there! This is a project that I started over a year ago, then set aside for a while. Now I keep it along with a small sewing kit in a 2-gallon Ziploc that I grab whenever I’m heading somewhere that I might be able to sew…. usually my daughters Tae Kwon Do class. In fact, I’ve joked that I need to rename this “My Tae Kwon Do Quilt”.

Here are some things I’ve learned during this project:

1) For me, glue basting and English Paper Piecing do not mix. I originally glue basted these and because if the shape of the pieces, there was some slipping that happened and things got a bit messed up. I went back and thread basted the crap out of all the pieces that hadn’t been sewn together yet and everything’s going much nicer! That being said, I’ve done ok glue basting hexies before, but I think we all just have our own preferences.

2) When you’re learning to EPP and they tell you to ‘take a tiny bite’ of the fabric…. there is such a thing as too tiny of a ‘bite’! I found that taking super small amounts of fabric (like 2-3 threads) was slowing my way down and actually making my stitches show. It may be because I am using some cheaper fabric for this project, but those few threads that I had grabbed were pulling loose rather than bringing the rest of the fabric close into the stitch with them. Once I figured out to grab more of that fabric, I was faster (not concentrating so hard on getting ‘tiny bites’) and my stitches nearly disappeared.

I hope you all are having a wonderful week of quilty fun. This week, I’m linking up to:

I didn’t do as much work last week on Ryan’s quilt as I planned to, but yesterday I started the last seven compass star blocks and some of the border pieces. I’m so excited to see this one done and on our bed!

 I’m still working on the quilting of the elephant baby quilt. Often by the time I get to the quilting stage, I get impatient and either choose straight-line quilting, or I free-motion quilt in a rush- ending up with sloppy work. Since there is no deadline for this one, I’m taking the time to really work on improving my free-motion skills on my domestic machine. And taking the time to do things right is making everything go much smoother!

This quilt is a last-minute baby shower gift for a friend from church. Fortunately, I had exactly what I needed in my stash to make her something that coordinates with the baby’s nursery. I love it when that happens! Quilting and binding will have to happen before Friday night.

Linking up to: