QuilterGeek

Sewing day!

Sep 032011

Today, I will go on a sewing spree. It’s been at least a month since I sat down and had some quality time with the sewing machine, and today seems like as good a day as any to do it. I’m going to put some time in on the Dresden Plate quilt I bought fabric for a few weeks ago, and hopefully knock out a few purses as well.

In other news, life has returned to (mostly) normal after Max’s passing. The house felt kind of empty, and moose-dog Sammy was starting to get depressed and lonesome, so Husband and I did some research on dogs available at the local shelters to see about finding him a new friend. After finding one we liked at Animal Control (who had already been adopted when I called, hooray for her!) and visiting another who was sweet but might not do well with another dog in the house, we decided to stop by the Humane Society on a whim.

There were many nice dogs who needed good homes, and we were considering a young Shepherd mix who looked a lot like the dog I had growing up. But as we continued through the kennels, we found our match: a litter of Corgi mix puppies! Husband and I have been interested in the breed for a while, since they’d be a very good fit for our family, and while we’d been hoping to find an older (read: housebroken) dog, we decided that this was a good match. We picked out the last boy left in the litter, took him to a little park area outside to meet him, and instantly fell in love.

We named him Lloyd, which is a good Welsh name that is actually pronounceable (Corgis were first bred in Wales about 3,000 years ago). It’s a little bit dignified, and a little bit silly, and that seems to suit his personality just fine. He’s a total sweetheart, and is getting along very well with Sam; the two have been play-fighting all morning, and I think Sam is glad to have a new friend.

Now, I just have to figure out what to do with him while I sew! Max liked to nap on the futon in the sewing room while I worked, but I suspect that Lloyd has too much energy to make that work. He likes to nap by my feet while I’m at the computer, but I keep my fabric stash under my sewing table, and I would really prefer it if he didn’t pee on my fabric. Maybe I’ll just try to keep him in the living room, where Husband can have some “Special Time” with the new puppy

Getting back in the groove

designs, fabric, reproduction 1 Response »

Aug 202011

It’s been a rough few weeks for our family, and sewing has fallen by the wayside. Our dog Max, who has been dealing with valley fever that settled into one of his leg bones, had surgery to amputate the leg, and never managed to recover; he went to Doggy Heaven about a week and a half ago. I did some sewing before the surgery to make him a shirt so he wouldn’t chew on the stitches, but I’ve been so worried about the surgery and saddened by his passing that I haven’t done any quilting in weeks.

I’m feeling a bit better, though, now that some time has passed and life is getting back to normal. Part of that healing process is getting back into quilting, which helps make life feel a bit more normal, so I headed off to the quilt shop for some inspiration and shopping time this morning and came home with a fun project in mind.

On a whim, I picked up a Dresden Plate ruler a few weeks back and tried a sample block using some Amy Butler scraps I had sitting around. The pattern was much easier to execute than i thought it would be. While it didn’t lay 100% flat, it was certainly close enough that there were only a few puckers when it came time to stitch the spokes down to the background. I even had a decent enough time figuring out what quilting design to use, which is normally one of my biggest challenges when working on a quilt!

So for lack of any better inspiration (and since there were no quilt kits at the LQS that really piqued my interest), I picked up 10 different reproduction prints in a variety of colors and textures, so I can use each print twice in this 20-blade Dresden block. I also snagged a few yards of Kona solid in “snow,” which is a soft enough white to go with the old-timey prints. I forgot to get any yellow for the plate centers, but there’s a Kona solid that’s just the right color of yellow that I can pick up once the plates are assembled– which could take a while since there are so many pieces. (Then again, the sample block I did took maybe 2 or 3 hours, and if I’m able to assembly-line-sew the blades in sets of 20, it’ll probably take less time overall.)

Once the blocks are assembled– and I have no clue how many blocks there will be, I figure I’ll just make as many as I can with 1/4 yard of each print and go from there– I’d like to do a traditional “ice cream cone” border, like in this antique example:

I’ll probably do that in another Kona solid, since I don’t want the print to distract from the Dresden blocks, but I think I’ll probably wait until the whole thing is put together to start worrying about that.

Overall, I’m super excited to get started on this pattern. My super-quilter Great Grandma MUST have done at least one Dresden Plate in her quilting career of over 500 projects, and probably around the 30s for sure, so she would have used these sorts of fabrics too. Granted, I don’t think she did much (if any) machine quilting, so this will probably take much less time, so I’ll have one on her for that! I think it will be tons of fun to recreate something that she did, even though I’m sure she would have done a much better job, but it gives me something to strive for

Fun with the design wall

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Jul 202011

I love my design wall. It’s a twin-size flannel sheet that’s held to a big blank wall with thumbtacks, and things stick to it very nicely. It’s come in quite handy for two projects I’m assembling right now.

The first is a quilt following Ricky Tims’ “Kool Kaleidoscope” design, which is remarkably simple. I’ve tried one of these before from my scrap bin with mixed results, so I decided to order a bunch of 1/2 yard cuts from Connecting Threads in assorted coordinating shades of blue and green. Having a bunch of colors that work well together helps a LOT, and the end result is much more harmonious, I think, than Version 1.0, which had purple and yellow and green and orange all next to each other, urk.

The finished medallion will be framed in navy, have a skinny border of pale blue, and then an outer border of navy with some sort of green pattern to it, maybe random narrow stripes thrown in here and there around the corners or something.

Quilt number two is a design that sort of came up out of nowhere. I found a jelly roll of Kaffe Fassett prints at the LQS, which was hand-cut and apparently intended for one of their “Strippers’ Club” custom designs. I decided to turn it into hexagons instead, and started cutting pieces to semi-randomly arrange on the wall.

I’ll admit that Kaffe Fassett (along with Amy Butler) is a designer whose popularity surprises me. I love bright, cheerful colors, but so many of the quilts I’ve seen using that fabric turn out garish and overly busy. Not to say that the fabric isn’t fun or could be used well, but most of the time the patterns and color combinations are ones that I’m just not interested in.

The hexagon quilt is going to be lap-sized or so, I figure I can add another dozen hexagons or so and stretch it out a bit. Ideally, I’ll get it assembled on Friday night and quilted on Saturday, that way I can send it out Priority Mail and have it arrive in Washington state in time to be given as a door prize at my 10-year high school reunion. (Can’t say I have much interest in attending, but at least I can play nice and send something pretty to be given away. I can only hope it doesn’t go to any of the a–holes who pushed me around when I was growing up. Nope, not bitter at all!)

Permalink designs, scrap No Responses »

Jun 252011

Today, I got copies of the “Sew Precise” paper-piecing programs published by Electric Quilt. I haven’t done much paper piecing, but there’s so much possibility out there that I just have to learn!

I spent a bit of time playing around with ideas and came up with this scrappy design. The real thing would probably be even more random, but for speed’s sake I kept the colors similar between blocks. I really like the design, especially the little secondary stars between the spiky wheels!

I think it needs something to finish it, probably a triangle border of some sort, so I’ll be playing around with that for a bit as well. I really like the effect here, and I can’t wait to see how it would turn out in person!

Fun With Stripes, Christmas in July Edition!

books, fabric, in progress No Responses »

Jun 252011

I’ve had a copy of Wonderful 1 Fabric Quilts on my bookshelf for a while now, but I was just waiting for the perfect fabric to test it with! The basic idea of the book is that you can take a wallpaper-stripe fabric, cut it into matching triangles, and lay things out to create intricate patterns using only a single fabric. And boy oh boy does it deliver!

I found myself at Hancock Fabrics this morning, and absolutely fell in love with some M’Liss Christmas fabric. So what if it’s over 100 degrees outside and only halfway until Christmas? The teal, red, and chocolate color scheme really worked for me, so I took everything on the bolt (hopefully it’ll be enough!) and proceeded to chop it into itty bitty pieces.

My only complaint about the fabric is that the print wasn’t quite as even as I hoped; in order to get identical repeats, I had to do some creative cutting and wasted a fair bit of print in order to get everything to match up. Luckily, the print worked out so that I was able to get everything cut appropriately!

In a nutshell, you cut out large squares of the print repeat, then cut it on each diagonal to yield large triangles. You then re-position the resulting triangles to make two different block designs. Makes more sense when you see it laid out, so I put it down on my carpet and snapped a pic to preview the actual layout:

Depending on how much fabric I have left over for the borders (and/or whether I’m willing to drive to the other Hancock on the other side of town to get another yard or two), the finished product will probably be nine blocks square and measure about 40″ square before adding the fat 6″ – 8″ borders.

When I decided to do a stripe quilt, I intended to do it as a gift for my 10-year high school reunion next month for a door prize. I don’t quite think Christmas will work, though, so I’ll be finishing up my last Mystery Quilt over the next week or so and hoping that turns out nicely instead

Three-color block

in progress No Responses »

Jun 112011

So far, I’m really happy with the way this one is turning out. I’ve done one light and one dark block using the same two pink and black fabrics, so now it’s time to pick another pair of prints and see how the next set turns out.

I was worried that the busyness of the black/white fabric would distract from the look of the block, but I think it works surprisingly well; the plainness of the pink really balances it out against the solid white.

10 more of these babies to do, and then it’s time to sash (ugh, I’m terrible with sashing) and add borders. If I really set myself to it, I could have the top finished in the next six or seven hours, before I head off to hang out with my gaming buddies tonight. Hooray, motivation!

Design Revision 6

books, designs, planned No Responses »

Jun 102011

I don’t think I’ve EVER had as much trouble with design as I’ve had with this pink/black/white quilt, honest to goodness. You’d think that something as simple as a color scheme wouldn’t be such a roadblock, but here it is! Design Number Six!

This one comes from Lots of Scraps, It’s Time to Quilt, which has some very nice scrappy and FQ designs that I’ll be using for future projects.

The project calls for 6 light and 6 dark FQ’s, and since I have half-yard cuts of 4 or 5 black/white and pink prints, I should have plenty. The only remaining design decision is whether to do the sashing and border in black or pink, but I think that I have enough of a pretty, not-too-busy black print to do the border with.

So now, it’s time to get my nose to the metaphorical grindstone and get over this crafty dry spell to get some stuff DONE! And it’s gonna be darn pretty when I’m finished

Yet another geeky project: fun with fish!

designs, geek, scrap No Responses »

May 212011

After many years and several setbacks, a friend from high school is finally receiving her MA in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). Hooray!! Of course, I have to make a graduation quilt to celebrate!

She’s quite a geeky lady of her own, and is particularly into fish, especially ancient ones. When I asked her what species would be good to include on a quilt, she mentioned that she would love to see a set of creatures from the Burgess Shale, which is a set of ancient fossils. She even sent me a link to a website containing information on all of the little critters whose fossils were found at this site, and I can’t help but think that they’re all cute in a geeky way.

So I have two options: make something “serious,” probably in earth tones and batiks, depicting these critters in rock formations… or something “fun,” in bright colors. Guess which I’m going with???

Somehow, I came across the idea of conveying her love of ancient critters by doing something along the lines of a teenybopper magazine cover, but with fossilized specimens instead of Justin Beiber.

I swear, where I come up with these things, I have NO clue. But she LOVES the idea, so it’s time for me to set out designing the whole thing.

I worked up a quick doodle of a few critters, but I still need to figure out how to arrange everything. (Apologies for the quick, low-contrast pic, I had to turn the flash off and Photoshop will only let me tweak contrast so far!)

I know how I plan to do the background, and place things on top of it, putting appliqué of the various critters on top of some little colored starbursts (just a quick MS Paint doodle here):

Overall, I think this is going to be a fun project, very silly in some ways, but I think the composition of it is good from an artistic standpoint, and it will be good practice for my appliqué skills before I launch face-first into that Hildebrandt Star Wars quilt.

Got one other project (another graduation quilt to finish), the pink/black/white quilt that I’ve TOTALLY decided to re-do:

This one will be super-pretty, too, but with all the different fabrics I’m using (it’s very scrappy), it’ll take a good long while to cut out.

Unfortunately, my quilting has been somewhat slow lately as the tendonitis in my wrist has decided to flare up yet again, but I start physical therapy on Monday so we’ll see what happens with that. Hopefully I can get back to quilting soon!!

World of Geekcraft: the blog tour!

books, geek No Responses »

May 102011

Welcome to my stop on the “World of Geekcraft” blog tour! This has been a great project that I’m SUPER excited to be a part of! There are so many great projects in the book that I plan on tackling, including:

Oregon Trail cross-stitch (we played this game ALL THE TIME in the school computer lab back in the ’80s!)
LilyPad Arduno cake (my dad is an engineer and I’d LOVE to make this one for his birthday!)
Crochet tribbles (though I’m not sure I could keep these away from my doggies)
D20 earrings (wheee, an excuse to buy some new sparkly dice!)

The book is an amazing collaboration of a lot of great crafty minds, and Susan has done a great job of coming up with a huge cross-section of geek topics. Gaming, TV, movies, and more are all represented in this book, giving you an opportunity to make something for any geek in your life!

My contribution to the book was my Einstein-message Morse code quilt:

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.” -Albert Einstein

This is actually the second quilt I’ve made with a Morse code theme. The first was done as a gift for my little brother when he graduated from high school and headed off to get his engineering degree:

Remember all semicolons
Document as you go
Do (Mt.) Dew, not drugs
Change passwords and underwear often
Fight for great justice

The concept for the quilt is actually pretty simple: you assemble some strips and squares, which is no hard feat for anyone with much quilting experience. Turn the piece sideways, read the pieces like dots and dashes, and you’ve got yourself a hidden code!

World of Geekcraft contains a map and exact instructions for making a quilt with the Einstein quote. But if you’d like to make a quilt with a customized message, mapping out the design isn’t that hard at all! All you’ll need is a Morse code chart, some graph paper, and different-colored markers or colored pencils. I posted some instructions a while back on this post, I spent several hours of trial and error to get my message to fit the size of quilt I wanted and to make sure the design was visually pleasing, but the actual process isn’t that hard to get down at all.

“Happy Birthday” spelled out in morse code dots and dashes in four colors.

Thanks very much for checking out my blog, and feel free to look at some of my other projects! In the meantime, stop by Indie Fixx tomorrow for the next stop on the blog tour!

Not quilting but still sewing!

etsy, finished, misc No Responses »

Apr 272011

Taking a brief break from my Looong List of Projects to make some smaller items. I found a super-cute wallet pattern on Etsy, so I’ve been making a few up as gifts for friends and family.

I picked up a fat quarter bundle to play with, and I have a few other FQ’s set aside from my semi-abandoned table-runner-pattern project, so I’ve got enough to make several of these this week… assuming my sewing machine starts to behave. (Having some major problems with thread tension, and I’ve got a ticket in to Brother customer support to see if they have any ideas for me.)

This has been a very nice little diversion, but it’s time to get back to quilting, as I have a project “due” the Friday before Mother’s Day, which only gives me a few weeks to finish off a lap size quilt. Hopefully I’ll be feeling better (mentally) in the next few days, due to some medication issues I’ve been sort of out-of-it for a while, and that’ll help my productivity a bit as well.

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