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A little vanity...

I liked my hair so much before work this morning I made Kevin take a picture of it.

Want to know how long it took me to style it?  About 30 seconds.

All I did was put a little gel on it to help prevent it from frizzing too much during the day. (I did have to walk in the wind to work, so it is a little bigger now, but still looks nice.)

I finally learned the secret to curly hair! Plopping and pineapples (oh, and step 1: have curly hair).

When I get out of the shower at night, I lay an extra large t-shirt over the (closed) toilet, flip my head upside down, and then plop my hair into the middle of it.  Then, you wind up the edges of the t-shirt like a turban and wear it for a few hours to let your hair dry.  Unlike the traditional towel turban, this set up doesn't catch any of the hair in the twisting- so it lets the curls set into their natural shape with no pulling. 

Then, when you go to bed you can sleep in that (but I don't like to because it has a knot in the back of your head) or put your hair in a "pineapple"- just a really high ponytail, but named because the ridges of curly hair make the back of your head look like one. So flip your head upside down again, loop a loose scrunchy (don't tie tight) around your hair, I do it twice for a 'dew drop' on top of my head and go to sleep looking ridiculous. (I also find this is good for any sleeping, because it puts the ponytail too high to sleep on.)  I've been told pineapple works for 'second day' hair too, but I haven't tried it.

So then the next morning, untie your hair, shake your head, and if you are lucky (I think luck does play a part) your hair is perfectly curled and ready for the day.

Mario Quilt Done!

I've had this mostly done for a long time, but I finally put the binding on. (I really hate binding, and I do it by machine- I still hate it.)

So last week I sewed the binding to the back, last night I figured out how to do the seamless join of the two ends of the binding (4 tries to get it right- I did it "right" on the second time, but there was a twist, then I did it correct- but I had about an inch too much binding for the quilt, then I got it!)

Then today it got washed, I fixed a couple areas of the quilting that had thread bunches (I am not sure if that is from the batik, or from the interfacing in the quilt, it was weird) and all done!

The back isn't too interesting.  Kevin picked a batik with kind of a brick pattern, and colors that he said remind him of Bowser's castle.  The black strip is because I had just barely not enough.

 

I put a label on like a good quilter.  I won't use this font again, the word quilter looks weird (though slightly better in real life than the photo.)

This quilt is for Kevin, though of course, as soon as I put it down (to pin color catchers on the red- but I prewashed, so no issue...) Elsa claimed it:

Is this quilt art?

So I made some more progress on my art quilt.  First, I decided rather than "This quilt is art" I'm going with "is this quilt art".  I took the diane-shiko block and cut out the word "IS", satin stitched around it, covered it with water soluble stabilizer and quilted using three different colors of thread.  So that leaves this block:

I liked it so much, I decided rather than mixed technique, I would do all the blocks like this.  However, I think for the words QUILT and ART I am going to try to suspend them inside the cut out space.  We'll see how it goes when I get there.

Today I used a tutorial Diane Gaudynski posted to try a new design called Celtic Bubbles. This was a really fun design to create, although my circles are just not perfect!  I need to work on the spacing between my echoing lines (the one thing I noticed is my stitch length is getting to be very consistent- that's exciting!)  I think the best way to do this is to doodle more, my drawing isn't very good either...

This will be the background for the word "this", which I will hopefully get done this week.

I need to figure out when the guild art quilt challenge is due.

I'm thinking maybe I should do some hand embroidery with yarn on it, just to give it more color (or at very least satin stitch around the letters in darker thread to hide the quilting that had to come up to the fabric to attach the floating threads), and possibly dye the quilt.  I don't know yet

Mario quilt still just needs binding, but I have to take out my embroidery machine to get a label on it, so I'm not very motivated to finish.

Just a bit of quilting

Had a wonderful weekend this week- the World Figure Skating Championships!  The event is not covered by US TV unless you have a super high tier cable package in some markets (not ours) that carries Universal Sports, so I watched on Latvian and Russian TV. I learned the Lativan word for oops is ups, prounced "oops-ah".

URGH! Blogger just ate my recap of the skating. It was a great recap, but I'm not typing it again- check out icenetwork.com for more.

Even though I spent a lot of time watching TV, Saturday I DID quilt the Mario quilt!  It took about 4-5 hours, I think.  I just did a big stipple, not wanting to take away from the design, but needing to quilt this batting no more than 5 inches apart.  I was worried it was going to be really hard, after reading the quilt-along blog, but after the first square it turned out it wasn't too bad at all.

Here is a peak at the back.  The batik was picked because Kevin thought it had a Bowser's castle vibe.

Today I started a new project.  We have an art quilt challenge at guild.  I've decided to make a quilt that is self-referential to the fact that it is art, since I'm not sure I really make art.  I mean- if it says it is art, can you argue with that? Quilt's don't lie.  So the quilt will be put together quilt as you go, and each block will have a word of "This quilt is art" in a different technique.  I read in Quilting arts magazine about cutting away a space and then sewing strings across it so they are suspended and that sounded really cool, so this block is the background for the word "is" which will be done in that technique.  I wanted to get it done today, but a neighbor had surgery, so we took her kids ice skating for 3 1/2 hours to give her some quiet time.

The really cool thing is that Diane-shiko is one of the blocks I did for the snowflake quilt, an early one.  Looking at THIS block, I can see without a doubt, I'm getting better.  White on white hides mistakes, and there are tons, but the circles are definitely more even.

UFO Sunday

So, I am still basking in the glory of having finished Winter Wonderland.  I have photos of it taken and am getting CDs ready to send to see if it will get juried into a show...  I don't think it will, but this is the first quilt I've ever made that makes me think I really ought to try.

This weekend, I did the sashing on the Mario quilt, and now the top is all finished up.  Don't look too closely- there are lots of mistakes!  It will be awhile before I quilt it.  For two reasons: first the gajillion seams every inch really scare me, it is going to be a pain to quilt; second the sashing isn't perfect (this is why I never sash!) and it bubbles up a bit.  I think that I should be able to handle that though.  Third: I need to find backing fabric.  I would like to use video game fabric, but the only one I've found so far is Pac Man, and my husband vetoed that.  A friend in Korea is going to look for Mario for me, but otherwise, I will probably just use a solid or marbled fabric.

I also started quilting the words onto Express Your Love.  I've got to say, at least close up - it isn't too pretty.  I'm not going to do any of the other 'ribbons' until Leah demos some other methods (she says she plans too...)

I've also started designing another art quilt.  Our guild challenge is art quilts, so this will take priority over EYL, as I need to have it done I think by June.  I'll post about that as time goes on.

FINISHED Object Alert

Yes! You saw it right here: The snowflake quilt, Winter Wonderland, is DONE.

The quilt as you go was not easy, because I really wanted it perfect.  It isn't perfect, but I think it looks great.  I did the binding by machine, but incredibly carefully- I pinned and pressed each step of the way, and I took 8 attempts to get the 'seamless' (diagonal seam) finish to the binding so you don't know where I started applying it (I usually just go straight across and it isn't very pretty.)  My corners look pretty good, if I do say so myself.   I took all this care because I really want to try to send this quilt to the state fair, and possibly other shows.  I know the quilt isn't good enough to win shows, but after the AQS judge came to our guild meeting I have a thought that maybe it is good enough to get into a show? (And of course, the state fair is open).

Anyhow- want to see a beautiful quilt?  AAAAGHHH!  So excited!

Where is the quilt right now?  In the bathtub....  There is A LOT of starch in this thing, plus I think some water soluble thread is still hanging out from the initial step, and I don't want buggies eating it.   You can see here how bright the pink fabric I used was. The organza really pales it out, not to mention the mounds of white thread.

And of course, label your quilts.  I put a little message on this quilt to remember the stage of quilting I was in when I made it. Really, I was a beginner.  I took my very first free motion stitch just a year before I made this quilt, and I certainly didn't spend the entire year quilting!  This quilt was me saying "you know what, I'm going to get good at this!"  And doing all these designs and all this quilting- I think I can say pretty firmly now: "I'm good at this."

I want to thank Leah for the fabulous pattern, and the 365 project which inspired me to do this (and where I got a good number of the designs from.)


Posts about this quilt:
Starting the quilt
First steps

Snowflake 1, 2, and 3
Snowflake 4 and 5
Snowflake 6
Snowflake 7
Snowflake 8
Snowflake 9
Snowflake 10 and 11
Snowflake 12
Large Snowflake
Beginning Assembly

The end is near!

Today I spent pretty much the entire day quilting.  I finished stippling the outside of the center (large) square.  I did some pebbling, some spirals, and some lines to fill the rest of the middle of the snowflake.  And magically- all the quilting was done!

Up next was assembly, after a few false starts (sewing the strips to the wrong sides) I had the blocks all assembled.  Um, this quilt is big.  I've laid it all out before, but for some reason I kept thinking it would shrink once it was put together.  Nope- big, big quilt.  I'm not sure where it will go in the house, maybe it will have to go into my office.

I started putting the sashing on the front.  I tried to do the wavy sashing, but I couldn't figure out how to make it curve- I even made sure to cut bias binding, but I kept getting ugly wrinkles, so mine is just going to be square.  I need to sew together the LONG strips now- they will have to be seamed, although, since I'm not doing waves, maybe I can cut on the cross grain and do a 55 inch long strip?  I don't know if that is the best use of fabric, the seams aren't generally that visible.

I'm also trying to decide if I want to do some decorative stitching down the middle of the strips- I think it will give them a bit more weight and prevent the quilt from folding along the strips.  I could do it in white and it would be pretty much invisible, only seen by someone who admires it really closely, or I could do it in pink and pull the color out from the blocks (but then my stitching needs to be perfectly straight...)   I only have a 5 mm machine, this is something that would be really great with a 9 mm.

Before I can do the binding, I need to make a label on my embroidery machine and get it onto the back of the quilt.  I also need to decide if I think corner triangles will support the weight or if I have to do a proper hanging sleeve. The problem is- those require hand sewing, and I can't do that!

But OMG! the quilting is done!  I took this project on with just about a year of experience under my belt, to prove to myself that I could quilt.  And you know what- I can quilt!  (I'm thinking about entering it in the state fair this summer.  It isn't show quilt perfect, but I think it is pretty darn awesome (though once I get the binding on, that may not be true anymore, I suck at binding...)

Quilting update

Sunday is dedicated to finishing up long lasting projects. I did a bunch of this:

Which means I got a good chunk of the large snowflake done.

I also prewashed the white fabric that will be the sashing!

MLK Day I finished sewing all the Mario Squares and all week long I've been pressing them.  Today, Kevin layed them out how he wants the quilt.  I need to cut sashing and assemble now.  I'm pretty excited about this one!

 

 (Sorry, no idea why that loads sideways.  It looks right until I submit.)

Making Progress

In addition to the snowflake quilt, I have two other projects going on: Express Your Love and the Super Mario Quilt.

This weekend, I made progress on both.

For Super Mario, I found the painter's tape, so I can cover the bed of my machine and prevent any more Sharpie marker lines from forming as the interfacing rubs over the bed of the machine.  I also pressed the two blocks I had finished.

 

Neither of the blocks are 18.5" square.  Sadly, the place squares on a grid and sew method does not ensure perfection.  But I still think the shapes match up a heck of a lot better than if I was trying to do this through normal piecing methods!   I also think that having the lines for all the individual squares makes the pixelated pictures look more authentic, and if I pieced them individually, I would have definetly done larger "chunks"- not cut every single block. So I'm still glad I did it the way I did, even if it still isn't perfect. 

 

For Express Your Love, I did all the outlining, except the hair- I'm still not sure what color to do that in.

 I also quilted the Green part of the Earth.  I don't like it, but it is staying.  I echoed the outer part of the earth, and I should have taken the line inside and echoed the shape of the water- oops.  I also didn't use Isacord (didn't have green) and selected the closest match I had, which was Dual Duty.  The thread is not pretty (neither is the picture, sorry).  It is dull looking and thick.

Not sure how to do the water.  I'm thinking about pebbling for a bubbles look, but I'm going to wait to see what Leah shows us.

I've decided on a few of the phrases I'm going to put into the ribbons (or at least pick from), but am a bit scared of getting them there, because my handwriting is terrible, and I need to mark the words to fit the ribbons.

"Live in the now and design your future."
"Let your dreams fly free."
"Have an open and willing heart"
Live life courageously"
"Release all fear of failure"
"The future is bright and happy"
"Surround yourself with love"