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"

The end is near!

Today I decided to really make a focus on my snowflake quilt.  It isn't snowy at all this winter, and at the pace I'm going it will be summer before this is display ready.

But I did get the 12th and final small snowflake done.  The design I did is inspired by Leah Day's Circuit Board, but I'm not sure whether or not it is that.  The organza is very shiny in the photo, so I'm not sure how well you can see it.  To me, it is like a medatative labrythith that you walk for reflection- not a maze, but a single line that has a start and end point (although since I trimmed the sides, it doesn't really work.)  If you knew where I started, you could trace your finger over the entire design.   You should be able to click and enlarge the design.

So how much left until the snowflake quilt is done?  I need to put in the giant middle block!  I am not entirely sure whether I want to stipple or do McTavishing.  I am leaning towards stipple.  My McTavishing isn't bad, but I always think it looks better in matching thread colors, rather than this big contrast of the white and pink.  But after all the hard work of this quilt- will people look at the big block being stippling as a cop-out, using an easy stitch?  At this point, do I care?

Work In Progress Wednesday

I have a few things in progress right now- I need to stop starting new things!

So here are my updates:

Mario Quilt: 1 block finished (Boo), 2 blocks finished seam but need final pressing (pressing those final seams is a pain in the butt!), 3 blocks have horizontal seams sewn, 6 blocks are fused with no sewing yet.

I need to find some painter's tape to put on my machine.  It is developing two faint red lines from the permanent marker I used to mark the grids on the fusible interfacing (I did the backside wanting to keep it off the fabric, I really didn't think it would rub off onto the machine!!!)  Kevin tells me it is only cosmetic and won't hurt the machine- but my Bernie is only a year old, I don't want her messed up (despite the few scratches I've managed in that year.)

Express Your Love:  This is the quilt pictured above, and is a quilt along done with Leah Day.  I finished piecing my top and she is laid out on the batting and backing and needs to be basted.  I've selected phrases to go on the quilt- a little different from the ones suggested by the quilt a long.  To me, the idea of a goddess quilt is really personal, and it seems odd to copy someone else's.  So rather than thread painting affirmations I would say to or about myself, I am instead going to write positive thoughts that someone watching over you would say to you- the thoughts the Goddess is blowing down to Earth for us all.  Oddly, the first thing on my list was "Have an open and willing heart" was the first thing I wrote down- and that was a suggested phrase this week (except as "I have an open and willing heart") so there will be a lot of similarities.

The next step is to outline quilt the sections.  I need to decide if I want to do them all in white, or do them in the color of the section.  I might end up doing the hair in a dark color but everything else white, but since I plan to use color thread in the background, I'm not sure how white dividers will work.

It is a fused quilt- so all the pieces shown are fully fused down to the fabric, with quarter inch overlaps when they join another piece of fabric.  I used freezer paper to trace the sections and get all my positioning right.

 If you are following the quilt-a-long, you will notice the background rays are missing.  I drew them in with marking pen and plan to use yellow and orange threads to fill the alternating sections- that way it appears like the suns rays radiating out behind the Earth.

Snowflake:  This might be entering WIP territory again.  I keep putting it off for other things.  I need to do the final small square and the large square.  But then there is the whole "put quilt together" thing.  And that is going to take a while. Even longer still because the white used in the Mario quilt and the background for Express You Love was supposed to go on this quilt, so now I don't have the fabric- haha.

(I can't get the button to load- but join the link up party at http://www.freshlypieced.com/)

Work In Progress Wednesday

One of my goals for the new year is to blog a bit more.  Since I rarely blogged last year, hopefully I can meet it.   One thing I am going to try to do is update WIP Wednesday.  It is a really big link up party, so I'm not sure many people will visit my blog from it (since I'll have to blog at the end of the day) but it is a fun way to find other people's blogs- so I am looking forward to finding them.

Today the reason I can post right now is I am skipping Sh'Bam (my wednesday workout).  I did something to my feet and it hurts to walk.  It is like I have blisters on the bottom of my left foot toe and on the top of my right foot toe, but they aren't blisters.  Web searching leads me to believe I may have frost nip or Chilblains (except it doesn't itch).  Hopefully whatever it is, it goes away soon.  It has gotten gradually worse over the past week- which is one of the reasons these blocks are WIPS, not finished.  I couldn't stand long enough to work on them New Years Day, and had to stop.

So these blocks have all had their horizontal seams sewn, but not the vertical ones yet.

I also started Leah Day's "Express Your Love" quilt.  I am going to do raw edge fusing to put it together. Assuming I have enough fabric for it- I can't buy anymore!  It is a much bigger quilt than I thought it would be!

The other WIP is the Snowflake quilt, no further progress has been made on that one.

And I just took Laura Wasislowski's Craftsy class- and it was amazing and now I want to make a bunch of fused quilts!

WIP Wednesday

Year in Review

Everyone else is posting a year in review, so I thought I'd do the same.  Or at least a review of stuff I blogged about :)  I finished A LOT of projects this year.  This will mostly outline the projects I completed, but I added in a few other main points. 

January:
In January the only project I made completely was the Stupendous Stitching wall hanging from the Craftsy class (my favorite class to date, and I've done a lot of them.)  I also made a jelly roll race quilt top.  The non-highlight of January was that I badly sprained my wrist.  That sucked.


Feburary
I managed to get a number of projects done this month: Pajama Pants for Kevin Headbands for Courtney,Embroidered Towel for Melissa, Butterfly Shirt for Me, Bib for Violet, and a Mug Rug for Swap

March
In March I finally finished the first twin quilt for Mom, made Vogue 1224 for me (love this dress!), and some snack baggies for Courtney.  The non-highlight of March was getting a retry (fail) on my bronze freeskate test.

April
The highlight of April was seeing my family, meeting my new niece and going on a cruise.  I also made a wine bottle bag and Vogue 1208 dress (which I was proud of at the time, and wore, but Kevin has since told me doesn't look good on me.)  I also completed a mini wholecloth quilt, my first micro quilting project- this would turn out to be the year of microquilting! 

May
In May I finished second twin size quilt for Mom, one of my favorite quilts ever, and quilted the colorful quilt I made for myself last year.  I also made a dress for Josefina and started a dresden plate quilt, which has since been abandoned.  I wonder where it is...

June
In June I started my shadow trapunto snowflake quilt.  I did all the prep work for each block andfinished snowflakes 1, 2, and 3.  This is also the month I took up rowing and the highlight: finally passed my bronze freeskate test!

July
In July I made a wallet, a rosin bag for Cole and snack bags for Kristen.  I also finished Snowflakes 4 and 5.

August
In August I finished the Jelly Roll Race quilt, did the project from the Painted Quilt class from Craftsy (love it), and finished Snowflake 6, 7, and 8. Kevin made me a spool stand which is one of my favorite sewing accessories (he says he made it in June.  I wonder why it took me so long to post).

September
This month I only finished Snowflake 9.  I started Snowflake 10...and then the snowflake quilt entered UFO territory.

October
October was a low project month because of an awesome project- we moved to a new house!!!  We had the shortest house hunt ever.  I emailed our realtor at the beginning of August that we were sort of kind of thinking about moving, and would he be willing to give us an idea of the market.  By Oct. 1 we were in the new house.  We are SO happy with it- six years in the old house we put together a wishlist of exactly what we were looking for, and as an added bonus, we have the greatest neighborhood.   In random updates, I also attended my first hockey game.


November:
This month I finished a pair of knitted socks (well, I haven't closed the toes yet, I should do that tonight to finish them before the new year.)  And made the project from Quick Strip Paper Piecing class on Craftsy.com- it is hanging in the entryway.  We also joined a gym and I am really enjoying the aerobics classes.

December:
The big news for December was that I switched jobs.  I am enjoying my new position and it seems like it will be a good fit.  I also did a number of projects, the Side Setting Table Runner, a fabric wreath (possibly my first pinterest craft?),Violet's stocking, fleece blankets for Violet, Rylee, Conor, Luke and Brody, and a pennant for Cole.  I finished snowflake 10 and 11, dyed my first fabric and

began Mario Quilt.


So entering the new year the projects I have in progress are the Mario Quilt, the Snowflake Quilt, and the Dresden Plate.  I have also done a few Craftsy classes that I haven't done the project yet (Jeans, Alterations, Thread Art) and would like to.

Overall, it was a good year!

New Project- Mario Quilt

I missed the quilt-along, but I remember seeing the Super Mario quilt when it started.  Now that I've seen the final quilt, I decided Kevin needs a Mario quilt.  So during Fabric.com's 12 days of Christmas sale I ordered some fabric, and it was scheduled to get here the 21st- perfect, as I would have multiple days of uninterrupted quilting fun. 

Then we had a blizzard, so it was delayed.  It was scheduled to get here on the 24th.  I can handle that, still will have Christmas day to quilt.  Nope, at 8:15 pm an "emergency condition beyond the control of UPS" popped up on the tracking.  But get this- the UPS man had JUST delivered to a house on the corner.  I was pissed off, as there was no tipped over UPS truck, so I really want to know what the emergency was!

Needless to say, I didn't get to quilt Christmas.  The fabric came on the 26th while I was at work, and I got it prewashed and then ironed and starched, and yesterday I started on the quilt.

Kevin's favorite characters are Boo and Dry Bones, neither were in the quilt.  I found a Boo, but haven't been able to get Dry Bones as 18 x 18 (anyone talented want to draw him for me?)  I may put his on the back in a larger size.

Since he was only a few colors and would be easy to cut the squares for, Boo was up first.

Now that I decided it worked (but not as well as my practice piece...) I am cutting the almost 4,000 squares needed for the quilt (each block has 324 squares).  I have the star and mushroom pressed and ready to be sewn, I will probably sew them tonight.

The process.

Step 1: Mark grids on cheap interfacing (99 cents a yard, plus I had a 50% off coupon- way better than the $100 on wash-away the QAL call for, even though it does change the hand of the fabric a bit.)  This is what I spent the holiday doing.

Step 2: Lay out all the squares and press.  (This Boo is 27" x 27")  Make sure to use release paper or a press cloth, as there is a lot of fusible interfacing that may still be exposed.  I also got out my older iron.

Step 3: Sew seams in one direction

Step 4: Cut open seams (well worth it to press seams open instead of to the side, this is going to be a 'B' to quilt.) and press, again, use release paper.

Step 5: Join top and bottom piece together.  (Up to this point, I was working with a group of 13 rows and a group of 5 rows-  18 rows won't fit on the interfacing.)  This is the only step I used pins for.

 

This will give you a big squished Boo.

Step 5: Sew seams in other direction.

Step 6: Cut open seams (This time I tried with a rotary cutter, much easier to cut, but the smaller seam allowance made it harder to press, I won't do this again.) 

 Block Finished (see opening photo).  It measures 18.25 x 18.5- so  I wasn't perfect.  If you look closesly not everything is square, but for my piecing, I have to say, this is pretty darn good.  And quick.  I can't imagine doing these individually, and even doing them a clumps of color I would have never been this accurate.  Can't wait to see more characters come to life!

Here is what he looks like from the back.  See- lots and lots of seams, and because of the interfacing quilting this is not going to be easy!

 

Adventures in dyeing!

So a little while ago I got a procion MX dyeing starter kit.  I asked my parents for larger bottles of the 3 primary colors for Christmas and they got them for me (plus 10 yards of white fabric!!)  The starter kit also had black in it.

I thought the starter bottles were 1 ounce, so I asked for 8 ounces- it turns out they are like a half ounce, and 8 ounces is A LOT, so I should have dye for quite some time.  I think it has a shelf life of a year or two (but have read of it lasting up to 10!) so I'm going to need to go on a dyeing spree.

Christmas I had a good start at it, I wanted to do gradations and saw a tutorial of how to dilute the same amount of dye more and more in successive dye baths to get a gradation.  Sadly, it didn't work for me.  (Well, it kind of did on the blue, you can see it is lighter on the last one.)  But I did get pretty fabric.  There were 4 of each color, but I already broke into some of it for a fused quilt...so one yellow is missing.

So after doing that, I did some snow dyeing.  Snow dyeing is when you put the fabric in a container, pile snow on top of it and then put the dyes on it like a snow cone.  The melting is what determines the patterns in the ice.  In the above picture you can see the first two I did, with Radiance fabric (half silk).  I actually like the patterns on cotton better.  I love the orange (made with fuschia and yellow), which is good because I accidentally put in two fat quarters instead of one.

I also took a craftsy class and tried a few of the folded manipulations.  The black is just accordion pleated and folded in half.  The purple is folded like a flag and then a resist is created using jar lids.  I asked Kevin to take pictures, and really appreciate that he did (his camera is confusing, I can't use it much) but I don't think he did the best job of showing off the fabrics. (The green is snow dyed.)

For my gradation, I didn't plan to use a resist, but it came out like one on the Pimatex, the technique I used was putting them in large solo cups, but one of the resist techniques was scrunching in small cups, so I guess I didn't have enough room.  I also thought this little pattern was quite funny:

And like many dyers before me, I was looking for something else to dye.  I hate the white underwear that comes in packs of cute underwear (why do they always throw in white? I don't want white!) so I dyed all of them too!  They went into the snow baths with the fat quarters.  Now I love my adorable undies.  And we spiral tie-dyed a shirt.  Again, sorry you can't see the pattern, it looks awesome!

Also, none of these fabrics are PFD.  I prewashed regular fabric- this is all from Fabric.com and it all dyed beautifully.  I had written what was what, but other than the pink being Pimatex, I can't remember.  So my lesson learned: buy what is on sale, prewash.  I tried the Timeless Treasures Broadcloth, the Cotton Broadcloth ($2.98/yd!), the Cotton Supreme Solids, the Premium Broadcloth (kind of thick), and the Moda Bella Broadcloth.  Everything looked great.   I also dyed some Kona I had on hand.

Snowflake quilt

So the snowflake quilt is nearing completion.  I have a small block and the big block left to go.  I plan to stipple the large block and do circuit board (square) stippling on the small block.  I had planned to McTavish, but in the end decided against it because while my McTavishing is good, I think it looks best in a complementary color to the fabric.

This quilt really got stalled for awhile because I ran out of designs and motivation.  And then a bunch of projects came along, but in the end, it is going to get there.

So here are the two squares I finished over Christmas.  The triangles have been in progress for months.  Not sure why I didn't get them done before. They weren't really that hard.  (You should be able to click to see bigger.  This one is hard to see the design.)

The loops were a design I didn't want to do, but I just wanted to have it done.  I wish I could quilt paisley- I pull it out to practice all the time, but it just doesn't look right, no matter what variation I do. 

Sadly, this loop design will always be a sad one for me.  I was interupted while stitching it by my husband yelling down the stairs- he needed to go to the ER.  He sliced his finger on the router while making a bedside table.  For a woodworking injury, it is probably best case scenario, just a few stitches to reattach the skin flap to his finger and a badly torn nail (but not nailbed, they don't think) that will have to grow back.  I'm so thankful he still has the whole finger, though I don't want to minimize the amount of pain he is in.  This block is always going to be tied to that.  Not the most fun Christmas Eve.

So, like I said two more and then the challenge of putting on the border.  I am not sure if I will do wavy joining of the blocks, but I decided not to do scallops on the edge of the quilt.  I am also really confused how to add a hanging sleeve to it (I usually use triangle corners) because quite honestly, I'd really like to show the quilt (the websites for the shows I'm looking at all say you can use someone else's design, though I plan to email the designer for permission)- we had a speaker at the guild really talk about how show quilts are NOT perfect quilts, so I figured I can try, but everything I read about attaching the hanging sleeve talks about how it shouldn't go through to the front, which makes sense, but this is quilted so tightly there is no room to just get the backing. Maybe if I put my loosest blocks in the top corners?

Next post- about dyeing!

A few more gifts

My sister's kids have a lot of stuff, so I generally don't do gifts for them, but contribute to the college fund instead.  (They are starting to get old enough to know who gifts are coming from, so I'm probably the crappy Aunt- eh, they'll thank me later!)

However, I thought the twins might like the blankets I was making this year, so I made them a set for their birthday.  They are still just getting Christmas checks though.  I was told that The Hulk and Cars are the height of coolness, so that is what they got.  My sister assured me if I monogrammed them it would be okay, and not cause fights over who got the better one.  In her words "everything causes fights, this way I can say, 'no, that is not yours'" 

I think I finally got the binding down- heavy fabric, and starch!

I actually got my machine binder in the mail yesterday.  It has a learning curve though, so I don't think it would have been ready for prime time if I received it earlier.

My sister also told me that Cole "owns" a baseball team called the Osums (Awesome- she told him he spelled it wrong, and he said he was the owner, he gets to decide how to spell it.)  She asked me if I could make him a pennant for the team.  Of course I can!  This was a fun project- I basted the letters in place using steam-a-seam, and then used a blanket stitch to sew it in place. Kevin told me I had to add a white strip to the side, or else it isn't a 'real' pennant.  This is more a vintage pennant, as the new ones are very stiff, and this one is just felt.

Turns out Cole has the flu :( so we were suckers and let him open it early.  He pronounced it amazing, and then searched the house looking for somewhere to put it.  He found the perfect location.  What do you think? 

Cole told his Mom "Aunt Jessi is the best sewer in the world.  She can sew anything."  (He also thinks Uncle Kevin can make anything...which is probably true.)  If he keeps that attitude up, he'll probably get any sewn gift he wants!  (For his birthday, he might be getting an Osums t-shirt.)

Ready for a New Project

So awhile ago, I remember reading a blog doing a super mario quilt-along.  I recently saw it again and thought "why didn't I do that?"  Kevin has decided he definetly needs that quilt, so I'm going to do it.

The wash away interfacing used for the quilt costs almost a hundred dollars, even on sale- that would be a huge chunk of change.  Instead, I am using Pellon 44F Fusible interfacing, it costs 99 cents a yard, and I got it half off! 

This is the sample I made with it to make sure it would be okay to quilt and not too stiff once it was washed.  It is a little thick, but it still drapes okay. (And really with all those seams so close together, I think no matter what it would be thick.)  The quilting on it was difficult- it won't be easy to do, but it is manageable.

Not totally perfectly, but man- the precision on this piecing is way better than I would have ever done without the interfacing method.

So now I just need to get together all the fabrics, and then I have a big project ahead of me!

(Other big project: snowflake quilt.  Just a few left, but I ran out of motivation and interest in that one....  it will get done eventually.)

So Joann was coupon commotion so I was able to get some  good 50% off deals:
15 yards Pellon 44F: $7.43
10 yards Wonder Under: $14.95
45MM Rotary Cutter (a new ergonomic one): $8
Cheapo 4-scissor pack: $3  (figured these won't last long, but seemed worth trying)


Since I have 3,888 squares to cut out for the Mario quilt, I'm excited about the new rotary cutter!