Turtle Quilt

This is "Shell We Dance" by Java House Quilts. I had a lot of trouble with the paper piecing. The arc on the shell didn't quite fit right into the background pieces. Unfortunately, I cut four of these, so I have a lot more to struggle through. I recommend freezer paper applique instead of paper piecing the turtle into the background.

Sophie's Ice Cream Quilt

I bought this quilt kit along with the book in 2001. If I had known all the strips were cut, I probably would have put it together along time ago. It was wicked quick. I quilted in the ditch and a little extra on the ice cream and that was it. As usual, I quilted by hand. Sophie sleeps with it every night. I'm glad I finally finished it while someone was still short enough to sleep under it. It's from the book Quilt in a Day: Ice Cream Cone Quilt. So far, I've never had a problem with a pattern from Quilt in a Day. I did freezer paper applique instead of the method used in the book.

Zen meets You Must Be Croaking

I've been making the "Zen" quilt from Blue Underground Studios for my boys. I wanted to make them a quilt that will last them for many years. I decided to camoflage a frog on the front. He won't stand out too much when the kids are taking the quilt off to college, but it's just fun enough for my 8 and 12 year old boys. I'm also slowly working on "You Must Be Croaking". It's going much better than another Java House Quilt Pattern I've got in the pile. I'll share that story a little later. I'm going to put a mirror image of the frog on the back of the Zen quilt. I've pieced a second Zen quilt and am ready to applique the frog on. I completely put the frog together and then applique him on as one big piece at the end. It's easier than trying to keep things from shifting.

Batik quilt

I quilted the pinwheels in the color of thread that matches the color lines in the quilt. It's hard to see on the picture. I haven't figured out the Canon camera we recently purchased.

Abby's Quilt

This is Abby's batik quilt. It needs a little more quilting in the ditch to be completed. There is probably 4 or 5 hours of quilting left. I still quilt almost everything by hand.

Bluebird Quilt Pattern

This pattern is from Crab-apple Hill Studio. It is my very first attempt at embroidery and I'm quite happy with it. I need to embroider in the outer border and then I am ready to baste it.

Bluebird Embroidery

Five Degrees Between Us

Matthew and I sewing on binding at the speed of light. We wanted to get Karen's chemo quilt to her before her second chemo this summer. (I am totally cheating and feeding the blog old pictures.)

2009-10-27

Batik quilt similar to Abby's. I made this for Nike's baby last summer. It has psychedelic vw bug fabric for a backing.

I'm here...

First, I had to remember my password, then I had to get most of the children to bed, pay the bills, etc. Now, I need to learn how to use the new camera.

• Ice Cream Quilt for Sophie - finished
• Turtle Quilt for Jacob - finished
• Batik quilt for Abby - some hand quilting left
• Zen quilt for Caleb - almost halfway through the handquilting
• Zen quilt for Noah - top is pieced, it just needs an applique frog
• Bluebird quilt for me - finishing embroidered border
• Sam's quilt - not started
• Eclipse quilt - cut
• Christmas quilt - started cutting
• Frog quilt- some piecing started, not all cut yet
• Turtles from hell - three quilt tops to go (note to self, don't cut out four quilts until you've pieced one)

Tomorrow I will try to get the teenager to help me with pictures and I will try to review a quilt product or pattern every day for the rest of the week.

Paging Kara to the bloggosphere...

Hey Kara, let's get blogging, girl.  I know you've been busy quiltifying -- so let everyone know what you're up to and see some pictures!

Amish Steps #2 Machine Work is Done

Yay!  The machine work for Amish Steps #2 is done!  I just finished attaching the binding strips, and now I have a TV friendly quilting task!  I'm also pleased to have a portable project to take with me to Iowa this weekend.  I'd love for my Aunt Billie, my parents, my sister, and my cousins to see what I've been up to, yet I can't quite make a good excuse to just take Grantward quilt with us.  Oh, and I can't forget to take Dad's sweater with me for alteration.  I almost have one side reduced, with just about 8" of kitchener on that side; then, I have to pick-out a row of knitting on the other side, rip out 3 pattern repeats plus one row, and then re-attach with kitchener to replace that last row ripped out.  After that, it's just the waist-band ribbing to reknit.  I'll work on the sweater project during the drive, because I don't think I'm good enough with the hand stitching to blind-stitch the binding down in a moving car at highway speeds.  I also don't think Grantward will be too patient about pulling over every time I have to thread a needle!

Yikes, tomorrow is almost here, and I have a full day of teaching.  Bleah.  Time to run the puppies out one last time, brush my teeth, grab my CPAP, and hit the hay!

Super (SLOW) Jo-Ann's Update and Amish Steps #2 Update

First, let me update folks on my diatribe against the Super (SLOW) Jo-Ann's store in Naperville.  I spoke with a customer support worker, Nate, who listened very carefully to my complaints, apologized for the delays and frustrations, and asked whether I'd like to have my comments passed along to the regional director or whether I'd like to speak with him directly.  I chose the latter, and he and I had a lovely conversation with Joe; he was very empathetic and apologetic about the problems and promised to bring up the issue with the store manager, Kevin.  I think we'll perhaps give the Orland Park super store a shot next trip up north.

Second, I just finished the stitch-in-the-ditch quilting on Amish Steps #2, so all I have left is to quilt the outer border and add the binding.  I think I need to cut another binding strip because the binding was originally going to be the inner border (but the pattern was too busy and didn't stop the eye as a good inner border should).

Another Trip Up North

Part 1: A Visit to the Jo Ann's Super (slow) Store in Naperville

Well, we were all excited that Greggerly (my brother-in-law) could puppy-sit whilst we made (yet another) trip up north to our usual haunts.  As it was Sunday, a stop at The Fabric Center in Morris, Illinois was not in the cards, but Kara had the idea to check out one of the Jo Ann's SuperStores in the Chicago area, and the one in Naperville was but a few miles from Trader Joe's, so we decided to hit Jo Ann's, then Trader Joe's, then Ikea, rounding it out, of course, with din-din at Portillo's.

We were off to a fine start (I even had time to knit (KNIT!) on the way up, after fiddling with the GPS and the phone's GPS as the stand-alone GPS didn't want to show the detail for 526 S. Route 59 that I saw earlier.  Even the (never ending) road construction didn't deter us; the company (and the gossip) were superlative, and I even squeezed in a lovely chat with Mom & Dad.

Okay, so when we pull up to the "Super Store," it doesn't quite seem to match our expectations:  "Maybe it goes back really far?" As we walked in, though, we saw that it does go back really far and had a much better selection of crafty stuff & storage and a goodish increase in fabric above the small store in Champaign.  It all started to fall apart when Kara waited a few minutes at the cutting counter before noticing the "take a number" signs.  There were 11 people ahead of her in line, and it took between 35 and 40 minutes till her number was called.  You've never seen three people (THREE!!) take so long to cut so little fabric!  The manager appeared to chat with her employees and tell them they couldn't have their breaks yet, and tell them she was going off duty, and tell them, yes, she was buying stuff.  She has no idea how close she came to finding a bolt or two of fabric rammed up her patootie!  And the 50 year old customer dressed like a teenager in spandex leggings who had to argue whether a bolt of satin was on sale or not was also a likely candidate for patootie bolting!  Oh, and my number was the second one after Kara's, and it took 15 minutes after Kara to call it.  By then, Kara had called to report the scene was much the same at the check-out counter.  By the time my fabric was cut, she was only one person back from the register, so I handed her my stuff & peeled out to cool off the car.  So, the slow pokes at the Super(slow)Store killed our Trader Joe's stop, and we still didn't make it to Ikea until 6pm.

Part 2: Buy Stock in Ikea

We were back in our chipper moods as we entered Ikea, zipping first into the stoopidly located food section located conveniently after exiting the registers (and I have yet to see anyone working the one register in the food section).  Then we ducked over to the As Is section to see if they still had $0.99 stomach sleeper pillows for $0.49.  They didn't.  So then we nipped back to the elevator & headed upstairs.  We were both quite hungry by now, so it was one of our most expedient Ikea trips ever.  I got two sizes of cookie jars, four more fabric storage boxes, 11" W x 6" H x 16" D that are the perfect size to store fat quarters or any yardage folded to 1/4 of bolt width.  My big excitement, though, was getting four short Billy bookcases and a table top to put back-to-back in the quiltatorium to serve as a cutting station:

From Quilting Room

From Quilting Room

From Quilting Room

I said I wasn't going to assemble it tonight -- just get the room ready, but I couldn't stand it.  Plus, it takes about 10 minutes to assemble a narrow Billy bookcase and 15 for the wide ones, so I was done nearly an hour ago.  After basking in the glory, I realized I should blog about it.  There are a few details to address:  (1) I need to get an extension cord with a flat-wall plug & run it between the bookcases before I load them up; (2) I need to put "sticky" foam between the bookcases & the desk-top to keep it from slipping around; and (3) I need to think about separating the bookcases so I can slide my cutting mats between them when not in use.

Kara bought three bookcases, two dressers, a metric butt-load of cookies, some night-lights, a small play table & stools for Sam & Sophie, and a bunch of stuff for friends as per there requests.

Portillo's was as delightful and tasty as ever!  Then it was just a matter of the (long) drive back.  Fortunately, the active road work was on Northbound I-55, or it would have been a lot uglier.

I'm just about done with my Mojito (and I polished off the last few cookies).  So, time for bed.  Then tomorrow is an exciting day of doing laundry, grading papers, and signing up for a hunter's star quilting class at Sew Sassy in October.

Toronto International Film Festival

Ah, peace and quiet.  An empty house, well except for the brother-in-law, who's sleep quite quietly downstairs, so much so that you'd never know he was here.  I can't really complain about not having a peaceful quiet house, generally, as we all know of houses with much more distraction than a constant home theater or two and the occasional barking dog or two.  Grant left this morning for the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), and he won't be back until the 20th.  Don't tell him that I watched a movie, a movie that I had seen before, and a movie not on blu-ray disc.  He would just sigh and say it was a waste.

I realized that I could watch my movie, Amadeus, as I've been ripping Mozart CDs into iTunes of late, if I wanted to, and I could watch it on my laptop set up in the quilting room so I could work on Amish Steps #2.  And work on it I did!  About ten minutes ago, I finished the outer border, so all the piecing for the front is done.  Now, all I need to do before Kara helps me layer & baste is press the background fabric; cut it to length; stitch the two halves together; press it again; and get the dining room table ready for layering & basting.  Here's a few pictures of the pieced top:

From Fabric & In Progress

From Fabric & In Progress

From Fabric & In Progress

I am inordinately pleased with the result, and I can hardly wait not only to back to do Amish Steps #1 (with the solid green background) but also Amish Steps #3 (purple backgrounds, ribbon arrangement, for me).  But, I have two other gift-ulous quilts to get crackin' on... so all in the fullness of time.

Border patrol

I came to the realization recently that I had selected an entirely unsatisfactory inner border fabric for the Amish Steps #2 quilt that's currently on my sewing table.  The original choice was made because the intended recipient remarked on the beauty of the fabric, and the colors work with all the other fabrics beautifully.  The problem is that this fabric has way, way too much pattern going on to serves as a functional border:

From Fabric & In Progress

Grantward agrees with me, and it's just a damned shame that it means I'll have to go fabric shopping today after work!  Look out, Sew Sassy, here I come.  I think a dark evergreen batik with a marbled pattern (like the main color in Amish Steps #1) would be the perfect fabric to act as a frame, plus it ties in really nicely to the dark green leaf outlines in the outer border fabric:

From Fabric & In Progress

(Okay, except the flash totally washed out the colors, but you can see this fabric is much better).

Finally, my shopping trip to Sew Sassy will be augmented to include buying fabric to make an Amish Steps quilt for myself (#3).  While piecing Amish Steps #2 (the one with two background step colors), I laid a row down upside down (and luckily caught it before stitching it in), but it inspired a different layout, and Grant agreed that it would be better to have him skip shopping for a souvenir yarn for me when he's in Toronto next week for TIFF (the Toronto International Film Festival) and instead have me buy fabric using his account.  I couldn't agree more (well, it was my idea, after all).  So, when all my 2010 holiday gift giving quilts are done, I can put that alternate assembly pattern into play in an Amish Steps for myself.  I may also have to make a new rule for Mr. Grantward:   If his name goes on the gift card for quilts that I make, he should not only be buying the fabric for those quilts but also buying me an equivalent amount of fabric to make myself the same quilt.  I suppose I could just teach myself Electric Quilt 7 so I could "see" my alternate block arrangement, but at this stage in my quilt fabric stash development, I'd rather buy it, cut it, and piece it to see what it will look like.  I'm giddy at the thought of selecting more batiks!

Big boards rock!

I've been growing increasing frustrated pressing bolt fabrics on a standard ironing board; I just hate that tapered end and not having a rectangular surface to do my pressing on.  Kara and I looked at a few options at Ikea, but nothing was quite right.

So, whilst browsing the aisles at Target, I found two microwave carts that would be about the right size placed end-to-end.  Then I got a 16" by 48" Aspen board at Menards to go on top, but my idea about using zip-ties to hold the two carts together didn't work out so well because the castor wheels were too close together and couldn't rotate 360°.  I got a couple of carriage bolts and some 1" PVC pipe, though, and bolted the two carts together quite well.  I also made a fabric cover (two layers of cotton with cotton batting between), and it works like a dream.  I shifted a few things around in the quilting room, and the pressing station can be pulled out for pressing or parked next to the sewing table to support unrolled quilts while machine quilting.

From Quilting Room

From Quilting Room

From Quilting Room

I'm also excited that Kara's coming over tonight to help me baste Zen; we had to ditch that idea last night for two reasons:  (1) Kara's neck & back were bugging her, and she wasn't going to be able to do much but help me flip layers and tell me to baste faster and (2) I wasn't going to be doing anything until after I had my big board assembled.  Oh right, I need to stop blogging and go press the backing fabric for tonight!  Well, maybe I'll sew a few rows of Amish Steps #1 first...

Working for a living sucks

All things said and done, I'd rather have a "do-over" on the summer from hell than be back at work, but I guess it beats the hell out of being back to work AND having a bunch of crap rain down on me at the same time.  It's actually been quite pleasant to be back and work and to have that structure and to reconnect with all my work buddies.

Last weekend, though, we had a wonderful time on Saturday giving Jodi her Irish Chain Quilt (I'm not numbering it among my quilts because Kara honestly did most of the work.  We picked fabric together; Kara did nearly all the cutting; Kara did the piecing; we basted together; I machine quilted the diagonals and borders (I love the killer meander on the outer border and credit Kara with the recommendation to keep the swirls in the meandering quilting on the same scale as the swirls in the print -- bloody brilliant); and Kara did all the hand quilting in the squares as well as sewing down the binding strip on the reverse.

I think we did a bang-up job, if I say so myself.  You can judge for yourselves, though, at least as far as these pictures don't suck completely.

From Jodi's Quilt

From Jodi's Quilt

Stoopidly, I did not think to take pictures of our giving it to Jodi, but I would have loved to have those pictures.

Then, after we dropped off the quilt with Jodi, we jumped in the red van and drove to the Fabric Center in Morris, Illinois to get inspired by some lovely pastels for the embroidered quilt Kara is working on currently, and once again I fell in love with a collection of asian prints; and I think I have enough fat quarters to use them in Arcadia, the quilt I'm planning for two gifts this year.  I didn't have the yardage requirements with me for the borders, sashing, and background, but I have plenty of time to acquire it as I won't be starting any time in the near future.  No trip to the Fabric Center is complete without a stop by the Morris Bakery, just a few doors up the street.  The sugar cookies aren't quite up to Sweet Indulgence "Heroin" cookie standards, but we found out that the cinnamon rolls and quite lovely, and their cheese danish is utterly sublime!

After our stop in Morris, we headed off (as expected) to Trader Joe's (alas, no plantain chips were to be found -- they've been discontinued) and then to Ikea.  We had a great time at Ikea, once again, and found all sorts of trouble to get into; well, for Kara to get into.  We shopped till we dropped & didn't get to Portillo's until 7:15pm.  We pulled into Kara's driveway around 10:15pm and (wisely) elected to just leave all the stuff in the van, to be sorted out the next day.

This weekend, I'm hoping Kara will feel up to popping over Friday to help me layer & baste Zen, and then I'll be torn between machine quilting Zen or continuing to piece the Amish Steps quilts (the strips are done for both quilts; the strip sub-cutting is all done; and I have four rows pieced together for the first amish steps.  Life is good.