April’s Journal Quilt

Posted on May 2, 2007 by Suzanne

Hey! I’m caught up now!

Of course, I can’t stop, as it is time to do May’s 12x12x12 quilt, but I have hopes of getting it done on time this month.

I showed pictures of this earlier, when I was just starting to bead. I mentioned at the time that I adore beads. I just should also add that I adore buttons. I’m actually pretty proud of myself for sticking with this one. As you will see, there are a lot of buttons. Maybe I’ll con the boys into counting just how many buttons are actually on it.

I really struggled with myself about even using the buttons or the beads. The design is nothing spectacular, just the initials of my business name. It doesn’t seem like it’s a “real” quilt. Even though I professed several months ago that I was going to use my stuff, I still struggle a bit — I feel like I should be saving things for “good” — for use on a really “serious” project.

Seriously. Isn’t that silly?

I talked myself into continuing and last night I sewed on the final button. I think one of the things I like best about this is the sheer weight of it. It feels really cool. Shall I show you the picture instead of continuing to ramble?

OK, here it is. I pinned some black fabric to my design wall to put behind it for contrast. Click on it to view it full size. It looks stupid with the right edge of the picture cut off.

After I finished the buttons last night, I actually found myself thinking “Hmmm. Maybe the letters ought to be entirely filled in with beads.”

In between sewing on gazillions of buttons, I have been spending time sorting out my disaster of a studio. 15 minutes of cleaning, 15 minutes of sewing. I’m finding some interesting treasures. I’ll probably share some of these later. One thing I did was cull out some quilting books I’d like to try to get rid of. I’ll be posting a list later. Right now, though, I have to get some More Meandering Magic books ready to mail, head to the Post Office, and then I’m off to get groceries.

TTFN!

Suzanne

Monday wrap-up

Posted on April 30, 2007 by Suzanne

So here it is the last day of April, and I’m still behind on the Quilt Studio 12x12x12 challenge.

But now, I’m only 1 month behind, instead of 2. Click to view this larger:

I was so tickled with my rainbow idea for the ABC Round Robin book (see yesterday’s post), that I did it again as a 12×12 quilt for myself.

It’s the same but different. It’s a 6 by 6 square of inchies, rather than the 6 by 7 rectangle for the book. You’ll also notice the addition of some buttons. And beads — the buttons on the inchies each have a black bead on top of them, in addition to the beads in the fringe. I love beaded fringe. I think I need to do more things with beads and buttons and fringe.

The funny thing is that my theme is supposed to be the Alphabet, with the idea that I will incorporate text on my quilts. Um yeah. Well, I forgot today. I had an idea that I was going to try, but I didn’t remember that I was going to try this idea until….the quilt was completely done. Oops. I still have a few ideas that I may play with, but for now, this is good enough. *I* know it is supposed to be a representation of “R is for Rainbow.”

Learned a few things from it. Still need to work on my satin stitch technique. I was brainstorming about why it is so messy, and it occurred to me that changing my needle might have helped. Any tips on how to do a clean satin stitch around the outside edge of a piece? The inchies are made of fabric fused to Timtex.

My next 12x12x12 is in progress. It’s covered with beads and buttons too. It’s taking me some time to do, but I hope to be done in a few days. And then I need to get going on something for May!

**************

On a completely unrelated note, as I was looking through pictures, I realized that I never showed a picture of this little book I made. I saw these on Lisa‘s blog last week. She also provided a link to the tutorial where she learned how to make them, which is here.

I learned from this project that I am a very messy gluer. Actually, I knew that already, it was just driven home to me with this project. No matter how hard, I try I get glue allover the place. I’m not sure what my problem is. Maybe I need to go back to Kindergarten for some gluing lessons.

Last, but not least, I thought I’d show off a picture of my athletes. I didn’t get very many decent pictures at the soccer game on Saturday, but was glad that at least one of them had both boys in the same shot.

I think that’s all from me for today. I need to go sew on some more buttons and then go to bed.

TTFN!

Suzanne

Beads and buttons

Posted on April 20, 2007 by Suzanne

I really didn’t spend very much money at MQX last week, but what I did do was to splurge on some jewelry:

As with a lot of things, this is so much prettier in real life. I wonder if taking a picture of it on a dark background would be better? Or maybe seeing what it looks like on me would be better?

And this one (which has matching earrings):

And some buttons:

There are actually 8 of those gorgeous handmade glass button. Haven’t got the slightest clue as to what I’m going to do with them, but I’ll have to find something now, won’t I?

I got all of this pretty stuff from a place called We Got the Buttons

You should go visit her website — she has some interesting information about how she actually makes the buttons.

There aren’t actually any buttons for sale on her website — the best way to use her gorgeous buttons is to ask her to make CUSTOM buttons. Send her a swatch of your fabric, tell her what size, shape and color, and she’ll make buttons to match!

I have some work to do today, but I’m also bound and determined to finish the pebbling on the red wholecloth.

First stop, though, is a trip the cough syrup bottle. I’m feeling better, but I’m hearing horror stories from people that this crud lasts weeks. Ugh.

More later!

Suzanne