As promised, quilt content

Posted on February 27, 2008 by Suzanne

My assistants were helping me while I was trying to take some photographs.

They were fighting over this bone.

I showed a little bit of this quilting the other day, you got a glimpse of how close I had come to running out of thread.

I’m only showing the back, because the front is busy enough that the quilting is really hard to see in a photograph.

Don’t look too closely. My backtracking isn’t all that great.

This was my second try at a freehand design on this particular quilt, and I wasn’t 100% happy with the choice, but when I realized that I might have preferred something different (namely: something less dense…), I was really too far along to actually undo the stitching I had already done.

It’s done, now, and that’s what counts. Well, done quilting, it does still need a binding.

This is a terrible picture, and I apologize for that. The pieces are just slapped up on my design wall and it’s not really bright enough for a good picture in there.

For better for for worse, this is what the Blooming Nine Patch is looking like. The rainbow stripe is from my shopping excursion over the weekend, and the two inner fabrics are out of my stash. I wish I’d had more of either one of those: if I had, I would have put things in a different order.

The Nine patches are all made, the plain pieces are all cut: now to sew it all together into rows. The original pattern calls for 8 fabrics, I’m only using 7. I’m not sure how wide I’ll make the bug border, I just pinned the yardage up on the design wall to give an idea of what it will look like.

My Wednesday piano students are here, gotta run!

Suzanne

More cheerful fabric

Posted on February 23, 2008 by Suzanne

I had to deliver a quilt today, and while I was at it, I had the chance to visit a quilt store. I have this hair-brained idea that I’m going to make a Blooming Nine Patch quilt to enter into MQS this year.

I brought home a bunch of fabric:

I think we picked out every little bit of bright stuff the shop had. This particular shop has a huge wall of Thimbleberries and in general tends towards darker, muddier colors. Nothing wrong with those: just not my thing. I probably should have waited until I could go to a different shop to have a different fabric selection, but you know me: when I’ve got an idea, I need/want to do it NOW.

The bug fabric (on the right) is totally adorable. You can’t tell from the picture, but sprinkled around the bugs are words like “Eek” and “Yuck” and “Slimy.”

I have started putting together some of the 9 patches, and I’m not entirely sure I’m happy with it, yet:

When I look at it in Black and White:

I think it might be because there is too much contrast between the green and the yellow ladybug print. At first I thought it was the orange that I didn’t like, but now I think it might be ladybugs. Bummer, because I adore the ladybug print. I only needed 3/8 of a yard of that, but it was a skinny bolt: if I finished the bolt, it was 50% off. So of course all 3 yards had to come home with me…

I’m going to go dig around my closet of fabric and see if there is something in there that might make me happier.

last night I finished quilting a quilt that had been on the frame for several days. Here’s a shot of the back along with all that was left of the thread I used on the top:

Cutting it kind of close, don’t you think? I actually ran out of the original bobbin thread, and had to substitute. And when I took the quilt off the frame, I discovered that at some point I had used a 3rd bobbin thread without having realized it. Good thing it’s my own quilt! (And yes, if it had been a customer’s I never would have subbed bobbin thread, I would have waited until I had ordered the right stuff….

I think that’s all of my quilty babbling for tonight. Off to examine fabric choices…

Suzanne

It’s enough to make me cry

Posted on February 17, 2008 by Suzanne

That, my friends, is brand-new snow on my back step.

Today’s forecast? 100% chance of precipitation. Snow and freezing rain turning to snow, total accumulation expected? 5-7 inches. Blowing snow through the day.

I think I’ll go hibernate in my sewing room. I spent most of yesterday working on a Rail Fence quilt using this fabric:

dsc04263 Its enough to make me cry

This is just the yummiest stuff. Very bright and cheerful — the perfect antidote for the continued yuck going on outside.

And no, I do not want to hear about how warm it is where you live. Nor do I want to hear about your trip to Cabo San Lucas. You people know that that is just MEAN, don’t you? (Hmm. Where are those smilies when I need them? )

Speaking of cute fabric: did you guys know that Mary Engelbreit is now designing for Moda? Cute, cute, cute.

OK, off to the shower.

Suzanne

California Goodies

Posted on January 24, 2008 by Suzanne

I had such a lovely time in California at the quilt show. I always find shows like that a little overwhelming, though, and rarely buy very much.

I did buy a bunch of thread at the Superior Threads booth, but it’s all boring neutrals and not really worthy of a picture.

On the very last day, about 2 minutes before the show was to close, I found this Jelly Roll (for those that don’t know: a jelly roll is a roll of precut 2.5 inch strips from a fabric collection). The collection is Strawberry Lemonade.

Too, too cute. I had to buy two.

The other thing I bought was a kit to make this quilt designed by Possibilities:

Most of the quilt is the construction equipment strip. The outer border fabric is traffic cones, with just a little bit of piecing in the stars and middle strip.

Also extremely cute.

I was also the recipient of some nice gifts. Susan gave me this as a Welcome to California present. I gave her a calendar about shoes as my “I cam eto California present” (she has a picture of the calendar on her blog. I bought myself the calendar, too, isn’t it fun that we can change our calendar each day and know that we are looking at the same thing? LOL)

The coolest thing I got, though, was these pillowcases from Lynn.

She had asked me for the instructions I had used for making pillowcases, and I sent her off to Vicki‘s blog, having no idea she wanted to make something for ME! There were some other goodies in the bag, but the penguin pillowcases were the highlight.

I saw a ton of people at the show, and I’m almost afraid to start naming names, because I know I’m going to forget someone. This would also require me to spend time looking up blog links and I’m running out of time right now, so I’ll try to post more about that later.

It is so cold here in Iowa, I sure wish I were back in California right now. What I really want to do is go snuggle under a quilt with my book, but I really need to go finish Hannah’s quilt. It’s quilted, but needs the binding. I was hoping to ge tit in the mail today, but I don’t think I’m going to make it. I futzed around too much this morning.

TTFN-

Suzanne

How I Make So Many Quilts

Posted on January 14, 2008 by Suzanne

I don’t do any housework.

Well: I don’t do it until it is absolutely necessary. We are all pretty good about keeping the main living areas (the kitchen and the Great Room) clear of clutter. We try to do the dishes right away after supper, so things don’t pile up and get crusty. And I have never been in charge of putting toys away — Mark has always had pretty specific ideas about how and where to put toys away, so I let him and the boys deal with that.

Plus, he does most of the laundry. Every once in awhile he decides to dust, but I sort of figure that since we live on a gravel road, there’s not much point in dusting, as everything will quickly be covered up by a thin layer again soon anyway.

I do drag out the vacuum cleaner occasionally to suck up the really big dust bunnies, but they usually get quite large before I actually notice them.

I should also add that my children are very independent and entertain themselves (without getting into trouble…) for very long stretches of time.

Remember yesterday’s post in which I was all virtuous about how much fabric I had used or allocated to specific quilts?

Well, I did a fair job of replacing that fabric today via a trip to a fabric store. It was all on sale! Honest!

5 yards of corduroy (originally $9.99 marked down to $2.50 a yard!) 6.75 yards of various red prints (all 40% off! I was just going to buy half yard cuts (I only needed 2 yards total…) but it was on sale!) Plus, I’m of the opinion that a person can’t have too much red fabric.

I’ve already spent some time messing around with the corduroy and trying out what I intended it for, and I’m not sure it’s actually going to work the way I had hoped. But I figured that at the price I got it for, if it didn’t work for the quilt idea I had, I could always make a skirt. Or several skirts. Oh — skirts for nieces! Hey — there’s an idea!

Oh, and there was some blue fabric, too:

Did I mention it was on sale?

The most important thing I bought, though, was the package of blades for my rotary cutter. (Those were 40% off, too, which is pretty significant when the full pack is $42…) It’s like cutting butter with a hot knife. I need to remember that sensation and change my darned blade sooner. That, and I ~~think~~ know I need a new cutting mat, too.

Two more sleeps until my trip. Better go get started on one of those sleeps!

Suzanne