This is a static export of a blog I put on ice many years ago, that still has personally relevant content. No promises can be made around linkrot, styles, or working functionality.
My youngest younger sister Kaite is a very talented singer/actress/theater person who landed the role of Velma in her local theater’s production of Chicago. So, we visited MO to see the show, and I decided to make her a quilt (because making one for Mom wasn’t enough during May, or something).
Note: I was a total doofus and forgot to take photos (to be fair, I finished the quilt about 2 hours before we arrived, doing the last bit of quilting at the hotel on the way, and sewing down the binding in the car). Kaite provided these photos so I can tell all you blog reader friends about it.
I lost a block for the Bird’s Nest Quilt at the beginning of May. I think maybe the dog ate it, but I didn’t want to comb the yard for evidence. It was a show-stopper; I didn’t have fabric to make a replacement. So, to console myself, I went fabric shopping at JoAnns. After all, Mother’s Day was a week away, and the missing block was for my gift to Mom. Luckily, I had the excuse of visiting this past weekend—3 weeks later—to give myself extra time to finish.
I knew of a fabric line at JoAnn’s that I really liked and thought my mom would too, and ended up with this selection:
to which I added Moda Clover (Bella Solids) from my stash and a light blue faux-batik print I have yards of in the stash to use on the back (75% off because of a streaky/splotchy print issue that went away in the washer. Yay).
Since I was down to the wire, I needed a simple quilt idea, and nothing was coming to mind, but I found this pattern on allpeoplequilt.com that has 19″ blocks—super simple and interesting to boot.
Quilting, quilting, quilting. On one hand, I like this part, because it’s really the point where you almost have a real finished project (pssh, who needs binding). On the other, my sewing machine doesn’t really like behaving when it comes to quilting—FMQ, at least. I can fiddle with my tension/needle and rethread the machine all I want sometimes and the tension just won’t be right, and then bam! it’ll magically start working again. So, walking foot it was.
First I was ahead, now I’m behind. This weekend was quite unproductive, so I didn’t finish Friday’s assignment (the borders) until tonight.
I’ll provide better photos (that are color correct) once I quilt it, promise!
There’s nothing too interesting to talk about here… just your basic, mitered-cornered borders.
A label
Since day 4’s assignment (backing) went up today, I’ll talk a bit about it, even though I’m not done piecing it (although it will look quite a bit like Chris’ piecing since she is doing exactly what I was envisioning from the start)…
I’m getting a bit ahead of schedule, but I just couldn’t stop myself from working on sashing when I got home from work yesterday. Remember, I decided to make a modification and add set-in seams to the center instead of doing butted sashing.
Checkout the twist: there’s no right-side up (although it’s really only obvious in the photo if you look at the trees.
I started early, because I had a feeling that the set-in seams would piss me off, requiring use of the seam ripper, and make me want to stop working (requiring more time so I could take a break for a day or so). But actually, it all went swimmingly. It’s not absolutely perfect—one seam ended up off by a little less than 1⁄8″ so there’s a really small gap in the center to cover with the quilting, but it is close enough for me.
I’ll admit, I’ve been playing with the layout since I got my charm pack in the mail. I couldn’t help myself. Once I decided on my border, sashing, and bag fabrics, I chose to set aside those charms so that I could showcase as many of the collection’s prints as possible.
The Above All Fabric Spring Quilt-Along started yesterday. The assignment: cut out the sashing, border, and binding strips and work on arranging the charm squares.
Backing up: fabric choices
Before I can blog about progress on this, I have to tell you about my fabric choices, huh? I’m doing the quilt top entirely out of Just Wing It by MoMo for Moda. I played around with some other collections to go with the Just Wing It charm pack, but wasn’t feeling it.
It’s official: I have Project ADD. The damask quilt is on hold. Now I’m working on one of the jelly roll quilts. Here is the not-a-full jelly roll cut into the required pieces. I still need to cut up the sheeting I’m planning on using for the inner border/snowball background blocks.
Not to make too many excuses, but I have good reason for switching gears: the quilt is a gift, and I realized that the damask plan was ultimately wrong for the recipient, and this fabric/pattern is a better fit, I think. And I have a deadline for it to be done.
It starts on April 11, so I have two weeks to finish up the vest, make progress on the applique project and piece the damask quilt top. Oh, and do some cutting/quilting/piecing pre-work for a class I’m taking on April 12.
I can do it, right? I was feeling very motivated this weekend. See, here is one of the welt pockets I made, and about 3⁄8ths of the pieces for the damask quilt.
For the quilt-along fabrics, I ordered a charm pack of Just Wing It by MoMo for Moda. That‘s all I have so far, because I want to see the fabric before I decide on what should accompany it. Hopefully the yardage of the line will be available in time for me to make the bag. I also ordered some Kona Magenta because I think it might match, but if it doesn’t, I’ll use it along with the Tailor Made Teal Scissors and Multi Stitching Stripes fabric I picked up for that class I’m taking (we’re making a rotary mat and rulers bag and need 1 yd each of 3 fabrics).
Speaking of Kona and my sanity, I really wanted to do this Modern Solids Quilt Along hosted by Patchwork Squared, but I’m not, because I need my sanity to deal with house training Moof, dealing with this non-Spring weather, trying to do Flamenco lessons and getting into shape for the start of the cycling season. And because there may soon be a Utica/Mohawk Valley MQG, so I need time for that. See? I’m not that busy. Right? Right???
Have you done/are you doing a quilt-along? Do you have any tips for keeping up to speed and being a good participant? Are you doing this one?
The last few weeks have been unproductive. I’ve been unmotivated, mopey and bingeing on books and tv. Relaxing, sure, but detrimental to sewing or any other sort of blog-able activity (or blogging itself, for that matter). I’m trying to get out of that funk, because I have a lot of stuff waiting on me to get to work:
-10000000000. Vest
Top priority, slow progress needs to pick up a bunch so I can get back to quilting. Welt pockets may be the death of me.
0. Applique Project
I’m in a bi-weekly (more or less) class that is covering applique. At first I was going to do a project of my own creation involving a tree, flowers, and a swing. Here’s a sketch showing off my amazing drawing skills.
