We are back home

We've been camping this week at the Oregon coast.  I have so much to write about, so come back tomorrow or Sunday evening so hear about our trip and see what I've been up to this past week.

Christmas in May

I love this small primitive, called "Angel Dance", that was designed by Jan Patek.  The border fabric looks like green olives stuffed with pimentos, which I love!  The top is from 2009, so it is one of the last I finished before the knitting and spinning bugs bit me.  I will utility quilt this one with Cebelia, and look forward to having it hang over the piano in December.

Wishing all you mothers a very happy, quilty Mother's Day!

Scrap Basket Sunday

More shoo fly blocks are half finished - 39 of them!  The triangle squares are stitched together, waiting to be pressed and trimmed today. 

Miss Feather is coming home tomorrow, and finishing these blocks are the first thing on her agenda.  It will be so good to have her home. 

When these are finished I will have 55 blocks.  I swear, the scrap basket doesn't look like I've taken anything out of it!  I think the scraps are all growing while we are sleeping.

Making great progress with basting!

I have nine small quilts basted now, and four or five more to do.  I feel better and better after I finish each one.  It especially feels good to see them moved from the "Flimsies" list to the "Basted for Quilting list.  I've got my eye on  the 2013 Goals #4 - one I should be able to achieve without too much trouble 

I did make one boo boo today, which you can see in the picture below.  The wrong side of the quilt backing is facing out LOL!  Since this is just a small seasonal wall hanging for us I'm leaving it that way.  The front side is almost as nondescript as the back side.  This will certainly make it easy to write the label.

This little quilt is a Jan Patek design from a few years ago.  This will be big stitched, and I'll be a bit more creative with this one than the others to be big stitched.  The design lends itself to swirls in the sky ala Van Gogh's "Starry Night", horizontal siding on the house and diagonal lines on the room.  Something bough-like will work for the trees.  This one will be fun to do!

This "Stretched Stars" top was a gift from my friend Kathie.  It's been hanging in the closet with all the other finished tops, waiting for its turn to be hand quilted.  Kathie, that turn has come.  This one is near the top as far as quilting order goes.  It might not be done this month, but certainly will be done by the end of June.  I thank you again for sending me such a precious gift.  You know me so well - choosing plaids for my gift top.

Tomorrow's plan is to spend some time working a bit early on my Scrap Basket Sunday project.  I have a bunch of fabrics that I paired together and ironed so I could cut more blocks.  I need to get those cut out as I need all the cutting table space for the last four quilts needing basting.  I can also sew together and trim all the half square triangle squares so they are ready to sew into blocks when Miss Feather gets home.  It is going to be a busy weekend!

The cutting island is good for more than just cutting.

It is a great place to baste small quilts.  Two down today, several more to go.  Camping season is coming very soon, and I want to have plenty of handwork to take with me.

I called the House of Sewing today and Miss Feather should be ready to come home on Monday.  Hooray!

Another top finished

I'm really loving these Schnibbles quilts.  The top goes together so quickly.  They are a great size for end tables, coffee tables and across the backs of chairs.  The quilting goes quickly too, as they are small.  I love how my "Gentle Art" looks.  I like it so much better than last month's "Hat Trick".  I know what makes the difference - I used fabrics from two instead of one "line", plus threw quite a few pieces from still other lines.

I've learned my lesson - this is just my own personal taste - I find quilts made with only one like of fabric to be too "matchy", with no fabric that stands out from any other fabric.  It is amazing to me how much difference just adding a second line made in this quilt.  So when I shop for charm squares after this I will make sure to pick up at least two or three sets that look good together but aren't the same.

I'm going back to basting tomorrow.  I would like hand quilt and bind this piece before the parade at the end of the month.  I need to also baste the primitive top I'm to have done by the end of the month.  By the end of the weekend I'd like to have the other 6 tops basted also.  At least that is my goal.

I had my seam ripper ready

Which was a good thing.  Once again quilter's dyslexia struck again so the "reverse sewing machine" got a workout.  I took a picture of the blocks on the design wall, and checked it often.  Each time I was sure I knew which block came next, or which block was horizontal and which was vertical, I turned out to be wrong.  I need to develop the habit of checking the picture before every seam LOL!

I'm pleased with this top and I'm eager to get it finished.  Not today, however.  It is time I stopped sewing long enough to get some chores done.  Knitting guild is tonight, and I'm bringing some of the refreshments.  A trip to the grocery is in order.

The Gentle Art

I don't remember whether or not sewing was ever called "The Gentle Art".  It seems like it would be logical and natural if it was.  Throughout history sewing was a close second only to food preparation when it came to a wife's part of providing what the family needed.  And we have antique quilts which prove that sewing provided a way for women to exercise creativity, even when she was making do with scraps and old clothing.  Of course, many quilts were made with new materials bought especially for quilt making, but many were not.

I'm guessing these were Carrie Nelson's thoughts when she named the May "Vintage Schnibbles" pattern "The Gentle Art".  I have always wanted to make a spool quilt, and now have finally had the chance.  The pattern calls for 25 blocks, but I made a couple extra so I'd have choices when arranging the blocks.  One of those can serve as the label for the back.  In addition to the fabrics I named yesterday I pulled random charm squares from the drawer and fabrics from the shelves.  I needed a fat quarter for an inner border so that had to come from the shelves.  In order to "tie it in" with the rest of the fabrics I used the piece for several backgrounds too.

A big "Thank you!" to my friend Kim, who owns two featherweights that she rarely uses, for lending a machine to me while Miss Feather is in hospital.  This allowed me to finish these blocks so I can tidy at least one area of my messy sewing room. 

This isn't the final arrangement of the blocks - I lined them up by color to make sure I had a balanced number of color choices.  I still need to cut strips for the outside border, which I'll do tomorrow.  The blocks have already been talking to me - telling me how they want to be quilted - so I imagine I'll be hand quilting this top very soon.

The construction method for this quilt calls for squares and rectangles to form the trapezoid with corner triangles.  This is NOT my preferred method, though I know many people love doing it this way.  (I find the old fashioned way of cutting a trapezoid and triangles and sewing them together to be much more accurate.)  This way worked best for this quilt, however, as it is made from charm squares, so I didn't change the construction.  I refuse to toss the tiny "waste" triangles so I will soon have a nice selection of tiny half-square triangle squares to use in a mini quilt one of these days.  They will finish at 1/2" square!

When I make half-square triangle squares that finish at 1" or smaller, I always press the seam open.  When working with pieces this tiny the seam allowances need to be as flat as possible.  It makes it a bit trickier to match intersections as the seams can't "snuggle up next to each other"; careful pinning and stitching takes care of that problem.

This is what happens when my featherweight is in hospital

(No, I don't have a British bone in my body.  I've just been watching a LOT of British television, including "Call the Midwife" - love it!)

The sewing room is a mess because I have so many things going on at once.  I can't sew, so it seems I can't settle down either.  I was fine as long as I was working on Hat Trick.  When I finished this morning it seems my focus took off in several directions.

 

Here are Shoo Fly blocks I cut out last Monday after taking Miss Feather to hospital.  They are now squished onto a small corner of the cutting board - I'm so hoping they haven't been mixed up.  I should probably rescue them by setting them aside somewhere - but where?  Ever surface is covered LOL!

Here is what is crowding them into the corner - leftovers from Hat Trick that I'm incorporating into the Vintage Schnibble quilt for May - Gentle Art.   The collection I'm designing the blocks around is one of Howard Marcus' "Collections for a Cause" by Moda.  The packet I'm using is mostly darks, so the leftovers of "Chelsea Boutique" add needed medium tones.  I'm pulling lots of random light squares from my 5" square drawer for the background so they are a mix of many different lines and designers.

Meanwhile, waiting on top of the scraps in the large scrap basket are four little quilt tops basted for quilting.  I think I'll start hand quilting "Butterscotch Stars" to further develop the great callouses forming on my under-the-hoop fingers.

On the floor in the corner, on top of the fabrics waiting for pre-washing, are seven more little quilts needing to be basted.  Right now my basting table for little quilts - which masquerades as a cutting table most days - is covered with fabric.

I guess I should start pre-washing fabrics too, now that I have a big, brand new jar of Orvus Paste from the feed store.

On top of the ironing station are the brights plus the white I pulled to make a quilt similar to the bright Hat Trick quilt seen here that is haunting my quilty dreams.  I'm so eager to get going on this top!

Lastly, hanging on the door into the sewing room is the 2003-2004 Girl Gang quilt top (designed by Jan Patek) which is lacking two borders of being done.  The next border I need to do is very simple - just big squares on the top and bottom with inset pieces going diagonally across them to form a zigzag on each end.  There is no reason that isn't done - it won't take but a day or two to finish that.

Meanwhile, tomorrow is my birthday.  I have no idea how I'll spend it, other than going out for breakfast (I hope!) and dinner.  I bet some of it will be spent working on at least two or three of these projects!

(So sorry for dark pictures.  I discovered - after I took them and posted them - that the camera was set for "no flash".  I tried to re-take them and the battery died.  It seems Blogger is messing around with my font size again also.  And my paragraph spacing!  I hate it when that happens!)

I won - I am absolutely thrilled!

A few weeks ago I saw this post on the Andover blog.  I quickly took a picture of my newly organized "Jo Fabrics" and emailed it to them.  Then I crossed my fingers and hoped.

Last Monday the first winner was announced.  Her stash of Andover fabrics was WAY more impressive than mine.  My heart sank a little, but I still hoped.

Well,  this morning I received an email from Liz Coonan of Andover Fabrics saying I was this week's winner.  I can hardly believe how lucky I am!  You've seen my "Jo's Stash" before, but not since it was organized by color.  I can't post the picture as I don't have it any longer, but you can see it on their blog here. 

 I can hardly wait to see what I've won!