I need variety!

 I've got a friend with a big surgery coming up in a couple of months, so I want to give them a quilt.  When considering my (considerable) UFOs, my plaid string quilt seemed like a good option for them, based on Julie's beautiful creation.

It's up on the design wall and I've completed a few more 9-patches and sashings, but man! Now I remember why I fizzled out with this quilt.  I'm excited about how it is going to look, but it is so boring for me to create.  Part of why I love scrap quilts is that there are so many different fabrics playing together.  With this one, it's just plaid.  I'm gonna do it, but I need something to spice up my sewing stints as well.

Today I finished my January Bee Blocks:

Finished sewing together all of the 2022 Stashbuster blocks that I had precut:

I'm going for a non-traditional holiday quilt look

And worked on this scrappy bear paw variation that I started over winter break:

I also did some purging, identifying some orphan blocks, some fabric and some thread that I plan to take to Swansons to swap out for some quilting scraps, and along the way I unearthed some of the quilts I started hand quilting but never finished.  I need to commit to getting back to them.  There's the one I made for my bed around 15 years ago but never finished:

And this scrap quilt where I was playing with big stitch quilting in a rainbow of colors - I completely forgot this quilt even existed:

There's this mini twister quilt made from salvaged pillowcases:

Completely forgot about this sailboat baby quilt:

And this self-portrait:

There were others, too.  I amaze myself sometimes with how much I DON'T finish!  Time to change that!

Giving it all away

I've found a little bit of time to sew lately, mostly making samples for classes at the shop.  The nice thing about those is that once the class I am advertising is over, I am free to give those samples away.

A friend who has been going through a tough time was the recipient of a Dresden Plate pillow

Instead of buying pillow forms (expensive!), I buy jumbo pillows from Walmart for less than $5, cut them in half, and sew them back together as two rectangular pillow forms.

I love an envelope back pillow so you can wash the cover.

and I am donating this little doll-sized quilt (or wallhanging) to a fundraiser at a local middle school.

I wanted to add the same motif from the outside strips to the inside strips, but my stencil was too big and I'm not talented enough to redraft at a different size.

Here's a close-up of the hand quilting, big stitch style with variegated crochet cotton.  I also machine stitched in the ditch along each of the vertical rows.

I have a rag quilt workshop coming up soon, and need to make a class sample.  I wonder who will be the recipient of THAT class sample?  Maybe I'll actually keep something for myself.

Back at it!

I'm back at work. Yay.

(was that convincing?)

The problem with working is that it keeps me from doing other things.  I put together another quilt top this weekend, but I have so many more to go!

The 4th top I've assembled so far.

4 more blocks arrived on Saturday - thanks Marlene from New Zealand and Robin from CA!  Aren't they pretty?

And I finished one open block on my Scrappy String Star quilt, but there are 3 more of those to fill up.

I'm loving the look, even if I did orient it sideways.  Looks very folk artsy to me. 

Close up of my big stitches with embroidery floss

I made 4 freehand mugs for November's Block Lotto, but I'd love to make the maximum 9 blocks so I have more chances to win.

Instead, I'm at work.

Better get back to it.

Happy Monday, everyone. (in my best Eeyore voice)

Lowering expectations

That sweatshop I thought I'd be running for the last few days never materialized.  What was I thinking?  I don't SEW at Thanksgiving!  I EAT!  And play games with my family!

Luckily, I did get right to work on Wednesday, and finished a top which is now winging its way to Char for quilting.  Thanks, Char!

And I spent some time admiring the package that arrived on Wednesday - a quilted disappearing 4-patch top that I had sent to Anita in MI, along with 10 blocks of her own making.  I plan to get this to a local binding volunteer this weekend and hopefully get it up north sometime next week.

Thanks, Anita!

All done except for the binding.  Thanks, Anita!

Lovely meander quilting

Bright pieced backing, with a piece of that beautiful turquoise fabric thrown in the package to make a coordinated binding! 

Sue also finished two quilts with the blocks I sent to her!  They are on their way to their final destination, but she was kind enough to send photos for me to share here.  Do you see any of your blocks?

Completed quilt number one - quilted by Sue R

Completed quilt number 2 - quilted by Sue R

The blue back and binding of quilt number one with meander quilting 

The two tone purple backing and binding of quilt number two 

This makes 4 completed disappearing 4-patch quilts, with many more in various stages of completion, including 3 at or on their way to quilters. (Thanks, Marilyn, Mary Ann and Char!)

Then came Thanksgiving.  We spent it at my brother's house, about an hour away.  There was so much food that not everything could be made on the stove - here he is making the gravy on the woodstove!

A highlight was meeting my new 4-month old cousin (or second cousin once removed, if we are being specific - I finally learned what all that means).  My kids, who have been begging me to have another baby for years now, were thrilled.  Don't I look good with a baby?  :)

Another highlight was all the games we played, although I'll be honest, I lose nearly everything I play.  We played Kick the Can in the dark on Thanksgiving night - lots of shrieking and running and laughing.  I feel like I was "it" forever!  Then, on Friday, we played the longest, but most fun, game of two-hand-touch football EVER (final score was 105 - 77), played the Settlers of Cataan (I love that game!), and played a couple games of Bid Whist (I need to learn to keep my mouth shut and not bid unless I KNOW I can make bid!).  I ran and laughed and had more fun than I've had in quite some time, but this morning, I am typing this blog post in bed - I am tired and sore and feeling twice my age!

Luckily, there are lots of things you can do from bed.  Open Friday's mail: 81 blocks, a cone of thread, $30 for batting and postage, and lots of BINDING!

Lots and lots of pre-made binding!  Thanks, Andrea!

Beautiful blocks!  Thanks, Celine, Sharon, Donna, Diane, Debbie, Leila and the Lake Monticello Piecemakers, Andrea, and (no first name) Backmeier!

EDITED - thanks, Jaye! 

Something else I plan to do from bed today is do some hand quilting.  I took my Let's Bee Together String Star Block quilt with me to my brother's to work on a bit.  I made progress, choosing this design to put in the large white squares,

I'm doing Big Stitch quilting with colorful embroidery floss, and instead of marking my quilt, I marked the design on Press and Seal and am quilting through that.  I've done that with regular quilting before, we'll see how easily it comes away with big stitch quilting.

but I noticed this morning that the design is facing sideways, instead of up as I had envisioned.  Ugh!  Do I take out the stitches?  Do I just put all 4 of these designs in sideways and act like I meant it that way?  Do I leave this one sideways and make the others with the correct orientation and leave that mistake in there? Decisions, decisions, decisions!  What would YOU do?

And my husband's team has another basketball game today, which I plan to listen to on the radio.  During that time, I should at least be able to complete another top to send out for quilting (Anita has graciously offered to quilt another one or two for us).  I always think I can get so much more done than I actually do.  I think I need to lower my expectations a bit.  No matter - the slower I work, the longer I get to admire everyone else's blocks.

There are many things I am thankful for this Thanksgiving season, and one of them is belonging to such a special, generous, talented, creative community of quilters!  Thank you for all you have done to help make this project work!  Just so you know, we've received 962 quilt blocks to date - that's enough for more than 20 quilts!

Quilting on the road

I may get discouraged by how long it takes me to quilt something by hand, but I am always so thankful that I am a handquilter when I travel and have something to work on.  On this two week trip (Atlanta to San Jose, Costa Rica to Guayaquil, Ecuador to Quito, Ecuador), I actually brought two quilts to work on: my Orange Creamsicle quilt to quilt in airports and on the plane (since the needles are use are so tiny), and my Scrappy Strings Star quilt to sleep under as I work on it.  I am using lots of different colored embroidery floss to quilt it, so I am using embroidery needles, and they, of course, are too big and dangerous to bring on airplanes, so that quilt lives in my checked luggage.


Here's a peek at my hotel room with my quilts out, helping it seem more like home.

view one from my balcony

view two from my balcony

Right now I am in the airport in San Jose, Costa Rica after spending 4 days here visiting high schools and making new friends.  It turns out that my sister's sister-in-law used to live here and still has friends here, so she connected me with them.  I actually had a slumber party in my hotel room last night with one of them - what fun!  We stayed up super late talking, but today is just a travel day for me, so it is OK if I am tired.

And I've got a question for you - on my scrappy string star quilt, I'm not sure what I want to do in my big white squares, continue making concentric squares, or quilt some other type of design in the center of the 4 concentric squares that are already there?  You can see what I've got so far.  In the triangles, since they are smaller, that will just be 3 concentric triangles in there.  Ideas, anyone?

Anyone who leaves an opinion will be entered into a drawing for some goodies from my travels.  I can't guarantee that they'll include anything quilting related, but I can guarantee that it will include at least some chocolate covered coffee beans - YUMMY!!!

I'll holler at you again from Ecuador.  Sew some for me, y'all!

Board meeting vs. BORED meeting

I have a Board Meeting once a month for our non-profit community-owned drive-in movies here in town, and I usually have to bring my kids along with me.  They call them BORED meetings, and I can understand why - what 7 year old wants to spend 2 hours discussing the price of buttered popcorn or staffing issues or fundraising ideas?  (although, Jason did suggest one time that we use kids as carhops so people can order from their cars, and we are actually considering it for next season!)

Our meeting space is actually right next door to the (indoors) movie theater in town, so last night, I let them go see The Amazing Spiderman (again!) while I went to my meeting next door.  Boy were they excited, not just to miss the BORED meeting, but also to go to the movies alone! (turns out, one of the city cops that we know was seated behind them, so when they came out of the theater, he let me know that they were perfectly behaved - I couldn't have planned it any better if I had tried!)

I brought my little pink and green scrap quilt to work on at the meeting.  I know some people think it is wrong to sew or knit at a meeting, but truly, it helps me to stay focused on what is going on at the meeting rather than daydream about what else I'd rather be doing.  And I participate MUCH MORE than some Board Members who sit there silently (with nothing in their hands) throughout the entire meeting, so they can't claim I'm not paying attention.

Anyway, I'm really liking this big stitch quilting.  I will definitely give this a try on some other quilts. 

I have some wide open white space, and wasn't sure how to fill that. I was thinking, since it is embroidery floss, perhaps I could try some french knots. LOVE IT!

Hmmm, that one on the bottom right is crooked...I wonder how much that is going to bother me.  Enough to take it out and do it again?  Unlikely!

Superpowers!

With both Spiderman and Batman movies out this summer, I'm not surprised that the boys have resurrected their superhero action figures and are saving the world in the backseat every time we get in the car.  Even adults are in on the act, re-igniting that age-old question, "If you could have any superpower in the world, what would it be?" (what would YOURS be, by the way?)

Have you seen this Amy Bradley applique pattern for SUPERQUILTER?  Following the whole "superhero" theme, someone made one of these and entered it in the fair this year!

I want to say, "the ability to heal others with just a touch," but guys, at my core, I am just more selfish than that.  When asked that very question this past weekend, I responded, "to be able to stop time for everyone except for me.  While everyone else is in suspended animation, I could catch up on my sleep without missing anything important or exciting, finish up projects on time, and come up with witty responses to snarky comments that are made to me - you know, the ones where you wake up in the middle of the night and say, 'Man, I should have said THAT!'."

(sigh) Mother Theresa, I am not.  But I was feeling a lot of self-imposed pressure this weekend.  My Pick and Choose quilt had to be turned in to the fair by Monday at noon if it was to hang in the quilt show.  I've had a quilt in the fair every year for the last 8 years, and I wasn't about to miss this one.  It shouldn't have been a problem, I was close to being done, and had all weekend to work on it.  But then, at the last minute, the boys and I were invited to a karate leadership overnight retreat, complete with ropes course participation, and I couldn't NOT let my kids (and myself) participate just because I'm a procrastinator.  So we went, and I worked on the quilt during the 10 minutes of free time after meals and surreptitiously with my Bean N Read light in the cabin after lights out. (GREAT purchase, by the way.  I even quilted at the drive-in last weekend!)  Then, on Sunday night, I pulled an all-nighter trying to get it done, taking one 2-hour nap, and then a 15 minute nap every hour on the hour from 4 AM on. 

I got SO CLOSE to being done, but not quite.  Another hour and a half would have been enough time, but as it turns out, we came home from our retreat to find that one of our hens, Peck, had died, and I had a very sad little boy to console and a chicken funeral to facilitate. (side note: I live in Rockbridge County.  After digging a grave for Peck, I'll say our county is aptly named - there are rocks EVERYWHERE!)  All that took about 2 hours, but I'd rather have a not-quite-done quilt and a kid who had someone to help him deal with his grief over the passing of his favorite hen, than a completed quilt and a bereft boy.

So, I turned in the not-quite-done quilt.  One block, which is actually at about eye level now that the quilt is hanging, is not as quilted as the other 24 blocks, and the 4 corners of the quilt have no quilting in them at all.  The judge will not like it, but let's be honest, I wasn't going to be winning any awards anyway - we have some uber-talented hand quilters in this area, and I just can't compete.  The whole point of entering a quilt is to 1) make sure I finish at least one quilt a year and 2) promote quilting and our guild throughout the area.  So I think I'll post a challenge on Facebook for my local friends - visit my quilt at the quilt show at the fair, pick out which block is not quite done, and I'll give a handmade little something to everyone who gets it right.  There is more to the county fair than the animals and the music and the midway, after all!

Now that my quilt is entered, did I take a break from quilting?  Heck no!  I had an hour at home yesterday between work and the boys' swim meet, so I sandwiched a little doll/baby quilt that I made 7  years ago from left over strips and bonus triangles from a quilt I made for a friend.

I've been wanting to try my hand at BIG STITCH quilting with embroidery floss.  So there I was at the pool for the second week in a row, QUILTING in the 90+ degree heat.  (yup, I'm that crazy quilt lady in town for sure now!)

I think it is harder to keep the stitch sizes even when they are so big, but so far, I am liking this method of quilting, and am already thinking of other quilts I'd like to do it in. 

Do you have photos online of quilts you have quilted using the BIG STITCH method and embroidery floss?  If so, I'd love it if you'd post a link in a comment so I can see and get ideas.

And once I get to spend some daylight hours at home again (not this week - I can't believe how busy we are this week!), I want to finish up blocks for my Let's Bee Together quilt.  I received blocks from 3 more participants recently, and I LOVE how the quilt is coming along!