Change of pace

Oh my goodness!  I have so much going on right now, I don't know if I'm coming or going.  I showed up to karate an hour early yesterday.  How frustrating!  So instead of spending an hour there, we were there for 2 hours, and then still had to come home and do the whole Valentine's Day sweatshop routine!  Here's Jason with the 40 Lollypop flowers we made to give out in his and his brother's classes.

Lollypop flowers for Valentine's Day 2012

Plus, I had a full 4 hours of cub scouts on Sunday, first a trip to the fire station with my Tigers (super fun!  Firemen, like quilters, have all kinds of gadgets and gizmos to make their jobs easier.), then a den meeting, and then off to a handy old cubmaster's house to use his power tools to cut our pinewood derby cars.  By the end of the day, I was exhausted!  Isn't Sunday supposed to be a day of rest?

So I've decided that I need a change of pace.  It is cold and gray, perfect weather to sit and stitch by hand.  I pulled out this lap/baby Charm Quilt that I finished piecing back in October 2010,

pieced a backing, pieced a batting (I used my Heat Press Batting Together tape for the first time, and it worked like a dream! Quick, easy, and I couldn't even tell where it was when I was hand quilting through it!), and plopped myself in front of the TV to quilt.

I wanted to do a big meander stitch, but I know myself too well - if I tried doing that on the front of the quilt, I'd be paying attention to seams and how much stitching was in one particular block - you know, overthinking it.  So I turned the quilt over, and I am quilting it upside down.  I purposefully chose this big polka dot so I could use those as a basic guide - my only rule is to only quilt in the white.  So here's what I'm quilting

Back of Charm Quilt

and here's what it looks like on the other side.

Front of Charm Quilt

It's kind of fun quilting upside down, because I can't tell as I stitch how it will look on the other side.

OK, enough computer time.  All I've been doing at work lately is computer work, and I'm determined to not spend time on the computer at home these days, even though it means I am missing out on everyone's blogs.  Once basketball season is over and my job slows down a bit, I promise I'll come visit, OK?

Got my mojo back!

I was determined to sew SOMETHING today, so I started with something small.  I had seen a tutorial for making headbands from old t-shirts, and I have some old t-shirts lying around as well as unruly hair, so I thought I'd give it a whirl.  Quick, easy and I LOVE my new headband!!!  It is the most comfortable headband I own.

Then I decided to finish the Orange Creamsicle top once and for all.  A couple borders and it was done.  What took me so long?

Then it was time to drop the kids off at karate and head over to the quilt guild meeting and trunk show. Our presenter, Kevin Womack, has been quilting since the 80s, and nowadays does a lot of fabric dyeing. Here are some quilts he made with his own dyed fabric (warning - awful lighting!).

 
 

Tomorrow, he's doing a workshop with the guild making these:

Unfortunately, I can't go because I have basketball games to go to, but I might try something like that on my own one of these days.
All in all, it was a good day!

Commemorative quilts

My dad would have turned 70 this month.  I sure do miss him, but having photos of him around the house and the quilt I made from his t-shirts hanging in my sewing room brings a smile to my face as I think of him often.  So imagine my delight to see that this weekend's quilt show at the Quilting Gallery is Commemorative Quilts.  I just had to enter the one I made for my dad.  I just checked out all the quilts over there, and there are some beauties and some heart-warming stories.  I encourage you to take a look, and if you are so moved, to vote.  You can vote for up to FIVE quilts this week!

http://quiltinggallery.com/2012/02/10/commemorative-quilts/

Have a great weekend, everyone!  We have a guild meeting with a TRUNK SHOW tonight, so I am PUMPED!  I'm hoping it will rev up my creative juices - I haven't felt like sewing much since last weekend.  In fact, I haven't felt like doing much except eating and sleeping.  Not a good combination!

Music to my ears

Melody #1 - I showed my denim quilt at work today so the woman who donated so much denim would know what I did with it. A co-worker who was walking by stopped and said, "Cool! Can I order one of those?"

Melody #2 - Jason got off the bus and said, "Mom, you know that bookmark you made me? My friend Haley saw it and really likes it - can you make one for her, too?"

Melody #3 - just got an email from Beth at LoveLaughQuilt that read, "YOU WON!" I love aprons, so winning an apron pattern makes me super happy!

Having people like what I make makes making it even more fun! (Ha! Do all those makes in a row make sense?)

What I did instead

This probably makes me sound un-American, but I could care less about the SuperBowl.  The only reason I know who is playing is because my sons keep me informed.  I have no idea how they know what is going on since no one watches football in our house.  So my Sunday wasn't spent eating pizza and wings, drinking beer, and yelling at a TV screen.  Here's what I did instead:

I snipped and snipped and snipped the seam allowances on my Half Pipe Dreams denim rag quilt.  I managed to finish just in time to leave the house, SOLO, to go watch THE HELP at the University (we have a theater that shows free movies - oh yeah!).  I'm actually glad I went alone because I cried the entire time, from start to finish.  I know it is just a story, but oh, the things we did to each other back in the day, and the things that we do to each other still.  It breaks my heart.  But I loved the movie.  I loved how it was very true to the book, and I loved how colorful it was.

Then, I took the quilt to the laundromat to wash it in someone else's machine.  I really wasn't interested in having all those strings gum up my machine.  That's probably wrong of me, isn't it?  While the quilt was washing, I treated myself to a coffeehouse coffee and browsed at Goodwill.  While the quilt was drying, I read some of the latest Someday Quilts Mysteries, The Devil's Puzzle by Clare O'Donohue.  This is my favorite of the four books in the series so far.

When the quilt was finished drying, I brought it home and reluctantly turned it back over to my son, its rightful owner.  I LOVE IT and wanted to snuggle up under it myself!  I'm so glad I have lots of denim left because I definitely want to make another.  I'm super impressed that I started and finished a quilt in just a week and a half - that's very unlike me with my Quilters Attention Deficit Disorder. 

Here it is, all ragged up!  It is too small for my queen bed, but it is perfect for his twin-sized top bunk.  I love it when an idea comes together just the way I imagined it.

Good Fortune!

My Good Fortune came from winning Linda's giveaway over at Stray Stitches.  Isn't it lovely?  Thanks, Linda and Fat Quarter Shop!

Mr. Random Number Generator determined that commenter #21 should get some good fortune, too.

robin said...

How about Backside 180? Ask your son if he likes it.

Thanks for playing along, Robin.  Some neutrals will be on their way to you once I get your mailing address.

And my son's good fortune was that I met my goal of finishing the piecing of his quilt today.  As I was sewing the final seams, the name came to me.  While I love Sandy Bottoms, the quilt isn't for Sandy, and it has some of my bottoms and Jason's bottoms and Donald's bottoms and even a neighbor's bottoms in it, too, so I'm going to have to save that name for another quilt.  Skate Dreams captures the essence of the quilt, but it just didn't resonate with me.  But then it hit me - HALF PIPE DREAMS.  It's a play on "pipe dreams", and the skaters among you will recognize that a half pipe is a structure used in skateboarding.  There is small one at the skatepark that my children beg me to take them to any time the sun shines.

I present to you HALF PIPE DREAMS!

The front (denim) side

The back (homespun plaid) side

Since this is a denim RAG quilt, I still have to clip the seam allowances.  I've only clipped 2 of 12 rows, and I already have a blister.  This is going to take a while.  I am giving myself permission to park in front of the TV or iPad and clip away while I watch McLeod's Daughters to my heart's content.  Once I get it clipped and washed and dried, I'll take another picture so you can see the final result.  Right now, however, my son is cuddled up under his new quilt which he was so surprised to see ("So THAT'S what you've been doing with all those jeans!") and for which I received multiple hugs and a declaration that he loves it and he is going to use it for the rest of his life.

Can you imagine my smile right now?

Forever in Blue Jeans (...giveaway...)

I've been wanting to make a denim quilt for years, so I've been slowly saving up our worn out jeans to cut and upcycle.  However, with 2 little boys, while they go through LOTS of jeans, their pants are LITTLE!  Since I was envisioning a rag quilt with 1/2" seams, I need rather large blocks of denim to cut out.

Then, last week, a co-worked gifted me a whole bag of worn out jeans from her husband.  I was so excited that I got started right away this weekend.  I dismantled jeans at my son's basketball game on Saturday (and got some strange looks for it, I might add).  I dismantled jeans while watching shows on Netflix.  I dismantled jeans while singing along with my favorite country music.  I'm surprised I can type today, as my right hand has been working overtime with those scissors!

This is about 1/2 of the cutting I have done.  I still have about 6 pairs of jeans to go.

I am backing the quilt with plaids.  I am making it for my oldest son who fancies himself a skateboarder, and who tells me that old ripped blue jeans and unbuttoned plaid shirts with t-shirts underneath are the unofficial uniform for skateboarders.  This quilt will mirror that "uniform."  I'm thinking of calling it "Skate Dreams."  However, since most of the denim is coming from the pants of my co-worker's husband, whose name is Sandy, I am also playing with the idea of calling it "Sandy Bottoms."

How about a quick giveaway?  Leave a comment with 2 things:  which name do you prefer for the quilt (Skate Dreams, Sandy Bottoms or come up with your own name if you have a creative brainstorm), and tell me which of the following you'd like to add to your stash - juvenile novelty fabric, neutrals, or stripes.  I'll pick a random winner on Friday, February 3 (my goal date for having the top completely pieced), and I'll send the winner 3 Fat Quarters from my stash of whichever type of fabric they said they wanted more of (novelty, neutrals or stripes).  My stash has outgrown my space for it, so it must be time to share.

I don't have a picture of the quilt yet, but how about a photo of what I've been doing with those odd bits left over from cutting that aren't big enough for a rag quilt - denim-backed bookmarks!

Denim and fabric fused together, sewn around the edges and trimmed with pinking shears.

I gave one to my co-worker already, made from her husband's jeans and with pig fabric on front (pigs are her favorite animal).  I've also pulled out some red bandanna fabric - wouldn't that be cool on the other side of the denim bookmark?