Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Mental Health Quilt - "Finished"

Whelp...it's pretty much done.  Got the Mental Health Quilt back from quilting and I'm very happy with how it turned out!  I didn't want the quilting to compete with the design, and I think the dark grey swirls did the trick.  They're there, but you can hardly see them until you're right up on it.   Thanks Mom and Frances for your input!

Now it'll going to sit in the ol' binding pile for a few months.  Because I do not enjoy binding.




Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Mental Health Quilt

A few weeks ago, I posted about a "houndstooth" scrap quilt I was making (while also simultaneously complaining about my never-improving-even-though-I-try math skills).

Truth be told, this has been what I call my "mental health" quilt.  Whenever I have bad days with my anxiety, sewing is really the only thing that makes me feel any better at all.  So when I was having a bad day, I would go in and choose fabrics, or cut, or organize or work on piecing this quilt.  There is no real point to it, other than to help me focus and feel calm.  It's so bizarre how something that makes you feel so bad on so many levels, can also push you into feeling super productive and creative.  Life is strange.

But anyway, I am finally done with all the blocks.  All 200 some odd of them.  I was going tog o with a random color pattern, just to look scrappy, but then I thought, hey, I've never done a color blending quilt before...why not?



So there it is (pardon my iron and chair...).  There are two more bottom rows, but my "design wall," aka, the backside of a vinyl tablecloth, wasn't big enough so they're on the floor.  I posted it on Facebook just because I was excited to have gotten this far and I was NOT expecting the reaction I got. All I can say is thank you, friends!

It's time to start piecing it all together.  I have to start soon, because I have a backlog of shop samples and wedding quilts (don't worry, Isabelle and Joey, I have not forgotten about you) to finish up.  But for now, it's time to focus on getting this thing pieced and off my wall.

Monday, January 13, 2014

The Ol' "Learning Curve"

As you kno, 2 of my goals were, 1. to finish up old UFOs, and 2. to learn how to do curved seams.  So watched an episode of Fons andPorter (I was desperate) and some online tutorials.

Basically, it was a lot of..."Try it," they said.  "It's easy, just use lots of pins," they said. "You'll love it!"

Pins? Check. 

Results? Barfaroni and cheese!

Sure, it was my first, but my second, third and fourth (even after using a fancy pants ruler to help with accuracy) weren't a hell of a lot better. 

Since I want to finish this damn BOM, I might just applique the curves on...because I have to do four of these pieces and my first four...well...you see the damage. 

Curved piecing, you may have wont his battle, but you haven't won the war!

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

2014 First Finish

 Another one bites the dust!  I almost went with a purple inner border, but got talked out of it since "I do purple and gold a lot."  I'm not quite sure I'm in love with the blue yet - I still think I should have followed my gut with the purple - because my eye goes right to the blue before the center of the quilt.  Who knows, maybe it'll grow on me?  But the rest of the quilt I absolutely love.  I've been waiting for a reason to use that chevron, and I'm really happy with how that paired up.





Monday, January 6, 2014

Attic Window Scrap Quilt

I needed another project like I needed a hole in the head, but well, making half-assed attempts at clearing out your sewing room will do that I suppose! I was going through scraps and ran across my favorite pieces.  I have NO idea what line they are, or even which company.  A few years ago a rep gave me some of their strike offs since the fabric wasn't available anymore.  Boy, I wish I had asked so I knew where I could fin yardage online!  I've made another quilt (well...UFO) our of these pieces and these squares are all I had left, just about.  Talk about precious scraps!

But I saw a "cheater" (ie, no miters or y-seams) attic window block on Pinterest and it was perfect for these pieces.  I cut my stuff out and claimed (erroneously) that I had no intention to start it for a while, I just wanted to make sure I had enough of what I needed.  Well...whoops. I got home and started piecing it, thinking, well, I'll just do the blocks and put them away for later. Whoops. The rows are almost all pieced together and I'm looking for borders to make it a little larger.

 Beware, it's a bright and bold eyeful, but I love it!



Thursday, January 2, 2014

Math, My Mortal Enemy

As I supposed most of you have gleaned from reading my blog within the past year, I am WAY into scrap quilts. Big time.

Lately I've been working on this kind of mock houndstooth quilt using up my scrap 3.5" and 2.5" squares.  It makes for small blocks (4" finished) so if I wanted a quilt of any real size, I had to make a LOT of blocks.  I decided on a 15x15 layout so you really saw the pattern come out, and so it had some size to it before I put borders on it. I had a pretty cramped set up with all the sorted colors and pieces parts...my ironing capabilities are a little limited but luckily there isn't anything larger than 4.5" so far to deal with.



Yesterday, I got really excited because I thought I was in the 40 block home stretch - only 5 of each color left to go!  Wellllll turns out I screwed up my math and I need 80 more.  And then after recalculating, I forgot I needed an additional 40 more 3.5" black blocks to go with my additional 40 3.5" colored blocks.  I'm starting to run out of scrap variety, so I'm down to the wire on my black fabrics.  We'll see if I have to break down and stash dive for those last 40 black pieces.  Ah, well.  Quilting problems! 


Once I get all the squares pieced together it shouldn't look so busy.  I'm really enjoying the process and the outcome.  By the time the borders are on it should be a pretty decent sized throw (over 60" square) or maybe a slightly-undersized bed quilt.  We'll see!