Blogger's Quilt Festival!

I'm so excited! It's a festival for quilt bloggers! Whodathunkit?!

All together, please, 1-2-3-
There's NO community like the QUILTING community, 
there's NO community I KNOOOOOOW!

(Are you doing some high leg kicks? I am, in spirit. If I tried it in person I might break something. Like, say, my whole entire body.)

Okay, phew, back to the quilting thing...

Here's a beauty I started a while back. It has great sentimental value for me, because it was my first ever step into the world of improv piecing. I spent about 5 years reading and looking and listening before I dared attempt anything. Silly me, why did I wait? It's fun, and the whole point is you can't really take a wrong turn!

 

You cut up your fabric...

  

...you sew it together, and slice it and sew it together again (actually, this was exhilarating)...

 

...I surrounded mine by dark grey, because I love dark grey...

...I bravely pieced a back (another first for me)...

 ...and behold, an improv quilt!

ENTRY # 309
Here are some details:
Size: 54" x 78"
Special techniques: improv quilting
Quilting: by me on my little-but-mighty Viking 315 with organic straight-line quilting about 1" apart
Best categories: bed quilt, two-colour quilt

Linking up with the Blogger's Quilt Festival!

Zippy Bags Galore! (Not.)

I want to make some zippy bags.

They just give me a quick rush, and you get to see poetry in motion as the fabrics that you love together can live together, without waiting for the next decade to pass so that they can be turned into an actual quilt. Because that's how long it takes, around these here parts.

And I've always wanted to neaten up my zipper ends, so Flossie Teacakes, Come On Down!

I was going to make a whole stack of these babies, we all know things speed up when you get into the rhythm.

Ha ha. This here is what I now call my Mountain' o' Dreams (you'll see why in a minute), a stack of pre-measured, pre-matched-with-zippers, pre-ready-to-ROLL, fabric.

And in case you wondered about roomy workshops and airy studios, here's my desk in action. We call it cozy.

I made my zippy bag, according to the directions, and I do like me those zipper ends!

Then I got to sewing it all up. See how nicely I used that Height Thingamabob so I could more easily glide over the tricky zipper bit?  Ha ha again!

A broken needle.
I took a moment to recover from my loss.

Replaced the needle.

Got the cameras rolling for Sew The Zipper Bag Together - Take 2! Woo-hoo!

Can you believe it? I couldn't.
Broken needle number 2.

But I persevered in the face of adversity. I showed that sewing machine who's boss. (In case you were wondering, I turned the hand-crank manually as I stitched over the zipper.)

Check out the pretty bag!

 Check out the pretty, pretty zipper end!

Thank you, Flossie Teacakes!

PS I have every intention making a whole stack of these from my Mountain'. But first, I have to figure out a solution to the Zipper Conundrum. If you have any answers, just let me know!

Linking up at Live a Colorful Life and Petals to Picots 

Fabric Rush!

Mom and Dad arrived from Philly. I love them, and we are having a wonderful visit.

Also, they brought me fabric.

It is all fabulous, and will one day be part of something gorgeous. But two of them are for "Right Now" quilts. Which we all know means "Some Time Before 2015" quilts. If we're lucky.

I'll let you in on a couple of secrets.

This is why the Chicopee was a must have:

And this is why my heart sang when I discovered the Bon Appetit collection:

I love my stacks.
So do my owlies.

And now I gotta go get some actual sewing done...


Linking up with Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?? and Finding Fifth's Sunday Stash - see ya there!

You want UFO's?

You can't handle the UFO's!

Boy oh boy, some of these go waaaaay back...

This flannel beauty, for example, was pieced in January.

January 2010.
Ha ha.
But she was recently sandwiched, so we are closer to being quilted.

This cute baby quilt was just brought back from the dead: I found her under another quilt top, to my great surprise - I had forgotten she existed. How bad is that? I fixed the whole guilt thing by buying some fabulous giant chevron print for the back. Phew. Guilt assuaged.

And this is the quilt top she had been hiding under - my beautiful HST quilt, possibly My Favourite Top Ever, finished in the first half of 2011 (hangs head in shame). I have been through several auditions for quilt backs for this one, and finally bought some fabric this summer that is perfect. So maybe, just maybe, 2013 will be our lucky year...

This is a single 12" block, that I plan to machine quilt simply and smother with seed stitching. I've done it before (it's hanging on a friend's wall), but now I want one for me, framed in wood. Ah, it's for me, that's why it will never get finished...

This one, talk about guilt. It's a COMMISSION! From my SISTER! How could I neglect it? A challah cover with lots of hand stitching in the central panel, I just have one more Hebrew letter to stitch, and a back to arrange. This has to move to the front of the line...

And this pink and cream yumminess was inspired by this summer's My Precious QAL - my first on-point setting, by the way (Thank you! Thank you! Standing ovation not necessary...) Look, there's the sweet, girly top and there's the sweet, girly backing. Even the batting is cut, and the binding is sitting in a neat swirl on my shelf. So why isn't this finished?

Well, I do hold down an actual real live job. And some volunteer work a couple of hours a week. And have that family thing happening: school lunches at one end of the day, and homework at the other. And some fun stuff in the middle, if we're lucky.

And sometimes, I like to make these little gifts, zippy bags and therapeutic rice bags, and dolls for some loving - and they kind of get in the way of my quilting. But in a good way.

My goal: to quilt a little every day, whether that's planning, stacking, slicing or sewing. Let's watch this mountain become a molehill. So I can build another mountain right after.


Linking up with Freshly Pieced

Shabby Chic

Ladies and gentlemen, drum-roll please... we have.... a finish!

It's been a long time coming, but finally, she is complete, in all her glowy goodness.

Here you can see the quilting lines - diagonal, but not every line; it creates a frame around the centre diamond.

Another quilt to add to the One Day This Will Be A Quilt Store pile - yay!

Linking up...

It's All About Process (Right?)

I started working with my Summersville. It is gorgeous fabric, and fun to work with.

First I cut out the centre of what might one day be a medallion quilt.

Then I made a bunch of HST's to circle it.
THEN I realised the centre needed a frame.

I fussy-bordered the centre, so I would get complete alphabets. (Hello? Anyone else loving these alphabets?)

My HST's were now all the wrong size. Whoops.
But guess what I did? I IMPROVISED!
Check out the black paint-brush fabric... I just ADDED it. To let the triangles fit. It's like, Wow.

I love it.

And I followed it up by making some adorable little houses to go around the outside.

And they aren't working At All.

I apparently cut the pieces using fictitious measurements and I am having to waste trim a lot; and when I finished the first house, I discovered a remarkable lack of seam allowance. Ack.

I keep telling myself: it's evolving. It's a work in progress. Let it breathe.
So it's breathing.

I'll get back to you when the next step announces itself to me.
(Announcements in the form of suggestions are very welcome here :)

Linking up here to Freshly Pieced!

Great Little Project

I love hand-sewing, and hand-finishing the binding on a quilt is deliciously soothing, especially after a long stretch at the machine. I'm enjoying the quiet.

But it does go on a bit.

So I was glad to take a break to make this quick project - a therapeutic rice bag.

My friend has a special day coming up: her Birthing Day (her daughter will be two years old - squeal!!) She deserves a little something to calm her aching back after a full day in the office, and an energetic, chatty little girl to greet her at the end of the day.

I don't have a pattern. I kind of wing it. Which resulted in my winning the Most Raw Rice On The Floor competition (what? you don't have that competition in your house?)

Linking up with Live a Colorful Life!