8 minutes for 25 cents

You don't realize how much you are actually going to lose when you go through a divorce.  You mostly think of the things you don't like and how you will be rid of them.  The things you'll gain like personal choice and freedom.  I knew I would lose big things.  Time with my children.  My home.  
But there are other things that are gone that have had much bigger impact than I could have anticipated.  Like my washer and dryer.  
I spend an awful lot of time at the laundromat these days, but also doing laundry wherever else I'm able to.  Not having free laundry access has greatly influenced my routines and the choices I make.  Not unlike when I lived in Washburn and would wear only light colors one week and only dark colors the next.  You choose clothes that wash easily and wear well.  You are strategic with your wardrobe choices based on when you can do laundry again.. ('I really want to wear these jeans when we go out to dinner Saturday night so I better wear ___ instead now..).  I plan what I'm going to wear throughout the week like some people plan meals.
It has also impacted my quilting.  I no longer pre-wash fabric.  (Breaking this habit hurt my heart on some levels, it's a quilting rule I felt strongly about).  I also had a lot of quilts and items in storage because I didn't have the space for them to get used (and dirty, and need washing..).  
Without access to a washer and dryer that are "mine", my quilts smell different, my home smells different.  Scent has a huge impact, I definitely hadn't anticipated how divorce would change the way my life smells..
But as with every major life change, there are things to be gained, positives to fill the void where the negatives have been removed.  A change in laundry access has made me appreciate routine more.  And with each new laundry routine I'm building, I process a little bit more what has changed.  Where I've been, and where I am now.  (In case you're curious, no, I don't spend much time thinking about where I'm going). And I think of all the other laundry routines I've had.  The other washer women I have known.  It is one of my favorite domestic activities.  The repetitiveness, the warmth, and, I have learned after the divorce-- the care.   The care and love you can put into doing someone else's laundry.  Then I feel grateful to every person who has ever done mine ♥.  

This is the Skill Builder Sampler from Get Started Quilting.  The deadlines for the book were so tight that I didn't actually finish this quilt.  It's done, but I sent it off to Shannon to have it long armed (and OMG, she did an awesome job) and also asked her to bind it.  She put on the label and the hanging sleeve, and then we sent it right off to London to be photographed.  I think she sent it to me and I sent it on, but when it finally came back from photography, I was already packing all of my non-essential life in boxes, preparing for the move so I haven't spent much time with this quilt.  I took it to the laundromat this week to give it its first wash and I was amazed at how fantastic it is.  I was so focused on making each block, in writing the instructions-- both for the book text but also for the photo crew who would need to take my fabric patches, semi-sewn seams, and lay them out for the stage photographs.  Tomorrow, when I go shovel snow, I will take it out for a proper photo shoot (hoping some tall neighbor can help).  
Then later this week I will take it to the post office and send it off to some new friends that have filled part of the divorce void.  People that should have been in my life all along, but I didn't know to make that sort of space, or maybe we just weren't ready.  Damn, I'm glad the pieces fit together this time though.  

Finally, improv

Life is busy, I feel like I'm hopping weekend to weekend, the month just flies by.  So many ideas, plans, hopes, disappointments.  We're making it through the best we can and as always, I'm clinging to making to keep me sane.
I'm listening to Tori Amos on Pandora and watching dark ominous clouds roll in over my laundry hanging out to dry.  This weekend I put in a new rotary blade and cut into a stack of fabrics that's been waiting patiently for me all summer.  Connecting Threads sent me some of AmandaJean's new line, Good Neighbors and I'm putting together some of the improv blocks from Get Started Quilting to show off both my blocks and her fabric.
Today I made stars--

This is the Starry Night block from p. 106 of my book.   A big wonky star with a little one nestled in up close.  This is one of my absolute favorites from the book and I'm so happy I get to used it in this project.  I took several of the light background and white prints from Good Neighbors and put them on a background of Patriot Blue solid (also Connecting Threads).  One of my quilters-for-hire, Gilma, discovered that if you make four of these blocks and rotate them, you get a sweet ring of stars (her version can be seen on p. 109) so I tried that out and I'm pretty happy with the result.

Next comes more improv blocks, yay!  I really hate measuring and I get an odd sense of pleasure from trimming up the unplanned into usable units of patchwork.  This is just the type of chaos I needed this weekend.
I'm heading back to the hospital with my EPP tonight for a visit.  I prepped a new project to take, progress shots to follow on instagram (@jessica_alex).

It's time to Get Started Quilting!

I am very happy to announce today that my second book is here:

I just got my advanced copy and it will hit store shelves later this month in the UK and at the end of July in the US and Canada.

Please click the links below to order advanced copies via amazon:

(Yes, the UK edition has a different name: The Complete Quilter, but the content is the same)

The Complete Quilter

Get Started Quilting

or ask your favorite bookseller, fabric shop or quilt shop (brick and mortar or online) if they can carry it.  If you'd like a signed copy, check out my Events tab for where I'll be in the coming weeks.  If I'm not coming close to your neighborhood, why not ask your local quilt group to contact me to set up an event?  I've got some flexibility in my travel schedule coming up and I'd love to come out and talk to quilters anywhere.  (weekends next fall, Dec/January, March/April 2016 and July 2016 are my most flexible times for travel).  Don't you want to sit and sew with me?

So what's the book about, anyway?

Get Started Quilting is truly a beginner's guide, so if you area already an experienced quilter, you might not need it in your collection, BUT, we all know someone who likes quilts but hasn't taken the plunge.. why not get a copy for THEM?  Or give your local library a call and see if they want to carry it, for the good of the entire community?  

Inside are 20 something quilt blocks with instructions and step-by-step photographs.  They range from traditional machine pieced to handwork and a bit of improv.  My favorite at the moment are the Improv Baskets  (turn orphan blocks into baskets!) and the Free cut Ainu Inspired Spiral (hand applique).  

I can't get this pic to turn around!  Sorry!

The book is set up to encourage you to try things out and then mix and match to make projects.  If you try all the techniques, you can put them together into a sampler quilt:

If you want to see this quilt in person, it will be hanging outside at the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show next month.  I'll be there too, let's take selfies!

Hopefully over the next few weeks I'll take time to show off each of the projects and talk a bit about my process.  

I'm so excited to share this book with everyone~ 

Thanks for checking it out!

Have you ever been to Skopelos?

Every so often (ok, more like every week) beautiful new fabrics pop up on Instagram and designers or manufacturers hunt down people who sew to help spread the good news about that fabric's existence.  I was very lucky to get tapped to help promote Katarina Roccella's new Greek Island inspired Skopelos line for Art Gallery Fabrics.  Check this out..

(Image borrowed from Katarina's blog)

Skopelos is a beautiful island in the Aegean Sea. I haven't been there (yet) but Katarina's fabric collection really captures so much of the peace, relaxation and vibrant beauty found on so many of the Greek islands.  I wanted to work with these fabrics and promote this line because Greece is really underrepresented in the quilting world.. I hope you'll get inspired to make something with these fabrics and/or go to Greece yourself.  I can almost feel myself walking in a breeze down a flower-lined path in a sun dress made from any of these.. can't you?

For my stop on the tour, I decided to make a Dresden Table Runner, one of the projects in my NEW BOOK (yes, more on that news later in the week!).

It is made of five 9" Dresden blocks on point.. first I machine pieced the Dresdens...

Then hand appliqued them to the background fabric (ok, I was pressed for time and machine appliqued a few).

And I cut setting triangles from the luscious Paparounes stripe..

And that's as far as I got.. I made binding, cut backing and batting even, but I haven't quilted it yet..

With any luck, I'll get it done before the blog hop is over.. make sure to check back and see.

Now it's time to visit all the other stops on the Skopelos blog hop!  So many beautiful things have been made with these fabrics already.  I hope you get a chance to play with some too..

1. LYNNE GOLDSWORTHY - April 20th
2. ALLEGORY LANHAM – April 21st
3. ERICA TOOLE - April 22nd
4. RACHAEL GANDER - April 23th
5. AMY FRIEND - April 24th
6. MARIJA VUJČIĆ - April 25th
7. DANA BOLYARD - April 26th
8. ERICA JACKMAN - April 27th
9. JESSICA ALEXANDRAKIS - April 28th
10. SVETLANA SOTAK - April 29th
11. KATHLEEN RIGGINS - April 30th
12. APRIL RHODES - May 1st
13. PAUL HALLINGER - May 2nd
14. SHARON MCCONNELL - May 3rd
15. CAROLINE HULSE – May 4th
16. JANE DAVIDSON – May 5th

Monday Morning Star Count 2014/41

Someone gave me puppy dog eyes at this weekend's NYC Metro Mod guild meeting and asked me to keep posting the star counts.  Of course I want to, but the weeks just get away from me.. but I'll try to be better, because there's a whole community of EPPers out there!  And you guys need a place to connect and be accountable :)

I've started taking my EPP box with me everywhere again and I've been lucky to find some stitching time at Tae Kwon Do.  This project has a deadline fast approaching, so it has been bumped up on the priority list.   Is anybody else working on something with a deadline?

So, who's been stitching?

Hello from under the pile..

of quilts?  of fabric?  of paperwork?

Thanks to everyone who checked up on me this week.  I've been in such a whirlwind I hardly even know when it's Monday anymore, and then it's Tuesday, and all the sudden it's after noon on Thursday.  I love that my friends miss me, and I'm sorry for missing the Star Count this week.  I did baste triangles..

but I think it's time to let you in on what's really going on down here, under the stacks and piles, the toppling fat quarters and the roll-away spools..
I've been working on something, a new project, a big project.  The kind that will have its own ISBN number.  I can't share details yet, but now you can understand why my relaxing EPP time is so limited.  This is what life looks like these days..
(Frantically binding project samples at the playground)

 (never ending stream of clutter and ideas across my desk) 

It is fun, thrilling, exciting, frustrating.  And it never ends.  Until it's done, the pressure is constantly there.  Everything else falls to the wayside-- eating, sleeping, emails, remembering to send birthday cards and call my mother.. I pop in on IG every once in a while and see things for quilt market, and I'm like, what?  that isn't until.. holy crap!  it's the middle of October already?!

So yeah.  Thanks for bearing with me.  I'll try to schedule MMSC posts for the rest of the Mondays in the year, but if I slack, know it's for a good reason.  Thanks for worrying.  I truly appreciate your support. 
I do have other new and exciting news too, but I'm waiting to get some details finalized.  If you're local (Long Island) there will be some events soon, and even if you're not, you'll hopefully be able to hear me talk about quilts via the internet in the coming weeks.  Details once they're available.  XOXO.

Ladies and Gentlemen

I think I'm in love...


with Puzzle quilting.

This is the puzzle edge to edge pattern in Christina Cameli's book, First Steps to Free Motion Quilting.  I have wanted to try it since I first opened the book last year, but I was scared.. (why does FMQ frighten me so?!)  I had to wait for a project small enough to be manageable and to not care if I didn't get it right the first time.  I tried it on a mini quilt last week, and yesterday I tackled these string pillows.  And I'm not kidding when I say I am in LOVE with this pattern.

Once you get into a rhythm it is such a comfortable movement and so satisfying.  Each little dip or blip just has it's own curved wonderfulness.  The intersecting lines at the corners of each puzzle piece make me almost giddy.  I think you have to be a quilter to understand. 

Anyway, I think this is my new default quilt pattern.  I just need to test it out on something big..
Have you tried anything new that completely excites you?  Please share~

Monday Morning Star Count 2014/34

The Chicago Edition..
I brought the boys to visit my mom this week.  Kind of crazy and hectic because I've got classes to prep (I'll go back to teaching again this fall) and two kids to get ready for school, but mom wanted to see them, so we shuffled a few things around to make it happen.
I didn't even pack my sewing in my carry on, as I usually would.  This was my first flight with the two boys on my own and an adventure it was.. almost missing the flight due to NYC traffic, then an hour on the plane, on the ground at LGA, and once we were in the air, they rerouted us to Grand Rapids due to heavy storms over O'Hare.  What seemed like almost an entire day of travel later, I was sitting in my grandma's house with two tired and hungry kids.  The transition has been tough, neither kid likes being away from Costas all day, and I think George especially is not up for the type of "visiting with family" that mainly involves mom sitting with other ladies at the table having coffee.  Not to mention the lack of a video game console in this house.. but I'll do my best to make it more interesting for him as the week goes on.
Here's the few pieces of my new project that I was able to baste this week.  Don't forsee myself getting a lot done while I'm here, but you never know.

Monday Morning Star Count 2014/33

I wanted to write another post this week, but that hasn't happened yet.  A post about my need to work with different shapes, different fabrics in my stash that weren't hexie friendly.. Let me just say that I pulled out an old UFO that I'd really like to see on my bed next winter and to clear my head a bit this week I worked on that instead of Travel Quilt #5.  It was good.  Nice to break the cycle and get out of my EPP comfort zone for a while.  I've written about it before, but does anyone else turn to EPP projects when they don't know what else to do?  EPP has been my go-to quilt project for so long that all of my other quilts have become UFOs in the meantime.  Unintentionally, most of the time too.  It's just that so many of those other projects take a bit of 'figuring out' to get started again, where as EPP has none of that.  Just open the box, find the threaded needle and thimble and go..
I see that I haven't been making time for my other quilting goals, and I really should be more intentional about that.  Maybe that lost blog post will happen this week?  Fingers crossed.

So, after last Monday's post I made absolutely no progress or decisions on the NYC Mod Guild quilt.  Still open to suggestions, but not in the mood to tackle that solution on my own this month.  If I don't post about it again before the end of September though, someone remind me.

Instead, I started on something new (please, don't throw anything at me!).  Satisfying my need for new shapes, I started working with triangles..

They are big and basting isn't effortless  yet, but I know I'll get there.  I'm going to Chicago at the end of the month and I think this is what I'll keep in my travel bag.  Never know when the kid will fall asleep and give me a few extra minutes to stitch..

Ok, your turn.  (Remember, ANYONE is welcome to join at any time!  We'd love to see what you're stitching~)

Monday Morning Star Count 2014/24

Happy Summer!  I don't know if it's summer where you are, but I'm on vacation and totally feeling it~

We are in Paros at the Anezina Village Hotel (still scheming to pull together a quilt retreat here, how about June 2015,  anybody?) and the cicadas are chirping very loudly.  It's beautiful here, but I haven't found any time to sew.  Jack was sick last week and I caught whatever he had so as much as I'm enjoying being here, whenever we're not doing something as a family, all I want to do is sleep.  Hopefully it will run its course and I'll be back to myself soon.
Here are my updates from the last week..

I stitched part of one hex-diamond (worked on it while waiting at the salon), and cut a bunch of fabric for future hexies..

Have you guys been more productive?  Please link up below. 

This week marks the 1 year anniversary of the US/Canada release of Quilting on the Go and I want to give a HUGE Thank you to everyone who has bought, read, posted about, or shared my book.  I love hearing from you guys and seeing pictures of what you've made.   Many people have sent me pictures and emails lately but I haven't had time at the computer to respond.  Please know that I do appreciate what you've sent and I'm sorry life doesn't let me spend more time online right now.  I thought we'd do a little experiment this week though.. if you have read Quilting on the Go, could you please just let me know in the comments below?  I don't have access to how well the book is doing outside of the US, so if you comment I can kind of see how far it has reached.. there are translations in German, Dutch, Hungarian, Spanish and Estonian so far.. if you have one of those editions, let me know!

Ok, now let's see who else has been stitching this week...
(anyone is welcome to join the linky party at any time this week, don't be shy!  we want to see your EPP!)

What do you need to know?

I was at the library this week, browsing the quilt books (surprise, surprise), and I came across this one:

I've been talking with a non-quilting friend lately about what quilting is and the types of skills you need to know to make a quilt.  I picked up this book with her in mind (K, if you're reading right now, I'm sorry!), but when I started reading it I was shocked.  It's like looking into history.  Ancient history, it seems, yet it was published in 1998.
I was quilting in 1998, were you?
According to this book, there were so many rules!  Quilts weren't made of solid fabrics, templates were traced and rubber cemented to sand paper. The first fabric you should choose for a project is a large scale multicolored print...  (This sounds so bizarre and antiquated to me now, but I actually did start like that yesterday.  Then I added in a bunch of solids though.)  And she tells people to stay away from fabric with a one way design!  My, how tastes have changed..

In it's defense though, in the forward, Jan Burns compares quilting to "a quiet street you stroll along to savor solitude."  I totally get that. 

One of the things I love about the Modern quilt community is the freedom, the lack of rules and other quilters looking down their nose at you.  But you can't throw everything out the window.  This seems to be a topic I've addressed before, which rules still apply?  Today I want to take it further..

Are you up for a little survey?  If you've got the time, please comment and tell me:

1)  What are 10 skills beginning quilters need to know?
2)  What are the 5 quilting techniques you use most often?
3)  What are 5 quilt techniques you want to learn how to do?

Thanks for your help.  To show my appreciation, I made a little bottle cap pincushion which I'll sent to one lucky commenter next week.  I'll also tally the results and tell you my answers for #2 and #3. 
Can't wait to hear what you all have to say!

It came out cute, didn't it?  Such a quick and gratifying project, I may have to make more.

I am determined to turn K into a quilter.  She has a great eye for fabric.. now if only I can get her to cut it up and sew it back together...