Strings with Lime

I have been making a quilt this fall for a 4 year old I have never met.  Her mom asked me to make it and I couldn't say no.  This is my first commissioned quilt.   I posted a bit about it at the beginning, but this quilt has really dominated my sewing time over the past 3 months and I'm happy to finally  have time to share some more of it.

I have loved working on this quilt.  It measures 80" x 87" and it is the first full sized bed quilt I have made and quilted myself.  I've done kings and twins, and plenty of throws, but never a full.  It's a shame I'm not keeping it, I really need a quilt on that full sized guest bed...

 

 The back is Sketch flannel in Royal and it is amazing!  I may just be a flannel back convert after this one.  I pieced Madelyn's name into the back-- the letters are about 4" high.  I hope she likes it.

 I cut and attached the binding to the front today, and plan to spend blissful hours tomorrow hand stitching it down.  That sounds like the perfect way to spend my birthday~

The quilt has taken me longer than I expected.  Is it that the foundation string piecing was more involved than I remembered, or my free time more scarce?  Either way, I made it as fast as I could.  Like every quilt, I learned a lot with this one.  It's the largest piece I've ever quilted on my Janome, and it fit just fine (for the record, I could probably do a queen..).  I underestimated how much thread I'd need to quilt it and ended up waiting in line at JoAnn's on Black Friday.  Never want to do that again (though buy one. get one free is a hard deal to pass up).  I also underestimated how tired I'd be at the end of each day, and how short Jack's naps would be.
When George was a baby, I remember getting a lot of sewing done while he napped.  Somehow I thought things would be the same this time around, but I'll tell you, the biggest shock I had this fall was how much I wanted to be with George when Jack was asleep.  If I'd turn on the tv and sneak off to sew, I felt guilty leaving him alone.  I missed him. 
Other moms of 2 or more can probably relate.  I spent so much time this year focused on the baby, feeding, changing, pureeing, packing and repacking the diaper bag, pushing the stroller.  I miss the feeling of George's hand in mine as we walk to school.  It's like I blinked and he went from being 2 1/2 to being 5.  I can barely pick him up and he doesn't fit in my lap anymore. 
Something has changed (is changing?).  I used to be me first.  A person, a woman, a Smithie, a quilter.  But now, no.  Now I'm Mom first. 
So this quilt took me a long time, but it helped me discover this change, see who I am now.  And I'm glad I can write that here, because I'm not sure non-quilters would quite understand.  I love this quilt, and I'm happy the end is near.  I hope to have it in the mail this weekend and let it become part of someone else's story.

First Steps to FMQ-- Blog Tour & Giveaway

Do you quilt your own quilts?  The last quilt I hand quilted (start to finish) was George's baby quilt, finished in early 2009.  Then I sent one to a long-armer, and by late 2009, I was ready to give machine quilting a try.  Even though I read a lot of blogs about machine quilting, it was still a rough, bumpy event.

We still use that quilt, but I have learned a lot since.  A year or so later, I tried out wavy vertical lines with my walking foot, and that somehow became my 'go to' pattern for any quilt I needed quilted quickly.  It's great, I still do it, but I can't really fairly say "Yes, I machine quilt my quilts."  Come on, I've got one pattern.
Well, it's time to break out of that one pattern rut and start playing..

My friend Christina has written a book and asked me to help get the word out.  When I got my copy I was so excited--                                     'Oh wow!  I love this!'
  'I have that fabric!'
                        'This looks so cool'
         'I love her photography!'

And I'm like, "sure!  I can promote your book!  I quilt!"  I flipped through the book and instantly wanted to make about 6 of the projects.  I thought it'd be nice to make one to show off for the blog hop.  The construction was simple, so I got started-- pieced the top, layered and spray basted.. and then..

Um.  No.  

I got too scared to quilt it.  Because, no, I really didn't know how (or I should say I didn't feel comfortable) to free motion quilt.

That's when I shelved my blind enthusiasm and opened First Steps to Free Motion Quilting as a guide book, with the intent of learning a new skill.  And wow, it worked.  There is so much information in this book, all neatly organized, easy to understand, with clear directions that are easy to follow.  If you read her blog, you know that Christina has always made machine quilting look easy, but now we know how she does it. ;)

I started with some practice pads and I worked on the patterns I have always wanted to try.

I used some left over Mile-a-Minute blocks and turned them into coasters.  I tried vines, pebbles, echoing paisleys, and spirals.  Some of my lines looked good, some were crap, but what mattered was that I was no longer scared of doing it.  I know with practice I'll get better.
I also started doodling patterns -- I used the magnetic doodle board lying in the play room, easy to draw and erase, no worries about the kids messing it up.

Gradually I built up the confidence to try out some quilting on the book project, and hey, it didn't turn out too bad.  (You can see it better on the back-- and don't mind the broken threads.. sometimes my top thread catches on the feed dogs, even though they're down, while FMQing.  I should take it to be serviced, right?)

 I tried a vine, zigzags, spirals, even George's name... and honestly, each pattern just made me want to go back and try out some more. I was totally surprised that of all I tried, the square spirals are the ones I liked doing the best.  I've been daydreaming about quilts with thin borders ever since..
So here it is:  I made a little chair cushion for George's play table chair.  He was super excited about it, and so was I.  (Christina's pattern is for a regular sized chair, but I adjusted it for George).

Are you like me, a fake free motion quilter?  Are you scared, or don't know where to start?  This book is great for walking you, step by step, past that fear and into a place where you can start to get creative with your needle.  Most of the 24 projects are small and fast, so you can try out a bunch of different designs and techniques and add skills quickly.  Soon you'll feel confident enough to quilt your own quilts with enthusiasm instead of anxiety.  Quilting should be fun, right?  I also love that all of her practice projects end up being cute little items perfect for gift-giving.  I hope I'll find time to make a few more before Christmas..

If you would like to win a copy of First Steps to Free Motion Quilting (a US winner can choose between a hard copy and an ebook, an international winner will get an ebook.), leave me a comment telling me the last thing you wrote by hand, the last thing you ate, and the last person you talked to.  I'll choose a winner on Monday, 9/30. 

And don't forget to stop by the rest of the stops of the tour for more chances to win!
9/25: Allison Rosen at Stash Books Blog 
9/26: Jessica Alexandrakis at Life Under Quilts  (you're here!)
9/27: Monica Solorio-Snow at Happy Zombie 
9/28: Susan Beal at West Coast Crafty 
9/29: Kathy Mack at Pink Chalk Studio 
9/30: Angela Walters at Quilting is my Therapy 
10/1: Amanda Jean Nyberg at Crazy Mom Quilts 
10/2: Megan Dye at Megs Monkey Beans
10/3: Victoria Findlay Wolfe at Victoria Findlay Wolfe Quilts 
10/4: Katie Pedersen at Sew Katie Did 
10/5: Christina Cameli at A Few Scraps

a quilt for Jason

Large or small, there's nothing frustrating about actually having the quilt completed.  A finish is a finish, after all..

It's tiny, 30 1/4" x 40"
Made with love for a little guy I hope I'll get to meet one day.
Hope to get this in the mail tomorrow~

First finish of the new year: Satoru

This quilt is ancient.. well, it wasn't my oldest UFO, but it had been sitting, pin basted, in my closet for over a year, and the top was completed sometime in 2007, (the center came from a guild workshop).  The fabrics came from my hubby's trip to Japan in January 2002.  Yeah, for a newly finished quilt, it's got some history already.

You can see the quilting better on the back.

Around new years I tried to finish up a bunch of smallish quilts so I'd have hand sewing (binding) ready for after the baby came.. some mindless stitching to keep me connected to being a quilter.. but, the kid's still not here and I've had loads of time to sew.  So, whoops, finished it.  At least I can link up this week (TGIFF & Crazy Mom Quilts)
(old posts about this quilt can be found here, and here)

Happiness

warm cuddly quilts on the couch = happiness.
a quilt done in the first week of the new year = happiness.

I love having this quilt on the couch.  The seed of inspiration came a looong time ago on a photo on Luckybeans' blog (which I can't find now) of a basket weave quilt with red center strips.  Thanks Katurah.  Never knew I'd actually make it, but now that I did, I'm glad I remembered where the idea came from.

Inspiration for the flowers came from a bunch of places, this one from the Material Obsession book, and this one by Nifty mainly.  Renewed love of applique thanks to Shelly, as I mentioned before.

the quilting, oh the quilting.. at first I thought I'd try clam shells..but a test piece didn't work out so well, so I opted to play around with flowers and swirls.  It was fun.  Some worked out the way I wanted, but I need more practice with meanders because I didn't always know how to get out of the area I had just quilted.. move up?  move right?  the pattern lended itself to going in a L--> R direction, but then I had issues rolling the whole quilt back up and shoving it under the machine again.  Thank goodness it was a small quilt.

I backed it in a soft vintage (1980s?) purple that I got out of the Atlanta guild's ugly box in 2003.  I had 4 yards of it, taking up space in the stash for years.. It just worked so perfectly with this quilt, I'm happy it found a home.   What is it with me and purple these days?  I think I just have so much of it and I was tired of feeling like I couldn't use it because I live with two guys.  Yeah, whatever.  A quilt is a quilt.  If I buy floral fabric or girly colors, I need to use it!  Enough of my self-imposed rules-- I commit to make what I feel like making~

On my label I used both nengajo stamps-- the bunny from 2011 and the sea horse from 2012.  God it feels good to have a finish in 2012 already...

the December crunch

I spent 7 hours working on this quilt on Thursday, from basting to attaching the binding.  I tried to take some pics along the way and thought I'd share my process. (I had really wanted to write this post Thursday, but once I started working, I didn't want to stop to post, and then once the quilt was at a good stopping point, my arms were too tired to post, haha).

I timed myself during the basting and binding, and found that it took just about an hour to baste, and then only another 60 minutes to cut, join, press, pin and attach the binding. 

At the end of the night I took the quilt down to the living room to show C, shook it out and said, "Ta da!" hoping he would be as impressed with my progress as I was. 
Me: "Look, I did all this today"
Him: (not really phased) "how long does it usually take you?"
Me:  "For the amount of work I did just today?  About 8 naps."

I would have liked to take more pics of the quilting and squaring up, but it was already dark and I knew they wouldn't come out that great.  I did snap this one of my improv binding holder-- usually I wind binding around a piece of cardboard as I press it so it's more manageable to attach to the quilt.  Well, I cleaned the sewing room last month and couldn't find a piece of cardboard anywhere.  But, george had been playing with his train set in the sewing room earlier, so I grabbed one of the track pieces and.. it worked perfectly.

Part of me thought I should just push on through and hand stitch the binding like a mad woman so it could be done for a Friday Finish.. but that didn't happen.  Guess there's always next week..

Procrastination Complete

I'm not really procrastinating from anything now, and it's almost hard to remember how stressful and crazy life was last semester when I was trying to finish my Masters, but I'll always have this quilt to remind me..

Dubbed "Procrastination in Blue and Orange", it was pieced in a 36 hour period in February '11 when I took a much needed break from searching for a research topic.  I piece it, loved it, and promptly forgot about it as the chaos of grad school engulfed me again.  (click here for earlier posts about my process)
I took my time piecing the back, trying several creative layouts to make the most of stash fabrics before settling on one that incorporated our entire last name pieced in 4" high letters.  (sorry, no full pics.  The internet doesn't allow us that much privacy, but I can try). 

I quilted it according to my original plan, with only slight adjustments for the spirals in the center of each circlish-thing.

  I haven't washed it yet, but I love how it turned out.  I plan to bring this with us on our next trip to Greece and leave it in our house there (George's room, family room? we'll see).  Until then it looks pretty good in George's room here.. and he will need a second quilt on the bed soon.  God, it's nice to be able to make something so practical~

Other details:

Size-- roughly 60" x 80"
fabrics-- all from the stash, with some gifted from Shannon and Carolyn.  Stash fabrics here date back to '02 and there are triangles representing at least 9 other projects I've made over the years, including the blue & brown HST quilt we're doing for my month in the Two's Company Bee.
quilting-- quilted in yellow-orange verigated YLI thread, 40 weight.  It's my first time using it, and I'm not so sure I like the thickness of the thread, but the colors are awesome.
timeline-- started February 2011, completed November 18, 2011.

Pillow process

I saw these sprocket pillows on Poppy Makes blog last week and thought it could be a fun project to sew together with George.  I did a rough fabric pull (about 18 prints) and then let him choose the ones he wanted in the pillow.  He wreaked havoc on the sewing room as I cut the spokes, and then he helped arrange them on the design wall.  I thought he'd help sew them together, but he was busy drawing pictures and wasn't interested in the sewing machine until I decided to quilt the pillow front (that can of spray baste catches his eye every time..).  I wanted to make a floor cushion for his room so I wanted it to be a bit sturdier than the Cluck Cluck Sew tutorial calls for.  I added a layer of batting and quilted the front and back, but left the side fabric strip unquilted. 
Things were going well (and fast!) until I sat with George in my lap yesterday to quilt the back.  I let him unscrew the regular foot and we put on the walking foot, and somehow (did I say something?) he said that he didn't want straight lines, but curvy lines instead.  Um, ok.  Whatever you want kid. 
So we took the walking foot off and put the free-motion foot on.  Of course George caught me a little off guard here, and I had no idea what sort of pattern I wanted to quilt with curvy lines. 
I did the worst possible thing-- I just started quilting.  With George on my lap and no plan, things went downhill fast.  10 minutes into it, I knew I needed to rip it all out and do it without him (and with a bit more of a design goal in mind).  I spent snippets of time throughout the rest of the day unpicking the mess and it was nearing midnight when I finally started over.  Thank god for twitter though, 'cause in the middle of the night when you need some quilting support and can't call anybody, it was nice to be able to tweet my problems and get support from friends online.
This is what it looks like from the back:

Grey thread, busy blue print-- you really can't see anything.  But from the inside..

Can you read backwards?  It was hard to get a good pic, but I quilted his name in there :)
Other fun things about the project:
I only had half a bag of poly-fil left over from god knows when, I've probably been carrying it around with me since 2002.  I was happy to finish it, but it wasn't enough, so I decided to use scrap batting to fill up the rest.  I read somewhere that somebody cuts up her batting scraps into little squares and uses it for dog bed filling.. if you know who I'm talking about send me the link because I'd love to give her credit. 

It worked out ok for this pillow, it's a little lumpy in some areas, but it's meant to be sat on, so I think it will all even out (or get smushed into place) in the end.  While George was stuffing it, I took a little video:

Not only was I short on stuffing, but I didn't have any suitable buttons to finish the project either.  So in the greatly satisfying vein of using what I had, I decided to cover my own buttons. 

Not that hard and I think I'd do it again.  It made me feel very "crafty."

The project was a fun one.  I don't usually make many pillows, but maybe that should change.  I love seeing handmade things around the house, and this was a lot easier and faster than plain old square pillow projects, which always stall at the zipper installation phase.  Anyway, I'm glad I made this one with George, and I hope it gets a lot of use in his new room.

thank god it's FRIDAY!

Not having been a 9-5er in a few years, I've kind of forgotten the sense of relief that comes from hopping in your car after work on a Friday afternoon.  But now we've got a new reason to celebrate Fridays-- Laura and M-R had the great idea to have a moving show and tell of sorts, TGIFF, where we all link up at somebody's blog each friday and show off our recent finishes.  Different than other linky finish parties, this one travels, and you have the opportunity to host one week, should you want to.


This week I'm happy to show off the Simple Squares quilt I made for my friend's son.  Started in July, all this needed was binding for months, and I finally got it sewed down just in time for the cooler weather. 

I quilted in my default wavy line pattern.  So simple, so easy.  I wonder if I'll ever try to freemotion any other patterns...

On the back I put a large scale Alexander Henry print of Chinese toys.  It'll give Logan something to look at from underneath as well.

And here's the whole thing.  It has been packaged up and sent on its way.  Hopefully the recipient can snap a photo of the baby and quilt for me when it gets there. 

***Argh!! I was supposed to be hosting TGIFF today, but didn't plan ahead and auto-post in time for the early-rising Aussies!  Sorry guys!  The linky party for today started on the main TGIFF page because I was late!  Pop over there to link up, ok!

Ripping when I need to

I'm not a perfectionist, by any means.  Most often, done is better than perfect and I really enjoy the little nuggets of imperfection that get stitched into my projects because they stand as a reminder of the process and I feel I can remember that particular day of sewing a little bit more.  That said, there are just some ugly stitches that I can't ignore. 
Here's my most recent glowing example:

The lines on this quilt are not supposed to be even or even smoothly curved, but sometimes the "process" gets hijacked by the weight of the quilt and the lack of strength in my shoulders, compounded by the speed of my foot in relation to the speed of my hands.. and, well, you know the story.  So today I ripped.  And then the kid woke up and we had a photo shoot..

Progress on this one is slow going, but for now we are warm enough with the two quilts already on the bed so there is no real need to finish quickly.  I would like to show it off at some meetings and maybe a quilt show though, so I'll keep it at the top of my quilt priority list.
What's on your quilt priority list?

That's one big spider!

Today I started quilting my spiderweb.  The quilt isn't that big but it just seems so bulky to push around under my machine.  I'm trying to quilt all the webs first and then I'll go back and fill in the stars.  I like how the quilting in the webs is coming along (loopy circle-y things), but I have no idea what to do for the stars, any suggestions?

Oh, and thanks for finding me at my new blog, btw.  I thought with Bloglines folding at the end of the month now would be a good time to make the switch public (though I've had it in mind for a few months), and give everyone a chance to update their blogrolls and new Google Reader accounts with my new address.  FYI, I've changed my email as well, the junkmail on the old account was getting a bit tiring to wade through everyday.  If you've just found me through flickr or somewhere, please say hi!