Radiating Squares

So far, 2018 has been a lot about unpacking baggage.  Some that I was ready to look at (this quilt, for one) and others that feel more like someone ripped open and dumped all my hard memories out into the present.  Old ideas, old beliefs, that were well hidden and nearly forgotten about.  But the social/political climate in America right now has many people uncomfortable as we look long and hard at choices we have made, action we took or didn't take, and secrets we have kept.  I'm struggling a lot with this.  I think it's fair to say I'm overwhelmed but functioning.

For as strong as I've gotten in these last 3 years, it seems the next level of adulting is always more challenging than the last.  This past weekend Rich and I finally got to take some pics of my finished Radiating Squares quilt.  Running through the yard was a much needed release from the stress of my reality-- dad had a stroke Friday night and once again I feel so very far away, both in distance and in time.  I was well cared for by my chosen family though.  Friends checking in,  which I am so grateful for, but I had so little news to share.  Even now, it still seems I am waiting, waiting.  Not part of it, just watching and hurting.  I don't yet know if or when I will be able to travel to see him.  But in this decision, more baggage opens.  If I go, am I the prodigal daughter?  Am I dramatic/comic relief or am I actually helping?  I have to believe that my presence means something, because if I don't, I just want to hide and shove all of these awful thoughts right back into the bag they came from.

Tonight I'm going to make the label and prep this quilt to go off to its new home.  Sometimes you can shake out the baggage, accept it for the role it played, and let it go.  I'm happy this quilt is almost done and ready to become part of someone else's story.

If you're curious about how this quilt began, my old posts are here.  It was part of a 2010 bee, originally inspired by a quilt I saw at the Empire Guild show in 2009. 

Monday Morning Star Count, August 10, 2015

One lonely side filler piece.

That's all I managed last week.  Sometimes projects speed forward at a quick step, other times they inch along, one inch hexie at a time.

I like this little side unit.  I cut 3 castle towers from a scrap of Lizzy House, left over from the back of TQ#2.  The yellow was a scrap I salvaged from a bin at my workshop with Sarah Fielke in Sisters (now there's a blog post I should write..).  Small but powerful, this unit.  Good memories in there.

What have you done?
(I also made, um, and entire quilt top in a weekend, just about.  Watch for that post later today)
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NYC Metro Mod Guild, June meeting

My Saturday Stitches program at the Rockville Center Library is on hiatus til the fall (check the events tab for October dates and a possible book signing in September), so I got to go to the NYC Metro Modern Guild meeting in Manhattan yesterday.

Wow, oh, wow.  I missed those quilters.  So much inspiration and laughter, and two full tables overflowing with free fabric (whoever thought of the swap table, omg, thankyou.  I made out with probably forty 1.5" snippits and crumbs.  Where I will use them, who knows, but they made me enormously happy).  Gotham Quilts also had a whole wall with fabric and patterns for sale and seeing as I don't live near any modern quilt shops, it was the first time that I've seen much of the newest fabrics all over Instagram in person.  I snapped up some Lizzy House Natural History prints.  I'd like for the tiny green dinosaurs to make it into Jack's big boy quilt, but I don't have much time to work on it now, so I hope by recording that note here, I'll remember when the time comes.

Here's a bit of show and tell, there will be more more (and more details) over on the guild's blog:

 Here's Bernadette and Lisa holding up the guild's group EPP project.  They started this in February 2014 (during my EPP workshop) and they've been cursing me ever since.  Hey guys, I told you it was an addiction...

Here's Karen and her big star quilt (long armed by Rachael Dorr) that I nearly spilled coffee on before show and tell.. thankfully it was protected in plastic.  Sorry again, Karen.

This absolutely awesome R2D2 quilt was made by Jackie.  The patter was in a magazine, but I didn't catch which one.  I'm sure the info will be on the guild blog.

 I brought my big taupe spiderweb as my show and tell and Jackie took this pic of me.  I tried to keep it quick because there were so many people on the show and tell list, but I could talk about this quilt for days.  In fact, I probably will.  It needs it's own blog post, that's for sure.

It was really cool to get into the city and get to enjoy a meeting.  I hadn't been to one since the fall.  I forgot how inspiring it is to actually be in the same room with quilters and their quilts.  Instagram is great, but now I see it's missing something.  I spent the last year focused on my own projects, first the book and then book-recovery sewing (finishing the spiderweb was a huge part of that for me).  I think I'm ready to re-enter quilting society.  I've missed my tribe.

And on that note, I have decided to revive the Monday Morning EPP linky party starting tomorrow.  If you've got some EPP you're working on, quick, take a picture and link up with us!  (flickr and instagram links are welcome.  Full blog posts are always nice too..)

Greater than

Lately I've been feeling a little.. frustrated.  Plans I've made have fallen through, goals I've set don't seem like they'll ever happen-- just one set back after another.  I have been trying to stay positive and cheerful, ever optimistic, but the truth is, all the bumps in the road were taking their toll.
I needed a  pick me up, so I set my timer for 15 minutes, and I just pieced and pieced, cut and ironed, and finally that box of crumbs I was saving for "some day" started to take shape.
Another sewing session after the kids went to bed and I've got a start on something..

I have wanted a mini quilt for the wall of our apartment here in Athens for a looooong time, so I think that's where this piece is headed.  Something to remind me to keep my chin up, something to help me get my creative energy back and centered.  A piece to remind me I am greater than all the crap that's trying to pull me down. 

I feel better.
It needs to be bigger still, but not tonight.

Monday Morning Star Count 2014/18

Is it just me, or do these weeks just fly by?  I'm organizing our family calendar for the month and then poof~  all the sudden we're going to Greece just a few weeks from now.  It's hard to believe that I'll be sitting at the beach in a sundress in 45 days when right now I'm typing this post in my fleece pajamas.  How many Hexi-diamonds did I say I'd have done before then again??
Well.. let's just keep recording progress as it happens and before you know it, we'll all have finished quilts to celebrate.

This week I managed to baste and piece 3 more background units for the 7 Sisters hexie thingy (not really a quilt yet because it isn't going to get much bigger than this..its future is still uncertain).  Not bad.

Stitching in the car in the rain..

 Honestly, I had some setbacks this week.  First, I've been having pain in my right wrist.. it's not from hand piecing, that pain is different, but sewing seems to bother it too.  It's more than likely from using my phone (damn Juice Cubes and 2048!), but I'm trying to cut down and rest it so it doesn't get worse.  Subsequently, I've been working on some machine pieced projects which I hope to be able to share soon.  Stay tuned for that.  The second set back is that Netflix has taken Mad Men off the streaming list, and now I have to request and wait for the individual DVDs.  (!!!!)  What are we, in the stone age?  This is a huge inconvenience and a first-world problem that I shouldn't whine about, but come on!  I need my Netflix when I'm piecing while Jack's napping or while I'm waiting for C to get home.  Once I get into a show, I look forward to having it on as part of my stitching routine.. if it isn't available I get stuck and don't turn anything on, just stitching in a silent house.  Hopefully I can get hooked on something else soon.  Suggestions welcome. 

LIQS Show

This was a big quilting weekend for us on Long Island.   The Long Island Quilters Society holds a huge quilt show every two years, and because I taught a workshop for them in January, I was in the loop enough to fill out the forms and submit my quilts on time this year. 
I went yesterday morning and saw the show with Eri.  It is held at the Garden City Field House Gymnasium which is big airy space.  Everything felt fresh, bright and beautiful. Promise that spring is on the way.  I was very happy that Travel Quilt #3 took two ribbons-- Best in class for Piecework, and 1st place for commercially quilted in its size category.  (That's completely Shannon's fault!  thank you!). 

It's only recently that I became interested in entering my quilts to be judged.  Winning a ribbon is pretty cool, but I have always been a little anti-establishment when it comes to the "proper" way to make a quilt.  I still feel that I made the quilts for me, and I want to share what I've made with a larger audience.  If a judge likes or doesn't like it, that's fine.  It's my quilt, I won't be ashamed of that.  So tonight when I go to pick them up, I'm curious to read the judge's comments.  I don't know if it will change anything about how I make my next quilt, but it's interesting to get feedback nonetheless. 
Here are some of my favorites from the show.  Quilt maker info is on each pic. 

As Eri and I were walking around, I thought about why I love these quilts, scrap quilts.  When I saw the Cathedral Windows below, it hit me.. I like to look closely and see if I have any of the same fabrics.

 (Btw, this quilt was hung behind a guild booth, without any identifying information. If you know who made it, please let me know!!)

I thought about the quilts I have been making, and the ones I'm planning to start or work on soon.. I think I've been getting distracted by what others have been doing again (bad, bad Instagram!), and I want to find time to get back to some of the projects that really spoke to me.  I've also got a bit of gift sewing I want to finish this spring too.  Hope I'll find time for all of it.
Anyway, here is my finished Travel Quilt #2.  Completely me.  No ribbons, but I still love it.  Made between 2007-2014, there's a whole lot of my life in there.  (the border does go all the way around, but the hanging sleeve is placed 88" from the bottom, as per the show requirements)

Blogger's Quilt Festival (and Quilt Retreat Invitation)

I was racking my brain (and sewing room) for something to enter in this fall's Bloggers' Quilt Festival.  My Lime String quilt isn't finished yet and I haven't had time to work on much else.  Then it occurred to me that I never did a real blog post on Travel Quilt #3, the one that is featured in my book.  So, here it is:

I started this quilt in July 2010, stitched the last diamonds by hand in February 2012, and had the entire thing finished in October 2012.  I took a few detail shots of my own, but then it went straight on to my publisher for photography for the book.  (And I wasn't supposed to blog about it til the book was released!) It ended up on the back cover, which I was really pleased about.  This is the third in my Travel Quilt series and the first time I actually wrote on the stars as I pieced them.  The full pattern and instructions, including step-by-step photography, is available in the book. 

Long arm quilted by the brilliant Shannon Couvillion in Georgia, this is a very personal quilt, a fabric scrap book of where I went and how I spent my  time. 
Of course this isn't the first time many of you are seeing this quilt.  I heavily blogged my progress as I carried my EPP sewing kit back and forth across the globe, completing a few stars at a time.  Here's a quick recap of my favorite in-progress photos:

Have you ever quilted on the beach?  Would you like to?
I'm organizing an English paper piecing retreat that will be held on the Greek island of Paros in June, 2014.  Come enjoy amazing food, perfect weather, relaxing atmosphere and good company as we stitch together in the middle of the Aegean.  Check out my "Greek Island Retreat" tab above, or just click here.  Registration is open through February 1st, but space is limited.  I'd love to have you join me and start a Travel Quilt of your own~

Monday Morning Star Count 3

I have done so many exciting and crafty things in the last week, and I'm dying to blog about them all, but the baby (and inconvenient Wi-Fi range) are complicating things a bit. 
If you follow me on instagram (@jessica_alex) then you may have seen the pics from yesterday's awesome Etsy Craft Party that we had here in Athens.  I want to share all the photos and add in the links to the shops of the very talented crafters I met there, and if I don't do it in the next day or so, someone remind me, will you?  Thanks.  It was fun, but I was the first quilter most of them had ever met, hehe.

In epp progress news-- my Rain hexies aren't finished yet-- there's less than an hour of stitching left to assemble them all, but I don't have any basting spray with me here and I got caught up in a new project so.. (yep, that's just how I do things.  work on whatever holds my attention for as long as it lasts..)
I started making stars out of tiny hexagons:

I finished one (above) and started on a second (below).  I want to make 7 stars and then figure out how to put them together, so I've got 6 and a half to go~

Are you all still working on the same projects or have you been bad like me and have jumped around?  No judging here!  Just link up and tell us your progress.

Becky teaches EPP

(This post could also have been called "why I have the coolest friends in the world")

This week my old college roommate was visiting from the UK and so a few of our old housemates got together for some girl time (and baby cuddling).  The baby was sweet and took a nice long nap, so after I popped dinner in the oven, we all sat around the living room and chatted about things.  Not surprisingly (or uncommon in my house and in my current circle of friends), Becky was stitching and chatting and talk turned to quilting. 

 Now Rachel and Trish aren't quilters (yet), so understandably they had a lot of questions.  Before I could answer any, Becky jumped down and started pulling out sprockets and templates... it was great.  Usually I'm the one going on obsessively about EPP, but not this time!

Becky is making a Sprocket quilt, from Christina's tutorial and quilt along.  She started it just a few weeks ago and already has 4 done, with a 5th nearly ready.

Her background is light light grey and the colored rings are monochrome but scrappy.  The two non-quilters were intrigued enough to follow us up to the sewing room for me to give Becky some extra 1.5" diamond templates, but when she and I started pawing through the scrap bin looking for more fabrics, we kinda lost them (oh well).  Still, it was really energizing to watch someone talk about quilting so passionately.  I can completely appreciate that-- she's in the thick of a new project and loving it.  I'm loving it for her too.

Oh, and as you can see from her blog, Becky's a veterinarian, so her stitches are immaculate!  I wish she had time to blog more about quilting (nudge, nudge), but until then, I'll do it for her, hehe.

I think I need a bigger design wall..

but that means we'd have to raise the ceiling a few feet...
I've been making steady progress on my Orphan Block Soup quilt.  This morning I finished the pink slabs (they measure roughly 16.5" square):

 Then I paired them with the taupe and made HSTs.  I haven't trimmed them down yet but just threw them up on the wall to see how it was going.  I pulled out the blue circle block from the bottom of a "I'll work on this when I have the time" bin and gave it a good press.  Only one of the circles is appliqued.  I really want to use that block, and I'd love to do up one or three more, but I know me and when I start to add on to quilts with hand appliqued plans, they usually end up back in the bin.

I have tons more of the taupe fabric (I bought some years ago, loved it and went back to buy the rest of the bolt), so I guess I could test out a bunch of options, but that's really not like me.  I think I'll look at it for a while longer, make a decision and dive in.  I'm liking it so far though.  Thoughts?

Pink

So today, with some encouragement from Frederick and Chase, I'm working on this quilt.  I stripped away some of the blocks and a clearer design came into focus..

I've been reading (actually reading, not just looking at the pictures) Sunday Morning Quilts this week and I finally felt ready to build up some slabs of pink with crumbs and strings, in hopes of making giant HSTs (not unlike Lori's quilt, here) and turning this into a cheery medallion of a sort.

The crumb piecing is slow and the kids are needy interested in hanging out with me in the sewing room, but the idea is clear in my mind, so I'm determined to work on this as long as the mood keeps me.

 It's turning into a pretty beautiful Mother's Day-- the big guys are outside gardening, the little guy is asleep.. so it looks like I may get in a blog post AND sewing time this afternoon.  Hope you're just as lucky~
Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there~

(Btw, I finished the baby quilt, it will get it's own post once it's out of the wash.)

2nd finish of 2013-- Chaos Scraps

So I'm still pregnant, and my pile of mindless sewing is getting smaller and smaller.  I hadn't intended to finish this one before the baby came, but he's mighty comfortable in there and I had nothing to do last night so..

Here's the back.

These were orphan blocks, string pieced to phone book paper, inspired by Bonnie (same blocks are in her header, too cool!).  I threw on a dark border and 16patches to try to calm the chaos and give order, but that was almost a wasted effort-- this quilt is anything but orderly, and I love it.
On the back I wanted more fabric, more memories, more stories.. so I pulled out strings and strips from the backings of a bunch of quilts and tossed in some more string pieced orphan blocks.  Now there's so much in there that I could talk about this quilt for days. 

As I was quilting it, I'd count how many different quilts or different friends were represented in the scraps in the blocks down a single line of quilt-stitching.  The highest I got was 10-- fabrics representing 10 different projects all hit with one wavy line.  All in the same chaotic quilt.  It's sure not the prettiest quilt I've made, but I'm totally in love with it right now and can't wait to plop a new baby down on it to tell him the stories.  Cross your fingers that he makes an appearance soon, ok?

(Linking up with TGIFF and crazymomquilts!)