Easter and the Like

The rest of our Easter Weekend was more peaceful than the start. Saturday I spent the day (and late into the night) stitching up some Easter Basket softies. In order to be somewhat awake on Sunday, they remained faceless until Sunday afternoon.

Here they are ready to be found in the morning, in the baskets I made last year . And here they are today, fully embroidered and embellished:

The ninjas are from a Melly and Me Pattern, "Little Ninjas". They would have been really fast to sew if I hadn't sewn their head bands wrong three times. Sometimes when you are used to making things up yourself, it is harder to follow a pattern than it really should be. The kitty is from the original Wee Wonderfuls Put Together Book, by Hillary Liang. She was also a quick, fun sew. Eventually I might make a pair of felt Mary Janes for her, but for now she's bare foot.

In other exciting news, I received the rest of my blocks from Melissa, my partner in sarah and molly's free peicing study, today. Neither of us finished all the blocks, but since they were supposed to be done in November or so, I emailed Melissa and asked if we could just call it done. She agreed that she was kind of burnt out on making the blocks too, although they were fun, and we are just sending each other what we have done. I think my blocks are hers are lovely together. I left my blocks all odd sizes so I could fill in bits and pieces in the colours I needed to. I think I will also make a "Mel" block, just so both our names appear on the quilt. But I love the bright, fun look of all the blocks together, and I think this will be a fun project to stitch together in the fall sometime (when baby is bigger and I have two boys in school).

In family news, it appears that Emma has picked up her mother's creative layering style. This is how she went to church on Easter Sunday. No cute little poofy dresses (or even cream tights to tone things down a little) for this girl:

On Monday, Dave bought Aaron a bunch of these little ATV's that you pull back to wind and then let go. They have been a huge hit, and we've spent a lot of time racing them across the living room floor in the last few days. Andrew won our first after-supper-series, and he was sorely disappointed when we told him that the prize for winning was that you got to be the winner and take a bath. So he build some trophies, which the boys took turns modelling the next night:

I love this shot. Its another one for the mini-pops indy band cd cover series.

Missing a Design Wall . ..

One thing I miss about my house in Melfort is my sewing space in the basement. Although I have a cute, compact little space here, I miss being able to spread out and leave the mess of a half finished project or three on the floor, the tables and the wall (like in this post here ). I find that I am especially missing my design "wall" (which was really just a piece of batting I would tack to the wall).

Now instead, I have a design board which is about big enough for a doll quilt, or I can spread out a piece of batting somewhere and stick parts to it, then roll it up when little "helpers" arrive to get in on the action. Unfortunately, when I unroll said project, it looks something like this:

 Then I get discouraged, and I don't really have the patience right now to move all the pieces around and figure out what is wrong when bits keep falling onto the floor and wrinkling all up like this. I do know what's wrong: I either need more reds and oranges in the frames, or I need to make it all blue, green and whites. But that requires more cutting and playing around with which blocks belong where. So instead of fixing this quilt (the beginnings of boy #4's quilt) and sewing the blocks together, I got frustrated and pulled them apart.

I briefly contemplated just doing this (only with fabric, of course):

 But in the end, I did this instead:

I think this quilt needs to wait until I either figure out a way to hang some batting on the wall, or have the mobility to use the floor as a design space again (not so easy at 37 weeks pregnant). So instead I'm going to sew some brainless, satisfying smaller projects with happy fabric, and leave quilt piecing until later.

Sewing Time!

Well, I finally got a day off where no one was sick and I had a few hours to myself. I decided that aside from sleeping (which I did quite a bit of) and tidying up a little bit (enough to make things sane again), I decided it was time to sew!

I decided that I need to get a few UFOs (unfinished objects) finished, so I can feel more excited about sewing again, and I wanted to start with this quilt:

These blocks were made for me by the ladies of the Threads Together Quilting Bee way back at the beginning of the quilting bee craze. I loved these fabrics, and had been collecting them to make a wonky log cabin quilt for Dave and I's bed. Instead, I decided to hand them over to my quilting bee with no instructions, and see what I got back. A few people flaked out and I ended up with only 12 of the promised 16 blocks. Since I had asked for small blocks - 10 1/2 " - this meant I either had to put huge sashing around them or make a bunch of blocks. Discouraged, I put them in a bag with the leftover fabric and left them. Occasionally over the last few years, I have taken them out and played around with them, but always I have put them away again to work on another project. I still love the colours and fun bee and butterfly and owl fabrics in them, and the blocks I received were really stunning, so I've always felt bad that they were sitting in a bag, unassembled. It seems so disrespectful to the ladies who worked so hard to make them.

So I finally decided to just make one block to replace the one block that just didn't fit with the rest, and sash them together, and make a small quilt. Right now this is about 40 X 50, but I might add a scrappy border to it, which will make it about 46 X 56. I figure we have enough little people in the house that its okay to have some little quilts around that are just the right size for their laps.

The other thing I wanted to start on today was a baby quilt for the new baby. I decided I'm going to do really simple square - in - square blocks in these lovely bright colours. Some are from a couple of fabric bundles I picked up at Fabricworm.com, and the Pezzy prints are from a yummy bundle of pezzy prints I picked up at Pink Chalk Fabrics (also online). I wanted to get the cutting done while I had no little fingers around.

Since Emma stays up so late, my old quilting routine of cutting and ironing at night when everyone is sleeping, and then sewing during the day when I have a few moments hasn't worked, so I was glad to get these all done today. I was really happy because I figured out a way to get all the fabric I'll need from two 2 1/2" strips and one 4 1/2". This means I have enough fabric left from these plus the other fabrics I ordered as "potential" fabrics to make a nice log cabin picnic quilt later this year (I want to make a second go at the quilt-as-you-go method in "Patchwork Style").

Emma came home while I was sorting out and spreading out the fabric for the last photo. I gave her the leftover bits and pieces and she had fun playing with them until supper time. Soon she'll be a great quilting apprentice to have around the house.

Here is some of the leftovers from my original stack, although since I cut them in pairs and then folded quickly, you can only see half the fabrics here . . . I am really excited about this baby quilt. It should be super fun.

Free Pieced Tea Cannisters

So, the next step of my Fab Little Quilt is to make a tea cannister. Above is the first one I made, inspired by the crazy bird on the fabric. He matched perfectly with the churn dashes, and I love the cannister, but the yellow was overwhelming everything else in my quilt and killing the overall design. So cute or not, it had to be replaced.

 Fortunately, when I was first tinkering with the block, I made a label that I thought was with the same yellow as the cannister above, but was really in a more orange-y print from the same fabric line. It clashed with the yellow in the bird fabric and wasn't working at all. I pulled it back out tonight, along with a little piece of my latest funny animal fabric (I love this designer's animals - they are so whimsical and happy), the original green and yellow, and a bit of the fabric I bought for this quilt. Here is my second cannister:

One of the ladies on Flikr commented that it must be catmint tea. I think it fits in with the overall colours of the quilt, and is still cute without stealing the show, don't you?

So, on to teacups, and then to put the puzzle pieces all together somehow!

Fab Little Quilt Swap Progress . .

So, I've been working away at my Fab Little Quilt in little bits and pieces over the last few weeks. I'm running out of time, and ever time I've planned to work on this quilt lately, someone is sick or I'm sick or I decide to have a nap first and wake up 3 or 4 hours later with no more progress made . . . sigh. And now I'm stalling because I don't know where to go from here. So, after checking out my partner's photostream and favorites and galleries and thinking about my strengths as a sewist, I came up with these two sketches:

(nope, I can't take credit for the soldier at the bottom, but I wanted to include him. Its always nice when your son decides to take over your sketchbook . .. ) I thought my partner would prefer the one on the right, and I was correct. I bought a few new fabrics and pulled a bunch from my stash and ended up with this fantastic little pile here:

Then, I started making churn dash blocks. Have you ever made 3.5" unfinished (3" finished) churn dash blocks? They're fiddly. They require lots of precision and trimming and pinning and proper pressing. They took me about two weeks to finish, but I think they look great:

But now I was almost out of time, and my original quilt required about a dozen or more cup blocks, which are also fiddly and I was sick for 2 1/2 weeks and exhausted from teaching, and I started playing around with a simpler idea . .

So I made my teapot, and now I feel like I've hit a wall . . . do I want to make a cannister and two cups, like in the plan above? Or do I want to make a yellow bird teapot and some cups in vertical rows . .

And if I only want to make two or three teacups, then what do I do with all these fab fabrics I pulled to make teacups? I wanted to do 3 or 4 dainty cups with the little fabrics, and then some funky clunky mugs out of the bigger prints. But then how will I balance out the quilt?

What to do, what to do? So much pretty fabric, so many ideas, and only two more weeks until my mailing deadline, and not even a finished quilt top. Sigh, I'm usually more on the ball with these things, but I'm feeling a little lost and nervous of making something "too simple" or "not good enough" for this swap. I think I might just start making teacups and a teapot and a cannister and if I don't want them for this quilt when I'm done, I'll use them in a little quilt of my own. Thoughts, anyone?

Wonky trees . ..

I know, I'm a little obsessive about finishing these, but I don't really want to start on something new until I get at least one of my 3 or 4 UFO's finished. I don't like to be working on too many things at once, or I spend so long deciding what to work on that by the time I choose something my time to work is done. So, here are my wonky trees.

Mel's in grey and orange:

And mine from my stack of brights:

Right now I've sewed the two trees together, but I might unpick them and use them in separate parts of the quilt. I have a lot of blocks with this background fabric right now, enough that the other blocks look out of place. So I put away all my blue fabric and decided that the last 3 blocks will not contain any blue, in an attempt to balance out the colours in the quilt.

Remaining blocks to make: two log cabins, two teacups, two houses and one gnome. Then I will mail off Mel's blocks and put mine aside until I've made my Fab Doll Quilt and a baby quilt. I think Baby #4 should get his quilt finished in time to use it for late Spring trips to the back yard and park, don't you?

Sewing Day!

When Dave asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I said I wanted a day to sew. And so today, when Aaron and Emma went back to daycare, Andrew went to the Biodome with Dave and I got to sew! After fortifying myself a bit:

I got to work on my blocks for Sarah and Molly's free piecing study. They finished in November, and I still have half my blocks to do. These girls were the block I was the most afraid of, and I had been avoiding the rest of the blocks after her because I wouldn't let myself do the easy ones until I had finished her. Ironically, I was just telling my students a few weeks ago that they know they are learning when they reach the edge of discomfort and fear - that is where the creativity and learning happens. So I had to take my own advice and push through these blocks. Here's Mel's girl - her blocks are all actually 10.5", so I made a second block for her after the first one ended up too bog.

My girl is a little bulky. I think she needs a neck.

Next I tackled the other one I had really been afraid of - the gnomes and mushrooms. This gnome guy looks complicated, but he is actually exceptionally easy. Same for the mushrooms. I might switch out the bottom fabric in my blue mushroom - not sure I like the two tones.

Here is a close up on Mel's grey, yellow and orange mushroom. These ones were really fun to make.

The last one that I was really nervous about was my name, so I did that one last for the day. This green is less putrid in real life - it just looks funny in contrast to the cutting board green.

And lastly, here is Mel's version of my name. I have loved working with her colours - they are super bright and fun.

One thing I regret is that I didn't use white or black in any of these blocks. I think it would have added somewhere for the eye to rest. Oh well.

Remaining wonky blocks for this study: log cabins, trees, houses, teacups (they used my tutorial - how fun!). Then I'm done!

You Know You Haven't Been Sewing Much When . . .

your 7 year old mentions it. Yesterday, Andrew said, "You sure don't have much time to practice your hobby anymore, Mom."

Yes, its true. First trimester pregnancy plus working plus a husband with two grad school seminars in two weeks plus grabby, non-sleeping toddlers have worn me down.

Fortunately, first trimester is over and I'm starting to regain my energy, the seminars are finished (and papers not yet begun) and we've decided that non-sleeping toddlers are to be rocked to sleep by DADDY. Ah.

First on my list: finish my mermaid quilt.

Just the binding left to go. I plan to sew it on the front today and hand sew it while watching the finale of Project Runway Season 7 (have you seen that one yet, Sharon?).

Second: Jedi robes

I know, its yellow not brown. Trust me, I've heard about it already. But the brown was 19.99/m and this was 3.99/m. Doesn't Yoda have a yellow robe, and Obi Wan at some point? I'm going to finish the robes, and try to find photos of Jedi in beige robes.

Third: a Cheeky block for Kat and finish up Sarah and Molly's Free Peicing Study blocks

Fourth: Quick change trousers in cordory

Also, in case you're wondering how to study Philosophy in a house with 3 small children, here is the solution, as presented by Dave in the midst of preparing a seminar last week:
 
Yep, that is earplugs worn under noise dampening headphones. That's my hubby, the stylish one in our family. And yes, that is what my table usually looks like . . . sigh. Okay, off to sew before I start tidying the table instead.

Trimming the crust off my toast . . .

The thing that I hate the most about HST is the trimming. It is super tedious, and I'm always afraid that I will trim one 1/4 inch too small by accident (in fact I think that's because I've done it before . . . )

Never the less, since my sewing machine front cover / plate wiggles and falls off at the slightest breeze, I have difficulty sewing and accurate 1/4 inch seam these days (especially since there is often a toddler on my lap trying to dismantle the machine while I sew). So, I must make these bigger and then trim them all down to size if I want a clean, relatively accurate looking quilt.

This is the "still to do" pile.

I was going to make myself trim the entire stack before I did anything else quilt-y. Then I reminded myself that this is my hobby, and that this quilt is for me, so I have no deadline for it. So I finished about 15 more and put the rest back in the ziploc bag for another day.

Instead I spent the day stitching my mermaid quilt together and I'm presently trying to back it from stash (and convince myself I really don't need to just order 3 more yards of this Innocent Crush print to back it). I'll show you it another day, as my quilt testers were busy all through the process of trying to piece the top, so it needs a good pressing before it is presentable.

This is what happens when I try to do crafty things during the day . . .

So, there is this fun English Paper Piecing Hex-Along over at Lily's Quilts and I decided to try a few blocks - there are a lot of fun variations on the standard hexagon / star patterns. I'm not good at drawing straight lines, so I decided to just work with the templates she's found (they're listed in the QAL instructions) from the quilt that inspired the whole idea. 

Well, being lazy and, as I said, not very good at drawing straight lines, I decided to take the template sheets down to the local copy shop and have the guy there photocopy them onto card stock for me - thus alleviating the need to copy them onto index cards or cereal boxes. Inevitably when I do that I start with even sized diamonds / hexagons, and then they slowly get more and more warped until they will hardly join together.

So today I was taking a little break and cutting out my templates, when I had a little bit of company decide to do his own project with the hexagons:

 Because who wants to just watch Mom cut out hexagons when you can co-opt the scissors, cut out your own hexagons and make them into a monster (he did the big hexagons - one is ripped in half for the head - and I did the small ones and of course made the arms).

 Do you see the template labels on this side? Fun, no?

Aaron is at that age where he is brimming with ideas, but doesn't yet have the motor skills to make what he can see in his head. Its that glorious age of, "Mom, I want to draw a knight!" "Okay, draw a knight." "NO! I want YOU to draw the knight!"

So you draw the knight, and half way through the four and a half year old bursts into tears because the knight is not RIGHT. It is not precisely the knight he has pictured in his head . . . Sigh.

Apparently the hexagon monster was just right, however. So, now fun sewing to show you, but one contented little boy.

Stars and another flower (for Mel this time)

I would love to say that this catches me up on these blocks, but it doesn't. Here's my two blocks for MelSews. I thought I would take a break from the crazy yellow / orange borders on every single block for her and do a few with just simple grey. They make me itch - I want to trim them and add more colour, as I'm not a minimalist (have you noticed?). But I think they are neccesary to balance out the other blocks I sent.

I tried to make it look like there were leaves below the flower. Don't know how successful it is.

And here's my star too:

Next up are a shoofly and then some trickier ones that I've been avoiding: a girl, a gnome, a tree and a house. I don't know why I'm so intimidated by them. I guess there's just such cute-ness potential that I'd hate to make a mess of them instead of making something really great. I"ll have to take a few deep breaths and make the plunge before school starts!

New Quilt Project . . .

I used to try to just have one project on the go at a time, but I think I have four quilts, a tunic and a dress in progress right now. This is going to be a quilt for our bed, which is a king size:

I have been hoarding this fabric since I bought it here , and adding co-ordinates as I found them. In the winter I bought the solids from Anna Maria Horner's shop in a lovely stack, and just recently I started looking for a pattern. At first I was going to just do a random-square-and-rectangle type quilt, but that didn't feel quite right. I wanted something with a little more structure to it. I like how this pattern is simple, but not too simple, will show off the big patterns in the Good Folks prints well, and allow me to play with fabric scale, colour and value.

I bought the two fabrics on the far right just the other day because I needed some more lights (I never have enough calm, neutral fabric . . . I just forget to buy it) and I wanted to pick up some at my local fabric shop. The creamy one has tone-on-tone silhouettes of kids playing and a giant cloud turtle. It is so fun to cut into these giant triangles as you can see the pictures if you look closely.

Before I cut my entire precious stash up I decided to make a test block to see if I liked it.I have only partially sewn this together, and I think I do like it, although I mis-cut the large white triangles that make up the big outer star, and it means my points are all going to be lost in this block. Ah well, it will be my vanity block:

I like how the colours are refreshing and relaxing at the same time. More updates on this quilt as I work on it. If I actually put my mind to it, I think the piecing will be very fast.

Rail Fence Quilt

So, I got this far on the back of my rail fence quilt, and decided that this has to be its own quilt. First, this is too stunning to be on the back of anything else. Second, two sides of different strips sets would be majorly overstimulating. I do love this quilt top, though, and I'm going to sew it together just like this:

Fun enough, the only thing I picked was which side I was going to add new strips onto. Even this final layout was just how they ended up on the floor after being laid out with very little thought. I love the mixture of chance and intuition that made this quilt top. It is going to be very fun to finish later this year.

In the mean time, once I had decided not to use this as the back of my rail fence quilt, I realized that actually the Nicey Jane print I had bought meters of for another plan that fell through would work perfectly with the blues in the Meadowsweet prints on the front of the quilt, and provide a nice calm balance to the front:

See , isn't that better? I think so too. I'm in the middle of quilting this in organic squiggles that run the opposite direction of each strip set. So far it is a really effective way to pulling all the fabric together in the quilt. The quilted squares look much more finished. I'm using a light pink thread I already had, which strangely enough, seemed to work with the quilt and add something it needed as well.

I'm really excited to finish this quilt. I want to be done everything but the binding before we go to Family Camp at a local Bible Camp next week. I figure that binding the quilt will be a fun, manageable take-along project. I'm a little hesitant, since we can only afford to tent and make our own food, which will be a bit of a hassle, but lots of the other families with kids our age from church are going, so the boys should have fun and be fairly easy to manage. Its a good way for me to keep building a new support system here, and it should be fun even if I'm making our food and tenting. Another family we know is doing the same thing so I think we're going to divy up meals and take turns feeding each other's families.

In any case, I'm excited to have this quilt for me. Andrew was giving me a lecture today about how I'm not allowed to give anymore quilts away. "You give all your best quilts away, Mom. No more swaps, and no more giving quilts away." I was thinking about how I do tend to give away my best both in quilts, energy, time and ideas. In the tradition I grew up in that meant I was really spiritual. Sometimes I think it just means I de-value myself and don't think I deserve to enjoy the fruits of my own labour.

Can you tell I've been the only adult in the house for two days now? I'm totally rambling. I promise I'll be more pithy (as my Dad used to like to say) next time.