Fall 2010 Bloggers Quilt Festival

A late entry into the current Blogger's Quilt Festival. Thanks so much to Amy (Amy's Creative Side) for hosting this fabulous display of creativity once again. Right now I'm working on what is going to be my next entry in the Festival, but for now, completed quilts, Neptune (pictured above) is my favorite quilt.

I love all things beach/ocean. I also love Moda fabric. I've only been quilting a few years now and I found this fabric at one of the first shows I attended--Quilters Unlimited in June 2009. The pattern was relatively simple (a design by Cottonseed Glory, an Annapolis, MD quilt shop), and I just knew I had to make it, the minute I saw it.

I whipped the quilt top out right away,sandwiched and ready to go by the end of June 2009, but I was so in love with that project that I did not want to attempt to quilt this baby until I had a few classes in freemotion, and after that, procrastinator that I am, I decided it needed to wait until I had a new sewing machine as well (a Bernina with a BSR).

Of course, I got that machine last October, but I wasn't confident enough to start the quilting on Neptune until this past June, where I was careful, a little daring, and quilted the heck out of it (which is a look I just love).

In the beginning of my quilt experience I made meticulous little signature blocks to put on the backs of each quilt I made (that got old pretty quick).

I'm very pleased with how it all turned out, so was Paco

The most important things I learned from making this quilt are:

1. Have confidence in your ability to freemotion. You won't be sorry. While you can study designs, chalk them on fabric, sew through paper, the best thing (and the one that won't result in looking forced) you can do is to let your mind guide the fabric through your needle. You'll be far less disappointed (and rip out far fewer stitches) if you aren't trying to copy what someone else was feeling while they stitched. Freemotion is not about rigidity and coloring inside the lines. Think about it....free motion.
2. Heavy quilting uses lots of thread :) It also results in an interesting look which has a non-comforter feel to it. I like it. The more it's washed, the more it looks like a comfortable, been around for a long time quilt.
3. Never feel bad about setting something aside until you're feeling the need to work on it. This sandwich hung on my studio door for a year. Had I rushed into quilting it, it most definitely would not have become my favorite quilt, or a project I was proud of in the end. Don't look at something as a UFO that needs to be rushed through. Look at it as a project you're savoring, something deserving of your full, unrushed attention, a quilt top that is waiting for you to decide you're ready to turn it into your current masterpiece. We've all heard 'the best things in life are worth waiting for'. 

Thanks for checking out my 'masterpiece'. I hope you're inspired to create your own.

Back on Track...at least in the studio

Tonight the hubs went to play poker so I was on my own. After a strangely healthy but tasty dinner of coconut & red curry chicken bisque, salad, an artichoke (okay, so sue me, I dipped it in melted butter) and a glass of Italian Pinot Grigio, I headed upstairs to the studio to try to be productive and start on my SIL's Christmas gift.

Afer a few hours of sewing strips from a jelly roll together in a few configurations, and  alot of rotary cutting, I've got 20 12.5" strip pairs and 40 4.5" 6-strip sets. Colorful, interesting, now what?

Ah...we flank the two-strip pairs with the 6-strip sets and it looks like we're going to wind up with a pretty cute 12" block...twenty of them, to be exact.

So maybe I'll sew 4 across and  down, turning some of them a half turn or so now and again for interest. Then I can border them out to a decent throw size, or maybe I'll intermingle some borders between them. I don't know. I'll put the blocks together tonight and spread them out tomorrow and see how it plays.

Speaking of tomorrow......if you're reading this, before 9:00 a.m. EST or thereabouts, please, please, please cross your fingers that the shower no longer leaks. Yep,,,,after spending an outrageous amount of money for caulking, waiting a day for them to reinstall the faucet correctly, we finally got a chance to give her a spin on Wednesday morning. Surprise, surprise, surprise....the water still dripped from the gaping hole in the kitchen ceiling.

What's a girl to do? Move? Tear out the shower we just put in a year and a half ago and start over? And then what if we've still got a leak after that? Well, I got the plumber to come out again, and I really didn't want the same guy back because the tile guy convinced me that the plumber was incompetent (probably trying to justify the $105 an hour for 4 hours to caulk a shower he was going to charge me) but the warranty company was giving me fits, and the hubs said that Mr Original Plumber should be the one to come back so I agreed to have him out again.

Well, he was very patient with me, and very thorough, and assured me that there are no leaking pipes or drain (and provided lots of visual aids to prove this to me). Fortunately, he did figure out that the faucet plate had it's drain hole caulked over, and that no one ever sealed where the pipe extends through the plate, so the water was most likely splashing back behind the plate and since it can't drain out, once it fills, it pours over into the hole in the wall the pipe comes out (and there's a water line on the back of the faceplate which kind of proves this theory).

While this is totally not in his job description, he recaulked the faceplate, leaving the drain hole open this time and he sealed around the pipe and plate. He said he's pretty sure that's the problem. And I got a bill for $45 instead of the $95 plus paying him for caulking because he said he felt bad that I had been overcharged by the tile people who didn't actually fix the problem, which was (as he reminded me more than once) not a plumbing problem.

Tomorrow morning we find out if his diagnosis was right. Hold your breath and cross your fngers. Think happy thoughts. Work some mojo that our leak is gone and we can go back to living like normal people and have the hole in the kitchen ceiling fixed.

My Favorite Quilt Shops - Homespun Hearth

I discovered this shop last Friday when I got an email from one of the hundreds of quilting and fabric sites I get emails from. This particular email caught my eye because it was for a special 50% off promotion.

I checked it out and they were offering a fat quarter bundle of Moda's Zippity Doo Dah line...40 fqs, and 2 panels, for the ridiculously unpass-up-able price of $55. While I never would have paid $109.95 for this in a shop, I couldn't resist at half price.

It shipped the same day I ordered it, and it arrived on Wednesday. What fun. It was wrapped in paper, tied with a ribbon, and hanging from the ribbon was a little 'fabric pocket'. In the pocket was a teabag, a tiny envelope full of marigold seeds, and a business card stating "Wish we could join you for some tea!" thanking me for my order. Too cute. (Apparently somehow this fabric pocket is going to come into play for some other promotion coming up).

The fqs were packaged by the shop (and tied with a strip of fabric), but no matter, it's the Moda fabric. (And seroiusly, how many printed Moda tapes does one need). It was also short one fq (only 39), but while I sent the shop owner an email to let her know, I didn't ask her to send a replacement, as at $55.00 for 39 fat quarters and 2 panels of Moda fabric, I couldn't, in good conscience, ask for one (I already feel like I 'stole' the bundle with the deal I got).

They also included a cheery little one page newsletter, which was nice, and a 5% discount on my next order coupon printed out with my online receipt.

The shop has weekly specials, as well as a good selection of sale merchandise, and their prices are slightly less than our local shops charge for yardage.

I'll be eagerly anticipating their Friday 50% off sales each week. At those prices, I've graduated from jelly rolls and charm squares to fat quarter bundles. Though, I do feel like I need to purchase regular priced merchandise as well, to show my appreciation for the deep discounts they offer.

Finished My First Quilt

I fell in love with the Moda Posh fabric line a few weeks ago so I ordered a jelly roll and a pack of charm squares. ('Jelly Roll'....how cute is that!). Anyway, admidst all the various projects in progress I've got going on, I have managed to complete this quilt, which will be a cozy throw in the family room.

I really wanted to freemotion quilt it, but when I started it (on two separate occasions) I had trouble with skipping stitches. Now I am strictly a beginner quilter, but I just felt that something wasn't right, and it might have been the thread. Yet I really wanted ot use that thread because it was so perfect--the variegated thread that had all my colors in it, so I just whipped out the old Walking Foot and tediously stitched in the ditch along each strip and block.

I found the perfect pink already made bias quilt binding, so I saved some time there. Machine stitched down one side and practiced my applique stitch blindstitching the binding on the back side.

This was a happy quilt to work on because of the colors and the patterns, and I thoroughly enjoyed working on it

I'm so excited and can't wait to start on another. Hopefully I'll be able to freemotion my next project without having the skipped stitches. Maybe I should make a few sandwiches and practice, it could very well be 'operator error'.