Too Long

OK, it's been WAAAY too long. How funny is it that I get the most done when I am the busiest. While I was on summer break from school, did I do any blogging? No, of course not! Why would I do this when I actually should have the time to? That would make too much sense.

Well, hopefully I'm back in action now. I was downloading some photos and found some shots of placemats I made for my mother, and thought those would be fun to share.


This first one is for spring. I love the bright colors!


This second one is for summer.

In Search of a Name

So, Wednesday Crafters don't actually get together on Wednesdays anymore. We all know we need a name change and we were discussing the options this week to no avail. We were clueless. We need a new name! HELP!

My husband stayed home tonight and cooked an amazing steak dinner. Since Yim didn't have anything to really work on, she decided to eat her corn off of the cob one kernel at a time. I'm pretty sure it took her at leas an hour to finish.



She was so proud of the result, we decided to take a picture:


Now, that's what I call work!

The rest of us...sewed. It was like a sweat shop in my house with two machines set up on the same table. I hopped on the machine while Angie was laying out her quilt between stitching and her favorite....ironing! Isn't that all of our favorite part of sewing? Yeah, not really. We were joking that we should hire someone off the streets to come in and iron for us.

My project is a black, white, and red log cabin. I finally got all of the center squares and the long strips cut, so I started the chain sewing. I have a pattern, but it said to cut each and every rectangle to size before sewing. Thanks to Fons and Porter, and the book that taught me to quilt, I do log cabins differently. Perhaps in a post to come I will blog about their method and show the various stages of my quilt.


Overall, I would say it was a productive night for all, from the clean corn cob to all of the partial blocks that are now done!

If we could only think of a name..............

Productivity

After a while of discussing life, men (and the weird things they do), school (since we're all teachers), and eating dinner, Lauren, Angie and I settled in and actually got some things accomplished. We popped the movie Juno into the DVD player - I'd never seen it before, and started cutting. It's funny how sometimes it seems like everyone is at the same stage at the same time. It can make things crowded, but I love it!

This week turned out to be super productive for just about everyone. Angie finished cutting her fabrics and laid out 1/4 of her soon to be king sized quilt. Here is the layout she came up with.

Next week, she'll be ready to start sewing the pieces together. I love the colors she has chosen. She's going for a less 'patterned' look, and I think that she's getting her desired effect!

Lauren just bought these fabrics for a quilt she's making for her mom. (She's taking a break from the skirt she got started). She got everything cut in one night, and we worked hard on the layout.


She's still not sure if she's happy with the overall color balance in the layout, but sometimes after an hour of switching fabrics around to make sure two (or three, or four) of the same fabric aren't overlapping, you just need to take a snapshot and put the whole thing away.

Next week, we'll be laying it back out and seeing if we need to move anything around before she starts to sew.

As for me, I took a break from the basket. I don't know if I made it too large, or I'm just needing a change of pace, but I feel like the sides aren't building the way I would like them to, and sometimes once I'm frustrated, I need to just move on for a while and come back. So, it has been added to my unhealthily large pile of unfinished projects. (Is this normal, or is there something wrong with me that I don't finish one thing before moving on to the next?)

Instead, I decided to start a 3 hue log cabin. I'll keep the colors secret for now, but I will say I got all of the center blocks cut and the strips for one color. I'm on my way!

This week was a great time to share "girl thoughts." That's why I love our get-togethers. I think all women need some time together, alone, without the men around.

A Cut Above

Well, I got together with the girls tonight to work on projects. Lauren has been working on a skirt, but she's planning to take a break from the fashion world to make a quilt for her mother. She is hoping to have it complete before she gets out of school July 10th so she can take it home when she goes to visit. For her, tonight was all about flipping through magazines and patterns for color inspiration.

Angie was a cutting champ tonight. We planned the basic layout of her quilt and calculated the number of rectangles she will need. I then taught her to square off her fabric and use the rotary cutter to cut multiple rectangles at once. She got through just over half of her fabric and cut 160 rectangles. Here's a sampling of what her quilt will be, but it is missing most of the bright fabrics, so it's not quite a good feel for how the quilt will look as a whole just yet.



We are hoping to get together again this weekend to keep going and hopefully I'll be able to make a better post with a more comprehensive picture once all of the fabric is cut!

For me, I sewed about two more rounds onto my basket, but was mostly teaching and chatting tonight, so I don't have much to show for it yet!

A New Project

Well, now that Angie has finished her first quilt, the baby quilt from my last post, she decided she definitely likes to sew. Yay! So, she is ready to make a quilt for her bedroom...a king sized quilt inspired by one she found at the Pottery Barn. The fabric we chose aren't quite the same, but should help create a similar effect. Here are her chosen fabrics:



The top will be a simple pattern of rectangles in various directions. I will post as soon as we have some cut and laid out. She is hoping for a look that doesn't look too 'patterned'. We'll see what we can do.

In the meantime, I'm still working on my basket. It's getting larger as we speak. I am shooting for a very wide base and short sides as I would like it to hold my scraps and make it easy to sort through them. The only problem... somehow my scrap pile grows even faster than the basket. I guess it's a good thing I like scrappy quilts!

A First!

Well, the basket is coming along, but not yet really anything to brag about. I am excited, however, that one of my fellow Wednesday crafters has completed her first project! Angie has never sewn before in her life (except the time when she was a teenager and her mom tried to teach her sew a flannel shirt). We purchased a kit from Joann's and decided that a baby blanket would be best because it is small, and if she hates sewing, she's not out a lot of money.


Angie was a quick learner and so easy to teach. She caught on right away. We did have to rip a few seams, but who doesn't? Well, a few Wednesdays later, and she already has her first completed project! I think it's adorable, and a great color scheme if you don't know the gender of the prospective baby. (This one is for Angie's future baby which she isn't even trying for yet).

It's Done!

Well, I can hardly believe it, but I have finally finished organizing my stash! It all fits! I am so proud. Now, I can actually start crafting and feel like I have it together! My next project: fabric basket. Here is the beginning of the basket:


Let's see how much I can get done in the next week!

Baby Steps

OK, so in a post a bit ago, I had decided it was time to reorganize my stash. To be perfectly honest, my entire sewing room was in complete disarray. There was garbage on the floor, nothing was put away, and the drawers for all of my crafts were a wreck.

I decided to tackle the giant. First, I got the room looking as if it was clean on the outside. Then, I decided to start small (the fabric stash just seems too much still!).

I realized that I had bags and bags of yarn and partially finished crocheting projects that needed to be dealt with if I ever want to achieve the perfection of a clean craft room. Time to attack the yarn. Here is what my yarn collection looked like before. I had to pull the drawer completely out of the chest because it was so bad!


I have never been a yarn "baller" always preferring to just leave it in the skeins it comes in. I never really saw the point in rolling the yarn into balls. Let me tell you, I get it now. Check out this ball of yarn's before and after pictures. The space saved is amazing!

Before:

After:

After I balled this first skein, I was sold. I methodically turned the rest of my yarn stash into tight little (or in some cases big) balls.


I am VERY proud of the final product!

Quilt Festival - Spring 2009

I was excited when I found this post about an online quilt festival. What a fun idea! The difficult thing was choosing my favorite quilt. The sad part was realizing how much I have made, but never took any pictures of. Ugh! Lesson learned!

Well, here is my favorite quilt that I do have a picture of. I made it for my brother-in-law one year. I LOVE the fabric because it is all done in faux suede, and as a result it is super soft! I tied it because I wasn't sure about quilting that type of fabric, and I just love the balance of the weight, combined with the softness.

For this quilt, my husband chose both the pattern and fabrics, which was super-cool!

Don't forget to check out the Quilt Festival!

Denim Quilts

One of my favorite types of quilts to make are denim quilts. I particularly like them because they are so cheap. I have let all of my friends and relatives know that when their jeans wear out (hole in the crotch, ripped belt loops, etc.) I would gladly take them off their hands. So, the only fabric I have to buy is the backing. (These are so heavy, you wouldn't really want to put batting in them). I usually use fleece for the back, but I know some people who like to use flannel or corduroy.

To get started, I first cut the hem off of the lower pant leg - this makes it easier to use the rotary cutter.


Next, I cut squares out of the pant legs. I have found that to make my life easy, I just make my squares the width of the ruler. My ruler is 6 inches wide.

I can usually get 6-10 squares per leg. The beauty of pant legs is there is a front and a back that you are cutting simultaneously, so each pile here is actually 2 squares.

Once I have collected enough denim, I lay out the squares either randomly, or in a pattern and sew them together. I like the fringed look with the seams facing out. To accomplish this, after I piece the quilt, I snip the edges about every 1/4 to 1/8 inch. I then add the backing and tie the squares at the corners with yarn.

Here is another one of my finished projects:

A Bummer Wednesday

Well, this week, no one came to crafting night. Some just no showed, and others were dealing with last minute tax stuff. I was planning on using the down time to organize my fabrics, but I just can't seem to bring myself to deal with some of the ugly things I have managed to collect.

Like this beautiful fish print I got somewhere:


I mean, what do you even do with a fabric that looks like this? Suggestions anyone?

And then, there is the dilemma of the mess my fabrics have become. When I'm in the process of choosing for a quilt, or whenever I get some new fabrics, I have a really nasty habit of just tossing them in a pile 'to be sorted later.' Then the pile grows into a monster like this!


Maybe by next week, I'll be writing to say that I pulled myself together and actually got organized. Then I can show you a neat picture of all my organized drawers of fabric. (Yeah, I've been saying this for months now!)

Getting Started

Every Wednesday, a few girlfriends and I get together to do some crafting. Right now, I am teaching a good friend how to quilt. Quilting is a great way to get started with a sewing machine. If you are interested in starting quilting, here is what I recommend.

1. Start with something small! A baby quilt or small lap quilt is a good choice.

2. If you are unsure of fabric choices, consider getting a kit where all of the fabrics are chosen for you.

Here are a few kits you can find at Joann's Fabrics:

3. Choose a pattern that is made entirely of squares. (Squares are easy to cut and easy to sew, so great for a beginner).