Slowly Swooning

The last week or so, I've felt "off". Maybe it's the time change? I feel frustrated, unfocused, and edgy. I thought maybe it was because of the full moon (it can't just be me who has trouble sleeping when it's so bright?). Then there's work stress, but then, who doesn't have that, right?

I know. I'm whiny. And tired. Mid-way through the week, I thought maybe some quality time in the sewing room would help. Until I started sewing parts of my Swoon block together wrong, and then I knew it was time for bed.

(Block 6 in progress. Also, please disregard my disgusting ironing board cover...thanks!)

I'm so close to being done, though! And by so close, I mean...I have 6 of 9 blocks done. Just 3 more! But as I am admittedly one of the slowest sew-ers on the face of the planet, it takes me an hour or so to cut all the pieces for a block, and then about 2-3 hours to sew, press, and assemble the block. When I'm in a good, productive groove, I manage a block a week, cutting one night, sewing the next two. If I'm super-lucky, I do that AND cut a second one, then sew it up one day during the weekend, provided I actually have a day off that weekend. (To the women who work full-time, and are moms, AND manage to blog and finish a quilt or more a month, I salute you--I don't know how you do it. I feel like a slacker!)

(Blocks 1-4)

(Block 5)

I have so much I want to accomplish, but Swoon is feeling like a big beautiful albatross right about now. I want it finished! Now! Especially since I have three other quilts waiting in the wings that I want to leap into. Normally, I'd just shift over for a few weeks, then try and shift back. But my track record on the "shift back" part is kinda shaky, so I'd rather avoid that if at all possible right now.

So, to get my proverbial engines revved, I had a play with a few different color palettes this morning. Nothing I plan to cut into quite yet, just a little juice for the old brain, and the eyes.

First, this delicious stack of Heirloom by Joel Dewberry, from the Ruby and Sapphire colorways. I chose to keep the greens out of it, and just ran with purples, pinks, and those bits of mustardy yellow. Those who have been reading around here know that I am typically not a pinks and purples girl...like, at alllll. But this collection really spoke to me, with the architectural, modern feel to so many of the prints. My plan is to use these beauties for Camille Roskelley's On A Whim pattern, which is what the Swoon-along group on Flickr is working on next (alongside another of Camille's patterns, Hopscotch, but I'm saving that one for another day...).

But there's another quilt in the works, and I have some test blocks I need to make in the next month or two. So I built this palette of basics in royal, navy, carrot-y oranges, and sunny yellows.

How can that not make you happy? I'll be sharing more of this one as we get closer to the summer, I think.

Hope everyone has lots of their favorite things this St. Paddy's weekend. My husband HATES corned beef, so we're skipping that and going straight for the Guinness! Cheers, and happy sewing!

Project Monogamy

AKA, finishing a project.

First of all, where the hell did January go? I blinked, and it was over. I had a week off in the middle, a stay-cation, marred by the death of my godmother, who I've known since I was hours old. The world is a sadder, duller place without her, and I miss her like hell. I spent most of the rest of my vacation in my sewing room, losing myself in piecing and color and old episodes of SVU on Netflix. Ask my husband--I was not a joy to be around that week, crying at the drop of a hat, not sleeping well, and no nerves to speak of. I'm on the other side, and I'm grateful I had the time away from work and people to get my act together. I'm also lucky to have a husband who just holds me when I'm a mess. :)

But from all dark places come bits of light, and at the end of the week, I'd finished my first quilt-along. EVER. My favorite fabric maven, Brenda, started a Bust Yo Scraps! quilt-along at the beginning of January, and boy, did I have scraps to bust! I pulled all of my blue, aqua and green scraps, then threw in a few odds and ends in gray and black. I cut and cut and cut and sewed for hours, days. I'm not normally one for sticking with a project to the end, and I'm still not sure what was up with this. Maybe because it was the first quilt I was making just for me, specifically? I don't know.

All I know is, at the end of the week, I had this.

Said awesome husband helped me baste it, and I started working on picking a binding. I thought I knew just what I wanted, until I pulled it out...

Have you ever had a different idea of what a fabric in your stash looks like? I somehow remembered this Tula Pink fabric as being much more green than this, but when I pulled it, it read paler and more gold than I'd remembered. I spent several hours kind of casting around aimlessly, pawing through my stash. I lit on this DS Quilts print, and decided to run with it. Two hundred and seventy-some-odd inches of binding later, I had this...

The quilting, usually my least favorite part, was smooth and easy and pleasurable on this one. I never know how the quilting will go--sometimes the easy stuff takes me ages and plenty of frogging, sometimes the ones I think will be more challenging are fast and easy. I decided to try and take it easy on myself for this one, and just went with straight lines about a third of an inch or so to either side of each block seam. I used Warm and Natural batting, which allows you to quilt or tie up to ten inches apart. My quilting lines are about seven inches apart across the blocks, and it made for a soft and cozy lap quilt.

This quilter finally has a quilt of her own. It has scraps of so many favorites, and it's backed with another DS Quilts print.

My first finish of the new year, AND one that would work really well with Jelly Rolls or Charm Packs, too. It went super fast, and I'm so happy to finally have a quilt on my own--now I can stop stealing the Madman's Man Cave Quilt when we're watching TV! (Although, this quilt, which finished at about 54"x62" after washing, is slightly bigger than the Man Cave Quilt, and now the Madman is whining about needing a bigger quilt, too. *sigh*)

Now, on to the next project! Hope everyone else had a good sewing start to the new year, and I promise I'll try and post again before March!

2011 wrap-up

My apologies for disappearing for the last month of the year. There were many gifts to finish, a house to clean in order to entertain (twice!), and general holiday madness in these parts. But overall, this feels like it was a fairly productive year, and the new year will be one of a number of changes for me...

First, the wrap up. I made a rather ridiculous number of bee blocks this year, doing multiple rounds of several quarterly bees, in addition to rocking out with my ladies over at The Beehive and the Peace circle of Do.Good Stitches.

The Beehive

1. Julies Block #2, 2. Julie's Block #1, 3. February Beehive block for Jo, 4. Andi's Beehive block, April , 5. May Beehive blocks for Kat, 6. Wee boats for Annabel, 7. The Beehive, Belinda's String Blocks, 8. The Beehive, Sheridan's blocks, 9. Tanya's block for The Beehive, September, 10. 3 blocks for Meg, December Beehive11. Not available12. Not available

Peace at Do. Good Stitches

1. do good stitches April, aqua, 2. do good stitches April, green, 3. coin block 1, Peace circle, May, 4. coin block 2, Peace circle, May, 5. do. Good Stitches, Peace Circle, June, 6. do.Good Stitches, Peace Circle, July, 7. Starflower blocks, Peace Circle, do.Good Stitches, 8. bee blocks, do. Good Stitches sept , 9. October block for do.Good Stitches, Peace Circle, 10. do.Good Stitches, Peace blocks, November11. Not available12. Not available

3x6

1. 3x6 Beehive blocks, Qtr 1, 2011, 2. 3x6 bee block, hive #28, 3. 3x6 bee block, hive #28, 4. 3x6 bee block, hive #28, 5. 3x6 bee block, hive #28, 6. 3x6 bee block, hive #28, 7. 3x6 bee block, hive #28, 8. 3x6 bee block, hive #7, 9. 3x6 bee block, hive #7, 10. 3x6 bee block, hive #7, 11. 3x6 bee block, hive #7, 12. 3x6 bee block, hive #7, 13. 3x6 bee block, hive #7, 14. secret, 15. 3x6, 3rd Quarter, hive 17, 16. 3x6 bee blocks, Q3, hive 21

4x5

Round 1

(Round 2 is still in progress on my design wall....)

One of the significant changes coming is that I'm stepping back from a number of my bees. The Beehive has gone for two years, and we've come to the unanimous conclusion that we've had a lot of fun, learned a lot, made new friends, and challenged ourselves, but life has changed for a number of us and we're ready to move on. I love that group, and I was really torn about the decision, but it ultimately is what's right for all of us, and I look forward to swapping around Flickr with them all in the future.

I also stepped back from the 3x6 after the third quarter, and am debating whether I'll stick with the 4x5 after this round. I will absolutely stick with the Peace circle of do.Good Stitches--wild horses couldn't drag me out of that group!

I'm hoping that changing my focus this year will let me finish more of my own projects, including making quilts with the stacks of bee blocks in my sewing room!

Finally, speaking of finishes, there were a few this year.

A little pillow that I whipped up just before the holidays...

A quilt for my mom and dad

I finished the scrappy Epic Adventure quilt for little Leah

And I completed the baby quilt for Leah's new little sister, Cadie

I also made a set of placemats back in March for the Urban Home Goods Swap, round 3.

And made a special little block for a secret project

That became part of a very special gift for a talented woman (Heather Ross) and her new addition

(picture c/o Mama Spark)

And waaaay back in January, I finished this little baby quilt for my friend Tori's new little boy, Ryan

My resolutions this year, with regard to sewing, are:

1) Finish more projects than I start. Seriously, I have so many UFOs, it's a little embarassing.

2) Use up some of my stash, especially some of the things I've been hoarding. Wonderland layer cake, I'm lookin at you.

3) Finish more projects, full stop. It tends to be my least favorite part of the process, the basting and actual quilting, so I need to push through that and complete more. I'm setting myself a lofty goal of finishing 10 quilts in 2012. Let's see if I can manage that, eh?

4) Make a few scrap quilts. I'm actually tackling this one early on, as I have two scrappy UFOs already in progress, and just need to get moving on the sashing and putting together of tops for these.

Wishing you all a happy and healthy New Year, full of more good than bad, more happy than sad, and many warm quilts. Thank you for spending 2011 with me, and I look forward to seeing you all in 2012.

do. Good Stitches

I love working on scrappy projects, and in particular, digging through buckets and bags of scraps for just the right pieces. And that's one of the reasons I enjoy sewing for the do.Good Stitches beeevery month (I'm in the Peace Circle). For October, Paula asked us to make word blocks using the methods from Word Play Quilts by Tonya Ricucci. It was so much fun! Paula started us off with "Today, I will..." and then we each had to pick a word or phrase. I chose...

"Celebrate" as my word. I love the palette she gave us--vibrant yellows, reds and aquas with touches of linen--it all makes the white letters stand out beautifully. And now, off it goes to be put with the other great blocks from my fellow bees, and I get to look forward to what we're doing next month!

I'm a sewing machine!

Or something like that.

I've been a bit of a sew-a-holic the last couple of weekends, and I've finally got a bit to show for it!

I've gotten my blocks all done for one of my (two) hives in the current round of the 3x6 bee over on flickr. It's my hive with the other caretakers, and I really hope they don't mind that I had a bit of a play in my scraps for their blocks, because I had such fun.


I decided to revisit the tutorial from Elizabeth's blog, which I've done for a couple of bees in the past. Truth is, I love improv sewing and messing with my scraps, so this block never fails to make me happy when sewing. Hoping to get out of my own way long enough to get them shipped this week!

I was on a roll Saturday, and had a bit of time before I was due to meet my dad for dinner (Mom's out of town visiting college pals, so it was time for some father-daughter quality time!), so I cranked out my September blocks for do. Good Stitches, the Peace Circle, too.


Star blocks using Allison's tutorial over at her blog, Cluck Cluck Sew. I love Allison's work, and I love the color combination that Lisa gave us for these blocks--red, gray, white, and the occasional little pop of additional color. In my case, that pop was the orange chairs on that Tufted Tweets fabric--I wasn't sure about that line when it was released, but honestly, that chair print has seriously grown on me.

Working to finish getting caught up on ALL of my blocks, because I have baby quilts to make! Two of my friends are due in just a few months, and I need to get cracking!

Progress?

I can't say that my design wall has changed much in the last month or so. I've developed a wicked charity sewing habit lately, it seems! I think for me, charity sewing is like joining a bee. I think my favorite part of quilting is making blocks, and both bees and my recent charity sewing ( Just One Star, Log Cabins for Japan) allow me to indulge in making some blocks and then moving on to something else. I don't know, I guess I'm finding it rather liberating!


April will also be my first month taking part in the do. Good Stitches Charity bee on flickr, a project started by the talented Rachel Hauser. I'm so excited! My circle's first round is being led by Katie, and she's asking us to use a brilliant tutorial by Elizabeth of Don't Call Me Betsy. I had a little time the other night to dig into my scraps and try out a block...



The light in here is weird today--that light color actually is Kona White. Can I just tell you how much fun this block is? And with the surplus of scraps going on over here, it just eats them right up! I've sorted through and pulled for the two blocks I'm making for the April quilt.


So you can see what I'll be up to this weekend! (I'm almost disappointed I have a wedding to go to tonight--I'd rather be sewing!)

Also, just a little thank you for everyone's kindness in putting up with me being a bit whiny in my last post. We all have our days, right? Good news it that the treatment seems to have helped, and I'm feeling quite a bit better! Whew!