Resolutions and the State of the Stash

So here're my quilting/crafting related resolutions, plus an assessment of where I stand on current projects and a reflection on my stash. In some ways this long post is really more for me than for my readers, so if you don't feel like reading all this, scroll down for a couple of pictures.

Resolutions

1. Buying fabric - I really do want to minimize the amount of fabric that I buy, but since I doubt that I will be able to stop completely, I want to focus on only buying things that fill in holes in my stash: browns, greys, oranges, bigger pieces, polka dots, solids. And some other stuff that I probably haven't thought of yet. More on stash below.
   
2. Finishing - this will just be the continuation of what has already been going on lately for me. I will continue to make finishing older projects a priority.
   
3. Prioritizing projects - when I start new things they need to be the projects I am most committed to, not necessarily the funnest sounding new thing I just thought of. I have at least one typed page of project ideas, and that is only the titles with maybe a couple word description. We're not talking paragraphs or anything. I will probably continue to have new ideas. As the speed of my ideas seems to outpace the speed of my production, I need to prioritize what I work on. (That said, some scrap projects will have to be a priority, as I am drowning in scraps.) I kind of have a sense of which long languishing ideas need to be a priority, but as they're probably only meaningful to me at this point, you all will just have to stay tuned.
   
4. Trying new things - I really want to push myself to try new techniques. Things like curved piecing, working with diamonds, set-in seams, applique with more than one shape, etc. I think it will be good for me to challenge myself. I have been planning a drunkard's path quilt to push myself into curved piecing territory, so that is going to be a priority, see above.
   
5. Learn to free motion quilt - I have saved batting scraps for practice, and I have at least one quilt top that I'm pretty indifferent to that I've been saving to be my first practice top. It's just a matter of actually getting going, not that anything in particular is stopping me...
   
6. Work on not-quilting crafts - I have a small list of other projects that I want to do. It's so much harder to get started on things I don't do regularly, and so easy to work on quilting because it's familiar. But I wanna work on some other stuff, too :) 
   

(Ahem. As for personal resolutions, finding a job and moving are at the top, bottom, and middle of the list. If I do a good job on those it will undoubtedly interrupt creative progress for a while, but that's the price you've got to pay...!)

We interrupt this word-heavy post with a picture. Block 7 of 11 for the swap:



On Stash

I realize that having a well supplied fabric stash is really part of my process, since I usually work from my stash rather than buying fabric for a new project, and I often take lots of inspiration from my materials. I think this is also why it's sooo hard for me to get rid of fabric since everything seems to have potential to me. The only thing I really have a problem with is the size of my stash. Sure, normally I'd say...the bigger the better! The real problem I have is just that I am not really settled yet, and I don't really expect to be any time soon. So having a huge amount of fabric stash means having to move it and find a new place for it with alarming frequency - in the last five years I've moved four times, and will move again as soon as I get a permanent job. Just for context, here is a picture of my fabric as I found it crammed in some storage space when I returned from Texas:



Yes, if you're looking closely there's a shoe hanging off that basket. I don't know why; this is just exactly how I found it. Oh yeah, and there was one more sweater box I found in another closet later on. And my mom gave me two boxes of fabric she is getting rid of. Of course I don't HAVE to keep it, but I haven't gone through it yet. Plus all the stuff I brought home with me from Texas. So you get the idea. I wish I could reduce the size of this just to make it more portable. Maybe I will just sort it not with the idea of getting rid of stuff (because that is too hard for me!*), exactly, but rather separating the strictly necessary from the less necessary. Then at least when I move I can focus on my energy on moving the most important stuff and decide what to do with the rest later. Like get rid of it. Or reincorporate it. (The latter is way more likely.)

*As an experiment, and because the bin wouldn't close, I went through my blues to cull whatever I could live without and would be willing to get rid of. I pulled three pieces, a fat quarter and two smaller pieces. Didn't help much. Now I'll have to try it again to cull the "less necessary".

Block 8 of 11:



On Projects

I have been fretting about having so many projects going at the same time, but when I actually sat down and took a closer look it's not really so bad. I have eight works in progress. 2 of those just need borders, but I need to find the perfect fabric and buy it, so that is currently holding me back. Hopefully when I get fabric those will be quick finishes. 4 of the wips are long term projects - things that are not on any real time frame, that I have been working on forever and will continue to work on for a long time. I don't feel and rush to power through and finish those; that's just not the kind of projects that they are. On the other hand...it's okay if they take a long time, but I do have to work on them occasionally! I won't start another project of that kind until at least one of these hits the finished top stage. 1 of the works in progress is my swap quilt, which I obviously can't do much with at this point in time since I'm still waiting for people to send me the blocks. The last of those projects is a log cabin quilt that is basically the one thing on this list I need to focus on working on and finishing. So not really that bad, right?

The finished tops list (could also be called the to be quilted list) breaks down in a similar way. There are 10 items on the list. 3 are in line to be hand quilted, and since I can only really hand quilt one thing at a time, there's not much I can do with those for now. 2 I am saving for free motion quilting practice - see above for my resolution to learn free motion. 2 are boy baby quilts (probably) so I am probably going to wait to finish them until I have someone to finish them for (probably). 2 I am not sure how I'm going to quilt them. They are both good candidates for free motion quilting, but in that case they will have to wait until I am "good enough". Otherwise I could quilt them with the walking foot, but it would probably have to be time-consuming, fussy, stitch in the ditching. So waiting to decide on those two. And lastly there is one that I am ready to baste and machine quilt anytime now and will probably work on soon.

Sooo... There you have a long explanation of where I stand creatively entering 2009. Actually there might be more, but I'll save it for another post. 2008 was such a truly wonderful year for me. My time at the shelter taught me so much and I was so blessed by the relationships and experiences I had. Even if my current state of limbo makes me feel like it's not ending on the highest note, it was a great year. I have high hopes for the adventures to be had in '09, so with that in mind...

Happy New Year! Hope you all have some fun tonight...I'm planning on it ;-)

Theatre Ts

This t-shirt quilt is my final finish of the year. This is actually the first t-shirt quilt top that I made, which I put together my freshmen year of college. At the time I didn't have any knowledge of machine quilting or the necessary tools to machine quilt with, so I knew I wouldn't be able to finish the quilt for a good while. Now in my charge to finish finish finish I have finally completed it.



These are my theatre t-shirts from junior high and high school. I have had lots of different creative pursuits at different times in my life, and theatre was a very important one to me during that time of my life, including both acting and working behind the scenes. I haven't been involved in any theatre related activities for a long time, but I knew I would never be able to get rid of the t-shirts, so now I never have to. I'm happy with how it came out.



I finished seven quilts in 2008, six in the final 2.5 months of the year. Not bad, all things considered!!

Little Bits of Progress

Here are the three latest blocks that I have made for the block swap. I have done six now, which means I have five to go. There are three groups of twelve people participating in the swap and some people are in all three groups meaning that they will make 33 blocks and receive 33. One group is just the right commitment level for me. I feel like I can give each group of fabrics individualized attention and choose a block that is well suited to them, rather than doing a more assembly line process (which is totally fine if that works for you, but is not my preferred way to work). I have made the bears paw variation twice and will make it at least once more, because I'm finding it's a good block for a lot of fabrics (most people sent at least 5) and allows me to highlight certain prints.







As hoped, I did some pretty basic stitch-in-the-ditch quilting on the rail fence and got it bound, wrapped up, and in the mail by Friday. The postman assured me that there is at least a chance that it will get to the recipient by Christmas. I have to admit that, backed with super soft flannel and quilted enough but no more than enough, it was soft and cuddly enough to win me over. It just goes to show that sometimes it actually is worth it to un-sew a queen size quilt top...



Because of the minimal quilting this picture does not look much different than the finished top. I really like the finished texture of a quilt that is minimally quilted and therefore not too stiff, especially for a throw quilt that is meant to be cuddled under. I do always quilt at least to the specifications of the batting, although in all honesty I might fudge it a little sometimes. I realize that a less densely quilted quilt will not have as long of a life as one that is quilted 1" apart (that is what I took away from hearing Harriet Hargrave speak, that and also that if you don't quilt your own tops you are a topper and not a quilter) but for a quilt like this I'm fine with that. If my friend enjoys it for 5-10 years I will be happy.

More machine quilting in progress...

Crayon Quilt

This is what I have been hand quilting on, and I took the last stitches on the binding last night:



It's pretty cute! The blocks are hand colored by yours truly (hey, if you don't have kids just do it yourself) using Pentel pastel dye sticks. I got a box of these right around the time I started quilting and was using them to decorate t-shirts, but I just had to try doing a quilt with them. I cut out a bunch of 6" muslin squares and went to town, drawing whatever I wanted.



The designs are a kind of playful, juvenile (i.e. badly drawn in some cases), but very fitting for a crayon quilt, I think. When I finished drawing I bordered half the blocks with blue and half with green and set them together in a regular straight set, alternating blue and green. That design was kind of boring and hard to look at - busy, I guess, but not and a good way. So I took them apart and reset them into this design, which I think is a lot more dynamic.



It is backed with three conversation prints. I like the variegated rainbow binding, but I kind of wish I had chosen something that would give it a more solid frame since it doesn't have a border. It works, though.



It's about 40"x40". A few more detail pics on flickr.

This was a pretty old UFO if I originally started the blocks right around the time I started quilting. I am still powering away at finishing things. With the exception of joining the block swap (and that's a big exception), I haven't started anything new since returning to Illinois. I really want to reduce the number of projects I'm working on at any given time, but that means I have to finish a lot of the backlog first. I kind of want to be the kind of person who works on projects beginning to end - not that I will ever be the kind of person who only works on one project at a time. But a few at a time seems more manageable to me, and would minimize the number of projects that get finished 7 years after they're started - like this one. I currently have eight tops-in-progress, and 13 projects that are at least to the finished top phase or beyond. Hmmm, what shall I reduce that to??

I also kind of want to reduce my stash but that's like this whole other can of worms... I just love fabric. Too much.

Hearts

Look! It's my baby quilt! As in the one that was made for me when I was a baby. Mom started quilting the year before I was born. I think she didn't know if she was having a boy or a girl so she worked on two different quilts. I don't know what happened to the boy version.

I was looking at this the other day and thinking...maybe this explains my love for appliqued heart quilts. I adore them. I have files full of pictures of them and plans to make about a hundred of them.

My first needle turn hand applique project, naturally, was a heart quilt. The top has been done for I think a couple of years, and yesterday I basted it for hand quilting.



This was the handwork project that I took with me on my semester abroad in Mexico my senior year of college. My second needle turn applique project, still in progress, is...the exact same pattern in different colors and fabrics. True story.



Stay tuned for the finished version of my current hand quilting project that I hope will be finished tomorrow at the latest.

Very Purple Rail Fence

This is the worksheet the kindergartners in "my" class were doing on my first day of substitute teaching.



I finished this top today. It was previously a finished top, but first of all it was too big, and secondly I didn't like it. I had the blocks in a non-traditional rail fence layout and it just didn't work for me. And a nearly queen size quilt is really too big for a quilt in this color scheme, especially for an adult, and especially since I didn't like it. If I might finish a smaller quilt that I don't entirely like, I'll never finish a big one that I don't like. Got it? So, I un-sewed an entire large quilt top and re-sewed part of it into this. And now I like it reasonably well. I don't think rail fence will ever be one of my favorite patterns. I chose it to highlight the blocks from another printed fat quarter from Block Party Studios, which happened to be the right size/shape for this. It's 56"x63", and will brighten up the couch of one of my best friends who loves purple (and I hope isn't reading). I actually hope to finish it soon. (For Christmas?)

LQS4 on craftster

So here's what's been taking up a lot of my sewing time lately: I joined a block swap. I have this thing about group projects. They always look pretty fun whenever other people are doing them. Some don't inspire me, but others honestly make me want to get involved. However, there are always sooooo many reasons not to get involved. For me the biggest one is having so many of my own projects to work on - both those I have started and the zillion and one ideas that are so far just in my head. And time is always limited, so do I want to use that time for my own projects or a group project?

After much internal debate I finally decided to join the lap quilt swap on craftster. I made 11 packets of my fabrics and sent them out to the 11 other people in my group. They will make me a block with those fabrics and send it back to me. I can add one I make myself for a 12 block set to make a lap quilt (or whatever I decide to do with them). My part is that 11 people will send me little packets of fabric and I will make a block and send it back.

I convinced myself to join by considering that I could use one of those "collections of fabric that I am always setting off to the side because they are great together but that I don't necessarily know what to do with". I was excited to finally get something made out of one of those piles. This is what I chose to use, black, white, and grey with bits of color:



The commitment is really pretty minimal; making 11 blocks in three months is pretty doable even if I'm working on other stuff, too. Plus it's a good opportunity to meet some other people on craftster. I know not everyone is a craftster person, but personally I really enjoy it. The quilting board is an inspirational place. Although there are many quilts from more conventional quilters that are lovely and often very creative, there are also lots of quilts made by hobby sewists who have never quilted before, and/or random people who just thought it would be fun to make a quilt. The result is quilting with no filter, so to speak - quilts by people who don't know the "rules", haven't conceived of the quilt police, and haven't spent tons of time looking at what other people are doing. When I first discovered it I clicked around the board for hours.

The most trying part for me, as a person who usually has a complete unconcern for accuracy, is being meticulous in my cutting, sewing, and pressing in order to make sure the blocks are exactly 12.5". I spend twice as long on this blocks as I would on blocks for myself. It's probably good for me; it definitely makes me realize (or remember) why my accuracy is usually off - I don't make my 1/4 inches very (or consistently) scant, I don't measure and trim throughout the process, I just gooooo for it. So while I doubt I will ever be this careful when sewing for myself, it may help me develop better habits.

Here are the blocks I've made so far....

S l o w n e s s

**EDIT** Fixed! It was some code from a defunct website that I forgot was even on here. Thanks to my SUPER tech savvy Dad. If any of you used to use tracksy, go in manually and delete the code from your blog (on mine it was near the bottom). Otherwise that tracksy code will probably slow you down, at least on blogger but I assuming anywhere.....



A quick additional note...Quilty the Libster loads really slowly on both of the computers I use. Today I tried stripping off all the gadgets and everything I could possibly strip off and it made no difference. I have another blog with the same template also on blogger that has no bells or whistles, but is equally photo dense (or nearly) and loads fine. I'm stumped.

If you're using a feed reader it doesn't affect you that much, unless you want to click over to comment. However, it drives ME crazy, and I would like to be comment and new user friendly.

SO...does it load slowly for you all? Any other blogger users had this problem?

Color Block Quilt

This is my latest finished top. It is made from the backs of the t-shirts whose fronts became this quilt for my brother. It was/is an experiment - an experiment in quilting with knits. Hey, the Gee's Benders do it. If you've ever made a t-shirt quilt you know it produces a lot of waste. As I do plan to make more t-shirt quilts I will probably investigate other potential uses for the scraps. A rag rug, perhaps? Pot holders? But up until now this experiment has by no means turned me off on the idea of quilting with knits. I will probably try it again. I would just like to learn more about sewing with knits, rather than just treating them like quilters cottons and playing the "fake it till you make it" game.

I know you're thinking, why quilt with knits if you have no real need to. I mean sure...you COULD quilt with knits, but why?

Uhh...why not? Maybe?

I can't wait to see how this quilts up, so I'm moving it sort of close to the front of the machine quilting queue. Making it third in line. So I will have to wait quite a while anyway.

The Greater Chicago Quilt Exposition

Virginia O'Donnell

I went to the Greater Chicago Quilt Exposition in Schaumburg over the weekend. The show features the "World Quilt Competition" and many smaller exhibits. Mom & I went to this show two years ago and enjoyed it a lot. The previous weekend was the big Fine Art of Fiber show put on by various Chicago area guilds, which I have never been to. We could only go to one of the two and ended up choosing the Exposition because it was a more convenient weekend and easier to drive to. Did anyone go to the Fine Art of Fiber?

Well anyway, it was a good show. I didn't feel quite as "wowed" by it as I did two years ago, but it's hard to say if that's a change in the show or me. But I still thought it was worth driving two hours for. (I've never really felt that way about the Chicago IQF, which I haven't been back to since the first year.) I also feel a little sad that I left the vendor section empty handed. Half the fun of big quilt shows is coming away with something amazing and unexpected or some unbelievable deal. Nothing spoke to me, however. Again, maybe it's me?

I didn't take tons of pictures because I was running out of space on my memory card, but here's a few of my favs, and you can see the rest in my flickr set.

"My English Garden" by Susan Jensen, from the Canada section:



"Little South African Picture quilt by Gina Niederhumer of South Africa:



"North to Alaska" by Anne Joule of New Zealand:



Oh, one notable thing I saw in this show - a hand quilted all over meander. True story.

A Trip Around The World...

I have finally finished my queen size Trip Around The World. If you are a long time reader with a good memory, you may recall that I was hand quilting this the summer of 2007, and trying desperately to get it finished before I moved to Texas. I came incredibly close - all I had left to do was 1/4 of the border, just one side. A little over a year later I finally finished that tiny bit of quilting, bound it, and here we are.





I really enjoyed piecing the Trip Around The World. It goes together quickly and it's really fun to see how the fabrics interact with each other in the final design. Pulling the fabric was maybe the most fun part, and I'm tempted to pull fabric for another one even though I'm not likely to make it for a long time.



With this finish I have finished three quilts in the one month since leaving Texas. This one barely counts since most of the work was already done, but I guess a finish is a finish. It's sort of funny for me to think about how I've used my time during this month. Creative activity in any form has no doubt been good for me. On the other hand, I haven't touched the scrapbook I bought for my Texas mementos. I haven't done much (hardly any) of the writing I wanted to do about my experience at the shelter. I've done some sewing, a little bit of that "trying to be serious about life", and a lot of...nothing. And by nothing I mean a lot of mindless activities that leave me wondering where my time goes. Things like minesweeper. Flipping channels. You know.

Maybe this "black hole" time (as I think of it) is just what I needed. Nevertheless, I am trying to think seriously about what I want my priorities to be and think of ways to make sure those priorities actually take priority. This period of downtime in my life is a huge blessing. I realize how privileged I am to have it and how short it's likely to be...

Ducks in the Pond/Songs in my Head

As I continue to try to get serious about life (i.e. start a temporary job, do serious job searching, etc. etc.) I find my productivity in the crafty area grows and grows. Fascinating correlation, no?

I'm happy to say that this is now a finished top. It feels good to finally have reached stage 1 completion on this since it has been such a long term project.



The block, according to my source (the book "Great Lakes Great Quilts"), is Ducks in the Pond. I can't find it by that name anywhere on the internet. I was mistakenly calling it Ducks Foot in the Mud for a while, but that's a completely other block.



The two-tone border is due to lack of available yardage on hand. The first thing I thought upon laying it out to take this pic was - should have mitered the corners. It honestly had never occurred to me. But I think it's fine as is and I'm not likely to change it. It turned out to be a very purple-y quilt. From the quilt's inception all those many years ago I was planning a blue-green border. And yet when I laid that out:



I didn't really like it and ended up deciding that purple was a better fit. If I was doing it over again I think there's a good chance that I'd think about border options longer, but I do like it as is.

This is about 45" x 55".

Pinwheels For Mari

This little pinwheels top that I originally blogged here is now a full fledged quilt. Baby quilts are so satisfyingly quick to finish.



I machine quilted around the blocks (about 5.5" blocks, the whole this is about 30" square) and hand quilted hearts in the a few of the setting squares.



I think it is so sweet that I basically just want to eat it. Instead I hope to send it to a woman from the shelter who just had her baby girl about 2.5 months early. Pinwheels are so cheery - high up on the list of general crowd pleasers, I would say.

Odds 'N Ends

This is what I was wearing one day. Not surprisingly I love color in my wardrobe, and I think clothes are a great way to try out color combinations that you only have to live with for one day. If you like them, however, you never know what they could be the start of...

This quilt was made for me by my grandmother. She is really more of a seamstress than a quilter, and that I know of has only made a few quilts, so I'm lucky to have one. This quilt used to have a doll that went with it. There are pockets in each block that allow you to put the doll into her cradle, bath, pram, or high chair. I was WAY into dolls as a kid, so I really loved this. Sadly I'm afraid that the doll has been lost to the ages... Then again, I have enough boxes in the attic here to make it possible that she has not.



Stay tuned for more quilts from my childhood! Hi mom!

Finished Medallion Quilt

Here it is, the big finish:



It is such a bright, cheerful quilt.

It's 60"x60".

I love medallion style quilts - I suspect that this will only be the first of many.

Saludos Desde Corn Country

It's long past time that I let you all know what I was doing. I safely set my feet on Illinois soil two weeks ago yesterday, and during these last two weeks have been enjoying my self proclaimed vacation time (which, however, ends today). The time has mostly been spent catching up with family and friends, staying in touch with people in Texas, taking walks to enjoy the foliage and fall weather, and a little bit of half hearted job searching.

Although I had wild visions of all the sewing I would do during that time, at first I was too disoriented (for lack of a better word) to do much of anything. I had pretty much all of season 5 of Project Runway to watch, so I got out a hand quilting project and did a lot of watching. I finished season 5 in three days - the quilting took slightly longer, but I'm in the process of the hand sewing on the binding. It should be done today, so...pictures soon?

Anyway, my mind is overflowing with projects I want to start, but when I finally decided to get down to some sewing I found that I felt compelled to finish some old projects before starting anything new. I HATE when that happens to me! So boring! The fact is I LOVE starting new projects. And whenever I do start them, I had better finish them right away or else they get boring! Not boring enough that I want to abandon them, because I still like the projects. They are, however, boring enough that I'd rather be starting something new.

So anyway, I've been working on this:



It is affectionately known as "the quilt that makes you have songs stuck in your head," click the picture for a bigger view if you want to know why. The center squares are from a fat quarter by Block Party Studios. I started this FOREVER ago. And it has spent most of its life marinating in a shoe box, but I'm determined to finish it. I actually only need to do four more blocks. I think part of the problem is that the block, while not terribly complex, is pretty time consuming to both cut and sew. I was rotary cutting for and hour and a half the other day and only cut four blocks. And the strips were already cut.



But I digress. I'm totally in the "powering through" phase on this. I hope to cut the last four blocks today. For as long as it's taken me I'm really pretty fond of it. I think it will make a cute lap quilt, and I will probably gift it, although I'm not sure who will be the lucky recipient. Who gets to have a song stuck in their head every time they look at it forever.

Donations

One last post from Texas. Probably the last one anyway. I had a couple more pictures of donation quilts that I wanted to shared. That is to say, quilts that have been donated to the shelter, not ones that I have made to donate.

I think this crib quilt is darling. The little bears have faces that were inked on by a marker that hasn't been very permanent so they've faded quite a bit.


This is a two sided quilt made of clothing scraps - wool, double knits, seersucker, etc. I love this kind of quilt - free style, recycled, unconstrained.

The front (or back):


That print that says "No! No! No!" also says "Yes! Yes! Yes!" in glow-in-the-dark letters. Cute, huh?

The back (or front):


I'm having the hardest time trying to sort through my enormous salvage fabric stash to decide what to take home with me. Since I am flying there are major space/weight limitations. I will probably send myself a package, too, but even still I'm not going to be able to keep it all. Maybe there's no reason to keep any of it. I didn't pay for it, and I could easily to return it to the donations pile from whence it came. The problem is that I have project ideas for most of it, therefore it's already taken on a new life for me and I'm already sort of emotionally committed to it. Not to mention the fact that I'm not sure if it will find another good home if not with me, and I'd hate to see any of it go to waste.

Well, somehow or other I have to part with some of it. I hate to jettison the flannel sheets since I see them as being so extremely useful. I don't want to let go of the linen since I've got a great selection of it. I want to keep the felted sweaters because I've been wanting to do a felted sweater quilt for a longgg time. I've made tons of plans for the pillowcases. Well, you get the idea. The wool blankets have already been re-donated. Those, at least, I was ready to let go of. I've let go of a few flannel sheets that were pretty worn out. However, I still have a ways to go, and the sorting will continue. What would you keep??

The Southern New Mexico State Fair

We got to go to the Southern New Mexico State Fair this last week. What a great time! I love fairs. There is a lot of great stuff to do at a fair, and I think fair food is only a small (if important) part of it. The fact that there will usually be quilts is a major bonus.

Apologies to the makers of these lovely creations - their information was not posted, so I have no way to give them credit.

These are my three favorites. If I had to choose one favorite, I guess it's this first one.






These tumblers were the favorite of several people in the group. It's hard not to appreciate a classic scrap quilt like this.


Not a quilt, but I enjoyed these displays of self portraits by school kids.