Handmade Christmas

So the handmade Christmas happened.  Of the five people I needed gifts for who were involved in the "handmade only" gift exchange, I ended up making three gifts, buying one that was handmade by someone else (this was allowed within the rules of the exchange), and giving on "gift certificate" for a future handmade gift.  So you would think that making only three gifts would be an easy task and I wouldn't let it go down to the wire...but of course I did.  The good news, though, is that they all got done and I'm pretty pleased with them.

The gifts are as follows:

1) A set of throw pillows:

These I made for my little brother with scraps from the t-shirt quilt I made him several years ago.  He recently moved into a new house so I thought he could use some help with the decorating...

2) A covered journal made from the tutorial over on Exuberant Color:

3) A mini-quilt a.k.a a sketch:

My mom sent me Rayna Gillman's book as a surprise earlier this year, without realizing that I was already a fan of her blog.  This mini-quilt is the result of my early experiments with her techniques.  It was a lot of fun to make.  The purple section of the mini-quilt is a re-worked block from this quilt that I have a ton of leftover blocks from.  Perhaps more of those are to come.

Anyway, overall I enjoyed the handmade Christmas and will have to think about doing more handmade gifts in the future.

As the year draws to a close I'm starting to think about what I want to accomplish creatively in the new year.  I'm glad to be able to say that I actually made a few quilts in 2012, which is certainly a respectable thing for a quilter to be able to say!  Ha ha.  Hopefully I can keep this trend going next year.  I just want to think critically (as usual) about what specifically I want to work on.

Enjoy the new year everyone!!

Baby Quilt #2 For This Fall

Now, really, you would think I would know better than to let this happen, but apparently not.

I was finishing this up right before the baby shower this morning and in the craziness I somehow let it leave my possession without getting more than one not-very-straight-or-well-lit picture of it.  Pretty inexcusable for a blogger, right?  Hopefully I can get some better ones once baby gets here.



It actually is fairly straight in real life, and more crinkly since this was before I washed it.  But at least it's something to give you an idea of what I made.

I decided to machine sew the binding for the first time in my life and it was an enormously frustrating process, I didn't like how it looked, and the edges got distorted in some places due to my occasional total mangling of it.  Sigh.  However, that being said, I could actually conceive that with practice (maybe a lot of practice) I could achieve a machine sewn binding that would be acceptable to me.

I also used a medium loft batt so it is a little puffier than what I normally make, but I think that works well for baby.  The last time I was at JoAnn's batting was 40% off and I bought a bunch of different batts that I've never tried before in the interest of experimentation.  This is the first experiment.  I also only quilted in the ditch, which adds to the puffiness.  It will be nice and soft landing pad for tummy time and other adventures.

Approximately 36x48"

Baby Ready

So baby quilt #1 of fall 2012 = accomplished.  And it's a very good feeling.









There is one more baby quilt I am definitely going to do this fall, and others that are more optional depending on how much time I end up having, so we'll see what I come up with!

My family and I also agreed to give all handmade presents for Christmas this year - they can be handmade by someone else and purchased by me, but all handmade.  However my goal is to make everything myself rather than buy things handmade by others, so I need to get started on that very soon as well.  Hopefully I am not biting off more than I can chew.  You never know with me though.

Just in Time for Sweater Weather

I say all the time that I love living in a place with four seasons.  It's not that this isn't true.  I do like having four distinct seasons, because I appreciate the contrast and think that spring and summer would never be so nice if they didn't come after fall and winter.

That being said, there are few people you hear complaining more at the end of summer than me.  There are lots of wonderful things about fall, certainly.  It's a great season in many ways.  But it can take it's time getting here.  I find it a little hard to let go of the warm, no jacket, no worries weather.

This year, though, I will be ready to go having finally finished this project...



This quilt/coverlet/blanket (no batting...what do you call it?), the early origins of which can be found here, is made from felted fool sweaters that I collected over a few years.  Most of them came to me pre-felted - either because they were mine and I felted them accidentally (oops!) or because I found them at the thrift store or at the shelter I used to work at already felted - no doubt rendered unusable to the original owner due to a mistaken trip through the dryer.

I love that this project enabled me to give new life to these objects that had been rendered unfit for their original purpose (being worn as a sweater of a particular size!) and might have therefore been thought to be useless.  I realize more and more how much we miss when we look at the world that way!



Backed with blue flannel and minimally quilted in the ditch.



It's about 60"x60".

Ring in the new...

Well, clearly 2011 has been a fallow year for me in the quilting/sewing/fiber arts area of my life, among other things. And that's okay. I think that if that's where the flow of life takes you sometimes, that's where you have to go. Right now I feel like I'm coming back around to this part of my life, or at least wanting to. Things are stirring.

In honor of a new year, new perspective, new priorities, I decided to finish this piece:



It is small, 14"x18", and machine quilted in what I like to call wavy cross hatching (I'm sure this is not a new idea).



I'm going to hang it in my office at work to remind me of my creative self...

I know some of you may be wondering what happened to the baby quilt of the last two posts? Well, what happened was, the baby was born. And it was a boy. So, I ended up gifting a boy baby quilt that I already had completed and on hand. What will happen to the bit of the folk art angel quilt I had completed, I don't know yet. It's going in the incubator, I guess. But I liked the suggestions I got of adding borders, etc., so we'll see.

Just a few other creative things I'd like to share. Check out this necklace my little brother made me for Christmas!!



Fun, right? It's awesome to be from a family of makers.

Last but not least, after seeing this tutorial, I have spent many a happy moment making paper snow flakes. Here are some I cut from our junk mail like she did in the tutorial, but I have moved on to every and any variety of paper.





Ah yes. So anyway. We'll see where I go from here. I obviously never claim to know what's around the bend for me or where life is going to lead me. But this is where I am right now, at the start of another year.

All the best to you and yours :)

Deadlines

So I "kind of" met my goal - the quilt was actually done by Thanksgiving but didn't make it in the mail until two days after. The few days before the holiday were just so crazy at work that I wasn't able to get to the post office while it was open. Although my friend's due date was next weekend, she had her baby the day after Thanksgiving (yes, the day before I got the quilt in the mail) so the timing is pretty good.


Baby's last initial

I'm quite pleased with how this turned out. To me the borders really did a lot for this quilt - gave it a younger, more "baby" feel and lightened the whole thing up. The alphabet border fabric was just perfect, and I had enough to put on the back, too. The quilting is really simple, but, well...it got done in time so that's the important thing!



30"x40"

Out of the Living Room

Hey, check out the photo installation of Chicago that my roommate put up:



Wait, what's that under those photos? Is it...? A? Quilt?

Why, funny you should ask...



So I don't know if I should call attention to this fact, but I just finished tacking down the binding on this quilt that I posted three months ago about hoping to have the binding tacked down in a few weeks. Good times! It had been sitting folded in my living room about 30% completed and with my roommates graciously ignoring it for three months until the last two weekends I finally sat down with a movie and worked on it. I'm so happy to have it done and out out of the living room, and I also really like how it turned out.

I, sadly, have been blogging so little that I think you can find the posts about the creation of this quilt top by clicking back one page of older posts. Finishing up reminded me how fun it was to make, and I absolutely got the effect I was going for. Throwing in a few fabrics that weren't quilting cottons turned out to be really easy and I like the texture that it adds to the quilt.



Thrifted sheet on the back. I had originally planned to do a pieced back but that was taking me too long and I decided I would rather get on with quilting it:



The quilting:



Ahh yes. So it feels good to have finished something, and hopefully it will inspire me to turn around and actually work on something else. Although I should have been made wise about posting statements like this, I have every intention of having a baby quilt done for my college roommate's Thanksgiving due date, so I need to get cracking on that. So...stay...tuned...?

As I believe I mentioned previously, I have been dabbling in making jewelry, which has been taking up some of the creative time I might otherwise spend quilting. I have a lot to learn, but I have enjoyed playing around with it. Anyway, here is a small selection of jewelry I have made:







Life in Chicago is otherwise quite good. My job keeps me busy and is really draining sometimes but I do really like it. Friends and fun times in the city keep me busy otherwise. To all who are reading I hope you are well!

The Quilts of May

Mark your calendars - May 2 and I finished my first quilt of the year:







I still don't know if I'm going to donate this or not (I did just find out a friend of mine is having a boy...) After getting organized I realize I have 6 baby quilt projects in some stage of completion (including this one). My plan is to choose one or two that I like the VERY MOST to keep for gifting, and try to finish the rest for donating. And honestly I think this might be one of my very favorite of the bunch. So we'll see...but getting some quilts donated is still a definite goal, and it will happen! I'm calling it project follow through...stay tuned...

Gifted

I have not had much to share the past few weeks partly because I was rushing to finish two quilts that were both gifted this weekend. I traveled out of town to a wedding and one quilt went to the bride & groom while the other went to some friends who hosted me along the way. I was in such a mad rush the day I left on the trip that I only had time to take a few quick pictures. They did not come out very well, but they're all I've got!

This first quilt is made with a set of charm squares from So You Sew Fun II line from RJR. I bought them half price from the Fat Quarter Shoppe. I'm sure many of us have done this because charm square packs are not very expensive in the first place, and then when they go on sale they seem like a very affordable price for a little piece of inspiration. Although I'm sure there are a million things you can do with them, I'm not sure if they really fit into my personal way of working. (Maybe I need to be more creative.) However, I think this quilt works no matter how simple the design may be, and it has a modern feel to it that I thought would be good for the college friends who hosted me the first night of my journey. They are good friends and the quilt was less of a hostess gift and more of a "good friends" gift.





The second gift was this improv log cabin quilt I posted about recently. This quilt went from beginning to end in a very short span of time! At least by my standards. It is hand quilted with black #8 pearl cotton in a baptist fan pattern. The quilting went so quickly! Those baptists knew what they were doing. Of course I did not mark the fans at all so they are pretty wonky in some places, but I think it works with the overall feel of the quilt. This went to the bride & groom, and I hope they will like it.


(This quilt actually quite possibly lays flatter than any quilt I've ever made, but the wind was blowing it in this picure).

Another Quilted Garden

I am back in Illinois after a very pleasant trip to Texas. Shortly after returning I finished this quilt that I've been hand quilting since February or so. It was almost completely done before my trip. I only had about half the binding left to sew down, so I got that done fairly quickly after getting back.

This quilt is really a collaboration between me and my Aunt. She did the hard part - she needle turn appliqued all of the gorgeous flower blocks and gave them to me as a gift. I assembled the top and did the quilting.



I think the quilt is 60 x 90ish. It is photographed on a queen size bed here. I think it would probably fit a twin bed pretty nicely.







As much as I love this quilt (and I do), after hand quilting two predominantly yellow quilts in a row I am feeling very ready to work with another color for a while!

I have been slow getting back into my old routines since returning from my trip - namely sewing, blogging, and reading blogs. In the last two weeks I found and started a summer job and signed up to do some volunteering, and those things have taken up most of my time. I think I will continue to ease back into things.

Rose Garden

I am safely arrived in Texas, so it's safe to say that you may not hear lots from me in coming days/weeks. Before leaving Illinois I did manage to finish patching the blown out seams on the project I mentioned in my previous post.



This top was sewn many years ago, but has languished in the closet forever due to my lack of quilting skills. Because it is foundation pieced on muslin, I thought it would be too thick for hand quilting. At the time I made it I didn't yet machine quilt, and when I started machine quilting I didn't think I was good enough to work on this, since I'm particularly fond of it. Now my machine quilting skills are slightly better, but more importantly I decided I would rather have it finally finished so it can be enjoyed.

I'm fairly happy with the quilting, but the good news is that you can barely see most of it, anyway. There is a grid of wavy lines in the center section, and a vine in the border (no leaves).



Most of my photos did not turn out great, but the thing I love about this quilt is hard to capture in photos anyway - the texture created by using the stitch-and-flip method to create the field of green surrounding the flowers. I got the idea to make flowers this way when I was sewing my crazy quilt, which used the stitch-and-flip method. Revisiting this project made me want to think creatively about other ways to use the same method to create different effects.



If I come across anything interesting and fiber related down here I will post, otherwise I'll be back in a bit. I will try to find time to read blogs, too, but if you don't hear from me for a while, know that I promise to catch up later.

A Successful Experiment

My Color Block Quilt made from t-shirt scraps is quilted and bound. I love the way it turned out. I wish there was some way I could photograph the texture, or that you could reach through your screen and touch it. It is backed with a thick flannel sheet and the end product is super soft and cuddly. I think this would be a great gift quilt - perfect for going off to college or a first apartment. This particular version would be great for a guy, too.

See, cuddly:



When making more traditional t-shirt quilts, I back the designs I want to use with featherweight fusible interfacing to stabilize them during construction. For this experiment I heavily starched the fabric instead of using interfacing. I was hoping that this would make the fabric manageable to piece with but, since when it was all finished it would wash out, the fabric would retain all its t-shirt character (I guess rinse away interfacing would be an option, too).

I also used fusible batting (scraps) - in this case it was a particularly apt application of the product, because it further immobilized the knit fabric to keep it from pulling around during quilting. Once washed and dried it does have a great texture, the jersey fabric stayed soft, and the top is flat. The flannel on the back actually moved around more than the knit during quilting, since I paid less attention to it (unfortunately). (As so often happens when machine quilting, the back is my least favorite part of this quilt.)



It is 48"x60". A nice throw size. So long story short, I am pleased with the results of this experiment, and am already brainstorming the pattern for the remaining t-shirt scraps I have...still a lot. While you're waiting for that, you can hop over to see Michael's experiment with t-shirt fabric, and the other cool things he is doing with scraps.

Pillow Case Quilt

This is another experiment in recycled fabrics. The top is made from six different pillowcases obtained from the linen closet clean out at the shelter. The back is an old flannel sheet retired from regular use. I used batting scraps and yardage from my stash for the binding.



The top section of the top is one pillowcase with a continuous design that I wanted to preserve. I kept the original seam in the middle. The colors are very subtle, so it was hard to photograph. It is a floral design that is solid across the bottom of the pillowcase and continues towards the top, but fades away. You can somewhat see the quilting in the top section, which I am pretty happy with because it is the first time I have done any machine quilting that wasn't just straight lines.





I learned a lot in making this, especially about working with poly/cotton blends. For example, you have to use a cooler iron. Yes, I am sure that's probably obvious to other people, but I did not quite catch on right away. Also, I don't know if it was the fiber content, the weight of the fabrics, the too hot iron, or...?, but it did not work terribly well with the fusible batting scraps I used. I normally like fusible batting and have used it almost exclusively, but I had to patch over stains from the fusible in a couple of places. (Having your iron the right temperature is crucial with fusible batting, and I think I needed to lower the temperature even more for these fabrics).



Not my usual colors, but it is a gift for a friend's 30th birthday next week. I think she will like it. About 50"x60".