Strawberry Day

It was another “sick” day.  I did manage to leave the house twice today, but it was hard.  I can’t do this every month…feeling so sick I want to do nothing buy lay around.  But I’ll just have to deal for the moment.  At least I'm losing weight!  Got to see the positive side of things sometimes.  Unfortunately no crafting was done today.  Orders were filled and projects were thought of.  I was able to get some fabric yesterday (but those in the photo aren’t mine) at an incredible sales price, to make myself a new diaper bag.  I realized I have the pattern for that about half finished, so maybe I can finish it up sometime soon for the shop.  But you know how I am about getting those done.  Is it wrong to be a stay-at-home-mom and want a nanny? 

I did make it to the strawberry fields for about an hour tonight.  It’s the end of the commercial season and my grandpa’s friend let’s friends and family come pick.  So we got some super ripe, super sweet strawberries.  I’m going to make a strawberry pie tomorrow and then the rest will become jam.  Brice loved them.  After I picked one and had him eat it, he was in love.  He kept picking them and eating them.  I had to watch him so he didn’t have too many.  He was a mess!  But it was so precious!  There were so many sweet photos of him tonight, but you’ll have to head over to Flickr to see more.

It’s Going Swell

Well, I listed my two recent quilts for sale in the shop – Orange Sherbet and Far Far Away.  I always wonder how long they will sit there.  Seems like quilts aren’t a hot ticket item this time of year.  But one can always hope.  We met for block night on Friday, so I’m working on the tutorial to post for that.  I have some adjustments to do for size…test the piece again…photos… 

There’s also the binding tutorials to work on.  I’m debating now on if I should post those all at once, or just do them as I get to them.  Right now I have the “how to make binding” part photographed. 

I’m working on a “commissioned” quilt right now.  My payment is homemade carne asada dinners.  My mouth is watering just thinking of those dinners right now.

It’s coming along.  It’s a disappearing 9-patch.  I pieced my 9-patches, and then cut them apart again to re-sew.  I’m to the re-sew part.  Then sashing, and borders, and quilting, and binding…  I think I'll finish this one this week.  That’s my goal.  So if you see nothing but Swell in my posts this week, you know why.

Here’s the Lecien fabric I was telling you about.  I love the shabby chic, cottage feel to them.  I think I mentioned I have an idea for a pattern already.  I’m going to think on it a little more to make sure that’s what I want to do.  I will work on that after the Swell quilt.

Enjoying the Sun

We finally got summer back, after what seems like a month of rain.  Brice, my mom and I have been enjoying our local area.  Friday we went to Stevenson along the gorge.  It was a beautiful day!  But why I forgot that it’s windy out there, and decided to wear a dress, is beyond me.

We walked around town visiting shops and peeking in windows.  Here’s mom dreaming of a quilt shop in this building.  We stopped for lunch and then headed back home again.  A short trip, but still pleasant to take.

We found a quilt shop – isn’t this the most adorable sign?  The fabric wasn’t exactly to our taste, so unfortunately we walked out with nothing.  Yes, nothing.  I know, hard to believe.

Saturday we headed north to visit a couple quilt shops.  It’s the Western Washington Shop Hop this weekend, so I was thinking it was probably a bad idea to go, but the shops we visited weren’t bad at all.  The first shop we stopped at, Paisley Duck Quilting and Design, had a selection of fabrics I normally wouldn’t be attracted to, but I just loved the way she grouped her fabrics – like this grouping of purple fabric!  It made me want to buy fabric totally out of character for me.  I did walk out with a layer cake and charm pack, with quilts to make already in mind. 

We visited three other shops that afternoon, where I walked away with some Lecien to make a sweet little quilt.  I’m excited to work with the fabric and already have an idea of what I want to do.  Just what I need…another thing added to my “To Do” list.

We traveled pretty far, heading to Clatskanie, OR.  It’s beautiful out that way.  I stopped at a viewpoint and took a few photos of the bridge we crossed over the Columbia River on, with Mt. St. Helen’s in the background (which you can’t see because it was so hazy).  Today i’m looking forward to relaxing outside and some BBQ salmon for dinner.  I have June’s block tutorial to write up sometime today…but maybe that can wait until tomorrow.  It’s so hard to sew inside when the sun is finally back!

Finished! :: Orange Sherbet Quilt

Cause what else do you call an orange quilt?  Since it’s so summery feeling to me, and orange sherbet reminds me of summer, and it is summer…I think that works.  So in reality it’s an hourglass quilt.  I loved my red one, but I think I love this orange one even more.  I was going to keep this for myself, but now I'm thinking about selling it.  I’m still on the fence about it. 

I have a confession to make, I can’t ever decide which photos to post here of my projects.  I usually do one or two, and then upload a few more than that to Flickr…but I usually choose 20 that I like.  I feel like a dork for doing that.  But every angle is a new feeling to me.  I do the same thing when I take portraits of people.  I give them way too many options.  It’s something I've been trying to work on.  So basically, if you ever want to see more views of most of my stuff, you can wander over to my Flickr. 

Brice loved the quilt, too.  He had to rub it down.  That’s been a new thing lately, rubbing everything – blankets, floors, me…  I’m not sure if this is because I rub his arm as he nurses (or leg) or if it has to do with dad.  Dad likes to put his soft blankets down on the floor and rub them to get Brice to come down onto them.  Either way, it’s quite cute (and funny) at times.

But that has nothing to do with my quilt!  I know most of you don’t read our family blog, so I have to share a picture of Brice once in awhile.  And this quilt was the perfect backdrop for photos.  I am going to think about using quilts in more of my photos of kids from now on. 

Let’s see, what else can I say so I can keep sharing photos…  Binding went on fast…and I’m going to post sometime later a new binding tutorial, and ditch the ones in my sidebar.  I want to go with an easier to understand tutorial, more along the lines of my recent tutorials: quick and photo rich.  It will be a multi part series, starting with how it’s made and then I'll go on to how to attach it to the front and finally how I attach it to the back.  That way, a beginner wont get overwhelmed…they can start with step one and not see step two until they are ready.  I have some friends that haven’t done binding on a quilt yet and this will be a great resource for them, not only the first time, but time and again after that.

Alright, I’ve shared enough photos for one post.  Head over to Flickr if you want to see more. 

Sarah’s May Improv Block

Sarah finished her improv block!  Yea!  I just love it.  I actually love that she didn't use white, this way she doesn't have to worry about incorporating white (or another solid) later in the quilt.  She can just stick with her Good Folks fabrics.  I am REALLY loving that she kept her selvage in the center.  This is a great way, years from now, to remember the designer of the fabric and which line it was from.  Great job, Sarah!

Pink, Orange, …Zombies?

Recently I found a plastic freezer zip bag STUFFED full of pink fabric scraps at an antique shop.  While there may be a few vintage pieces in there, it’s mostly newer prints.  I don’t care.  I’m not normally a “pink” person, but I so love this bag of scraps that now I find my self looking more at pinks in the fabric stores. 

I decided to make a little improvised quilt with the scraps of that, and some scraps of white.  I am so in love with this little quilt.  It’s all ready to be loaded onto the long arm, but I thought I might make one of the quilts I have planned for my son and his friend so that I can work on them all at once.  They are small enough, and the long arm table big enough, that I think I could load them all three at once, lengthwise, and do all of my quilting in one swoop, instead of loading three separate times.  We’ll see.  I’m anxious to get this one quilted.

I did make it to the fabric store today and got some more full moon dot.  I know your thinking to yourself: Why do you need more?  Didn’t you already have binding on there?  Yes, yes I did.  And I’m not going to go there.  Surfice to say I DO make mistakes and this one resulted in me making all new binding.

It’s on there.  Ready to be hand stitched down.  Perhaps tomorrow, since it’s suppose to be gloomy and 68 degrees.  Our usual summer weather for June.  Makes it nice for getting projects done. 

So this must not have been a terrible book, cause I finished it in just four days.  Pride and Prejudice is my second favorite book (my favorite being The Count of Monte Cristo)…so when I saw Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, I had to get it.  I much prefer classics and romances to “horror” but this cracked me up.  While still the basic idea of the original story, it was sprinkled with zombies roaming England.  Though, not as much zombie action as I thought the title might lead one to believe.  The author stuck to the story, but added some new parts to it (aside from the zombies) almost as to fill you in a little better on what Jane Austin might have been getting at.  Quite hilarious are the “Readers Discussion Guide” questions at the back…even funnier is that they even have a discussion guide!

Quilt Shops + The Economy = Where Did You All Go?

I had a very frustrating trip today.  Originally I was going out to get more tangerine full moon dot.  I was going to go to a local shop up the street, but had some other stops to make in the direction of Hillsboro and thought I'd visit some of the shops I haven’t been to in a few years.  The economy must really have taken a toll – all but one of them is gone!  It was so frustrating to visit spot after spot and find nothing.  Now I'm really in need of some fabric shopping therapy.  So tomorrow I will make a trip to a local shop and pick some up.  Hate to do that when I was just out all day today “fabric shopping”!  So I know you’re all anxious to see the finished quilt, but it will have to wait a few more days. 

Instead, I thought I’d share some photos of quilts from a book my mom just got, and I think I’m going to go pick up my own copy.  I don’t usually buy quilt books but I love this one by Country Living.  It gives you ideas on using and displaying your quilts as well as the patterns to recreate them.  Have a peek:

I especially love this star quilt, but it’s not one of the patterns in the book.  I’ll just have to figure it out myself, I guess.  But I already have a list of crafting a mile long…so I’m going to work on that before I tackle something like this!  I posted more photos of the purple quilt to my Flickr if you want to see the entirety of my quilting on it.

Surprise Mail!

If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends.  You talk to your enemies – Moshe Dayan (1915-1981)

Last week, on my “upsetting” post, Sheri jokingly (or so I thought at the time) asked me if more fabric scraps would help cheer me up.  Of course I said that would make it all better.  Well, there was some mail waiting for me today.  An absolutely LOVELY bunch of “scraps”.  I say “scraps” (with quotations) because they’re is so much more than scraps here.  I had a busy evening, so I haven’t even unwrapped it yet to see it it all laid out.  I just peeked within the bundle, still tied.  I can’t wait to get creating. 

If your wondering who Shari is, she is the wonderful person that found my little scrap mini quilt and asked if I would be interested in her smaller scraps some months back.  Her scraps are what grace most of my projects these days…especially all of those great log cabin blocks.  I can’t tell you how much I love those scraps.  I dig through them almost daily for my projects.  I can honestly tell you it was the best gift I've ever received – and now I have more!  Shari, it truly did cheer me up and 100% made my day (oh heck, my week!)  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Coming Along

It’s coming along.  Had a little snafu with the binding today.  Not exactly sure what I did, so now I'm fixing it.  So maybe this week you’ll get to see it in it’s “full glory”.  Maybe.  For now, I’m tired after a late night out with the girls, celebrating a 21st birthday.  I forgot what being 21 was like and these great girls reminded me that I don’t miss it one bit!  It was so nice to be the sober one.  It was a rather interesting night…ending with seven officers showing up, and standing guard at our place of celebration, and drunken tears on our way home…I sort of feel bad for laughing, but I hope said crier will forgive me.  Oh my goodness, the stories I could tell from last night!  But this “old lady” needs her sleep tonight.  So – until tomorrow!

Yesterday :: Quilting

Not one, but TWO quilts quilted yesterday.  That’s got to be a first for me.  The orange one is mine and the purple was quilted for a friend.  Both were smaller than a twin, more like curl-up-on-the-couch size.  I tried a new technique on both, thanks to the help of 2nd Avenue Studio and her drawings showing me the gist of the stitch.  Of course it's not exactly how it should be, but I was happy with the look.  I’ll share my quilt when the binding is on.

Tutorial :: Improvisational Block

Spell checker doesn’t like the word “improvisional” so hopefully it’s spelled close enough. (Thank you, Mandy!)  Finally!  May’s block!  Sorry it took me so long.  Hopefully we can get June’s block up in June, and not July.  It’s just a crazy busy two months of birthdays for all of us girls.  Sarah, her husband and her middle daughter all have birthdays in May and her twins have a birthday this weekend!  We’re doing our best.  Okay, on to the [long awaited] tutorial!

Today’s tutorial is not the same as the last tutorials.  There is no direct way for me to tell you all how to do your improvised block, I can only lead you in the direction to free form sewing your pieces together.  I created my block and at the end was very happy with it – but let me tell you, part way through I wasn’t liking it.  But I just stuck with it and I'm glad I did.  So the directions in this tutorial will simply explain how I went about piecing my block.

First things first, go grab some fabric scraps.  If you don’t have any, make some.  Just cut some random pieces from your fabric (this is what Liz did for her block). 

Directions

1.  First I decided on what pieces I wanted to start with, knowing that I would add in more as I went.  But I wanted to have a good foundation of scraps to start with.  At first I thought I'd lay them out in a general idea of how I wanted the block to go, but then realized that wouldn’t last for long.

2.  I chose my first piece of fabric and decided to sew it to a white scrap I had.

3.  Then I sewed it in place and pressed it open.  I decided to trim my white, as it was a little on the “thick” side. 

4.  Next I added white to the other side and then (not pictured) added it to the top and bottom as well.  Squared it up some (nothing to perfect) and went on to my next piece.

5.  For my next set of pieces, I decided to sew together a bunch of the prints, no white yet.  First I sewed the green to the brown, then I sewed that to the vine and lastly I sewed that piece to the orange. 

6.  While that was nice, it wasn’t done yet.  I trimmed the orange and added on the gold sprouts.  Then I added white to the gold sprouts and finally white across the yellow-orange end.

7.  I decided to sew this to my first piece, so that I would have another white on one side of the block.  At this point I thought I might have it all encased in white as well.  But, decided to work on another block to add in. 

8.  The brown dot block was made similar to the orange flowers.  I sewed pieces of white to either side and then each end.  This time I chose to leave the one end long so that it would fit my main piece.  With all those fabrics, it needed a little more white.

9.  After sewing the brown dot to the block, I decided to add the blue flower print.  Originally, it was a lot wider, but I trimmed it down, thinking it was a little too much.

10.  I then added white where I trimmed away some of the blue.  This was looking more balanced, but now it was TOO much white. 

11.  So some pink flowers were in order.  That just balances out nicely.  Of course my next order of business was to trim it up to 12 1/2” square.

And isn’t it a lovely block?

My mom decided to do her block with only the fabrics she’s been using so far.  It’s simple, but still improvised and lovely!

Liz also added white into hers.  Remember, she had to cut some “scraps” for hers, and I am just loving how it turned out.  The fabrics really work well with all that white! 

As I explained, Sarah is overwhelmed with birthdays and the such so I will post her block as soon as she’s finished.  All of our blocks are added to the Flickr Quilt-Along Group as we complete them, and if your joining us in the quilt-along, please share your blocks with us, too! 

It’s so hard to explain something like this, since it’s all individual and something you’re just going to have to go for.  Give it a try, and see it to the end, I'm sure you’ll be happy with the end result.