A First For Everything

And today’s first would be my first time in “print”.  I am one of “55 Rad Blogs” mentioned in the April/May 2010 issue of Quilter’s Home.  I had no idea until Joan let me know this morning.  (A big thank you to Joan!)  I usually flip through the Quilter’s Home magazine at the bookstore, but for some reasons didn’t when I was there the other day.  So while at the grocery store today, I made sure to pick up a copy.  I always enjoy reading Quilter’s Home, but don’t seem to pick it (or any magazine for that matter) off the shelves much anymore.  I guess I got out of the magazine habit with the economy the way it was.  It was amazing to have my little blog mentioned among so many talented bloggers.  Joan was in there of course, and Anna Maria Horner, Tula Pink, Moda Bake Shop, Amy, Allison…  So many.  You will just have to hurry and get your copy and read all the great blogs that were mentioned.  Thanks Quilter’s Home magazine and Quilter’s Home readers for mentioning little ol’ me!

Checking In

That’s kind of what it feels like.  I have been so busy with life in general these last few months that my blog has been neglected.  My blog header should be exhibit #1.  It’s been up there since January.  Time to think about something new.  Give me a few days to think about it.  Maybe I’ll get to it by May!  I had to share my newest camera to enter my collection.  I swear my mom has the luck of the gods on her side when she goes antiquing.  She always finds the camera’s I am currently looking for.  This is the camera I wanted to really do TtV photography properly.  She was heading out to some antique shops and I said “Don’t forget to look for the Duaflex.”  And wouldn’t you know it, she found it…and for $9!  They go for quite a bit more than that on EBay.  I’m a lucky kid to have such a lucky mom.

Next on the blog agenda is to mention Kathy’s call for help.  Kathy and I have become great blog friends over the last year, I’m sure you all remember the mini accordion album she made for me with Brice’s photos.  (I love it, it’s going up on Brice’s new shelf above his bed).  I will let you head on over to her blog and read the story, but the short of it is she is looking for 8.5” pinwheel blocks for quilts for babies in the IMCU (I believe this is like a NICU) at her local women’s hospital in Winnipeg.  Her son Lawson spent some time there and is coming up on his first birthday and she would like to surprise the nurses with some goodies and quilts for babies that are spending some time there.  She is also looking for small quilts and there is a giveaway planned for participants.  I will be making up as many blocks as I can and sending them on.  It’s a great scrap basket project.

Look!  I DID get my new mascara.  It’s nice to have new mascara again.  Two years was way too long to wait for new mascara.  Especially for my sensitive eyes.  Next on the agenda is to get some new eye shadow.  One step at a time. 

New Quilt + Pattern Writing

Technically the “writing” part is finished and now it’s on to the testing phase.  I’ve drawn all my diagrams, made my charts and written my pattern.  It’s even been sent off for some proof reading and testing.  

But it will still be a week or so before it’s ready for release.  I am also working my way through the pattern with the Nicey Jane fabrics.  This pattern will be different from most patterns you are use to.  I have tables with checklists to help with cutting, and diagrams and tables to help with fabric placement as well as a layout showing where everything is to go.  It is the kind of pattern that my mom would always love to have when making quilts (in fact, a lot of times I end up making such things for existing patterns just to make sense of them).   I’m excited to release it and get more feedback.

This arrived in the mail today.  I ordered it from Fabric.com last week.  My friends little girl turns 2 next month (she’s just 4 weeks older than my Brice).  She is the type of person that you wouldn’t expect to like handmade items, but she really does seem to like when I make things for her.  I made her and her husband a quilt for their wedding (gifted on their 1st anniversary – I know I'm not alone in that one!) - and a nursing cover-up for her baby shower (and something else, but I can’t remember what).  I showed her another, more simple dress pattern and asked if her daughter would wear such things, she said yes, so I have a green light to make clothes.  I’m hoping to have this done in time that she could wear it for her birthday if she so chooses.  My mom helped me pick out the fabric for the dress, it’s from the Meadowsweet line by Sandi Henderson.  I think it will be a perfect print for this dress and I'm excited to see it made!  Has anyone made this dress before?  Is it true to size?  It says a 2T is a lot bigger than our 2T kids really are, so I'm wondering if I should make one of the smaller sizes.  Let me know your experience with this pattern. 

The pattern is Birthday Party Dress by Oliver+S and the fabric is Paper Snowflake in Banana by Sandi Henderson for Michael Miller Fabrics.

Dare I Say It?

I think I'm done folding fabric.  Every time I've said that to Liz in the last several days I seem to find more fabric.  She laughs at me.  I’m seriously sick of folding fabric.  I think my husband is equally sick of hearing me say “I have to fold fabric”.  But, now that it’s done, I feel like I can start on some new projects.  I have my Nicey Jane fabric all laid out and ready to be made into a quilt.  I just have some last minute planning and then I will dive into cutting it all up.  I’ll make sure to share stash photos later this week.

I’ve been faithfully keeping up with my 52 weeks of me.  I’m 12 weeks in.  Can you believe we’re only 12 weeks into the new year?  Seems much longer, doesn’t it.  I post these on Flickr, but for those of you that just read the blog I thought you might like to see that I am still a real person.  Look, I even put make-up on for you!  Speaking of…I really need new mascara.  I don’t think I've bought any since I was pregnant!  Oops!

TtV Photography Beginnings

I decided today would be a good day to start a new project and get myself away from folding fabric for awhile.  I’m almost done, but to the tedious linen/canvas/home dec stuff.  So today I decided to try some TtV Photography.  What is TtV you ask?  Well here are some good examples in the TTV Photography Flickr group, and some good examples on Etsy.  In a nut shell, TtV stands for Through the Viewfinder.  Basically you are taking your regular digital camera and holding it up to the viewfinder of an older, [vintage] camera to take your photo.  Hence the black around the outside of the photos, this is the empty space where there is no viewfinder in your photo. 

Ideally, you should have some sort of contraption set up around your vintage camera that your digital camera lens inserts into to help block out light other than from the viewfinder.  I haven’t built my contraption yet.  One step at a time.

I’ve always been intrigued by this method of photography, and I love my vintage cameras, and since it doesn’t require film, I thought why not just give it a try with my new Brownie (the more commonly used camera for this is a Duaflex, I'm working on finding one).  So I did.  Boy is my Brownie dirty!  I tried a photo with it as is, because the dirt and dust is some of the charm behind the TtV photos.  But this time it was so charming that there was no photo but dust and a blur of colors. 

So it was time to open the old girl up and do a little cleaning.  I first did some research to find what others were doing to clean their mirrors and lenses safely and then went to work with a little bit of glass cleaner on a q-tip.  Worked like a charm. 

Can you see the line between dirty (top) an clean (bottom-ish)? 

SEVERAL q-tips later, and lots of gentle cleaning, and the lenses were now clean again.  The faceplate got a little bath as well, years and years of dust had made it terribly dirty.

And here is the end result.  I took a few photos outside, but without the “contraption” built around the camera the lighting and ability to hold the cameras at the right positions is greatly diminished. 

So for now the extent of my TtV will have to be done indoors.  Maybe I'll try and talk my husband into helping me build something today.  He always likes a good project.  And I like to volunteer him for them!

Quilty Stuff

My Nicey Jane arrived!  Wonderful.  More fabric to fold.  Luckily the folding project is almost to an end and then I can begin work on this quilt. I have to say, I was not over the moon about the fabrics when I first saw them online, but once I saw them in person I loved them.  It’s funny how just seeing something in person can change your mind.

Yesterday I did some quilting for Liz on a baby shower gift she needed to get finished in a hurry.  I did the blossom quilting pattern, unfortunately it was very hard to photograph the quilting on the fabric.  It was beautiful.  You’ll just have to trust me.

Emily’s Memory Quilt

While I call it a memory quilt, some might refer to it as a bereavement quilt.  I was contacted by Emily back in January about making a quilt for her incorporating some of her mother clothes into it after she saw some of my quilts online.  Her mother, Beverly, had passed away 7 years ago (shortly after my own [step]dad passed away) quite unexpectedly of an aortic aneurism.  Because of my own loss of a parent at the same time, to say this project was very near to my heart is an understatement.  I gladly agreed to create a quilt for her guest room and thought hard about the quilt pattern I might use. 

When it came down to it, the clothes dictated the pattern and style.  Most of the fabrics she sent were jersey knit nightgowns of soft, romantic prints.  I knew I needed a few more fabrics to add in so made a trip to Fabric Depot to find just the right classic prints.  I bet you can’t tell which ones are which.  It all came together so beautifully.  I love this quilt.  It’s probably one of my most favorites that I have ever made.  Emily emailed me after she received it late last week and she said she loves it. 

I didn’t take a picture, but I made a label for the back with a photo of her mom (I had her send me) as well as her name and date of birth and death so that this quilt will always be a testament to her mothers life as it passes through the generations of family members.  Now Emily will always have a piece of her mom with her and any time she might need a hug from her she can just wrap her self up in this quilt.  Emily told me what a beautiful person her mother was inside and out and I can tell through email correspondence with her that it has rubbed off.  I have my own memory quilt to make from clothes we saved of my dad’s, and I think this was the prompting I needed to actually get to it.  So thank you Emily for the opportunity and the kick in the butt.

Organizing – Thoughts Needed

I have finally started the long road to folding and organizing my fabrics.  The cabinet these are stored in now have glass doors on them and so I wanted it to look nice.  Plus, I wanted to be able to see all of my fabric easily, and having them folded this way makes that possible.  So far I’ve taken two large tubs of fat quarters and pressed out the more stubborn folds and refolded them.  The right two stacks are all fat quarters and most of the middle stack is, too.  The left two stacks are half yards.  This is one shelf of 7 shelves of fabric. 

I still have a long way to go, but started in on the yardage yesterday.  Before now I folded the fabric differently and was all different sizes and just didn’t look organized.  Now I fold it so that they all come out the same size (no matter the length of fabric) and all have a nice pretty folded edge showing.  Anything under 1/2 yard (that isn’t a fat quarter) is sitting in a pile for now.  I’m not sure if I should fold them and place them somehow in the cabinet, or toss them in the [larger pieces] scrap basket.  Odd lengths between a 1/2 yard and 1 yard still get folded for the shelves.  And what do I do with all of my odd sized solid pieces?

So here’s my dilemma: how do I sort them once they are all folded properly?  Do I sort the yardage by color?  By designer?  By type?  It use to be sorted by designer and type.  I would have all of my Amy Butler and Heather Ross together, as well as sorted by lines within the designer.  Then I would have it broken down in to types : animals (dogs, cats, dog + cat – I have a whole shelf of these fabrics), children, stripes + dots, holiday, floral, etc.  I still might sort some stuff by designer and type, but for the most part I feel that it hindered me from pulling fabrics for a quilt.  I’m someone that pretty much takes a whole line and makes a quilt and I want to get away from that.  So I feel if I sort by color, and not think about the print itself, I will be more inclined to pull fabrics for a quilt.  But, at the same time, if I'm not wanting dogs and cats in a quilt, it would be better to know they were separate.  So maybe I sort some by color and some by type (holiday, animal, kids).  What do you think?  I’d love your two cents on the topic.

Folding

This method by Happy Zombie is a great way to fold your stash fabric, unfortunately, the fabric doesn’t fit on my shelves once folded in half (too long) and I don’t think it would work out for folding fat quarters.  Maybe it does, I haven’t tried it on fat quarters.  Also, I'm kind of lazy about stuff, and using a ruler to fold over seemed like a lot of work for my stash size.  I can’t find a tutorial, so here is a quick look at what I do:

1. Spread out your yardage, fold at the top, selvage at the bottom.
2. Fold the bottom selvage edge up to the top fold.
3. Fold from the top (where the fold and selvage are now) down to the bottom.
4. Fold from raw edge to raw edge (left to right or right to left).
5. Fold this direction again (from fold to raw edge).
6. And there you have it, a nicely folded piece of fabric with selvage edges encased.

This works for any size piece of fabric.  If I have a half yard or fat quarter I skip step 5 and if I have multiple yards I fold it so it is a yards length (36”).  If I have odd yard lengths (like 3/4 yard or 5/8 yard) I fold it in thirds instead of quarters (step 4 & 5), making sure my final piece is 9” long (1/4 yards length).  Okay, off to fold more fabric!

Finished!

I finally got some time to add on the binding and toss it in the wash.  I had this one all quilted up since before Christmas, but just haven’t had the down time to sit and sew on the binding.  It’s on now!  

My longarm was misbehaving big time on this quilt, so the quilting is quite terrible as I was trying to work out the kinks and figure out what was wrong (the carriage wheel was slipping off the track).  And then I was so pissed off at it that I was just rushing to get it done.  So it’s not my best work ever, that’s for sure.  But it’s for me, so I still love it.  My husband was even impressed by it.  I was surprised he liked it since it was pink!

I knew ever since I saw this quilt and started gathering the fabrics for my quilt that I wanted the brown seaweed print for the binding.  I love it.  It’s such a great contrast.  I had no real pattern for this quilt, just cut 6” squares and placed them in pleasing ways.  …well, I did first draw it out on paper and color in where the solids would be.   I loved the solid squares that were sprinkled through out this quilt and wanted to do the same with mine.  So seldom do I ever do a quilt for myself.  I love having this one all to me.

It’s Here!

My mini quilt arrived from Australia of all places on Wednesday.  Which is too funny, because the only other mini quilt swap I did years ago had my partner in Australia also!  (Hi Kate!)  The mini quilt is beautiful!  There is so much detail to it and honestly I don’t think Mandy could have got it more perfect.  I just adore all the grey fabrics out there, but can never seem to use them myself, so I am over the moon about this little quilt and all of it’s grey with the beautiful colored prints. 

Some of the prints even have some detail work with little beads.  And then there is the hand stitching sashiko style around each block.  This something in particular that I love about Australian quilters – there use of the embroidery thread in quilting/quilts and their use of beads and buttons for embellishment.

Now only was I the recipient of this gorgeous mini quilt, but she also sent along some goodies!  Vintage buttons, vintage measuring tape, magnetic butterfly, a beautiful card she made with fabric scraps and a little fabric pouch…which will be perfect for holding my hand sewing supplies when I'm working on binding quilts!

The butterfly is already in use on my inspiration board in front of my sewing machine, as you can see. 

And I've already put the vintage measuring tape to good use and done some crafty photography with it (might just have to be a part of 2011 craft calendar I'll be selling this winter).

She also sent along this great fabric panel with a wonderful vintage vibe.  I really need to think of something to use this on.  It would make a great bag front, mini quilt for the wall or a center of a larger, lap quilt.  I’ll have to think on it for a little bit. 

I don’t have any of my mini quilts hung back up on the walls yet, but I had to hang this one up immediately and I knew just the spot!  I think it is just perfect here and I get to see it every time I'm at my computer.  Thank you so much Mandy!

Catching Up

I’m starting to get caught up on things.  I’ve finished orders and now need to work on future projects and orders.  I am researching product for screen printing and fabrics to print on.  I’m thinking kitchen towels, pillow cases, bags…  I was contemplating sending some of my sketches to Spoonflower to print, but I want to wait until I hear about what they are doing to fix the ink fading issues first.  I went into Portland yesterday with my mom.  I love walking around downtown.  We only went over to the Park blocks to Art Media, but there is some new building going on there and it was so pleasant.  Lots of the trees are in full, pink bloom and it’s so funny to think of Spring already being here. 

I finished a commissioned quilt that I've been working on the last few weeks, you may have seen photos of it periodically on Flickr.  I am in love with the quilt, and of course it is hard to let it go, but it was a “memory” quilt and therefore going to a very good home.  I will fill you in on the whole story once Emily receives her quilt.  There will also be a pattern released for the quilt once my new fabric arrives to make a second.  I ordered some Nicey Jane for it today from Fabric.com for only $5.99/yard!

 
This was another commissioned project – crochet hook cases.  Kim loves orange cats and wanted another for her friend that loves going out on the dunes in her buggy.  So for her hook holder I drew a sand rail and embroidered it on.  I was nervous about how it would look, but in the end am very happy with my little sketch.

 
A Brownie Target six-20 has joined my family of vintage cameras.  I’m hoping it works as you can still buy the film for it.  They stopped producing these in 1952, so it’s that age or slightly older.  It looks to be in great shape, but even if it doesn’t work for photos, I'm happy just too look at it.  I need to get a shelf built for all of my camera’s. 

You should be seeing a little more of me these days in this space now that i’m caught up.  I still have real life stuff going on, but hope to be making some quilts for myself that I've been putting off.  I have a boat load of quilts to get quilted for my mom, she has been cranking them out lately.  I also have to get the blocks made and posted for the Quilt-Along.  I promise I haven’t forgot and they will get done, now it’s just a matter of staying on task.  Sometimes I have difficulty with that.  Especially when I want to create all sorts of fun things for my little guys room now that he has his big boy bed!