learning curve and evolving

basic grey collection (left) with coordinates from stash (right)

curse me and my impulse buying in my early quilting days.

there was so much i didn't know about fabrics and quilting and myself yet.

i didn't know what kind of fabric i liked to use in quilts vs. what just generally appealed to me.

i didn't know what kind of quilts i liked yet, even.

i didn't know that fabric makers were going to make an endless number of new and exciting fabrics every few months, that i'd never be able to keep up.

i didn't know how slowly i would quilt and use up the fabrics i was buying, or that i'd get tired of some of them before i ever got around to using them.

i didn't know what blenders or feature fabrics were, what boring looking fabrics actutally could be the making of a quilt.

i didn't know i would eventually not prefer to make my quilts from one fabric collection only.

i didn't know fabric on sale didn't make it more attractive than when it wasn't on sale.

i didn't know i was the type of quilter who couldn't overlook a fabric i didn't like in a project no matter how i worked it in, that i see the fabric as much as the color effect it has and that if i don't like it, i will continue to see it there years later and it will bug me.

i didn't know that i wouldn't like working with precuts very much, even though they do look really cute stacked on a shelf. or that a layer cake is the only size of precut that you can actually make a full size project out of.

i didn't know that although there are unlimited numbers of wonderful patterns out there, i would mostly prefer to make up my own quilt patterns.

i didn't know how much of what fabrics to buy.

i didn't know that there was such a thing as too much fabric.
(yes, i just said that.)

coordinating solids from stash

i was just really excited about the whole new world that had opened up to me and i wanted to make everything and buy it all.

i wanted a stash and i wanted scraps, for scrap quilts, of course.

i made A LOT of rash and bad choices.
a lot.
enough to fill shelves and boxes.

for example, in the first few months of my quilt hysteria adventure, when i saw this basic grey range for moda fabrics, it didn't really appeal to me. but then i saw another quilter make a simple bricks-style quilt out of it and thought it looked so homey and earthy, better than i expected. and i was looking for more fabric to add to my stash. sure, i could make that! why not? and i would need enough of each fabric, so i'd better get half a yard each. quarters, fat or skinny, would have been more than sufficient, but half yards were more economical (per sq inch) and who buys skinny quarters? there's not enough width to do anything with them (so i once thought). so i got half yards.

eight years later i'm digging this stack of fabrics out of a box and wondering if i should cut my loses, or if the coordinating prints and solids i pulled from stash can redeem these fabrics to create a quilt i'll actually like today. (and this is just one stack out of one box of several.)

because my style is changing.
my tastes are evolving.
(these weren't even me in the first place.)

part of this is because in the process of making 30+ quilts over the last 8 years i've learned a lot more about what i like and don't like. and part of it is just the nature of style progression in the quilt and design world.

these are the kinds of things that excite me, that i'd like to make these days:

1.  2.  3. 

4.  5.  6. 

7.  8.  9.

here's what i'm discovering i like:

• simple geometric shapes, repeating or scattered
• improv
• handquilting, or at least touches of it added
• low-volume
• a very specific type of liberty print, especially mixed with chambray and handquilting

1.  2.  3.

4.  5.  6.

7.  8.  9.

• soft, pretty pastels (low volume)
• diamonds and triangles
• log cabins (a low volume would be awesome)

1.  2.  3.

4.  5.  6.

7.  8.  9.

• still hsts forever!
• i want to make flying geese
• white space for the eye to rest, whether literally white or not

1.  2.  3.

4.  5.  6.

7.  8.  9.

• bold, funky color combinations or those that are unusual or have an unexpected punch/twist added
• large spaces of color
• more solids, less prints (although i will always splurge on those on a backing)
• more solids mixed in with prints
• i reeeaaally want to make the purl soho tiny tiles quilt with handquilting

i'd say i'm leaning towards a certain type of modern style, even though i enjoy certain vintage looks, too.

if you look back at the makes i've produced lately, they don't reflect these concepts much. the "stella grande" quilts were a move in the right direction, but i'm not there yet.

see, this year has been me playing catch up with lots of really old wips, so there's very little of the new inspiration being used. but maybe i can incorporate it into the projects that aren't that far along or established yet.

i'm ready for change, but i'm going to finish some things first.

hopefully i can unload a lot of my stash along the way!

quilting fuel

the last two days i've had extended quilting sessions in my sewing room. i've been trying to be more mindful of taking care of my body while i'm at the machine or when cutting and pressing. i watch my posture and stop to stretch periodically.

i'm prone to getting dried out while working because i don't stop to get water often enough, so i've been keeping a glass of ice water handy. the chocolate just also happens to be handy because i keep it squirreled away through out the room.

my last two chocolate choices have just happened to coordinate with my sewing projects. how sweet.

i have to admit i'm a little concerned about the amount of lint i might be ingesting with the water, which motivates me to drain the cup quickly. flying lint and dust are hazards of a room with fabric to the roof and a whirring machine spinning thread constantly. better some lint ingestion than dehydration, i guess.

so that's my system: water refills and a bite of chocolate here and there keep me well fueled while quilting.

i needed a bite or two extra to get me through the quilting of "sugar sweet pinwheel" quilt last night. it was a complete wresting match between me and the quilt. the first half went fairly quickly, but the rest took a looooong time, thanks in part to a broken needle and many thread breaks.

but it got done! all in one day. i think that's some sort of record for me.
i even got binding made and attached to the front, ready for handbinding.

today i moved on to this really old wip, which i have dubbed "maude's chevron peaks." these two blocks have been sitting on my design wall for three or more years. i figure it can't be that hard to make these large hst blocks. i only need 20 for a top.

since i made four more today, i only have 14 left to go.

last night i found the other fabrics i had pulled for this project and got out some more coordinates. it's definitely old me from a few years ago, not so much me today.

i'm still not sure if i'm going to like this or not, but i am just going for it.

hopefully, there is enough chocolate in my sewing room to get me through.
especially for reworking the directional prints i got wrong.

needle sharing

late on a friday evening, i finished the quilting for "spare pennies" and got the binding made. i am working at record speed on this project. i'd like to think this is my new normal for quilting projects, like maybe i finally figured out how to be faster, but i don't see how it can be that.

this orange binding, made from a stripe from the "good life" collection by bonnie and camille for moda, is such a classic binding choice. it brings out the spring-y side of this quilt i was hoping to emphasize in contrast to the autumn tones of my first "penny patch" quilt.

i think i would already have "spare pennies" mostly bound if it weren't for the fact that it was sharing a needle with another handwork project:

"liberty makes do too" is also in the works and the needle i like to use for small stitching projects was already on some thread over here. besides, i want to get to work on this one, too. it's usually my sunday stitching project.

really, i just need to locate the rest of the needles from the pack and get another one out.

it had been at least a week or two since i had done any handstitching, and i think that showed when i started up again. just look how crooked that line is! it wanders and meanders everywhere. i actually unpicked it, which i am especially loathe to do with handwork. but i hadn't gotten too far, so no harm done.

i think the wobbliness might actually have been caused by low lighting that didn't allow me to see the marked line as well as i need to. the line always shows up crisp and clear on the liberty portions of the patchwork, but not as well on the thicker crossweave. and it had been several days since i made the crease marks with my hera marker. perhaps they had relaxed some?

either way, at least my stitches are getting smaller!
and both these babies are getting their stitches in turn.

don't scrap it yet - border it

***this is a post i made during the gypsy wife 2016 quilt along that never got finished or published. as there is a new 2019 qal going on, and i have had visitors checking in on my gypsy wife posts, i am adding it in to help the new gypsy ladies.

 gypsy wife has produced it's fair share of blocks that went wrong or pieces that are extra.

for example, there were extra triangles that resulted from fussy cutting a goat from a fabric scrap for the center of a bordered sq-in-sq block. i was able to use these red floral triangles for another smaller sq-in-sq block, even though they weren't exactly the right size. all i had left from the fabric scrap were 4 oddly sized triangles. one of the triangles even had a nipped corner. but i checked my required measurements for a 4.5" sq-in-sq block and found they were big enough, or even bigger than needed, so i was able to incorporate them into a block. the triangle that had a nipped corner was usuable because i placed that triangle so the nipped corner would be behind another fabric and wouldn't show at all.

also, i found a square of that green and navy AMH fabric i had fussy cut slightly off, which was also slightly too large for the center sq of my sq-in-sq block. by carefully cutting down a bit to the right size i needed, i was able to correct the fussy cut at a smaller size and use this piece, too. once i assembled all the odd pieces, i was able to trim it down to a perfectly sized block. i love my little make-do sq-in-sq block.

some of the extra hsts that have been made during the production of various other blocks, i simply used in the large hst blocks called for in the pattern.

and then there were the blocks that just got made wrong and were altogether incorrectly sized, like some sq-in-sq blocks i made in the very beginning. i simply read the directions wrong and got some blocks that were off in measurements.

i goofed this one twice! but i didn't like that border anyway, so it worked out

 this little center block here is one of them. i decided i could still use it by trimming the excess blue outer square away and adding another border. originally, the outer square was just too big at more than 1/2" away from the points of the inner square. so i trimmed it down to 1/4" from the inner square, which will give me points right up against the next piece. any time you have a block that is too small, use this formula:

((required block size - actual block size) divided by 2) + 1/2" = width of border strip needed

that looks complicated, but really isn't.

for example, i have a 3" block but i need a 4" block. (all measurements cut/unfinished)

((4"-3") divided by 2) + 1/2" =
(1" divided by 2) + 1/2"=
(1/2") + 1/2" = 1" wide border strip

in the above photo, i only added 1/4" for the seam allowance, when i needed 1/2" because i forgot both fabrics would be loosing 1/4", not just the border. you can see my block is still too small!

 when it came to this block, which was slightly too small (again, used wrong measurements), i just put it up against a ruler of the correct size. you can see i'm 3/8" shy overall.

divide that in half, and you have 3/16". that was a bit fussy for me, so i rounded up to 4/16", which is 1/4". so my border strips were 1/4" + 1/2" wide, which = 3/4" wide.

that gave me a block slightly too big. using my ruler, i just lined up the points of the inner square so that there was an even amount of fabric on each side of the points and trimmed.

and there you have it - three nice blocks i would not have been able to use that i made usable. the bordered blocks will be slightly different than the pattern called for, but in this busy quilt, who will notice?

spare pennies

i hardly know what to think of myself - i got this quilt top fully assembled in a few days! so unusually speedy for me. it felt like my first penny patches took for.ev.er and a day. probably because i was much more concerned about fabric placement with those.

penny patches can turn into a huge game of fabric sudoku if you care about spreading the fabrics out and get really caught up in the balance of everything. but since this was a quilt of leftovers, that happened a lot less. it was kind of like, "well, let's just get these pieces used and this top made."

i did end up with two of those large blue squares caddy-corner to each other, but it's not that big a deal. in reality, i kind of wish i hadn't used them in this project at all. without them, this would have a much lighter, low-volume feel. but that's ok.

what is a little sad to me is that i thought all the pieces of the fabrics i used for this quilt were in the same box and had to pull some other fabrics to fill in the squares i needed to make the full top. and i had to purchase/order backing fabrics, which i got enough of for two more quilts. then, when i was cleaning out my sewing room yesterday, i found a whole stack of these fabrics piled away in a place i didn't at all expect! ugh. i could have made the quilt a little more cohesive and saved some money, too. that's the problem with owning too much fabric - it can get lost in the masses. i am trying to remedy that.

beyond the surprise of getting the top for this quilt finished so quickly, i got the backing made and the quilt sandwich basted in one evening and began quilting it today! can you even believe i got two-thirds of it done in one night?

i can't.
who am i?

the muscle memory on the orange-peel/dogwood petal quilting came right back and i zipped through it. this might be done and ready to bind this week!

something curious i noticed while quilting that i never have before: the initial pinwheel design i do, which is half the shape of the orange peel, looks like apple core on the back where there are no grid lines to draw attention to the pinwheel shape.

maybe you can see what i'm talking about in the two photos above? secondary designs like that are so interesting.

i make the pinwheel/apple core design because i work my way down a row, curving back and forth in this fashion, forming half of the peel/petal design, and then make my way back up the row to finish it out. this is my preferred way to move through this particular design.

you can actually go quite a ways like this, doing several rows or blocks in one direction before turning back around. you just need to pay attention to not cutting yourself off on accident and follow the path you can down.

star in the fairy forest, a finish

"star in the fairy forest" is a finish and has been handed off to my daughter, d4, it's new owner.

she and i will have to take it out for a location photo shoot at some point, but in the meantime, i took a few shots of it, particularly of some of my favorite details of the quilt.

that little strip of the mushroom forest print to the left of the coral star point (liberty "fairyland" in melon) is one small scrappy detail i added for fun. it's not part of the quilt's pattern or main design, but an element i slipped in on a whim. i think these bits give quilts a make-do, pieced-together feel.

this quilt is a variation on my "stella grande" large sawtooth star pattern. these medium-sized blue and green hsts i put in between the star points are one of the ways i varied this quilt. perhaps this makes this a different kind of star, whose name i'm unaware of, rather than a sawtooth. but my quilt history knowledge isn't suffiencnt to know what it might be called.

i added these blocks in so i could use more of the color palette i had in mind for the quilt and place touches of the colors in more places than i did with my other "stella grandes."

the fiery tomato red paired with the icy pink and blue is such a pretty color combination, even if it is a bit washed out in the sunlight here.

a meeting of points. so many seams packed together there. these spots give me a bit of trouble when i quilt over them, but juki and i manage.

much of the quilt bursts with color, but when you pay attention, you can find small, quiet pairings of color in places like this intersection. i like to zoom in on these small details because they have a different feel than the quilt as a whole, yet are still a part of its character.

plus, that little grid made by the stitching with aurifil 12 wt pleases my senses, too.

i used prints on the top of this quilt, where my other "stella grandes" were strictly solids. each print represented one of the solid colors from the top, and was used interchangeably in the design. this colorway of #libertyjunesmeadow was the grey print.

three of the prints were liberty of london tana lawns, one was a lecien "memoire a paris" lawn, and the last was a quilting weight print. the use of the lawn gives a luxurious feel to the quilt, especially since it comprises most of the backing. it was a little tiny bit persnickety to work with, but really not that bad at all.

here you can see the two main prints that were the inspiration for my color palette and the quilt's name: liberty's "flower tops" and the mushroom forest fairy print, "enchanted forest" by lewis and irene. they had mostly the same colors, but in slightly different shades of each. by using the color variations from each print, i got some nice color play in the quilt top. and the parchment background color from the fairy print inspired my background choice for the quilt's top, also.

the addition of the smattering of prints on the top gave this quilt a vintage feel the other "stella grandes" don't have. that's something to love and admire about this quilt. they each have their own distinct personality, much like my children.

another happy finish of my #7kids7quilts series.
this is no. 5 of the 7.
almost there.

chain piecing the gypsy child

these are the last sets of fabric pairings for my "gypsy child hst" quilt. the fabric has been sitting in a pile by my pressing table for months and months. finally, i got to them this week.

i now have all the blocks i need for "gypsy child hst" quilt. in fact, i have several dozen extra blocks. that seems to be a theme for me and my quilting life lately. all three projects i'm currently piecing are either in this state or came from leftovers in this state. even when i do the math ahead of time and know what i'm going to need (which i did with this one - 567), i tend to end up with overage.

and then projects beget projects as i try to find a use for them. (as if i didn't already have enough quilt ideas to make.) that's why this is called "gypsy child," after all - it came about because of a block from the "gypsy wife" quilt.

although i suspected i had near enough blocks for the quilt already, i spent an evening earlier this week making the last pairings of hst blocks i wanted to include in the quilt. most of them were the ones i most wanted to include in the quilt, so i wasn't going to leave them out in place of others i wasn't as keen to use.

i ended up with a very long chain of squares. i just love how this happens when chain piecing. i will never get tired of making bunting out of it until it gets snipped apart, a job for my littlest one.

i really do get a kick out of the bunting effect and want to photograph it every time it happens. this IG post from @thencamejune reminded me of this the other day. i'm glad to know i'm not the only one!

i like photographing it so much, that once i had the chain done, i put it aside to photograph the next day in natural light, and pulled out another project, also begotten from another quilt, to work on the rest of the night. besides, my little one wasn't available to cut it apart for me and i don't like taking up her job.

the next step to getting this baby gypsy finished is to trim the several hundred hst squares i have pieced and pressed.

i wish i was as excited about this as i was about the chain piecing.

but since "little quilting chores make big quilting finishes," i'll keep going.

make all the quilts

penny patch 1.2

the last few days, i have had the unlooked for and rare opportunity to grab lots of quilting time.

i have been quilting like it's my job.
night and day.

i must say, i'm glad it's my hobby and not my work, for i wouldn't want to do this as intensely all the time.

but it's been rather fun.
and a tiny bit grueling at times, too.

my mind has been exploding with quilting inspiration for a few weeks now, but i have been plugging away at wips and leaving the inspiration for another day. this is not like me at all, i must say. yet it feels really good to get some of these things done.

last night i even pulled out yet another old project and started banging away on that. penny patch 1.2 is currently all cut, laid out, and being assembled. i had nearly all the needed pieces already cut since it's being made mostly from culled pieces from my first penny patch made as part of rachel hauser's penny patch quilt along at stitched in color in 2013. yeah, the project is that old!

sugar sweet pinwheel quit for valentine's decor

i have all these pinwheel blocks put together into a flimsy and am awaiting backing fabrics to arrive, at which time i will decide if this becomes one or two quilts. there are enough blocks left over (3 columns worth) to make either a baby quilt, or to add here.

while assembling the top i was going to make just one large-ish quilt, but ran out of steam and interest. so i stopped when it seemed big enough.

my heart just isn't in this project and i really want to move on;
move on to projects i'm excited about and still love, like this:

gypsy child hst quilt now has all it's blocks made!

this project does make my heart sing.
it makes me happy, happy, smiley, happy.

there is some pressing, tons of trimming (500+ yikes!), and the assembly to go.
but this baby is back in the works and i am so excited about it.

now please excuse me while i get back to my temp job as full-time quilter.

happy wip  wednesday to you all!

pins and more liberty

i haven't pin basted a quilt in ages. in fact, when i decided i wanted to pin baste this quilt, i had no idea where my pins were being stored in my sewing room. i had to spend some time hunting them down.

as a side note - that room is such a mess. it really needs some attention! but look what i found in there while i was searching for pins:

i got to have another small #chocolateonquilts moment when i stumbled across these dark chocolate covered graham crackers with sea salt, from trader joe's. totally scrumptious and addictive. i was surprised i found a box with a few left in it because i normally devour them all in a few days. you've been warned - stay away! unless you need to sweeten up your pin basting experience.

actually, i quite like pin basting, the process of it. the push of the pin and the give as it slides into the fabric are quite satisfying. it's a similar sensation to hand sewing.

i used to be a die-hard pin basting fan, partly due to the fact that my 4th daughter, here known as d4, used to really like to take the pins out of the quilt once it was done. it was her quilting job and we both liked that.

however, i found that the best way to overcome the issues my juki has with straighline quilting is to spray baste my quilts. and, my goodness, is it so much faster and easier and more convenient. so now i do it for most all my quilts.

yes, there is some expense involved.
and some mess.
and i've read that the spray might weaken/damage the quilt's materials a bit in the longrun. (it's probably not best to have the glues in there for months/years before you complete the quilting and wash the quilt. like i do.) who knows for sure?

regardless of all that, i am a converted spray baster.

not having to stop in the middle of my fmq flow to remove pins while quilting (or having to worry about running over them when i don't stop - done that) is one other large argument in the favor of spray basting.

plus, you can have as many quilts basted at one time as you want. no waiting for your pins to be freed up. this may be a perk or it may enable bad habits. i'm undecided on that point.

the fact that i have a large, wide hallway of ceramic tile on which to do my spray basting only makes it that much easier for me to succumb.

speaking of that tile floor, here's another side note - basting of either kind, when done on the floor, especially on tile, can be hard on the knees. so just do like i do and lay on your belly.

truly, i don't normally lay on my belly to baste so i'm not sure why i was in this photo. maybe because i was trying to get out of the way of the photo i asked my daughter to take of my hands pinning? she thought it was funny to take this full-body shot instead. it is kind of funny, so enjoy.

end of that tangent.
where was i?

yes, i just said i was a converted spray baster.

and here i am pin basting.

i am handquilting this 'liberty makes do too' quilt, so i pin basted it. spray basting and handquilting don't mix as well as machine quilting and glue sprays.

so i got to enjoy the process of old-fashioned pin basting on this little beauty.

all the chocolate was eaten. all the pins were placed.

and now i am at my leisure to enjoy the contentment of handquilting this liberty and crossweave quilt.

wouldn't it be nice if i always have my pins in a handquilting project because i like having one on hand. that is a quilty goal i could aspire to.

Sunday sewing final stitches

Putting final stitches into “Star in the Fairy Forest” quilt late on a Sunday morning after church. After my last post when I mentioned I looked nice while stitching after church on a Sunday I had to chuckle at myself because this photo doesn’t look much different than the one of me sewing in my gym clothes. My hair is cleaner and styled, but I’m not that made up. We have early church this year so it’s a roll-out-of-bed-and-go-in-five-minutes kind of grooming. And with my readers on, looking down at the stitching, making my I’m-concentrating-on-handwork face, I am still looking my age. Which is all just fine. I’m content  to be sitting in this comfortable and pretty spot with a quilt to handbind no matter what I look like in the photo.

And my daughter is very exited to be getting her new quilt.

contemplating a maker's hands

i am a maker of handmade things

i will always grab the opportunity to take photos of myself at work on my quilts on the rare occasion that i also look nice, such as on a sunday after church. it pleases my vanity.

but i also allow photos at other times. today i even had my daughter grab a full-reveal photo of me at work still in my gym clothes, dirty hair, no make-up, while monitoring her math progress.

this is my life and what it looks like some of the time. this is what i look like some of the time at age 45: i need readers now; i have plenty of grey/white hair; i have a stretched out belly that bore seven children and now retains a few extra pounds; my ears, nose, eyebrows, and chins are all a little more there than they used to be. many days i can be okay with this. on others, i struggle with it like any woman.

my most important making tools

this is just as much who i am as those sunday sewing pretty pictures are, and everything in between is me, too. i'm a middle-aged woman who is trying to age naturally and gracefully, but has very little idea how to in our current youth-crazed culture. i believe in embracing who i am as i continue to age while taking care of myself.

this photo is me, even if it's not who i still feel like inside and rather takes me by surprise when i see it.  because even though i accept aging, i don't feel different inside (other than a few creeping aches and pains) and i still expect to look the same on the outside. a 65-year old friend once told me she felt like she'd stopped aging on the inside somewhere around 25. i'd probably say 30, myself, but i totally agree with her. i don't feel much different even though the years keep piling on. i'm not afraid to count or state my years, believing each one is a blessing rather than something to be ashamed of or hidden.

some other maker's tools

all of this is right in line with a hashtag stream from instagram started by 50-something krista hennebury (@poppyprint) called #amakershands (or #makershands). krista is another woman who resents being told to hide her age and her aging, who would rather be grateful for what her hands can do than worry about how they look or what others think of them. i loved her post about her maker's hands.

this is the photo i posted as part of the "a maker's hands" movement. i do like to photograph my hands at work because i think it's important to preserve the fact that my hands, my most important tools, are what make these quilts. and since i would love to have photos of my grandmothers' hands at work on items i have inherited, i take photos of my hands making things my children and their children might one day inherit.

i feel like our hands are nearly as distinct and recognizable as our faces, and i like photos of my loved ones' hands at any stage as much as photos of their faces.

so i photograph my hands at work a lot.

even though i don't think they are particularly pretty and i have a hard time getting photos of them that i'm pleased with, i keep doing it.

my hands are large but thin, and my knuckles and veins continue to become more noticeable with age. they are picking up sunspots. they look older and more awkward in photos than they do in real life. my daughter even said so recently when i asked her to take a certain picture, "mom, your hands look so different in the photo than what i'm seeing!"

they are what they are, and they serve me well.

i love my hands.
i'm grateful for what they can do.

you may have also noticed that my wedding band shows up in my hand photos a lot. this intentional. it's kind of my hand trademark. if you don't know it's my hands by looking at them, you might recognize the band.

i don't have a diamond engagement ring because we couldn't afford one when we got married as 21 year old struggling college students 24 years ago. but i did get the lovely, thick artcarved band i wanted, and it's been enough for me all these years.

my hands are really busy with binding quilts these last few weeks. 

the third quilt i've bound since christmas is nearly complete.

thank goodness i still have two more to bind because i love handwork!

when i completed the first quilt i started binding this winter, my youngest daughter (age 7) said, "ahw, what?! i don't want you to be done! i like you working on it!" 

i feel the same. 

i like for my hands to have needle and thread work to do.

my maker's hands at work making.

this makes me happy.