wip wednesday 2019.36

most every quilter has a nice little stash of wips - work(s) in progress - laying around. i'm particularly prone to starting a new project before i finish another. i like variety and having options when i want to sit down and work, not only of project types but also phases of the process to work on. most of these are pretty old, as i'm not a fast quilter. it's normal for me to be working on a quilt over the course of several months, if not a few years.

i used to have a list of my wips at the end of my quilts page, but it was sooo far down there and sadly out of date, that i decided to make a wip page all of it's own. it's pretty long! here is an honest, updated account of all my works in progress.

piecing queue

cheery (easter) quilt

improv frames, own design

started feb 2019

citrus star

stella grande pattern, own design

started march 2017

giant swoon

meadowdot by sandi henderson, floral bouquet by heather bailey, and linen

started march 2017

"gypsy child"

3" hst patchwork quilt

started march 2016

gypsy wife
started jan 2014

participating in quilt along schedule

pattern: "gypsy wife" by jen kingwell

recipient: self

sugar block club 2014

started jan 2014

pattern by by amy gibson of stitchery dickory dock

recipient: self



"london wardrobe"

an english paper piecing (epp) project, all done by hand

traditional ferris wheel pattern inspired by Katy at i'm a ginger monkey (here)

begun: july 2013

 hst diamond quilt

begun may 2013

own design

fabrics: spring house by  for moda

recipient: play room

flimsy in need of backing queue

navy and pink improv

started august 2019

quilting queue

guys and dolls

stella grande pattern, own design

started feb 2017

etoile de patisserie

stella grande pattern, own design

started dec 2017

neopolitan sundae in pewter

stella grande pattern, own design

started dec 2017

handquilting queue

"mildred and ethel"

triangle quilt, own design

fabrics: liberty tana lawn and crossweave

started april 2019

binding queue

"love in a spin"

pinwheel pattern valentine's day quilt

fabrics: lecien flower sugar

started feb 2015

"beauty for ashes"

improv bricks and strips quilt, own design

fabrics: liberty tana lawn and crossweave

started march 2019

adding up - why i quilt and what i've learned

after a summer of no quilting and living more deliberately, i think i have a new quilting motto:

if i only make one quilt a year, after twenty years i will have made twenty quilts.

and that's still a lot of quilts, even if it takes twenty years to get there.

 in the beginning of my quilting journey, i bought all the fabrics (and then some), all the patterns, many books, and just wanted to make everything. right away. sound familiar?

in her charming book make & love quilts, mary fons says,

"quilters are impatient people.
to a nonquilter this seems almost laughably wrong. aren't quilters gentle, steady folk who are content to stitch all afternoon in a rocking chair? . . . dedicated quilters are foot-tappers, forever on the lookout for ways to get quilts done more quickly and efficiently for one simple reason:
we want to make our next quilt as soon as possible."

all of which is ironic for a meticulous, time-consuming hobby. as soon as we start a quilt we want to be on to the next one, we can't wait to start another one and usually don't.

wow. that's a lot heavier than it looks. help!

having all those ideas burning in my brain or fabrics i'm just itching to cut into or looking at wips that have been around for a year or two leaves me weary, frustrated, and despairing sometimes. after all, one of my children still doesn't have his own quilt. can't i at least get that done?

the other day i paused in front of the fabric shelf in my bawthroom sewing space and looked at all the fabrics and patterns piled there, probably less than half my stash, and remembered all the quilts they were intended for. i said out loud, "there are anywhere from a dozen to twenty quilts waiting right here. and i'll probably never get them made." the mr. responded that was ok because i was focusing on the things that were most important and that was what i should be doing.

as i pondered this and my summer off over the next few days, i felt more relaxed than i usually would. at first when quilting was so new and difficult, it seemed i'd never get any done. i just didn't have the time. during the first two years of quilting, mostly due to a teeny, tiny addition to the family, i completed only two quilts (here and here), although i started three others (here, here, and here). i knew ladies who made a quilt a month and even some super-efficient quilters, like kelly of my quilt infatuation, who routinely churned out lovely quilts every single week on a regular basis. i felt like i'd be lucky to complete a few a year.

goodness, this is hot and sweaty work holding up this pile!

 well, i've been quilting for nearly five years now and guess what? i have quite a pile of quilts to show for it! if you visit my "quilts" page at the top of the blog, you'll find i've completed 10 full-sized quilts, 13 baby quilts, and a doll quilt. 12 of those quilts, pictured in this post, reside in our home. after gathering them all together to photograph today, and consequently staggering and sweating under the weight of them, i feel pretty good. i have made quilts. lots of them. sure, for every one complete there are 10 more i'm eager to make or most quilters have made 5 times as many. but i already have finished more than i think i could have envisioned 5 years ago.

and we haven't even talked about the quilts that are nearly done or somewhere in progress.

also, now that i know i will get quilts finished, at some rate or another, and that my skill set has improved, which facilitates speed of finish, i find i'm enjoying the process a whole lot more, that i want to slow down and experience it more.

quilts get made.

one stitch, block, top, day, month, year at a time.
they get done.

and my life is a lot more than quilts right now.
thank goodness!
that's a blessing, not an interruption of my hobby.

so, even if i only complete one quilt a year from now on, i'll still have plenty more quilts.

maybe even a gypsy wife someday.

linking up with amanda jean at crazy mom quilt's friday finishes
and sarah's can i get a whoop whoop

2014 year end review

 as i looked over several 2014 year-end posts, i thought i hadn't done very much myself this year. certainly not as much as last year. i couldn't even remember a single finish because it seemed all i did this year was finish up leftovers from last year. however, there were a few baby quilts i did start and finish this year; two, actually. every other finish was started last year or further back than that (2011). for details on any of the finishes, just visit my "quilts" page and follow the links.

and there were plenty of things started last year that were still not finished this year either, not to mention all the projects i did start this year. (top left to right, by row: fl strips baby quilt, color card from color intensive class, paris daydreams, gypsy wife blocks, january sugar block club installment, bandwidth, girls weekend charity quilt, wonky stacked coins for s1, bloom where you are planted, penny patch 2.0, indian blanket from angled class.)

if 2013 was the year i really became a quilter, 2014 seems to me the year i made lots of big plans and joined lots of activities, but didn't really do a whole lot. or at least finish a whole lot. i got seduced by the gypsy wife qal and sugar block of the month right out of the gate in january so i never even got around to any of my 4 "goals" for the year. (actually, penny patch 2.0 was one of those so i guess i did get one of them started.) i did, however, do some worthwhile things, like join the fabricholics anonymous fabric fast. that was on-off-on-off-finally-make-it-6-months for me. i took two classes from rachel hauser at stitched in color: color intensive and angled. both were awesome skill builders for me. the gypsy wife qal and sugar block club both pushed my skills in new directions i didn't think i was ready for just yet. but i surprised myself with what i was able to do. i also stretched past the stipple by learning to fmq the dogwood stitch and even tried some other improvised styles on the ill-fated strips baby quilt. this year i managed to get both of my oldest two daughters to make their own first quilts, one as a school project and another for a church auction.

so all in all, it really wasn't a bad year. i took time off when i had to. when you're a mom of 7, that's quite often. i'm not a fast quilter and i don't churn out finishes. but i do enjoy this hobby immensely.

what does 2015 look like from here? i'm not making any plans or commitments this year. i'm going to take it as it comes and see where i go along the way.

but i sure better get my boys' quilts finished up soon!

basket o' quilts

 last summer, i had three quilts happily living in our family room, there for anything (reasonable) the children wanted to use them for. my method of storage for them was to drape them over a couch arm. it worked well at the time. fast forward to early this summer and i have 5 quilts who reside in the family room. the old arm-hanging method wasn't working so well anymore.

so i found a basket at target that rounds them all up nicely - and quite literally seeing as it's a tube-shaped basket and i roll the quilts to put them in there. this is a smith and hawkins basket that matches the large baskets i have housing kids' shoes and sports balls in our central hallway. i like that the basket matches but is unique in it's shape.

until becky gets busy with her mad woodworking skills and makes me a quilt ladder (pretty please?) like the one she just made for herself, we'll be using the basket for quilt storage 'round here.

the last bit

 are you sick to death of my penny patch? you ought to be. but i found some photos of the binding which i never used, so i'm throwing them up here. then, like binding finishes off a quilt, i'll be finished talking about this particular one.

i auditioned and even bought a few different bindings but had difficulty settling on one. finally, this clementine micheal miller "tiny tiles" won out because of it's vibrant hue (which photographs too vibrant no matter what settings i use) which matched the backing so well, and because of the subtle orange peel pattern, which matched my quilting choice.

some of the colors on the front are a little flat next to this deep tangerine, but there is enough variety in orange shades that i think it works. it's been on there long enough now that i either like it or am just used to it.

i'm pretty sure i completed the handstitching of the binding whilst watching a movie with my kids, probably bbc's version of dicken's "little dorrit." (really good mini series, by the way - i honestly think i like it even better than the book, even with the changes.) oh, wait! now i remember. everyone else was gone camping except s1 and i. he was watching bbc's "sense and sensibility" with me. really. after a dinner out and stop at the gelato shop, he spent some time hanging out with me while i watch elanor, marianne, willoughby, edward, etc. i stitched on one end and he snuggled up under the other. it was fantastic. see, that memory, sewn into the binding, had to be recorded because i'd already nearly forgotten it.

the last stitch taken in a quilt is always such a satisfying surprise to me. "yipee! i'm done! really, i'm actually done after all this time? yes, it's really a quilt now!" since i have a few finishes under my belt lately, i've noticed the setting of that final moment becomes part of the quilt and another memory added to it's story. some people have even playfully suggested naming their quilts after the movie they were watching when they finished it - common way to cross the finish line, i guess. that would work for me quite often. i suppose this one should be called "sense and sensibility" or "elanor" or something like that. but it remains just plain old "penny patch."

to back up a bit, i got the binding going one friday afternoon while sewing with becky (and boys). it took us another few weeks but we did get together again after our long put off first friday sewing social. she'd managed to get a new machine, too! (i may have encouraged that and her sweet husband may have obliged for mother's day.) now she has more harp space to work with and features to play with. not to mention that she's already working on something completely new - matching hst herringbone quilts for two of her boys. "oh, yes, that other one's done already," she says in passing.

 the 8 yr old was the only photographer available to me for capturing our sewing time. interesting angles and cropping, no?

becky's hst's, which i'm sure are already quilts by now. i need to text her about this friday. maybe i can get a top put together! and have something to show besides an over-advertised penny patch.

the end of an era

"taite" and her sister are finished! it's been a long time coming. one not-so-little girl has been waiting and waiting for this "taite" quilt over the course of two birthdays and more; another no-longer-quite-so-little girl finally gets her quilt for the foot of her bed and still wants it. there are a few photos of "taite" and her sister to share as well as the stories associated with her, so look at the pictures and skip the words or settle in for a read if you like that sort of thing.

three years (and some change) ago, i took my second quilting class and started my third full-sized quilt. i strong-armed two good friends into taking the class with me for the company, because they both were interested in making a quilt, and because, frankly, i was hoping to recruit some companions into my new hobby. mequell and jill were very good quilting company for the class. mequell, with the aid of a longarmer, finished her quilt shortly after the class was over. jill and i took a bit more time, getting together on fridays to sew . . . over the course of three years. we had plenty of stops and starts during that time, large gaps of months where we didn't work on the quilts at all. there were even some crazy home ec moments along the way which gave us some really good laughs. but all good things come to an end, even the making of beginner quilts.

 jill and i met at church when we were working in the primary (children's sunday school organization). she was the president and i was her horrid secretary for several months. then i was assigned as her visiting teacher for a handful of years and got to really know her. she is one kind and gentle soul, always with a smile on her face and hand ready to help. she has great style and a knack for vintage finds. she also makes a mean chicken pot pie. my life has been the better for knowing her. and now she's moving away! really, we finished these quilts in the nick of time to get them photographed together.

i can't say exactly why it took us so long to get these done. by the time the one month class concluded, jill was working on her quilting but i was stalled at an inner border on the top, which i was unhappy with. getting pregnant definitely brought work on this quilt to a halt for me. when i got back to it a year later, the borders got fixed and finished quickly enough, but i desperately wanted to stipple this quilt. so i had to pause again while i learned how to stipple on a few other projects first. there was no way i was going to just go for it with the stipple on this quilt! i'd waited long enough, waiting a little longer in order to get it right didn't hurt. several friday sewing sessions later, here we are. quilts do get finished if you work on them long enough.

 recently, we went to breakfast at a local coffee shop located in a charming agricultural atmosphere where we could get some good eats, chat far longer than it took to eat said goods, and photograph our quilt finishes. finally. (i wish we'd had mequell's quilt, too, but she was out of town.)

i wasn't particulary excited about the pattern selected for the class, but i took the opportunity to really make the pattern my own and as a good excuse to use a whole slew of heather bailey fabrics i was drooling over. heavily influenced by elizabeth hartman's use of white and white space in her quilts for the practical guide to patchwork (on the sidebar), i chose to add breathing room into the quilt by alternating the inner square and outer sashing of each block between five colors of the primrose tile print and kona snow. this added dimension and space to the quilt pattern. all the tiny squares for the middle ring are various other hb prints from either "nicey jane" or "pop garden." there was very little blue in those middle squares, so to add a bit more blue to the top and tie in the blue primrose tile pieces, i pieced the inner border from more blue-toned prints. the binding is red primrose tile.

 for the backing, i let my daughter, the recipient, choose the main fabric. she selected the bold, bright, and cheery "pop garden" paisley in yellow. it always reminds me of large shrimp. (recently i saw the pineapple print in yellow and really wish we had used that instead, but it is as it is now.) the rest is pieced together with other elements from the top: primrose tile in pink, a green "nicey jane" floral, kona snow sashing, and rows of the leftover squares.

it's funny how my perspective has changed as i've gained experience as a quilter. this quilt seemed tedious and rather ambitious for a first time quilt, or even a second, because of all those little squares and the seam matching. now, of course, it does't phase me a bit and i'm sure i could churn out another one pretty quickly. skills only grow when you push yourself, anyway, right? learning to strip piece the squares was helpful, but they still took a long time. all the endless pressing open of the innumerable seams wore me out. but all of that moved me along as a quilter.

when i see this quilt, it reminds me of taking the class with my friends, getting pregnant with baby #7 (which is the reason it didn't get finished at once), a daughter who wanted and waited for a quilt for literally years (mom, are you staring another quilt? is mine done?), and many a friday sewing social with jill. this quilt will always remind me of jill. i can't even say how much i am going to miss her.

 jill's quilt, unnamed as far as i know, is a pull of reds, light turquoise blues, and apple greens. even though it was her first quilt, she prefered to coordinate her own prints and did a fabulous job. her border is a light blue "nicey jane" print and the binding a green with white dot from bonnie and camille's bliss line. for the backing she used the blue border print from the front.

i didn't think these quilts were that tall, but i was barely able to hold them up by standing on my tip toes and stretching my arms out as far as they could go. jill, by height default, was the photographer any time i wanted the quilt held up for a photo. she did a lovely job. this was our first location photo shoot and we immediately realized a few things would have been helpful to bring along - like a step ladder. and maybe some kind of clamps or tacks for hanging the quilt. (any good suggestions?)

there is one photo i did not get on this morning of celebrating finishes and saying good-byes: a photo of the two quilters. jill, like most women, is camera shy, so i didn't make a point of getting a photo of her, but i wish i had now. while we were in the farmstand area, a lady came up to look at the produce list and i almost asked her to photograph us together with our quilts, but didn't. what a missed opportunity and how i am regretting that now!

linking up with my quilt infatuation's thursday threads and crazy mom quilt's friday finishes.

friday night sew along

 the lovely and brilliant sarah schraw of sarah quilts thought up this wonderful idea for any sewers at home on a riday night: why not sew together by sharing over instagram? yes, it's out now. i'm on instagram. but only because of liz. she's too busy to blog or email much anymore so i have to stalk her on instagram if i want to keep up any semblance of friendship. but i don't advertise that i'm there because 1) i definitely overgram, 2) i'm certainly not worth following 3) i don't want my usage of it to get out of hand so i have been laying low. but this is off topic. pretend you didn't hear anything.

back to friday night. on sew along night, people check in and post what they're doing periodically with the hashtag #fridaynightsewalong. the first one was last month. i wasn't sure how it was going to work or if it would feel like we were really sewing together but it did! it was really a lot of fun. also, i got more done during that time than when people are here in real time and i just chat my head off.

it went so well that sarah's promoting and participating the first friday of every month now. this past weekend was the second official friday night sew along, although people do use it any friday they want to.

so what did i do during friday night sew along?

 i spray basted "penny patch"! amazing, huh? it's a sandwich now. all stuck together and ready to quilt. i've had the top and backing laid out on the floor or hanging from the balcony railing ever since thanksgiving and was tired of moving it around every time a need arose. after i gave dogwood quilting a shot last week, i've been itching to get this penny up off the floor.

firstly, i spray basted using 505 instead of sullivan's this time. it went much better. less mess, less smell (almost completely none, actually), and it just went smoothly. i can see why people like it so much now. i'm not a total convert yet, but i did want to give the much-touted 505 a go. i chose to try it on this particular quilt because of the quilting pattern i was going to use. i couldn't think of an effective way to pin out of the way of the design so i tried the spray.

i did read in a book recently (quilting with a modern flair) that there is new research which indicated spray basting may shorten the life of the quilt, but that's all the book said. no reference, no reasoning, just the statement. unsubstantiated rumor, i call it, when nothing is cited. however, it has given me pause on the spray basting front once again.

 i had to run a child somewhere during my sewing time. when i came home, there was a package on the doorstep! a big, fat box of black-and-white, aqua, lime, mint, and turquoise prints from fabric.com. i was in love with a recent quilt made in these colors by rita of red pepper quilts, so i ordered a selection of half yards. sure wish they sold quarter yards, but they don't so twist my arm - i bought the half yards since that was the only option. actually, i love the color scheme of this quilt but prefer the layout of the one she made just before it in hsts, which included a corner in this palette.

a few people have asked me how i found this pull on the fabric.com website. it was pretty easy, actually. if you look at the menu bar on the lefthand sidebar of their home page, there is a "quilting fabric" link. click on that and several filter options will appear to help you find fabrics. i used the "color" filter to specify the colors i was looking for. i still had to scroll through dozens of options, but it helped a lot.

yes, this means i broke my fast in april. i'd already broken it for some liberty fabrics from queen bee fabrics and a stop at my local shop for a new baby quilt idea. i'm one of those illogical people who think, "well, i've already messed up, might as well go for broke while i'm at it." may is a new month and a reason to recommit. seems like i'm on an every-other-month schedule. that's improvement, to a degree. although when i was at the local shop, one of the gals at the counter, who happens to read my blog occasionally, called me out on it! hi, amy. linking in my honesty with rebecca lynne's april report. my downfall was ignoring all my own good advice about avoiding temptation.

again, i digress. after i'd opened my happy mail i got back to "penny patch". i had to decide how big to make the petals. i was tempted to go the size of the medium patches, which would have been soooooo fast. but not looked very good. so i started marking the grid for the small patch size. it took so much longer than i thought it would. it was killing me because i just wanted to knock out the darn quilting. then my baby brother and his wife called and asked if i wanted to meet them at the temple for the evening, so i dropped everything and ran. quilting was done for friday.

saturday i was going to get to that dogwood quilting but my oldest daughter was feeling poorly and asked me to hang out and watch a movie with her. she wanted some mama comfort. i was a little put out, but just switched gears and bound quilts while watching some bbc dickens adaptations all afternoon. and i actually finished "taite"! d2 hasn't even noticed it's done. she's been using it ever since christmas with the binding half done, anyway. jill and i are going to celebrate our 3 yr finishes with with a proper photoshoot later this week, so i'll share the real finish photos after that.

that sums up my weekend sewing. hope y'all had a happy weekend, too!
linking up with lee's wip wednesday at freshly pieced.

some ginger quilting

 we interrupt my regularly scheduled sewing to bring you "what the girls are doing." after a considerable hiatus, the two oldest daughters are back at the machine. in fact, this time they are at my machine.

yesterday morning, my oldest daughter came to me and said, "mom, i have an assignment for english where i have to learn a new skill, spend 5 hours working on it, and write about the experience. i was thinking maybe you could teach me to make a quilt?" i jumped on that faster than a bar of chocolate! the good news was i already had fabrics and a pattern picked out for her to work with. over a year ago i set aside a project box for teaching d1 how to make her first quilt. we've just never gotten around to it between her scheduling and my general sewing busyness elsewhere. but yesterday we did it. thank you, english class!

we're using a riley blake layer cake, moda bella basics charm pack, and the moda bake shop recipe "easy bricks quilt" by amy smart of diary of a quilter. i got a bit nervous as we got started because i've never taught anyone to quilt before! although i'm fairly confident with my own skills now, teaching someone else what to do was a little nerve wracking just in case i forgot something. i needn't have worried, of course. we just got started and kept on going.

 since we are working with precuts, there wasn't much pressing to do, but the layer cake had been sitting over a year, so the ribbons creased the top squares a bit. we talked about "pressing" while quickly flattening a few squares.

 then the rotary cutting lesson. yikes! (lovely backside photo taken by the only available photographer in the house, d2.) i have never used a riley blake layer cake before, so i don't know if it was because it's been slopped around my sewing area since December 2012 or if it just wasn't precision cut well, but the squares weren't fully square. we just ignored that and cut away. it's a first-timer quilt, anyway.

she did a great job cutting her squares in half. i had to remind her about the safety button a few times, but she seems to have the hang of it. after a few cuts, i left her to herself.

 then d2 wanted to get moving on her quilt for the church fund raising auction. we pieced a 4 sq top out of the heather bailey "nicey jane" fabrics she selected a few weeks ago (that i let her have after i ordered replacements, of course). that didn't take long at all since the top only requires 3 seams. her seams were pretty good, but a bit shy in a few spots. i might go back and reinforce the seams with a second run since this is a baby quilt being auctioned off.

 i had her pin (something i rarely do) to teach her the skill as well as to improve her accuracy.

that was it for day 1 of two daughters quilting. i finished off the quilting for "paris daydreams" when they left for their math tutoring.

this morning, we got back at it with d1 chain piecing and d2 pressing the fat quarters for her baby quilt 2.0 (boy version).

 d1 is going to be a precision quilter, i can tell. she was meticulous about lining up her pieces before sewing and careful how she sewed. i expected it to be a bit more difficult for her, but her seams look great! this pattern is so easy that it's coming together in no time.

i'm itching to work on something myself, but seeing them excited about and engaged in the sewing is pretty much as good as doing it myself. i've been hoping they would get interested for a while now. i'm so glad the opportunities presented themselves to push both of them into the quilting realm. stay tuned for their finishes, which should be coming up pretty soon.