truly portable

i think i've proven that epp can really go anywhere.

 

 i've been traveling again - which means epp  sewing on the go. I know these blocks are all looking the same and the novelty of seeing them has worn off, but they're what i've got to show. after sitting in 2 airports and enduring 2 flights to get to fresno, ca, I have 2 new blocks completed. all in a day's work. actually, a full days work: 2 blocks. but as liz said, if i keep gadding about the country, i'll have the quilt completed in no time!

this time I put just a few supplies in a hard shell pencil box, which worked out really great. not only did it accommodate my large cone of thread, it kept everything protected in my backpack.

 oh, yes, I said "backpack" because we went backpacking - the kind of rugged camping where you carry absolutely everything into the back country on your back: water, food, bedding, sewing. everything goes in on your back. the mr packed me a nice light 25# pack and i added about 5 more pounds with my camera and sewing (that was mostly camera). actually, I carried a backpack on the plane with the pencil box in it and then just took a few pieces in a ziplock in my hiking pack. that distinction should be made. but we did backpack and the hard shell box did work really well keeping everything crisp in my backpack while traveling by car and plane.

we took two of our children, d2 (11) and s2 (9), to climb Half Dome in Yosemite Ntnl Park, my husband's old stomping grounds. he grew up just an hour south of there and backpacked with his family every summer. 21 years ago, when we were dating, I climbed Half Dome with him and his family. i passed the test and got in the clan. that's when I was an energetic college girl who walked to work 2 miles and back every day. fortunately my place is secure because i'm not the same girl these days. but I did manage to make the rugged 4 vertical miles into base camp with that 30# pack on without crying or even whining. childbearing may have wreaked havoc on my body, but it also toughened me, too. either that or my pioneer-crossing-the-plains blood from my ancestors came through and helped me out.

how to set up sewing when camping in the wilderness

 day 2, I got some down time while the mr filtered drinking water and did all the breakfast work around camp. rehydrated bacon and eggs in a pouch, anyone? I pulled out my epp  and basted some triangles. I thought I was going to have more time lolling around in camp, but we squeezed this hike in pretty tight. it was march, march, march all the way.

we didn't pack in any chairs, but fortunately there were logs everywhere in camp to sit on. between my pant leg and the log, I got set up to sew nicely. please ignore my "I did not sleep in the tent" puffy morning face and gnome hat (dang, I was going to crop that). this is the wilderness, people, not girls weekend glamour hour. 

 I justified bringing along the sewing by saying that if anyone needed stitches, I would be equipped to help them. fortunately, all I was called on to do was baste triangles. when it came time to hike more, I put the sewing away and left it in camp. day 2 we were summitting HD and there would be no time to sew along the 8 mile way.

 after about 3.5 vertical miles, we reached the shoulder below Half Dome (that peak in the background). i made it about half way up the wicked, nasty stairs quarried into the side of sub dome before vertigo stopped me. sadly, i did not summit this time. i got myself back down and waited for the others a while before attempting again. i made it nearly to the top of the stairs again before i got too woozy.

 the mr. muscled our daughter through the climb and our son, the mountain goat, did it all on his own. they made it to the top of the world. you can see the males hanging out there on diving board rock, nearly 5,000 feet over the valley floor (photographed by d2 from a safer distance). nothing in this photo gives you a real concept of this summit, by the way. it's definitely something only experience explains.

so i didn't make the top this time. i still trooped back down nearly 4 vertical miles to base camp that afternoon, slept a lot better in the tent, and survived the last 4 miles down on the last day. down, by the way, has it's own troubles. but i'm not whining.

after a nice hot shower, sleeping in a real bed, and restaurant food, we spent the next morning in mariposa grove's sequoias before heading home. these trees are unbelievably huge and tall. like, between 200 and 300 feet tall. i'll give you a sampling:

the faithful couple

another faithful couple, visiting



the fallen monarch's root system

i was far too pooped to sew on the flights home. i got about 4 squares basted before giving up. the epp will wait til another day, another trip.

sunset and moon over los angeles

the sun has set on this adventure. my feet and leg muscles are still recovering. all in all, it was a memorable hike and productive on the sewing front. two full blocks and some dozen shapes basted is pretty good for the backcountry.

 





this excursion's yield

two babies on the way

 jed's quilt is missing two and a quarter frames on the top. almost there!

 elizabeth's top is complete, but the backing was giving me a headache and stalling the project.

 a new design feature i threw in on this baby is a few patches of the feature fabric mixed into the outer frames to stretch them a bit where needed. i like the peek-a-boo effect.

 now that backing! i knew i wanted to used the brown on the inner frame for my binding (bottom left). the only fabric from my original pull that had enough yardage left for a solid back was the other brown (on the bottom of everything). i didn't like idea of the two nearly identical browns on each other on the back but i didn't have anything else. piecing a back this small and getting it lined up made me nervous, too.

i thought i had found the perfect solution when i happened apon the dream on blue floral (bottom left), which had every color from the original feature fabric, except the brown. i was so excited to use this because it has a similar 70's vibe that i felt many of the prints from the top have. however, when i put it up against the top, it was way too bright. argh! a few days later, i let my eyes wander my stash again and i found the perfect match at the very bottom of my cia pile, where most of the other fabrics in the top came from. that apricot lattice print (bottom right) is a soft enough shade and the pattern blends well with the others, too. we have a winner!

other wips this week: patchwork, please!  pencil case and some epp  blocks going on. all the other stuff is on complete hold until these baby quilts are done and delivered.

it's wip wednesday at freshly pieced! link up, y'all.

my first time

melissa at my fabric relish has a fun link party going called "my first time", featuring everyone's first quilts! I linked in and decided to go ahead and do a better post of my firsty, called "at last". (origninal post here)

 this quilt got her start when i finally took a leap and signed up for a beginner quilting class at ETC with louise hailey. the straight-lines-only pattern looked doable and i desperately wanted to learn to quilt. to that point i had only sewn a few headbands, but i leapt in anyway. why not learn to sew and quilt at the same time? after four mondays spent at the store, i was supposed to have a quilt.

just to be clear, i do like this quilt - for the most part. the fact that i made it all by myself alone gives it points in my book! like a first child, it was an experiment and a learning experience, but also well loved. the daughter who claimed it, d4, grows more and more in love with it all the time.

i spent half the first class lovingly selecting the fat quarters (but i bought 1/2 yds just to be safe), only to realize later that i'd selected twice as many as the pattern called for. i don't remember exactly how that happened, something about how i read the pattern wrong and thought i knew better? that wouldn't have been such an issue if i loved each and every one of them. and i do love, or at least like enough, all of them except for one: the pink dot and box fabric below.

this is probably the biggest lesson i learned the first time around: a fabric you do not like will not fade into the quilt, it will stare you down every single time you look at your project. if you don't like it - don't use it!

my color scheme for the quilt was pink, purpley-pink, light blue, acid-y light greens, and a tad bit of grey. i went for geometric shapes and a few florals thrown in for fun. that's how i ended up with that pink dot and box thingy - it was the last of the 18 fabrics i needed for my scheme. nothing else in the store fit. i'm seriously considering appliqueing something over the top of it. if i ever find the time.

the other mistake i made was choosing the light pink art gallery oval elements for the large sashing border. it makes the whole quilt read too sugar sweet for my taste. i wanted pastels with pop and this toned it down too much. granted, there was supposed to be some giant ric-rac swirling through the border and large flowers appliqued there, too, so it shouldn't have been seen as much as it is. but that ric rac and those flowers, while cute on the store sample, took my quilt to a different level of cutesy that i didn't like.  i've played with the idea of sewing straight ribbon in the sashing border, adding a ruffle from all the scraps down the middle of it, or just doing some quilting in there now that i'm dabbling in fmq.

i made all the flowers and even began embroidering them before deciding they just didn't fit the quilt. i'm thinking of making a cushion with the flowers or maybe even an entirely different quilt.

what i did do right with this quilt is the backing. i went all crazy for a beginner and pieced my own backing instead of using a whole cloth like everyone else. i took the idea of the blocks in the quilt and echoed that in the backing design. (do note that part of the quilt is draped over the fence, so this isn't the full back.)

and i'm still quite happy with my carefully thought out fabric choices. i included one floral and each of the main colors. three of the fabrics are from designers who are still my top favorites: joel dewberry, heather bailey, and sandi henderson (oh, yes, that's meadow dot in robin's egg/mint! my all time favorite fabric).

 the quilting was an easy stitch-in-the-ditch. which isn't actually that easy. first and last time. i much prefer to echo-quilt the seams if i'm going to straight line it. and, typically, there are still a few threads i need to bury even now! i'm so bad about that.

i made a risky (to me) choice, but i also got the binding right: amy butler's daisy chain in that purpley-pink, which wasn't used elsewhere in the quilt but finished it off nicely. sure wish i could change out those yucky pink dot and box squares for the daisy chain now.

my mitered corners even turned out decent! but i don't think i doubled my thread on the binding because i saw some coming undone the other day. bummer.

that's my "at last" quilt, so named based on the scriptural phrase "the last shall be first and the first shall be last" because it was my first quilt made for my last (at the time) child, d4. also, i had made a quilt "at last" after years of wanting to do it. "at last."

now here's the twist to my story: this is and isn't exactly my first quilt. nope. i'd started "star cookie" all on my own, with just my own idea and a bit of reading about quilting, a month before i took the class. however, once i realized everything i'd done wrong, i had to restart "star cookie" to fix some things. that didn't happen until after i'd (mostly) completed "at last" so i really don't know who to claim as my first. they're sort of fraternal twins, i suppose.

was supposed to be a finish

oh, i tried. honest i did. but i didn't make it happen. and the above mess is what results when i'm madly scrambling to complete something by a deadline: scraps flung about, cuttings here and there, tools all over the place. not only do i not have a completed quilt, i have a mess on my hands.

my seester loree's baby arrived on monday and i immediately began work on the quilt. however, there hasn't been much quilt time to snatch here this week. i was so hoping to have the quilt finished to present at the placement ceremony last night. i worked away at it all afternoon yesterday as i helped the littlest girls with their school work. d4, bless her, kept encouraging me and even suggested i didn't need to put anything in the middle, i could just take the top as a blanket, it would work just fine that way.

so i went to the placement ceremony empty handed last night. the really important stuff happened without my quilt there. all the papers were signed, the families met and shared in the joy of this baby being placed into our family by his loving and brave birthmother, dessert was enjoyed. all without a quilt in sight. no big deal.

i'd like to take the scraps from this quilt and make some sort of keepsake for jed's birthmother. i don't know what she'd do with a mini quilt, but it's all i've come up with. any other suggestions?

seester time and some epp

my family had our annual girls weekend last week. it's a time when all three generations of females from my mom on down get together at my s-i-l's cabin for bonding over fun, food, chatter, religious devotionals, performances, hiking, crafting, and whatever else we can cram into one extended 4-day weekend together. it's awesome.

i brought along my new fabric picks for my epp project. i'm not sure if i like adding them in yet or not. still deciding. but i did work on basting them this last weekend. i cut one out already but figure any i don't use for this project i can use elsewhere, so no effort or fabric wasted.

now i'm going to introduce my seesters to you, those lovely ladies on my left sidebar. and there is some actual sewing in this post, a tiny bit at the end. promise!

our theme this year was "army", the motto "be all you can be." each year mom chooses a theme that everything is based on. and we always make t-shirts. it's fun to see everyone's different interpretations on the same basic tee. we went very simple this time with some basic vinyl cut on the silhouette by seester katee and ironed on the shirts.

 katee, the baby seester and a wicked-good hair stylist, also shared some new beauty techniques for the eyes. i am related to 4 very fashionable, well-manicured seesters. somehow i slipped in the group. they love me anyway. jodee, the photographer, was snapping shots of us after the make-over. and then my camera died - yikes! it's only the 2nd time ever that's happened. so i don't have a group shot, just individuals, to share. i wanted to include each seester, though, so you'll just have to scroll through all their beauty to get to the sewing.

 loree, seester #2, is closest to me in age, just 15 months younger. her new baby boy, jed, arrived on monday! so glad she got to spend the weekend with us first. (and i really should be working on the quilt right now!)

 oh, yes, here's my glamour shot. see, i do make up decently. i really ought to wear make-up more often, but the minutes they spend each day on their faces and hair, i spend sewing. and i have completed quilts to show after a while. fair trade, no?

 marcee is seester #3. this is her first time ever as a blonde and i still can't get over it. there was some sort of problem with her last hair coloring and she just went all out bleached. marcee doesn't sew, but with the help of her mother-in-law, who does quilt, she made two whole-cloth quilts for her family a few years ago.

jodee, #4, is the seester who resembles me the most. no, really! we do look alike. and she is the one i am the least like in every other way. except, i guess, she's a photographer and i like photography. she is in love with my "out on a limb" quilt, drooling over it whenever she comes over, but she has no interest in quilting. bummer.

that's my seesters. they are all creative and crafty in their own ways. we've even sewn on girls weekend before. this year we focused elsewhere than crafting. i did manage to get some epp shapes basted and one block sewn together.

i worked on this while we had our nightly adult devotionals. we talked about being content with our personal allotments and how obedience brings blessings.

next year i hope to have some sort of simple sewing project for all of us to do together - something to donate to a cause would be ideal. i'll have to keep my eyes peeled and my thinking cap on.

linking up with kelly at needle and thread thursday.

quilt top for a rainy day

 who says rainy days aren't fun?! not me! rain in the desert is like manna from heaven. it's always a cause for celebration in our household. we let the kids pause whatever is going on to splish splash it up in the downpour.

while they were running wild in the wet street, i was working on cousin sara's baby girl quilt, my second go at an improv pieced frame quilt. coincidentally, this quilt features some darling retro gals sporting umbrellas and slickers while they daintily play in the rain. perfect!

i only have two more frames planned for it and then the top is complete. those cute umbrella girls were a perfect compliment to my rainy morning. the sun came out in the afternoon and that's welcome, too. i had to stop work on this top, though, because my seester loree texted all of us that baby jed was on his way! so i had to start his quilt. i hope to have it done by thursday to present to them at the placement ceremony.

oh, and since it's wednesday, my other wip for the week is i'm going to make the pencil case for the patchwork, please zakka along 2.0. i'm using scraps from the rainy quilt for my pencils. i don't think i'll get it done this week, what with needing to complete jed's quilt and all, but i'm getting it started.

pincushion, finally!

i've needed a new pincushion for . . . i don't even know how long. since the dawn of sewing time around here, i suppose. this summer, some wrapped up binding has been standing in for the awaited arrival and the rest of my pins just live in the box. that binding is about to go on it's quilt and trying to get pins out of the box is a risky venture. so a pincushion was in order.

 i've got several patterns for some adorable heather bailey pincushions (supplies for some, too) as well as the countless patterns in my sewing library. but other than the strawberry i started years ago, i just haven't buckled down and made one. there always seem to be more pressing sewing projects to spend my limited time on. until this week!

i was browsing ayumi takahashi's book patchwork, please! and decided to make the pincushion on the cover. all it needed was a few scaps. i have plenty of those. i even had some linens stashed away from when we made headbands at girls weekend 2010.

 i selected some pink and pink-with-green fabrics from the scrap basket. for my linen, i chose a shot charcoal.

i've never done foundation paper piecing before or sewn a 3d shape, so this was out in exploratory waters for me. aside from it being maybe difficult to work with because it was small, i figured a simple project like this was a good choice for a beginner.

the books directions, however, were not extremely clear for a beginner like me. there was a certain level of assumed knowledge i was lacking and some directions that were just unclear. i was able to figure out how to do everything, but think the explanations could have been more precise and a few more diagrams would have been appreciated.

for example, in the paper piecing instruction section, you're told to temporarily glue the first scrap to the paper pattern, wrong sides together. then you're immediately told "with right sides together, fold the pattern down and cut 1/4" away from the paper." this thoroughly confused me! i thought it was a typo until i kept looking over everything and realized it just wanted me to fold the paper out of the way to create a 1/4" seam allowance on the scrap. "fold the paper down, right sides together" would have been more helpful. to me, at least.

when it came to the pattern for the pincushion, diagrams would have been helpful. having never done a 3d shape before, i didn't understand how to place all the pieces for sewing until i had played around with them a bit. but i did get there.

also, i do really think there is an incorrect measurement in that pattern. the little square patches are 2" sq, and you're supposed to end up with a patch 2 1/2" sq so that you have a seam allowance on all sides. yet the fabric scrap for the middle is supposed to be cut at 2" x 1.5", so i was missing the seam allowance in a few places.

the linen scraps were all to be cut the same size, which meant a lot of waste for the tiniest piece at the bottom and not quite enough for the piece across the top. i quickly discovered i could use pieces cut off the sides for the tiniest bottom triangle, which saved me 3 scraps. in the future, i think i would cut 8 rectangles as called for (2" x 1.5") and 4 rectangles at 2.5" x 1.5" instead of 16 at 2" x 1.5".

 i think that's why i had gaps in some spots, like in the photo above.  the gaps fell in the seam allowance, so when i sewed the top on, it all seems to have worked out, so i guess it's okay. but i'd rather be safe than sorry. if this were a project that was going to be washed ever, those little gaps might cause issues.

it was pretty easy sewing that little box together - i was surprised! i thought i'd have difficulty manipulating the pieces so they didn't get sewn together in the wrong places, but i had no problems at all.

when it came time to stuff the box, i got out my stuffing scraps. this box of strings and cuttings too small to be good for anything else has been piling up in hopes of being used as stuffing in projects that require some.

 so instead of polyfil, i used the strings. the washed bits from my epp project were especially soft and cushy feeling. so glad there was a use for them! i even used the leftover pieces cut off of this project when the piecing was all trimmed up.

 so here she is - not as crisp looking as ayumi's cover girls, but not too shabby, either. i did have a small mismatch along seams, so one of the patterned fabric pieces is slightly off in the center, but the button seems to be covering that up. ayumi used fabric covered buttons for her pincushions, but i didn't have kits for any small enough for this project. not wanting to delay with a trip to the store, i selected a sparkly green button from my button stash. (oh, yes, i have one of those, too.)

overall, this was a fun and quick project. heck, if i can do it, anyone probably can! i will likely make more of these if i have a need for a quick gift. i do like that it uses up scraps and that i got to dig into my stuffing scraps and button stash, as well.

in general, the book is completely adorable! there are several projects i'm itching to make, like the storybook quilt and pencil cases (zip pouches - another first!). and i really, really want to figure out where ayumi gets all her great fabrics. japan? i hope not. i sure wish she'd credited the sources so i could get my hands on some. her fabric taste is awesome.

my only other wish for the book? a cd with all the patterns on it so you could print out what you wanted instead of photocopying or tracing them. that would have been the icing on the cake. i might just have to join the zakka along 2.0 now!

linking in with finish it up friday at crazy mom quilts.

a small but real finish

the last few Fridays, I've had no "real" finishes to share - just fake ones that let me slip through the door and get some linky love from wonderful quilty people out there. but this week I really did finish not one, but two projects! so my link in with finish it up Friday is totally legit. (you can see my pincushion tomorrow.)

presenting "patch the puppy" quilt!

this is the first time I ever attempted improv piecing.  I was inspired by beth's patchwork frames baby quilt at plum and june. I was even going to follow her tutorial for the pattern. but when I sat down to sew, I didn't feel like making exact measurements for cuts or doing the patchwork ring. too much work for the mood I was in. so I just took her great idea as a jumping off point and went with whatever happened. I let my 11 yr old daughter (d2) select the order of fabrics for me.

 i'm pretty happy with the way it turned out although I learned a thing or two by what I don't like as much about it. namely:

1) it's not wonky/off-centered enough in the frame sizings. some of the strips almost look like they were meant to be cut the same but weren't. next time, i'll make the constrast between the strip widths greater so the boxes stand out more from each other and the off set nature of them is more noticeable.

and 2) I wish i'd got more color contrast in those 3 center rings between the whites. those 3 strips are so close in color that they almost make the other blues not fit because they match and the others don't. it's got to be either matchy or not matchy to work best, I think.

also, not a major issue, but I realized the other day when my baby tried to walk across it and I panicked that she would get it dirty, that this very light color scheme might be difficult for the mother to keep clean! oh, well. it looks sweet and very baby at the least.

for quilting, I chose to keep a soft feel to the quilt by just echo quilting the insides and outsides of the frames. I was trying really hard to sew accurately, so I made myself sew on "turtle", the slow setting on juki. it took ages and ages. but I think it helped some.

I love the little center accent patch of puppies from aneela hooey's sherbet pips line. I've got loads of pips that I've yet to cut into so it felt good to use this here. and it inspired my name for the quilt, too.

i'm torn between using "patch the puppy " and something with "spot", though, because I like the p alliteration with the first one and I think if I used spot it would also refer to all the polka dot/spotted prints in the quilt.

but "patch the puppy" it is.

I used an amy butler aqua dot on the back and an adorn it dot for the binding. normally the print on the binding not being straight would bother me, but for some reason it doesn't here. it was the best color choice by far from my stash, so I used it.

I love a quilt that comes together in a few sittings. this one was about a week total of sewing here and there as I got the chance. now to get it delivered!

also linking in with Kelly at needle and thread thursday

small wips

 in the binding phase of this little fella. it was slated for my expected-any-day-now nephew, jed, but my sister came and fabric shopped my stash for a custom order. no worries, there were 3 more i needed to make anyway. this one will go to either sam or trace.

attempting this mini pretty - first non-quilt sewing project in absolutely ages. and a foray into foundation piecing.

linking up with freshly pieced's wip wednsesday.

a little help

i try to involve my kids in my sewing as much as possible. my aim is to not only give them happy memories and associations with sewing, but to teach them as i am learning, too. besides, i don't want to be lost in my sewing world why my children grow up unnoticed on the sidelines. if i can sew and spend time with them, it's a good thing.

my own mother was a prolific and accomplished seamstress who made most of our clothing for several years. once there were 8 of us, the wardrobe making slowed down to mostly sunday  or special occasion dresses. i do remember the trips to the fabric store, the pins in the shag carpet (and our feet), cutting out patterns, the whir of the machine. however, beyond our involvement in selection and maybe some pinning and pattern cutting, she did the sewing herself.

i know she meant to teach us and rather thought she was as she went along. but really, i had no idea how to sew other than the few lessons i had from home ec units. i knew how to thread a machine and that you were supposed to line the arrows on the pattern pieces up on the fabric grain. mom did teach me to cross stitch, just not to sew. despite my lack of learning, those early experiences instilled in me a positive outlook on sewing and a feeling of competency should i choose to give it a whirl.

this is one of the reasons i try to involve my own children so much. although they all show interest at times and will help periodically, i have one little person who routinely shows up at the machine. i have to be very careful when she's around because she loves to push the buttons on the machine, unasked, while  i'm sewing. this is dangerous!

i'm always on the look-out for tasks to involve her in. she thinks the small dusting brush for the machine is her personal property as i've given her the job of removing lint (in safe areas). "oh! i need to get the fuzz off!" she exclaims whenever she wanders over.

she's learned how to remove basting pins for me, a task i gladly leave to her. when it's a big quilt, she can do it as i am quilting. however, when she tried to do it with this baby quilt, it kept pulling at my stitching. so i just left them in and turned it over to her when i was done. she took her own sweet time removing them, which i enjoyed watching.

last night she also helped me pin a 4sq i was putting together. she thought it was so fun to count all the pins (great homeschool lessons since she really needs practice with this). it was a little unsettling when she wanted to remove the pins as i sewed, but i felt it important to take the extra bit of time to allow her to do the task. i also allowed her to push the machine buttons for me at the appropriate times when directed by mama. we constantly talk safety, which is slowly sinking in.

hearing her exclaim, excitedly, "you're teaching me to quilt, huh, mama?!" was worth all the patience allowing her to help requires of me.