triangle along pull - updated

***i'm updating my fabric pull for the triangle along. after looking at #trianglequilt on instagram, and marking all the ones i liked, i realized i really like mostly solid quilts best. and after playing around with the modern solids ii pieces that i got from cuts of cotton, i decided to get some more solids/near solid basics for the triangle quilt.

(bye-bye fabric fast and it's only the 2nd!) i love the way they look on the order screen. i've kept this screen open just so i can go back and look at them again. something about the way they look in all that white makes me happy. when i made the collage, they look a lot more color dense. that's something to keep in mind when making the quilt, i guess. now all I have to do is wait for them to arrive. these will form the base of my quilt and i'll use all the lovely prints mixed in here and there. maybe just one or two of each print. i'm gonna have a lot of leftovers!

perhaps i'll do a double-sided quilt with strips of all these luscious prints on the back.



i've wanted to do a triangle quilt, and paula's quilt along is the perfect opportunity. however, now that i have dug out my pull, made last month, it's looking something like a train wreck and i'm unsure of myself. there will need to be some culling done here. i really like all the triangle graphics out there in solids with pops of colors on more low-volume backgrounds. this looks nothing like that! maybe once i start cutting and placing, i'll get some inspiration?

linking up with paula's selection party for the triangle along.

pinwheel learning curve

 my march bom blocks for gypsy wife and sugar block club did not get made in march. i had a few hang ups about "perishing" for gw and also for fabric placement on march's "explore" block. i wanted them to be just right so they got pushed aside. it's not like i didn't have plenty else to work on around here. now that it's april and i got a few baby quilt finishes out of the way (yay!), i decided to work on my monthly projects. i started with the pinwheel sq-in-a-sq blocks for gw. and that was as far as i got after about 3 hours of cutting, sewing, pressing. sheesh! these are intricate, detailed blocks. i have a whole new respect for people who do such piecing all the time.

for the above block, i went out on a limb and used a solid for my outer square! it's a modern solids ii by alissa height carlton, in "sea" i think, purchased from cuts of cotton. if you are like me and just never use solids because, well, they aren't as interesting or you are unsure how to use them effectively, you might want to give some of these solids a try. they are crossweaves so they have more color depth and play. i really, really like it! me! a solid! yep, it was a big moment over here when i finally cut into and used this gorgeous piece of solid fabric.

 after making my first set of pinwheels last month and then seeing everyone else's in the flickr group, i learned that i needed more contrast in my fabric choices and that i like the pinwheels with two fabrics/less scrappy. i'm pretty darn happy with how this mix turned out. there is a touch of icy blue in the amh print, which helps tie it to the blue art gallery print. then the jd border print also has red for a further tie, but pink for another note of fun. the tiny red dots set if off perfectly for me. goodness, that's a lot of time and though going into one 5" block! but i'm learning a lot about color and fabric placement one block at a time right now, which is better than one whole quilt at a time, so i think it's a good investment.

 all the seams are another issue i need to master here. i pressed the blue bordered block to the sides, which made a lot of bulk in the middle intersection. i know there's supposed to be a way to nest them, but i couldn't remember how or where. can anyone point me to a post or tutorial on this? you'd think one of the bazillion quilting books i own would address this, but i couldn't remember one and didn't want to go looking.

i pressed the red dot bordered block open, which seemed to be better. but i'm open to suggestions and advice!

i got my sewing space all cleaned up over the weekend. but now look at it after just these two little blocks (and a few mini hsts)! messy, messy.

linking up with lee's wip wednesday at freshly pieced.

the newest expected arrival

 march 26th, 26 days - that's how long i went this month before a legitimate need arose for some fabric purchasing. my friend venessa and i settled our duel over d2's girl baby quilt at the church auction with me promising to make her an identical quilt for her highest bid; proceeds going to the fundraiser, of course.

i assured her that i had all the same fabrics at home only to return home and find out i did not. i was shy the green and pink dot fabric. there was a moment of panic because this is an old "nicey jane" print and those are getting hard to come by. however, an etsy search found me what i needed - on sale, even. i got a little more of the "picnic bouquet" in pink just to make sure there was enough of that, too. so now i have what i need to make an identical quilt. only i'm going to use a green dot fabric for the back and the stripe for binding because i just think it'll look better.

i really and truly did not want to make this purchase. i was feeling so good about getting all the way through one whole month, especially after my disastrous february free-for-all. but it was absolutely necessary. the quilt's already been paid for, for cryin' out loud! i was sorely tempted to wait until april first just to say i had gone a whole month, but didn't want to risk it. (oh, me of little faith.)

oh, and while i was at it, i may have dropped a few scraps of heather bailey prints in my cart, too. maybe. scraps! heather bailey! yeah, i caved. but only just the tiniest bit. i'm dreaming up a project just for these bits already.

so i pretty much went the entire month without any purchases at all. one allowable exception is pretty good. it's not the squeaky clean record i wanted, but it's pretty darn good. especially in in comparison to other months. i can say that on another occasion i completely resisted the urge to purchase and made-do with my on-hand stash. i pulled together everything for d2's baby boy quilt from stash, which was a huge stretch. but it paid off in the end. oh, and i also scrounged for a binding for "way out weston." i didn't think there was anything good in my stash but there was. hurray! that's two victories and one concession. (patting self on back presently.)

rebecca lynne asked for tips for how to stick with the fast:

• don't look - simply stay away from websites or stores since you're not going to buy anything. why torture yourself? if you don't know what you're missing, you kinda stop missing it so much.
• media fast - take it one step further and stop looking at sites that are going to feature new product or that are heavy on hype. i found myself frustrated when seeing all the cool new ideas out there (which are eternally endless) because it fed my desire to "try that, too." stop being inspired and do what you wanted to do last week/month/year.
• be a homebody - not only did i stop visiting the interwebby so much, i stopped posting so much myself. by spending less time ogling all the great ideas on the computer, i made more time to actually make stuff at home. and focusing more on actually making stuff rather than trying to document or share it constantly helped me buckle down on quilting chores i wasn't excited about.
• focus on current projects and wips - my biggest pitfall seems to be the need to round out what i have on hand when i start something new. there are so many things laying around here, begging to be finished that there is no need to start anything else. yes, it's thrilling! yes, i adore new projects and am burning to cut into my to-do list in my head. but continually starting and never finishing anything just makes for piles and piles everywhere. none of the half-finished piles are what i had in mind when i got inspired or invested in the project at the beginning.
• fall in love again - i find it helpful to look over the stash i already have, remember the projects i was so excited to make just a little while ago. it gets me excited all over again and i'm less apt to look elsewhere for a fabric thrill.
• do some antique quilt browsing- this was a surprising help for me and i'll explain more about it in a separate post. let's just say seeing lots of worn and weary, often times unfinished quilts made me stop and think about my pile of wips and the real longevity/value of what i'm creating. it made me question my obsession with producing dozens and dozens of ultimately fleeting and fragile objects, especially at this time in my life.

those all rather blended together, but one item really does lead right into the next. i hope this is helpful to someone else or at least makes someone think.

i've realized i have quite an imagination. it's pretty much bottomless. when i was a little girl, that meant i was always coming up with new games to play or ideas to explore. i thought that part of me had grown up. now it's manifest differently: i can't stop imagining all the brilliant/adorable/cool things i could make. just like i'm tempted to fill my plate too full with all the tantalizing foods at a banquet because my eyes are bigger than my stomach, i fill my to-do list far too full with all the possibilities of what i can do or make. this only leads to stomach aches and mounting messes, not a pleasurable meal or quilts to enjoy. i keep reminding myself that a few awesome quilts wrapped around me are far better than piles of fabric languishing on shelves. (and in boxes, under tables, falling over on table tops, filling up the floor, etc.)

 

linking up with the march fabriholics anonymous check-in at making rebecca lynne

 

here's the kicker!!! before writing this post i pulled out the fabrics to get that commissioned baby quilt made only to discover i didn't have enough of the "pocketbook" print, either. all i could find was a cut-into skinny quarter and i need a full fat one for the quilt. darn! etsy rescued me again. it's ordered. i was baffled how this happened since i was certain i had found a nice cut of yardage in my stash last week. however, i cleaned up my sewing area and transported last month's towering purchase pile upstairs and just couldn't find it anywhere. i must have been mistaken. but as i wrote this post, i looked at the photo of the stack for the quilt and there it is! right under the stripe.

one full yard of "pocketbook" in pink

 

loosing my mind, i tell you. it's completely gone.

and now it's a girl!

my finishing streak continues - i've finally completed baby cousin elizabeth's improv frames quilt. it got pushed aside in the wake of penny patch and the christmas gift quilts last fall. for a while now all it was in need of was the binding.

since october, the top was mostly complete, but i thought it was a bit small and wanted to add one more frame around it. the only fabric i could find to do this with was the yardage i had picked for the backing. unfortunately, i only had one yard of that fabric. i was going to make-do by figuring out how much excess fabric there was, divide that by 2, and then split the difference between the top and the backing, but it was rather risky and wouldn't give me very much of a border at all. besides, the quilt was running on the small side, anyway. so i played it safe and tracked down some more of the pretty paula prass garden lattice in sunset for michael miller fabrics. it wasn't as easy as i hoped finding any, but in january i found 2 yards (yay! staying on the safe side and a bit extra for stash) at an etsy shop called "vintage inspiration."

 not only did my fabric come prettily wrapped in some sewing pattern tissue paper, but there were a few vintage popcorn bags thrown in as a special treat. the kids are going to love those on family movie night!

inside the carefully wrapped package my fabric was nicely folded and tied with a satin ribbon, too. i love shops that give those extra little touches.

all of that was a while ago and i let it sit while i worked on other projects. but a few weeks ago i got out the fabric order and put that border on. but i forgot to include another little peek-a-boo piece of the umbrella girls in the frame like i wanted to! argh. that took a little bit of a patch job to fix.

 i decided to put the piece in where two of the frame pieces met to avoid excess cutting. but i forgot to figure in the seam allowance when i cut the piece. darn it! i was going to use the two little faces for the piece, but cut it short, so i had to go with another bit instead.

i don't know why it was so hard for me to wrap my brain around how big this piece should be and how to fit it in properly, but it was. until i had done it incorrectly and then i could see exactly what to do! my little remaining scrap of the fabric did not have anymore faces in it, so this rather boring umbrella piece made it in the spot instead. not sure it was worth all the effort, but there it is.

 today i put my big girl pants on and did the machine binding to complete this baby. usually i make binding while sitting at the machine, sort of eyeballing the 1/4" overlap when piecing. however, this time i did it all at once, standing up at my cutting mat. that's when i hit on the brilliant idea of using my cutting mat marks as a guide for a more accurate 1/4" overlap. it worked!

 when it came to joining up the binding, i pulled out my favorite directions from block party - the modern quilting bee. my only problem with this tutorial is that the binding is a solid color. in fact, it seems every binding tutorial in every quilt book, whether photographed or drawn, uses a solid color binding so it's nearly impossible to tell which is the right or wrong side of the fabric and which way the fabric is manipulated. i photographed it with patterned fabric myself, once apon a time, so as to help me remember which way to do it, but don't know what i did with those photos. go figure. anyhow, i made notes in the book so i can remember. someday i'll be able to do this from memory. for now, i'm glad of my notes!

i took yet another stab at machine binding with this quilt. i went extra slow and really focused intently on getting the alignment correct. it's an improvement, all right, but by no means have i yet perfected machine binding. it's HARD! i feel like an amateur all over again when it comes to machine binding. just when my quilts were starting to look pretty good, too. i only plan on doing it for baby quilts because of the added durability. however, because of the speed, I'm sorely tempted to finish off the stack of "just needs binding" wips this way.

i'm going to be so sad to see this quilt go. i truly love it. i hope baby elizabeth comes to feel the same way.

it's a boy! again!

 my 2nd finish in forever, right on the heels of the first one earlier this week - another baby boy quilt. "way out weston" is complete. i can't say it's my favorite finish, but i can say it's done. some of the fabrics in here i like a lot and others i . . . don't. it's that simple. my own two boys held up the quilt for my finish photo, but not without some boy silliness and dog photo bombing.

 this is a little better, even with the chihuahuas in the background. while he was assisting me, he was examining my quilting, and s1 remarked, "uh, why is this line so wiggly?" i told him it was because i did wavy lines this time instead of straight. "oh, good! because if it was supposed to be straight, well . . . it's not." after i had such difficulty with the straightline quilting on this little fella, i went ahead and added in more purposefully organic lines to make it look like they were all supposed to be wavy.

i alternated a light tan and a baby blue aurofil thread. unfortunately, they are so light you can't really tell the difference without looking closely. and even then, it's iffy.

the nutty quilting was only one of the issues i've had with this quilt. in the end, the colors don't look as balanced because of what i had to cut off the left side when the backing turned out too short. it's bugging me that there isn't another dark blue strip on the far left.

enough of the nitpicking, though. it's done and ready for baby weston, who is about a month old now. this is one time where i really hope what everyone always says about non-quilters not noticing flaws they way we do is true.

i gave machine binding another go with this quilt. it was an improvement over my first/previous attempt. i just did a straight stitch with juki this time. it's alright but i still need to get a better grip on the construction and measurements behind a good machine binding.

i do think the michael miller textured basics stripe in orange made a nice frame for this quilt.

"way out weston" over and out.

it's a boy!

 we finished off d2's baby boy quilt for the church auction with seconds to spare. even though we were a few minutes behind, i hastily snapped some photos, just for the record. so please excuse the poor shots, but we had a church function to get to!

 after d2 selected some of my favorite, out-of-print fabrics for her girl quilt, i decided to pick the fabrics for the boy quilt myself. part of the reason i suggested she make the quilts for the auction was i figured it was a good way to use up some of my less-loved prints that were languishing in my stash. i thought she'd go right for the ones i didn't like so much. however, her tastes have improved quite rapidly! so i picked these prints myself with getting rid of stuff in mind.

i used two prints, including the western print, that didn't make it into "way out weston", and two other fat quarters i'd gotten on clearance and had no plans for yet. they all coordinated well enough and had a similar enough feel to them, but it wasn't necessarily a fabulous pairing. however, it's growing on me.

i meant to do a cute, loopy fmq pattern but as i got going, my muscle memory kicked into stipple mode. before i knew it, i had a whole row of stipple and no loops at all. by that time it felt too late to introduce any, so stippling it was. the thread color was another issue. with my color palette beign so strained already, i had to go with a neutral white thread even though it showed up glaringly on the deep brown backing.

the backing was the hardest part to choose. i was limited to the 20 or so flannels i had on hand. that sounds like a lot of choices, but this was a rather unique color palette. the top was strong on aqua and grey, but i didn't have anything like either of them in flannel or even something big enough in regular quilting cottons. i was determined not to buy fabric for this, so i settled on a brown star flannel. i'm banking on the browns in the cowboy print and the western theme to make it work. again, not the greatest choice, but it seems to work okay since the grey on the front is rather warm and muddy.

the real problem with this quilt was the machine binding. i've never done it before. i used a zigzag stitch and white thread. so every little flaw totally shows up! and there are plenty of flaws. even when i thought i was sewing perfectly straight on the front, I'd turn it over and the back would have veered off the binding. this is not easy sewing! right at the end, i realized that if i stayed about 1/16th" inside the top binding it would mostly catch the back binding at the right place. but that wasn't until the end. oh, well. i figured that who ever bought it at the auction would think the 11 year old had done it (so bad of me!!!) and not mind too much. since my m-i-l ended up with the quilt, maybe i can offer to fix it for her. i need more practice anyway.

my first finish in ages and amanda jean is taking a blog break, so no friday finish link up for me! oh, well. good for her.

quilting rebel

 most all of my saturday was spent helping d2 finish off her baby quilts for the church auction. the boy quilt was quilted and needed binding. the girl quilt was basted, waiting for quilting. i had her do every part of the quilt she possibly could, including zig-zagging batting scraps together. she did not like that too much! when it came time do the quilting, i simply did it myself. teaching her to fmq was beyond what we were willing to do at this time. so we swapped - i did the fmq and she babysat for me. that was a fair trade.

despite the looming deadline, i took my sweet time and really focused on making nice curves and shapes on the 2nd quilt, the girl quilt. and if i do say so myself, this is some pretty quilting. my stitch length is getting more consistent, i back myself into tight spots less, and my curves are curvier. it was very satisfying. since i intended to buy the quilt myself, as i worked on it, i had fun imagining that one day one of my grandbabies will be snuggled up in this little blanket their mama made when she was only 11.

 and i did not stop to remove but one or two pins the whole time! i know this is bad practice, and, from personal experience, "dangerous", too. but i just don't like breaking the groove of stitching every few seconds to take out pins. so i've become rather expert at navigating around them. if i'm going fast, then the quilting can suffer, but if i'm slow enough, i can still get good shapes even with the pins in the way.

 oh, these nicey jane prints by heather bailey were so pretty to work with. i think i'll use this church flower print as a backing some time.

when i was done with the quilting, my daughter had to leave off playing in the water in the backyard with her friends to remove pins for me. she enlisted her friends' help and they were done lickety-split. i love listening in on their conversations while they observe her at work. most children really are fascinated by and interested in the magical process of sewing.

 i was sewing down to the wire right up until the auction. we were allowed to bring incomplete projects or goods to be finished within a certain time frame, but i really wanted to have these finished. however, i did not get the binding of the girl quilt attached on the front. i did complete the boy quilt by machine binding the whole thing (an upcoming post). so i  attached a slip of paper explaining it's almost finished. the backing, by the way, is a pink dot flannel. very cuddly for a baby.

so how did the auction go? very well. i got to come home with the quilt for keeps! that was my goal seeing as this is d2's first-ever quilt. it was a silent auction where the bidders had a window of time to write down bids on a record sheet. i went ahead and started the bid out well above the minimum bid to stake my claim, but a friend of mine, who is expecting a baby girl, was in love with it and bid me up. i upped that bid and talked to venessa about the quilt. apparently it's the exact shade of green she is using in her nursery. i explained to her why i "needed" to buy the quilt and agreed to make her another one for her bid price. so i paid a nice, high price for d2's quilt and we got even more money for the girls' camp fund from the commission. and i was already going to make venessa a baby quilt anyway, so it's win-win all the way around!

during the auction, i was talking to another friend about how i was determined to buy the quilt. she said, "so if i bid $150 on it, you'll up that? we could raise a lot of money here!" i told her if she did that to me, i'd stick her with the payment and steal the quilt. that would be especially funny since she has 5 boys.

what happened to the boy quilt? my m-i-l ended up with it! i set the minimum bid for the quilts at $40 since i wanted at least the cost of the materials covered. there were other, less-expensive services and goods offered, so when my m-i-l was the second bidder, no one out bid her. i have no idea what she's going to do with it since there are no more babies on the way or even on the horizon in our family, but i'm sure she'll find something to do with it. maybe it'll live in the porta crib or playroom at her house so grandkids can use it.

still lifes

 this little still life accumulated all on it's own in my sewing area. something about the colors and everyday objects makes me smile. it tells a bit of a story, doesn't it? there are some recent notion and thread purchases, removed basting pins set down when i couldn't find the jar, and a tube of my favorite lip gloss, all hurriedly set down in passing on separate occasions. i like to keep clutter to a minimum in the sewing/dining area, but bits and bobs do tend to collect periodically.

this is another little gathering that happened, which is not as pretty, but tells two stories.

the flower was presented to me by my son, s2, after he and his dad took a bike ride last weekend. "oh, mom! we picked you a flower." the mr pulls something out of his rear pocket (really). "uh, well, it looked a lot better before dad sat on it!" it was sweet and very funny.

the lightbulb was a replacement bulb for my bistro lights in the courtyard. it came in a two pack, which the baby discovered. she somehow managed to open the packaging and get both bulbs out. then she gleefully clinked them together. her brother saw what she was doing and tried to stop her, but didn't make it to her in time. he was able to catch her hands after she had smashed the delicate glass of the first bulb. i ran to answer his yells for help and was able to further immobilize her hands as she was trying to pick up the shiny pieces of glass, but we couldn't hold her and get the end of the bulb out of her hand, too. dad had to join the effort. it took all three of us to remove the bulb end from her hand and get her out of the area unharmed. then she burst into sobs because she didn't understand why we'd ruined her fun and were frantically yelling to "let go!" since she wasn't hurt, it was rather comical, too. in the end. the unbroken bulb was hastily set down on the cakestand while i cleaned up the shards.

so what's laying around your sewing area and what story does it tell?

don't wear corduroy

i've had a few moments for sewing amidst all the kid project support. i finally got around to piecing the backing for "penny patch"! as much as i like seeing it on the floor, i'd actually like to snuggle up in it, too. i tried a new technique i have used once before - i included the selvage in the backing pieces. this worked brilliantly the first time i did it with "paris daydreams" but not so well here simply because the print was too close to the edge of these free spirit fabrics.

they got eaten up in the already scant seam allowance. i am one of those sewers who loves a pretty selvage. therefore, i wanted to preserve the information and art work of the selvage in the final quilt. but it looks like free spirit fabrics are not a good option for that. however, i do have a completed backing now.

unfortunately, i sewed a seam which extended the entire length of the quilt before i realized the tension was a mess. ugh. talk about unpicking for-ever.

just look how long it goes - on and on - the complete left side of this piece was all sewn in that nasty, loopy mess. however, the good news is the loops were so big that i could simply snip at the large loops on the backside of the piece.

then, as i resewed the seam, i just brushed the little thread snips out of the way before i sewed.

this worked pretty well although i did not take into account that i was wearing corduroy pants at the time, which meant most of the thread snips stuck to my pants as they fell into my lap. that is just par for the sewing course around here, though. yet another learning note to self: don't wear corduroy when you plan to sew.