Star Progress

It's been awhile since I worked on Oren's Star (Wars) quilt.  When each of my children turned 5, I decided to make them a quilt representing their party theme and assumed loves at the time.  Emma had an Under-the Sea party that inspired me to make her a zig-zag (back before chevron was the word for it...) quilt out of Mendocino fabrics.  Oren was and is a Star Wars geek and so his quilt is a star sampler.

Well, he turns 8 next month so it's high time this quilt was done.  And I'm getting there.

I mentioned last week that I put my "design wall" back up and so the stars went back up too.  I had 14 done and want to make 20, so I'm pretty close to making these blocks into a quilt top.

Last week I showed a sneak peek on Instagram of my Star of the East block coming together.

I ended up having no trouble at all with the Y-seams but did struggle with the center point and plan to go back and fix it this week, but it's finished.

Up next was a Rocky Road to Kansas based on Faith's tutorial from the Summer Sampler series.  I loved this block when I made it for that quilt and I love it still.  It used up some of my scraps from this quilt and it's so graphic and clean looking.

Here are those two blocks:

And here is the quilt up to this point.  This is not the final arrangement of the blocks, just a way for me to see them all and see what fabrics I've used.  They're all going to need a good pressing and to be trimmed up before anything gets stitched together.  :)

I've got 4 blocks left and have them designed in my EQ5.  Up next is the Strip Star and I've got the fabrics pulled.  It looks simple enough and I would love to finish it today but that's a maybe...

My goal is to have all of the blocks for this quilt done by this weekend and have the entire top pieced with sashing and borders by the end of the month.  Sounds doable, right?  Just keep sewing, that's what I need to tell myself.  :)

What are you up to this week?

Friday Finish

Actually I finished this quilt a couple of weeks ago, but since no blogging or photographing was done since I hurt my back, I'm just getting to showing this off.

Last year, I asked the Empower Circle of do. Good stitches to make me blocks featuring rectangles and squares.  We're a busy group made up of some of the sweetest women you'd ever want to meet and I figured this would be simple and creative for the girls.

I gave them this color palette and asked them to sew up whatever they wanted using straight lines--no wonkiness.

via design-seeds.com

They all rolled in and I knew that once I'd gone out on a limb colorwise, I needed to go out on a limb with the construction of this quilt as well.  So I decided there needed to be a lot of negative space in this quilt.  I can handle asymmetry but have had trouble with negative space in the past.  It feels like I just didn't finish and I need to do more.  But I thought these blocks were strong and could support the negative space.

After questioning myself for some time, I ordered some purple, laid them out and went for it.  Once pieced I wasn't sure how to quilt it other than I knew I wanted it done and sent off to comfort someone instead of sit at my house any longer.

So I free-motion-quilted loops all over.  It's been some time since I FMQ'ed anything and I had always thought my machine really didn't like FMQ.  I'm still not convinced it does, but I realized that a lot of the issues were with me and how I was moving the quilt.  I still had a lot of thread breakage (and if anybody has suggestions on why my top tension gets so tight my thread breaks I'm all ears) but the "eyelashes" got better and I figured that Rome wasn't built in a day and neither would I be good at FMQ that fast.

This quilt is far from perfect.  In some places on the back, the eyelashes are bad.  In some places my loops are less loopy and more shaky.  In some places I backed myself into corners and had to cross lines or quilt close together.

But the quilt police will not come after me and take this quilt or me to jail.  Life will continue and while the quilt is not perfect--neither is the quilter.  I decided it was a lesson in life.  I'm sending this quilt to an organization that teaches girls and young women to be strong, to never give up on life.  I'm giving this quilt to a young lady who needs to know that through obstacles and imperfections, life keeps going.  That when things look tough and you want to quit, there is another imperfect young woman out there who sends her love--a whole group of us that keep trying and keep going each day.

Isn't that what do. Good stitches is about?  Aren't we trying to help others as we grow as quilters and as people?  I'm not excusing my mistakes and saying I don't want to get better.  I'm getting better as I share, as I grow, as I work through life's imperfections.  I'm saying it's okay to be less than the best, but it's not okay to give up.

I hope the recipient of this quilt feels every bit of that.  I hope she knows that the hardest part of every battle is going forward when it seems too hard.  I hope she knows there are those of us out there that care and that we're all going through battles, big and small.  Let's fight those battles together.  :)

Random

Hi all!  Have you ever been so bogged down by what's going on that even though you have things to share, even though you want to share, you just can't quite get to it?

My back is doing better, but I managed to catch the flu or some version of something last week that put me down.  I think I've slept more in the last 2 weeks than in the 2 months before that.  My Mom came up and stayed a few days over the weekend to help out because I never got farther than the living room before needing to go back to bed.

But I am slowly but surely on the mend.  I've met with a neurosurgeon who is conservatively offering steroid injections or surgery as my options for healing my back but he wants more recent photos of my back so I'll be having an MRI done tomorrow.  I've deferred my half-marathon until next year and am realizing how much I've really come to love exercising since I am not capable of it right now.  I told a friend today that my teenaged-self is laughing at that statement as I've never loved exercise.  Apparently I actually do.  Who knew?

I've started and finished a secret-sewing project for a friend that will remain secret for another month or so.  It was so unlike me--I gathered all of the pieces, sat down and began to sew. I sewed through all of my emotions and by the end of the day the project was complete.  I may be at my body's mercy right now, but I can still sew and make beautiful things.

These are threads from it.  So springy.  :)

I photographed the do. Good stitches quilt that I finished weeks ago.  I plan to show it off tomorrow before mailing it to Alternatives for Girls.  

I hung my "design wall" back up.  It's a cheap tablecloth that I'd taped to the wall in my sewing room.  But the tape had come loose and it fell a few months back.  I didn't worry about it over the holidays as all of my sewing had deadlines at that point.  But I, by myself, managed to hang it back this morning with some pushpins.  It feels much more secure now and I've got Oren's Stars hung back up on it to inspire me to finish that quilt.

Up next for that one is a "Star of the East" block.

One thing about the Electric Quilt program (at least my version) is you can always print out both foundation pieces and templates but there are no real directions for sewing.  This block appears to have Y-seams but I'm reminding myself that those aren't really all that bad and convincing myself to just get it done.

It's my month to be Queen Bee in That Stash Bee and I've asked the girls to make me Roman Cross blocks.  I actually saw Lee's Crosspatch block bag in her new book Vintage Quilt Revival and fell in love with it.  It's VERY rare for me to buy a quilting book but I love Lee's style as well as her co-author's Katie and Faith so it seemed the perfect buy to round out my order on Amazon a few weeks back.

I asked for summery colors based on this palette 

via design-seeds.com

and have made up one sample block.

I can't wait to have them all come in and pet them.  :)  I think this will make a great throw for summer months when the air conditioning is a little much or to use as a blanket at the beach/softball fields/etc where we'll be spending our time this summer.

I've just about finished the hem on my February Lady Sweater I started at the end of 2012.  I've still got sleeves to finish, but could possibly, maybe finish this sweater by the end of this February...We'll see.

I desperately need to sort my scraps AGAIN.  I thought I had been doing well with them but found a basket I'd thrown a bunch in and when I say basket I actually mean HUGE basket.  That's going to take most of an afternoon to sort what is big enough to put back into my stash and then trim down my scraps.  

I like to trim down to orderly sizes--2 1/2" strips, 5" squares and strips, 10" squares.  Then all of my 2 1/2" strips go into my bag for that scrap quilt I'm slowly working on.

And finally, my friend Kim is organizing an orphan block project where a few of us will get together to show what orphan blocks we've got lying around and swap them around to make charity quilts with.  I knew I had a few from a bee I did awhile back and found 11 blocks that I'd never put together.  11!!  I think I'm just going to make up one more and send an entire quilt to her instead of saddling someone with an almost quilt.  They were blocks I didn't end up liking that much for the most part so I guess I was never inspired to finish it up...  Well, someone will benefit from that I guess...

And that's my dose of randomness for today.  I'll be back tomorrow with pics of the purple quilt all finished up and ready to comfort someone.

What are you up to on this wintery Thursday afternoon?

Random Thursday it is

Hi y'all!  For those of you who don't follow me on instagram, I'm sorry for the delay in posting.  Last week my right leg was giving me some trouble with sciatica pain and Saturday it sent me to the ER with a herniated disc.  Since them I've been on bed-rest per Chris' orders and haven't been up to doing much.  I can't get in with the neurosurgeon till next Wednesday so we've kinda just been letting me rest up on the meds until then.  Can I just say how BORING daytime TV is.  And the meds make me sleepy so I haven't been able to read or knit too much.

But I'm getting back into my normal groove, just a slower version of it, and coming back around.

--I've got that purple quilt all done and ready to show off.  I was actually going to photograph it Saturday afternoon to show y'all, but I was laying on a gurney laughing at how silly I looked in running clothes while obviously hurting too bad to actually go for a run.  I'll try to get it photgraphed tomorrow.

--The days here are all running together.  Chris did let me ride with them to Oren's karate class yesterday and it felt like I hadn't been there in 3 weeks.  It had been less than a week.

--I finished up my Rainbow Geese blocks for do. Good stitches this month.  Caryn asked for flying geese in a rainbow and then strips of sky-colored fabrics.  I think the design she's got planned will be fantastic, but man did I have to REALLY concentrate to get all of those colors in the right places.

--Last week while subbing I made myself a list of the next few projects I want to get done.  I managed to complete 2 of them already before I got bogged down.  Next up is to finish the stars for Oren's Star Wars quilt.  I'm still waiting on a few blocks from our November d.Gs quilt so I'll try to finish up his quilt (top anyway) in the meantime.

--My sewing room looks like a fabric monster has been living in here and making himself at home.  If I felt better, I'd spend 2 days in here straightening up.  But for the 10-15 minutes I get at a time in here, I'd rather spend it getting ready to sew something.  

--Alright, I'm back to bed.  Darn these meds.  I don't know how anyone can get addicted to something that drains them all the time.  I will be so glad to be off of all of this and get back to normal.  Patience is not a virture I am well-equipped with and darnnit...I need some right now!  ;)

Hope you are doing well and I'll be back shortly with more clarity and less numbness.  

Quick Peek Monday

I'm busy quilting loops on my purple quilt for our Empower Circle.  I'm squeezing in a little bit here and there when I have time.  We've got a busy week ahead.

Here's a quick sneak peek.  I can't wait for this one to be finished and ready to show off!

What are you up to this week?

Finish it Up Friday

One thing I love about the online community is the chance to learn from others.  While I learned to sew and many techniques from my Mom, my 4-H leader and classes I took, most of what I've learned about quilting has been from online friends, online classes and reading books on my own.

Being able to communicate with others and learn from others is such a blessing to me since I have few local friends who sew at all and none that quilt.  

Case in point?  Sizing of blocks.

Nicole asked us to make the lovely kaleidoscope blocks that I mentioned on Monday.  I printed off one and measured it and it was thisclose to 1" square so I printed out 7 more and cut them all out.  But then I noticed in our online discussion board that many mentioned sizing difficulties when printing.  So I went back and measured the cut-out foundation and it was 7 inches!  If I'd been on my own, I'd have made Nicole blocks that she wouldn't have been able to use because they'd have been a half-inch wide all the way around.

Thank goodness for community and me reading before I got busy sewing.  See, procrastination does help out sometimes.  ;)

I ended up copying the template and opening it in photo-editing software where I could manually size it to print out at exactly the size I wanted.  It worked out perfectly.

And here are my two kaleidoscope blocks for Nicole.  I really want to just keep them and tell everyone in the group that Nicole moved and have them send her blocks to my house.  ;)  I won't of course, I'll just add this to my never-ending list of quilts I'd like to make. 

And that's what I finished up this week.  Next on my list is to quilt my purple do. Good stitches quilt.  I've just got to sweep my kitchen first so I can lay it down to baste it.  

What are you up to this week and weekend?  Any big plans?  We're taking it easy after the first week of school and before softball gets cranked up for Chris. I'm planning on doing some more conquering of clutter that's been hanging around and trying to get that quilt finished up.  Wish me luck. 

Linking up with Amanda Jean.

One block at a time...

I've been working on some individual blocks lately.  Either blocks that are due to friends for bees or quilts we're working on together, blocks for quilts that I'm in no hurry to make and make a block occasionally, and even blocks just for the fun making them.

It's not very often that I don't feel the weight of my WIP basket hanging on my shoulders, so it's been fun this past week to make a block here and a block there just for fun.

Here's what I've been up to:
I made this Stargazing block from the book Modern Blocks in sweet pastels and low-volumes.  This is one of my most favorite blocks ever and it's always fun to see those little 3-inch stars come together.  I'm not a tiny-pieces person.  I don't really enjoy fiddly stuff and I've been known to yell loudly when working with little pieces, but this one is fun, especially 'cause I only made one of them.  ;)

Next up, the Economy Blocks that hit big on Instagram over the holiday break.  Last year it was the Scrappy Trip Around the World, this year it's Economy Blocks.  These are also known as square-in-a-square blocks.  I used the paper-piecing template from Rita and it made these a dream to whip together.  They're only 5" finished so they come together quickly, you can use scraps and even for someone like me with hardly any novelty prints, it was easy to find designs to feature in the middle square.  I only made 4...for now!

Awhile back when I got overwhelmed with all that I had on my plate I sat down and just started piecing 2.5" strips and squares together.  There was no rhythm or rhyme other than I made 12.5" blocks out of them.  Some came together like log-cabins, same mostly just in strips, and some were completely randomly pieced.  I made about 7 before I felt content and could carry on with my to-do list.  This past week I made 7 more.  I have no plan for these blocks other than I'm sure it'll be a keeper.  It'll be a hot mess of scraps and I don't know that anyone else would want it.  The only plan I have for this is to work on when I want and finish it when I think it's big enough...  And I have to admit it feels nice to have a weightless WIP hanging around.

Now that's a mass of scrappiness right there!

I've got Kaleidoscope blocks up next for Nicole and she made some stunning ones to show us for inspiration.  I've got my paper-piecing foundations all cut out and have fabrics pulled.  I am already jealous of her amazing style and now I want her quilt before it's even made.  That's the kind of friends I like to keep.  :)

I forgot she wanted a bit of red too, so I've added that in as well.  Can't wait to get started on these blocks.

I'm really working on conquering this week.  I'm conquering clutter in our home.  Conquering deadlines before they become an issue.  Conquering procrastination.  Conquering my half-marathon training plan (it's in 6 weeks!!!).  Conquering negativity around me and within myself.

Small steps is the answer.  I'm sure of it.  I can conquer 2014 if I just work on it one block at a time.  :)

What are you up to on this dreary Monday?