Still Here!

Ok, so I wasn't intending on taking such an extended break. Or really, any break at all. But life happened, in a good way! I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but my brother got engaged a few months ago and my future sister in law asked me to be a bridesmaid. And she needed to go dress shopping because their wedding is this summer. So that took up some valuable weekend sewing time (aside from it also being nice outside which also cut into sewing time). But then, the end of May, my boyfriend proposed, so wedding planning took center stage of all my free time, but I think we have all the big things taken care of so planning will calm down for a few months. So while I am extremely happy and excited, I think I did maybe 2 hours of sewing in the last 2 months. But I will probably end up disappearing again for at least a month early next year.

But I'm back! I turned on my sewing machine for the first time in weeks on Monday. And I have two finished quilts this week to show for it. First, I finished Rising Stars. I wanted to call this one Shooting Stars, but because I released this one as a quilt pattern, and auto bots can be dumb, I was afraid the shooting part would somehow be flagged by Etsy. So a rename was needed. 

Rising Stars has no planned recipient. It was inspired by the piece of brown flannel in the middle that was a remnant I picked up somewhere, most likely Joann's. The blue and the green came from my stash, those were also leftover pieces from another project or also remnants. I tend to pick up any solid remnants I see when I'm fabric shopping, mainly because I don't gravitate towards them but they do come in handy. Even the polka dot came from my stash, though I did need to go back to Hobby Lobby to get an extra quarter yard because that's how much I was short. 

So this was almost a true stash buster for me. I did buy backing, I don't have a lot of large pieces of fabric that I can use as backings. Most of my fabric is about a yard or less, but the binding came from my stash! As did the batting. This was a true frankenbatting because I'm pretty sure there are at least a dozen strips sewn into it. Which also explains the dense quilting. I didn't want any of it to move or bunch up if possible. 

Then, yesterday, I finished Joy's Stars. At least that's what I'm calling it. I believe the pattern is actually Ohio Stars and Courthouse Steps, but that's a mouthful and a lot to write on a tag. I did omit a few stars so I could use pieces of a panel that I had (also a remnant). I had a handful of fat quarters that I loved together and I wasn't sure what to use them in until I saw this pattern.

Joy's Stars is for my friend and massage therapist, Joy. And the original plan before I got sidetracked by wedding planning, was to give this to her as a housewarming gift. All I need to do was put the border on (already cut) and quilt and bind it. I had the backing, the batting, and the binding fabric, it was just put on hold and will now be two months late. But I can't wait to give it to her when I see her in a few weeks. 

I love the striped binding I used and it was only after sewing down the third side that I realized that since it wasn't a random stripe like I normally use when I use a striped binding, that it would be noticeable where I joined the two pieces since the pattern would repeat weird. As you can probably imagine, I squealed a little bit with delight when I got to the point of needing to join the ends because the pattern lines up perfectly. As do all the other joins, but I planned those that way. This wasn't planned, just a happy accident!

So what's up next? I think I want to finish quilting Good Fortune so I can take that one off my plate and I'm sure there will be some hand quilting going on again now that we're in the dog days of summer and it's not quite so nice to want to be outside. But also, because my schedule changed at work for the summer, I won't have as much quilting time as I did last year so things might be a little slow going. Maybe I'll work on pattern writing in the evenings. I have a few quilts that are already made that I could write up patterns for as well as some I've designed that I need to write the pattern so I can make it. So what have you been up to while I was away?

Happy Quilting!

This was supposed to be quick!

No, not my Etsy shop. I'm under no impression that it will go crazy. Big stitch hand quilting. That's what I'm talking about. It was supposed to be faster than traditional hand quilting. But it's partly my own fault. A) I'm learning something new and B) I don't think I originally planned enough quilting. I thought it would be enough quilting, but once I started quilting the sashing, I realized there were still some big gaps between the quilting. 

Which left me with a dilemma, what now? Do I go back and add more to my sashing quilting? Not sure how I would do that without it looking awkward. I could add more to the block quilting by adding another row of stitching around the outside of each flower, but I kinda thought that would look weird. And then there is the issue of the dark blue thread that I used on the front completely blending in on the back and not being able to see it at all. But it is the back, so does it really matter that much? I'm only going to see it when changing the quilt on my bed or washing it. 

What I ended up deciding, was to add cross hatching to the background. It really is my favorite way of quilting quilts. But I decided to quilt it in white, like a trellis behind what I have already quilted. For the moment, I'm not going to cross hatch the border. I like how the white stands out on the back, but I don't want it to detract from the leaves I quilted on the front since the border and backing are the same fabric. 

That decision will most likely be made once I'm done with the center. You know, when I'm ready to be done with this quilt or I just bought another spool of thread so I could finish it and I didn't even use a quarter of it. It's going to probably work out that way. But on the bright side, I didn't have to order white thread online, they had some at the local big chain craft store. So that was nice that I didn't need to wait for it to show up. I'm not done quilting the sashing yet, I have eight more to go I think, but I just needed something simple and easy that didn't require spinning my hoop 60 times just to do one motif. 

There's been a little bit of EPP going on over here as well, but that's also well, slow going. But I knew that going into it. It's not my first EPP project. I've been wanting to sit at my machine, but it's nice outside because it's spring so something I noticed over the past year or so is that when the weather gets nice in the spring, I don't do as much quilting. I want to be outside planting flowers and enjoying the weather. Once it gets really hot, I'm back inside. But I anticipate quilting to slow down just a little bit over the next month or so.

But also, I Spy Stars is done! The fun thing about baby quilts is that they usually don't take long to quilt or bind. Much less time that queen size quilts, that's for sure! I'll have photos next time as it's currently in the dryer so that I can hand it off to my brother later this afternoon. But I will share this, every time I use a stripe for the binding, I wonder why I don't do that more often. 

Happy quilting everyone!

It's Alive!

I did a thing! I did a scary thing! I have patterns available to sell on Etsy. And it's a little scary putting yourself out there like that. But people asked, and I listened. So that's the quilting stuff I've been working on in the background for the last few weeks. Which really means I haven't done much quilting at all lately and have been spending more time in front of a computer than I would like. But I will say that it's been fun revisiting some quilts that I finished a while ago. So which patterns have I written?

First we have Patchwork Diamond, this was the simplest pattern to write as it's only squares. It also means that it is the most beginner friendly quilt I have available right now. I made this quilt from concept to washed and on the couch in less than a week. I think it was the Sunday before Christmas that year, which was on a Saturday, that I realized I didn't have any Christmas quilts. I looked through my Christmas fabric, which was mostly odd sized scraps from making tree skirts and stockings, and came up with this. The white in my quilt is all white on white fabrics. Some of the colorful squares have a white background, I just made sure to keep those away from the diamond in the middle so it wouldn't interfere with the design.

Then there is Mosaic Star. This was my first self drafted pattern that wasn't squares. And I guess I don't start with something easy. There are multiple units that I needed to figure out how to write directions for and I hope I did so well. Included in the pattern are directions for my favorite way of making half square triangles with strips, but also how to assemble the units using traditional methods. I would hate to have someone buy the pattern only to not make it because they don't want to buy yet another ruler. But since I was writing these mainly for myself if I want to make them again, I included them. But maybe someone will read the directions and think that it makes much more sense to make the quilt that way. 

And lastly, there is Ice Crystals. This is the quilt that I heard the most people ask for a pattern. In terms of length, this is the longest pattern I wrote. It's 22 pages. But before that scares you off, I have pressing instructions so everything will nest, there are two different ways to assemble most of the units, so you can pick which works best for you, and there are lots of diagrams showing pressing and assembly. In fact, I would say that someone that has made a few quilts would be able to make this beauty with the in depth instructions I made. 

Aside from editing the patterns to make sure they were good to publish, I think most of my time last week was spent on taking pictures and thumbnails, but coloring the patterns in different options to show some alternate colorways. Ice Crystals in black and pinks? I might need to make that now. Or what about switching the turquoise for red and making it patriotic? 

Or Mosaic Stars in camo? It could be a good masculine quilt. But it might be hard for me to make one like that since I tend to gravitate to the florals. I didn't mock up Patchwork Diamond because the options are endless there. Halloween, patriotic, florals, everything goes or your favorite color. Really, patriotic works for all of these and would make amazing quilts of valor. 

But now that I have published three patterns, I can get back to quilting! I have at least one more finished quilt I want to write a pattern for, but I need to play with fabric before I do more computer work. And I have one more top that needs to be quilted so I can finish writing the pattern for that one. 

But there are like seven more that I have doodled out that I want to make. And those require at least a little bit of pattern writing before I start cutting fabric. So there are more quilts in the works to share for all of you to make in the future. But first, I think I really need to finish up some of the quilts I've already started. 

Quatrefoil is coming along nicely, it's been a nice break to work on in the evening when I'm tired of looking at a computer screen. I think I have half of the sashing quilting done, but I've already accepted that it won't be enough quilting so I'm going to need to go back and add more. I'm leaning towards a larger white cross hatch in the blank space, kinda like a trellis behind all the flowers. And somehow, I realized that I'm almost done with the full blocks for my Secret Garden EPP project. And I'm torn on sewing the middle together first or wait until I have the border units done so I can space out the colors better. I'll probably decide when I get there what I want to do. 

But really, I need to quilt up Good Fortune and that I Spy baby quilt. Neither should take super long to quilt and I already have the tag made up for one so there won't be anything holding me up on binding it either. Except making the binding... Anyway, I hope you all are able to get some quilting in today (and maybe go check out my etsy shop?)

Happy quilting!

The Circle Will Be Unbroken.

I was intending on writing this post a few weeks ago. You know, before my mystery boxes of scraps and fabric was even a thought. So I have some before pictures to share. But prior to this year, all of my fabric fit in the purple tote on the bottom. Ok, that's not completely true. Most of my fabric fit into the purple tote. But it was stuffed to the brim and searching through it involved making a large mess on the floor. And then having to figure out how to fit it all back in so the lid would close. But if I'm being honest with myself, there were also bags of fabric that I had set aside for projects that I don't remember what they were. I just liked how they went together. I imagine they were like that because I couldn't fit them in my purple tote.

I didn't start out wanting a large stash. I still don't, not really. That's why I had my "all fabric must fit in one tote" rule. But then my mom sent me a stuffed box of fabric for Christmas that she pulled out of her fabric storage, and I do have more than her, it's been a while since I saw how big her tote was. But some of her fabrics were given to her by other people cleaning out their fabric. It's a circle, we buy fabric, we don't use it, and we give it to someone else. And that someone else is usually grateful for it and finds a use for it. Sometimes fabric has to go through a few people before it finds where it belongs. 

So I went through my stash and did pass along a few fabrics, though there wasn't much that I knew I would never use. But I broke down and realized that I finally needed to get a second tote so that I could see what I had. But in trying to organize it by color, and folded so that I could see all of what I had, it wouldn't fit nicely. I would have yellow in a basket stacked on top of other yellows and purple was divided between both totes and it wasn't working. So I sighed in defeat and bought the third tote. And you know what? Since doing that in January, I have actually pulled fabric out of the totes and used it. And it didn't take that long either! And putting fabric away is just as easy. I even emptied out all the bags that I had set aside because I don't remember what they were for and I'm sure either the project will come back to me or I'll find another use for it. 

But those totes just have the large pieces of fabric, so basically anything over a quarter yard. The rest I consider scraps and has it's own storage system. Which from the beginning, my scraps did not have to fit into the tote. And at first, they all just fit in the bin on the bottom right. Until they didn't. And I realized that while I loved scrappy quilts, I never actually used my scraps. Instead I would cut strips off of larger pieces of fabric and the extras went into the bin to die. So I started researching scrap management systems and came across the Quiltville site. Which is probably where my love of her quilts and patterns began. 

But then I did the scary thing. I started pressing and cutting my scraps. And I definitely felt the anxiety at first of "but what if I want to use this for something else?" but I argued with myself by saying I wasn't using it before, what difference will it make if I cut it up and still don't use it. And you know what happened? I do use my scraps now. I still cut into larger pieces of fabric, but when making a scrappy quilt, I definitely start with the scraps. 

Which, as my large fabric pieces accumulated, so did my scraps. And I started with plastic shoe boxes from the dollar store, but I think I will slowly upgrade those into the larger boxes. Not solely because I need more space, but because the lids don't stay on very well and it's a little nerve wracking when they get bumped. Because I have knocked it over and had to put everything back in the boxes. 

But I've also come to the conclusion that there are sizes that I prefer. Bricks? Don't really use them. I'm going to need to find a pattern to use them up, because I've stopped cutting them since I don't use them. 3" squares? Yeah, they don't play nicely with anything. I might just need to sew them all together randomly and make a patchwork quilt to donate. But strips? Those I use all the time. 

Which brings me to why I started talking about scraps and fabric storage. The two beautiful cardboard boxes that arrived at my door on Tuesday just after I got to work. A wonderful quilter was getting rid of some of her scraps and asked if anyone was interested. She was moving soon and needed to downsize what she had. Of course I was interested! And after a little back and forth of her asking what kinds of fabrics I liked and me saying I can use everything, she said she would start throwing some scraps in a box. Then she asked if I would be willing to pay for shipping because she got a little carried away and went through her stash in general. 

I knew from our conversation that I would be receiving quite a bit of fabric based on the sizes and weight of the boxes, but she also said she was including a kit, with backing, because she didn't think she would ever get around to finishing it. As you can imagine, work felt excruciatingly slow on Tuesday. 

And I might have stayed up a little too late on Tuesday as I began pulling fabric out of the boxes. Honestly, there was a small pile of fabric that I would consider scraps, but quite a bit that I ended up mixing into my large bins of fabric. And there wasn't just one kit, but three kits that she included. One of which wasn't even started! Oh, my fingers are itching to play. But I do need to finish some of my projects first. Just a little extra motivation to keep moving with them.

Some of the fabric will be more of a challenge and take me outside my comfort zone because the prints are large. But that's OK, sometimes we need to challenge ourselves or we need a quick quilt to make. There were a lot of oranges and reds/pinks which is actually great because I have next to no orange fabric. And you know what else? I don't need to buy any more totes to store the fabric!

But I may need to buy one to store all the kits and orphan blocks as well as my started projects. Because this box has all the orphan blocks/kits in it and I can't close the box. 

I'll be honest, I don't know which project I'll want to start first. While this is all technically scraps, it's all from the same fabric line. And there are a few squares with white triangles sewn to the corners. While I probably should mix this into my scraps, I'm thinking I want to see if I can make a small toddler quilt with them first. My first thought was something with butterflies and flowers. And it's been so cloudy lately that I can't seem to get a good picture, but the fabrics are all so bright and happy.

I would say there is probably about a little less than half of a jelly roll here with a few HSTs and four patches. Maybe I need to make another patriotic wall hanging? I like the one I have, but a second one to switch it up halfway through the summer would be nice. 

I'm not sure what I'll do with these, there are six blocks of each colorway and the pattern, The Gretchen Quilt, with it, but I might turn them into two baby donation quilts and use some of the extra fabric that was sent with them. They might not be colors I would put together, but I'm sure they are for someone. 

This one I am really excited to try. Pattern is The Mod Quilt, and I remember seeing a post or two from people testing the pattern and I liked it then. I'll need to purchase the ruler to make the blocks, but there are worse things to need to buy. Like rotary blades. No one likes buying them, but we really do need them. There is plenty of fabric to go with the eleven blocks she made. I've yet to try curved piecing, but for this striking quilt, I'm willing to give it a try!

Then there are the actual kits. This one is Paperwhites by Shelley Cavana and it hasn't even been started! On one hand, I would love to make it as is, but on the other hand, quilts with all solids aren't something I gravitate towards. And that big cut of grey yardage could be used on the back of something else. I'll probably let this one sit for a bit while I decide it's fate. 

The next proper kit is Winged Ruby Rue by Monique Jacobs. This one says Christmas to me for some reason, even though the fabrics aren't Christmasy at all and I can see me adding some red work embroidery to the big snowballed blocks. This one had backing with it too! I'm going to need to ask for batting for my birthday this year.

And this one might be my absolute favorite of everything that arrived. She started the block of the month pattern and completed the first four months and started cutting month five and stopped there. I have all the patterns and all the fabric for the top. I'll need to buy a batik for the backing and binding, but this pattern is gorgeous. And huge! It finishes at 107" square which has me debating if I leave off a border because I only have a queen sized bed. And while it means I wouldn't need to worry about anyone stealing the blankets, it will be quite long. Maybe I'll leave off the outer top and bottom border so it's not quite as obnoxious on my bed? Either way, I'm going to have a lot of fun making this one. 

But now I have more scraps that need to be cut and sorted into bins, the large pieces have already been mixed in to my totes, and if I'm being honest with myself, the scraps will probably sit for a few weeks at the minimum because I'm tired of cutting up scraps and want to sew something already! I'm off to play with some fabric now.

Happy Quilting!

Moving right along

Do you see that? Do you know what a different quilt under my needle means? That means the Dreaded Dresden Plates are done! And not only are they done, but also, Old Town is done as well!! I've been quite productive this week. I finished the Dresden Plates Sunday afternoon, and while I was intending on taking pictures as I was working on burying all the threads, I never actually did. So you just get finished photos.

It was quite windy on Saturday so I was only able to get "action shots" while outside. But it's the best lighting to get accurate colors. But the clouds didn't let me get accurate colors either. The colors in the plates are correct, but the sashing color not so much. 

The backing has more accurate colors. And you can see my quilting in this one too. And now that's it's done and washed and I'm on the other end of it, I can appreciate how it turned out without looking at it with dread. I'm not sure why, but this feels like a formal quilt. Is that even a thing?

And here is my completed Old Town Mystery Quilt by Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville. This was a super fun mystery quilt and if you've been following along, this is the one I planned on making half size (half the blocks), but changed my mind around clue 4 and decided to make it the full size. That meant I was able to include light blue with my aquas by making those clues half and half. I think it makes it sparkle more.

And because I can't seem to help myself, I had to change something to make it more mine. I changed the cornerstones to square in a square blocks which I felt slightly insane for because those suckers are tiny! I also made my sashing strips look like lemons so I could have more stars. and I think the biggest difference between my quilt and Bonnie's is that I decided to go the crazy route and make more four patches for my outside border. I did ask myself a few times while making all the extras what was wrong with me, but I do love my finished quilt.

This is also the quilt that I picked my backing fabric first and then picked the front colors. I don't think I've ever worked backwards like that before, but it turned out perfect. Old Town was quilted on the diagonals with light blue thread.

And in case you've forgotten, this is what I started with. I needed to add more fabric once I decided to go full size, but they were the same shades.

The rest of my weekend was processing the scraps that have accumulated over the last few months. I try to make it a habit to process my scraps as I go, but sometimes it just gets out of hand. That's what happened this time. That and finding a box of fabric I was using for a foundation paper piecing project. That project is definitely a UFO. I got about a third of it pieced and realized that I really don't enjoy foundation paper piecing. Don't get me wrong, there are beautiful patterns out there that utilize that technique, but I don't enjoy it. And it produces the oddest shaped scraps. I like my squares and rectangles thank you very much.

All of my scraps were processed, that is to say, cut down into usable sizes and strips for me. I know there are some people out there that cutting scraps up into strips would give them anxiety, because what if I need it for a certain project. But for me, I noticed that I actively ignore the not cut up scraps and will reach for yardage because it's easier and quicker to cut. So I just cut whatever size makes the most sense for the scrap of fabric. And when in doubt, cut strips. I'll share more about my process next week when I talk about fabric storage and how quickly things get out of hand. 

But the motivation behind this project is that last Thursday, someone contacted me that had sent me some scraps in the past and asked if I wanted more. What kind of scrap quilter would I be if I said no? Very quickly a bag of scraps turned into a "I'm moving and need to downsize, would you be willing to take more?" So now, for the price of shipping one box, I am getting two boxes of mystery fabric and scraps in the mail tomorrow. And because we all like to play with the new shiny thing, I knew my basket of scraps would be ignored if I didn't deal with it now. And the light is at the end of the tunnel, because the pile of scraps to process is almost gone!

Happy Quilting, I'll talk to you again next Sunday!

Round and round I go...

If you thought quilt math was hard, then I don't suggest pattern writing! Pattern writing has stretched my brain in ways I didn't realize possible. And I don't even know if I can tell you the hardest part. There's calculating yardage and piece count (for multiple size quilts), there's figuring out which direction to press everything so that things nest nicely, drawing diagrams, writing coherent instructions, and I could go on! And all of this is before I even begin cutting fabric!

I'm not writing this to complain, truly I'm not. Because it's good to stretch yourself and grow your skills. But after a few hours of staring at a screen doing all that, pulling my hand quilting onto my lap or turning on my machine feels like I can finally relax. 

Hand quilting is coming along nicely. I'm almost done with the borders, but I feel like I hit a rut or something. Maybe I went all in too fast and burned myself out. Or maybe, spring fever has set in and I don't want to be inside anymore. It felt so good to open the windows a little this week. Not a lot, but enough to let some fresh air in and air out my apartment. It made crawling around on the floor basting quilts a bit more enjoyable. But I'm happy to say that all four quilt tops are not basted and ready to be quilted. 

The backing for the I Spy Stars baby quilt that I had was just a little too small so I added a strip of fabric to the top and bottom. I chose to use the white embroidered fabric I picked up at Joann's last month for the back of Good Fortune. There's no grey in the quilt, but I'm thinking it will be fine as the backing, especially on a bed quilt where you won't see the back anyway. But it has a linen like feel to it that I think will make it a good summer quilt. The backing that I originally picked out will probably end up as the backing to a throw quilt. Maybe on the back of a quilt I want to make with the larger prints leftover from Good Fortune. But I'm not starting that yet!

Old Town was backed in the super pretty fabric I bought for it and that leaves the Calico Hourglasses. Which I did not in fact have more of the fabric I wanted to use and did not have enough of anything that matched with that fabric. So for my 30s inspired classic quilt, I did what my grandma and great grandma's would have done. I made do. After discarding much of the fabric I had, I ended up going with a total mismatch of feedsack fabric. I used some that I had larger chunks of and some that I didn't have much of at all. Honestly, I think I'm going to like this better, because this is the next one to be hand quilted, and when I was last quilting through feedsack fabric, it was on my grandmother's flower garden quilt, and despite using a batting with scrim, it was a dream to quilt through. And I want to make a feedsack quilt because the more you use them, the softer they get. so for the back of a throw quilt, I think they will be perfect. 

And you know what else? I finally finished quilting the plates on my Dreaded Dresden Plates. I'm over the intense quilting for a little while. I'm quilting something easy next. But first I need to finish quilting the sashing. The cable design I picked is a little small, so quilting it with a walking foot means I need to go slow. I really need to practice my free motion quilting one of these days. I'm tempted to do that on Old Town, just because both the top and backing are busy enough to hide any mistakes. I was half decent at doing loops at one point, I just can't figure out the tension on my Babylock. Though to be honest, I usually give up pretty quickly when my test piece comes out weird. Maybe I should try loops on my next wall hanging...

Isn't that how things go though? One idea leads to another which sparks a new project halfway through another and next thing you know there are a whole bunch of started projects. Which is how I usually end up with more quilt designs that I need to write patterns for. Speaking of which, I started pattern testing a new design last Saturday. Nothing crazy, just a simple baby quilt that I will finish and stash in my closet so when I need to make another baby quilt I have one ready to go. And if no one needs it, I'll donate it to the local foster kid resource center. I really should make some throw sized quilts too so the teens and older kids can also have some. This is how my brain goes, round and round and round, it's hard to keep up with myself some times! So what quilting circles are running around in your brain?

Happy Quilting!