Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
Isn’t this a clever gift?
It isn’t something I have ever seen before, but I really like it. The letters are about 6″x6″, if you started out with a square. I think it would be amusing to wear it as a name tag, though I do think it would get in my way after awhile.
One of the gifts I received for my birthday was a box of Aurifil threads, 50wt. This is my first box of Aurifil thread, though, as you know, I was part of the Aurifil Club at the Quilt Bear for awhile. I am starting to think there might be a conspiracy afoot to get me back to my sewing.
I didn’t even know this group existed and I was really excited when I saw it, because they are truly happy colors. They look like a box of candy!
When I saw them it made me think that I would have to start piecing with colors to match my fabric. I want to use these right away.
One the other hand, I might just want to look at them for awhile and admire them.
I feel somewhat self indulgent by sharing my birthday report with you. I had such a great day, though, that I can’t help myself. I love my birthday and really strive to savor it every year. I think I would love to have it more than once a year, but then I would get really old, really fast and it wouldn’t be as special. The bonus was that I had a day off of work!
First, I got up and wrote in my journal and drank my tea. The boys got up and DH made us an omelette (I didn’t even have to ask!), then I started opening gifts. I couldn’t believe the generosity of my friends and family. I couldn’t even open all the gifts at once.
Later, I went to pick up my sewing machine and out to lunch with Maureen. Our favorite lunch place is right near the Granary, so while I waited for her, I looked at fabric. Julie and I are going to do a block project with the 100 Modern Quilt Blocks book by Tula Pink and I saw the perfect background. My mother-in-law gave me some money and the fabrics are the result. I really like the Granary. The fabrics are all commercial and most of the ladies there tend towards non-art quilts, but I like the busyness and the variety of products in the place. They have a lot of fabric that is well organized and it is clean. They have lots of everything as well.
And then there was the birthday box! OMG! TFQ out did herself this year and sent me the most luscious quiltmaking fabric and supplies and inspiration. If I don’t buy anything else this year, I will be all set.
I also put the books that Julie gave me and some gifts that DH gave me in the picture. I am not tall enough to include them all.
One item I received was a FitBit. I have been wanting one and am pleased to finally be able to see where I am in terms of fitness. My first morning workout was over 2,000 steps, which is amazing!
We give bags of gifts to the officers of the guild. Some of us make tote bags and then all the guild members bring a gift for each officer. It is a lot easier than making a quilt. It also allows people to contribute in a way that makes them comfortable.
We encourage people to bring small gifts, such as spools of thread, packs of pins, needles, Pigma pens and WonderClips. We also encourage people to make small gifts, like zipper pouches. Some just write heartfelt cards and I know that is appreciated.
This time I made needle cases. As I mentioned in previous posts, I found the needle case pattern in a magazine and modified it to suit my needs.
I used, mostly, scraps for these needle cases. I like this project and am pleased with the modifications I made to the pattern. It is something I can make quickly as a gift.
I wasn’t able to make the meeting yesterday as I just returned from a work trip. I hope the officers liked them.
I had some time and thought I would make some pillowcases for the littlest nephews. The ‘littlest’ nephews are now 2d and 4th graders so ‘little’ is relative.
Still, I thought it might be a fun to give them a pillowcase they could especially use during the holiday season. I won’t have much of a chance to do that as all the niece-phews are getting quite old.
They came out well, but I really had trouble with the directions this time. Once again, I used the Twiddletails tutorial, which has been great in the past, though it isn’t as straightforward as it could be — or it is not written in the way I think. I have decided that what I need to do is measure a pillow case of my own, figure out the dimensions of each piece, take what is good from the Twiddletails tutorial and create my own tutorial. I haven’t posted a tutorial in awhile and it is about time.
I think the problem is the selvedge. I always get confused when I am reading the directions about the selvedge. I don’t know if it matters where the selvedge ends up. I have made notes on my printout and have determined that they are muddying the situation. It could be that I need to just print out a new version of the directions and make other notes. We will see once I measure my own pillowcase.
* This is the second version of this post. The first version disappeared in the move of my blog.
Fabric keeps appearing on my doorstep.
I think I have a fairy quilt mother.
Actually, I know who it is. Mrs. K is on a mission to find some more Happy Go Lucky light grey. In the process she is sending me some lovely greys. I now know what the background of the next few quilts will be. 😉
You already heard about the various needle cases I made. Here are the final photos of the one I made for my BAMQG Secret Santa. Presumably she received the gift yesterday, but I wasn’t able to attend the meeting as the Young Man had a concert.
I finally finished the first needle case and am able to post about it.
I am posting a picture of it open and closed. While closed, it needed a ribbon or something to close it. I am not thrilled with the ribbon. I think it looks really nice, but it isn’t really practical for a needle case. I thought about other options, but the supplies for the closure I really wanted weren’t readily available.
When I was a teenager, thin hair elastics were available. I have a very few left, but only large. For this project I need a small one and didn’t have one. I don’t think they are sold in stores anymore as I haven’t seen them at Walgreen’s and such stores. I haven’t tried places like Claire’s, but will, perhaps. I would have put a button on and then pulled the hair elastic taut around the button to close. I will look at, and think about some other closure options.
I forgot to fill up the needle case with pins and needles, etc. I hope the recipient knows what it is without those little touches.
Tomorrow is my only day at work before Thanksgiving until December 2. I am cooking for Thanksgiving and ‘need’ the prep time. I also need to go to the dentist and clean up the house and sew and laze around. The whole Grama thing has been really hard and even though I was off for a week at the end of October/beginning of November, I need more time off.
None of that is either here nor there, except that you should watch for the Pie Day photos that I will tweet out. I don’t know if you like it, but I always have fun tweeting Pie Day photos. I plan to make a pie for my mom’s priest who was awesome while my grandmother was sick. He was a great support to her and is a super nice guy.
So, two paragraphs in and no discussion of sewing. Let’s get to it. I made a second needle case. I couldn’t help myself. I needed to get it right. It still isn’t exactly right, but is much better. I did it last Sunday and then worked on the hand stitching on Monday night.
The problem this time is that I put batting in and I think I just don’t like batting for small accessories like this. I think batting should be in quilts and something thinner (not sure what yet) should be in journal covers and needle cases.
The changes I made to the pattern are:
This pattern really doesn’t take very long. I am going to Joann to see about some ShapeFlex sometime this week and may look for fusible flannel as well. I don’t know if there is such a thing, but I will look. Flannel might be sticky enough without the fusible.
When I was down at Grama’s I had a stack of quilt magazines with me. I hadn’t brought a lot to do, because I was supposed to be at a conference and didn’t want to feel like it was a waste to have lugged a bunch of stuff down with me only to lug it straight back home.
As you know, I ended up at Grama’s, racing around like a crazy person before dropping into bed exhausted, looking at two pages of quilt magazines and falling asleep with the magazine on my face. Two pages, however, is progress. While looking through the magazines, I found a needle case pattern in Modern Patchwork. I decided to add it to the shopping bag for my BAMQG Secret Santa. As soon as I finished the machine part of the shopping bag (I still have a bit of hand stitching to do), I started in on the needlecase.
The pattern is by Rashida Coleman-Hale of the I Heart Linen blog and I, initially, had a hard time with the way the pattern was laid out in the magazine. Remember, I am much better at being shown how to make something than I am reading directions and following them. I began reading the directions and couldn’t figure out what to do first. The pattern started with “Create the Pocket.”
Huh? What pocket?
Finally, I realized I needed to cut all the pieces out first, even though the pattern says nothing about that. Step 1 should be “Cut out pieces (see Sidebar)”, but it wasn’t. Also, the list of pieces of fabric that need to be cut is on the right hand side of the page and I was looking on the left (we read from left to right), which happened to be instruction #1 of the pattern.
My heart sank. I didn’t want to do a project that was so hard to understand that it wouldn’t come out well. The project is small enough to use scraps, so I decided to cut out the pattern pieces and try one more time. Miraculously, as soon as I cut the pieces, step #1 of the directions made complete sense.
I am skeptical of magazine instructions, but these were ok, after my initial confusion, for a not very complex project. I am not quite done with the project, but the one thing I would do differently is sew the cording (I am using a ribbon) on before I sew on the binding. I think it would look neater and be stronger. I might also figure out some other closure, but I haven’t thought that far ahead. Live and learn.
I used fabric scraps from the shopping bag and also a few others. The the two Secret Santa pieces will match, but not be matchy-matchy. Cute, huh? I did not use the linen. I used regular quilting cotton.
If I made this project again, I would give the outside pieces some body by lining them with ShapeFlex (LOVE that stuff!).
I didn’t have any Fiberfill to fill the pincushion, but if I had been thinking I would have used the roving I bought for the other pin cushions I have been making on and off. I just wasn’t thinking so I cutting up some batting scraps to fill the pincushion. It is small, so I think the batting will be ok.
My Secret Santa likes pink, so I am going all out on the pink. I really hope she likes what I have made. This needle case really did not take me very long and I think I might make a few more for friends. We will see.
I went back and forth about whether or not I should post this on my blog before the BAMQG party, but I have so little to post these that I decided to go for it. I don’t know all of you as well as I would like, but I don’t think the recipient is a reader. Perhaps she will be after receiving the gift.
I agreed to make a Secret Santa gift for the BAMQG Holiday Exchange. It was hanging over my head, so I decided that Saturday would be the day to start. I actually cut out all of the pieces on Friday night and put most of the interfacing on as well, so the sewing went pretty easily.
I decided to make another Jane Market Tote for the gift. It is a good pattern – useful and nicely shaped. I am also familiar with it since I made over a dozen of them since I bought the pattern. The other bonus was that a shopping bag was on the giftee’s list.
Perfect.
As I said, I cut out the pieces on Friday night. I also decided to try adding some ShapeFlex stabilizer to see if that would give it some body.
As an aside: Have I said how much I like ShapeFlex? I love it. It is so easy to work with. It is not thick. Now, I am almost out again and am now thinking of buying a bolt. Crazy?
Anyway, I was able to put ShapeFlex over all the pieces except one, so I was really ready to sew on Saturday morning. So, Saturday morning, which was really about 11am since I slept so much, I sewed. The bag went together really well. I tried very hard to make it look nice. I used a star pattern on my machine to finish the top of the bag. I also put the handles inside rather than outside after the bag is finished, as the pattern suggests.
It is a nice bag, but I also decided to make a little needlecase and put that in the bag as well. I know it is not necessary, but I have some leftover scraps from the bag. I also found a pattern in Modern Patchwork for a needlecase that doesn’t look too difficult. Stay tuned for that.
I just returned from Southern California Tuesday night late. My mom and I drove down Thursday to stay and take care of Grama and to help her celebrate her birthday. Grama’s birthday was Thursday. She turned 90.
She was really in bad shape when we got there and it turned out nobody had brought her dinner. 🙁 Miscommunication, but she was a little manic and confused when we got there.
It was a hard weekend. I did get to run off with Susan for a few hours on Sunday, but aside from that and a trip to return some clothes, it was all Grama all the time. At least she doesn’t get up in the night. I cleaned house. I shredded about a gazillion old bills and generally fetched and carried for Grama.
I have to say that I visited two quilt shops – one on the way down and one on the way back. I also picked up my sewing machine, which means that if I wake up, I can sew on the weekend.
I thought I was ok when I got home, but at work today, it was the last place I wanted to be. I should have taken the day off. I didn’t because PPTO days don’t grow on trees.
One of the packages had the most delicious treat in it. Now I know that at least one person reads my blog. 😉
The colors included are so fabulous. They are just what I wanted even though I didn’t know I wanted them.
That was my one special whine and you can be assured that I won’t indulge too much. Thanks, Mrs. K.
I made about three quilts as baby gifts for friends and then stopped. I like to give baby gifts that people are going to use rather than put in the closet for ‘good’. Receiving blankets are good for lots of things, not the least of which are superhero(ine) capes and playmats. I wrote about a full list of the possibilities which I could think up the last time I did a big post on receiving blankets.
I don’t always make receiving blankets for people. Sometimes I just go to Target and get the something off their list. I just felt like sewing some receiving blankets this time.
I think I said this before, but for new readers:
The red piece in the upper right hand corner is more of a wrap. Sometimes something a little smaller is nice, especially if the mom is layering.
Great gift! Try some!
I visited my grandmother last week and noticed a quilt I made hanging on the wall of her guest room.
I made this quilt in 1996 according to the information on my webpage about the quilt. I am pretty sure I gave it to her around that time, but her husband wouldn’t let her hang it up and it wasn’t even large enough for a lap sized quilt so I didn’t see the quilt for years. My Grama gives everything away, so I thought it was long gone.
I also made one for my grandfather. That one used plaid blocks and went to my aunt when my grandfather died. I don’t know what happened to it when my aunt died in 2007. it has a label, so, perhaps, it will end up in the IQSC someday. Hopefully, it is not being used as a dogbed in the back of someone’s station wagon.
The blocks are from a swap on the Q-XCHG list. I could see some of the names written on the blocks.
The Q-XCHG list was a listserv hosted at a university back in the Internet dark ages when there was only text on the web. It was a companion list dedicated to swaps of QuiltNet, the mother of all lists, blogs — everything quilty on the web except, perhaps, Usenet.
I realize that many of these words mean nothing to those of you who have joined the Web quilting community since the advent of the visual web. Just keep in mind that there was a web before there were blogs and we still managed to swap and have fun.
I received these two gifts related to quiltmaking at Christmas. They are from my mom. She couldn’t resist the fabric (I have pink flamingos in my front flower bed) and the book was on my list.
I am thinking that I will make some pillowcases out of the flamingo fabric.
I am really looking forward to delving into the book and seeing if I have anything in common with the women interviewed.
Thanks, Mom!
I really like making these pincushions. Since they are quick and provide for a nice level of creativity, I probably won’t stop until I have nobody else to whom I can gift one.
They are quick to make, but not boring to make.
I put this one in a box of Christmas gifts for my friend, Julie.
I chose a couple of fabrics with yellow as an alternate to the purple. I think it works for the look.
The pattern is from Fig Tree & Co. It is called Petite Gateau. I have the print version (available at PIQF), but there is a downloadable version available, so you can get it RIGHT NOW! 😉