Thursday, January 28, 2010

Quick Update While I'm Waiting for a Towel...

I'm still in NZ, but didn't bring a towel with me...there's no point in buying one since I'll only need one (maybe two) more showers until I go home, so I need to borrow one...but the front desk doesn't open til 9.  It's still 830.  Quel fromage.  For now, you get an update of projects completed before I left the northern hemisphere:

The SAPD I Spy donation quilt, paired with Levi's baby blanket (the SAPD one was donated in Levi's name per my new year's resolution to donate one quilt for every quilt I make for a friend or family member...so far I'm up one on the donation front, we'll see how long that lasts):




Here are the two donation quilts I sent to SAPD:


The pink one is just fleece squares sewn together and cut rag-style, then bound with pink stuff I used on Mom's quilt.That's the "I'm one-up so far" quilt...that one is in Arman's name, who's Zain's kid, who's requesting my first commissioned quilt.  :-) 

There's a fabric store here (Dunedin), so of course I picked up a couple more fat quarters.  Not as interesting as the other ones, but still local and pretty.  Today, I'm off to explore the outer edges of the city, including Baldwin Street (the steepest street in the world) and the Botanical Gardens.  I'm excited.  :-)

Friday, January 15, 2010

new project!

of course as soon as I'm leaving, a new kit comes in! this is for quilts for kids...now I have 2 weeks to scheme about how to quilt this one.

WHIM number 1

all these are tshirts from high school that I'm going to make into a tshirt quilt...any inspirational patterns?

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

First Guild Meeting!

Tonight, I went to the monthly meeting for the Mothertown Guild, in Lancaster.  It was so much fun!  I learned to do English paper piecing:



Seems like it could be fun if I cut the pieces before a long road trip...not sure I can bring needles on a plane though, so I'm pretty sure I won't try this weekend. Actually...this makes it seem like I could bring needles but not scissors of any kind.  I'm not sure I want to bring sewing stuff to New Zealand, but maybe for the next trip. 

I had a lot of fun at Mothertown tonight.  Everyone was super nice, and they even invited me to their retreat!  I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it or not, but it would be nice to get away for a weekend...well, get away with other women for a change.  We'll see.

So some pictures of the latest projects:




Here's Alishia's quilt.  I was doing the numbers:




And figured out that, in order to make a twin-sized quilt it'd be best to add an inch of sashing between each block.  I was debating the darker fabric above, but I don't think I'll have enough.




Instead, here's the lighter fabric I like...it's cream/tan roses (called "tea time" I think).




Here's the pre-hand-stitched fleece blanket.  With any luck, I'll have this and the I Spy quilt done by Thursday, in time to ship to SAPD on Friday.  

Monday, January 11, 2010

Picture Update!

Finally, some pictures!  

The weekend's spoils:


This took less time than you'd think to iron and fold.  It's also bigger than it looks in the picture...this heap filled my hamper to the top and then some.  :-)

Now, the I Spy quilt for SAPD c/o Project Linus.

Starting the I Spy quilt:

More I Spy:

More I Spy:
 
The kitty spies (don't worry, I'll be washing this before I send it in...incidentally, if anyone has recommendations for what laundry detergent works best on pet allergens, I'm all ears):
 
The front done:

 I am TOTALLY in love with the blue stuff I used between blocks...it's a batik from the remnants bin.  God, I love the remnants bin!  :-D

With batting and backing:

 The backing is a blue flannel with tugboats and lighthouses.  <3

Also for SAPD, here's the fleece rag blanket:

 The top three rows are sewn together.  The bottom 5 aren't yet. The pink edging is the same stuff I used for my mom's quilt.  :-)

After a 3-day binge of daily Joann's visits (three different stores I might add), my closet looks like this:




Don't judge. :-D

So that's the wrap up for now. I'm taking a break from doing the binding on the I Spy quilt. I'm about halfway done...this is only the second binding I've done by hand (I did my mom's all by machine...epic fail), and already I feel way more comfortable about it.  I'm hoping I can get it done tonight so I can have something to show tomorrow night (maybe) at my first ever Quilters' Guild meeting...I won't be able to be a member, since membership is limited to 50 and this particular one is already full, but I really want to go make friends.


Oh!  Speaking of friends, I totally gave advice at Joann's today!  This girl was asking about batting, and she was making her first quilt.  I was so excited for her (she was about my age), I wanted to hug her and tell her to come be my friend lol.


And on that note, I'm off to finish this binding.  Night all!

Brilliance!

So while I was describing an I Spy quilt I'm working on to a coworker today, he wondered if there were any way of doing a Where's Waldo quilt.  Does anyone out there know of anywhere that I could find Where's Waldo fabric?  I'm sort of thinking of making something like this a trademark...like, hide something silly somewhere on the quilt.  I'm not sure what it'd be though.  I'll have to think about this some more. 

In any case, if you know where I could find this fabric, let me know.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

coming together

the first few blocks of alishia's quilt. seeing it come together like this makes it so much prettier than the doodles i'd sketched out lol. string quilts may be my new favorite kinds...they take some time, but they're pretty robust as far as room for error.

a few more blocks done

and a kitty to count them for me :)

Friday, January 8, 2010

the general state of my sewing room

a few blocks down, all strips cut, how I met your mother playing, dinner cooling, kitty wandering, and off the screen a glass of wine slowly draining. it's a great Friday night.

my first string block!

I am so hooked! this is your future, alishia! :)

binge shopping


So last night, on my way to Nick's, I stopped into Joann's.  Again.  This week they're having 50% off their red tag clearance stuff, and I've found a few fun fabrics there already, so my excuse was that I'd just see what they had and only get stuff red-tagged for $5 or less (so, $2.50/yd or less).  What a glorious mistake that was!  This whole bag (about 7 1/2 yards of cut fabric, 5 remnants, and 20(!) fat quarters) cost me around $22.  $22!!  Remnants are 70% off this week, and the fat quarters were 50 cents a piece!  Insane!  One of the remnants, which was almost a yard of fabric, cost me 30 cents.  Needless to say, I'll probably be peeking into the Natick shop on my way home from work today, just in case.  :-)

My criteria for picking out fabrics right now are this:
  • First and foremost, I'm looking for baby fabrics.  I have a lot of blues, so I'm focusing on pinks at the moment. I also need whites, since a lot of my blues are darker, so the whites will offset them in a kinda mod way. 
  • Next, I'm looking for flannels.  In particular, youth/kid/infant flannels.  
  • Finally, I'm looking for anything that catches my eye as being a fun pattern, a pretty color, or a neat texture.  That only seems vague, but I actually have surprisingly discerning tastes. 
Right now, I'm mostly working on building up a stash.  I figure it's best to buy while stuff is super cheap, then find a project to use the stuff later.  If I wait until I have a project in mind, it'll be way more expensive.  Most of these fabrics I actually have a vague idea of what I want to do with them anyways.  Really.  :-) 


Thursday, January 7, 2010

How CUTE is this???

I Spy Quilt Squares


I stumbled on this when I was trying to compare prices for a lot of 4" pre-cut squares of fabric...how adorable is this woman's idea?? She fussy-cuts 100 squares of fabric (also available in 5.5" and 2.5") around images on novelty fabrics...the idea is that you'd use those squares to make a kids' quilt so you can play "I Spy" with them!


Needless to say, this is going to be inspiration for at least one quilt. :-)

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Next Project: Done

I just finished another "first" project, but I can't post pictures yet...I have them, but it's a secret surprise for a friend who might be reading this very blog. Stay tuned, they'll be up in a couple of weeks, after I ship it.