2014 Finish-A-Long Q1 Goals

So last quarter? Totally did not finish a single thing on my list. Perhaps this is especially sad seeing as I only had two projects there, but, since I hand piece (when I move and have space, the first thing I'm doing is buying myself a sewing machine. I even have the money set aside and I cannot wait) I give myself leeway there. How quickly do I really expect to finish a double quilt by hand? So both of my items are carrying over.

Cameron's Quilt

the blocks all laid out

This one is inspired by Red Pepper Quilt's Labyrinth pattern, except for the fact that I did my own math. I'm a little out of love with this right now, but my niece is crazy about it and that's who it's for. I'm just doing the sashing now and the top should be done in a week - then I need to decide if I need borders, which I probably should add and get to quilting. This is intended to be a birthday present, and given that said birthday is mid-February I have to get a move on. But let's be honest, this is going to be a slightly late birthday present.

Pillow Covers

pillows to made from random bits, mostly

The other project on the list is some pillow covers, made using the scraps left over from my Trip Around The World quilt that I've used to test little techniques. I used them to test the corner sections of the blocks for Cami's quilt, and more recently I've been testing some flying geese techniques for something I plan on making for my brother. Since I have tons of co-ordinating scraps, I figure that these can eventually become pillows for our living room.

I have quite a pile of co-ordinating scraps
 

Realistically, I don't actually expect the pillow covers to get done, but a girl can dream, right? Anyway I don't have too much of a space to put them for now.

quilt blocks, assembly line style

Some of my blocks here are getting so close to being done that it's almost painful. I'm getting excited to reach the end of the piecing process and turn this into a quilt. I'm going to have a very happy niece when either Christmas or, more likely her birthday rolls around.

The last times you've seen any progress on this I was just beginning, and plotting possibly adding some additional colours into the scheme, and then my last online purchase I showed off the new purple solids that I'm incorporating. Since then a lot has happened with this baby.

things looked a lot like this last time

The finished blocks are 12" square, and I'll need 35 of them total. Thus far the first 32 are in progress. The last couple blocks are going to be a little different - I'll reverse the colours a little, and use some more black on black prints for the main component. Working with such a small selection of fabrics has definitely made it clear that in my next projects I want to have a lot more variety of prints and patterns, even if I use a monochromatic colour scheme. Which is why I've starting shopping to stash fabric for future use - it's harder buying for a particular project than going out and buying a handful of kickass purple prints and choosing between things I already love.

so many blocks in progress

I've marked so many seams

I've also driven myself a little nuts with some sloppy mistakes. Matching the wrong colours together has made me need to pull out the seam ripper more than once lately.

can you spot the mistake?

I've still got several steps and seams to sew before the blocks are complete, but I'm reaching the point where an end is actually in sight. Of course once the blocks are made then there's the sashing to do, and after that I'll have to quilt the beast. Which I've actually got somewhat planned, actually.

I'm puttering my way along to the end and am getting super excited to start my next couple of projects. There's a log cabin planned to match my Scrappy Trip, and then there's the flying geese that I've been collecting fabrics for.

old dog, new trick

When Bunny and I got together Jethro had just exited his puppy stage, and was pretty much trained. Oh, he still doesn't heel as perfectly as I'd like him to, but he can do all the basics and he's got his obedience down. I still remember Bunny showing off the first night we spent together making Jethro run around in circles and sit up and lay down over and over again on command.

So I never really got to teach the little guy anything. And at this point, he's well into his middle age. But there's one thing our very well behaved dog doesn't do that I'd always wanted to see: balance a treat on his nose. Clearly it was time for me to set out teaching him how to do that.

It took about a week to learn the basic, and now after a month of practice this dog has it down. He can leave the treat on his nose for a full minute. When I'm not watching him, even. I can leave the room and he'll do his trick. The hardest part was actually coming up with a command (we use "hold" for the verbal command, and a single raised finger for the hand signal).




he can even pose for pictures!

Just in the past week he's started to really get the best part of the trick down, the bit that's just too cute for words ... getting the treat right in his mouth when I release him. Mostly he'd just been flicking his head backwards and sending the treat flying which has the added benefit of letting me get to it first if he hadn't held the pose long enough. He's started to figure out the exact motion that lets it land directly on his tongue now, which is my favourite.

He also hates this trick. I get the biggest, saddest puppy dog eyes when I make him do this, and he tries to refuse to give me his nose when I'm setting him up for it.

see the stink eye? well ok it's just the flash, but he hates this

It's also just gratuitously cute. So there's that.

Scrappy Finish

It's done!!! Done done done. I started working on this quilt back in January and it's been a long process with lots of updates along the way. I could have declared the blocks finished back in April, but decided to make just a few more (and I'm glad I did). After that it was basting the quilt, which I hated - my sore back and knees didn't thank me. Then there were the hours upon hours of hand quilting to make the cross hatch pattern. Then this past week I put the last few stitches in the binding and now it is done. And somewhere along the way I discovered a camera. (Next time I promise I'll give better update pictures, really.)

This quilt is seven months of my life. Zoning out and sewing on weekends and days off. Sewing a good hour each and every night while watching crappy tv and snuggling with Bunny. And each and every last stitch is done. You'll have to excuse all the pictures, I'm rather proud of it.

It's not as "scrappy" as some Scrappy Trips. It's made all with one fabric line (that I got at Walmart, so I'm a little short on details) - two jelly rolls and four fat quarters. Because it's not a line of quilting cottons specifically some of the fabrics (particularly the fat quarters) come at different thicknesses. The fabric doesn't have the give and glide of a quilting cotton, but I still have a companion quilt planned, featuring log cabins.

This is a fun pattern to work with, and because of the strip piecing it's perfectly suited to my style of quilting involving hand piecing, Doctor Who and maybe a glass of wine and I'm sure that once I find myself with a sizeable scrap pile I'll revisit this pattern in a true scrappy fashion. It's also a great beginner pattern, and helped me build up a lot of confidence.

Because I used the same 14 fabrics over and over in this quilt I wanted each square to lead into the next. The way I've achieved that is living up matching fabrics in separate blocks to create a more continuous movement. Colour placement on the blocks themselves was fairly simple as I gave each block I worked on a "theme" whether it was to be mostly one colour (like the green block in the bottom right) or to be mostly bright fabrics and it came together quite well into a cohesive whole.  Also, there is a my side and a Bunny's side on this. I'm picky like that.

The sunlight in this one makes the colours look a little deceptive, but you get the best view of the texture. I cross hatched the quilting here, going through each square on a diagonal in both ways.

Every single stitch of this baby was sewn by hand. I made Bunny buy me a cake when I finished. A hand made quilt deserves a cake, no?

quilting update (with pictures)

The past few weeks every scrap of spare time that I feel like being 'productive' has been eaten by the Scrappy Trip quilt. Watching Community? Time to quilt. Hanging out at my mother in law's? Time to quilt. I miss my index fingers (they tend to disappear in this process under callous) but oh my am I excited. And I just passed the halfway mark.

Here's a little tease:

Even more of a tease, here's what a little corner of the front looks like so far:

Bunny chose the fabric on the back there, and I'm not 100% sure how I feel about it. Kind of wishing that I'd stuck to my guns with the brown or orange, based on our couch colour, but it's growing on me. I've got all the diagonal lines going one way, now I just need to go back and cross hatch them. So far I've done one little corner in the opposite direction and it immediately increased my love of this quilt a million times. Which I wouldn't have believed was possible, but what do I know?

I also forgot how flat the batting gets during the quilting process. I spent a good two or three days all sad that the batting was so compressed and felt so thin before I remembered that the best part about washing the baby quilt was the fabric puffing all up.

Speaking of teasing pictures, I may have also come home to real mail two days this week. A wedding invitation, which was lovely but expected. And a fabric order I'd placed but wasn't expecting to see for another two weeks or so.

These lovely patterns here are for my niece's quilt, which is my next project. I can't wait to get these chopped up and start stitching. I can't tell you how thrilled I was when I found a damask-esque pattern, and in turquoise. Those had been her two big requests: turquoise, and damask. It's going to be a fairly repetitive quilt, but I think it's going to be beautiful when done.

I also may have snuck these into the order. Just because. And apparently I buy in pairs. I can't decide whether I'll make myself something out of them, or if I'll be gifting. They've already received rave reviews from my mother in law, colour wise. I just don't know but they are so very, very pretty.

This fabric buying thing? It's becoming dangerous.