Two years in the making

I interrupt this long blog break to show a huge finished project!

I started this navy and white zig-zag quilt about two years ago. The cutting and piecing went very quickly, but I stalled out on the quilting. Life got really busy for a while, but luckily things have slowed down so I was able to concentrate on finishing this.

I'm so pleased with the end result!



The quilt is queen sized and composed of navy and white rectangles sewn together in a zig-zag pattern.



After failed attempts at free-motion machine quilting, and machine quilting in the ditch, I finally decided to hand quilt 3" circles in each square. I used matching thread on the front, so it alternates on the back.



The back is a very simple color block that I think could look pretty good on its own.



I originally wanted yellow binding, but this cheery blue caught my eye, and adds to the nautical look of the design.

I have to say, I was really intimidated by the idea of hand-quilting a queen sized quilt, especially since I had never hand-quilted anything. It did take quite a number of hours (and days and weeks) but I actually enjoyed it. It definitely adds something special and makes the quilt look handmade.

Baby things

I met my lil' nephew last month and brought a few handmade gifts: Sheldon the turtle (renamed Mervin by my sister), a bright blue baby placket neck pullover, and a small blanket.

Awesome weekend

It was my first free weekend at home in a month, and I got to do so much! My house is clean, I got to spend some time in the ceramics studio (bit by bit I'm regaining my old skills)...

I bought myself a ticket to see The National. They're not coming til October, but it should be well worth the wait. Check 'em out here, if you want.

Library loot! I got my library card--which never ceases to be exciting--and this is what I came away with for now. I've got a few holds on other sewing books. The Built by Wendy Dresses book has some fun ideas in it. Hopefully I'll have time to make something before I have to send the book back to the library. I'm hoping the Threads Fitting DVD Series will help me figure out how to get a better fit on this tricky vintage dress I started months ago. Bag Bazaar would be a good starter book for people interested in sewing bags. The patterns I'm interested in are fairly simple though, I could probably figure them out on my own.

There happened to be a street fair outside the library, so I stopped by and picked up some free Lara bar samples. Yum!

I also walked around the art museum for the first time, and snapped some pottery inspiration photos:

The handle and spout on this South American pot are so elegant.

And I love the simple yet striking designs on these pots.

Not exactly awesome, but I've decided, after all, to unpick the messy free-motion circles from my quilt. It's just too frustrating and slow to try to do this on a queen-sized quilt on my tiny sewing machine! I was pretty crazy to think this would be a successful idea for my second time quilting ever, but hey, I like to dream big. Once I finally unpick the edge I started, I'm going to machine quilt in a zig-zag pattern following the blocks. Hopefully that will be more instant gratification!

Quilt progress

In the couple weeks between when I finished my last job and when I moved, I did a lot of work on my quilt. I finished piecing the front and back, and basted. I then tried to teach myself free motion quilting so I could make these large, imperfect circles. I've done one edge so far--I had second thoughts and nearly went at it with a seam ripper, but after a couple weeks off, I think I like it again. I hope to start working on this again soon. It will be great to have it finished!

Second quilt in progress

I took advantage of having a weekend at home to work a bit more on my second quilt. This one will be for myself, and should be queen-sized, if all goes as planned. I previously discussed my inspiration, and this weekend I decided that I'd like to try some free-motion quilting on this--most likely a large pebble pattern, or something to that effect.

Craft wish list

I want to make this quilt. Is craft imitation the sincerest form of flattery?

I'm also looking for a new knitting project. I will either try to tackle one of the designs I've been thinking about for ages, or maybe this or this.

A good evening

I came home after work to find a surprise 6.5 inch zucchini growing in my garden! They had all been pretty tiny until this one. I promptly cut it off the plant, sauteed it up, and ate my first home-grown zucchini! It sure was good.

What a beaut!

Since I'm starting to think about packing my place up, I took a moment to look through my fabric stash and pick out fabric for my potential second quilt. It's an assortment that includes mostly clothing or scraps left over from making clothing. I've also thrown in two vintage pillow cases and several items of clothing I purchased in India. I'm not sold on including the darkest blue fabric (it's my favorite!) but over all I think this combination of blues, yellows and greens might be nice.

Any thoughts?

I'm currently thinking either of a whirlygig or string quilt. Though I'm open to any awesome pattern suggestions you've seen around lately.

First quilt

I am so thrilled to finally be able to share this project with you. I've been working on a surprise wedding gift quilt since January, and just this afternoon I got a call to say that it had been received! So here it is, my first quilt:

front

back

I have a lot of thoughts to share on this process, the decisions I made, and the lessons I learned--I'll spread that out in a few posts as I have the time and energy. For the time being, you should know that it is a twin sized quilt, 100% cotton, and it was machine pieced and quilted. It took me the better part of three months, and craft monogamist that I am, I offer this up as the main reason my finished craft posts have been a bit infrequent. There were many highs and lows experienced during this project, but now that it's finished I can honestly say that I'm very happy with it, and I'm very proud to have finally made a quilt! I'm also very happy to have it out of my house, and hope one day to sweep up every last little thread that has found its way into the darkest corners of my house. More to follow soon.

More quilt talk

I'm still quilt scheming. Now that I've chosen a pattern, and come up with some general color ideas, now it's time to find the fabric. I'd like to stick with solids, but would like to throw in a few solids that have a very subtle pattern--like tonal stripes, or maybe a solid with different colored warps and wefts to give extra color depth. I'm fairly sure that I won't find much I like at the local box fabric stores, so I'm looking online. It's so hard to compare colors and really understand what you'll be getting. Just now I came up with a little helpful trick to compare colors from online fabrics. If you have a Mac, you probably have a great little application called Grab (I think there is something similar on PCs as well). This allows you to take a screen shot to save as a TIFF or JPEG, and you can also use it to capture a selection or window. I use this frequently when I want to remember a particular image for later inspiration. Today I used Grab to capture a selection of each fabric I was considering so that I could move them around and compare them to see how they might look in person.

Colors and quilts

I'm on the quilt scheming phase again, and just picked up Denyse Schmidt's lovely Quilts book to help me along. I must admit, as much as I enjoy reading and finding inspiration in books, I'm often reluctant to actually purchase them--too often I feel weighed down by my possessions, and therefore try my best not to add to them unnecessarily. That being said, Denyse's book has some really great quilt designs that are exactly what I was looking for, and just what I need to give me a push in the right direction. I'd recommend checking this book out if you're into more contemporary quilts, and don't know quite how to start.

As I'm planning my theoretical first quilt, I'm trying to decide what colors to choose. I did a little googling to see if there was a good website that would let me play with colors to choose a palette. I found one, and though it's a bit annoying with all the ads, it worked pretty well for me. Click here to see the color palette I'm currently thinking about, inspired by this absolutely gorgeous quilt-in-progress on flickr. square one studio's quilt kind of breaks my heart, I love it so much. But alas, I'll just have to settle for the picture.

Experiment in progress

I'm pretty sure that the last thing I need right now is yet another hobby...


But I didn't let that stop me from staying up and trying some experimental quilting with scrap fabric. I've been thinking about learning to quilt for at least ten years now. I think I might have finally wrapped my head around the idea. I'm torn between really old traditional patterns, and more contemporary free-form quilts. This weekend I stopped by the local used book store and picked up a great book from the 1970s:


American quilts and how to make them features some beautiful images of quilts from the early 1800s, as well as outlines of the pattern pieces needed to make them. They remind me a lot of some of the quilts at the Winterthur Museum, where I spent a fair amount of time in the past two years. I really love some of the applique quilts--they look like gorgeous wallpaper. I've also been very interested in the quilts from Gee's Bend for the past several years. I particularly love these free-form takes on the traditional log cabin pattern:

(Image from Gee's Bend CD)

(I'm not sure if the above one is from Gee's Bend, I can't figure out where I found this image--apologies!)

As I obsessively combed the internet for quilt inspiration, I also happened upon some gorgeous Hawaiian quilts. I don't think I've ever seen these before, but apparently there is a very strong, unique quilting tradition in Hawaii.

Not only are the shapes and colors amazing, but take a close look at the quilting--I just love the way those contour lines look.

Above: contemporary Hawaiian quilt made by Deborah Kakalia, courtesy of the Bishop Museum.

Click here to see another amazing Hawaiian quilt [it's mustard yellow and white!] and to find some free quilt patterns. I'd love to try one of these out, though I'm fairly certain that those large appliques would be very difficult to cut out, and even more difficult to sew down without crazy puckering everywhere. Perhaps I'll work my way up to these one day.

Do you have any favorite quilts or quilt patterns? I'd love to see them.