A very self centered post

I never realized how much I enjoy my mobility. I don't watch mindless television and movies without having some other project going on. What follows is my descent into madness following the week after my foot surgery.

Day 1-2: "My assistant is so cute. I totally have to keep this quilt because of how well it fits us both."

Day 2-4: "I am a horrible dog owner," thoughts with intermittent, "I am so bored and nobody likes me," thoughts.

Day 5-7: "I have to get out of here! Where is my husband? Why have I been cooped up here so long? I entered the Red Dress contest at patternreview.com and I'll be damned if I'm not going to finish that dress. Oh, AND my shirt a month project. OMG....I can't reach the remote and I can't watch this anymore! Make it all stop!"

Now: Some house destruction but I am able to move and not elevate my foot constantly. The stitches come out on Tuesday and I should be able to take care of myself then. It is so hard being at everyone elses' mercy. Thank you all for your blogs because they were my lifeblood this week. Also, thank you for the kind words and advice on taking it easy. Taking it easy almost killed me, but I bet it will pay off in the end.

And I did get a small bit done on both a shirt fix that will have to count and that red dress. You'll see them soon as I have a deadline!

Oh yeah, and my assistant and I voted we do keep the quilt. :-)

The start of a new quilt

I did it. I started a new quilt. This one is for a friend as a surprise that is really into shabby chic decor. I saw a version Little Miss Shabby did, and I knew I needed to make one.

This quilt is called French roses. I bought it off Etsy and had the pattern within three days. Love it! I have also been eyeing the Moda Bonnie and Camille Ruby line of fabric. I figured this was a match made in heaven.  I wound up mixing some Ruby with the past line called Bliss. My biggest concern is that it would look too juvenile.

I was concerned about cutting all the flower pieces, but it wasn't bad at all. I traced the outlines on my lightest fabric using my Frixion pen and then pinned it to the other four fabrics and cut them all out at once. It took about 45 minutes for the whole process. Why pin it?

My assistant likes to keep my fabrics warm whenever they are on the floor. This keeps me sane when she bunches up my projects. If you look closely you can see my pen markings.

Here is a sneak peek at how it should shape up. I haven't sewn anything yet, but I wanted to get a visual on how it would look. This quilt uses an applique technique that will allow the 1/4" seam allowance around each level of flower to fray. That will help set apart the colors some I think.

Here is a close up of one of the flowers. I am trying to think of binding. I want to see it all together, but I may use the aqua color that is used in some of the prints. That may help the kiddie-looking quilt situation. What do you think? Is it shabby chic?

That crazy squirrel quilt

It is finally finished and I love it!

I was torn on how to bind it, but I decided to just double fold the backing over and machine stitch it to the front. It doesn't look as nice as a hand stitched binding, but I won't worry about the pup catching her collar in the hand stitching.

Here is a close up of the binding. No, it's not perfect, which drives me nuts. It is more functional and sturdy this way I think.

Here is a picture of the back all quilted. You can see I machine quilted and went with a geometric pattern. Aren't the bones awesome?

I outlined here the quilting I did. I combined a cross hatch pattern with stitching in the ditch. I expect to wash this one a lot, so I wanted it to hold up.

Here is how each square wound up being stitched as well as the outline.

I used the same method over the squirrels. I had to think about it, because I didn't want it to look bad, but you can hardly see it. Again, I wanted it to hold up well.

The biggest challenge this quilt presented was any time any part of it touched the floor or I laid it out to take a look at it, my boss here hopped on top and tried to nap. I guess that means she likes it.

As I mentioned on an earlier post this was inspired by the Simply Spring quilt in the book Simple Choices by Abbey Lane. I am really a beginner, and this quilt was easy all the way through. Highly Recommended!

One last piece! Check out my January Block of the Month Craftsy blocks! I went with the blue and white theme and am very pleased with how they turned out. There is still time to sign up for this free course!

OK that is the last on quilting for a while. I know you guys are hungry for garments. I am too!

Are those hot pink squirrels?

Why yes, yes they are.

I just put this top together and saw my dog-loving neighbor. I threw it over the balcony and unfurled it in all its glory. "Look what I'm making Brindy for Christmas!" She looked for a minute and said, "Are those hot pink squirrels?" It was a hit. She thinks I should make a line of hot pink dog toys. I may need to do that.

As you can see I got the top together. There are a few weird seams, but overall it went very well. I love it even more all put together.

Here is a closer view of the details. I was worried the squirrels would clash with the rest of it, but I really love how it came together.

Her is the princess sitting on the quilt top while I tried to take pictures inside while sneaking kisses on my hand. No wonder that dog is my best friend; she's my biggest fan to boot! I have quilt club tomorrow, so hopefully I can get some advice on my wonky things and get it sandwiched tomorrow as well as my Craftsy blocks of the month. After this is done I need a garment. I have some knit that may need to be a dress. :-)

Block of the Month and Squirrel Quilt

One of my New Year Resolutions I have been thinking on for a couple of weeks was doing a block of the month club. I really like quilting and creating quilts that will be used and loved for years, but I am a pretty bug novice and would like to become more proficient. Most traditional block of the month clubs are held by quilt shops and quilters guilds. They complete one block a month using a new technique and have a finished product in a year or however many months the program goes on. I know me. I would find reasons not to go and probably drop out while blowing a lot of money. Then, I found the prefect solution!!!!

Craftsy.com is a web site I have been lurking on for a while. They offer various classes at a reasonable cost online. They announced for 2012 they will be hosting a block of the month club for free! January is a slashed block month and we are making an asterisk block and wonky pound sign block. There is a 28 minute video tutorial and a PDF version of the directions. The information is also available for as long as you would like it, so say you remember your resolution in June, well, it's not too late! I'm really excited about this. They are using some fancy fat quarters, but I got a couple yards of three solids to work with to make it manly. I plan on giving it to Mr. Thinks He Can next year for Christmas. If you join the class I'd love to hear it so we can share blocks and tips.

I am using navy, white and light blue for now. If I feel I need more colors I may add in some grays. I just think blue and white quilts look so clean.

As for my assistant's quilt, I got the squirrels appliqued.

Appliqueing was easy, but the stitching was tedious. I think that is all I had in me tonight. I hope to get the top put together tomorrow.

For the shape I Googled 'squirrel silhouette" I got a lot to choose from. The original is on top. I like a squirrel with a flipped back tail, so I redrew it myself. When cutting it out I also smoothed out a few of the details to make it easy to use. I love how it is turning out. 

Quilt progress

I took a bad picture of my blocks laid out. The patterns are so busy if it weren't blurry it would burn your corneas.

I love how it is shaping up! I want to do two squirrel silhouettes to applique above and below the paw print. We enjoy chasing squirrels around here. That's all I have to say about that.

Check out my assistant gazing at the quilt in all its glory after stomping through it like Godzilla through a tiny fishing village. It's funny, but I think she likes it and knows it is hers.

Gratuitous sweet girl face shot.

Here is Godzilla in action tearing through my layout. Everyone is a critic!

I love how her name and the paw print turned out. I learned how to do this with my embroidery machine with Jenny the other day. Thanks Jenny!

I still have the squirrels to do, giant ric rac to apply and quilting and binding. I am torn on how to bind it. The traditional binding and hand stitching looks best, but I worry her collar may pick up the stitches and get tangled. I may wind up doing a cheat binding. Not out of haste, but out of love.

Have a happy and safe New Year's Eve everyone.

Fabric meltdown

No, an actual fabric meltdown. I made another version of Butterick 4461 that turned out spectacular. I made it in a smaller size and a bit longer to mimic a skirt I wear all summer long. It is perfect, and you will see a post on it very soon. I was so moved by the perfection of the skirt, I saw some Ikat patterned silky stuff at Joann's for $1.50 a yard and went for it.

Pretty right? I made this entire skirt during the course of two streamed episodes of Angel on Netflix.

See the drape of the fabric? It really does feel nice. I got the fabric washed, pressed, sewn, zipper in and hemmed. I then went for a final press over the hem to set the stitches and....

What the heck!?! The iron burned through the fabric! I hadn't changed the setting at all, and had been pressing along every step! Grrrr.

See that zipper in there? It even looked good! Is that what they mean about use a pressing cloth? Grumble, grumble... Oh well, at least I only spent $2.25 for the skirt. And it was really quick which was good. We'll call it zipper practice.

I'm off to buy some iron cleaner (grumble, grumble), and I will get back to my dog quilt. How cute is that block?

Dog quilt update

OK, the fabric for the quilt came in, and I need someone to share my joy with. The Mister is not as excited by the dog's quilt as one would think.

Look! It just came in the mail and she promptly wagged her tail and sat her rear end on it. To my assistant, that is the ultimate honor you can grant an item or human. Yay!

This is my palette so far. I am using the Outfoxed line of fat quarters because she looks like the silhouette of the fox, and those hedgehogs are cute. Plus, her colors are in the autumn palette, and match her fur perfectly. That larger fabric there is David Walker Get Together Squirrels in Sorbet. Me and her have mad love for hunting squirrels together. I love it!

This is the pattern I am going to use. The large strip with the birds will actually be the squirrel material. You guessed it, instead of birds I'm going to attempt to make squirrels or stick with the squirrel/dog theme.

This is the book the pattern came out of. Mr. Thinks He Can got Simple Choices for me at the International Quilt Festival. I totally recommend it so far. I will update on the progress of the quilt though. I need 3 more coordinating FQs...what to do!

If you are interested, Simple Choices is 20% off here for the duration of December. It's worth a look!