Not according to plan

I got up really early this morning and was very energetic—just ready to jump right in and get busy with all the work that needs to be done.  The wedding is now only eleven days away and I still have a few dozens of projects I want to do between now and then.  We’re expecting about 60 people from out of town and I know many of them will be stopping by over the weekend.  Many of them have never been here so of course I want everything to be nice.  Anyway I started out with a bang, getting a little ironing finished then moving on to piecing a new quilt top.  I worked for awhile and got quite a bit done on the quilt.  It has 18” blocks and only 7 pieces per block so it is very quick and easy!  Here’s one of the pieced blocks. 

After Jim left for work I rode my bike then did some routine cleaning and finished piecing the quilt blocks.  I had them placed on the design wall all ready to sew together later in the afternoon.  Then I jumped right in painting the master bathroom.  This is a project I’ve procrastinated for months.  I’ve had the paint (same color as the bedroom) but hadn’t felt pressured enough to get it done until now.  Just the other day my neighbor and I were discussing painting projects and she mentioned that a decorator friend of hers recommends painting the ceiling the same color as the walls.  That was a light bulb moment for sure. It would be SOOO much easier not having to worry about wall paint on the ceiling and vice versa. It was going beautifully until I ran out of paint.  Guess I used quite a bit more painting the ceiling!  Luckily Home Depot is only 5 minutes away so I ran out to get another gallon of paint. When I got home I discovered the power was out.  A few minutes later someone from the power company came and said the transformer had blown.  What??  That had happened on New Year’s Eve just a couple of years ago.  They sent a little crane, crew and a new, improved, more powerful transformer and we should be back in business in a few hours. Here’s the scene in my backyard.

Until that happens there will be no cleaning, no painting and no sewing. :(

Off to a trying start

Not much time today for quilting.  I got up early and pieced the back for the Blitzen quilt.  Unfortunately just as I was ready to load it I realized the fabric was directional and it was going the wrong direction.  What a bummer.  Not only did I waste a lot of time, but also a lot of fabric.  Hopefully I’ll be able to salvage it by piecing it with another fabric to back a different quilt.  I don’t usually piece backs for quilts I plan to sell on Etsy.  It’s more time-consuming, harder to align on the frame for quilting and some people just don’t like pieced back.  Personally, I think they’re more interesting but not everyone agrees. 

After piecing another back I got the quilt loaded on the frame.  I decided to quilt a simple feather in the border.  I got halfway finished with the first border and there must have been some glitch with the bobbin because I had bad tension for about a foot.  Luckily the tension was so bad in that spot it was easy to rip out.  I got the border finished and decided to just quilt an overall meander in the center.  It really doesn’t need anything fancier as the fabric is pretty busy and it wouldn’t show up anyway.  I’m using a pale green Glide thread and it just melts into the fabric.  Maybe a little too much—I have to really pay attention so I don’t quilt over a section I’ve already quilted.

While I was piecing my last top I discovered another use for flower head pins.  I always use them to mark my rows (and columns) but this time I used them to remind me to sew the top border to the top of the quilt and the bottom border to the bottom.  I had a pieced border so I put a pin on the border and put a matching one on the quilt top.

Can you see the two orange pins.  This showed me to sew these sections together.  On the bottom I had two green pins.  It was very helpful—I sewed both top and bottom borders on correctly!

This quilt was made from the Vintage Modern line and I just love it.  I’m almost finished with the binding and then I’ll post a picture.

Another quilt finished

A few days ago I wrote about a quilt I was working on from a Villa Rosa pattern.  This one is called Granada.  I used a line of fabric called Moondance by Free Spirit.  I think I must have gotten it on sale because I didn’t have an immediate plan to use and I got a ton of it.  I probably have about 30 yards.  The good news is that everything but the back is from that line.  The bad news is that I only used about 4-1/2 yards for the top.  At this rate I’ll have to make seven or eight more quilts from the line!! 

I really like how the quilt turned out.  The colors are soft and pastel, but not baby prints.  After using lots of bright, busy fabrics, this was a nice respite.  It is a pretty large lap size—about 56” x 71” and it has a really nice drape.  I used Quilters Dream Cotton-Select batting and it just gave it a soft, cozy feel even before it was washed.  I frequently use that batting but this quilt seemed particularly soft.  Maybe it was the fabric or the density of quilting but whatever, it worked!  It’s always so nice when that happens.  Here’s a picture of the finished quilt.

There’s no rest now, though.  I got three quilts cut out of the Blitzen fabric today.  I pieced on of the tops and just need to cut and piece the backing, then it will be ready for quilting.  The backing fabric for the two quilts I’m making from Vintage Modern came today so the easy one will also be ready for quilting.  It will be awhile before Swoon is finished but I’m hoping to have it ready for our sewing group’s quilt show in July.  With my son Bryan’s wedding just over two weeks away I’m not sure how much sewing time I’ll have between now and then but I’m always optimistic!

Blitzen Christmas line is here!

I just received my first Christmas fabric for 2012.  It’s called Blitzen by Basic Grey.  I just love it!  It has some red, white, mint green, pear green, aqua and of course grey.  I have a fat quarter pack and a couple of bolts of coordinated for borders and backs. 

There are 40 fat quarters in the bundle and I think I can get 4 lap quilts from it.  Wednesday is my volunteer day so there’s not a lot of time for sewing, but maybe I can do a little cutting.  I’ve divided the fabric up into four piles, each with a pattern so the planning is complete.  Once I get going it shouldn’t take too long to get it all cut up.  Tomorrow is a free day so I could sew, sew, sew!! 

Here’s my cutting plan.

I shouldn’t really say it’s a free day because I have a huge project in the works.  This week is our monthly overflow garbage week and I always like to take advantage of that.  This month I am cleaning out the closet in our bedroom.  I’m pretty sure that hasn’t been done since we moved here almost 18 years ago!  What treasures I am finding in there.  I’ve gone through tons of clothes, shoes and purses and have gotten rid of lots of stuff.  I pretty much took everything out of the closet and did a thorough dusting and vacuuming.  It looks so nice now, but I have a lot of stuff to put back in.  I’m planning a trip to Target this afternoon to get some storage bins to contain some of it.  Hopefully I can finish this project today and spend tomorrow sewing guilt free!

On a stashbusting roll

A few days before quilt market a customer called Keep Me In Stitches to tell us to look for Villa Rosa patterns while we were there.  She had recently picked up a couple of them and thought they would be great for quick and easy projects.  I ended up taking a schoolhouse session with the designer and she gave us a set of her newest 10 patterns.  These are easy lap-size projects and the pattern is simply printed on a postcard.  I came home thinking about how great these will be for busting stash.  The first one I made was from the pattern "Opening Night."

I had several pieces of fabric from the Benartex “City Girl” line by Kitty Yoshida.  I’ve always like the large paisley print in this line but just hadn’t found a suitable project.  I used the paisley for the sashing strips and border and the coordinating prints in the blocks.  It only took a few minutes to do the cutting and less than three hours to piece the top.  I was very pleased with the results, loaded it on the frame and quilted it using an overall freehand design with feathers, swirls and curls.  Here’s how it turned out.

I’m pretty happy with the results and of course, it looks much, much better in person than in the photo.  It was fun to make and I used about 7 yards of fabric. I even had a fabric for the back that coordinated beautifully.

This quilt is now for sale in my Etsy shop. 

https://www.etsy.com/listing/101766089/city-girl-espresso-and-blue-lap-quilt

Now I’m working on another Villa Rosa pattern called Granada.  I’m also using stash for this quilt.  It is a line of pastels and I’m really liking how it’s coming along.  Maybe I’ll finish it tomorrow and have some pictures to post.

Thread decisions

This week I did quite a bit of quilting.  It’s always a dilemma when I have a top that’s either black or white with other colors.  I’m unsure of what color of thread to use for the quilting when I quilt an overall design.  Most of my quilts don’t warrant heirloom quilting with lots of thread changes.  Usually I’m just wanting to get them finished so they look nice.  Generally it seems I’ve preferred having dark thread on light fabric rather than light thread on dark fabric.  This week I put this to the test since I had both a quilt with lots of black and one with lots of white.

The first quilt was a fancy four-patch made from a black and lime green print. I love making these quilts. It’s so fun to put each block together and see how the kaleidoscope effect works. No two blocks end up the same and every one I’ve made like this has turned out very pretty.  This print was from a line called Zen Garden.  It has a kind of retro look and the blocks turned out nice even though there weren’t a lot of colors in the blocks.  The only colors in the fabric were black, lime, grey and cream.  When it came time to quilt it, I just didn’t like black thread going over the light parts of the blocks.  After checking several cones, I ended up using an off-white Glide thread.  This is a heavier polyester thread and it gives the stitches great dimension.  I love the little bit of sheen that shows in this quilt.  Here’s a picture.  I think it turned out great. The quilting shows up nicely but it isn’t distracting.  This quilt is now up for sale on Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/listing/100901080/zen-garden-four-patch-fancy-lap-quilt

The second quilt was a fun kid’s quilt made from a Moda line called “Meadow Friends.”  This quilt had dirt brown, pond blue, sunshine yellow, grass green and dragonfly orange against white.  I was pretty sure I didn’t want dark thread on the white, but wasn’t sure if light on the darker fabrics would work either.  For this one, I chose So Fine in a very light yellow.  I’ve found that this thread blends really well with lots of fabrics.  It didn’t look yellow or “dirty” against the white and it wasn’t too stark on the darks.  This thread doesn’t give the stitch definition that the Glide did, but it still looks nice.  What do you think?  How do you handle the thread issue?  This quilt is also for sale on Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/listing/101290700/meadow-friends-childs-quilt