play mat

Here’s the in-progress report for R’s play mat.  I’ve decided to make a few things simpler.  For instance I’m not going to piece in the sun rays, instead I have some ribbon the perfect color that I’ll sew on with some perl cotton.  Also in my original plan my road curved, yikes, not a feat I’m up for yet.  So I’m going with right angels, which so far I’m very happy with.  I’ve designed it by panels and each panel will have a different landscape.  I’m thinking we’ll have 6 panels total, each about 9 inches tall.  I’m shooting for about 40 inches wide, so far I’m only about 35 inches wide.  I’ll add on to the side soon.  I was too excited to start on the houses and trees to finish a hill.

Here I’m trying out the road with one of R’s trucks.  It fits just perfect.  And when we start have matchbox cars it should fit two cars, one on each lane.  I haven’t decided how to finish it yet.  If I’ll back it in fabric so it could double as a blanket, or felt so that it is more of a play mat.  I have plenty of time to think that over.  More houses in the next panel…I’m excited to get started on those.

taking a quilt class

Not this weekend but next Mom and I plus a couple close girlfriends are making a 4 hour trek to take a quilt class.  Seems like quite a ways for a class when we have a couple quilt shops in town, but it makes for an amazing excuse for a mini vacation.  I feel a little bad about this mini trip I’m going on, but I’m even more excited about it.  We are taking a Bargello class.  What’s that you ask?  Google Bargello quilts and you’ll be amazed by the watercolor-like designs of melting colors in fabric.  It looks hard.  I’ve been told it’s really just sewing strips, cutting those strips and then sewing them again.  I’m not so sure it’s that easy.  All the more reason to be excited for a class to explain it to me. 

The kit/design we’re doing in class is the Cascade design.  Here are a few links to some examples, Blue, pinks, golds.  Since we’re traveling to the shop for the class we needed to have our fabrics picked out and cut ahead of time. We could order a kit, or bring our own.  Mom and I are bringing ours, my friends ordered kits.  The fabrics should be prints and big enough prints so that different blocks aren’t the same.  And they should be in graduating shades.  I’m always drawn to batiks and instantly bali pops seemed to be the way to go. 

I choose the Watermelon bali pop.  Mom went with the Key Lime.  A bali pop comes with 40 2.5inch strips.  The pattern we’re doing calls for 24 strips, so we got to pick and choose which fabrics to include.  Watermelon is a bit out of my comfort zone…there’s a lot of pink!  I still really love it and left a lot of the pink out.  Granted a lot of the pink left out were nearly solid and they weren’t recommended anyway.  Pictured are the strips that will be included.  I’m excited to see how it turns out in all our quilts. 
Winter weather has finally hit, with snow blowing all over the place today.  Hopefully it will calm down on our mini vaca weekend.

christmas runner

I was in mad dash to get this finished in time for Christmas.  That didn’t happen.  I had sewing machine issues which are now taken care of.  Because of the issues I had I made the decision to hand quilt the runner.  I’m very glad I mad that decision because I love how it’s quilted.  And it gave me an excuse to do some experimenting.  I think it’s half quilted half embroidered.  Either way I love the way it turned out.

This is my first quilt project that I did myself from beginning to end.  It’s hand pieced and hand quilted.  I used the machine to sew the binding on, and then hand sewed the back down. 

I’m very glad I forced myself to keep working on this since Christmas was over.  If I hadn’t it would never have gotten done.  I have another one in the pieceing stage for Mom.  I’m thinking she may get it next Christmas season. 

different spectrums

I’ve been drooling over the kona cotton bundles for a while now.  I don’t have much of a fabric stash yet, hence I’m sorta addicted to fat quarters.  I’m drawn to the idea of a little bit of lots right now.  So fat quarters are my thing.  Another Christmas gift I received were two kona cotton fat quarter bundles.

While waiting for these bundles to arrive, I kinda knew they were coming, I had tons of ideas of what to do with them.  They are so full of potential all bundled up together the shades nicely blending into each other.  I’m a bit nervous to undo these.  I’ll never be able to put them back in order.  I’ll never even really know which fabric is named what if I were to want to order more of a particular one.  And so I’ve frozen. 

I’m not too worried about this freeze, I’m still enjoying the bundles.  Trying to decide what project would be special enough for me to crack them open.  Or maybe I’ll just get a bug under my skin and just throw them all in the wash and then it’ll be done with. 
Back in December Mom and I went to an open house of sorts of different artists studios.  It’s a very personal thing to go visit an artist where they work.  It was fascinating.  One of our stops was a shared spaced between an oil painter and a pastel artist.  We were drawn in b/c of the oils but ended up chatting with the pastel guy.  He was a great guy, liked to talk about his adventures.  And he didn’t mind sharing his process of how he paints and creates.  One thing that he sometimes does was to paint one photo several times.  This way by the third time you’re trying new things, you have a different perspective, and the image isn’t as special any more because you’ve done it before.  And its true I can spend hours deciding on a plan because the project is special and I don’t want to mess it up.  But if i plan to do it again anyway it takes some of the pressure off and allows more adventures in.  Anyway I’ve been thinking about doing some mini quilt studies.  I ‘m currently doodling and seeing what I can come up with, but I’m hoping to do some studies soon.
*photos were taken from the fat quarters shop where they were purchased from.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!

not really bragging

It’s not really bragging if I show off my Xmas gifts here?  BUT look what I got!!!!

Ok the pic was taken by the artist, Kerry, from KabsConcepts.  She takes amazing pictures and I’m not going to even try and do a better job than this.  My amazing hubby got this for me for Christmas and the bangle is just as amazing in person.  I’ve been following Kerry’s work for years.  I’m drawn to her color palette…loud, bright, bold, and beautiful.  Her jewelry design has gone in and out of my personal style.  Most of her work is chunky, and loud, but her simpler pieces are what draw me in.  I love this bangle. I’m totally inspired by it.  The red and teal with a touch of orange.  But the design is really what drew me in.  It’s different.  It’s a concept I thought of and then threw out the window immediately.  She did it and it works. 
Looking and wearing this bangle has started me thinking about my old beadwork.  My flowers and my dabbling into wirework/jewelry.  I was there in my flower work.  The same place Kerry is and she’s a successful artist, author, and teacher in jewelry and lampwork.  I never realized it.  I didn’t have the confidence in my flowers to know where I was.  I’m quite proud that at least now I’ve realized how far I took and was taking my french beaded flowers.  I’m slightly bummed that it took two years after I quit making them to realize it. 
But it does inspire me to explore and grow in the fiber world.  I’m excited to see what I can come up with and how far I can take it.  I have ideas for some multimedia quilts or mini quilts.  Not sure what I’ll call them yet.  I should probably make one first.  I have a sketch book and yes I’m sketchin.

we had a good christmas

Despite some illnesses in the house, we had a nice Christmas. 

Mira and R enjoyed the lights.  R has insisted that the lights be on at all times.  I think he’ll be sad when the tree goes down next week.

He loves his new kitchen.  He’s cooking Christmas breakfast for us here.  He cooks a little then “clears” off the counters.  Waits for us to load the kitchen back up before repeating. 
Now we’re having a recouperation week.  Sick people are trying to get better.  We are not hosting or cooking much of anything.  We are just wearing pj’s when we can and watching movies and lots of sesame street.

while the boy naps

Well I did a little while the boy napped this weekend.  I fought with my new sewing machine.  Ok I’m new to sewing, by hand and with a machine.  I got a Brother 3700 pacesetter for Christmas and have been learning the quirks.  And so far my biggest issue is with loading the bobbin correctly…and it’s a drop in bobbin.  That’s supposed to be the easiest thing about this machine.  Make sure the threads going counter clockwise and load it up.  And I can fight with the damn thing for a half hour and still lose.  I really have no idea what I could be doing wrong.  I know once it’s in right I’m good to go until I need to change a bobbin.  So I may need to take it into my dealer and feel like a fool and try and figure out my issues.  I don’t have any big rush in the sewing department so I’m planning to wait until after Christmas to stop by. 

I finished my scarves, here are 3 of the 4 that are done.  I have one more in pieces but mostly done.  Modeling scarves is not an easy thing.  Never mind my creepy intense gaze and focus on the soft Anna Maria flannel.  It really didn’t turn out how I envisioned these scarves.  But I think that’s because I decided to work in all flannels, instead of cotton and then backing in flannel.  I was hell bent on using some Anna Maria fabric some how and this was my solution.  I still like them, but more importantly I hope their new owners like them.  I plan to give away these 4 as gifts.  So if anyone gets one act surprised!

As for Christmas projects I’m mostly done.  I have a runner I was making myself that needs quilting.  I had planned on trying that out on the machine.  Now I’m contemplating hand quilting.  I like how Mom’s small projects look hand quilted and if I do it by hand I can sit next to C and watch Buffy while I work.  That’s what really sounds like an amazingly relaxing Christmas week activity. 

quilts and food

We’ve now been up for 2 hours and everyone is still in their PJs and we’ve flipped between three channels for cartoons.  Not something we do very often but we’ve actually scheduled a lazy weekend for this weekend.  And we’re off to a good start.  I’m not sure how well I’ll do with keep up with the laziness.  I have some sewing and picture taking I want to take care of sometime.  And some gift wrapping.  But all that sounds like fun while he naps activities.  I’ve gotten no sewing done this week.  Instead we’ve had a plumber come in and fix our leakiness, or I’ve been cooking.  Lots of yummy deliciousness cooking. 

Wednesday I made horseradish-crusted steak roulade.  Friday I braised short ribs and made creamy mashed taters to go with.  Sounds fancy, and hard.  Not so hard but very fancy flavors.  It was divine.  The major problem I’ve found with photographing my food creations is that I have to be fast which means the photos aren’t very good or they don’t get done at all.  I always rush it b/c I’m hungry, it smells good, it’s only hot for so long, and everyone else wants to eat now too.  Who am I to hold them all up?  So instead we have pics of Mom’s amazing quilt adventures.

This week she’s made these two mug rugs.  Small experimental versions of color theory experiments and learning to work with curves.  I love the pops of color and the simple and minimal additions of a striped strip.  She hand quilted these mug rugs to compliment the design.  I’m digging this idea of small versions of potential bigger projects.  Or even just fast use up some creative energy projects.  I have some fun new year quilt idea projects that she’s convinced me it would be a good idea to try a mini version first.  More on that later. 

R has now discovered the Xmas wrapping paper and is having too much fun.  =)

making a list

It’s been the busiest December ever!  I’m quite proud with how well we’ve been keeping our head above water.  This past weekend was extremely productive.  Here’s what we accomplished…

~ Hosted dinner both Sat and Sun nights
~ decorated and cleaned up the house for hosting
~ rearranged garage so deep freeze is in back
~ made vanilla strawberry jam and apple cranberry jam and canned both
~ made reindeer noses
~ made chex mix
~ nearly finished Christmas shopping
~ shipped off packages and Xmas cards

Things still to do..
~ finish my sewing projects.  I worked on this last night.  My flannel scarves are all assembled sewed up and pressed.  Yes I even pressed them.  I had the intention of sewing a border about a half inch from the edge in zig zag (b/c I wasn’t confident on my skill of sewing straight).  I don’t know if it was the thickness of the flannel or what but I kept breaking the thread.  And I decided I didn’t like the small zig zag, maybe it was too small and compact.  A wider stich may have been better.  I didn’t make it down half of one side of one scarf.  So I started another one and started hand quilting the border, simple running stitch.  I don’t like that either.  Not sure where to go with this.  Give them as gifts as is?  I liked this stitching idea so that the scarf doesn’t bubble up and the back twist to the front.  Maybe I need some prettier perl cotton and do an embroidery stitch for the border.  But you’ll see the back so it would have to look nice on both sides.  Thoughts?  suggestions?  I know I don’t have pics.  It’s been dark when I get to work on these.
~ I still need to quilt my Xmas runner. 
~ Plan Christmas dinner
~ finish up R shopping
~ Call dentist about a weird bill
~ make appt for kitty’s shots
~ wrap gifts
This weekend we have a family weekend planned.  Lots of watching Christmas movies and being together with out a huge plan.  I’m really looking forward to it.