sequinK

lovin' the Lapland

Stitches West, again, did not disappoint.  I was lucky enough to get a space in Susanna Hanssen's Lapland Handgarment Class all day Friday.  Intarsia in round, baby, with twelve separate lengths of yarn!  And yarn management using a long knitting needle (think loom).  Totally cool.  Here's a pic of everyone's wrist warmers in progress.

Can you believe we got our projects off that table without a single tangled mess? 

Susanna is a great teacher—extremely knowledgeable, funny, organized,... I also love how she's a Swede who speaks without an accent, however the fact that she says "ehm" instead of "um" gives her away.

I was very restrained in the Marketplace.  Only one skein of merino/tencel sock yarn from Tactile Fiber Arts in a pale green, and seven skeins of madelinetosh handpainted worsted from Webs.  One of the owners, Steve, cashed me out.  It's alway so interesting to see someone in person that you've first heard on a podcast.  The person in your head never matches the real thing!

The window guys are coming this morning to install new living room and bedroom windows downstairs (yay!!), and a piano is being delivered on Monday, so we have lots of organizing and cleaning to do this weekend.  Oh,... and we're leaving on vacation next Friday as well!  I think my head is going to explode!  Happy weekend everyone!

thinking on plain spoken

Next project is on deck!  A stack of fat quarters from Pink Chalk Studio for a little Plain Spoken love.

 

I love these colors. They remind me of Anna Maria Horner's saturated color palettes.  The Modern Quilt Workshop is a fantastic book.  I know I missed the boat on all the hype about three years ago, but who cares?  And both fabric stores in Santa Cruz are having sales on Kona Cotton right now, so I'm going to get a few more fat quarters to fill out the palette -- a little more green and orange, me thinks--and a bunch of white and natural for my next project as well.

Stitches West is tomorrow!  Must...do...homework...for Lapland Hand Garments with Susanna Hansson.  And I actually finished my Ene Scarf—pronounced N (like the letter N), EH (like, "Eh? That's crazy talk!)—in case anyone was curious.  Pics (crappy iPhone ones since I CAN NOT FIND MY CAMERA AGAIN) once it's off the blocking board.  I bought the yarn (Toots Le Blanc) last year at Stitches West, so it was imparative that I actually had an FO from any of that yarn.  It is beYOOtiful.

free-motion quilting foray

After piecing and ironing my zig zag quilt top last week, I took my machine into the shop for a tune up.  While sans machine, I got to work and pinned out my quilt top.  I researched all the different methods of basting a quilt, and pinning seemed like the best approach to me, as opposed to spray adhesive (stinky, blehk!) or hand basting. I taped the backing fabric onto the floor with blue painters tape, and rolled out the batting and the quilt top over that to complete the sandwich.  I pinned every five inches or so.

I don't remember exactly where I read it, but whoever suggested using curved basting pins (sweet!!) and warned not to close the pins by hand after placing each one totally saved my poor fingers!  We don't own grapefruit spoons, but a bamboo chopstick worked fantastically to secure all 100+ of those little suckers.

I've decided to try some free-motion quilting with this project.  Meandering sounds like a plan.  And since I have the Bernina 440QE with the fancy BSR (the machine automatically sense how fast/slow you're moving the fabric under the needle and adjusts the stitch length automatically) I really have no excuse not to give it a go.

Not too bad for my first practice sandwiches.  Fabric Depot was having a sale a couple of weeks ago, so when I ordered my batting (Quilters Dream) I also ordered some Machiner's quilting gloves. They SO make a difference in my ability to control the fabric—grippy fingers!

I plan on starting the real deal quilting tomorrow (Thursday), however with Stitches West this week,... who know where I will be--prowling the market preview maybe?  Anywhoo, here are a couple of links that I found helpful for free-motion quilting:

Sew Inspired Free Motion Quilting Tutorial

Crazy Mom Quilts Free Motion Quilting Video   

Dog Named Banjo: Free Motion Quilting with Bernina BSR

Getting there,...

I tried something new today, and set up my sewing machine and all other quilting paraphernalia in the dining room.  So by default, we ate dinner on the couch, Miss H got a very rare Friday night Noggin TV treat, and I got down to some piecing.

First assembling blocks.  Chain piecing is a fantastic thing. I'm making a zigzag quilt, so all the blocks are two triangles sewn together.

Then copious amounts of ironing (no pic of that -- BORING!!!) before laying everything out on the blocking board--which was a bit too small so hopefully I didn't screw anything up--and got to assembling some strips.  You can kind of see the zigzag motif if you back up and squint at the screen a little bit.

I used the "leapfrogging" technique described in The Modern Quilt Workshop where you pin together two rows worth of blocks, then chain piece the blocks, alternating from row to row--first two blocks of row A, then first two blocks of row B, snip the chain between row A and row B, then piece the second and third block of row A, then second and third block of row B, and so on.  Very cool.  It seems very efficient but I really have nothing to compare it to. 

Half the rows are pieced into strips, so maybe during Miss H's nap tomorrow I can get the rest of the rows pieced and then totally assemble the quilt top.  My goal is to get the top done, then take my machine in for servicing (the oil can on the display is flashing at me!!!), baste my quilt to the batting/backing while it's in the shop, then get my free motion quilting groove on with my newly lubed machine--woohoo!!!

Plink plink plink!

Check this gorgeous beast! A happy birthday gift from the hubby.  He gives good gift, that man,...

I've been playing Shona-style marimba (originates from Zimbabwe) for the past few months with a group of seven other women, and it's been fantastic.  This is a soprano marimba, with padauk keys and birch frame, which is what most people start with since it's pretty versatile.  But my favorite is the giant bass marimba.  To reach the keys, you have to stand on a three foot high bench, and boom boom BOOM to play!

You all have a great day!

Birthday Planning

Miss H’s third birthday is on the horizon, and I want to make her a little napping quilt. Her self-professed favorite color is pink, and I’m all about orange, and we live in a beach town in Nor Cal, so Heather Ross’ Mendocino fabric line fit the bill perfectly.

That’s 120 5 inch squares.  Took me about 1.5 hours to press and cut them all.  Seems like it should have gone quicker, but I’m new to this quilting thing so I’ll just let it go and go with it.

I’m not sure if the combination is contrasty enough, but I’m going for a soft look which hopefully doesn’t end up too boring. I'm planning on using a bright pink/fuchsia binding, which should give it a little pop.  We'll see how it pans out.