sequinK

quilting podcasts

We are visiting family right now for an extended weekend, so no quilting or crafting updates.  A little knitting is happening, but not enough to even mention (except I just did).

On the eight hours in the car on Thursday, I had a chance to catch up on some podcasts. I've been a longtime listener of knitting/crafty podcasts -- CastOn, CraftSanity, CraftyPod, DoubleKnit, Stash and Burn, and Y knit are my current faves -- and now that I've been quilting more, thought I'd try and find some quilting podcasts to add to my queue as well. I've listened to quite a few over the past month or so, and the Quilted Cupcake, Patchwork and Pacifiers, and Quilts 'n Kids are the three that currently are at the top of my list.

All these women have voices that are easy to listen to and stay fairly focused and on topic, with a little bit of crafting, cooking and kids thrown in for good measure. All good things -- keep up the good work! I listened to a few others that are out there, but found myself turned off for a number of reasons, such as too much non-quilting/craft related ranting, an overall condescending tone, and the inability to please oh my god get to the point already! But hey, to each his own.

I hope to get back to my projects later this week after another long day in the car on Tuesday with just me, a 3.5 year old, and a secret DVD player stashed under the front seat for emergencies. Wish me luck!

craft apron -- aka sanity saver

For the longest time, it was so stressful to even try and get any type of sewing or quilting accomplished in my house.  With a toddler running around, pins and scissors and seam rippers and rotary cutters (shudder!) were tools I just couldn't have sitting around. I do have a dedicated office/craft/guest room, but the "no kids allowed" approach doesn't work for us -- it's too difficult and frankly, just isn't our parenting style.

So enter the craft apron. Why did I not think of this sooner??? I noticed the girls at the fabric stores sporting a variety of aprons, poked around a bit for different options, then cobbled this one together from stash fabrics -- Robert Kaufman Carnaby Street, and an old lightweight canvas curtain. I particularly love the slanted pockets which allow me to sit down without impaling myself on any pointy tools (I picked up that idea from seeing this pattern).

This live model shot is courtesy of my almost 3.5 year old, hence the blur and subsequent refusal to reshoot it. The apron measures 20 inches wide by 10 inches tall, and the ties are a ridiculously long 110 inches from end-to-end, tied jauntily over at the side. It makes me super happy!

string quilt beginnings

Wow. Cutting up all these strips was much more time consuming than I imagined. Working with such gorgeous fabric well made up for it, and watching Top Chef Masters at the same time didn't hurt either. Yay Hubert Keller and Boo Michael Chiarello. If you saw the Wednesday night episode, you know what I mean.

I had a little time to myself Saturday morning, and cut my paper foundation pieces down to 11 by 11 inch squares (thank you my new 12.5 inch square ruler!) and got to pasting the first piece of fabric across the diagonal of the foundation pieces.  At first I tried eyeballing it, making creases down the center of the fabric and matching to the corners of the papers, but when I got the ruler out to check my work, the inconsistencies were too much for me to bear, so I ripped all the fabric piece off the paper, drew a pencil line 1/2 inch off the center diagonal, and used that line as a guide to paste down my 1 inch strips. Worked perfectly!

Later the same afternoon I managed to piece four blocks.

I love it!! I excluded a darker blue fabric from my palette last night (thought it would make the quilt too somber), but after seeing the blocks come together I'm going to add it back in.  I wasn't sure what I was going to do with this quilt once I finished it up, but now I know it's going in my room. We have done next to no decorating in our bedroom, and hopefully this piece will kick start the process.

la la (wonder)land

Sunday was a very strange day.  I'll leave it at that.  As a result, I stayed close to home and kept busy with a mindless piecing project.

I scored a Momo Wonderland layer cake on sale, which is 40 pieces of 10" x 10" fabric, and cut it into fourths to make 5" charm squares.

Clearly nothing original, but gorgeous fabric, isn't it? And I still have 80 square left.  I'm thinking of using half the squares for a disappearing nine patch -- combining the print squares with solid natural linen/cotton blend. I think that will result in some happy randomness.

flippy goodness

I ordered one of these Flip Doll kits from Umbrella Prints (eek! Price went up since I bought it) after seeing it on SouleMama's blog.  It took a few weeks to arrive, and then a few more weeks for me to sew it up, then a few more weeks for me to remember to blog about it, but here she is in all her cuteness.  Meet Miss Louisiana:

I haven't made a lot of softies, so it was a bit slow going getting her assembled, and I found the directions a bit confusing. There are two dolls in the kit, Lily and Grace, and you're supposed to cut one of them out with a bit more seam allowance, but there's no indication regarding which one is who! I had to get online and poke around the Umbrella Prints site to sleuth it out. I also found the directions confusing regarding how to stack the faces and dresses so that the flippiness would work out in the end, but I wung it and it all came out fine.

The directions also tell you to stuff the arms and legs after sewing them to the body, which requires hand sewing up not only the stuffing hole of body of the doll, but all four of the arms and legs too.  On the second doll, I think I'll stuff the arms and legs first, and just deal with all the lumpy bumpy hassle during the final assembly, and see how that works out. 

Regardless, Louisiana is totally cute and happy and my daughter loves her. Miss H takes her to bed and tucks her in every night. The second doll from this kit is already cut out and ready to be assembled, and I also have Olive and Archie from wee wonderfuls on deck. Maybe in time for Christmas??

basted and ready to go

I was so sure about this happy limey green backing for my plain spoken quilt, but now, meh. 

That's a whole lot of green.  I'm going to live with it for a while in my office and see if it grows on me a bit more before I start quilting.  I plan on binding it with a coffee brown, so that should tone things down a bit. I put so much time into piecing the front, I want to love it without hesitation.

good folks

I'm hopping on the string quilt wagon!! Using the general directions from Film In the Fridge. I ordered the entire fat quarter set of Good Folks by Anna Maria Horner and plan on going to town with the paper piecing goodness. These babies are washed (yes, I'm in the prewashing fabric camp because really, WHO KNOWS what come in contact with fabric as it's en route from China or Thailand or India or wherever -- just sayin'.) and ready to get chop chopped up.

Love her work.  Love it. I'm using all the prints except three that read dark brown to me. 

I also just switched from Bloglines to Google Reader to keep track of the blogs I follow. I was kickin' it old school, I now realize.  What the heck took me so long?  It's so much better!!

Stupid stupid

I ordered a gorgeous new rotary cutting mat (24x36, baby!) and left it hanging on the deck railing to air out. It was beyond stinky! And the freaking thing warped ever so slightly, just where the sun peeked through the deck railing. So here I go - hoping a little more sun and boiling water will whip it back into shape. Otherwise, what the heck do I do with a warped cutting mat???

edited to add: It kinda worked. The sun was not being totally cooperative, so I poured the boiling water and rolled it as well as I could with a rolling pin. The smaller ripples seemed to come out, no problem, though one of the bigger ones was being beyond stubborn.  Now it's inside, on the floor, being squished under a bunch of big, coffee table-esque car books.  Fingers crossed for usability.