May 2008

That’s it for this week.  I updated the picture in the sidebar as well.  It looks so full!  Only 7 more blocks and I’ll be caught up.

You can still see the blue ink lines… must go spray those with water.  This one was a lot harder than it should have been.  It’s a little wonky but I don’t know if I should re-do it or not.

It’s Baby Jane day!

I had a momentary lapse in sanity and decided to take the kids to the beach today.  Keep in mind we don’t really live anywhere near the beach.

But, it turned out being a great day with well behaved kids and no major disasters!

Wait for me!

Digging the big hole.

Lunch: Sand and Sweet Potatoes.

The good life.

A very blue quilt with Joel Dewberry’s Chestnut Hill line. Etsy link.

John asked about this. I have a whole quilt image in the sidebar (one block is off in that image) but here are all the blocks together… so far. Only 80 bazillion more to go!

And my category reorganization is complete.  Yay!

I seem to have a million quilts in the works right now.

Ginger Blossom.  Being pieced.

Joel Dewberry #1.  Pinned and waiting to be quilted.

Joel Dewberry #2.  Piecing done and waiting for pins.  Wow, that’s a bad picture.

Decadent Victorian #1 and #2.  This quilt was originally going to be for me but while I was doing the math so I could buy the backing I realized that I had made so many blocks it was going to be queen sized.  So I redid my math and it’s now 2 laps sized quilts, one for me and one for the store.   Piecing is almost done and then I need to sew the blocks together.  I ordered the backing last week.

I picked up some cool baskets this weekend to help store these two projects.  On the left is Baby Jane.  I’m (I think) 11 blocks behind and Friday is officially my Baby Jane block workday.  On the right is Maeve’s and Saturday is my workday for that.  These are such long-term projects that they really do have to be scheduled into the week or they are never going to get done.  When I get caught up with my Jane blocks, maybe I’ll spend the extra Friday time on Maeve’s cause that thing is going to take f-o-r-e-v-e-r to make.

And I have two new quilt categories… in progress and completed.  I should have separated them a long time ago because now it’s just a disaster in the ‘Quilt’ category.  I’ll slowly work through reorganizing them so the old category will stick around until I finish.

Other quilts on my to-do list include more Dick and Jane, Aliens, more Freshcut, a Christmas quilt for us, binding the quilt for our bedroom, etc, etc, etc.

Part of Maeve’s new quilt I finally got started on. These are about 3″square.

The pieces in the center are teeny teeny tiny!

I am now a believer. My I-8 block came out amazingly perfect!

Freezer Paper Foundation Piecing Tutorial by Wee Toes and Noggins.

The NCTriangle Street team asked for pictures and some words (that I still need to write!) about where I sew my quilts. If they had seen my room on the day they asked the question they would have retracted quickly since it was a disaster area. It’s clean now but with two little kids it won’t be for long.

This is our bonus room. Starting at the left: my desk, easel and painting supplies, fabric storage bookshelf with embroidery thread, quilting machine and serger on top, comfy chair, kids Lego table and bookshelf with their toys and a TV. I have a curtain rod with rings hanging above the bookshelf. I change the quilt out whenever something sells or I want something fresh up there.

The other side of the room. In the dormer on the left I store my 40 yard rolls of batting (which is almost gone… again!), then my sewing table, ironing board, bookshelves and then back to my desk. Above the ironing board is my typesetting tray with my various threads for piecing and binding.

A close up of my sewing table. I have a large cutting mat with an insane amount of rulers. A small basket of tools and notions plus some small drawers for pins, sewing machine feet, etc. I have a large set of drawers on the other side of the table that stores packing supplies, notions and large quilting thread spools. Since I only use the large quilting machine for quilting, I pull this one off the table and carry the other one over when I need it.

Finished quilts are stored in a closet way high up and out of the reach of small little hands.

It was beautiful this morning so we headed out.

And my little photographer in training.

My tiny love.

This one might not make it to the store.

I wasn’t sure if I liked it while I was sewing it but now that it’s together I really like it. Phew.

On Etsy.

Maeve, the resident sock monkey lover, would have flipped if she saw this on her bed.

And I’m addicted to fabric.

The project over the past two days has been de-toying the bonus room, cleaning it up and just making it a more pleasant room to be in.  Before I had fabric stashed here and there and everywhere.  Now it’s all in one place and, um, I apparently have a small fabric shopping problem.  Sean saw this last night (before everything was in there) and asked if seeing it all was going to make me stop shopping for a while.  I laughed at him.  Silly man.

The top is organized by line while the bottom has some lines, some genres, and some by color.  There is nothing to show scale in this picture but the dimensions of the bookcase are 73″ x 33″.

I need to make some more quilts pronto before I go shopping again.

This is the second Midwest Modern quilt (first here).

New quilt with Anna Maria Horner’s Chocolate Lollipop. Etsy link.

Pretty packages have pretty contents.

See the fabric on the bottom?  That one I needed for a pillowcase order.  The rest just happened to jump into my cart.  Oops!  Everyone needs a little bit more Freshcut in their lives.

Look for a new quilt tonight.  Fun stuff!

We spent this morning at a favorite spot of mine.

And had a very nice lunch followed by some fun at the mall with Miss Maeve.  The idea was for us to build a bear *together* but that quickly turned into Maeve’s bear.

Meet ‘Eye.’  Yes, Eye.  She insisted that she wanted a black bear that was a boy and was named Eye.

He had to have a hat (she wanted the straw hat with a pink bow but I nixed that one since it was supposed to be a boy bear).  He also had to have sunglasses like Daddy, a black shirt that matched his fur and black pants to match his black shirt and black shoes to complete the outfit.  Oh, and boy undies.  Rounding out the ensemble are the roller skates… just like (Curious) George.  Everyday she makes a pair of ’skates’ out of paper and then skate/ski poles out of her Tinker Toys and skates around upstairs like George.

So we headed out to pick up a new pair of shoes for her because she needed them and we were there so why not?

Of course Eye had to skate along.

And through Nordies too.

And eventually her arm got tired and I carried him and then he hitched a ride with Liam in the stroller.  Throw in some gelato and it was a fantabulous day.  Smooches to my babies ’cause I love you to pieces.

It was going to be a lap quilt but then I decided to add a couple more rows to make it a twin so I didn’t quite get it done.

While I’m not trying to do a quilt top a day, it’s kinda turning into that. So, so, so many more to do…

Midwest Modern (56″ x 72″) on the left. Chocolate Lollipop (60″ x 60″) on the right.

(Gotta love nighttime photos!)

Just a new block for a new quilt. This block and quilt are a morphed idea from a Dick and Jane idea that is floating around in my head.

And a friendly reminder to my fellow residents of north Raleigh: If you have a stop sign and I don’t, even though the world really does revolve around you, you really do have to stop and let me go. Sorry for the inconvenience. </sarcasm> Now back to some quilting…

This quilt has taught me one thing… I need to go to the optometrist pronto.  Egads, these are really small pieces!

Anina recommended foundation piecing which I hate doing so I thought I’d take my chance with rotary cutting it all and piecing normally.  There are a couple spots of wonky but once it’s shrunk in the wash that shouldn’t be noticeable at all.

Technically yes.

I have this in Photoshop so once I get more blocks in I can figure out what colors I should use.  But right now, that’s really not a problem.  I hope to get K-7 done tonight along with pinning another Etsy quilt.

I wanted a bird in the center of this one.

Yeah, yeah so I’m really behind (I’ve been crazy busy with quilts for Etsy) and I picked a really simple one to do. I like the monotone look.

After making one for Liam’s birthday I had to make one for the Etsy shop as well. It’s now done and listed.

There are a couple slight differences but basically the same. I love all these prints… just perfect for the little ones.

6.16.08 edit — Another one!

6.24.08 edit — Another one completed.

Both of my models were in bed, so, uh, here is a picture of the quilt in their chair!

I sewed some of the blocks together and laid them out to show Sean. I think he’s now questioning my sanity.

This was a custom order from Etsy.

Now on Etsy…

Beautiful strips of floral prints wrap around rich, jewel toned purple diamonds in this quilt. The backing is a red floral and bird print and the binding is purple. Quilted in a meandering pattern with a variegated red, coral and yellow thread. Made with fabrics from April Cornell’s Maypole line.

Now on Etsy…

BOOP. Boop. boop. boop
Keew! Keew! (Shkee)
BOOP Boop boop boop
Keew! (Shkee) Keew! (Shkee)
BOOPBoopboopboop
Mweaa! Mweaa! Mweaa! Mweaa!
Keew! Keew! (Shkee)
Booboobooboop
sh-POOGGGGGH!!

GAME OVER
Play Again?

(See also: Galaga, Zelda, Mario and Pole Position)

Want a video game quilt?

…if a quilter sits and quilts all day?

Three.

Instead of doing one of the million things I should have been doing this afternoon, I decided to give the shop and blog a mini facelift.  Both got new headers, the shop got a new avatar (it was a big, blue Maeve eyeball) and the blog got a new shot of me (though the shot itself is 3 years old).

I’m only 99% happy with the Photoshopping so I might still change them a little after I’ve had time to stare at them for hours on end.

It’s done!  I hope to pin tomorrow and quilt this weekend.  It should be up in the shop next week.