Two Quilts Done!

I finally finished my sister's quilt! I'm very happy with it.

I wasn't sure if she was going to hang it in her house or actually use it as a blanket so I added these little triangles in the corner. She can easily put in a dowel and hang this if that is what she so desires.

Making these triangles makes it so much easier to hang!

The longest part was the hand quilting around the border but I like how I followed the pattern. I tried some other templates on my machine and they were just too intricate for my expertise level as well as my machine capabilities. Of course, about three days after I was done I found a pattern that would have been perfect and I would have been able to do on my machine but....I'll just tuck that away in the ol' brain box for some other quilt. Besides, it was kind of nice to do it by hand.

I did learn something with this quilt. For some reason I made my binding only 1 1/2" wide and it was something of a pain in the rear end to fold it over and attach.              

The binding is way too small!

The final product:

Lap quilt or easily a wall hanging

                   

This other quilt is one that my mom started twenty-something years ago and it was supposed to go to my younger brother. But since procrastination/distraction/avoidance are hereditary (!) my mom didn't finish this until this past February when she brought it up to my house to complete. She and my dad came up for three weeks-'cause, you know, the ideal time to come to the Pacific Northwest is February/March. Anyway, she finished quilting it. She had originally tried to hand quilt it but it was causing her too much pain in her hands so she used a quilting template found here. It seemed to work pretty well for her.

Twin sized!

3' binding-much easier to work with!

Nice and easy quilting!

She wasn't able to finish the binding before she left so I told her I would finish that for her. Once I finished my sister's quilt, I was able to finish that one, too.



Makes me happy to have both of these quilts off my sewing table.

What next?

Gotta pull something from the lottery!

Stop what you are doing and make this!

So last week on Facebook, I posted a little teaser about a project that I made in an afternoon.

(By the way, you can find me on Facebook right here-let's be friends!).

Seriously, the moon, planets and stars all lined up in a wondrous combination of beautiful weather so the older kids were playing outside, popsicles, and a baby that took an epic (and necessary) three hour nap.

I would have had this whole project done in that time if I had had all the pieces together in one place and didn't have to go hunting down the piping in the shed.  But once all the kids had gone down for the night, I was able to finish it.

What did I make? Oh, just the very first craft tutorial I every pinned on Pinterest.

It is a pincushion/thread catcher. You can find the tutorial right here.

I have followed many a tutorial on the internet and this was, by far, one of the easiest. I was able to use up some fabric from my stash and cross another item off of my lottery list. I'm going to give it to my mom for Mother's Day-it is a GREAT gift for Mother's Day, birthday, whatever. Make one for yourself.

The only thing I changed was I used some leftover piping my husband had for the pond outback as my "cording" and it worked just perfectly. When I was sewing it in, I just put the foot right on top of the piping with the needle as close to it as possible and sewed away. I only hit the piping once and it the needle didn't break.

Stop what you are doing and go make this!

Distraction Finished!

I finished all of the ornaments I made for the Wild Rose Quilt Shop!

Once completed they were pretty easy to put together as long as I didn't follow the directions given.

Here they are in all their glory-framed and everything!

They turned out really nice and the co-owner, Robbie, was thrilled with my work. It was nice to show off my handiwork. She is using them as samples for the kits she will be selling out of a store in Alaska at one of the cruise ports. 

The kits were great since they came with the Aida, floss, needle, frame, chart, and ribbons. Perfect little something to pick up and work on especially if you are on a boat. We debated with a few other customers which one we would pick if we were going to buy one. I chose the orca and the totem.

Which would you choose? 

Have a great weekend!

Sidetracked Again

As we all know, I have a problem.

I have far too many projects- 75+ and counting.

Hence, the lottery and this website.

Plus I am easily sidetracked by seasonal stuff I want to do-I made some glitter X's and O's for Valentine's Day I haven't posted about, St. Patrick's Day garland seen here and made more awesome here, Halloween costumes , and so much more! There's actually a couple more counted cross stitch items I need to add to The List .

But there's just so many awesome things to do, you know? And sometimes hand quilting can get SO boring and I need to change it up a little.

Anyway, what I am trying to say is this: I've been side tracked.

Again.

But it's for a good reason! I swear!

Here's how it all started. I saw on Facebook that one of my favorite quilt stores, The Wild Rose Quilt Shop, needed help with some counted cross stitch samples. They are opening up a little sister store in one of the cruise ports in Alaska this summer and, among other things, will be selling Alaskan themed ornaments.

Hello?!?! How could I say no to that request? I like love counted cross stitching and I'm really good at it. So, for the last two weeks, I have been busting these bad boys out every couple of nights.

I have liked working on them since they aren't my usual subject matter. They are really small (stitched on 22 count Aida cloth) and go really fast.

I hope to have all of them stitched by next week and can spend next weekend framing them.

What are you working on these days?

My First Quilt

If you spend any time in the quilting blogosphere you might have noticed that people are writing about "My First Quilt." There's a contest going around asking quilters to submit stories on their blogs about the first quilt they ever made. It's fun to read different stories and it's also fun to win free stuff, so here's my story!

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I can see the blocks of the first quilt I put together in my mind's eye. The blocks are 2x2". One is navy. The other white. My mom has used a pencil to draw a line marking the 1/4" seam.  I make my quilters knot and try to keep the two pieces together with one hand while using the other to push the needle in and out along the pencil line.

I think I am about seven or eight. I don't remember much else except for finishing that first seam, knotting the thread and opening the seam up to see the two pieces sewn together. I can still feel the sense of accomplishment. Twenty-five-plus-years later I still feel that accomplishment when I open a seam and see points perfectly joined. Corners perfectly matched. The shape of a bigger block or scene beginning to emerge.

If I remember correctly that became nothing more than a little nine patch quilt for my dolly. I'm sure my mom helped me finish it. Who knows if it was actually quilted together. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of it.

Eighteen years and two thousand miles later I would find myself living alone in a small town in Western Washington. I hadn't made any more quilts but had been sewing in one form or another during all that time. Sewing had always been a way for me to be creative and to unwind. I liked using a different part of my brain and letting my thoughts trail off with the hopes that I would find some inspiration for the next essay I would write in high school or college. If I'm completely honest, I sewed to occupy my time since I didn't have a lot of friends.

Now, here I was living in Small Town, USA and I didn't have many friends outside of my job and the ones I did have lived 35 miles away across high desert. I was working at my first job outside of college and living in a studio apartment above a lawyer's office. There was a fabric store across the street from me and I noticed they were going to start a beginner quilting class. We were going to make a table runner.

I'm pretty sure every beginner quilting class makes the same table runner.

From far away, not so bad

Looking back, it wasn't a great class: we didn't learn how to properly cut the fabric; there were at least a dozen of us in the class but had only the space for a third as many; the instructor flew through various techniques and assumed we all understood after one explanation. But I had nothing better to do after work so I continued to go each week. Cutting out the fabric and sewing them by hand each night became my new nighttime routine. I looked forward to the class and to the women I had met there.

At that time I was working at administering a federally funded welfare program. It was stressful. I was having constant heart burn and a gall bladder attack every day. After a particularly bad day at work I raced home to get my quilting stuff, shove some sort of sustenance down my throat and run across the street trying not to be too late to class. We were sewing triangles together. Or maybe squares to make half-square triangles. All I know is that three times in a row I didn't sew the two pieces front sides together. Remember, I have no machine so I have to rip it all out and then start again with just my needle and thread. I'm falling farther and farther behind the rest of the class that night. After having a bad day at work I just couldn't handle having a bad day at quilting class-this was supposed to be my oasis.

So many problems with this table runner!

As I am working with my head down I realize I can't see the two blocks in my hands anymore. They are completely obscured by the tears forming in my eyes. I quickly wipe them away and see dark smudges from my mascara on my hands and I think to myself, "I'm not going to cry like a small child here in front of all these women." I grabbed all my stuff, walked out of the store, across the street and back into my studio apartment.

I never went back. Not to the class. Not into that store.

I quit my job not too long after that experience. My fiancee was living in Seattle and I wanted to be closer to him. The stress of that job was affecting my health. Looking back, I think I knew that crying over something as simple as a quilt wasn't about the fabric in my hands at all. I was lonely. I was stressed. I didn't know it yet, but I was starting to get pretty sick. Sewing-something that I had loved in one way or another-couldn't help me to find relief in my life.

After that class my parents bought me a sewing machine the following Christmas. I still use it. In fact, I used it in the first home my husband and I had to make a quilt I saw in a store in Poulsbo, WA. I used it to make baby quilts for cousin's children, nieces, and my own children. Since I walked out of that quilting class eight or nine years ago I have made at least a dozen quilts. But I haven't finished that table runner. You see, after the birth of my last child I went through some postpartum depression; with three children under the age of 5 I just couldn't find the time to sew, to carve that time out for myself. But here in the last few months, as sleeping patterns have gotten better, teeth have started to come in and cold season is for the most part over, I've been able to start sewing again. It's brought me a lot of happiness. That sense of accomplishment.

Just needs some binding!

So, maybe I don't have the cleanest house on the block (or the city); maybe there are toys on the floor and laundry that needs to be put away. My kids are happy and healthy. You know why? Because Mama's happily sewing away!

Oh, and those navy and white squares I used to make my first quilt? My mom gave them to me while she was making a quilt for my younger brother. I'll be adding the binding to that quilt and laying it on my son's bed just as soon as I'm done working on my current quilt!


I still haven't finished that table runner. Typical. It's #23 on My List.

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If I am lucky enough to win this contest, I would like A Quilter's Mixology and The Quilter's Appliqué Workshop Books, a subscription to Quilting Arts and Stitch Magazine, and Mollie Makes Ultimate Book Bundle.

If YOU would like to enter the contest (and you should!) find all the information here.