little pennies

 this weekend i completed the binding on three quilts, starting with this little lady here. this is the baby quilt i made for my newest niece out of the leftovers from my penny patch 2.0 quilt. (although now that i need to increase the size of the penny patch 2.0 to correct my orientation mistake, these weren't really leftovers. whatever.) i sort of didn't want to post photos of this quilt since it's stealing the thunder on my full-size penny patch, but i also couldn't resist sharing a finish.

 i went to the store to get a backing for this quilt and settled on the teal october afternoon for riley blake print pictured, but i totally forgot to get a binding while i was there! i didn't have a perfect binding on hand at home but i did have this cotton + steele basic print, which in the end works out nicely.

i quilted with a large dogwood blossom, except for one penny patch where i made it the size of the smallest squares as a subtle accent feature. i chose to go larger because it would be faster. and it was. however, it was harder to get into the groove of the shape when making it that large. also, i like the look of it done smaller on my original penny patch. but this way it keeps the quilt softer for the baby and allowed me to finish it in less than half the time.

 i had good luck with the binding at first. i only cut 4 strips and it was just long enough by about an inch! i've never cut it that close before. so glad i tried attaching it first rather than cutting that extra strip just to be on the safe side because that would have been a big waste.

 that little bit on the right is what was left once i trimmed the ends to connect them. i just squeaked by, didn't i?

and then when i attached the ends, it worked perfectly the very first try! i love when i get those fiddly ends together and then it just snaps perfectly into place. it makes me feel like such a big girl to get it right the first time! for my first several quilts, attaching the binding ends was a real trial. but now i can do it with ease, without even looking at a book or tutorial to help me. the process has become second nature. i've finally wrapped my head around how it works together, which helps me remember how to do it. very satisfying as an old dog to learn a new trick after enough practice.

attaching the binding down by machine is not second nature yet. i made a complete mess out of this binding when getting it sewn to the other side. i tried out my clover clips, which were great for holding it in place, but they didn't improve my accuracy because, unlike pins, you can't get the clips up very close to the needle. unfortunately, this little lady was the learning curve for the new process i used. by the time i was on the third binding of the weekend, i had it down pretty well.

that's a wrap on this little one. my niece was born on friday, i had this finished on saturday, washed and delivered it on sunday. that's pretty good timing for me.

i'll be posting the other finishes soon, once they have been photographed.

linking up with crazy mom quilts

sixth time's the charm

 my friend, rebecca, has 5 boys ranging in ages from 16 to 5. she's one of my heroes because she's openly honest about how difficult those wonderful boys are, but she handles it with humor and grace, and they're all still in one piece. i think she is amazing.

low and behold, last year she got pregnant one more time. and it's a girl! i can't tell you how excited i am for her. of course that baby girl absolutely needs a quilt. no matter how full my quilting plate is or how high my wip pile, this is one baby that has to be celebrated.

i was recently absolutely obsessed with this quilt by jolene of blue elephant stitches:

from blue elephant stitches - posted here

i've already collected fabrics in these colors, but with a boyish flavor, to make a quilt for a nephew. then i got the idea to do it in these mod colors for a girl:

i was in love with the idea and took some of the fabrics over to rebecca to run them by her. after all, i want her to love her baby girl quilt. she was so excited to show me the nursery because no one in her male-dominated household appreciates the décor she's slaved over or the dainties hanging in the closet. after looking around the room, i thought perhaps the pull i had selected was a bit mod for her, but she told me she was definitely in need of blankets and that she thought any of the fabrics i had selected were pretty.  she seemed pleased.

a few days later, i noticed a charm pack and some yardage of "marmalade" stashed away at the top of my camille roskelley pile. i'd picked them up on a whim to make a baby quilt at some point in time. well, something about them whispered "rebecca" and "easy-peasy" to me, so i pulled them out. last friday morning i took them over to rebecca's house to see what she thought since i'd already shown her something else. but she was at an OB appointment. i didn't even bother to ask her husband what he thought. i just went with my gut instinct and changed plans for the quilt.

that night, after i'd knocked out the top, i ran into rebecca at the pinewood derby races at church and showed her a phone photo of the top. she immediately started gushing and squealing. i knew i'd done right to switch. i'll admit this quilt doesn't do much for me creatively because there really was very little to it. i hadn't even coordinated the fabrics myself. it was all too easy. but rebecca loves it and it's done a month before baby girl is supposed to arrive. so i'll be saving that yummy pull for the hst  chevron quilt for something else. no harm done.

 i did get some kicks out of learning the dogwood fmq quilting pattern when it came time to quilt it. i rather like that the blossoms are organic and individually unique on the front, but it does look a little different from the back without the blocks for reference. on the back it looks more like strange, squashed up, interlocking circles.

 i got even happier when i came to the machine binding success. again, not perfect, but such an improvement over my first few attempts. even the corners are looking pretty! that happy cutting mistake made a huge difference for me.

those first few attempts were so awful that i thought i'd never get machine binding down. looks like i lost hope too easily. here i am a month later happy as can be with this binding. i suppose the lows make the highs that much higher.

now to wash this one up and see how she crinkles before i deliver her to rebecca for that long-awaited daughter. forget thirds - the sixth time's the charm here.

linking up with amanda jean's friday finishes at crazy mom quilts.  

easter deliveries

 mid-week last week we made a trip to mesa for the world's largest outdoor easter pageant. it's free with open seating, so getting there hours in advance is a must. i was the official seat holder. my quilts and i, that is. while everyone else wandered around the beautiful grounds or went to the visitor's center, i sat with my quilts spread out along the chairs and worked on basting "twirly." i've got more than 1/3 of her done now.

 last year, i was able to complete "out on a limb" during this seat holding time and got to photograph it completed in the gardens of the temple. no such luck this time. but that's okay. i was not the only one using quilts to hold seats. if you look past me, the grandmother down the row from me had several folded quilts she'd brought along, too. it's a good choice because it usually gets chilly once the sun drops. this year, however, with easter being so late, it didn't get cold at all. but quilts also make good seat cushions to compensate for those hard metal folding chairs. so no loss there, either.

 on easter sunday, after wonderfully inspiring services at church, i ran my friend venessa's church auction replacement/commissioned baby quilt over to her and the new little darling that had arrived on wednesday. just like the quilt d2 made for the auction, this one was a simple 4sq quilt composed of 4 fat quarters of "nicey jane" prints from heather bailey.

 there were two small changes to this edition of the auction quilt: i used green polka dot flannel as the backing and the "slim dandy" stripe for binding. i love, love, love this stripe as a binding! that little pop of red gives it some nice sophistication.

 i still have plenty of each of these prints so i'm going to have to whip up something for myself out of them soon. well, after the dozen other things i've got going of course.

later in the afternoon, thanks to family get-togethers, i was able to deliver not one but two other baby quilts that have been needing to get to their new owners. i dropped off "rain or shine" at my aunt lynn's house for her grandbaby elizabeth (no photos) and i handed over "way out weston" to the newest carpenter family cousin.

 at nearly two months old, little weston is pretty strong for his age. it took him a moment, but he got his head right up for some shots on his new blankie. just look at him:

i think all those bright colors and busy patterns are going to keep him plenty interested! wow, that feels great to get those done and delivered. now on to the 43 other projects i have going. (maybe it's just around two dozen now, but who's counting?)

and now it's a girl!

my finishing streak continues - i've finally completed baby cousin elizabeth's improv frames quilt. it got pushed aside in the wake of penny patch and the christmas gift quilts last fall. for a while now all it was in need of was the binding.

since october, the top was mostly complete, but i thought it was a bit small and wanted to add one more frame around it. the only fabric i could find to do this with was the yardage i had picked for the backing. unfortunately, i only had one yard of that fabric. i was going to make-do by figuring out how much excess fabric there was, divide that by 2, and then split the difference between the top and the backing, but it was rather risky and wouldn't give me very much of a border at all. besides, the quilt was running on the small side, anyway. so i played it safe and tracked down some more of the pretty paula prass garden lattice in sunset for michael miller fabrics. it wasn't as easy as i hoped finding any, but in january i found 2 yards (yay! staying on the safe side and a bit extra for stash) at an etsy shop called "vintage inspiration."

 not only did my fabric come prettily wrapped in some sewing pattern tissue paper, but there were a few vintage popcorn bags thrown in as a special treat. the kids are going to love those on family movie night!

inside the carefully wrapped package my fabric was nicely folded and tied with a satin ribbon, too. i love shops that give those extra little touches.

all of that was a while ago and i let it sit while i worked on other projects. but a few weeks ago i got out the fabric order and put that border on. but i forgot to include another little peek-a-boo piece of the umbrella girls in the frame like i wanted to! argh. that took a little bit of a patch job to fix.

 i decided to put the piece in where two of the frame pieces met to avoid excess cutting. but i forgot to figure in the seam allowance when i cut the piece. darn it! i was going to use the two little faces for the piece, but cut it short, so i had to go with another bit instead.

i don't know why it was so hard for me to wrap my brain around how big this piece should be and how to fit it in properly, but it was. until i had done it incorrectly and then i could see exactly what to do! my little remaining scrap of the fabric did not have anymore faces in it, so this rather boring umbrella piece made it in the spot instead. not sure it was worth all the effort, but there it is.

 today i put my big girl pants on and did the machine binding to complete this baby. usually i make binding while sitting at the machine, sort of eyeballing the 1/4" overlap when piecing. however, this time i did it all at once, standing up at my cutting mat. that's when i hit on the brilliant idea of using my cutting mat marks as a guide for a more accurate 1/4" overlap. it worked!

 when it came to joining up the binding, i pulled out my favorite directions from block party - the modern quilting bee. my only problem with this tutorial is that the binding is a solid color. in fact, it seems every binding tutorial in every quilt book, whether photographed or drawn, uses a solid color binding so it's nearly impossible to tell which is the right or wrong side of the fabric and which way the fabric is manipulated. i photographed it with patterned fabric myself, once apon a time, so as to help me remember which way to do it, but don't know what i did with those photos. go figure. anyhow, i made notes in the book so i can remember. someday i'll be able to do this from memory. for now, i'm glad of my notes!

i took yet another stab at machine binding with this quilt. i went extra slow and really focused intently on getting the alignment correct. it's an improvement, all right, but by no means have i yet perfected machine binding. it's HARD! i feel like an amateur all over again when it comes to machine binding. just when my quilts were starting to look pretty good, too. i only plan on doing it for baby quilts because of the added durability. however, because of the speed, I'm sorely tempted to finish off the stack of "just needs binding" wips this way.

i'm going to be so sad to see this quilt go. i truly love it. i hope baby elizabeth comes to feel the same way.

it's a boy! again!

 my 2nd finish in forever, right on the heels of the first one earlier this week - another baby boy quilt. "way out weston" is complete. i can't say it's my favorite finish, but i can say it's done. some of the fabrics in here i like a lot and others i . . . don't. it's that simple. my own two boys held up the quilt for my finish photo, but not without some boy silliness and dog photo bombing.

 this is a little better, even with the chihuahuas in the background. while he was assisting me, he was examining my quilting, and s1 remarked, "uh, why is this line so wiggly?" i told him it was because i did wavy lines this time instead of straight. "oh, good! because if it was supposed to be straight, well . . . it's not." after i had such difficulty with the straightline quilting on this little fella, i went ahead and added in more purposefully organic lines to make it look like they were all supposed to be wavy.

i alternated a light tan and a baby blue aurofil thread. unfortunately, they are so light you can't really tell the difference without looking closely. and even then, it's iffy.

the nutty quilting was only one of the issues i've had with this quilt. in the end, the colors don't look as balanced because of what i had to cut off the left side when the backing turned out too short. it's bugging me that there isn't another dark blue strip on the far left.

enough of the nitpicking, though. it's done and ready for baby weston, who is about a month old now. this is one time where i really hope what everyone always says about non-quilters not noticing flaws they way we do is true.

i gave machine binding another go with this quilt. it was an improvement over my first/previous attempt. i just did a straight stitch with juki this time. it's alright but i still need to get a better grip on the construction and measurements behind a good machine binding.

i do think the michael miller textured basics stripe in orange made a nice frame for this quilt.

"way out weston" over and out.

it's a boy!

 we finished off d2's baby boy quilt for the church auction with seconds to spare. even though we were a few minutes behind, i hastily snapped some photos, just for the record. so please excuse the poor shots, but we had a church function to get to!

 after d2 selected some of my favorite, out-of-print fabrics for her girl quilt, i decided to pick the fabrics for the boy quilt myself. part of the reason i suggested she make the quilts for the auction was i figured it was a good way to use up some of my less-loved prints that were languishing in my stash. i thought she'd go right for the ones i didn't like so much. however, her tastes have improved quite rapidly! so i picked these prints myself with getting rid of stuff in mind.

i used two prints, including the western print, that didn't make it into "way out weston", and two other fat quarters i'd gotten on clearance and had no plans for yet. they all coordinated well enough and had a similar enough feel to them, but it wasn't necessarily a fabulous pairing. however, it's growing on me.

i meant to do a cute, loopy fmq pattern but as i got going, my muscle memory kicked into stipple mode. before i knew it, i had a whole row of stipple and no loops at all. by that time it felt too late to introduce any, so stippling it was. the thread color was another issue. with my color palette beign so strained already, i had to go with a neutral white thread even though it showed up glaringly on the deep brown backing.

the backing was the hardest part to choose. i was limited to the 20 or so flannels i had on hand. that sounds like a lot of choices, but this was a rather unique color palette. the top was strong on aqua and grey, but i didn't have anything like either of them in flannel or even something big enough in regular quilting cottons. i was determined not to buy fabric for this, so i settled on a brown star flannel. i'm banking on the browns in the cowboy print and the western theme to make it work. again, not the greatest choice, but it seems to work okay since the grey on the front is rather warm and muddy.

the real problem with this quilt was the machine binding. i've never done it before. i used a zigzag stitch and white thread. so every little flaw totally shows up! and there are plenty of flaws. even when i thought i was sewing perfectly straight on the front, I'd turn it over and the back would have veered off the binding. this is not easy sewing! right at the end, i realized that if i stayed about 1/16th" inside the top binding it would mostly catch the back binding at the right place. but that wasn't until the end. oh, well. i figured that who ever bought it at the auction would think the 11 year old had done it (so bad of me!!!) and not mind too much. since my m-i-l ended up with the quilt, maybe i can offer to fix it for her. i need more practice anyway.

my first finish in ages and amanda jean is taking a blog break, so no friday finish link up for me! oh, well. good for her.

fabric selections and a word about ds

 all strips are cut for the newest simple strips baby quilt - boy version. the three on the right end are even sewn together. i like the effect the added navy blues, turquoises, and oranges are having. there is a lot more depth and play in this quilt now.

this quilt started with some leftover strips of riley blake's superstar collection. there were the paisleys, a few solids, some dots, those large stars. the paisleys had a definite cowboy vibe to me, so i opted to aim for a subtle western theme in this quilt meant for a baby named Weston, after his great grandfather, my husband's grandfather. but i wanted to keep it modern-ish and not too cutesy.

the colors in the original strips i started with from the line were faded navy, orange, yellow, deep tan, pale grey. but i wanted to add the turquoise/deep teal stars strip in because 1) it had stars and looked mod western, 2) i liked the dimension the color added, 3) it's a favorite print right now that i love to use whenever i can (from riley blake's sasparilla collection).

 however, nothing i had in my stash helped tie the color of the sasparilla star print in with the other strips. some more navy and orange was also desired for further overall contrast. i carefully selected a few quarter yards of some denyse schmidt fabrics i found at 40% off at jo ann crafts. (if youre here from the fabriholics anonymous, my explanation follows later.) the ds fabrics had just the right vintage vibe to blend well with the western theme of the quilt. and i found one with a navy blue field (background) and turquoise dots - my perfect blender to tie in the sasparilla stars! it's also going to be my backing for the project.

here's the deal with me and denyse - i realize that she is hugely popular, almost to a cult level, among quilters, but i never see her designs as an entire line and think "i have to have that!" usually, there are one or two prints that i like, but i don't get giddy over her the way i do about a few other designers (SH, JD, HB, AMH, AB). now i realize i just committed some sort of quilter/fabric lover sacrilege with that statement, but - and there is a but here - but whenever i approach her fabrics with a specific project in mind, i almost always find the perfect print or two which really bring that project together. apparently i just like her mixed in with everything else and not as one great whole. really, she's brilliant for that in my work. (my work? like i'm some sort of professional or real artist here? ha, ha, that's funny! i'm just a girl playing with fabric for kicks.)

even after finding the great ds prints, i sort of wanted to see if i could locate one really cool retro western novelty print to slip in the mix. thus, when i was at my local scrapbook and quilt store (double deadly temptation) for some project life supplies, i looked for a cowboy print. i did find one print in just the right colors from sasparilla, but it had girls in it, too. i got a fat quarter with the intention of fussy cutting a few horses or saddles out of it. after putting all the other strips up together, though, i don't think it has the right feel for the project, so it's stashed instead. i also located four more prints that had just the right feel and colors that would round out the quilt.

 above are all the fabrics i added in: the navy with turquoise dots is for strips and backing, the pile on the left is some other prints that added the right touches of color and a bit more of a modern but western feel, and the pile on the right is my ds prints.  the two fat quarters are the pieces i culled after consideration.

the whole time i was at the cutting counter, i kept thinking, "after my public fast declaration, i'm going to have to confess to this purchase, even though it's allowable. i have to be honest about this." ugh. i am really happy with these additions to the quilt, but also feeling the guilt of making some purchases. despite the fact that i gave myself permission to buy specifically for projects in progress, i really had hoped to go the whole six months, or at least a couple of months, before spending on fabric. if i'd quit starting something new and stick to my pile of wips maybe i'd do that! what i can say for myself is that these purchases were very intentional, not in excess, and i did not get sucked in to any "gotta have" item of the moment. this is certainly more responsible than my previous purchasing habits. it's a step in the right direction, for sure.

i'm finding that as huge as my stash is, because the majority of it was impulse buying before i had actually quilted much, it has several holes in it when it comes to color, variety of style, low-volumes, and blender fabrics. it's not very useful for the way i actually quilt or how my quilting is evolving. i have a whole lot of fabric, just not a whole lot of the "right" fabrics. for this reason, it's going to take me some time to work through the stash. this is teaching me about how to purchase in a mindful way.

i guess i could have either not made this last minute baby quilt or just made it up with what i had. however, as one fellow faster said, "i'm not going to make ugly quilts just to use up what i have." ditto. i quilt because i enjoy it and i want anything i make to be enjoyable to me. especially if i'm going to gift it. i'm not going to gift a quilt i don't like just to give away a quilt. i could buy something else instead. really, the aim of fasting was to find ways to use what i had (which i did with those leftover strips here) and stop impulse buying exciting new fabrics or sale items. perhaps what i'm really doing is more akin to "fabric dieting".

also, i've realized i really prefer to work with 1/4 or 1/2 yd cuts. they are so much more manageable when it comes to cutting than anything bigger. i despise trying to square off big cuts! however, i find working with smaller cuts has improved my accuracy and my attitude about cutting, too. thus, lately i usually only purchase 1/4 or 1/2 yards, unless it's for a backing or it's a versatile or favorite print i know i will be using a whole lot.

now it's time to go sew, sew, sew those strips together and get this baby done!

moving on

golly, friends, if i ever needed an ego stroke, i'd just come here and share some quilting woes. you ladies have responded quite beyond expectation to my fmq disaster. that is certainly not why i shared my troubles, but it was a rather unexpected and pleasant result.

i have come to terms with the quilt catastrophe, deciding to donate it when it's completed and make a replacement. as you can see above, after the fmq-induced meltdown and past unsavory experience with spray basting, we are moving forward on the quilt and my 5 yr old, d4, has her quilting job back. both of us are happy.

(by the way, don't all of you allow trikes in the house? especially pink ones? i'd never considered it before this house, but it's an advantage of tile floors and large central hallways. especially in the summer heat.)

after reading all the comments, there were a few things i thought i should make clear about my fmq woes:

1. i did not like the way the dense quilting was changing the look of the quilt even before it got ugly. the replacement will be straightlined to maintain the look i wanted.
2. i was happy with the wishbone quilting in the white strips and most of the other quilting in the patterned strips was acceptable, albeit not very good.
3. the only part i was considering unpicking was the wandering wave/horrid diamonds in the pink strip. by no means was i going to unpick the whole quilt or even half of it.
4. another reason i was distressed was that in addition to the lovely lottie da fabrics, i had used a few scraps of out-of-print fabrics that had sentimental value and connection to the recipient. also, you may have noticed i used some of my all-time favorite fabric (meadowdot in robin's egg/mint) in the quilt. i was sick over the waste of such precious prints. fortunately, i think i have enough scraps remaining to work into the replacement quilt.

alright, that's all i'm going to say about this until it's complete or i get the replacement done.

this is what i'm up to now:

yes, another newfo! i just got an invitation to a cousin-in-law's baby shower this weekend, so suddenly i need another baby quilt in a week. there is no fear of fmq disasters this time around. it will definitely be straightlined. goodness, my family needs to slow down on babies! i'm already behind by about 4 quilts just from the last 4 months and i can't get anything else done with all the baby quilts i keep "needing". there was another cousin that just had a baby last week but somehow i didn't get the shower invite, which was sad. but i was relieved to know i'd also missed the stress of trying to complete another pronto quilt.

this quilt is another simple strips quilt that started with my leftover jelly roll strips from riley blake's superstar that i used in s2's quilt, "bandwidth". it was feeling very flat on it's own, so i added three bits from my stash. this perked things up, but when all stash options, which are decidedly feminine and floral, ran out, it still needed something. hence a quick browse at some on sale fabrics while at jo ann for something entirely different. (this is completely legal under the terms of my personal clauses in my fabric fast, but it still feels disappointing that i made a purchase - even if it was only a few quarter yards.)

while i was quilting this afternoon, some other fun stuff was going on around the house:

 sister hair brushing time. that long strawberry blonde hair is irresistible to brush! (and, yes, the nice room is still wip central.)

the toddler played her new favorite game "cold feet" with me, covering mama's feet with some paper napkins to warm them up. lately, she gets out my scrap basket and says, "feet cold, feet coooold!" then proceeds to wrap her feet in scraps. today she decided mama's feet needed help.

as the late afternoon sunlight moved across the dining sewing room, it highlighted my iron and lit up the yellow walls in the loveliest way. i tried catching the effect, to no avail.

 the extremes in exposure left me with either a well-exposed iron and dark room . . .

or well-exposed room and washed out iron. oh, well. i have the warm fuzzy image in my mind if not in pixels. at least these will remind me of the experience.