May
16
My First Quilt
Filed Under Quilting, Remembering, Sewing | 1 Comment
Yeah, you read that correctly. This is the first quilt I ever started. Eleven years ago. ELEVEN. That’s more years than Alexis has been alive. It’s mind boggling.
So anyway, I got my first sewing machine for Christmas in 1999. That was a really big year. First real job out of college, getting married, buying a first house, and then the sewing machine. I mean, a really great year… but I digress… again.
Honestly, I was really embarrassed when I opened that box and saw the machine. I guess I thought everyone (my family for pete’s sake!) would think I was a great big wanna-be. Which I was. Of course, no one even thought twice about it. I was really excited to get the thing home… A White ‘Jeans Machine’. Not a really high quality machine, but heck… Chris didn’t even know if I would actually use it… Boy did he not have anything to worry about.
I started sewing with a few tiny projects. I think the first thing I ever “made” was a tiny little pincushion using one of these fabrics, but true to my style it wasn’t long before I decided to take on a (much) larger project. This quilt is queen sized! I was trying to knock off a pottery barn quilt, but I’d say I didn’t really succeed this time. Obviously I wasn’t great at putting fabrics together back then and I didn’t have a stash at all. So what’s a girl to do on a whim? Just start cutting apparently.
So it’s not gorgeous. Hell, it’s not even pretty. Pretty ugly maybe.
I started quilting it in straight lines along either side of the seams. I had no idea what I was doing, so I would lay the quilt on the floor and cut these enormous lengths of thread and start stitching from the center out in big fat stitches (I knew enough to start in the center at least!)
Even back then I wasn’t really that fond of this thing… so it would get put away for weeks or months on end because it just seemed like too much trouble to finish. At some point in the last six years it surfaced again… Probably when I redid my sewing room the last time. That’s when I decided I would never finish this thing if I had to continue with that awful quilting. So I started picking. And picking. And picking those stitches out. I’m still not done with the picking… but I started with the quilting again… this time with a much neater, tinier stitch, and in freehand stars that you can see below. (please ignore the orange chalk lines!) It is more interesting, but still a bit overwhelming.
Remember when I said it was queen sized? Well, it was… but it had this awful white border that just looked cheap to me. So I cut it off before I started picking stitches out… Now the quilt is probably the perfect size for a picnic quilt… not that I ever go on picnics.
She lives on the back of my sewing chair in the loft. Every so often I pick her up and add a few more stars… At one point last spring when I was nesting, I probably got another 1/4 quilted. I was so determined to finish all my UFOs before the baby arrived… ha ha.
Ugly as it is, I think I’ll finish it… some day. I’ll probably even love it when it’s done… but only because I’ll know just how much time and effort has been put into it. How many places it’s traveled with me. And how many things we’ve been through together. Yeah… there I go getting all mushy again.
So… does anyone else out there have an ancient UFO that you just can’t seem to part with? Please share!
May
10
Mystery Quilt – Winner!
Filed Under Quilting, Sewing | Leave a Comment
I can’t believe it’s already been guessed! Jennifer guessed a bird… and while that’s not as specific as I had hoped, I really don’t feel like it would be fair to continue…
So here’s what the next clue would have been:
And this is the completed top all pin-basted and ready for quilting. I wish I had a better picture of it before I basted (and started quilting if anyone is keeping score), but I just couldn’t capture the colors.
I ended up taking this one out on the lawn this evening to get enough natural light to show the colors off. The whole time it was threatening to rain on me, so the light wasn’t the greatest, but good enough.
I know some of you will recognize this particular firebird. He’s (She’s???) missing her crest for now, but I’ll embroider that on after the other quilting is done. You can barely see where I’ve started the quilting above the bird. I’m planning on a sort of rays/sunburst pattern all around the bird, but I’m not sure how to quilt the bird himself.
I hope you like it as much as I do. And Jennifer, I hope you like your little sachets… Alexis was inspired by them and so she made this little sachet herself (Her first time sewing on the machine!)
May
9
Sewing/Baby Room
Filed Under Quilting, Sewing, Storing | 2 Comments
When I found out I was pregnant in 2009 (WTF? 2009?) I knew my sewing room was to be short lived. I struggled with where I would move all my junk until I realized that Alexis never spent any time in her room until she was nearly 3. So, I thought it was a great idea to combine the baby’s room with my sewing room. Until he went mobile what could happen?
Well, nothing happened, not even any sewing. I sort of forgot that the only time I would have to sew is when he was sleeping, and he would be sleeping in my sewing room. Um, duh. I blame pregnancy brain.
But before this great revelation, I spent a lot of time looking to see if anyone else had had this (stupid) idea. I couldn’t find anyone who had. In fact, at the time, pictures of workspaces in general seemed few and far between. My own blog post on the subject came up pretty high in the search order if that gives you any idea of the rarity. I’m happy to report that since then many many many bloggers have shared their workspaces with us. Which is great because I love seeing where people do their thing. I particularly love Anna Maria Horner’s new space. It’s given Chris and I some inspiration for our loft space(s).
Anyway, back to 2009… I was searching and searching and not finding squat! So I vowed I would take pictures and post the finished room. Yeah, ok, so I was slow about it. But it took most of my pregnancy to even pare my stuff down enough to get the crib in the room. So here are the pictures… finally. I won’t bore you with commentary on each one, but thought I might point out the closet share, and the storage in this great desk. I love having my thread on the keyboard tray, so easy to get to!
The drawers hold lots of stuff too! And my serger fits right in the computer tower cabinet like it was meant to go. Alas, I didn’t get a picture of that.
And here’s the side no one is really interested in… the baby’s stuff. ;) He desperately needs some stuff on the walls. I know it’s bare, but I just didn’t have the energy to decorate like I did with Alexis. Still, his side of the room is functional at least. More than I can say for my (dusty) sewing machine.
I bought that big rocker on a whim after my 28 week labs at the doctor. That stupid glucose drink makes me soooo sick, and so they put me in the room where women get hooked up to the fetal monitors. That room had the BEST most comfy big old rocker recliners, that I seriously went out and bought one that weekend. I had every intention of sleeping in it for the rest of the pregnancy, but that didn’t happen either. I did sit in it lots, and I use it all the time now, of course. So money well spent.
So that’s it. Just in time for me to move it… so stay tuned for the migration of the sewing room.
PS – Don’t buy that baby monitor… it sucks.
May
8
Mystery Quilt Clue #2
Filed Under Quilting, Sewing | 3 Comments
Happy Mother’s Day to all the hard working mommies out there. (Is there any other kind?) I hope your day is filled with hot guys with big leaves fanning you as you lay in the sun by a crystal clear pool with a drink that has a large piece of fruit and a tiny umbrella on the rim. Or… At least, I hope the kids behave… For part of the day anyway.
As promised the next clue for the Mystery Quilt giveaway. A couple of good guesses on the last post, but keep trying. I love hearing what you think it is!
This quilt is coming along much more quickly than I expected. I’m excited to share it with you when it is finished.
So the rules — All you have to do is leave a comment on this post with your guess. I will be posting wider and wider views over the next few days. Post your guess as a comment on those posts as they appear. (I will lock the comments on each thread as the next “clue” goes up). First person to guess correctly gets the rainbow sachets above. (Be sure to leave your email address in the comment form — it doesn’t show to the public, only me — so I can contact you!)
May
6
Next up
Filed Under Geeking, Quilting, Sewing | Leave a Comment
Ok, so this is an obligatory eye-candy/fabric-stash post. There has been a bit of — err — conflict in the quilt blog-o-sphere about this kind of post lately. So I’ll just say that it’s not often that I go out and glut myself on fabric. These two stacks were just begging to be photographed. And since they are so pretty I wanted to share them with you. I appreciate a good bit of fabric porn occasionally (fairly often even). I didn’t arrange them, they’re just where they fell when I was moving stuff out of the reach of tiny hands (and mouths).
Not a whole lot to say about these stacks that the pictures themselves don’t convey. (ETA: Yet, I still managed to go on and on and on…)
This first stack are the fat quarters that I’ll be using for Alexis’ new quilt. They’re a combination of Moda and Kona solids. Pay no attention to the Moda charm pack that snuck into the pile… I know it just wants to join the party. I suppose in a way it will because I used it to find the backing fabric for her quilt. Of course, I seem to always change my mind on the backing after the top is pieced so I might just have a big giant 3.75 yards of Aqua Andrea from Moda’s Sugar Pop. It is the third fabric from the top in the stack below.
And speaking of the stack below above, I ordered it from Sew, Mama, Sew. It was my first order and I was blown away by the package I received. The fact that they took the time to carefully fold each fabric and then tie them with a strip of one of the prints I ordered was almost more than I could take. I think I actually squealed when I opened the package. It took me almost a week to open the cellophane bag they came in, and I only did that because I needed to get the Kona Coal out (4th one down) for the back of the Mystery Quilt. It’s like they knew exactly what was aesthetically pleasing to me. :)
I haven’t figured out exactly what I’m going to do for the top of Alexis’ quilt, but I’m going to start with 4 inch half-square triangles. As I discovered before, they can be arranged in lots of cool ways.