New Year, New Blog Post

On Painting...
So waaay back in the Summer(How I miss the Summer) I got brave and entered two paintings in a local art show. I wasn't expecting to win anything so I wasn't surprised when I didn't. However, I wasn't expecting to SELL a painting either so I was totally surprised and overly excited when I went to pick up my paintings and instead of two paintings, I picked up a check and one painting!

This was the first time I'd sold a painting to someone whom I did not know personally and it felt GREAT! :)

The painting that sold, Fox's Forest, is pictured here.

There was a mix up at the gallery so my painting titled "Mama and Owlets" was listed as "Not for Sale",  but I l think if they had marked it with my asking price, it would have sold too. That's what I like to tell myself anyway. It's currently hanging on my living room wall.

I'm currently working on teaching myself to use watercolors and I'm having so much fun with it! I love how quickly I can finish a painting and how they look pretty good, even though I don't really have the techniques down yet. Here are a couple samples.:

From an online tutorial

Tiger Lily from Disney's Peter Pan...and that's my version of Ariel in the background. 

On Cooking...
I'm currently obsessed with this recipe from Plain Chicken. I've made it three times already and I just finished up a steaming bowl of this chicken chili concoction. It's so delicious and perfect for this ridiculously cold January in Kentucky.  Seriously, grab your crock pot and make a batch!

On Quilting...
I'm quilting again! YAAAAY! It's been forever, but I  pulled out a quilt top I started maybe 6 years ago(?) and I'm using it to practice free motion quilting. My stippling is still a hot mess, but by the time I got to the fourth block, my paisleys looked all right. If you are looking to learn FMQ, I highly recommend Leah Day's courses on Craftsy.com.

Whew, that was a lot! But it feels good to blog after so long an absence. I just may do it again soon!

Scrappity Scrap Scraps!

There's something really exciting going on over at Pleasant Home!

For the entire month of Janurary, Pleasant Home is hosting Sew Scraps Along 2012. In addition to giving us tips on organizing our scraps and providing scrappy inspiration, PH is featuring a bevy of ways to use up those scraps that taunt you from sewing closets, bins, or wherever you hide them!

The first featured scrap project is a dreamy picnic quilt from Freda's Hive. I want to make one. Right now.

With an ever growing, getting out of control in a scary kind of way scrap stash, I'm pretty stoked about this month of scrapbusting ideas!

So excited, in fact, that I'm going to go visit my scrap stash right now!

Blue On Wednesday

I didn't plan it this way, but I think it's pretty cool that the first quilt I made in 2011 was a mini art quilt...

Fan Art Piece inspired by a local movie production company

... and my final quilt of 2011 was also a mini art quilt!

I'd had kind of a crappy day on Wednesday and after coming home from work, moping around and looking at the walls for a while, I decided that doing something creative was the only thing that would make me feel better.

I started by covering a scrap of white fabric in gesso, then painting this small portrait using watercolors.

Next, I added some thread sketching--my first ever attempt--to the hair. And yes, after it initially dried, I went in and added more paint, changing the look of the face.

thread sketching/painting(?) detail

Finally, I made a small quilt, added some shapes using raw edge applique and then zigzagged the portrait on top of everything...and yes, added more paint, changing her face yet again!

I'm going to do something that is extremely difficult for me and refrain from my usual self depricating, "I'm not an artist/quilter/seamstress/ so look at everything that is wrong with this" hooey and say this instead: I am proud of this little quilt! I'm not proud because I think it is a great work in either the art or quilting realm. I am proud that I had an inkling of an idea that I was able to turn into something real; that I was able to overcome "the blues" in a creative way; that I did it without using someone else's pattern and followed my own nose instead.

The One Where I Battle a Baby Quilt for an Entire Day

One of my quilt club's service projects is making and donating baby quilts to our hospital's NICU. At our last retreat some of the members shared a quick and cute baby quilt that used only four fat quarters. I completed a quilt top that weekend and it's been sitting in my closet since the summer waiting to be quilted.

Since we had a meeting tonight and there was no school today I decided I'd free motion quilt it. The last quilt I attempted free motion on was this quilt for my nephew. I like the look of free motion better than straight line and want to get better at it. Besides, I don't always have the money(nor do I want to wait) to take my quilt to a long arm quilter.

So many things went wrong with this one. I had tension issues, picked out quilting four times before deciding that "chicken feet" on the back weren't that bad. And then I made the decision to apply the binding by machine. It was so not a good decision! Someday I will learn to stop trying that.

But I did manage to finish it. Hours later.

Despite the fact that I spent the entire day working on this quilt in order to turn it in at tonight's meeting, dork that I am, I could not bring myself to present it to the group. No one else brought finished baby quilts, when normally there are 5-10 a meeting, and I wasn't about to let this one be the only one shown.

I do love this cute dog print from JoAnn's.

My plan is to make another, much more fabulous quilt to turn in with this one at the next meeting. I figure the fabulous one will overshadow all the mistakes in this one. Not that the ladies in my quilt club would say anything, they are wonderful, nonjudgmental and understand I am nowhere near their level yet. I, however, am my own worst critic.

It actually looks pretty decent...if you don't look too close and definitely not at the back. Or the binding. 

Even though I made a lot of mistakes and took waaaay too long to finish, it was a good practice and hopefully, the recipients won't notice the mistakes that are glaring at me.

I plan to add a full tutorial of this at some point, but in the meantime, I think you can figure out fabric placement, so here are the Measurements that you'll need:

FQ Number 1: Full FQ for center (18"x22")
FQ Numbers 2 and 3(here I've used the same fabric for both): 2 Pieces 8.5" x 22" and 2 pieces 8.5" x 18"  These will make the border around your focus FQ.
FQ Number 4: 4 8.5" Squares for the corners.

Again, you can see how this goes together in the first photo...super fast and super easy! Add a backing, quilt it, sew on the binding and there you go!

Jelly Roll 1600!

I saw this video on another blog a while back and thought it looked like such a fun project!



Before I begin on an I-Spy quilt for my nephew, I think I'm going to try one of these. It looks like it doesn't require much thought, planning, or precise cutting.  I am SO ready for this type of project.

A fun guild activity, this would be a good project for beginning quilters too...not really much to have to worry about matching and using the one jelly roll would avoid a lot of fabric confusion! Nearly every shop sells them and there are a bazillion available on etsy and other online shops.

The instructions for making a Jelly Roll 1600 and photos of more finished Jelly Roll 1600s can be found on the Heirloom Creations Blog. There are even more photos of JR1600's over at Nacho Mama's Quilt.

The only thing I plan to do differently is use small strips to join the rows rather than joining them on the bias. I get no joy whatsoever out of joining strips on the bais, hence the plan to use strips.

I'll be using this batik jelly roll that I bought at JoAnn Fabrics. I love batik fabrics, but I generally can't afford them. This one was on sale at JoAnn's about three years ago and I had a gift card. It's a little sad that it sat in my closet for three years waiting to be used. I'm happy to have finally found a project to put it to good use!

Pinwheel Progress

Here she is! This is the Pinwheel Sampler quilt top that I started in January through an Independent Block of the Month at my local quilt shop. I decided on Rachel Griffith's Pinwheel Sampler because I love love love pinwheels and I thought it looked manageable for my current level of quilting skills.

It was not a difficult quilt at all, but in my haste to finish blocks before the monthly deadline I did some sloppy cutting and too fast sewing. I also sewed about half with my regular foot and the other half with my 1/4 foot, so it is not as crisp and perfect as it could have been. I'm trying to be OK with that!

Since I just finished it up mere minutes ago, I'm still seeing every single flaw and cut off point(there are lots). I'm hoping a lot of those problems will "quilt out" or at least be less noticeable.

 I'm about 95% sure it's going to be a Christmas gift for someone special and I don't think this person will notice the mistakes that are glaring at me. She will love the buttery yellow background and bright colors, however!

A couple things I did that weren't in the original tutorial were to add strips to the top and bottom (I wanted to use as much of my layer cake as possible) and I added the nine cornerstone(?) blocks to the middle. I didn't want to take these all the way out to the border so I sort of framed the inner blocks with them. I kinda like the way that turned out!

My goal now is to have it quilted by November and bound before Christmas.


Finally...I had to add this picture of my Quilt-Holder-Upper. He may grumble the entire time I try to take a photo of a quilt, but he always obliges! Thanks Mark, I ♥ you!

She's Three Pinwheels Shy of a Quilt

Back in January, I joined an Independent Block of the Month at my local quilt shop.  I figured it would be a fun way for me to actually complete a quilt. I'd have a year to work on it at a pace that I set myself. The pace I set for myself was that of a turtle. A sleep deprived turtle. Yet I've still managed to end up behind on this project!

My IBOM quilt is the Pinwheel Sampler  from one of my favorite quilty blogs, P.S. I Quilt. Now when they were doing the exact same quilt they finished it in something like  ten weeks. It's taking me a year, Y'all. A year!

This week is my Fall Break, so I am off work for an entire week[insert happy-screechy-jumpy-WaaHoo-yell here] and I intend to get back on track with this quilt!

Umm, except for the fact that I have something planned nearly every single day of the break....

and my next BOTM meeting is this coming Saturday....and I'm supposed to have the thing sashed by then too!  YIKES!


I thought I had caught up on it tonight after finishing these two blocks.

When I put the blocks on my design wall, I realized that I was missing three more blocks! Ugh. One of those I distinctly remember trying to square up and lopping off about 1/4 inch more than I should have on all sides. The other two...I don't know what happened. But as luck would have it, they look to be the most time consuming block of the entire set. Yay!! [insert grumbly incomprehensible cussing here]

Hopefully tomorrow I can finish up those other three blocks and begin the sashing(which has to be done by Saturday). When that's all done hopefully I can fall in love with this quilt again. Right now, we aren't even on speaking terms. 

Yeah. That's right. I made some quilt tops.

Last Saturday I went to a Stack-N-Whack class at my local quilt shop. I had never been the least bit interested in making one of these quilts until I saw some of the blocks a friend was making. Her use of modern fabrics hooked me on the idea of making a Stack-N-Whack myself immediately!

The yellow is a tad loud, but my plan is to have it quilted with gray thread, which should tone it down. I'd try to explain how to get the kaliedescope effect to you in a bit more detail, but it wouldn't make a bit of sense! In a nutshell, fabric gets stacked by repeat prints, cut into rectangles, then once more into triangles and with the addition of a background fabric, that print is magically turned into these spinning beauties!

 To get the actual scoop on how to make these quilts, check out Bethany Reynold's website or pick up a copy of one of her books. She's the genius who came up with this method.

This may be the most addicting quilt top I've made to date! I started Saturday and finished on Monday! How's that for quick?

I'd loooove to try this in a monochromatic color scheme!

This one is currently unnamed.

Next up is the Vintage Sheety Quilt I started back in the summer.  I do loves me some vintage sheets!

This was supposed to be a picnic quilt(for all those picnics we never go on), but I fear by the time it's actually quilted, it'll be a Happy New Year! quilt.  I'm calling this one Fifteen Sheets to the Wind.

Projects in the works:

• Pinwheel Sampler quilt
• Grey zig zag quilt
• Quilt #2 for my most awesome nephew, who just happens to be the cutest boy in the world.

Shhh! It's Really a Towel Rack.

While I haven't been crafting much lately, I have been doing a bit of shopping. I'd been wanting a quilt rack for a while...after all, it's kind of sad to make a quilt only to shove it in the closet. All I had been able to find locally was the standard oak rack with hearts cut out on the sides. Not exactly my style, so in the closet my quilts went. While perusing IKEA in Chicagoland, I came across this towel rack. I think it works well for displaying smaller quilts, which are what I prefer to make! I'd like to hang the larger quilt(left), but haven't decided on exactly how to do that. I would really love to know your thoughts on hanging and displaying quilts. 

Wonky Log Cabin Tutorial

I was recently asked to do a demo of how I made the wonky log cabin blocks in this quilt top at my quilt club's summer retreat. Knowing I'd be a nervous wreck(these ladies are Real Quilters), I decided it might not be a bad idea to have something concrete to back up my rambling demonstration. I photographed my process and typed up some directions. I thought I'd share it with y'all as well.


I didn't invent the wonky log cabin(also called liberated log cabin or improvisational log cabin), but I do love to make them!  There are several other tutorials out there...this is my method. I make them at 6.5 or 9.5 inches because those are sizes of my square rulers.

What you'll Need:

• A pile of strippy scraps, at least one of the long edges should be trimmed nice and straight. Nearly any width will do. These will be your logs.
• A pile of 2"-4" fussy cut squares for the center. 
• rotary cutter
• 6.5" ruler

What You'll Do:

Choose one of your square(ish) shapes and a scrap of fabric for the first "log).

The pin is there to help remind me how the block is oriented

Lay the log down on your square in a "wonky" manner and sew using a 1/4 inch seam along the outer edge of the log. It might feel weird and uncomfortable to not have your edges lined up. Do it anyway!

Trim away that ugly edge.

You're left with something like this.

Trim the edges.

Repeat this process to continue building your block.

It's OK if some of the edges are non-wonky!

If you feel your block is getting a bit out of control, you can trim it up after the first round of logs is complete.

Repeat the process until you have a block that is a bit larger than 6.5". Depending on the width of your logs,  your block may have two or three rounds of logs.

When completely finished, you'll have something that looks like this.

Use your 6.5" square ruler to trim up the block. If you have enough "extra" fabric, you can wonky it up even more!

OK, at this point, I should note that I my camera batteries ran down and I don't have the finished block to show you. But I CAN show you a photo of the finished block...I made several of these blocks for a fun table runner!

That's it! Hope you enjoyed and if you make any wonky log cabins using this method, I'd love to see them!

Oh, Sheet!

So, perhaps it was a good idea that I covered my design wall in UFOs. In just two nights I've managed to make some progress on one of those projects!

This is going to be a picnic quilt, which means picnics will be had this summer. It will also be the quilt I leave in the car for random things need covering and Mark is freezing me to death type emergencies.

Made from vintage sheets, it started out as plain four patches but has evolved into a more liberated style.  I love the movement that comes from recutting the original four patch blocks!

Once I get all these four patches sewn together my plan is to do a thin border of a solid(if I can find something in my stash) and a wider outer border using the yellow daisy sheet.

Hooray for progress!

UFO Sightings

Now that Summer has finally arrived and I get a few weeks off work, I have big sewing plans! To keep myself motivated and inspired to finish at least one of them, I've filled my design wall with bits and pieces of my current UFOs.

UFO's pictured:

• Picnic Quilt made from vintage sheets.
• A 30's Sampler
• Grey zig zag quilt.
• Moda Sweet  Quilt---pictured above the yellow pinwheel star block. It came in a kit and is WAY over my skill level.
• Pinwheel Sampler(this is a BOTM quilt, so no hurry, I just love looking at these bright blocks).
• Wonky log cabin quilt(yes, another one).

Other UFOs and crafty endeavors I'd like to tackle this summer:

• Decide how to finish off my Wonky House quilt top.
• Piece a backing for this quilt, and this one, and this one too.
• Finish a baby quilt I started three years ago. I couldn't bring myself to finish a simple patchwork baby quilt, Y'all! Sheesh.
• Make a wall hanging for my mom...we bought the fabric last summer.
• Update my etsy shop with aprons, bags, and monsters.
• Enter a quilt in the county fair, hopefully one of the three mentioned above.
• Make a toy or doll to entier in the county fair.
• Learn (or begin to learn) to paint with watercolors.

And although it's not crafty, I'd like to get my cooking mojo going and try out some new dishes.

Would love to hear your crafty goals for the summer!

I should be sewing...

No, really! I have no less than five projects going, all needing to be completed in the next couple of weeks (if not days). However, as a lifetime resident of the Procrastination Nation, I've decided to do a quick update after months of non-blogging instead of work on the things that need doing! Wouldn't want to disappoint the brothers and sisters of my Nation, now would I?

So, what kind of post would possibly warrant stalling on all those projects I'm behind on? A couple of finishes of course!

I finally finished the Cabin Fever Quilt top! In my last post, I mentioned how I'd totally screwed the thing up and had to cut it apart and start over. Here is the finished top. I dig it. Big Time. I made this one for myself and plan that someday it will be my flake-out-on-the-couch quilt.

I used Tonya Riccuci's Word Play Quilts to guide me through the letters. If you study wonky letters on various examples, they're pretty easy to pick up on your own, but I'd highly recommend the book. Those wonky letters go together much faster when you have Tonya guiding you along! 

My most recent project was a baby quilt for my soon-to-arrive nephew! I was planning to have an I-Spy quilt ready to give my sis at the shower, but, as y'all might have guessed, I didn't start soon enough. Luckily I had a Max & Whiskers charm pack and a white Moda Bella Charm pack in my stash. I played on my design wall until I had a layout that I liked, and went for it. I waiting so long that I was even forced to do my own free motion quilting! Despite the machine applied binding, I love how this quilt turned out. Even more, I love that my  sis loved it and she fully intends to let the baby drag it around, chew, and 'waller' on it!

Note to you receivers-of-quilts-as-gifts... your quilt gifting friend would LOVE it if you would put your quilt to good use(whatever that might be) instead of  storing or putting  it away because it's "too pretty to use".  Just sayin'!

Next time, perhaps I'll show off the projects I slacked on tonight!

Cabin Fever in (un)Progress

Last week or so, I posted my latest in-progress quilt.  It's a wonky log cabin made from scraps of other sewing projects. I spent many of our snow days putting this together and therefore dubbed it, "Cabin Fever". When I got the sashing finished, I was pretty happy with it despite the fact that it got considerably thinner from top to bottom.  "It's wonky!" I told myself. "I love wonky!"  However, the more I looked at that impossibly askew quilt, the less wonky it became and the more I realized it was just bad.

Now I suppose if I were truly the liberated quilter I aspire to be, I'd have added an even wonkier and wilder border to balance out the rest. But I haven't gotten to that point just yet. The perfectionist in me just couldn't take that what I had wasn't really a wonky quilt top, but a poorly executed one. And every time I'd walk into the sewing room, I'd stop, look at it, and get aggravated with myself for making such a mess of it. The photo really doesn't show just how off it was, but trust me, there were several inches difference in the top and bottom and no amount of trimming was going to square it up without cutting into the log cabins.

I took it too my BOTM meeting last Saturday and the ladies there agreed that something needed to be done. I got several suggestions, but the one that I thought would work out best was just to cut the thing apart and start all over.

So that's what I did. Rather than lose all the white sashing I decided to trim the blocks leaving one half to an inch of the white surrounding the block. Would've liked to leave more, but there just wasn't enough. I've surrounded half the blocks in Kona medium gray and have started framing the rest in Kona ash.  So I don't know that I've made progress on this quilt since my last post, so much as I've made unprogress. Still, it has taught me to slow down and be more mindful of what I'm doing...at least when adding sashing.

I think I'm going to be much happier with it now.

Cabin Fever

I've been snowed in for four days!  And I've done relatively little in those four days. It's been a Jabba the Hut kinda week for me, actually.  In the midst of all that Jabbaness, there were a few moments when I managed to drag myself away from the couch(or let's be real, the computer) and be at least a little productive.

I started making these scrappy/wonky log cabin blocks waaaay back in October  of 2008. It was around the time I started quilting. They were fun and easy, and I'd make them up when I wanted to sew but didn't really want to work on a project. I'd pull them out every once in a while and make  2-3 at a time. Since these were wild log cabin blocks, I decided to fussy cut something for the centers, rather than use a traditional red or yellow center square. I realized a couple weeks ago that I'd finished enough for a lap  quilt.

The first blocks are here.  A few more are posted here. And here are some made more recently.

So despite the bajillion other UFOs in my closet, I began arranging these on my tablecloth stuck to the wall design wall. 

A few days ago I started adding the sashing strips to each block and last night I managed to get all the rows joined. I don't know how it happened, but none of these wanted to match up, despite the fact that I cut all the blocks 6.5" and all the sashing strips 2.5".  I still ended up with rows that didn't match at all.  I tried to take rows in(not my best idea ever), which resulted in my quilt shrinking at the bottom. Weird--or not since taking them up screwed w/what little bit of math reasoning I used. Why do they have to ruin quilting by making me use Math, btw?  Hopefully, I can just trim the sides to even it up a bit more.

So now, I'm left with how to finish the top. This one is going to be mine---for lounging on the couch. It's plenty long enough but not quite wide enough for proper snuggling under. Trying to decide if I want to border the whole thing or just add strips to the side to get it to a width I like.

That will be a project for another day. As a good friend of mine likes to joke, "If the health department were to come to my house, they'd shut us down!" so, I have got to stop quilting/facebooking/blogging and do some cleaning! Hopefully my next post will include a finished quilt top.