Stormy Saturday Sewing

Yesterday was a windy, stormy day and it was perfect weather to stay inside and sew!  Unfortunately, before I could start on anything, I needed clean!  My sewing room was a mess!  I tidied for a while and the room is functional again.  I could probably clean and organize for a full day to get it where it needs to be, but I wanted to create!!

The first thing I worked on was re-grouping on an old, old, old project.  It's Goodnight Irene.  This has been a leader ender project for me since the beginning of time.  Well, Ok, February 2014.  I've been making the 4 patches for much longer than that, but in 2014, I started turning them into this pattern.  The end is in sight!  The number of completed blocks is growing and the number of blank 'X' blocks is dwindling.  I prepped a bunch of this to be handy as leader enders and freshened up my supply of 2" squares (they get stale, you know!).

Next up was to make another zippy earbud case to gift to a co-worker.  She did a random act of kindness for me and I have been wanting to surprise her with this as a small thank you.

After that, I pulled out the Strawberries that I started at the Lutherdale Gala weekend.  The blocks were all complete, but the sashing and borders weren't yet cut.  So cut them I did! And sash them!  By the time I got to the longer pieces, the natural light was fading and I didn't feel up to cutting and measuring them.  One thing I would like to do for my sewing room is improve the lighting-- especially at my cutting table.  

The last thing for me was to start another 'Little Lady'.  Doesn't this navy make the most adorable dress!!??!!

All in all, this was a very fun day!  Oh-- and I got my toes done, too.  They match my strawberry quilt!!

I need more stormy Saturdays!! 

xoxo

Kristin

Linking up with Patchwork Times and Sew Fresh Quilts

Eternal Paper Piecing Projects

I have a tendency to start projects without a plan.  Things that don't have patterns, but are interesting. And I'm ok with this!  For me, quilting is more about the process than the final result.  A few years ago, there was a talk at our knitting guild that discussed how people either are either focused on having results or feel satisfied merely by the doing.  I'm a process quilter!

Yesterday I pulled out all kinds of my 'Eternal Paper Piecing Projects'.  I don't know what motivated me, but I was ready to 'move the needle' (a phrase people use at my work!) on a few things. I was working on 5 different projects at once!! Bananas! But as long as I was paper piecing one project, might as work on others.  It's hard to alternate between 'regular' stitching and paper piecing, because it is too much to change the stitch length back and forth.

At my January retreat, I started a project that makes me question my sanity.  It's a log cabin diamond pattern from "Little Bits".  I've done 2 other patterns by them and really loved the results.  The diamond shape definitely adds a bit more difficulty! I decided to use the scraps from the many yellow and grey quilts that I've made in the last 2 years.  In the picture below, the middle diamond is from January and I started the other 2 yesterday.  There are 24 diamonds in the final pattern! I don't know what I have gotten myself into!! =O

Another project I worked on yesterday was my 'Little Ladies'.  I'm not sure exactly when I started this? 2008? (yes! I looked in my blog history!) The little ladies went missing for a bit after my move last summer. They turned up in a box that hadn't been unpacked yet.  I thought it would be fun to put them up on the design wall and see how they have progressed. I have a few more light background than I do dark, so I decided to work on a another dark background yesterday.  They look animated and fun when they are in their parts waiting for the final block assembly! =)

I've had these trees for a while.  Some of them were not 100% completed, so I finished those up.  I have patterns for quite a few more, but I don't have very much of the grey in large pieces (but I have a ton of little chunks from trimming up another quilt).  What to do?  I could try and order more of the Moda Bella that I used? I know the dye might not match up perfectly? I could make more with black? I saw a cool pattern on Pinterest that might be a fun layout, where the trees are spaced far apart with quite a bit of negative space.  For now I will let them age!

And the last eternal paper pieced project I'll share today is my micro-itty-bitty pineapples.  Of course I can't seem to find a photo of the other colors I've made.  I have quite a few others completed- 10? There was a purple and I'm pretty sure it committed suicide by falling off my design wall into the garbage!! =O  The grey has been sitting half finished for quite a long time (notice a trend!!).  This photo is still not complete-- It needs another piece on each corner. The clover clip and foot are there for an idea of scale.  These guys are super tiny!

Linking up with Judy's Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.

xoxo

Big changes, little bits of sewing...

I'm in the middle of a big life change!  Selling my current condo and buying a bigger/nicer/newer one. Just like the Jeffersons, I'm movin' on up!!

My free time has been focused on the buying + selling + loads of paperwork needed to make this happen.  I'm listing my place tomorrow, so I've been packing up all non-essential items and moving them to my storage unit.  The goal is to make my place look spacious and appealing.  Spacious is a relative thing, considering there is only 853 square feet total!!

Here is a photo of my sewing room from a few months ago:

And here it is today:

Finn has been helping pack!

I'm nearing the end of my packing and treated myself to a bit of sewing time last night.  I thought, "if I can finish up or move some of my current projects along, it will make it easier to pack them!" =)

My Elephant Parade is slooooowly inching forward.  It should almost be called the Snail Parade!  I still want to re-make the blue flowers in the style of the red ones, but in the meantime, I sewed the sashings on and started assembling the rows.

One of my neverending ongoing projects is "Little Ladies".  It's a paper pieced pattern and I use all scraps.  The rest of the blocks are packed (who knows in which box!!).  I'm not sure how many Little Ladies I have so far (25?).  Quite some time ago, I cute one of the papers up into the components and set it on my ironing board.  Instead of packing the small bits of paper, I made up this girl.  This fuschia fabric is part of my Cartwheel quilt and that is one of my favorite parts of the project-- each dress is a reminder of something else I've made. 

I managed to enhance my stash this week with another package from Massdrop.  Lizzy House, Mini Pearl Bracelet fat quarter bundle. Squee!!

Because I'm packing and moving, I've declared a moratorium on buying fabric (until I move into my new place!).  Here is a sneak peek at my future sewing room (the palm tree + dragonflies are gonna go!)

Linking up with Molli Sparkles Sunday Stash and Judy's Design Wall Monday

xoxo

Addiction!

Last night I found out how addicting crumb piecing can be. I kept saying I would stop "after the next one". Hours later I finally stopped. This picture shows 12 blocks, but today I did 3 more. They are very, very fun. I had wanted to try these for a while, ever since I read about them on Bonnie's Quiltville site. She has instructions on how to do them there.



In addition to the crumb piecing, I made 2 more little girls.

Sewing Trend...

My summer sewing sabbatical has officially come to an end this past week. I started off by cleaning up my sewing room. It had turned into the pit of dispair over the summer. It's not perfect right now, but at least it's functional again.

With the room clean, I used Judy's Star Block of the Month to motivate me to get stitching. After picking my color scheme/fabrics and sewing the first 2 blocks, I was ready to start some other new things and hopefully get going on some other things that need finishing.

Last Wednesday was the monthly meeting of the UFO Club at Millhouse Quilts in Waunakee. I registered my new stars as a UFO. Unfortunately I wasn't able to check anything off as completed, even though I have 2 projects done, they are out of town. They are changing the rules and adding another gift card drawing. Before, they would draw a name from the jar of completed projects in June, but now it will be December and June. I need to get those 2 projects here! This is a photo of some of the members:

The highlight of the morning was the homemade raspberry almond bars. Yummy!

Thursday I was at the American Family Children's Hospital to volunteer. A small group of us from Mad City Quilters sew with the children twice a month. This week was a little frantic. I was late and 2 women weren't able to come and a 4th had to leave early. The activity coordinators made it easy on us and only brought a few kids to the room. In this picture, Beth, Debbie and I wore red, white and blue on the Fourth of July and WE DIDN'T PLAN IT!

Early this week, I should have been working on the pink/brown baby quilt for Baby Emilie (who is 3+ months old), but instead, I diddled with my scraps and made these things:

The first picture is 4 Heartstring blocks. The second two pictures are from a pattern I picked up last spring at the big Chicago quilt expo.