Enjoying What's In the Hoop

Lots going on as usual, but I have finally managed to spend some quality time with my hoop. It's always exciting to reach the outside of the quilt even though finishing that part tends to take more time than we ever really expect.

Hand Pieced Bow-Ties

I'm finding that my stitching is not very even on this particular quilt. When I'm visiting with my kids or my mind is not entirely on what's in my hoop, the stitches get a little wonky.

A closer look....

That's okay. This is my first ever hand-pieced-block quilt and I can definitely tell my first blocks from the later blocks. Uhuh. They aren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But mistakes are part of the learning curve, the human touch. A few wonky stitches here and there are not going to make me love this quilt any less than I already do. Linking up to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching where {for most of us} the process is more important than the finished product.....

Always a 'Next Up' In the Hoop

It's time. These hand pieced bow-tie's are saying they want to be quilted. So what's a girl to do?

Hand Pieced Bow-Ties

These are the only hand pieced blocks that I have made an entire quilt out of so far. I mostly hand piece when {and where} the block seems to be better off for the effort. Like these bow-ties. I just really, really had to have a bow-tie quilt with the original, square looking center. Looking at my work as I pinned the quilt made me realize how desperately lacking my piecing skills are though. Galloping horses, people. Just pretend you're on a galloping horse while you're viewing my quilt!

Looking a little closer

And then because I have gotten into the habit of pinning two quilts in one session, here is String Play, a mostly out of the scrap bin effort. I am aiming to machine quilt this big monster of a quilt and ooooh, I am nervous about that.

String Play

I totally forgot to take a picture of the quilt top before the pins were added, so you can see where I intend to stitch long vertical lines. The goal is to completely stitch the top with organically {ha, ha, all my lines are organic} straight lines. Not sure how closely I'll end up stitching the rows, but these will be my first 'reference' lines.

Almost ready to get started!

Hope my machine is up for this like the repairman said it would be! Crossing my fingers on that. I'm determined to get in the mode of at least trying to machine quilt the occasional quilt top instead of sitting on my chicken-hearted fears and letting the quilt room practically explode with unfinished quilt tops. If you only knew how long I sat and stared at this quilt top imagining how wonderful it would look with hand quilting....

Linking up with Nicky and Leanne for Scraptastic Tuesday! I haven't been sewing anything from the scrap bin lately {except my circles}, but this quilt was an 'all-in' effort from the scrap bin back when I made it. Definitely makes me think it's time and past to dig in and try another. There's nothing quite like seeing an entire quilt top made from scraps! Everything inside me just sort of melts and I'm like a proud momma. See here? Look! This is good stuff!*wink

More Decisions for Muddy Creek

I sewed the next border onto Muddy Creek, adding some strips of lighter fabric in. I'm really trying to give this quilt a primitive look--not sure how successful I've been thus far. I'm leaning heavily towards using the plaid for the next border, keeping it simple, and maybe basic basket blocks for the one after.

Muddy Creek

Yep. More baskets. Me and baskets. Baskets and me. I just can't stop.*wink  Right now it looks a bit of a mess, but my design wall is super cramped and I didn't feel like taking everything off just to get a better picture.

I am slowly plugging away on my Cactus Basket blocks too. Hand sewing is oddly relaxing in it's own way and that's just what I need. So many interruptions these days that I don't feel like I'm focusing very well on any one project.

A little hand sewing

I have a kid in college getting antsy about coming home for semester break--calling home just to chat, a senior in high school counting down the days until all her projects are done and trying to qualify for state in track, a 16 yr. old who just moved up to varsity doubles in tennis and is also trying to learn how to drive (can I just say how terrified I am to teach my kids how to drive?), plus a restless 13 yr. old who doesn't have a baseball team this year so is having to settle for 'managing' the boys high school team and rambles around the house dropping crumbs everywhere and leaving every cupboard door open. My short term memory is getting completely overloaded these days and if it wasn't for the whiteboard calendar in our dining room, I'd never even know where I was supposed to be. On the couch quilting? lol

Hand Pieced Bow-ties Quilt Top is FINISHED

Wow! Blogger is moving slow today. I finally loaded my pictures from Picasa which seemed to speed things up considerably. My hand pieced bow-ties quilt top is completed now, although it was a bit of a struggle clear till the end. Always something to make me appreciate my quilt even more than before! If you click on the picture below you can see where I circled a block--that's the one that I ended up making extra.

The arrow points to the new block

Uh huh. One more block. For some reason, I had a black block there--no picture because my camera battery was dead at the time. Check me for a fever, but yes, I got out my seam ripper out and carefully removed that particular eyesore. Two dark-ish blocks practically side by side act as a magnetic mine field to the eye, no matter how you I try to justify the scrappy look going on in this quilt.

Hand pieced bow-ties quilt

I didn't dare leave the quilting room until my new hand pieced block was cut out, sewn together and pieced back into the quilt. Maybe a little afraid that I might rebel and stuff this quilt away forever unfinished? After it was all together and laid out on the living room floor for inspection, I heaved a big sigh of relief. Yes--now it looks properly balanced, color-wise and size too.

How I was working before....

Great lesson to learn though. The whole thing happened because I only had that much room in the quilting room (see previous photo) to audition the final row of blocks next to the rest of the quilt. You know, because I was being lazy about tromping up and down the stairs. Not. Gonna. Happen. Again.....

Hand Piecing the Last Bow-tie Blocks

Wow! What a weekend. State basketball games three days in a row and our girls came home with a 3rd place trophy! Yay! Lot's of emotional ups and downs, but overall a very happy ending. Always a relief when things end on a good note.

Perle Cotton

I had fun during the down times doing a (very little) bit of shopping. Came home with a stack of Perle Cotton thread and then after I was home admiring it, I realized that most of it is #5 thread instead of #8! Such a let down. Not sure if the #5 will work for hand quilting as it is definitely thicker than the other but I will try anyway. Not like I have a lot of options as the store is 3 hours away from our home. lol

The last 5 hand pieced bow-tie blocks

The only hand work I brought was the bow-tie blocks. I know my restless hands when there is idle time in a motel room! It doesn't matter how much I am dreading and/or avoiding a project, if it's the only one available, I'll pick it up and get right to work!

The 15th row ready to sew together....

Once again, I realized how much I truly enjoy simple hand piecing. Quite a relief as I was starting to wonder after my previous frustration with sewing the rows together. Now there is a stack of blocks ready to sew the entire 15th row together and then this quilt top will be done. I can't imagine putting a border on this quilt unless it would be a narrow border of the solid 'mermaid' green? Time will tell. I'm linking up with Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching and then hopefully catching up on my blog reading!

A Little Hand Work

My youngest daughter and I just got back from Seattle last night. She was one of the lucky students chosen by WIBC to be in one of the honor bands. Such a crazy, intense weekend! Kids are just so amazing with all their talent and drive. {Just two weekends ago my other daughter was in the state cross country meet in Yakima.}

3 rows of bow-ties sewn

Honestly, we can barely keep up with them. Thankfully, there was a bit of notice, so I had my bag of hand work all prepped and ready to go. The rehearsals were all closed doors to visitors which helped me to get a bit sewn here and there. It doesn't look like much, but I now have three complete rows of bow-ties sewn! I really can't believe how easy they are to sew together, but wowsers am I glad I don't have to sew all my quilts this way!

the view out our hotel window

I don't know how we managed, but we ended up with a penthouse suite room on the 13th floor. Yep, lucky us! Except I'm afraid of heights and our hotel had glass elevators on the outside wall of the buildings. lol My daughter loved it though and the view was simply amazing when we weren't fogged in. I just tried to stay waaay back from the window to avoid feeling dizzy and concentrated on practicing stitching that flat knot for all my work on the bow-ties.

Lovely to be home again even if now I'm facing stacks of dirty laundry. Washer repairman will be here tomorrow and then hopefully I can make it through the holiday without having to go to the laundromat fourteen more times. Baking for the Thanksgiving holiday starts tomorrow too! I wonder if the smell of pumpkin pie cooking will slow down the repairman or speed him up?

The Forever Project is Moving Into the Next Phase

This will have to be a quick post 'cuz it's Sunday and there's a lot going on around here. I thought I had finished sewing all my bow-tie blocks together and then....

hand pieced bow-ties

well... I obviously don't know how to count. Five blocks short, can you believe that? (The short row is cut off in the picture.) I went ahead and laid them out on the floor to see what they looked like all together. Hmm... That was an experience. It literally took me two hours to make something look good decent. Sometimes I wonder if I even know what I'm doing? The last 5 blocks will have to wait for when I get closer to the last row because I just want to move on. For now, I'm going to be learning how to piece these things together into proper looking rows. Wish me luck! Once again, it's time to link up to Kathy's Slow Stitching Sunday!

Lots and Lots of Bow-tie Blocks

I'm back and still trying to settle in properly. It feels so odd to leave the routine of my life for a couple weeks and then come home only to view things from a fresh perspective. My youngest sister had an unexpected sewage problem that ended up with some major master bath/laundry room remodeling issues. Oh and it was such perfect timing too seeing as she was two weeks or so from her due date! All is well now thank goodness and she has a 8 1/2 pound little boy named Jagur. Sweetest little guy ever and I miss him already.

A stack of bow-tie blocks to count

In between the hundreds of trips to Home Depot, the laundry mat, etc. I somehow managed to squeeze in some time for hand piecing. It certainly didn't feel like I had much time for hand work, but really, everyone deserves to sit and rest in the evenings don't they? lol

I was so shocked to see how many I had finished up!

I admit to desperately wanting to work on another project after a very short while, but it feels good to see the results of forced project monogamy! Mostly I was just thankful to have something to sew together. Anything! I think it greatly helps my frame of mind to be more positive during these odd stressful moments in life although I doubt I would have been satisfied with something like mending. Okay. Let me rephrase, it definitely needs to be some form of quilting for me to properly benefit from the doing!

A very sweet gift from Diane!

It was too much fun to finally get home and then see this magazine and very large 'scrap' of fabric waiting for me! Diane of Butterfly Threads was kind enough to send it to me as she has a very cute pattern in the current issue and had an extra magazine or two hanging around! Her scrap of fabric is a whole lot larger than what I would personally consider a scrap, but I gleefully accepted regardless. Quilters are continually amazing me with their kindness and generosity. Oh, and btw, I am way behind on my emails and blog reading, but look forward to having the time to catch up!

Nibbling Away at a Few Projects

It was a pretty laid back weekend.  I felt like I just kind of nibbled away at a few projects and didn't really get much accomplished.  Then I had to reconsider the thought.  Even a little bit can go a long way toward completion if it is done regularly or even consistently!

More finished bow-tie blocks

Like these bow-tie blocks! Eleven more finished blocks to add to the stack and already it's time to do more prep work.  We had company over the weekend so I was glad to have the small hand work ready to go.  It seems easier at times to visit when my hands are busy with something that isn't taking up half the couch. My kids are totally used to me and my projects, but that probably does seems a bit unwelcoming to someone unaccustomed to a quilters way of life!

Hand quilting on #2 in the 9-patch series

Later on I was able to get in a little time on my hand quilting and it's amazing how much better the sampler blocks look with the hand quilting to add in some texture.  Nothing fancy going on, by my-oh-my do I like them a whole lot better!

Another block done on the #2 in the 9-patch series

So glad I didn't go ahead and machine stitch over the sampler blocks. This is definitely something I will be looking for more opportunities to do too. I can already see that this quilt is going to move out of the hoop super fast! Which is good. I already have plans for it.*wink

My kids idea of dessert...

And because I couldn't resist, I just had to show a picture of my kids impulsive Sunday evening dessert.  They asked if they could make pancakes, but that doesn't look like any pancake I've ever seen. lol  You can't see it in the pic, but the pancakes even had chocolate chips in them.....

Inspiration and Slow Stitching Sunday

I found this picture the other day on Pinterest!  It is obviously the initial inspiration for my Quarter Circle project although I don't remember seeing the quilt in it's entirety.  I must have though because I've definitely lurked there at least once before! lol  If you go to the International Quilt Study and Museum and click to search the collections, there is just one block of this quilt showing on the header. I LOVE that one block.

Quilt made by Elizabeth (Betsy) Cave

Anyway, that little tiny sliver of Elizabeth Cave's quilt completely captured my imagination and eventually led to me starting my own interpretation of her beautiful quilt. Funny the things that we find inspiration in isn't it? The whole quilt is fascinating for sure, but the one block is what made my brain cells start dancing.*wink

A few more bow-tie blocks for my Forever Project

It's been a long time since I've linked up to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching and you all know I'm a dedicated slow stitcher woman! Sixteen more hand pieced bow-tie blocks finished up and only about eight or so are responsible for my crook neck.  That's what I get from trying to sew in the car (in terrible lighting) while waiting on an airplane.  We should have just went and waited at the airport, but then we'd have had to pay more for parking! Oh well.  Next time I'll know better. Really, what's a couple extra dollars if it means being able to hand sew in (relative) comfort? hehe I already know how my husband would answer that question!

Piddling Away at all the Prep Work

If I had to decide what to write based on what I thought people would mostly likely want to read about, I'd be a dead duck.  I just piddle away at way too many projects, playing with my oldish fabrics and thinking it's a way cool hobby. Look at this basket handle fabric for instance.

Choosing a background and the handle fabric for my Scrap Basket.

It's hideous.  Really.  I pulled it out of the totes on a whim thinking that maybe I could better understand what my basket handle needed to look like if I tried using fabric instead of flat looking paper for the auditioning process.  The reason I chose this fabric particularly? It was one I've almost thrown away so many times I've lost count.  I mean, look at it! It's an early 90's calico that never should have made it's way home with me.  So if I waste a big chunk of it just playing the what if game, who cares?  Nothing to lose.

Playing with some applique ideas....

Except wow.  I'm so impressed with what it does here! How exactly does this happen? I am super thrilled at finding the perfect basket handle and it was a complete and total accident. Needless to say, I did not take that tack with the flowers.  I refuse to validate that mistake by duplicating it in any way.*wink

And a little bias for stems.

So much prep work before the fun begins.  I found a green fabric that seemed to work well for bias stems.  I don't usually do anything fancy for bias.  Easy peasy is my motto: Cut lengths on the 45. Sew long ends together. Fold in half and sew as close to the edge as you can get away with (I move my needle over to the right a couple clicks.) Next I fuss with the bias until the seam is directly in the middle but on the bottom side of where I want to iron.  Finally I iron it all perfectly flat.  The end.  Like I said, it's nothing fancy, but it does the job and I don't have to try to force an metal bias bar anywhere it doesn't really want to go. hehe

Necessary prep work for the hand pieced Bow-tie blocks.

I'm also slowly chipping away at some more prep work for the hand pieced bow-tie blocks.  It's not difficult, but it all needs to be properly done and put into my handwork bag for random piecing moments.

My least favorite part.

My oldest son is coming home from college this weekend for his four month internship and I want some hand work ready for the trip over to the airport in Spokane. We haven't seen him since January so I'm sure we'll leave extra early in all our excitement!

A Little Break From the Normal Routine

Last Friday we left town and headed down to Eugene, Oregon to attend a couple of graduations.  It's the first time we've been able to get that far south in well over a year.  So much fun to hang out with family and enjoy the good times together!

More bow-tie blocks to add to the finished pile!

I had a post all prepped and ready so I could post while I was gone (cheating!), but I didn't exactly want to announce our absence to the entire world.  My intentions were to re-stock my hand-work bag before I left town, but somehow that fell by the wayside and I just grabbed what was ready to go.  Yeppers, that worked out just fine as I managed to piddle away at my bow-tie blocks here and there until I completed 19 more blocks.*big smile!

A little bit of fun...

On the next to last day before we left town, I talked my husband into taking me to two quilt stores.  I am so fascinated with new fabric that if my husband hadn't been napping/reading in the car outside, I probably would have maxed out all of my credit cards (which wouldn't take much these days).  Can you just imagine the buyers remorse I would have had? Eek!  I have been feeling seriously deprived of late.

The first store I went to in Springfield, Oregon is called 'Something to Crow About'.  It's a very lovely store that I've been in and out of for about 10 yrs. whenever we chance to be in the area.  Normally I head right over to the homespuns and grab whatever is new, but this time I spent most of my time drooling over the reproduction fabrics in an agony of indecision. There is never enough money....

The next store my husband took me to in Eugene is called 'Piece by Piece'.  I've only went one other time almost two years ago, but it is a fabulous store if you want modern fabric.  So much eye candy that I was dazzled once again and I'm not 100% sold on modern fabrics if you know what I mean.

In both stores I stuck to the fat quarter selections and only bought according to 'in the moment love' instead of looking at a list of what I might happen to need.  Today I finally had a chance to look at what I bought and play with it up next to some of my stacks-of-lovely-fabric-intended-for-future-projects.  The ten fabrics I laid out in front are ones that key in very well at least one of those stacks! Some of the fat quarters are the exact piece of fabric that makes the whole entire stack of fabric sing!  Isn't it amazing how that happens?  Honestly, I just bought what it felt like I couldn't live without.  Yay for the early anniversary present!  Can't wait to play a little more after I get this stuff washed up and put where it belongs.

Looking at Some Quilty Goodness!

It's good to have a break from the quilting room, but oh, it's hard too.  I wandered up there yesterday thinking I could maybe squeeze in about half an hour of sewing.  Huh. The upstairs was wall to wall sleeping bags including the quilting area.

More bow-tie blocks!

Gotta love having all the family in town for end of the year activities/graduation though! I ended up back on the couch clutching my hand piecing bag which, honestly, has been my go-to for quilty restlessness the last couple of weeks. Whenever I have a little bit of down time and know positively that sewing in the quilting room is out of the question, I've been grabbing some bow-tie pieces and trying to get a few stitches in.

Every now and then someone asks about what I'm doing, how many blocks I intend to make (did you know that saying 'I only have a 100+ blocks left to sew makes people repeat the word ONLY in a very loud and odd way?', how it all works, and yeah, if I'm crazy too. My kids and husband however, think it's time to worry about me when I'm sitting without anything at all in my hands to work on.

Starting to get a nice little stack of quilty goodness going!

They are scary smart, that family of mine! They totally get the difference between crazy and creatively obsessed inclined.

I knew the finished bow-ties were stacking up (I even stitched a few while we were camping last weekend), but I couldn't believe it when I started counting. 26 more completed bow-tie blocks to add to my growing stack!  Yay me!  Who says a forever project actually has to take forever? hehe

Slow Stitching Through the Week and a Little on Sunday

I still have a wretched cough, but it doesn't stop me from doing some hand work when and if I want.  I'm still plugging away at my Vintage Reproduction quilt several evenings a week.  Progress seems very slow, but even one frame an evening eventually adds up.

Quilting round & round the Vintage Reproduction quilt.

I never know exactly how it will be quilted before I actually get to the section in question.  It's not uncommon at all for me to be making the decision right as I'm sticking the needle into that particular part of the quilt.  'Okay, lets see if this works!'.  Borders that aren't pieced are my special nemesis.  My brain seems to freeze in agony at making a decision about what to do with those.

Detail of the hand quilting.

The hand piecing on the bow-tie blocks has been a bit confusing at times.  Some days I seem to have it all figured out and just breeze through them.  At other times, I end up with puckered corners and terrible looking y-seams.  Does it really just come down to what kind of mood I'm in?  I thought hand piecing was supposed to take care of the funky moods with all the needle in, needle out repetition?  Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching post today made me smile with the reminder to just enjoy every stitch.  lol

And a few more hand pieced bow-ties.

Mostly, I AM enjoying working on them.  Really.  The fabric in particular has been a good choice for that I think.  Very fun to jump from one print to a completely different one and see how they look against the teal background.  Well, Moda wants to call it Mermaid something or other, but over 20 years ago when I got married, it was called 'teal' and I thought it was the best color ever.*wink

Our lovely dandelion patch.... 

On a completely different note, my daughter decided to take some pictures of our ratty looking yard from an shameful interesting perspective.  Last year we had a sprinkler problem and the yard got terribly neglected.  Enough so that the dandelions got a stronghold on our lawn--obviously.  If we didn't live on a dead end road, our neighbors would probably snub us for making them look bad!  Oh well.  Maybe after the kids are raised and life slows down, we'll have more time to dedicate to the yard....

A Few More Bow-Tie Blocks

Just a quick post today.  I did squeeze in a little bit of sewing over the weekend, but it doesn't feel like I got much accomplished in the quilt room. Today however, I made a little tiny bit of progress on my forever project.

A few more bow-tie blocks

Six more hand pieced blocks finished up!  I kept struggling with the y-seams though, so finally just gave up and packed it in for the day.  Some days it goes super fast with everything looking great and other days I keep on stitching just beyond the marked seams and end up with a mess at the corners.  Sounds to me like a great excuse to catch up on my blog reading.*wink

Oh yeah, linking up with Kathy's Quilts today too.  Even with days like today, I still appreciate having my slow quilting vices.

A Little Hand Work

I was making pretty good progress on my bow-tie blocks on Saturday when suddenly I realized that I didn't have any more background pieces ready to go! Wahh!!  So very sad to have momentum come to a crashing halt like that.*wink

More bow-tie blocks

Prep work isn't fun, but it's all part of the game if I ever want to see finished product in my lifetime. lol

Always more prep work

I cut the squares out with the rotary cutter and then use my plastic templates to mark the seam lines.  I know some people try to piece without marking seam lines, but I'm just not that brave.  Or crazy.  I know me and what would happen without obvious seam lines!

And more

I'm really, really liking the way the Perle Cotton stitching has made this simple little quilt come alive.  I can definitely see that it's going to be part of my hand stitching future in random quilts here and there, especially if I can find somewhere to buy prettier thread colors.

Ready to do hand work part of the binding.

Getting very close to another finish here, which is kind of unreal!  No finishes at all for 2013 until just a couple weeks ago and now I'm almost done with yet another one!  This little quilt still has no name as of now and my mind is not cooperating at all with anything interesting to call it.  Maybe I should call it 'The Quilt That Shall Remain Unnamed.' 

So very close to being done......

I usually figure something out eventually, even if I have to get my whole family to help out.  There's something about ridiculous names being thrown out there as viable options that gets me to finally wake up and make a decision.  Should I tell my family that I just use them to clarify what NOT to name my quilts?  Nah, probably not.

First Two Finishes of 2013!

Well, I did it!  I finally managed to get the binding on these two quilts so I could say I truly have FINISHED something this year.  lol  Why does the list always seem to be growing regardless of what gets accomplished?

1st two finishes for 2013!

The light is terrible in my house at certain times of the day and our yard is scrubby and very unkempt right now so I was trying to think of other ways to take pictures of these two quilts.  Hmm....  Back to the wood floor for the next photo session!

Finished Antique Medallion quilt
and G'ma's Kaleidoscope quilt

I don't know if you can see the binding in the picture below, but I am extremely happy with my choices.  The pink is a (surprisingly) great complement for the Antique Medallion quilt and the blue binding seemed perfect for the Kaleidoscope.  I actually had to baste one edge of the quilt and then cut the extra backing off just so I could have enough of the blue fabric for to use for binding!  There was nothing in the totes that looked half as good and I wasn't going to settle for less.

Love how the binding turned out!

My husband was out of town today so I invited myself and the kids over to dinner at my mom and dads.  While I was there I managed to finish up two bow-tie blocks for my forever project.  It doesn't seem like much now, but two here and two there eventually add up to a whole bunch of finished bow-tie blocks!

Two more hand pieced bow-tie blocks.

Now I am linking up to Kathy's Slow Stitching Sunday where everybody gets to feel good about working on hand work projects whatever the method or approach.*wink

Loving the Hand Piecing

I'm back home from our big weekend at the state basketball tournament.  The girls brought home a 5th place trophy which isn't too shabby for such a young team!  It was very nice to take in a few of the bright lights of city life too and eat lunch at places like Panda Express instead of McDonald's or the local mini-mart.

Bow-ties Forever Project

Three back to back games (and days), then back home we come with a car load of tired, worn out kids and grumpy parents.  The state tournament is always an emotional roller coaster for kids and parents alike and I AM SO GLAD I HAD MY QUILTING WITH ME!  Total life saver for me this trip.  I only have 13 more blocks pieced as of today, but wowsers, did I appreciate the relaxing qualities of hand piecing this particular weekend!  lol

You can check out all the other slow quilting going on over at Kathy's if you like.  As for me, I have a whole list of quilt blog reading to catch up on!