Sarah’sTim Blog

Bags

While I am waiting for someone to show up at my door and tell me how to cut the pieces to make a 4 1/2″ square within a square block to finish Thiên’s quilt. Yeah, I know. That doesn’t seem very likely, but a girl can dream. So in the meantime, I have been busy at a few smaller projects.

I found the above piece of fabric at goodwill a few weeks ago. It was either a tablecloth or a curtain panel as the edges were hemmed nicely and there was a tag. It didn’t have a brand name, but it did say 100% cotton, so I bought. As of yesterday, a little piece of it is a tote bag. It is lined in black cotton and has a little pocket inside. Perfect for a quick trip to the farmer’s market or similar. It did come out a little shorter than anticipated, but I’ll fix that in the next round. I have enough of the fabric to maybe make another bag and an apron or similar.

One little project is on its way to St. Louis for a 1st birthday. I will post pictures once it arrives (hopefully on Tuesday). Draft snake and leaf block are on my flickr.

100% Wool Felt Burrito

I barely have a minute, for I have about 200 pages of David Copperfield left to read by 6:00 pm tomorrow. Which would be fine and all, if it weren’t for pesky work to get in the way. But then, if it weren’t for work, I wouldn’t be reading David Copperfield. It was the first book chosen by my teen book discussion group. Crazy girls.

Wool felt arrived today, now I just need some more embroidery floss and I am ready for a new hand project. Just in time for football season.

Swirlies

Today was the first crisp fall feeling day, so what a great time to share a quilt project I’ve slooooowly been working on.

Over a year ago, I asked a lady in my SA quilt group to show me how to hand quilt, and once I learned I promptly put it down because it is hard. And I’m a wimp and like easy things. But I do like hand crafts that are more portable or can be worked on while on the couch while football is on. So lately I’ve been turning back to working on my hand quilting. It is hard, and sometimes slow going. But I am getting faster and my stitches more even. Though I can only do about the size of my hand at any given setting. The other side of this quilt is a really pretty plum colored batik. At this rate, it just may be finished by next year, making it only a two year quilt!

Border

Have I told you how much I love my desk? Yes? Well, its true. It allows me to be creative when the mood strikes. And if the mood strikes to cut out 256 triangles to make the border for Thiên’s quilt, then I can do that. And if I need a break between the cutting, pressing and trimming, then I can just shove them in a drawer. A drawer in my desk.

Thankfully the library is closed today (though Tim is at work), so I am home reading, blog surfing, watching tennis, and maybe some sewing and trimming (see above).

Slips

I love having my own desk. Yes, it is primarily for sewing, but also planning, inspiration, sketching, and dreaming. I have a great chair, and a bulletin board to hang sketches, magazine cut outs, photos, and other goodies from. I have finished making all the blocks for Thien’s quilt and designed the borders using some graph paper and a fistful of green, tan and cream colored pencils. I still have to work out the calculations, so am worried about having enough fabric, but I think will turn out great and really fit the quilt style.

I also made these mary jane style slippers from a felted wool sweater found at goodwill and soft lavender sweatshirt fabric bought on clearance. They are a little wonky, and if I make any slippers again, I would do many things differently, but I love them! I am all ready for a midwest winter to pad around the house in these little cuties. If you can call size 8.5 slippers cuties.

Not Fall Yet….

Yay! Lily made her way into the world this weekend, and I am so excited. I can’t wait to meet all the new kiddos. I am so happy for both Lily and Niko’s parents…first timers! I know they will all be great parents.

Watched Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price this weekend. If you still shop there, you might be interested in checking out the movie or website to see what happens behind the scenes and where your money goes. Its pretty sad.

I am fighting the urge to talk more about work, which leaves me with books, the weather (still in the 90s), and quilts. I am getting ready to make a quilt for Cyn and think I have a good pattern to go with some of the fabrics we found online. I am anxious to start working on it, so am unclear why Hancock’s of Paducah took a week to cut three pieces of fabric to send. This was my first time ordering from them, and I might not be back. Though I guess the last time I ordered fabric online they send the wrong fabric…so maybe I should just stick to the local stores (of which there are actually plenty here).

Which reminds me, there are probably 8 quilting stores here, but only one independant yarn store. What with the knitting craze, you’d think SA could stand one more…a little hipper, a little more fun than the one we currently have. Anyone want to move here and open a store with me?

30 Cookbooks

I did it! I actually cooked my way through all 30 of my cookbooks for my 101 list. It was a struggle sometimes, but did really help me branch out in my cooking and try new things. This was overall a fun project and I would recommend it to anyone who has a stack of cookbooks sitting on their shelves. Some recipes were a disaster, some were a total success…but that is the fun of it!

I am busy making a few quick quilts, trying new designs and making mistakes along the way. Some mistakes were stupid mistakes, others because I am always still learning. It can also be hard to make some serious progress when you run out of thread. Talk about a stupid mistake. I am also continuing to work on my 2006 Block of the Month quilt for Ashley. The pinks, greens, oranges are so bright and fun…a total departure from the navy and tan quilt I made for Andrew last year. If I can afford it (do you even know what fabric costs?), I might try to make two next year at the same time. I have a month in between each class, so I could easily duplicate the pattern in a second set of fabrics.

Must go and re-cut two pieces that are 1/2 inch too short and get back to sewing.

Modern Quilt Along

After being a pretty devoted craft blog reader for almost a year now, I am finally participating in an online project of sorts. It is called the Modern Quilt Along organized by the lovely Kim. The plan is to select a quilt from The Modern Quilt Workshop: Patterns, Techniques, and Designs from the Funquilts Studio by Bill Kerr and Weeks Ringle and share your progress, difficulties and creations with the crafty web world.

First of all, I have two confessions. One is that I do not actually own this book. It is on my wish list, and I would like to own it, but haven’t actually gotten around to purchasing it. So I made the quilt on the cover after figuring out the math (which I guiltily enjoy after years of hating math). My other confession is that I didn’t plan for my quilt to come out so much like the one on the cover.

Part of the Modern Quilt Workshop principle (or so I gather from Kim’s wonderful explanation) is a concept of color. Color should be more or less an organic selection of fabrics that don’t necessarily revolve around one novelty print. All the fabrics should have an equal part in setting the tone for the entire feel of the quilt. I am always drawn to blues at the fabric store (which is funny, I wouldn’t count that as my favorite color). So I have a stash of blue fabrics, and kept pulling out some that were left over from my 2004 Block of the Month quilt, and when I heard that my cousin Chris and his wonderful wife Maggi were having a baby boy, I knew I had to do something with those fabrics. First I was thinking a coin quilt. Then I came across this book (well, the cover), and the Modern Quilt Along (MQA).

I did need a few more fabrics, and spent loads of time at the fabric store trying to find some other fabric that would work, feel modern(ish) and that sang ocean or bay to me. I finally found some with green undertones that I felt brought the whole thing together. It wasn’t until after I got home and looked online again did I realize that my fabrics are VERY similar to the ones on the cover.

My quilt is much smaller than many others that are participating, and I have added a border, which I’m not sure is a no-no in the modern quilt world. Tim suggested a black border, which would have been cool…and I contemplated continuing the zipper pieces into the border. But in the end I opted for a wide white border, which I feel maintains the modern feeling of the quilt without being too out there.

The quilting is done as of today. I started marking the quilt, but ended up using a tool that comes with the sewing machine to do straight lines a certain distance apart. This is the first quilt that I’ve quilted edge to edge! I am very happy with the results!

Pictures are up of the cut pieces, and the quilt top finished. This week I hope to finish putting up the pics of it quilted while I contemplate the binding. I am really enjoying the process of thinking a little differently with my quilting and seeing the progress. Again, I love this quilt and am excited to be participating in the Modern Quilt Along.