Year of Making Stuff: Week 5

A soon-to-be three girl household deserves three girl quilts.  Finished today, I didn’t get a chance to wash it yet, so will take more photos later.  The purple pinwheels were left over blocks from another pinwheel quilt and the directions were to throw these away!  I couldn’t stand to do so, and once I figured out how to put it together (despite having to rip the borders off one night because the blocks are cut on a bias and it was totally warped, so I had to steam and pin) this came together pretty quickly.  Pinwheels, backing, batting and binding were all things that I already had.  I did buy the border print and the stripe, but bought lots on a big sale so will have some for a future project too.

There are still a few dirty piles left, but the 12 inches of snow we had a week and a half ago is mostly gone finally!  I didn’t mind the snow, but it is nice to see some grass again.

Quilt Show

I worked on the committee for the Bloomington Quilters’ Guild quilt show that took place over the last two days.  I am exhausted, but it was a lot of fun and the show was a success despite the crappy rain.  I had two quilts in the show and bought some fabric for a steal at the treasure shop.

My crazy two weeks continues this coming week, and my foot hurts.  I am rooting for Thanksgiving to hurry up.

Fabrics, Finally

Back in May, I decided to make a quilt for my mom for Mother’s Day.  I wanted it to be just right, but couldn’t figure out colors and pattern.  But in the past few weeks, I’ve found a pattern and today with the help of Bonnie at Shiisa Quilts, picked out fabrics to compliment the large floral on the right that I knew I wanted to use.  Also to go with it is a very pretty cream colored not pictured.  I don’t want to show any more pics until it is done!  I am very excited and think that it will be beautiful.  I hope to have it done by early November, when I head out to Colorado for a vacation.

**Baby Isa couldn’t wait out Hurricane Ike and was born at home in Houston early this morning!  Hope everyone in the Meouw family are doing well.  Good thing there were two doctors there!    Can’t wait for pictures.

Robo Quilt

Just so you know it isn’t all fabric auditions around here, there is actual sewing going on.  I also think I figured out a pattern for my mom’s quilt.  Maybe some stacking and maybe some whacking.

As part of my facebook icon, I recently added that I was in the Jacob Camp and I’ve had a lot of questions about what that means, but it is so lame and both Tim and I are so into them, its sort of embarassing.  I should just update my book list, but if you’ve read Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (or really book two, New Moon) and can seriously make a case for Edward, let me know.  I’m the captain of Team Jacob.

Flood Floods

The horrible midwest floods haven’t really done much damage in Bloomington thankfully, but it WILL NOT STOP RAINING!  Ok, there was one day this week where it didn’t rain.  Now I have a few days off?  Rain.

I am debating a border/sashing on a baby quilt, and waiting for other fabric to arrive in the mail before I can progress on my mom’s Mother’s Day quilt (I know, late!).  Tim is getting close to being done with Summer I, and heads right into Summer II.  Books are being read, and oh, I joined Facebook.

Waves of Binding

I finally sat down tonight and after careful measuring and some inventiveness, the sticking point on Thiên’s quilt is solved. The binding (the last step!) is cut, pressed and sort of carefully folded waiting to be sewn on.  My fingers are crossed that there is enough binding.  Lord knows my math has been known to be wrong.

I am updating my booklist, rediscovering crossword puzzles (who knew Tim and I could be a good team?), and hoping that all my Texan friends go out and vote in the primary tomorrow.  Yay voting!

Graph Paper

Did you know you can print graph paper using excel templates?  I often use a lot of graph paper and handfuls of colored pencils to doodle, plan, measure and determine possible quilt patterns.  I have quilting software I use, but there is something deliciously grade school about it all.  Plus, I get to do it sitting at my desk.  I am finally starting on a modern quilt for our living room.  Browns and reds with a shock of orangy-yellow.  Thank god the new quilt shop here has opened.

Miss Potter

Top for gender neutral Baby Shutta?  Done.  I am loving this quilt, it is so simple but has been fun to plan and start making. I need to dig around to see if I have any white batting.  Most batting that I like using and is easy to find is cream colored.  But if you have any white in your quilt, a cream colored batting can dampen the brightness of the white fabrics.   If done that way, it might not be noticeable to most people, but it would bother me.  My only question at this point is to border or not to border.  I am leaning to no border.  But maybe a small white border would look good too?

Tim and I recently watched Miss Potter on DVD, and in the special features there was a story of her real life (much different than the dvd-hollywood version), and love her even more for her very forward ways and thinking towards green space, independent farms and environmentalism – all way before her time really.

Forward Progress

Sorry it is a little off center, but it becomes increasingly hard to photograph larger quilts in my increasingly small house.  New Years day proved to be snowy and cold, a perfect day to knock out a large chunk of sewing for the top of Thien’s Block of the Month quilt.  I am loving how it looks.  The fabric colors are slippery, changing from brown to tan to green to yellow depending on the light.

Oh, yeah.  We also updated the blog in the past few days. Comment away.

Fabrika

Santa came! Ha. This stack of beautiful fabrics are from Regina, who picked them up for me at Fabrika in Savannah, GA which looks like a most wonderful store. I love them! Also, I received two spoons as gifts.

Fabric, spoons, earrings, cash money and books. What more could a girl want? Thanks everyone!