50 Blocks

Update: 50 out of the 320 blocks are sewn together, leaving 270 to go.  Not too bad!

Also, come and join the Cutters Craft Brigade’s Facebook group!  Residency in Btown not required, only a love of crafts.

Year of Making Stuff: Week 22

The story of a quilt:  I signed up at my quilt guild to make a twin sized quilt for the new Middle Way House that is opening in the old Coca-Cola bottling facility in October.  I had fabrics picked out (Thiên, some of them should look familiar!) and a pattern in mind.  But I forgot the pattern at work on the evening that I decided to start cutting the fabric.  A prudent person would have either a)gone and gotten the pattern (I only live one mile from work) or b) waited until the next day.  But I am not a prudent person.  So what did I do?  I started cutting from memory.  Ha!  Of course I remembered incorrectly and have added one tiny piece to each block.  Instead of each 4″ block being made up from 5 pieces, each block is now made up of 6 pieces.  This doesn’t seem like a lot, but once you consider that I have to make 360 4″ blocks, it does.  At 6 pieces each, I have to cut 2,160 pieces.  I could have saved cutting 360 pieces!  I will never include 1″ pieces in a twin sized quilt again.  It just takes too damn many of them.

On the other hand, this is a quilt going to a facility for women to sleep under who may have left a bad situation in the middle of the night with their children and the clothes on their back.  Women who  hopefully can find little pieces here and there and put their lives back together again.  Maybe it only seems like a little tiny piece, but the idea of picking up the pieces really does make sense.  It is a quilter’s metaphor dream come true.  I can only hope that sleeping safely for the first time in a long time under a hand made quilt would be one of those tiny pieces that they can use to rebuild.

So internet, it isn’t completed.  But I finished cutting the remaining 2,160 pieces today and I am calling that finished for this week.  I also put together 4 of the 360 blocks so you can see what it looks like.  4 down, 356 to go.

First Streetdance of the Summer

After Tim’s softball game, I headed downtown for the First Streetdance of the Summer and caught the Pirate Flags and part of Zion Crossroads.  The location seems odd (on 7th inbetween Walnut and College…yeah, by the Taco Bell), but it was fun.

Tim is working on fixing some steps on the side of the house, and I am putting off preparing for a book discussion that I am leading tomorrow.  Maybe I’ll go and cut some more fabric.  I am close to having all 2,160 pieces cut for my next donation quilt.

Community Kids Quilts

Wow.  Last night over 30 quilts were donated to the Bloomington Quilters’ Guild for organizations throughout the community.  This is in addition to larger quilts for Jill’s House (for cancer treatment recovery patients and their families) and the dozen or so hats donated for the Olcott Cancer Center.  What a generous bunch.

I have an idea in my head of what to make this week, but not sure of how exactly it will work out in the end.  Off to experiment!

Year of Making Stuff: Week 13

Just in under the wire on this one, I finished the binding tonight after work.  It is in the wash right now and will be taken to be donated at the Tuesday meeting for the Bloomington Quilters’ Guild Community Quilts.  Other than the batting ($5 with my 40% off coupon), everything is made from what I had on hand.  I think I bought the fish fabric several years ago for Gina’s second boy.

I am not going to complain about the possibility of snow coming up next week.  I had a great weekend and the weather was perfect on Friday and Saturday.  I got to hang out at Jenn’s (doing mad libs…who knew so much fun as adult?), go to the first outdoor Farmer’s Market of the season with Tim, worked in my garden, and planted early crops at the library community garden.  After shopping at the Farmer’s Market and seeing all the cool names the farms have that sell there, I was thinking our little garden needs a name.  What do you think of Monroe County BookWorm Farms?

Year of Making Stuff: Week 10

Back in November, I started drafting this quilt and shopped for just the right purple fabrics through December.  Sewing took place through January, and I had it professionally quilted in February.  Today I finished by adding a little more than 400 inches of  binding.

This quilt is a generous queen sized, and made from a heavily adapted Julie Popa pattern in the March/April 2008 Fons and Porter magazine.  The wide borders are a really smooth cotton sateen fabric that is a beautiful rich purple color which was sort of hard to photograph.  I am really happy with how it came out and after a quick wash it will go in our bedroom.  This is the fourth quilt I’ve made for us, and I might just like this one best!

Year of Making Stuff: Week 9

Ashley and I tied this year for our Oscar picks.  So each person has to make a handmade item as a surprise prize and I finished this today.  I will mail sometime this week and reveal the full photo.  I won’t say too much, but it was my first so I guess wonkiness is expected.

I also went to the Indiana Heritage Quilt Show this weekend here in Bloomington and was slightly disappointed.  Or maybe it just didn’t appeal to me directly.  I only bought two fat quarters and one 1/2 yard of fabric.  I must look somewhere else for inspiration.

Speaking of inspiring, tiny purple crocuses are finally up and blooming!  That little  bit of color is really needed after a brown and grey winter.

Bushfire Quilt Project

I’m sure everyone read that this summer (our winter) Australia was plagued with some of the countries worst bush fires ever.  Many areas hit were residential and with shifting winds and little warning, many people lost everything.  I can’t imagine.  I ran across a flickr group, Bushfire Quilt Project, where someone in Australia was asking for blocks.  Or really, just A block.  Sent to her APO address, and she and friends were willing to put together quilts for these families, no small task.  But making a few blocks?  Relatively easy.  I sent a quick email out to my coworker quilters (thanks Nola and Shawn!) and made a few myself (in addition to a binding strip) and tomorrow I will be sending almost enough for one quilt to be made.

Our Time

This graffiti is fairly new (possibly even fresh since yesterday) and I spotted it walking home today.  I agree.  It is our time.  I will seek out more volunteer opportunities and make more of an effort to make donation quilts and hats.  I am also thinking about getting a new tattoo, but that is neither here nor there.

Year of Making Stuff: Week 7

Kids Quilts is a project run by members of the Bloomington Quilters’ Guild to collect quilts for kids and donate them to different service organizations throughout our community including the police department and Bloomington Hospital.  Most of these fabrics are left over from a quilt I made for Gina’s oldest years ago (though the red also showed up in two other quilts too, one for baby Malcolm and is the binding for Claire’s No Peek Nine Patch).  Making a donation quilt was a great way to spend a cold weekend, and felt good to spend the time doing something like this yesterday while today I will camp out and watch the Oscars. Though there may be some knitting in front of the tv too.

My Oscar ballot is filled out and my annual bet with Ashley is on.  To the victor goes a handmade item….