Quick Horn Toot, Then Back to Reality

That's my quilt!!  That teeny tiny little thing is completely SWAMPED by it, but that's the quilt I made for him!  It says his name on it!  That's Levi!  She really did bring it with her to the hospital!  I'm so flattered!!

And then there was this:

Yikes.  It looks like something a kindergärtner would laugh at.  Miserable.  That's my first attempt at an Ohio Star, and my first time using a real Jelly Roll.  This is Martinique from Moda.  Might be 3 sisters, I can't remember.  This is supposed to be for the new room...it's kind of a miserable train wreck though.

It looked so pretty on the floor...what the heck happened???  I guess if it looks good on the floor, something's amiss.  I need to work my measurements backwards from the jelly roll.  That's probably what I'll be doing tomorrow since it's my last day at TMW and I have literally nothing to do except turn my fob in.

Wandering Thoughts

Last night I was tossing and turning, and came up with a fun idea that I might try as the companion to Alishia's string quilt.  I was thinking of doing a combination QAYG/rag quilt...so the top would be the string part (the flat part), and the bottom would be flannel, and would be a rag quilt.  I'm sure I'm missing something in my considerations here, but I was thinking about that, and how to use up some scraps left over from Levi's quilt (not to mention some of the batting scraps I've amassed in the past couple months). 

I'm going to have to think about this.

A lot of you out there have "design walls".  Could someone take/show me a picture of your whole wall?  I don't have much space in my sewing room, but having a design space would be wonderful!  How do you keep your pieces up there without pinning them?  What's the wall made of exactly?  How big is it?  How many layers of designs do you have on it at any given point? 

Tonight, I'll be home alone...totally alone, even kittiless.  Grisgris is at Nick's, and I'm not getting home until around 10, so I'll probably spend a couple hours sewing while I have the space to myself (and the jetlag to keep me up).  I'm excited to get back into it. 

Hello San Francisco!

I bought myself a TMobile HotSpot daypass just so I could log on and blog (on), so I hope y'all appreciate this!  :-P  I have about 4 hours until my next flight, and I've already eaten whatever meal I was hungry for (I've been going since about 8 this morning, EST.  It's about 4 PST, which is 7 EST, which is my dinner time...I think. I get in to Auckland around 5 AM Auckland time, but that's 5 AM on the 18th...2 days from now.  BUT that's only noon on the 17th EST, so I'll be getting in for breakfast time but be craving lunch.  My poor poor body.)

In any case.

I was up finishing the binding on the pink one until about midnight last night, but I got it done...that's what counts, right?  Nick will put the boxes (one to San Antonio and one to Centerville, UT for Levi) in the mail for me on Monday.  I learned a very very important lesson last night.  Just because the kids' scissors are cheaper, it is absolutely worth the extra cash to buy the big-girl scissors.  Especially when all you need them for is to cut thread and "rag" a rag quilt.  Ouch. 

That's me up at the top of the board there!  

I'm going to cut this post short and move stations.  People, if you're eating a tuna sandwich and there's lots of chairs available, please do us all a favor...don't sit near, well, anyone.  Doesn't matter if you like it, tuna stinks.  Blech.

Levi n Linus - Ready to Ship!

Phew, what a week!  I can't believe it's only the 15th day of this year and I've already gotten 2 baby quilts done and one to a point of "all I need is a few hours in front of the TV to finish this".  I'm so hoping to get all three done and shipped before I leave tomorrow morning...I wish it were socially acceptable to bring quilts to bind, to meetings that you're not presenting at anyways.  I'm pretty sure that's not a good idea though.  Sigh.

In any case, here's the picture I'm going to send with Levi's quilt, to Hannah:

I'm going to get boxes for both quilts (and the pink one, which isn't quite finished yet) so I can ship them out on the way to the airport tomorrow morning.

Here's Nick, modeling the I Spy quilt for me:

I spent my morning in a training seminar that didn't at all apply to me (literally...it was for a whole other set of products, separate entirely from the ones I document), so my mind drifted just a tad:

I was daydreaming about the quilt I'm going to make for my mom to give away. I'm hoping to get this panel (or something similar) for the center, and use 9-square blocks to surround it.  I might do another small border around that, but maybe not.  I'm going to quilt around the outline of the bear (basically all the black lines in the picture, minus the eyes and nose, etc), then quilt along the seams of the blocks (I haven't decided if I'll do each and every square or just around the blocks themselves...I might even just do diagonal lines across the whole thing).  I'll put the binding on, but leave the last part (hand stitching it down) for her to do so she can own a part of it.  Then I'll send it to her (likely for Mothers' Day) with the idea that she needs to take it as a donation someplace...she was thinking about starting up a donation center at my dad's hospital (Seton in Austin), so maybe this can be the first donation to that.  I'll post details for that group if/when she starts it. 

In any case...I have 22.5 hours until I'm on the plane to New Zealand.  I'm mostly packed, but need to find books to bring...it's a LOOOOOONNNGGGG flight down there from here, so I'm not sure one (even a thick one like Cryptonomicon) will suffice.  Any suggestions? 

Picture Update

Finally, some pictures!  

The weekend's spoils:

This took less time than you'd think to iron and fold.  It's also bigger than it looks in the picture...this heap filled my hamper to the top and then some.  :-)

Now, the I Spy quilt for SAPD c/o Project Linus.

Starting the I Spy quilt:

More I Spy:

More I Spy:

 

The kitty spies (don't worry, I'll be washing this before I send it in...incidentally, if anyone has recommendations for what laundry detergent works best on pet allergens, I'm all ears):

 

The front done:

 I am TOTALLY in love with the blue stuff I used between blocks...it's a batik from the remnants bin.  God, I love the remnants bin!  :-D

With batting and backing:

 The backing is a blue flannel with tugboats and lighthouses.  <3

Also for SAPD, here's the fleece rag blanket:

 The top three rows are sewn together.  The bottom 5 aren't yet. The pink edging is the same stuff I used for my mom's quilt.  :-)

After a 3-day binge of daily Joann's visits (three different stores I might add), my closet looks like this:

And, last but certainly not least, I got these strips in the mail today!  They're different Paddington Bear patterns.  This is about to be one of my favorite projects.  My mom is moving to Austin soon, after living in San Antonio for nearly a decade.  That might not sound like a lot of time to some of you, but we're a military family...this is the first place she's been for more than 4 years since before I was born.  Austin is only a couple of hours away from San Antonio, but it's far enough that she'll be making a whole new life for herself there (with my dad, of course).  My mom, as you can imagine from the description of this blog, is a truly amazing woman...her current concern with moving (aside from getting stuff to point B from point A) is finding a place to devote her time and compassion.  (That's right, she's really that amazing!)  So to help her out a little, I'm going to make a smallish quilt from these strips and give it to her to donate to someplace, so she can use it as a sort of ice-breaker. I haven't decided on a design yet, so I'm open to suggestions.  :-)  Also, in case you're curious, she reads my other "decoy" blog, so I can post this here and she won't know.  :-) 

So that's the wrap up for now. I'm taking a break from doing the binding on the I Spy quilt. I'm about halfway done...this is only the second binding I've done by hand (I did my mom's all by machine...epic fail), and already I feel way more comfortable about it.  I'm hoping I can get it done tonight so I can have something to show tomorrow night (maybe) at my first ever Quilters' Guild meeting...I won't be able to be a member, since membership is limited to 50 and this particular one is already full, but I really want to go make friends. 

Oh!  Speaking of friends, I totally gave advice at Joann's today!  This girl was asking about batting, and she was making her first quilt.  I was so excited for her (she was about my age), I wanted to hug her and tell her to come be my friend lol. 

And on that note, I'm off to finish this binding.  Night all!

Oh Darn...

So I was hoping that my last trip to Joann's (yesterday, Saturday, Friday...you pick) would be my last for a while, but it turns out I don't have a needle big enough to tie quilts.  Oh darn.  Guess I'll have to swing by on my way home from work (it is SO bad that there's one half a mile from my office) and get a needle set...and maybe see what else is on the 50% off red tag rack...and see if they have more of the batting I like...

Good thing stakeholder bonuses will be out soon.  :-P

My goals for tonight are to get the I Spy quilt in hand-stitching shape (i.e., do all the machine binding so I can bring it up to Nick's and do the hand part there) and to get the latest idea going.  Oh right, the latest idea.  So I got 48x6-1/2" blocks of fleece that say "baby" all over them, in pastels...it's kind of a goofy print, but it was ebay and it was cheap.  Anyways, what I'm gonna do with those is make a sort of mock-rag quilt.  I'll stitch the blocks together, cut the raw edges, and bind the outer edges with the same pink material that I used to bind my mom's quilt. 

Slight digression here.  I like that pieces of my mom's quilt have made it into every quilt I've made so far (minus the plaid rag quilt I made for Nick and me).  I have SO much left over from her quilt, it's hard to imagine a time when I won't have anything left, but it's kind of a fun little personal Easter egg to throw into each one.  The I Spy quilt will have the same binding as Levi's quilt (the dark blue cotton material).  I'll try to remember my camera tonight so I can post pictures later. 

I got a lot of red fat quarters this weekend, and once Valentine's Day passes, I'll be sure to stock up on reds on sale...I'm really looking forward to doing more string quilts for HeartStrings. 

Perfect Timing!

I checked my mail today, and lo and behold, I had not one but two packages!  The first one was 48 blocks of fleece in baby colors.  Cool.  The second one though was my 100 I Spy squares!  And perfectly timed, too!  Today, I'm going to take a break from doing Alishia's quilt and work on a quilt for the SAPD (San Antonio) via Project Linus.  A friend of mine in SA notified the world that SAPD is desperately low on comfort quilts (they have 10 left) and really needs some ASAP.  I'm going to throw together an I Spy quilt today, and see if I can make another one (both 36x45ish, in case anyone's curious) sometime this week.  If you're reading this and are interested in donating something pretty immediately, they need everything from baby to full-sized.  Instead of sending donations to Project Linus, please ask for the address of my friend (I won't post it here, and I'll ask her first before giving it to anyone I don't know directly) so she can help expedite the donation.  They'll alert Project Linus that they've received a donation c/o PL, for tracking purposes.  The I Spy quilt will be the one I'll donate in Levi's name.  Pictures to follow!

finally, levi's quilt

here's levi's quilt, with alishia's in the background...still very much in pieces lol

Serenity Now!

I finished up Levi's quilt last night...pictures to come as soon as I get my phone back (grumble grumble).  I'm pretty happy with it...the binding turned out way nicer than I expected (given my lack of hand-stitching experience), and the whole thing is really warm...my legs got noticeably colder every time I stood up without it covering me! 

I still haven't quite dreamed up what I'm going to do for my Linus quilt yet.  I have a bunch of flannel left over from Levi's quilt, and I have a few other little-boy-esque patterns (Curious George, blue Pooh) that I could throw in there.  If anyone has any suggestions for block patterns to try, I'm all ears. 

I think I decided last night that I will always hand-stitch the bindings.  Machine stitching is obviously a lot quicker, but hand-stitching really gave me a chance to sort of "bond" with the quilt...I feel like I left more love on it by doing it the hard way.  It seems almost insincere if a quilt takes you less than a couple of days at least to make it.

I've been dreaming of fabric a lot.  I know that sounds weird, but when the last thing I do at night is close my sewing room door (Grisgris (my cat) LOVES the chair in there, not to mention the piles of fabric that look just like a kitty bed to him), it's hard not to still have pretty colors in strange shapes on my mind.  And since there's obviously a lot of planning that goes into more intricate quilts, I find myself daydreaming and doodling a lot more lately as well. 

In any case, I should get back to work...just wanted to jot down some thoughts. 

levi n linus

doing the lettering...decided after 2 letters that I'm gonna leave it at the first name. I need more practice, but not on this :)

this is officially Levi's quilt :)

I decided to use the same fabric as I used on my mom's quilt, as the border. I like the little bit of darker blue...it sort of defines the edge very definatively.

my first mitered edge! I'm doing the binding by hand.

one for levi, one for linus

the beginnings of the quilt I'm making for my friend hannah, who's having a baby boy in march. I'm going to make a similar one for project linus

mom taught me this method of putting the top together

I got these templates at joann. theyr 5 inches high.

turns out the batting is slightly too small, so I'm going to have to pick some up tomorrow to finish this. if you look closely, you can see the outlines of the letters, as well as a couple of stars.