2012 Free-Motion Quilting Challenge: March Motif

‘Tis but a part we see, and not a whole. –Alexander Pope

I'm not sure where March went. I printed out Ann's tutorial on the 1^st and thinking about her variations on loops and swirls all month long. And now, here it is a few hours before the month's end. I did not practice any of the motifs because most of them I've done before. And I only scribbled a few sketches out before committing thread to the fabric of my sampler quilt.

I probably should have at least warmed up a little before I started on my sampler quilt to get in the right frame of mind. I did the flowers and loops first and don't love how they turned out. But I do absolutely love the stars and loops. This one I'd never tried before. This motif is deceptively simple looking. I'd made several attempts at doodling it out on paper, but would always get frustrated and give up because I could never remember which way to go when making the stars so I didn't box myself in. This time, I doodled more than I previously had, and drilled it into my brain every time I went to make a star that I needed to start the star in the opposite direction that I really wanted to do. I love how they came out.

I had a hard time deciding which design to pick for my sampler quilt, so I decided to do them all. I made a mistake when I bought my fabric and was short just a tiny bit. I had to piece two of the 8” blocks. It thought it would be fun to quilt a little bit of each design in to the divisions made by the extra seams.

And not to be bested by a feather, even an echo feather, I ripped out my one from last month and did it again. It's still not perfect, but I like it better.

I'm off to doodle the variations on loops and swirls in my notebook before it turns midnight, so I can officially say I finished March's challenge in March.

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I Must Ask . . . Innie or Outie?

If you're born again, do you have two belly buttons? –Unknown

There were lots of people with vision correction last week and it seems that the method of choice is glasses. Glasses are quick and easy and they get the job done. You put them on, and bam! You can see. Glasses can be a fun accessory or even a reflection of your personality. Every time I take the Little Bugs to get their eyes checked I try on about fifty different frames looking for just the right ones for my next pair of back-up glasses. I haven't found them yet. I've had had my back-up glasses for close to six years now. When I put them on, I remind me a little bit of my grandma on my dad's side. The trouble with glasses comes when you can't find where you put them, or if they get scratched or bent or broken. Contacts are more high maintenance, but three of us brave them every day. I can see so much better with them. One person was brave enough to have lasik surgery. And to the three people who won the draw in the genetics lottery, count yourselves lucky!

Today's topic is a silly one; belly buttons. Innies seem to be the most common, so I asked Mr. Google what causes an outie, because he knows everything. Well, he knows everything except for what causes an outie belly button. There were only suppositions {umbilical hernia and extra skin in the healing process} and not really any solid answers. But I learned a whole lot about belly buttons that I didn't know before. Like there are 1,400 strains of bacteria in a human belly button. Makes you want to find the Clorox wipes, doesn't it?

Something that I'd never stopped to consider is that a belly button is actually a scar. It is a socially acceptable scar, but a scar nonetheless. It is a scar that people like to adorn and show off. But before bare midriffs, low rise jean and belly button piercings and tattoos, belly buttons were once censored. Joan Collins had to wear a jewel in her belly button in the 1950's film Land of the Pharoahs. And Barbara Eden's Jeannie costume had to cover her button completely. Cher was the first to show her belly button on TV during the 70's and she got in trouble for it. In 1989, Ariel from The Little Mermaid was the first Disney character, animated or otherwise to show a belly button.

I thought it was interesting what Ann Landers had to say on the subject, “I do not believe any female of good taste would wear an outfit where her navel shows. This does not include women in costumes or those on beaches in bikinis. The same goes for males. An adult male who wears hip-huggers so low rates zero minus 10 on the scale of taste — it's my opinion but it's one I feel strongly about.” Times and trends have changed. On most days you see at least one belly button that is not your own. Regardless, you'll never my belly button.

It's an innie, in case you were wondering.

And now, I must ask . . . is your belly button an innie or an outie?

Poultry In Motion: Chicken Cherry Checkers

Anytime I need to see your face I just close my eyes

And I am taken to a place
Where your crystal minds and magenta feelings
Take up shelter in the base of my spine
Sweet like a chica cherry cola
I don't need to try to explain
I just hold on tight and If it happens again
I may move so slightly to the arms
And the lips and the face
Of The Human Cannonball that
I need to I want to
–Savage Garden, I Want You

Those could quite possibly be the strangest song lyrics ever.

I was just going to call this table runner Poultry In Motion: Welcome {the fabric line is called Poultry in Motion, which I thought was very clever}. But that is just boring. I tried to come up with something a little catchier, but it just got weird. I went from Chickens & Cherries to Chickens, Cherries & Checks. That reminded me of the phrase in the Savage Garden song, "chica cherry cola," {which sounds deceptively close to "chicken cherry cola," which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.} Anyway, there you have it. That's how I arrived at Poultry In Motion: Chicken Cherry Checkers. And why I have an earworm.

That is quite possibly the goofiest table runner name ever. But it was a fun to make. And now you all have an earworm too.



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Sunday Sermons: Waiting on Our Road to Damascus

Those who diligently seek to learn of Christ eventually will come to know Him. They will personally receive a divine portrait of the Master, although it most often comes in the form of a puzzle—one piece at a time. Each individual piece may not be easily recognizable by itself; it may not be clear how it relates to the whole. Each piece helps us to see the big picture a little more clearly. Eventually, after enough pieces have been put together, we recognize the grand beauty of it all. Then, looking back on our experience, we see that the Savior had indeed come to be with us—not all at once but quietly, gently, almost unnoticed.
–Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Sew: A Needle Pulling Thread

“Doing your own thing” is a generous act. Being gifted creates obligations, which means you owe the world your best effort at the work you love. You too are a natural resource. –Barbara Sher

I've you're visiting from a linky party, welcome! This is sort of a hodgepodge of things I've been up to this week. Please scroll down to the hot pads, which are my finish for this week.

20 Stitches Per Inch
I usually sit with LadyBug when she does her homework. On the days when she just wants me there for moral support and doesn't need a ton of help, I work on an embroidery project of some sort. This year, she's had to do a book report each month. The genre is assigned, but she can choose her own book within that genre. Recently, she had to read a historical fiction book and we chose the first book in the American Girl series, Meet Felicity. Felicity is a bit of a tomboy and hates to sit indoors and practice her writing or sewing. Her mother scolds her about some sewing she was doing because she had to take it out. Felicity had not done 20 stitches per inch.

A few days ago at homework time as I was pulling out some embroidery floss and a needle, LadyBug asked me if I could do 20 stitches in an inch. I replied that I didn't know, but would give it a try. The bottom row is my first attempt. Not to be beaten by a needle and thread, I tried again. And again. And again. I was stuck on 15 stitches per inch for a while, until I realized that it wasn't so much stitching as it was weaving. Getting stitches that small is a matter of catching a few threads of the fabric in your needle. I finally made it to 20 stitches, but perfection it is not . As I worked to get just a few threads of the fabric in each stitch, I realized that I was only working with one layer of fabric. I couldn't imagine taking such small stitches through two layers of fabric to make a seam. Still, it was a fun experiment and made me glad that I only sew by hand for fun.

Police Chief Swan: Revisited
One of the things I worked on this week was adding a few finishing touches to a block for my Twilight quilt. The block itself has been pieced for quite a while {read about it here}, but I wasn't quite sure about what to include in the embroidered details. Eventually, I decided on a composite of the two official badges from Forks.

I marked the blocks quite a while ago, chose a pretty gold floss and started to embroider. About 4 stitches in, I realized that my thread did not stand out enough. I put it away. I got it back out this week, determined to get the embroidery done. I pulled out the stitches and tried a different color combination, which also did not work. I pulled out the stitches again and tried five more color combinations, all of the unsuccessful. 452 colors of DMC floss {all of which I have} and none of them worked . While the thread colors I was choosing were bright, they were the same tone as the silver Fairy Frost and once I started stitching, they blended in.

After trying so many color combinations {one of them twice} and then picking the stitches back out, LadyBug finally asked why I didn't just go with a different color. I explained that I wanted it to be gold, but realized that if I hadn't already found the perfect color, I wasn't going to. Resigned to using a blue that would match the fabric in the word “Police”, I put it back away and moved on to winding the last few skeins of floss onto bobbins. And there it was. A deep gold thread, which I thought might work. I added two strands of gold blending filament to give it a bit of shimmer, and voilá. I think the embroidery is just the right finish to this block.

Poultry in Motion: Hot Pads
For Christmas last year, I made a table runner with roosters for a family gift exchange. It was one of those exchanges where you steal gifts from each other in an effort to go home with the best gift. There was a bit of a kerfuffle over the rooster table runner, which is the point of these kinds of gift exchanges. There were four rooster panels and I only used three in the runner, so I decided to make a hot pad for the person who did not get the runner. She has chickens and roosters in her kitchen and I thought it might be fun.

The hot pad turned out rather larger than I expected, so I made a panel to go across the back so that you could slide your hand in and use it more like an oven mitt. At first I was going to just do two layers of fabric for the back pocket, with a small panel from a different print in the fabric line, but then I decided to quilt it. I had the whole thing assembled and the binding part-way on when I came to the conclusion that the pocket the back was not working; it was simply too big to work as an oven mitt. I pulled it apart and designated the large rooster hot pad to be a table topper or trivet of sorts. I used the already quilted pocket piece to make another hot pad. It was awkwardly shaped and didn't really work to trim to a square, so a rectangle it was. I used Insul-Brite, which is a little bit thicker and a little bit stiffer than Warm 'n Natural. I really like how much dimension it gives the quilting.

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Giveaway Goodies
Last month, I hosted the Leap Day Giveaway Blog Hop. It was a huge success and so much fun. I was amazing to see what everyone was giving away. I offered a retro inspired apron and Nancy was the winner. She was very sweet to send me a photo of her in her apron! Thank you, Nancy!

I won a little something, too, from Richard and his wife Tanya. Their son, Jared, did me a solid and pulled my name out of the hat. I was able to pick from eight different prizes they were offering. Richard made the hot pads and the granny squares {which I will probably turn into hot pads}. I was also happy to take a gently used rotary cutter off his hands. My rotary cutter is 20 years old and I still love it, but I thought it would be fun to have an extra on-hand. Thank you, Richard and Tanya!

This week I got a really fun package in the mail. Clear back in October, Lori Holt announced a giveaway of her fabric line, Daisy Cottage, as well as some of her new patterns. I was one of the winners and she gave me my choice of any three of the new patterns designed for Daisy Cottage. I picked Home Sweet Home, Ring Around the Rosy and Daisychain. Lori told me that she'd send the patterns as soon as the covers came back from the printer, in about 10 days. The package never arrived and I got busy with holiday sewing. I would think of it off and on and finally while cleaning out my inbox a few weeks ago, I timidly e-mailed Lori to ask if she'd ever sent the patterns. She had, but they were lost in the mail , so she sent me a new set of patterns and some fat quarters of Daisy Cottage . I am so thrilled. And now I'm kind of wishing I'd have picked the diamond ruler that Richard and Tanya offered as one of their giveaway choices so I could start working on the Daisychain quilt .