A Stitch In Time: 2011 Wrap-Up

Seventy percent of success in life is showing up. –Woody Allen

For the past two years, I've been keeping an index of all the projects I finish during each year. It has been fun to look back to see how much I've accomplished in one year. I humbly submit my 2011 finishes.

One Hired Machine Quilting & Binding Job

One Halloween Costume, Two Pieces {skirt & cloak}

Two Fleece Baby Blankets

Three Abbey Bags

Four Church Bags

Four Table Runners

Five Adult Bibs

Six Aprons {one reversible}

Eight Quilts

Twelve Quilted Notebook Covers

Fifteen Fabric Postcards

Eighteen Fancy Pillowcases

In case you lost count, that is 80 finishes, and I enjoyed every one of them. I hope that 2012 is as productive!

Tweet Tweet Complete

Once you accept the fact that you're not perfect, then you develop some confidence. –Rosalynn Carter

I put the last stitch in it Thursday night and threw it in the washer before I went to bed. Tweet Tweet is finally finished!

Here's the embroidered tag, which I seem to have decided is the way to go for labeling a quilt even though it takes a while. You can see by the date on the tag, that I'd intended to have this quilt finished at least three weeks ago. But it just didn't come together and there was a lot of unpicking involved in getting this quilt done.

I branched out a bit in the quilting {right click for a closer view}. I'm a novice machine quilter and only have a few things under my belt, like the meander. I've done feathers before and love them, so I had to do them on this quilt. The swirls are something new for me. I loved doing the small swirls in the brown sashing so much that I did them in the bigger sashing and all the way around the outer borders.

And here's a shot of the whole quilt {right click for a closer view}. I haven't decided what I'm going to do with this quilt. I'd intended it for a baby gift, but when I found out that the baby was already getting three quilts from family members, I decided to do something else. I'm not sure if I'll save it for a baby gift another time or donate it to the NICU or another charity. In any case, it is good to be done.

Today's post brought to you by:

Various and Sundry Monday: Vol. 7

Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are. –Malcolm S. Forbes

I didn't really intend for Various and Sundry Monday to become a regular feature, but I kind of like talking a little bit about a lot of things that otherwise wouldn't fit into a post. So, here's what I've been up to lately.

Tweet Tweet Sneak Peek
I finally got it in gear and did some quilting on the Tweet Tweet quilt. I wanted to try some FMQ that I'd never done before and so I was nervous and found myself procrastinating working on this quilt. Once you take that first stitch, it's not so scary any more and you just go with it. What's the worst that could happen, right? Well, we all know the answer to that. If it comes out badly, either you live with it or you rip it out.

I like how the swirls came out. I tried another something new in the outer border and did not like that, so I'll be taking that out tonight. I want to finish this quilt in time for the Blogger's Quilt Festival, so I hope the frog-stitching goes quickly.

Mr. Bug's T-Shirt Quilt Update
I finally got started on the tag for Mr. Bug's quilt. I procrastinated this as well because the embroidery takes for.ev.er, but I like the indelibility of it. After I finished stitching the name of the quilt {Service Rendered; it just sounded so romantic} on the tag, I decided I probably should have called it QM2 {Mr. Bug's rank} because it is a little snappier. Too late now. Embroidery is way too fussy to unpick.

As soon as I get the tag finished and into the back, I can get quilting on this quilt. It is one of my Ph.D Challenge commitments and I'm anxious to get it finished because the Snowballs and the Pinwheel Sampler are calling my name and I'm determined to finish the four quilts I committed to for the challenge.

Lilacs Are Lovely
Our yard was pretty void of landscaping when we bought this house 10 years ago. Everything that is growing here was planted by me. Our back yard faces South, which means it is hot and sunny. In order to provide a little shade, I planted five lilac bushes along the back fence. And they have grown VERY slowly. I think I planted them in 2005 and they are finally taller than I am. This year there are tons of blooms that are just starting to open. They are so gorgeous and smell so beautiful. I have two varieties; pictured in the top left corner is the first bloom of the season, a Katherine Havemeyer. The other two are Congo Lilacs.

Various and Sundry Monday: Vol. 5

Sometimes the best lessons learned in life are those intended for others. –Unknown

Project Polka-Dot

{140 different polka-dotted fabrics. Really. No repeats!}

This polka-dot quilt has been rattling around in my brain for nine months or so. I guess you could say it was gestating . I've been puttering around with it for about five months now, refining the idea and figuring out a layout. I used my Christmas money to buy the small Drunkard's Path die and will use both sizes of Drunkard's Path pieces in it. I've also been assembling the perfect polka-dotted fabrics for about the last three months. I rummaged trough my stash and came up with about 70 different polka-dots and then begged, borrowed and swapped for dots from anyone who would let me {a huge thank you to: Annelise, Iris, Jerrilynn, Michelle, P., Sara & Wanda}. I cut the fabric into 3¼ or 6¼ squares and distributed them into piles with no repeats {fabrics from the same line — like Moda Essential Dots — in different colors don't count as repeats}. This weekend, I got out my Go! and did a little cutting. And as usual {}, I decided that if one was good, more was better, so I cut enough dots for more than one quilt. I'm not saying how many more than one quilt. But more than one. Let Project Polka-Dot begin!

Tweet Tweet Tweet

{A week into May still counts as April, right?}

I've kind of stalled on the Tweet Tweet quilt. Not because I don't love it {which I don't yet, but I'm going to finish anyway because as Shevvy pointed out, it isn't over until the binding is on} but because I'm going to try some new free-motion quilting and I'm nervous. I had the label finished weekend-before-last and the back was all put together last Monday. You can see by the date that I'd planned to have it finished long before now. But I spent last week finding other things to do during my quilting time {I even did laundry a couple of days instead of sewing} and I realized it was because I was nervous about thread choices and trying some new quilting. I don't want to stuff it up. Friday, I finally bought a spool of chocolate brown thread {which I'm still not sure about} and Saturday night I doodled out five or six pages of the quilting I want to do. I've got the quilt all laid out ready for pin basting, which I'll have a minute tonight to finish if I can get off the computer. And then tomorrow I can quilt and hopefully it won't be horrible.

Technically It Is A Scrap Quilt

{Someday this really will be a quilt.}

Last June, I decided that I wanted to work on a quilt I'd started a really long time ago. I'd shopped every fabric store from here to my mom's to find the perfect shades of blue to make an entire quilt of Checkerblock Stars because I didn't have enough of my first choice of fabrics to do the job. I had all the triangles cut for the top and borders, and half of them put together. And then I got bored. But I was motivated by leaders and enders projects by Susan and Lane to get back to it. It has been really slow going, because you only sew one block at the beginning and one block at the end of whatever project you are working on. But it still adds up — if you remember you are working on leaders and enders. After 11 months, I have all the small dark triangles pieced with the small white triangles to make a bigger triangle, and have started to piece those with the larger light blue triangles. I did the math and the quilt top {not counting the borders} has 3520 pieces in it. At this rate, it will probably take me another five years to finish this quilt. Or, I might decide to chain piece myself into a coma and get these triangles finished up so I can move on to the four-patches.

No Worse for the Wear
As you can see, my flowers didn't seem to mind the snow we got last weekend. The early bloomers are hardy enough to withstand a little bit of cold weather. The blossoms on the fruit trees, however, are another story. I hope that the orchard farmers aren't too hard hit this year because I know the trees have started to bloom and if the cold kills off the blooms, there is no fruit. It has been a really weird year for weather.

The List
I just realized that today is the 2^nd of May and I have a list of quilts that I've committed to finish by the end of June. It started out at 3 Ph.D's and 3 completely new quilts, but as lists tend to do, it has sort of grown. The new quilts keep taking precedence over the Ph.D's, and I think I'd better get my booty in gear and get some quilts done. It helps me to look at the list and see what's done and what is left. So, here's the run-down.

New – Grandpa's Candy Dish quilt: Done
New – Gracie's Pinwheels: Done
New – Cozy Posies Stacked Coins quilt: Done
Ph.D – Magic quilt: Done
New - Tweet Tweet Stacked Coins quilt: ready to be quilted
Ph.D – Mr. Bug's Navy T-Shirt Memory quilt: top is finished
New – Polka-Dot quilt: in progress
Ph.D – Pinwheel Sampler quilt: in progress
Ph.D – Snowball quilt: in progress
Ph.D – Woman's Work quilt

As discussed, I'm going to quilt the Tweet Tweet quilt this week. As soon as that's done, I'll work on the embroidered {} tag for Mr. Bug's quilt {something I've been procrastinating because I wasn't very concise}. That will be the next to quilt {another something I've been procrastinating because I'm not looking forward to marking it, even though it is just straight lines }.

The Woman's Work quilt has been removed from my Ph.D Challenge committment because I had only planned to finish the top by the end of June and have it ready to be professionally quilted. That is still my goal, but tick, tock already. I substituted the Magic quilt in its place, so I have one Ph.D finish. I think to meet my Ph.D. goal of four, I'm going to have to move the polka-dot quilt to the bottom of the list and finish the snowballs and the pinwheel sampler quilt first. I quilted a meander in the first snowball quilt and planned to do that for this one, but I've been contemplating other things. Suggestions? And I'd always intended to quilt the entire pinwheel sampler in straight lines ¼" on either side of the seams. But now, I think I want to do something much more fun, like feathers. And while that is exciting, it is also scary because I really am just a beginner at free-motion quilting.

Considering the size of my list, I think that's enough gabbing. And if there is an inordinate amount of typos and incomplete/nonsense sentences, it is because I didn't do a final proofread. Leave me a note in the comments and I'll fix it later. I'm going to quilt instead.

xo –E

Various and Sundry Monday: Vol. 4

We’re caught up in the crossfire
Of heaven and hell
And we’re searchin’ for shelter

Tell the devil that he can go back from where he came
His fiery arrows drew their beat in vain
And when the hardest part is over we’ll be here
And our dreams will break the boundaries of our fear
The boundaries of our fear
–Brandon Flowers, Crossfire

Friday Night Sew-In: Sudoku Quilt
I got a late start to Friday Night Sew-In this time around and didn't get a super lot done. As a matter of fact, I signed up on Friday night right before I sat down to do a little sewing, so I didn't even post about it beforehand. Even though I didn't get much done, as Angie pointed out, a little sewing is better than a lot of cleaning!

A little over a month ago, P. made a Sudoku quilt for a friend of hers. I fell in love with it and got the pattern from Sarah. I rooted through my stash and came up with the perfect combination of fabrics for my own Sudoku quilt. In the meantime, P.'s already finished a second Sudoku quilt top. She's awesome like that. So, I decided that I'd work on my Sudoku quilt for FNSI. Technically, I'm not supposed to be starting any new projects, but does it really count as a new project if I didn't buy any of the fabrics {except for the outer borders, back and binding }? Anyway, I got all my fabrics pressed and then I got four of the nine cut into 4½" squares. I think that's a good start on the quilt, and not too bad for the small amount of time I worked on it Friday night.

Tweet Tweet
Friday was the first day last week I did any actual sewing. It was a topsy-turvy week. The Little Bugs were home for Spring Break and Mr. Bug and I had to juggle our work schedules with only one car. Also, I was just plain stuck on this little Tweet Tweet quilt. After I got my rows of coins together last weekend and decided it was pretty scary, I asked for opinions on several layouts and then incorporated them into several more layouts. This quilt didn't come out how I'd visualized it and I just did not like it when it came together. The solid pink coins just threw the whole thing off, so following Amy's suggestion, I made a pass with the unpicker and pulled out only the fabrics I really loved and put the rest in a discard pile. I laid the coins out again and still didn't love it. I made another pass through the discards with the unpicker, pulled out some more coins and rearranged the layout. I still didn't like how they looked together. So then I pulled some more coins out of the discards and incorporated those into the layout. By Friday evening, I was still debating about how to do the sashing and not loving how it looked. I was thinking that I would just put this project away for a little while, but Saturday morning I woke up with this quilt in my head.

I decided to go with my original plans for the sashing fabric, with Vicki's added suggestion of adding a narrow strip of solid on either side of the sashing. It is interesting in this layout how much the greens stand out. I think I like it. And I've got an idea or two for quilting, so I think this quilt might come out after all.

I ♥ Tulips
Spring is officially here. The tulips have started blooming in my {north-facing} front yard.

I've had tulips along the border on the south side of my house for a couple of weeks, but tulips in the front means spring is here. I went out to the back yard and cut some tulips in a little area I planted specifically for cutting. It is on the west end of the house and it is blocked from view in the front by a fence and if you want to see it from the back of the house, you have to walk over there. I have a really hard time cutting my flowers to bring into the house. It puts the balance off on the 'arrangement' outside. And once you cut them they start to die, which is sad. But no one is enjoying the beauty of these flowers at all, and that is even sadder, so I brought this little vase-full in. The three hyacinths make my kitchen and living room smell heavenly. I think I'm going to cut a bunch to put on my desk at work.

Monday Music Spot: Crossfire
This morning, I heard this song on the radio and just loved it {while Charlize Theron totally rocks, the video is a little weird so you might just want to listen to it. Brandon has a truly lovely voice}. It just seemed to kind of fit me, to fit my life right now.


Today's post brought to you by:

Re-Tweet Tweet: How Do You Like My Stacked Coins Now?

Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did. –Newt Gingrich

Thank you to everyone who offered a suggestion when I asked what I should do with this quilt. There were some really good ideas, so instead of doing the grocery shopping or anything else productive today, I've been fiddling with the layout. Amy is right about the solid pink coins standing out too much. I covered those up with the extra coins I had cut and I like that side of the quilt better. And there was an overwhelming approval of Vicki's idea for a triple row of strips in between the coins, so I tried that, only with a really light yellow solid instead of the chocolate.

While I was staring at that picture, trying to decide if I like this crazy quilt or not, I realized that if I go with the little birds on the front, I'm going to HAVE {} to go get another 1½ yards to go on the back. This was supposed to be an inexpensive project. But I'm having a hard time picturing the rain drops or leaves or whatever they are on the back. They just don't go.

Trying to work with what I've got, I laid the rain drops print out on top of the yellow, but didn't even bother to take a picture of that because it wasn't any good. I gave it a try with the Chocolate solid and didn't love that much either. The print competes too much with the busy coins and even with some pink coins showing, the pink still stands out too much.

Just for kicks, I tried alternating the sashing strips. Not sure I love it either.

The fabrics are cute. Stacked coins are awesome. So why isn't it coming together? At this point, I'm a little sick of looking at it. But I've started and I really want to finish. As Shevvy pointed out, it's not over 'til the binding is on.

Suggestions?

Not So Tweet Tweet: Opinions Please

Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use. –Earl Nightingale

A couple of months ago, I won a Tweet Tweet charm pack from Marg over at Sunshine? Paradise? When it arrived I thought, Baby Quilt! So, I browsed the web and found the perfect coordinates {on sale!} and planned to make something really adorable with them. I cut, I chain stitched, I pressed and chain stitched some more and then I laid it all out.

BLEH!

It was surprisingly ugly {remind me to have my mind's eye checked } and I wasn't sure what to do about it. So I let it rest and hoped that perhaps it wouldn't be as bad as I thought in the morning. It was.

I decided to try something different. I laid out my coin strips with some Kona in Chocolate, hoping to tame the wildness a little bit.

Meh.

Determined to make it work, I headed to the LQS for those adorably Tweet birds and tried again.

Eh.

I like this last layout best, but I don't really like it, at that. It is only a small improvement over the others and didn't wow me like I thought it would, what with all the cute birds and polka dots and stuff. After letting it rest overnight, I like it a little better today than yesterday. But I still wonder if it is good enough to give as a gift. Should I keep going {because I'm itching to quilt some feathers in this} or just call this a wash? The last layout requires quite a bit of unpicking. I cut new coins from the three coordinate fabrics I have and just laid them over top of all the fabrics that had trees in them to give it a little bit more conformity. It was way too busy with so many strips of random fabrics that didn't give a complete picture of any of the prints. But it is still busy. Each of the fabrics is really cute on their own, but I'm afraid I've not done a very good job of combining them into something cute.

What do you think? Is it as bad as I think it is? If you got this as a baby gift, would you say, Oh. You made me a blanket, and then stick it in the bottom of your birdcage? I'm a little stuck here. I hate to waste money/materials/time, but if this quilt is really bad, it would be worse to give it to someone and have them hate it. Honest, constructive suggestions are much appreciated.

* To get a closer view of any of the pictures, right click on them to choose to open them in a new tab or a new window; or center click to automatically open in a new tab.