Why yes, it has been a while

Just finished tweaking my website. I have a page of personal links on it and this quilting blog was at the top of it. Funny how priorities change. I spent a lot of time in the past (insert length between posts here) a bit low, but now I'm back and engaged again. In fact, and that is part of why I'm updating here, too, I'm about to take the next step on my latest quilt.

I finally got around to making a quilt for me. I designed it a while ago, and the cutting and piecing has been haphazard at best. Over the past weekend, however, I finished the last block. Now I'm ready to lay it out and get crackin' on sewing it together. It's my first quilt on point, and it's my largest quilt this decade: a queen. I'm also set to donate a custom quilt to my son's school auction, which is alternately exciting and terrifying. I already have some ideas about my next project. So why the foot dragging?

In part I think I am freaked out about the piecing. I mean, I thought I took care during cutting to get things right, yet when I did the blocks there were inevitable times when the blocks didn't quite work. Several are definitely not quite square, with longer pieces or shorter seams. Very frustrating. And the black background fabric turned out a bit disappointing. I don't like its hand: it's a bit thin, but not as bad as the yellow I used for the last 2 quilts I did. At least it's not transparent. Still, I think I need to take more care in the future.

Another thing that bothers me is necessity: this quilt will just be too large for me to machine quilt, which is sort of my favorite part. Every time I tuck my daughter in (yes, this will sound egotistic) I can't help but admire the quilting, especially the bubbles. To trust my quilt to a professional long-arm quilter is very scary. Even though I'm sure the person has scads more experience than I do, it's a control issue and an issue of ownership. How can I say I did it when I didn't do it all? Yet I know it will be cheaper and turn out nicer. And I know that whenever I show it off I will feel compelled to point out that I didn't finish it. I'm not usually so "finish-obsessed". God only knows I can be a quitter. Sigh. This is different, but...

Moving on! Going downstairs now! Next post will show progress... Honest.

The Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show 2009

Last weekend I went to my first big quilt show at Sisters Oregon. I dragged the hubby and kids along, and despite our best intentions we did not make it out the door for the 3-hour drive until well past 10 AM. We arrived in town around 1. It was a clear and hot day and we did a lot of walking (this is what the kids will remember). It was also surprisingly windy, making picture taking a bit challenging. That along with my "skills" as a photographer, give my pictures just a hint of what I actually saw. Still, everything was really cool. Most of the entries seemed to use a longarm quilter; the few obvious non-professional machine quilting was comparable to mine. So with that in mind I can plan an entry for next year (my whole point, aside from getting inspiration).

So next time I may actually do the whole nine yards: come to the town for the "pre-game" festivities and stay the whole weekend. There was so much I missed out on. There were activities for the kids and a book signing by the quilters from Gee Bend (and they sing when they do signings, apparently). Most of all I will do better at hydrating myself and wear more comfortable shoes!

More good lessons

Finally had a chance to work on my first quilt design project today, and it was definitely a good lesson. I took the cutting instructions straight from Quilt Design Wizard. I'm not sure if it was my sewing or what, but the border pieces are barely fitting. I'm ending up "easing" the border piece onto the main piece. I've had to unpick and redo 2 seams so far. Once I was as much as a half inch off on the length. How did that happen?!

It's weird because after the first unpicking, I went back and measured and everything seemed to be the right length. I guess the seams or the thread is tweaking the borders to shrink a bit. I think next time I will cut each one at least 1/8th longer. Better to have to trim the seam than to come up short. Part of the ease problem is that the edges get off-track and then I have to redo a section where I missed one of the edges: oops. I can only imagine how frustrated I'd be if I were following directions. Good to know if I turn this into a pattern.

A lot of firsts

I've finished the main blocks of my very first paper piecing project and my very first quilt design. Some things I'm learning: it's still possible to not have everything not match up even when sewing on the lines of a foundation piece. It's also important to watch where the seams end up. I had a place where I sewed over a seam going the wrong way. But mostly it was easy to do and came together nicely. Still have the 3 rows of borders to do. I'm still trying to figure out how to do the corner blocks, but it will make more sense when I get down to it. Haven't had a chance to sew this week while I worked on a freelance gig for money (yes, paid projects take precedence over hobbies...)

My first quilt, or Has it really been 30 years?!?

This year marks my 30 anniversary of graduating from high school. Not only that does make me want to freak out on many levels (Where did the time go?! How can I possibly lose so much weight in 3 months??), but it also puts me in a contemplative mood. Ironically, I now live once again in the same neighborhood as my alma mater, so I find myself thinking a lot about the past.

I started this blog as a journal of quilting; to mark my accomplishments and note what works and what doesn't work in the creation of my quilts. Naturally, it should include my past, and my first quilting attempt.

When I was in high school, I had a job at Payless Drugs. I started as a checker, but eventually made my way to work primarily in the fabric department. Aside from cutting and straightening and pulling old patterns, I also got to make samples for display. One such sample was a crib quilt from a magazine article. I'm not sure why I chose browns, because that has never been one of my favorite colors, but I did. I also improvised the ruffled binding. It was such a hit that one of my co-workers commissioned a queen-sized quilt in the same color scheme. I believe she paid me $100 for it. And that was the last quilt I'd do until 1997, when the impending birth of my daughter prompted me to take a quilt class. Just how long it took me to complete that baby quilt is a story for another day...

Weird week

The school year is coming at us full force and summer is literally moments away. How did that happen? Haven't had a chance to sew yet, but I bought and cut out most of the pieces for a table runner. Went in my sewing room last night and just looked while waiting for Reaper to start. Yesterday was lost to getting the AC in my car repaired. Already forget what happened to Monday. Suffice it to say, this is shut-down week for my husband, so my schedule is not entirely my own...

Did buy a copy of Megan Cox's The Quilter's Catalog. Got it from the library and there is so much good stuff in there I just "had" to have it for my own. I also showed off some of my quilt designs to my husband, who was ironically "complaining" that I hadn't yet made a quilt for our bed. I am taking that as "permission" to go for it. I've been hanging back partially because Quilter's Design Wizard is overwhelming me with choices and limitations (more on that later), but also because obviously it will cost more than the table runner, which so far I've spent $17 on.

So with the quilt I want for my room, I want a somewhat reversible quilt with some kind of simple yet optical illusion-ish design on the backing. I've kind of forced QDW to do a couple of entwined chains by using a couple of simple blocks and just coloring with them, but as my husband pointed out (damn him, the engineer) it is kind of a lot of work for the effect. I will have to find another design or different blocks if I actually want to be able to use the yardage feature for the quilt back. So this is a limitation of QDW that I can live with for now, and as long as I can jerry-rig it to do what I want on the screen, I can always figure it out on my own. 

A bigger limitation is not being able to do anything with the design files: you can only print them within the confines of the program. I can't, for example, make them into PDFs and display them anywhere, as I'm assuming you could do with EQ6.

Off to errands I go. After I get my car, I have to finish my newsletter draft for the STC, update the website for the soccer club I volunteer on, and then I get to quilt.

And here it is

I really have a steep learning curve sometimes. I took pictures of this prior to washing it but had the camera set on some funky setting, so I took more today after washing it. Kyra and I gave this a trial run last night while watching "Lie to Me" and she pronounces it "cuddly and warm".

What I like about this layout is the squares within squares (or diamonds). I also like the pinwheel quality to it, and less massing* of areas of meandering and just stitch in a ditch (the "birds").

I impulsively added some waves or curls in the border that came out...OK. I sort of steam-rolled them and was not always precise. Still, to an impartial observer they look alright. I am annoyed by the areas where the darker fabric in the seams shows through the yellow, and I guess I'll have to watch that next time.

*(Here's a picture of the massing I was talking about: a convergence of 4 triangles equals a bunch of area to quilt. I tried a feather wreath and it came out alright.)