Workshop in Progress - 3/9

I went on retreat a couple of weeks ago with seven of my closest friends.  And it was....amazing, awesome, productive, refreshing, renewing and so much more.  I grew up as a bit of a tomboy and as a result had always had very few women friends.  As a kid and young adult, I related to more traditionally male interests than female.  I don't care a lot about makeup, fashion, jewelry, things like that.  I love cars, power tools, sports.  But somehow, over the last few years (coinciding with my quilting interest....)I began to develop friendships with women.  Amazing women, caring women, funny (okay hilarious) women.  And it's a wonderful thing.  The four days I spent with these seven women were just what I needed.  I laughed until I was crying several times over the long weekend.  And I got a lot of sewing done.  A lot!  We stayed at a very cute little place we have gone to several times now.  It's called The 1890's House and it's very close to DFW, making it a perfect getaway.  Everything you might need is very close by, but yet you feel as if you are way out in the country.

I spent most of the weekend working on my Mariners Compass Quilt.  Its a Kaffe Fasset quilt from his book Museum Quilts.  The quilt went from this stage to this:

It's already huge and I still need to put one more border on it.  All in all, I think I got a lot done in four days.  I posted about this quilt a few weeks ago on the Workshop in Progress and was debating whether or not to try and quilt it myself.  Well, I'm about 99% sure that I am going to quilt it here on my Bernina.  I have put so much work into this, that I just want to see it through to the end and I want it to be all my work.  I have some ideas in my head about a pattern to quilt it with, but am very undecided on that aspect of it right now.  Thoughts?  It's pretty busy, so I think the quilting will be secondary and won't really need anything very elaborate.

Workshop in Progress -2/16

I'm sad to say I missed a couple of Workshop's in Progress.  I didn't mean to, I just got so busy that I didn't have time to post.  And I was actually working on some things.  I do have a question this week, though.  I have been hand quilting my Nicey Jane Quilt and I love the way it's coming along.  (wish I could be working on it, but see yesterday's post for why I can't).  I outlined each pinwheel 1/4" from the edge with Pearl Cotton #8

and then I came back in to each square and did a series of four circles, each 1" larger than the previous.

My question is this:  What should I do in the borders?  I'm thinking of doing a fan or maybe some feathers. But I'm just not sure.  I'm totally open to suggestions.  This border is four inches wide and I had cut the strips too short and had to come up with that funny little wedge in the corner since I didn't have enough of the blue fabric to cut new borders.  It doesn't show up too much in this picture.

So, what would you guys do?

Too Much

Well, I admit it...I can occasionally become obsessed with things.  And I've done it recently with my Nicey Jane Quilt I told you about here.  I have had the top layered up for awhile, but became obsessed with that crewel pillow I bought on Ebay.  A few weeks ago, I got the quilt back out and started hand quilting it with Pearl Cotton #8 in white.  It's fun to do and I had forgotten how much I enjoy hand quilting.  It gives me a project to work on while G and I watch TV at night.  But....I think I may have gone overboard, cause this is what my finger looks like right now.

See how red and swollen that knuckle is?  The finger won't even bend very far.  It's been like that for days and I still keep coming home and quilting every night.  What is wrong with me?  I have decided to let the finger rest for a few days (sob) and see if it gets better.  I'm thinking I can still work on my hexagon project while I waiting, right?

G and I had a quiet Valentines day at home.  I picked up a wonderful salad with fresh grilled flank steak on the way home and we watched the latest Masterpiece Theater.  It was really good.  It's called Any Human Heart.  We just finished watching the last Masterpiece Theater series; Downton Abbey.  Also really good and they say they are in production for a second season of that one.  It was so beautifully shot, gorgeous scenery, beautiful costumes.  And then this is what I made for desert.  Tahitian Vanilla Bean Gelato with my homemade hot fudge sauce and chopped walnuts.  YUM!

Workshop in Progress - 2/2

Okay, week two of the commitment and here I am posting again!  I am SO impressed with myself....well, we will see how I am doing three months from now!  I started the next border on the quilt I posted last week.  This border has curved seams and when I first started on the quilt a couple of years ago, I thought I would hand piece this one because of the curved seams.  But, I found these cool templates.  Then I treated myself to that rotary cutting mat that spins.  I waited for the 50% off sale at JoAnn's and bought it then.  I LOVE it.  It really makes the job easy when you are cutting all the way around a template.  Usually, I just try and contort my arms around the whole thing and then I end up with the piece way out of kilter.

So, check out my first attempt at this tiny curved seam....

I only have to make 109 more of these for Border No 5 in this quilt.  I don't really have a question for this week's workshop, just posting progress on a quilt I started on five years ago!

I also signed up for the Create! A Project a Day that Scrap Studio is hosting.  She issued a challenge to do something creative every day in February.  I signed up because I thought it might "unblock" me.  I certainly could use a jumpstart these days.  So, on Day 1 I sewed up the completed crewel into a pillow.  I didn't have the correct sized pillow insert but I wanted to shoot a pic for the blog so I put the next size down into it.

As soon as the ice melts, I'll run out and get a bigger pillow form.

A little crewel

Sometime last year I was over at some quilter friend's hanging out and she was working on this beautiful crewel pillow.  When I questioned her about it, she told me she got it off of Ebay and that it was from the 70's.  Guess what I did the minute I got home?  Yep, did an Ebay search and bought myself a couple of crewel pillow kits!  I love these older kits from the 60's & 70's.   And I really am amazed at the quality of materials in them.  Unfortunately, that is not the case with most kits you find today.  The linen on this pillow kit is thick and soft and a nice weave.  The yarn is pure wool and the zipper has a heavy cotton twill tape and metal teeth!  It came with some lovely velvet piping for the edge of the pillow.  I gave you all a brief glimpse of this kit in this post.  I had only done a few of the flowers on the pillow top.  Here is what it looks like now

I love how it came out!  I can't wait to see this pillow on my sofa.  I hope to be able to get it finished this week. The colors make me feel all happy inside.  

And considering that we are supposed to drop to 25 degrees over the next 24 hours and have ice on the roads tomorrow, I think this pillow will really brighten up the winter days.  Now, on to the next project......

Workshop In Progress - 1/26

I signed up for the Workshop in Progress over at Naptime Quilter's blog.  I did this a couple of weeks ago in an effort to spur myself back into blogging.  And then, I didn't post anything the past two weeks!  Typical me....what can I say?  I have put this on my list of things to work on for 2011.  Follow through, doing what you say you will do.  So, I am throwing it out there to you all.  Now, you know a deep dark secret about me.  I start a lot of things and don't finish them.  I sign up for stuff and then don't do it.  Eck, I don't like that about myself.  So, I'm going to think long and hard before I sign up for stuff or say yes to a request for my time.  And when I do sign up or say yes, I'm going to do it.

So even though I missed the first couple of weeks, I'm jumping in now to Workshop in Progress Wednesdays.  This is a project I started almost two years ago.  It was a kit I bought at the Houston International Quilt Show in 2005!  It's on my list of quilts to complete this year.  G. absolutely loves this quilt and I am going to finish it this year and put it on our bed.

It's a medallion quilt that starts with a center block and then borders are added around and around.  It will be an extremely large quilt when it's done.  And it is extremely detailed!  That last border took hours and hours.  First, cutting all of those pieces and then they are sewn together using y-seams.  Very tedious....
The center was paper pieced.

There are three more borders and then I have to decide how I'm going to quilt it.  And if I will attempt to quilt it myself or send it off to a long arm quilter.  I have always thought that if I bothered to piece a top, I needed to quilt it myself or else it wasn't truly my quilt.  But, queen sized quilts are quite challenging to quilt on a domestic sewing machine.  What do you guys think?

M.

Unplanned Break

Without really meaning to, I seem to have taken an almost 6 week break from blogging.  Not sure what happened, life I guess.....I sort of lost my creative vibe for several weeks and with it went any desire to blog.  Go figure.  Tonight, I was hand quilting the Nicey Jane quilt and watching Julie & Julia and G asked me what my challenge was going to be for this year.  And a few of you have written asking what happened to me.  So, here I am, back in the saddle again.  I've actually been thinking quite a bit about what I wanted to set as goals for this year.  Still haven't come to a concrete decision yet, but I'm working on it.  I'll be posting about that soon.

For now, I thought I'd tell you a little more about my New York trip.  It truly was such a magical trip.  G & I had an absolute blast the entire trip.  So, where did I leave off?  Oh yeah, the World Trade Center site.  From there, we headed back into Soho.  We found ourselves at Purl Soho (okay, I planned to whole thing, no WAY was I going to be in NY and not go to Purl Soho.)  Can you tell how excited I was?

I bought a cool little coin purse frame and G bought me that gorgeous stack of Liberty of London that Purl put together for the Color Wheel Quilt.  I swear, I think that has to be my next project.  After I soaked up all of PS, it was off to Shoegasm.  (Best name for a shoe store I ever hear of!!!!)

Those adorable little boots on my feet?  Got them at Shoegasm! We another fantastic meal, this time at Asia De Cuba.  The food was amazing and it was such a cool space.  If you are in New York, I highly recommend this place.  We started off with a crispy duck appetiser and for the entree we had a seared ahi tuna with wasabi mashed potatoes.  YUM!  I was so excited about the food, I forgot to get a pic of our plate, but it was gorgeous.

And that was the end of day two of my Christmas in New York trip.  I'll wrap up the trip next post.

Can I just say, it's really good to be back in blogland.  I missed you guys!

M.