single girl update

I wasn't going to blog today but then I started folded laundry and realized that a little bit of watery fall light was coming through the window, perfectly accenting the quilting on my single girl.

So here she is all quilted, bound, and done.  Already covered in dirt in some spots thanks to the cats.  And done.  Did I mention done?  So glad it's done.

After much back and forth I went with the blue flea market fancy stripe.  I realized that what had been holding me back from deciding was that while I love this quilt I just wasn't in love with it anymore.  So consequently I didn't care all that much what it was bound with.  So why the blue stripe?  That's what I had the most of.  Decision by default I guess.

have an awesome weekend,
c

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single girl choices

I've finally finished quilting my single girl!  After months of agonizing over how to quilt it I decided that something simple really would be best.  Denyse's designs always seem to want simple quilting, I don't know why I fought that for so long.

Now I have to pick the perfect binding.  Normally I know right away what I want to bind a quilt with.  This one I'm stumped.  Ideally I'd use a hot pink with white polka dots, but since that special flower doesn't live in my stash, I'm hoping one of these will work.

Sandi Henderson plaid.  I used this in the rings so I like the continuity, but I wonder if it's too fussy?

Pink pezzy print.  I wonder if this is just too much white against the linen.

Blue flea market fancy vines. 

Pink flea market fancy vines.

I really thought after looking at all the photos something would jump out at me as being perfect.  They're all good but none of them seem quite right.  What do you think?

xox,
c

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From pieces to pieced

My single girl is done!  Well, the piecing is at least.  And I'm psyched! 

Now comes the big debate.  Hand quilt or machine quilt?  I really think this is just begging for big colourful hand stitching.  But...

See that?  I know, it's not the best quality photo.  Anyways.  My big orange cat Tron likes to roll in dirt.  Then come and sleep on our bed.  I've washed this quilt at least once every 2 weeks.  I just don't know if hand quilting can stand up to that.  And I don't know of any way of keeping Tron off the bed that wouldn't get me in trouble with the SPCA.

ciao,
C

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Working girl

Finally! I've finished sewing all my arcs.  Twenty blocks doesn't sound like a lot, and it didn't feel like that many until it came to the curved seems.  But they're done and I've started on sewing the quadrants together.  Woot!

I sort of had the quads all over the place as I was finishing them up, and it made me realize you can make some pretty awesome alternate layouts with these quads.  Exhitbit A:  the snakey layout.  Original name, I know, but isn't that a fun layout?  And I can just see it with some gorgeous feathered plumes meandering between the snakes.

Exhibit B:  Mod thingies.  I'm sure this sort of pattern has an official name, but... yeah, thingies.  I'm so going to make this one!  I was planning on doing another single girl in greys, navy, baby blue, and chartreuse, but now I'm going to do the same colour scheme but this layout.  Love it, and it needs less of the arcs!

Thanks again to everyone who's been entering the giveaway.  Good luck!  And stay tuned - next month there'll be one involving horseys.

Ciao bellas,
C

this post's awesome count: 1

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How many are too many?

I have a bit of quilt ADD.  Right now I have 4 quilt tops on the go, one more that the fabric has been ordered for, and about 65 ideas floating around on my hard drive, on scraps of paper, and in my head.  It's probably not the most efficient way of working, but I've always been like this.

So, the most obvious project is my single girl quilt.  I've got more than half of the quadrants sewn and I'm pushing myself to get the rest done this weekend.  The husband is out of town so this might be a bit of a challenge.  Sure, I don't have to talk to him or cook anything more advance than oatmeal, but it means I'm also the only one on dog patrol.

The second is a yellow and grey version of Freckled Whimsy's recent Moda Bake Shop pattern.  Jamie actually saw the pattern on the counter and was excited.  Until he realized the "recipe" wasn't for cookies.  Hmm, I guess I need to add human cookies to this weekend's roster (dog cookies are already on it).

The third is a crazy nine patch I started in December and am working on quilting.  I am so sick of this quilt, though!  I really want to ditch it into ufo territory, but I think I'll try to finish it.

The final one is a yellow hexagon quilt using big (5") hexies.  I'm still in the fabric collection and cutting phase on this one, though.

So that's it.  Four on the go, one in the queue and about a billion brewing.  You?

PS:  Stay tuned because tomorrow I'll be posting my 1st giveaway!

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Single girl marches on

Week 3.  Sewing the arcs.  Fun.

Ok,ok,it's not that bad.  Just, I hate pinning.  And you really need to pin these mofos.  I have a nail polish called Adios Mofo and I really should wear it while I'm working on these.  I mean they're coming along and all, but... yeah, mofo.



Anyway I have one whole block done ( I just needed to see them all together) and almost all of the first quadrants done.  If I can get off my butt I may actually finish them all before Gossip Girl.  Maybe.



As you can see from the photo I had some major rippling in my block.  Don't see it?  Check this one out:



Yeah.

So I made up a template of what the arcs should look like.  And realized that mine are way off.  I tend to sew a scant ¼" which is fine when things are rotary cut since I cut tight.  But with tracing the templates my pieces all ended up a little big and I should have been sewing a generous ¼".  I ended up having to cut ¼" to ½" off each end of my arcs!!  But at least the blocks lie flat now.  And this solution was way faster than my original idea of going back and re-sewing each seam.  That was a bad, bad idea.



Hopefully by Friday I'll have these all sewn up.  Until then anyone have a suggestion for where to order perle cotton?  That ships to Canada?

adios mofos,
C

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Let's go, Single Girl!

Yes, the fabric finally arrived, a big bundle of fat quarters from Sew Deerly Loved!  And after about 3 hours it was all cut.  Woohoo!  The cutting really is the most boring part of this whole thing.  Thankfully I have a tv in the kitchen.  Although that could also account for a few of the cutting mistakes I made! 

Actually, maybe picking out the fabric order is the hardest part.  That red with white and black flowers kept getting moved around and around until I finally just pulled it altogether.  I eventually want to do a red and aqua quilt, so no big.

The first of the arcs are done.  All 20.  Yup, king sized.  I'm hemming and hawing about hand quilting this one using perle cotton and big stitches.  I just love all the examples that I've seen.  Any hand quilting I've done in the past I've been so obsessed about tiny, tiny (like 16 per inch) stitches that this could be a nice departure.  And faster!  Anyway, 60 more arcs to sew.  I doubt I'll get them done this week as we're heading to Seattle for a bit.

And despite the whining, I'm actually thinking of making another one of these!  I've been seeing so many gorgeous colour schemes and started rethinking my own choices.  I'm particularly drawn to the combo of grey, navy, aqua, and chartreuse.  Yum.

ciao bellas,
C

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Testing the single girl

 

I took a little too long to make my fabric choices for my single girl so the fabric still hasn't landed.  Well, it has, but it arrived when I was out walking the dog this morning, so it's back at the post office.  I'll be picking it up tomorrow but I just couldn't wait.  I really, really wanted to get going on it this morning and decided to do a test block from some of my stash fabrics.

I think it looks pretty good.  Not great (it's been a long time since I tackled a curved seam), but pretty good.  I'm really glad I did the sample.  It made me realize that cutting the background pieces a little big and trimming them down is going to be a really good idea.  And that all that stress about getting 36 different fabrics was pretty pointless.  This is 14 ... 15?  And really you don't notice the repeats all that much.  And, wow, that's one big block!  Photos really don't show just how big they really are.

So, tomorrow the real one starts.  Woot!  I'm even more psyched now that I've done my test block. 

See ya,
C

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Single girl quilt along day one

Typical with everything I do, I've started my single girl quilt.  Sort of.  The thing is my fabric hasn't arrived yet.  So I've cut a few pieces from my stash but I need to wait, patiently or impatiently for the bulk of my fabric to arrive.  Which really sucks!  Especially because today would have been the perfect day to get all that cutting done.  The dog's at the vet with tummy trouble and the house doesn't need cleaning.  It's been one of those days so free and clear that I've actually felt a little paralyzed.  What do you do when there's nothing you need to do but you can't do the thing you want to do?  Aaaaargh!

I wanted to get started on Sunday but hadn't picked up any template plastic yet.  Deli lids anyone?  This actually works pretty well, but since I only had one clear lid, it obviously wasn't the solution.  So today I bought plastic and cut out all my templates.  If you look closely at my templates you'll notice some of them have weird notes.  I realized that they could easily be flipped and the pieces cut incorrectly.  So for letters that read the same flipped I wrote a little nemonic note.  M (ehm), A (eh), X (sex).  Labelling the pieces with a paper label or just a piece of tape would have solved the right side/wrong side issue, too.  But I didn't think of that until I was done.

Katy from I'm a ginger monkey has the official post about cutting these, but I figured I'd share my insights.  Number one: save fabric!  Oh, sure, it's probably smarter to follow some sort of grain lines, but I'm butting my pieces up against each other.

Number 2: right side up.  See what I did in the photo above?  Don't do that!  Half of my pieces came out flipped and useless.  It's great to cut multiple layers at once.  Just make sure all the layers are right side up!  Oh, and hopefully your mani looks better than mine!

So, yup, that's me for now.  4 stacks down, 26 to go.  Come on Canada Post!

See ya,
C

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Well, hello!

Please excuse me but I've just had my butt handed to me. The flu landed in our house and left me shaking like a newborn kitten and moaning like a bad drunk.. Friday I was awake all of 7 hours (and not at one stretch). Saturday I sat in bed and moaned. Saturday night I kept waking up because everything ached. My bones. My muscles. My skin. Have you ever woken up because the sheets hurt your skin? Not pleasant. So I haven't been getting much sewing done.

I have done a little online shopping, though. Yup, if I'm conscious enough to fumble away at my ipod, I will buy stuff. It turns out Kerri from Sew Deerly Loved is dealing with a bundle of sick kiddos, so I'm not sure how much she'll appreciate my order of 20 fat quarters. Can you imagine 6 sick kids? I'm going into panic mode just thinking about it! But I needed to get organized for my single girl quilt, and those 20 fat quarters sure will work. The called for 36 fat quarters seems a little nuts, but I'll deal. Those 20 will be supplemented with fabrics from my stash and probably some I pick up on our trip to Seattle on the 25th. I know, I know. Cutting starts on the 14th. Tough! Now, before I pass out, a pic of the fabrics I picked up, plus a few from the stash I know I'll be using:

I still need to order the backing fabric, which I think will be essex linen in natural. And add some more oranges and pinks, which is easy since I have so many.

love and sneezes,

C

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