Surprise Quilt

I found a quilt shop in my area last week. All the quilting and sewing I've been doing lately and I hadn't bothered until last week to see if I had a local quilt shop. I've already spent a load of money in the shop and I've only been in twice. Though in my defense I purchased a quilting frame for my machine, so that was an investment. Hopefully it will help me be twice as productive.

This morning I went in with a quilt top that I finished about a month ago. I've been looking for quilt backing, but just haven't been happy with what I've found. I finally just bought some muslin in desperation, ugh so boring. There are no pictures posted yet of the quilt top because it's a surprise, but here's a little sneak peek at what I found this morning for the back. I went in looking for something mundane but interesting...was about to give up when I spotted this. Mundane: Fail!

Please don't think I've gone insane.

Productive Weekend

I work from home. You may have already known that. Working from home has many MANY benefits. My favorite is that when lunchtime comes around I can turn on Court TV (TruTV), watch an hour of courtroom proceedings, eat a bite, and work on "stuff". I usually have Wednesdays and Fridays off, but I'm currently working at getting myself a surplus of days so that I can go to California for a month and not have to work the whole time I'm there. So, this last Friday I was working. At lunch I stopped and started cutting and piecing a Christmas "Mix-Tape" quilt (a jump start on Christmas). After my hour I went back to my desk and found myself making all sorts of crazy mistakes. Spelling, thinking, not thinking - whatever I was spending as much time correcting myself as I was working. Maybe I had that quilt on my mind... Whatever it was at 3:00 I gave up. I thought, "I'm not even supposed to be here today"! (This line must be whined like Dante Hicks). Two hours short of a full day of work I stopped working. I can work for 2 hours on the weekend when I'm "fresh". lol. So - I sat down and cut and pieced the rest of that Christmas quilt top. Took a little break to watch the rest of a movie I'd Tivo'd ("The Painted Veil" with Edward Norton. If you've seen the movie you'll understand why I watched it in two parts - good, but kinda slow.) Yeah, I cut and pieced that entire quilt top in an afternoon. I'm loving that Mix Tape quilt pattern. In my back room I have 2 plastic storage boxes of novelty Christmas fabric. I know it's cheesy - but I have a real soft spot for it. If you've seen my living room at Christmastime you'd understand why. Between the quick pattern and all that Christmas fabric I think there may be at least a couple more Christmas lap quilts made this year.

After the high of completing an entire quilt top in a day I thought that I should be working on something that's actually on my "roundtoit" list. I've had Bran's aunt's doll for almost two years now and all I've done is patch her. I gave myself a deadline to have this doll finished, otherwise she'll just sit around here forever (not that I'd complain). Two years is really too long to hold on to something you're working on for someone else. But, I'm doing all this work for free, she can just wait. lol. I plan on having the doll done for Thanksgiving this year. That will be the two year anniversary of her handing the doll over to me. Both of Diane's sons have had little girls this year and I was able to complete baby quilts for both of them - so I'll make this the year that the doll is finished as well. This week I started working on the doll's costuming. I started stockings earlier in the week, and yesterday I made most of the corset. I screwed up the corset once in the afternoon which forced me to stop in frustration for a couple hours. Frustrated because noooOOOoooo I couldn't screw up the lining from muslin, I had to screw up the outer part from a limited amount of vintage material. So at 11:00 pm last night I finished the bulk of the corset. It needs a little handwork done, then the corset will be complete. I took plenty of pictures - maybe someday I'll post a tutorial on making doll corsets.

D'oh!

I'm a reasonably intelligent person. Well, at least I believe that I am. So, how, after checking the remains of the linen I had from the last quilt top I completed am I short by 8 blocks? It's not much - but when I checked last night I thought I had more than enough - like twice as much as I needed. I must have been tired, or hungry, or possibly in need of a drink. Whatever it was I screwed up the numbers big time. I went to order more from Fabric.com and they're sold out. Well bummer. I have enough scraps to piece together what I need to get all 80 squares of this new hourglass quilt finished, so I guess I'll do that. I was going to post this quilt for sale, but if I have to scrounge for bits and pieces I guess I may just have to give this quilt away. Or, keep it for myself. I just won't feel right selling something I don't think is good enough.

I started the hourglass quilt yesterday, after I completed the "other" Mix Tape quilt top I've been working on. I need to get some fabric to back the latest Mix Tape quilt with. But, the person I'd really like to ask for their opinion is going to be the recipient. So now what?

Mix-Tape Quilt Complete

OK, so here it is, the completed Mix-Tape Quilt. I'm still working on another one. I'll probably have that one done in a couple weeks. I really hate working on quilts as big as this one, but I love them when they're done. Though, I almost always have a problem with the backs - part of the reason I don't do pieced backs. The backs always bunch up on me while I'm quilting and I get these puckers that end up being sewn over. They're a mess. I usually spend time picking stitches when I'm done and easing the fabric. Then once washed they look OK, but this one. This one is bad. So Bran gets it. I told him last week - you know what would stop this? A quilting frame! lol. Maybe I'll get one for Christmas. Probably about then I'll be bored with quilting though and will have moved on to something else. lol.

If you're interested in this pattern you can find it on Etsy in Oh, Fransson's shop. She's the bomb. The mack daddy bomb.

Frustrated

Ok, so I started the sashing on the Mix-Tape Quilt. I actually got half of the quilt sashed and started the second half this evening. Well...somehow I cut some of them about 1/4 too small, and of course I didn't notice until after I'd completed all the vertical sashing. I'm just so frustrated. I'm going to have to rip out a row and a half of sashing...and 10 minutes ago I was so excited that I'd gotten so much done today. Grrrr...

Well, here's a photo of the top half sashed. Correctly. lol

Mixtape Quilt(s)

I very recently bought a quilt pattern from Oh, Fransson called Mixtape Quilts. She also held the Mod-Sampler quilt along that I participated in earlier this year. The Mod-Sampler quilt is yet to be finished. I made the mistake of leaving the quilt top out on Mother's day when my in-laws came over. My mother-in-law loved the quilt, and then said "I have this sheet". (I pieced the Mod-Sampler quilt with vintage sheets). Well actually my sister-in-law now has the sheet. My mother-in-law offered it to me as a backing to the quilt, which I think will look nice if the sheet is in good enough condition. But, it's been actively used for 20 years or so...so, I'm a little scared. Anywhoo, I thought I'd put off finishing the quilt until I got the sheet so that I could make a decision. However, if I don't have that sheet in the next month I'm going to go ahead and back it with the sheet I already purchased.

OK, back to the Mixtape Quilt. I cut and pieced this yesterday. Yeah, yesterday. This is half the quilt, all that would fit on my dining room table so that I could look and the block/color placement. I think it's random enough that I'm going to go ahead and put the quilt top together without looking at all the blocks together. Of course I'll lay out the other half of the quilt and take a picture of it as well. This quilt is pieced mostly with vintage sheets. I love the funkiness of the prints. Actually the fat quarters I purchased were marked as vintage/upcycled sheets - but some of the fabrics are suspect. As in I suspect some of them may have been cheap, dollar a yard, fabrics from Wal-Mart. But, if they hold up to washings then fine, I don't care because they all look adorable.

I have also pieced the blocks for a second Mixtape Quilt. But, that one's a secret...for now.

Little Lambs

I finished baby quilt #6 last night. The baby shower is tomorrow and I had actually scheduled myself as finishing the binding today - so I'm ahead of schedule! Yay me. Obviously the baby's name is going to be Kate. I found the little lambs on Flickr, adjusted them a little to fit my idea, then found a free font, put the two together and voila, cute baby embroidery pattern. The rest of the quilt is whole cloth and quilted in my usual free motion quilting style. Cute, don't you think?

Tomorrow is both the baby shower and father's day. Lucky for me, my mother-in-law and Bran's grandmother were invited to the shower as well. So, we're all going to travel together. After the shower I'll host father's day at my house for the in-laws. I figured I'll serve steaks: I'll make Bran grill them, broccoli: steamed in the nuker for a couple minutes, German Potato Salad: I'll whip that up this afternoon, and home-made strawberry ice-cream: I'll get that going this afternoon - all that, it should be pretty easy - and basically all done before tomorrow. :)

Happy Father's Day everyone!