Friday Finish - a small one at any rate

at some point in the past, i had decided i wanted to make a fabric basket.  so, since i seem to use lists to motivate me to get things done, i added making a fabric basket to my list of sewing goals for this week.  and, behold! despite continuing to struggle with the flu,  i got one done!

using this tutorial i made the basket you see above.  i did make some modifications in how i made my basket.  first, while i tried the quilt as you go method, i very quickly grew tired of the starts and stops.  instead, i pieced a patchwork fabric large enough to cup my pieces from.  then, i layered a piece of cotton canvas duck fabric, a medium weight interfacing, and a cotton batting scrap, them placed my patchwork piece on top and quilted it using random straight lines.  i did not interface my lining, though.

turns out, the canvas duck fabric AND the interfacing were a bit of overkill and made pressing the top edge of the basket and topstitching a huge pain!  next time i'd just use muslin and interfacing like the tutorial suggests.

nonetheless, i'm fairly pleased with my basket.  i especially love the panel below, which sadly ended up on the bottom of the basket.  it's got a bit of hoarded Heather Ross frogs and lily pads, a piece of yellow wood grain, and some Anna Maria Horner voile!



all in all, it took about two and a half hours to make the basket, but i'm pretty sure a fair bit of that was learning curve, so future baskets should go more quickly!  these would be great to store fat quarters, scraps, spools of thread, notions, pretty much anything, and it would be simple to re-size for whatever your needs!

WIP Wednesday

i have a new and fun project in the works!  on saturday, january 18, 2014, jessica darling of austin came to the Houston Modern Quilt Guild for a color theory lecture and workshop.  even though i coordinated the event, all i knew was that we were to bring fabric scraps and that we would be working with color.

boy, was i in for a surprise!  when we took a break for lunch, after she had shown some quilts made by herself and others and talked a bit about her own personal history with color usage in quilting, jessica had all of us (there were about 36) dump our scraps into a big pile in the middle of the room.

after lunch, jessica led us to the pile and pulled fabrics to show us how she wanted us to work.  she asked us each to choose a fabric that would be the "party hostess" in our quilt.  she explained it something like this:  you go to a party hosted by a friend, and she's the only one you know well.  you do, however, know a few of her other friends who are there well enough to say hi, ask about their kids, job, whatever.  then those people have friends, too, that you don't know yet.  so your party hostess fabric is the one that's going to tie all of the other fabrics together.

for my party hostess fabric, i picked up a chunk of this lovely print from Denyse Schmidt's Flea Market Fancy line that someone had brought:

then, i went around the big pile picking out scraps that drew from the colors in this piece.  i picked other mustard-y yellows, greys, corals, peaches, browns.  those were the friends of the hostess that you knew just a bit.

those fabrics led me to others.  these were the friends of friends.

i carried my selected scraps back to my worktable and got down to business.  i cut, sewed, cut, re-sewed and basically improv pieced until i had a squarish bit roughly 12-15" on each side.

i had a few of these larger pieces done by the time the workshop was over and it was time to pack up. after i got home,i pulled out my "blocks" and my remaining scraps and got back to work.  i had to add a couple of more scraps from my own stash to fill out the quilt (less than a 12" square total), but i was able to get a 44" x 57" top pieced together.

as you can see, i did end up with several of the prints from the reprint line of Flea Market Fancy in there, but i also added on scraps from the designer's Florence line, and other completely unrelated fabrics.  i was able to incorporate bits of text fabrics, which are some of my favorites, but mostly i was working outside of my comfort zone here.

i used both browns and greys, together, because both appeared in my party hostess fabric.  it really hurt to use them together in a quilt, but i'm pleased with the result.  i never, ever would have paired some of the fabrics i used together without this workshop.  for example, the floral party hostess fabric with the diagonal stripe you see two large pieces of.  nonetheless, i love how the top turned out!  there are some fabrics i wish i hadn't used, especially a rusty orange grunge-like blender that appears in the upper right and lower middle of the quilt, but even that's not so bad when you look at the quilt as a whole.

i've picked out a grey print from one of Denyse Schmidt's lines for Jo-Ann that i bought two bolts of for the largest part of the backing, though i'll have to add a strip to the width, probably some kind of mustard yellow print.  i've got binding picked out, too.  i plan to have this finished by the third saturday in February, as the Houston Modern Quilt Guild issued a challenge to the attendees of the workshop to come to the February meeting with a finished project to be entered into a drawing for a prize.

with a bit of focus, in two fridays you could be seeing the finished quilt!

The Weekly List

having been super sick all week, i didn't get any sewing done since last sunday. i also didn't have a "weekly list" post last sunday.  it's been a week full of sleeping, coughing, more sleeping, reading and snuggling with cats.

i still feel exceptionally crappy, so i'm not too concerned with getting much sewing done this week.  thankfully, i got ahead with the Feathers QAL, so that being sick hasn't put me behind!

goals for this week:

---> finish Blocks K & L for Feathers QAL
---> make a fabric basket using this tutorial

i think i'll leave it at that for this week!

Saturday Stash Status

wow.  it seems like i haven't posted in forever!  it's only been a week and a half or so, but i've been super sick, still am in fact, and haven't been online hardly at all, much less getting any sewing done!

anyhow, since i missed last saturday's stash status post, i've got two weeks' worth of reporting:

Weeks ending January 18 and January 25, 2013

stash used or disposed of: 

--- 5 3/8 yards Little Apples fabric destashed
--- 1/2 yd Denyse Schmidt fabric traded to friend
--- 6 yds scraps contributed to workshop (this is an estimate, as i didn't know we were combining our fabrics, and may be on the low side.)
--- 5 yds robots fabric (old WIP plus coordinates) given to friend

stash acquired:

--- 1 7/8 yds orange sketch-like fabric
---1/2 yd extra scraps brought home from workshop
--- 1 1/2 yds Fat Eighth bundle received in trade for Denyse Schmidt fabric

The Weekly List

i'm a day late on my list because we went to round top yesterday to visit M's aunt charlotte.  i was finally able to take her the quilt i made for her months ago!  she was so very pleased, and it turns out it matched her new pink leather couch amazingly!  yes, she does have a new pink leather couch!

i meant to take a picture of her with her quilt, but completely forgot until we'd already left!

despite not having too much sewing time, i made good progress on things last week.  i finished the sherbet pips cushion cover, and it's recipient received it on saturday in the post.  i got ahead of the game with the Feathers QAL and finished all of my blocks A-I, and just have two more J blocks!

Once again, i did NOT get the grandmother's flower garden quilt quilted.  i just can't decide how to quilt it!

goals for this week:

---> finish J, K & L feathers blocks
---> pick a quilting design for grandmother's flower garden quilt
---> start picking fabrics for a Scrappy Bear Paw quilt

Meal Plan Monday

Continuing this week with trying to eat up stuff in out freezer AND eat healthier:

Monday - Tamale Pie Casserole, side salads

Tuesday - Creamy Tomato Basil Soup, homemade bread, salad

Wednesday - chicken breasts, broccoli, rice side dish

Thursday - pork chops, salad, green beans, rice or stuffing side dish

Friday - Date Night

Saturday - chili

Sunday - chicken and sausage jambalaya, side salads

Saturday Stash Status

Week ending January 11, 2013

stash used: 1 yd (two feather mini quilts)
                 1.125 yd (Sherbet Pips cushion cover plus extra charms given to friend)
                 NOTE: I'm not counting the fabric I'm using in my quilt for the Feathers QAL.  I'll add it all at the end when I'm finished!

stash acquired: 0.125 yds (scraps from friend)
                       5.33 yds Kona Pewter for background of Feathers QAL quilt

Friday Finish

last weekend i played around with a Sherbet Pips charm pack and cut each charm into quarters and laid out 81 of the pieces to make a cushion cover.

i got the squares pieced together, then quilted them using an orange peel design.  i cut a template out of paper and laid it on my fabric and traced lightly with a pencil.  super helpful, as i can't manage this design without having lines to follow!  i did the quilting with a medium grey thread, which allows it to show up a bit.

after i got the front quilted, i added piping (store bought since i had a package of white on hand), and made a hidden zipper back.

this one's 18" square, and i'm pretty pleased with how it turned out!  admittedly, the phot looks a bit wonky, but it's a) the crappy lighting in my sewing room and b) because i had to wash the cover to remove the quilting lines i drew, and i took the picture without the cover being stuffed with a pillow form!

Meal Plan Monday

with the new year comes a renewed effort on my part to eat healthier, lose weight, etc.  further, we are being gifted a whole deer by one of M's friends, since M didn't kill one this year, so we need to be working on cleaning out or freezers in the next week or so.  thus, the meal plan posts to help keep me sorted.

Monday - Baked Potato Soup with side salads.  I use this recipe but sometimes I cheat and just boil the potatoes in the broth instead of baking them.  Either way,we LOVE this soup!
Tuesday - Ribeye Steaks, green beans, side salad, mashed potatoes or stuffing
Wednesday - Pasta et Fagioli soup
Thursday - baked, stuffed pork chops, salad, green beans
Friday - we'll eat out for a friend's bday
Saturday - dinner out with a friend
Sunday - we'll probably be visiting M's Aunt Charlotte on Sunday, so we'll eat with her.

The Weekly List

i don't know about y'all, but i had a super productive first week of the year!  as for the things on my list, i did make a backing and binding for my catvent quilt, and i also ordered my background fabric for the Feathers QAL (though i changed my mind and went with Kona Pewter) and decided on a color scheme for the QAL and picked fabrics.  while i didn't manage the other items on my list, i did make not one but two mini quilts for gifts using some shrunken blocks from the Feathers pattern.

here's the first one i made:



it uses the colors and fabrics i'll be using for the QAL.

here's the second one, made with all Anna Maria Horner prints, which was gifted to a dear friend for her birthday:



i totally love both of them and have plans to make one for myself.  M said they would make pretty placemats, but there's not enough scotchguard in the world to protect these from messy eaters in this house!

i also made good progress on a cushion cover from a Sherbet Pips charm pack:



and, of course, i made time for naps with cats:



this week i hope to continue in this vein of productivity!

goals for the week:

---> make A & B blocks and C & D blocks for Feathers QAL
---> finish Sherbet Pips cushion cover
---> quilt Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt

Saturday Stash Status

A new tracking measure on my blog will be a weekly wrap-up of how much stash fabric i used in the preceding week.  While I'll continue to keep trackers on the sidebar, this will be a weekly "check", if you will, to keep me on track with my goal to use up 120 yards of stash fabric this year, as well as my corresponding goal to limit new fabric purchases.  it should also help me to keep honest on the sidebar trackers, as sometimes it's hard for me to remember whether or not i counted something!

Week ending January 4, 2013

stash used: 4 yds (backing/binding for Catvent quilt)

stash acquired: 1.25 yds (stocking gifts from M received 1/1)

A Year of Finishes

when i updated my WIPs lists on my blog sidebar this week, i was surprised by how short those lists seemed - a good feeling.  i decided to look a bit closer at things.

at this time last year, i had 6 WIPs from the preceding year, and 17 from all years prior, for a total of 23 WIPs.  that's a lot!  this year, i'm starting off with 5 from 2013 and a measly 9 from all years prior!

that means i finished 14 WIPs, in addition to all the new projects i started AND finished in 2013.  pretty prolific year, if i do say so myself!

here's the actual quilts i finished this year, though there are 4 that didn't get photographed (the total number of quilts finished is 25:



here's some smaller things and garments i finished this year:



when i see all of these pictures together, i realize just how much i really did accomplish this year!

Happy New Year - 2014 Resolutions

it's that time of year again folks, where many of us set goals to achieve throughout the upcoming year.

here's mine for 2014.  you'll see some that carry over from 2013, because i did not succeed in achieving them last year, and some new ones as well!

i'm breaking them down into categories again, as that worked well for me last year.

financial:
1.  make maximum contributions to pre-tax retirement funds
2.  attempt (again) to make a budget and stick to it
3. save up cash to pay for a new car (just in case this is the year the saturn has to be replaced, but cross your fingers it's not, since i love my car!)

health:
1.  get back down to 140 lbs or less
2.  get back into an exercise program 2-3 times per week, even if it's just going for a 15 minute walk!

home:
1. paint interior
2.  rip up carpet and have hardwoods refinished
3. finish remodel of M's house

quilting and sewing:
1.  learn to use my serger - for reals this year
2.  complete more of my WIPs, and acknowledge that it's okay to give away or discard projects i'll never finish!
3.  make at least 4 quilts for charity
4.  participate in Feathers QAL and finish quilt promptly
5.  keep using the fabric i have instead of purchasing more, and limit new purchases (basic solids purchases are okay, but try to keep other fabric purchases down to less than 2 yds per month
6.  continue with the garment sewing and use up the garment fabric i've already purchased
7. make a quilt with my hoarded jay mccarroll fabrics

here's to a successful, happy and healthy 2014!