the tiny squares cometh

Count is currently in the 600s --- soon... soon.....

I've also made some progress with chopping up old garments.  The sunflower shirt was one of my first attempts at copying RTW, from about 5 years ago.  The fabric is gorgeous, but the fit was pretty terrible (not that this stopped me from wearing it *everywhere* and proudly declaiming to all, that I had made it.)

The blue-tomato dress is from my senior year of high school (the pattern has since been lost to time) and still fits! ... for a given value of fit - I still didn't know what I was doing back then (this is over ten years ago now) so things are kinda wonky and the finishing is more than a little hilarious - It seems I was all about fold over and sew.   However, it too has joined the quilt as I don't think I've worn it out of the house since college.

Last but not least, the green shirt -- this was an early experiment with franken-patterns, from about 4 years ago.   I never quite got it to sit properly the the black trim was not one of my better choices - but it took so long to put on I couldn't bear to remove it - until now -- bum bum BUM.  It is next up for getting chopped into quilt bits.

I haven't really looked at any of these in years - at the time I thought I was hot shit, and compared to what the people I knew were doing (hello stapler) I was.   However, the quality of the garments is almost laughable - and the amount of improvement I've made over the past few years really shows when they are compared to my latest work.   Mostly, its making me think what I'll be able to accomplish with another ten years of study.  I'm still intimidated by fitting pants, woven sleeves, hemming knits and doing much of anything with slippery sheers....   ::crossed fingers::  mayhaps I'll get them too.

chop chop chop chop chop

pretty pretty squares. chop chop chop.

The scrap-busting quilt of awesome continues apace.   I've calculated that I need ~960 little squares (320 blocks) for the size I want.   I've got 318 cut out so far... so almost exactly one third of the way.  

 I've started to seriously envy quilters their rotary cutters and invisible rulers....

Anyhow, the real question now is if I have a sufficient quantity of scraps in the correct color scheme (bold/ saturated and either blue, green or purple) it may be a near thing -- but I also have the garments these scraps came from, some of which are rather old (think high school, college, etc) and don't get worn anymore. My skills at finishing have improved significantly over the past few years and my earlier (though beloved) projects look kinda.... home made.  And not in the good way.  Thus, I think they may take on new life in the quilt.  Seems better than rotting away in the closet or a garment bag under my bed, as I can't bear to get rid of any of them.

A question for you, hive-mind.  What do you do with old self-made garments?  Are you a pack-rat like me?   

bonus Pennicula.  Mighty Cat of Yore.

Catching up

I have obtained batteries!  It took repeating "go buy batteries" the whole way home one evening, but damn it, I did it.

But look! New fabrics! (because I totally needed them...)   As occasionally happens, I went in looking for something specific (6 yards of something thin, drapy, abstract and woven) and walked out with something else entirely.   The birds are a thin chiffon (I haven't done a burn test yet), the black is a gorgeous thin jersey that will be another many paneled dress (I've wanted a black one for ages, so this was the only justifiable purchase of the lot) and a tie-die gauze in purple, blue and teal that I lost my heart to, right as the heat wave ended....  

Currently in progress!  
The black and white many-paneled dress is almost done, all it needs is a hem....      Despite this, I'm not entirely sold on it - it keeps looking mid-90s workout - but occasionally, I see flashes of exploding death-star and I like it a lot.  So.... we shall see.     The other primary project of the moment is B4978 out of the chiffon birds.  Rebel that I am, I am not building the lining into the dress and will instead wear it with a slip.  (more on my various modifications in a later post), this has entailed lots of french seams.   I knew how to do them before, but now...now, I am their mighty queen, and all the seams must bow down before me!

And finally, in a fit of bizarre laziness, I couldn't be bothered to rethread my serger last night (we're talking 5 minutes, tops) I decided to figure out and start cutting out everything I'd need for a tessellated card trick quilt.  

I've been thinking about this one for a while - I have a huge bin full of scraps and I've always told myself that I'm not a hoarder, I'm just saving them to make a quilt, because it would be a shame to waste so much fabric.  So-- diving in.   I imagine this one will be going on in the background for sometime, as according to my calculations, I need ~320 L-shaped blocks, of three squares each, to make a queen size quilt.   So far, I have 20 sets....

so very close

Ze quilt -- she is almost finished -- but, she is not.  She sits and waits, forlorn  for me to do the one last piece of binding on the side....and I do not.  [note- all of that should have been read in an overblown french accent]

I'm going to have to do it soon, as I hand it over on Saturday, but its really only about a half an hour of hand stitching - I just need to find the time.  I'm happy with how it came together (and more than a little pleased with myself for getting all the seams the line up properly) (I believed 'chuffed' is the word I've been seeing on the UK blogs)   Anyhow, while the green parts were bought specifically for the project (yes, yes, fabric-fast, but I gave myself a pass on this one as it wasn't for me nor was the material purely to satisfy my undying lust for fabric.) However the white part of the backing and the batting (really a bit of polar fleece) were both from my stash, so I've decided to count this as item 5/15 on my stash-busting countdown.   The really handy thing about using polar fleece as batting is that you don't have to quilt as densely  as it will not fall apart.   I ended up stitching in the ditch around the seven full 9-patches and sewing on the binding through all three layers -- and that was it.   (insert evil laugh here)  

I didn't have enough of any one color of green to do edging or binding, so I pieced them together and ended up with a nice hodge-podge that worked well with the front of the quilt.  All in all I am pleased and am holding myself back from making more.  As content as I am right now, if I were to start to cut out all the bits to make a big one, I would be grumbling inside of mere minutes.  

To anyone celebrating, happy thanksgiving!  to anyone not, happy thursday!

Stripping

 It's baby quilt time, here at the fixation, and I have a week to finish it up.   A couple of friends of mine are having their first child and I'm seeing them over Thanksgiving, so basically, this needs to be done by Tuesday.
Quilting seems to be that section of my brain that cannot think clearly.  Whenever I'm not quilting, I think how fun it would be to come up with pretty blocks, what nice gifts they make, but then when actually sitting down to make the damn thing I remember how tedious I find cutting out all the bits.  Piecing isn't so bad - but cutting.  gah.  (Then again, I never like cutting, no matter what I'm making - quilting just has lots of it)



As I quilt *maybe* once a year, I don't have all the snazzy tools, but I did remember hearing about masking tape as guide lines.   The context was actually making bias tape, but it works just as well on the grain an ensures everything is actually the same width.   (In this case, around about 2 inches, I'm not really sure -- but the tape knows, so it all works out- huzzah for intense sloth!)

I'm not sure if this particular pattern has a name - I saw a picture of it at the fabric store and they'd called it 'crumbs' but a bit of research has taught me that is the term quilters use for a scrap-busting quilt..so... its a collection of nine-patches, 3-wide strips and full squares, and as requested, all in green.

Oh, and, no, none of this was in my stash, I gave myself a pass from my challenge on this one.

Crane Quilt - finally finished

 Behold and rejoice, for the crane quilt is done!

Stealth Cranes

 I tried to come up with a version of 'captain planet' suitable for 'stealth cranes' but the syllables  are wrong and the 15 seconds of effort I put into it just didn't pay off.

Anyway - can you spot the other two cranes?   the ribbon I was using is a pain and a half to work with, and after various misfires for additional cranes, I decided to go with much smaller applique versions with the scraps from the main project.   Both are on the right side of the photo, one top, one bottom.

They are starting to remind me of stained glass.

At least in the pictures...





Anyhow, on to the dreaded quilting, which I think will be mostly stitching in the ditch, before all will power leaves me.   I am emphatically *not* one of nature's quilters.

                                     .....

An aborted attempt at a second ribbon crane.   I like the three dimentionality they bring to the project, but it did start to look kind of funny.

The current dilemma...

More cranes?  or stop here?   Some context - a friend of mine has a rather nasty form of cancer and has been making and collecting paper cranes for good luck.   While I was visiting her a few weeks ago, she was showing me some of the other things people had made, a metal crane, a glass crane, etc...  and I decided I would do something in fabric.   I asked if she'd like a quilt and for her favorite colors, and then starting plotting.    At first I'd worked out a patchwork block that looked like a paper crane, but it was going to take forever and looked...cutsy.   Kirby is many things, but cutsy really isn't one of them.   Anyway, I came up with a more or less random square based patchwork with cranes traced out in ribbon on top.     I can't decide if one looks interesting on its own, or odd, as though it was just popped on as an afterthought.

The original design calls for several, poking in from various angles. But I'm not sure how well it translates to the real world.    I'll probably pin on a few more and see - but thoughts from brains other than my own would be most welcome.

UFOs!

The lap quilt

Whilst cleaning out my sewing closet I came upon a fair number of UFOs (UnFinishedObjects for anyone new to the sewing community)    The first is the oldest and dates the from the summer I worked at G-Street fabrics.  (Fun times - but holy crap it was hard not to go home with EVERYTHING.  We'd get in these shipments, and I'd have to become familiar with them, and there was this whole section of batiks....   ::drools::  I made good use of the employee discount)   Anyhow, I worked in the quilting cottons sections, and saw LOTS of quilts - fancy ones, plain ones, wacked out pretzel and mummy ones** you name it, I saw it.   One day a woman came in with a picture of a quilt and wanted to know how to make it.   It wasn't detailed enough to show the seams, and I didn't know all the patterns off hand, but I know enough geometry and whatnot to figure out how to duplicate it - anyhow it stuck in my head and became a favorite.   (Later that day I found out it is called 'Card Trick')    I ended up making it with four of my favorites - an odd combination perhaps, but I like them.  I'm not so sure about the border - actually I am, I don't like it, I'm not really sure what motivated it, but I'm going to need to take it off and finish it off with something else instead.  (My only other quilt)

when I first started craving red

This dress is actually about 95% percent done - it needs a little bit of work at the hem and the shoulder straps adjusted slightly -- but I just don't like it.  (are we seeing a theme with my UFOs?)  Its one of the other views from Butterick 5350 - but unlike the red polka-dot dress it has it pleats at the top.  In theory I thought this would be cute, but it ended up flattening me out in a awkward way.   I don't think its well suited to the busty set.   Anyhow, its been waiting for attention for well over a year now - but there is hope!  Once I realized how unhappy I was with the bodice I got another yard of the red (from a store in a different state no less) so when I get around to it I can fix it.  But I already have a red dress I prefer, plus this new polka dot one, so there isn't much impetus.

I think the muslin was nicer fabric....

Here we have Butterick 5428 - jacket and lining,  fit and ready - but once again I was not happy.   In this case it was the fabric rather than the pattern - its this odd synthetic that had an interesting sheen on the bolt (and was $1 a yard at Jomar) but when in jacket form it looks like one of those horrible cheap suits that melt when the weather is warm.   For whatever reason I'm currently imagining it looking lovely in a springy wool - somewhat more odd as I rarely allow that particular fiber to touch my skin, least I itch like mad.

There are a number of others, but I think they will wait for another day in the hazy someday.

heh-- I have the exact same expression in both pictures.  Lets call it 'Blue Steel'

**  Not long after I started I made friends with one of the other clerks and she was telling me weird customer stories, and mentioned a lady who came in to make a quilt for a grieving friend.   She chose a green with pretzels and another with golden mummies and some sort of bright blue.   My friend thought it was hilarious - I thought it was even more so, because I knew the lady was my mom and that I had made most of the picks.  (Mom - send me a picture, the world needs to see the glory)

crazy quilt

Tanit-Isis' crazy quilt post got me thinking about mine. It was one of those wacky projects that ended up taking far and away longer than I ever anticipated. This was back in high school when the majority of my projects were massive costuming endeavors (there were a series of Elizabethan gowns) and I wanted a movie watching project, so I decided to take all the scraps I'd accumulated from years of screwing around, and make a crazy quilt. I also decided that every single stitch would be hand sewn. fast forward several years, and I'm about to head to college... I'd gotten the whole top pieced together by the middle of the summer, and started working on the actual quilting -- also entirely hand sewn. Now, I was working at a summer camp in southern Virginia at the time, a summer camp without air conditioning. Quilting did not advance as far as it could have... Anyhow, I had it in my head that *this* would be my quilt at college, so I basted the thing, and took it with me. For years, I'd pull out the hoop when I was watching a movie in my room and get a bit more done... this continued through grad school, by which time almost everything was finished. But then I graduated, moved, got a bigger bed, and with that needed a new and larger quilt. Having

 learned my lessons, my lovely crazy quilt was carefully packed away to finish soon. I don't think I've taken it out until today (this is a lag of approximately two years) There are only a few panels left to quilt, and I could probably get it done in several months, but it seems more of a wintertime project, so me thinks it will once again be lovingly packed away to wait for future inspiration and a dire need for a MASSIVE amount of handwork.



(Yes, I know the spirals are a little crazy. Each panels has its own quilting pattern based on the fabric. I thought it was pretty and wanted to share (i.e. show off) )