Crawling along

So I haven't gotten too terribly much further on my Fandango quilt.  Problem is that when I'm in the hospital (working), I get so that when I come home I'm just not in the mood to do anything requiring thought.  I think I'd better get over this!

That being said, last night I did sew all my rows together.  So next time I get around to it, I will be arranging, then attaching the rows.  Yay for quilt tops!

Progress has been made

Unfortunately I have been rather busy lately, so quilting and sewing have just had to wait.  However, yesterday I was able to be quite busy, and made quite some progress.  I started out here:

And then I sewed and pressed until I thought that I could no more!

So I was here.  I have to admit, at this point I was worried that  I should have just cut rectangles out of the fabrics and done it that way.  It took a long time to get that little square of other colour in there, and because I made them so small they weren't even that easy to see.  I was a little discouraged that it would just be a waste.  So I thought I'd lay them out, bringing me to:

This made me feel so much better!  You can definitely tell that there is a little square, and it adds a neat bit of texture for the eye to see.  I laid them out in order, and have started sewing my rows (7/10 together).  At this point I wish that I had made it a bit more random, but I think that I will try to mess around with my rows a bit, just to break up the pattern.  Of course, Adam is not a huge fan.  He appreciates the hard work that's going in, but isn't sure what he thinks about the colours.  He tells me he has to see it when it's finished to know for sure, but I think that it may be too girly.  he's a solid colour type of man.  So, this one could end up being a gift.  Or not.  Who knows??  These are [some of] my favourite fabrics, so maybe it'll just be my quilt and he'll just have to look at it!

Oops

Seems that I have been a bad little blogger.  Between being at the hospital (working, not staying) and not sewing I haven't put anything for a while.  The happy news, my broken sewing machine piece has arrived! So soon enough I will be back to it.  So here's the pictures I had intended to post.

Other than the two previously shown from Fabricland, I purchase the yardages and layer cakes from Connecting Threads.  I won't do this for every single thing I buy, but it was something to do for the in between!

Back it up

Here are two fabrics I recently bought at Fabricland.  They are specifically quilt backing, and at first I didn't know what that meant.  What I did know was that they were regular $20/m, on sale for $4/m.  That's my kind of fabric!!  It turns out they are wider than the usual fabric bolt, so I'm guessing this is to reduce the amount of fabric you have to sew together for the quilt back.

I have a feeling my next few blog posts will lack excitement.  On that note, my poor love had to have his finger rebroken, after having it reset twice, from when he dislocated his knuckles.  Turned out that they couldn't see the break on the initial x-rays, or else missed them because of the glaring issue of two knuckles out of place.  No good!

They're actually quite lovely fabrics, a little softer than some other quilting fabrics, so I think that I may check and see if there are any left at that price.  Why not?

Pure

Here is the next project that I've started on.  I had mentioned it before, I'm using the Pure line of fabric from Sweetwater and a pattern from a book.  I think I will try to stick to already made patterns before I try to delve into making one up again.  It's a bit of a headache!

Until I can use my sewing machine again I'm left with this.  It's going to be great though.  Next little while on here will be a tour through my little teeny stash so far.  I'm in the middle of my first run of 12s, two days and two nights, so I don't want to start anything new at this point.

It's going to be a while

I was able to order the new piece for my sewing machine today.  It's going to take about three weeks to get here.  So no machine sewing for a bit.  For today, I have a picture of the little bag I made to hold plastic bags.

I actually really like the way this turned out.  There is a hole at the bottom that the bags get pulled out of.  Unfortunately, plastics bags don't lend themselves to the finest shape, but this is the best I could get.  Also, I do intend to get a hook in there to hang it from, but for the time being I am just improvising!

I'm going to start cutting up my Pure fabric collection to make a quilt from a pattern in The Practical Guide to Patchwork from Elizabeth over at Oh, Fransson! It involves a lot of 2.5" squares.  We'll see how it turns out, I do love this collection.

I will not say anything else about the pattern because I want to respect the creator, but it's going to be awesome.  You know, next year when I finish it!

I see a lot of cutting in my future...

Today I figured I would try to make a big dent in my blocks for the Fandango quilt I'm working on.  Poor Adam dislocated his finger in two places so it ended up being a pretty low key game anyways.  I got two more patterns of blocks done (total of 24 thus far) and then, unfortunately, the needle plate on my sewing machine broke in two.  I guess that being 30 years old and the beating I put it through when I was sewing with a bent needle, I shouldn't be too surprised.

So anyways, I tried to flip the one side around (longer half) because it was still usable.  However a previous owner, like myself, chewed into the metal of that little hole so the thread kept breaking against it.  Needless to say, I am unable to continue with my sewing until the situation is rectified.  I've found a couple replacements on line, but first will see what Sears can give me.

Since I am unable, at the time, to continue with the fandango quilt, I felt that I should start a new project. Because cutting is non sewing machine dependent!  So I pulled out the stash of fabrics that my aunt gave me as well as a couple of the batiks I bought online, found a pattern for a table runner in my McCall's quilting magazine, and got going on that.

The pile in the middle is me hemming and hawing between three different choices.  The top and bottom will be trimmed even when all is said and done, but that gives the idea of what it will look like, and how nice a length it is for my table.  I couldn't quite fit all of the colours on both sides.

Here's a close-up of one half to show it a bit better, as you can see the last row is barely hanging on.  I love the combination of colours, and I am actually quite pleased with myself for pulling it off.  Thank you Aunty Linda!

 

I ended up choosing the middle one as it jived with the whole thing the most, as well as going with the room.  I didn't take a pic, but it looks better when there's no green showing through.  I think I will use one of the other two for binding as they provide a nice contrast but still mesh well.

Because I still can't sew, and it could be a while, I have a feeling that my wip (work in progress) pile may grow irresponsibly in the next little bit.  Next one to set up: coasters (mug rugs)!

The first 8 patches

Well, hopefully they start getting better, but I did get the first 8 squares done.  They measure at 7" x 8" right now, so they'll finish up at 6.5" x 7.5".  Here's a shot of the back to show the block placement.

After doing the 8 blocks in this pattern, I discovered that I miscalculated my measurements!  The centre column was 1/4" shorter than the sides.  Awesome.  So I took the top piece out and recut new pieces for each pattern.  The good thing is that I didn't waste a whole heck of a lot of fabric because there were scraps I could use, and I can use the short ones in the future.  I do love these prints!

I tried my darndest to line up these blocks well so that they were all as close to perfect as possible.  I still didn't quite make it.  And I was very careful with my cutting.  But here's two of the better blocks so far.  Hopefully a bit later I'll have a better job done with different patterns.

Of course, I won't be putting the same patterns side-by-side, but this gives you an idea what things will look like!

A little help from my friend

Today my boyfriend and I spent the day at his team's provincial fastball tournament (he coaches peewee boys when he's not playing).  I got a good sunburn and the boys went 1-1.  However, yesterday I got a lot done.

My excellent helper

I also forgot to post pictures of my little quilt tag from Pat's Quilt.  I was sent it along with my order from Shawna at 1 Choice 4 Quilting. It's a little iron on tag.  Unfortunately my binding wasn't the neatest in that area, so I'm highlighting my shortcomings here.  But I did have a heck of a time with that this time around so I'll just leave it at that.  I think it's a cute tag!  I was going to add my name and the year but decided against that.

I also was able to make a lot of progress with my fandango fabric.  I have cut it all into my pieces.  It's funny because I got it specifically to make a quilt from, yet I feel so nervous cutting into it because it's so beautiful.  I swear I could have just sewn all of the lengths together.  But I think that this will look great when it's done and now I have some beautiful scraps and left-overs.

I doubt it will ever be used, but I have taken enough pictures to make a tutorial.  Once the whole quilt is done beginning to end I will make a tutorial up to post.  I hope to get a darning foot before this so that I can do some free motion quilting instead of my straight lines.  I feel it would really suit the fabric.

I think this is my favourite print of the collection.  So I figured I would show a picture of it with a bigger piece.  Anyways, probably won't get sewing on this quilt right away, but soon enough.

Finally finished!

After a long, hard battle, I have finally finished Pat's Quilt.  I know some people name their quilts, but I'm not sure if I want to do that yet.  So as of now, it's 'Pat's Quilt.'

I wanted to finish it before I left Regina, but I didn't quite make it.  I had a heck of a time sewing on the binding; found out the difference between fairly good thread and really good thread.

I was getting super frustrated because the thread broke about every three inches.  And with 280" of binding to sew, that's a lot.  I made it about halfway, and once I switched to the other thread it was a breath of heaven.  I think that I will have to keep that in mind in the future.  I also feel like I'm doing something wrong.  It seems that my bindings are a lot smaller than most I see.  But maybe I'm just imagining that!

I'm really pleased about how the red binding turned out with this quilt, it really finishes it off well.  The only thing that I'm not as happy about is that I was hoping the batting would shrink up a bit more so it would be more crinkly.  It must be the 80/20 cotton/poly mix.  I think once I use up the stuff that I have of that I will try to stick to 100% cotton batting.  It just adds that extra je ne sais quoi!

Next on the list, back to my fandango fabric.  I have made my own pattern for this, so we'll see how it all works out.  Maybe I'll even make a tutorial!