Late Update

I am on my way to bed, but thought I would share my productivity for the evening.

Yay for rotary cutters!

WIP Wednesday

I have a few WIPs rocking right now.  The most promising looking one so far is a wall hanging quilt that I'm making for my boyfriend's grandparents as a thank you for watching our dogs.  It's based on this tutorial by Ryan Walsh.  After taking a look I wish that I would have put the neutral colour in the background, and had the purple as the background ribbon, and then had the front ribbon be the 'unique' fabric.  Oh well, you live you learn.

I will have one more row of two blocks to make it 2 x 3.  It's to fit in a specific place in their house so that's why I chose that layout.  It's my first time working with triangles. Um, yah, well I tried.

These are my other two projects.  On the right is the ever so slowly progressing quilt from my Pure fabric collection, and on the left is the quilt that I'm making for my sister.  More on those here.  I've focused on the wall hanger so nothing has happened with the cutting/pressing of the other two.  Also, I've started making some hexies!  I don't have a plan for them, but I'm thinking more pillows/applique rather than a quilt.  My aunt has been making a hexie quilt for 10 years--I'm not sure that I'm ready to commit to that!  So far I've only done about 10 so nothing worth showing.

Little Finish

I finished the pot holders that I made for my preceptors upon completing my FINAL nursing practicum.  Yay!  So, here is how they turned out.  I picked the worst lighting conditions ever to take pics, so they are really yellow looking.  Oh well!

I did all of the quilting with a walking foot, and tried out three different types just to see how they went.  I took some close-ups just to show it better.

This one has the best binding, I made it last.

This is my favourite quilting.

This one took the longest.

All in all, I am pleased, but I still need to keep on practicing!

Skunked

My dog got sprayed in the face by a skunk. I've smelled them at a distance, but nothing compares to getting up close and personal. Tomato bath for the dog, still all I smell is skunk. Poor little bugger has to sleep outside now.

I wonder what would cover the smell?

Pot holders

I'm making these babies as gifts for my preceptors for my final practicum. Looking at them makes me want to make a log cabin quilt. This fabric is from Connecting Threads and while it looks sweet, this particular line is not very soft.
I don't think it would make a very soft quilt.

Tuna!

After making my quilt, I wanted to do something quick and sweet.  So I jaunted over to Crazy Mom Quilts and used this neat little tutorial for making a pin cushion from a tuna can.  I love it!

The fabric I used for the 'cushion' part is really, really not stretchy.  So it didn't smooth out so great.  But I love the rich purple with the gold print (a gift from my Aunty Linda).  I don't eat that much tuna, but I do have an urge to make a couple of these.  Maybe it's time to increase my fish intake.

It's nice to have a little instant gratification every once in a while!

Fantabulous Fandango

After hours and hours of working, it is finally complete.  And I'm extremely pleased with it. Despite a few  (many) flaws, I love how it turned out!  And, unfortunately for me, hand sewing the binding on the back looks so much better than by machine.  At least I'm bound to get faster eventually. If you caught that one you're after my own heart.

Ta-da!  I didn't have any clamps or anything that would make it work to hang it up without half draping it so I had to bring it inside with the less than ideal lighting.

The back fabric you can see above was a purchase at a local quilt shop that goes *perfect* with the whole thing.  The lovely owner helped me find in it as I generally go into a stupor of wonder and amazement when I walk into those shops.  I was also slightly in shock because I glanced at the price tag of a Bernina 830.  Oh my.

And here is the backing. Considering how sucky a job I did of flattening it to baste it, it turned our great!  I love the pieced look.  It's like having two quilts in one.  Probably took me as long to bind it as it would most people to do two.

This is the binding up close.  Coincidentally it turned out that the picture caught the fact that it is the same fabric as I used in the quilt, just a different colour.  And I am so pumped about how it turned out.  On the end of the quilt that is all white, I messed up and didn't line things up well, so the backing didn't quite stretch far enough, oops.  So I just cut along the edge as close as I could to the stitch that attached my binding to the quilt front and pulled it down farther.  It actually turned out great because it adds a little more interest to the solid ivory.  So, not such a bad boo boo.

Someone wishes he was cuddling on the quilt.

Ever so close

Okay, so I did all of the quilting for my fandango quilt.  I did an all over meandering (stipple) free motion pattern.  It's not perfect, but the beauty is you would have to really look to find my little oopsies.  Well, maybe they're not that hard to find, but a cursory glance/distance won't reveal where I 'fell short' so to speak.

I took this picture at my halfway break to show the transition.  It's pretty noticeable on the white.

But not quite so noticeable on a pattern.  These are both, of course, from the backing.

Things I learned while making this quilt:

• I need to double check my math if I ever feel like I should make my own pattern again
• Be extra careful when sewing big pieces (like backing) together
• Don't baste on carpet because carpet basting = back of quilt puckering

All in all, I'm really pleased.  I'm just finishing up putting the binding on, BY HAND, so I should be done soon (I'm slower than an arthritic sloth).  I've never really sewn anything by hand before (not that I'd sewn anything by machine before the whole quilting thing), and I'm learning but it's slow going.  More on that when I am finally complete.

I found that hand stitching binding and watching (sort of) football go hand in hand.

Quilting, quilting, quilting...

I wish that I accomplished more so that I could post more often.  But most of my accomplishments lately involve APA format.  They would pretty much suck to read.  Not the stuff I wish to send out into the net, whether or not anyone actually reads it!

Either way, I've been quilting my fandango quilt.  I'm a total rookie at it aka it's going to take a l-o-o-n-g time.  But I hope it will turn out great!

Eight blocks down, 72 to go!

Design on the Design Wall

Well, I've officially used my new design wall for the first time.  I used it to figure out the backing for my  fandango quilt.  Well, part of the backing.  I had two half yard pieces left so I figured I'd cut out as many 6" squares as I could and use those, somehow, as part of the back.

I strained my brain (not really) and figured out how many squares I'd need to fill the quilt (top to bottom, not the whole thing), and then laid them out.

I liked what I was seeing!

And it worked  out awesome!  It ended up being a basic nine-square block and I still have a few scraps left over for a future project.  Well, to be a small part of the future project.  Here is a close-up of the squares to see the pattern.  I'm not sure if it was the lighting, but I think that this [following] picture turned out a bit bluer than in reality.

I just need to connect the pieces.  Because it's labour day weekend,  I will most certainly not be sewing, but rather going to the lake.  I think that the lake would probably be a good place to sew though.