Wednesday 30 November 2011

One down...

It took me an hour. Which means the next nine stars should take about nine hours.
If I didn't like how it looked so much I'd call it quits and just FMQ the whole thing.

WIP Wednesday

This is more of a *YAY I got fabric in the mail* type post but there is something in progress.  I promise.  So, first off, the goods:


Hooray for Hometown!  Since I'm a real grown-up now and I have a job and everything, I bought the incredible FQ bundle.  I'm not sure what my plan is, but I did do a Cyber Monday purchase from Fat Quarter Shop (25% off everything until Thurs!) that included the Swoon quilt pattern.  It's a possibility.


Also arriving, Curio!  Ever since I saw this I knew I wanted some.  There's a few patterns on Moda Bake Shop that I'm wanting to try.  So, we'll see what happens.  It may not happen for a while!

As for actual WIP, Starry Eyed is getting there.  She's all sandwiched up, and I've done a bit of stitching with the walking foot to start before I get into hand quilting around the stars.  It will definitely be the biggest project I've tackled.


I almost ran out of safety pins by the time I got to the outer quilt blocks, so it's a tad thin for basting.  Hopefully this won't mess with things.

So this will probably be my WIP for a while as I'm slower than a cucumber doing calculus at hand quilting.  So, check out what everyone else is doing!!

WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

Wednesday 23 November 2011

WIP Wednesday

I had big plans for today.  But I suck at coming off night shifts and being productive.  So, here is the preceding week's productiveness.


This is an extra star block that I made.  My purpose was to do a practice round of my intended quilting to see how it turned out.  And I like it, so I'm sticking with it.  Every star in the quilt will have the same treatment in red, and then the rest I'll fill in by machine.  I thought about doing more by hand, but I really would like to finish this before christmas.

That practice round became this:


It's not amazing, but it was my first shot at making a pillow.  The cover is a smidgen on the small side, but I'm cool with that.

Then, I have finally assembled by Starry Eyed quilt top:


At the time, I didn't realize how blurry the picture was or else I'd have taken another.  I'm loving it, and the BF is pumped at how big it is.


So, for the present, it waits.  Maybe tomorrow I will sandwich the crap out of it.  But, I kid not, that will have to happen in another person's house.  I honestly don't have a patch of floor big enough without removing my whole dining room/piano.  So, to grandmother's house I go.  For real.

Anywho, check out the sweet other stuff other people wax eloquent about on Wednesdays:


WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

Sunday 20 November 2011

Seeing Stars

Just a quick thanks to everyone who offered advice on my FMQ dilemma.  I went to the quilting shop and had someone show me.  And I think a few people mentioned what was wrong, I had the foot on wrong; the little random sticky outy thingy (which is apparently not random at all) was all bent and not lifting the foot up when I was sewing.  So, now I just need to find a good tension.  Anyhow, I've been working away:


This is the extra star that I made to test out my quilting.  I think it's a win.  So, even though it took me for.ever. I will be doing this to all of the stars in the quilt.  To make things a bit unique!  This particular one has been made into a pillow!


I wanted it to be snug so that the pillow would be full, but I think that I slightly overdid it.  Oh well, still looks fab in my mind.

Thursday 17 November 2011

FMQ

I've mentioned it a few times here and there, and maybe I'll say more about it some day, but I did recently get a new sewing machine.  It's a Janome Sewist 625E (order of those three may or may not be right).  Anyways, it has what I wanted and was something I could afford as a recent graduate (read had some money from my loan left to unwisely blow on something).  So anyhow, I have discovered its shortcoming.  It sucks for FMQ.  Even with the foot pressure set to 0, I literally have to use all of my strength to pull the quilt sandwich through.  Even just a little practice piece.


At first I thought it was going great, I did the teardrop pattern on the right.  Then, I happened to turn over the fabric to see how the bobbin thread was doing.


Yah, definitely not going to work.  So I put down the presser foot.  and this problem was fix, but I literally worked up a sweat trying to pull it through.  I tried pretty much every single variation of FMQ styles that I could think/google and nothing came without great effort.


It's hard to tell in that pic, but the stitches are teeny tiny because cannot pull the thing through fast enough.  The edges are the worst.  The best I could come up with was:



It took way too much effort to get it, and the edges were still very hard, and I couldn't imagine doing it for a whole quilt.

So, all of that whining to say, I am not going to retire my old machine.  It actually FMQs like a charm, just didn't really do anything else quite as well.  So, I will quilt everything with my old machine and piece everything with my new one.  Never thought I could swing a two machine deal, but I find myself without choice.  And now I don't feel like I'm abandoning my old girl.  I have to admit, ever since Toy Story, I still feel a little bad about giving up on still working "toys".  Not bad enough to keep them though ;-).

The bonus, I'm quilt a fan of that last design, it's based off of things I've seen.  I'm sure someone has done it before, but I sort of came up with it myself.

And since I missed WIP Wednesday, again, I will only say that I am fast approaching a Starry Eyed Quilt top!

Wednesday 9 November 2011

WIP Wednesday

Well, it seems that whenever I work this will not be a terribly exciting post.  Oh well, maybe after a few years I'll get into the swing of things...

I finished the snapshots quilt:


The binding is a solid indigo/navy and the backing is something I picked up at Fabricland for cheap.  It's on the couch now, joining my Fandango quilt for time spent reading and cuddling!


I'm still working on finishing up the star blocks so I can join the whole kit and caboodle together.  All I need to do is add the borders to the blocks.  This is of my Starry Eyed Quilt:



I am actually planning a new start soon here.  Now that I have one out of the way! Rotary cutter here I come.

Head on over to Lee's page to see what other, wonderful WIPs everyone has got going!

WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

Saturday 5 November 2011

Picturesque

I was going to title this 'picture perfect' to indicate that I'd finished my snapshots quilt, but the whole perfect thing would be a bit of a, well, lie.  Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy with how it turned out!  Just, I can look at the things I do realistically without feeling bad about them.


As evidenced here, I picked a solid indigo for the binding that came from Connecting Threads.


Here is the back, I like how the quilting turned out.  Makes me happy.  I just did it with a walking foot.


Aaand the front.



I did the binding by machine.  I love how quick it is!  I don't have any navy thread, so I figured the white would look sharp on the blue.  And it does!  But it also really shows any 'mishaps.'  Oh well!  I am really pleased with the whole thing.  It is a much smaller quilt than I thought.  And if I were to ever redo it (which I doubt I will--so many great patterns out there!), I would have put a border around the finished top.  Oh well!

Thursday 3 November 2011

Oops!

Well, I'm not sure if I have an excuse.  But I just got off of working nights, so I missed both the small blog meet and WIP Wednesday.  I think that I can still get in on the small blog meet, but I don't really have much to show.  Which is okay, I can't see myself being able to churn out many projects a month.  But I would like to!

Anyways, I'm getting closer to a finish:


I'm just getting quilting on my snapshots quilt, I'm going with a diagonal grid.  No sure if I'm going to do it small (every square corner to corner) or not.  I'll see how I like it when I get done less.  I've used a large scale white and tan plaid for the back...you can sort of kind of see it.

I finished making the stars for my Starry Eyed quilt.  Just need to put on the borders and then I'll be done all of the blocks for the quilt.


I think I may just finish this before Christmas!