Placemats

Christmas is over, kids are back at school. The tree is still up, but probably after this entry, I'll be starting to dismantle it too.

I already shared the knitted project I gave as a gift . It was very well received. And with great surprise, which speaks volumes about my readership.

But I also undertook a sewing project. My mother has moved to a new smaller house this year, and now has no room for a "kitchen" table, so they have started taking a majority of their meals in the dining room at her "good" table. Because of this she asked for a tablecloth for Christmas. Since you know a tablecloth is kind of boring by itself, I decided to make her some placemats.

I used a quilt as you go pattern that I picked up somewhere and promptly forgot where, and some Christmas fabrics I had decluttered from the main fabric storage (and sadly moved to a new place until I could decide how best to dispose of). It was rushed. But the great thing about sewing, is that generally it takes much less time than knitting. And so after spending the odd 30 min here or there cutting strips, I ended up marathon sewing 6 placemats and then sewing binding down. All in about 3 or 4 hours. Most of this time in 2 sittings. But because I usually hand sew bindings down (on the wrong side) I was not done. Indeed, 8 hours of driving later, and I had 5 completely done. The 6th finished in the hotel room. And viola! Placemats.

Also not the best picture. I tried cropping out the hotel floor clutter but iphoto hates me to crop thing--preferring I give you the whole picture. To the end of not allowing me to export in any manner any photo I have dared crop. Try to imagine it without the edges.

It kind of made me sad losing all that driving time to sewing. But on the way home, I knit. (also a little at the family gatherings, but one family has a dog, who isn't used to yarn, and one member of my family feels we aren't paying attention when we are knitting so out of respect to her, I try to limit it).

But! I did make headway on the sweater I am knitting for one of my daughters!

The picture doesn't do the color justice, as it looks a rather plain blue, but in reality is brighter. The pattern is Girl Friday from knitty. I am about an inch (maybe 2) from finishing the back. I'd probably be done with the back already, except I find it hard to follow a pattern (even a simple one like this) when I have a headache, and I have had a headache for the last three days. Today it isn't terrible, so maybe later.

My goal is to finish both this and the other sweater (for the other daughter) by the end of January--so there will be plenty of sweater weather left. We'll see though.

basement

Somehow May arrived and while I have been meaning to write this here entry for a few weeks now, I am only just realizing that perhaps I'll have to write it in stages or something so it will get posted before next September. Two weeks ago our town, like much of the midwest, experienced a period of heavy rain. It rained A LOT. The river, which had gone a few feet above flood stage mere weeks earlier due to heavy snow melt, rose again. And rose, and rose some more. Predictions were that it would crest a full 10 feet over flood stage, beating the 100 year flood by a foot. Everyone in town was told to expect water and or sewage, as the wastewater treatment plat was having trouble keeping up. And so we prepared by pulling everything in our basement off the floor (since we don't live in the flood zone, we were not expecting much). My sewing room and the kids art room is in the finished basement. We spent some hurried time going through things, and I loaded the car with donations for goodwill (mostly had been sitting in the laundry room waiting). I also threw away two garbage bags full of stuff, some I may or may not have snuck away from the children. In the end, it looked a lot like this: That's my side of the basement.
I also got to vacuum which was much needed.

On the other unfinished side of the basement, we store our treasures from days past. My husband got all of those boxes off the floor and then started wondering if he couldn't consolidate them. "Archivists hate me," he hollered up at one point. He did intermingle our high school stuff and got rid of 2 or three boxes. And he found this quilt:

Now, it is his family that quilts so I was sure this was not mine. (My family does yarn stuff, so if my grandma had made this it would have been a crocheted afghan.) It has no label and he asked me if I knew whose it was. I did not. It has written in what looks like sharpie in one corner "1977." I asked my mother in law and she confirms that she did not make this, but my husband's grandma did. AND she hand quilted it. But how sad that she only used a sharpie to indicate date. It isn't the most lovely quilt I've ever seen and parts of it are clearly polyester fabric, so it isn't particularly soft or anything. But still it is an important lesson for quilters every where (including me): LABEL.

And yes, I am guilty of this as I hate doing labels. But you know what, if Grandma G had put a label on this thing we'd know for sure that she pieced and quilted it. We might even know why. Instead, I'm going to make a label for it that says Probably quilted by."

And yes, I said I was guilty of it. I have a quilt on my guest bed that also needs a label. I guess I'd better dig through those piles to get to my sewing machine and get cracking.

selvedge log cabin

I don't know if I've ever said as much here, but I don't sew a whole lot. Mostly I knit. But for me sewing is kind of cathartic. The rat tat tat of the machine, the alone time in the basement where it is cooler than the rest of the house, with usually just me and the radio, soothes me when I am stressed. In the days leading up to my grandmother's death--when we knew this was "it" I quilted a double bed sized quilt, just for the comfort of the rat tat tat.

I've been sewing nearly every day these days. It is cooler in the basement, and I can lose my thoughts in the fabric.



I've been doing these selvedge log cabins--throwing on scraps and making something (hopefully beautiful) from them. The pattern calls for 36. I have 10. I have no idea what I'm going to do with this when I am done. I don't need another quilt, especially of that size (the blocks are 9.5 inches).

Other plans

First of all I want to say a big wow and a big thanks to people that commented both here and to me in chat about finding ways to get that elusive Laurel Burch fabric.
I'm slowly making peace with the idea that perhaps the idea I had is not the actual quilt that will get made. There is a reason i like to know about babies well before their due dates after all. I kind of plod along at this.
I did get asked what the "plan" was and thought I'd share with you what it was. See, I'm a big fan of M'Liss Rae Hawley and her fat quarter books and my mother in law has one that I don't seem to have (although how I missed it as I have all the others and whoo looks like she's got a purse book coming out soon--well I'll never know) and in it there is a quilt that is perfect for showcasing a print in a fabric. You can see M'Liss's version on her flickr page. I was going to put those butterflies in the center block. To do that I'd need at least twice what I have and probably more if I "fussy cut." There was already debate in the house about fussy cutting, as I'm a better "fussy sewer" than cutter.
It isn't to say that that won't eventually be the quilt. Laurel Burch has a fabric line out now called the secret jungle and the animals there are really cute. I didn't want to buy a lot of fabric--instead I wanted to use up some stash--but we'll see. I seem to have used up a good deal of my really bright fabric.
I also have a huge number of Aunt grace 1930s fat quarters, and while they look more babyish than I usually like to do for a baby quilt, I do think they are sweet.
Then again, I see something like this by M'Liss and I think--hmm maybe this one. So you just never know, and at least II'll still have my butterflies to look at (or wow sell on ebay because man--they are going for twice what I paid for this.)

I'm getting close to being done knitting my hooded sweater too. I forgot just how much knitting is involved in the hood. I've used up all the yarn from the old project, so I guess my sweater will be a little stripey as I incorporate the "extra" yarn I had from that project. Or maybe after 2 or 3 washings you won't be able to tell. I guess we'll just see.
We have a big cold front moving in here in Michigan and just this morning I was saying--I think I need a wider scarf. And I started a sock to carry around. I better hurry and get that hood finished, or I'll be putting it aside until spring to work on all the other things that catch my attention.

Oooh shiny!

pickle

Well I went and did it, I found myself a plan for this next baby quilt. I love this plan. I am totally into this plan. Sadly this plan involves at least a 1/2 yard of this fabric.

I have a fat quarter, for those of you not in quilter jargon, this means I have half of a half yard. It is a Laurel Burch, from her "flying colors collection" and it is discontinued. I was thinking that if I found any of the colorways, I'd replace the turquoise.
I have been to the local quilt store. I've called the big one in the next town over. I even called one "up north." I think the store I used to go to in Port Huron might be a good lead since I've seen very discontinued fabrics there but I didn't want to call them, that seems desperate. Not that calling my mother in law who is visiting Shipshewana and demanding she scour Yoder's department store and Lolly's isn't desperate. Or hitting ebay and discovering that I can get a yard (although not turquioise) for a minimum bid of 10.95 plus shipping. If I win that is.

I think I just need a new plan. I think it might be time to let go of this idea. Which is really too bad, I did so like those butterflies.

how does one start?

Anytime I think about making a baby quilt, I'm reminded of the conundrum that I always have with sewing projects. Which comes first, the pattern or the material?
For some reason, I don't really agonize over this as much with knitting. I see a pattern I like and I look for a yarn that will work or I see a yarn I like and I search for a pattern. But with sewing, well... let's just say that getting started is often the hardest part for me.

When I made the first quilt for my cousin, I saw a pattern in a book and knew that I needed to make it. Both my cousin and her husband are artists and art teachers, and I thought they needed something that screamed ART. And this fit the bill. I went through my fabric stash and found about 1/2 of what I needed. (Let's just say that my fabric stash has some of the same problems my yarn stash does--it lacks reds). The end result was:


It was a lot more fiddly than any quilt I've made since my kids were born. In fact, I completely shut down when it came time to arrange the blocks, there were so many pieces that I turned it over to my husband.

This time, I want to do something that is artistic and colorful but I don't think I want to do something with 40 gazillion pieces.

So, I dug out my trusty fat quarter quilt books. I've done almost every quilt in the first book. And nothing is really screaming out at me to repeat.

I've made two from the second book, and there are others I'd like to make, but nothing is jumping out at me.

And I'm really feeling uninspired by the final book that I own. I can't explain why, but even the cover quilt, that I originally wanted to make so badly that I bought the book, is not interesting me.

I thought maybe that I needed to start with fabrics, and work that way. I guess I'm just feeling unmotivated because even my stash is not inspiring me. In fact, I opened one box that I know isn't full of Christmas fabrics, but that's all that was on top and I got disgusted with the idea of digging through the box, and so I gave up. I think what I need to do is get everything out and play with the fabrics, and perhaps that will lend itself to a pattern. But maybe not, because I'm being a bit picky on this because I really feel like I outdid myself on her first quilt.

More later on this I'm sure.

baby quit #2

Finally, I've finished quilt number two. This was a baby quilt for my co-worker's third baby. I had all these pre-cut 4 inch squares that I had been gifted by one of my husband's aunts. So, initially the plan was to just sew all these four inch blocks together. But it didn't look very visually appealing. Plus, I had 198 of them and I figured I'd need another 100 to make it work. So instead, I decided to alternate them with a four-patch block.

I used scraps for those. I also had to use math! Well, I'm not a math phobic, in fact I loved math in high school, but this was more geometry which I was never good at. I had to figure out what size strips to cut to end up with a 4 inch four patch. If you were drawing you'd say--well 2 two inch blocks makes a four inch block, but I was sewing ans so had to have a .25 inch seam allowance--on two sides. So actually--I cut 2.5 inch strips and sewed them together, cut 2.5 inch strips of that and sewed those together. I think. see this is why I need to journal more--I've forgotten, but I think this is right. If not well then i cut 2.25. See I am a disaster and not just with yarn!
I used scraps from a previous quilt's backing for the borders. I had picked out a different border originally, but it just didn't go right. I even used leftover thread to quilt with--in part because I didn't have enough of one color
It seems to me that this is really the quilting heritage--use up what you have, make do with what you have. And both of these were so true with this quilt. I think it turned out pretty good.

My next sewing step is to clean out the sewing room so I can actually find stuff.


I promise i'll start talking knitting again soon.