Running With Scissors

Hey! I Did Finish A Quilt!

This is my friend Angie's t-shirt quilt -- she made it for her boyfriend Don out of a mountain of his old t-shirts. I said in the title of this post that I finished this quilt -- and I did -- but I didn't start it. Angie liked the quilt I made for Casey so she started her own with some directions from me. When I went up to visit her earlier this summer, she had the t-shirts cut and ironed to the interfacing, the accent fabrics cut, and a good deal of the sewing done. We enlisted the help of our pal Sandy (who was stuck with all the ironing) and Angie and I took turns piecing the strips and then sewing them together.  

After the top was finished, I volunteered to take the top and back of the quilt home and complete it. It sounds generous of me, but it really wasn't -- I was eager to see what it would look like! And I like binding quilts. I'm glad Angie wasn't there to see me sandwich the quilt top, batting, and back because it was an ugly process. For some reason this top gave me fits in what is usually a pretty straight forward process. Maybe it was the knit fabric? I don't know, but there were a lot of swear words involved. 

The quilting went well I think. Pairs of vertical lines, most of them even straight. I bound it in the red solid left over from the top. I backed it with a cool black/white/gray print from JoAnns -- some JoAnns fabric is horrible and some is pretty good -- this was pretty darn good. Tossed it in the washer and dryer and then . . .

I forgot about it. This crazy summer overtook me and well, I have no excuse really. Last week I got the brilliant idea to finish up Angie's quilt so it would be ready for her visit in October.  Pulled it out -- and voila -- all done!

So, Angie -- it's ready and waiting for you!

Crazy Scrappy Groovy

 

Right after I got my new sewing machine I was cruising through my Google Reader and came across Aneela Hoey's tutorial for a Crazy Scrappy quilt block. It looked like fun and I thought it would be a nice little block to try out my machine with (i.e. - I wouldn't mind throwing it away when I screwed it all up).  But I didn't mess it up! The Janome went like a champ and I had a funky block in no time. It's that black and white one and if you look reaaaaallllly close there's a tiny little skeleton in the middle.

I pressed it all up and proudly showed it to a friend. She wrinkled up her little nose and said it was "kind of, well, busy." And then she said it made her feel queasy.  Contrarian that I am, I immediately felt the need to make an entire quilt of those nausea-inducing blocks.

Mesmerizing, isn't it?

I love this quilt. The blocks are all helter skelter wonky crazy and then the white sashing whips them into shape.

I was going to say this would be a great beginner quilt, but I think you need to suffer through the agony of measuring and cutting and matching points and all that before you can appreciate the freedom of a block with NO MEASURING!

You start with a squarish shape and just keep adding on, log cabin style, until it's a little bigger than you want your block. I had a 12 1/2" square ruler, so I just made sure the block was a little bigger than that, and then used the ruler to trim it down.

This was made entirely from scraps. And if you're imagining that I'm one of those people with their scraps all sorted by color and size, you'd be wrong. I heave them all into a giant picnic basket under my desk and hope for the best.

To start a block, I would paw through the scraps until I found something interesting (oh look -- a tricycle! an alligator! fish in baggies!) and then built the block around that.

I used all scraps for this quilt top, including the white strips and the polka dot binding. The back is another story.

I found four yards of  this Moda "Lush" fabric in my local fabric store's bargain area for $2.98 a yard.  It looks like camouflage in the photo, but it's actually a paint by numbers design. I'm not sure if I love it or hate it. I'm thinking love.

Bloggers' Quilt Festival

 Click over to Amy's Creative Side to see some wonderful quilts.

I thought I'd throw something out for the Bloggers' Quilt Festival -- it's a great way to see a lot of really wonderful quilts and it's a fun way to be in a quilt show without, you know, actually being in a quilt show.

I'm really enamored of this quilt because it was my own idea -- no pattern, no tutorial, etc. Of course, now that it's done, I've seen some similar ones. Which is shocking because it was so difficult. Okay, not hard at all. Probably the easiest quilt I've ever made.

I still like it. 

 

I used a Bella Solids jelly roll from the Fat Quarter Shop and black yardage left over from Casey's t-shirt quilt, which I cut into 2.5-inch strips. Mix, match, voila. I couldn't figure out what to use as the binding, so I pieced some of the leftover strips together and used that. The back is black, aka a lint/dog hair magnet -- not a great plan. Simple straight-line machine quilting.

 

Speechless, Almost

I adore Black Beauty, my trusty 1940's Singer handed down from my Mom.  But she's having a time out in the linen closet while I get to know the new machine in my life.

(Insert choir of angels singing)

It's a Janome Horizon and I am in the deepest kind of love. It has a computer and lots of stitches and is so amazingly quiet -- well I could blather on and on. But the thing I love best? It has an automatic thread cutter! Genius! No more long strings hanging off of everything. It tickles me everytime I use the machine. Yes, easily amused, that's me.

Charlie surprised me with it for my birthday -- early, it's not until Friday. I'd toyed with the idea of a new machine (you know, like one that zig-zagged or something crazy like that) but frankly, it was overwhelming. Too many brands, too many models. La, la, la, la. I couldn't deal.

Charlie has a client who quilts and she hooked him up with my new Janome (thank-you, thank-you, thank-you) plus she advised him to get the spiffy table that goes with it.

No more creaky metal typing table! Woo-hoo.

I don't know if my quilts will get any better, but it will be a lot quieter around here, what with the spiffy new machine and me not having to use the, ahem, adult language.

I've Got The Blues

Remember my epic (okay, maybe not epic, but it's a good word) quilt fail? I finally finished a new, improved, and almost all blue quilt for my patient sister-in-law, Tina. I went with a new pattern,  a kind of modified rail fence, and completely different fabric. I forgot my big fine camera, so this lovely photo is with my phone. I made the edges all blurry on purpose, it's artistic  If you could see the quilting, you would see all over stippling with Tina's family's names hidden in there. You'll just have to trust me.

I recently made another all-blue quilt for my best childhood pal Maria's mother. She's fighting the good fight against lymphoma and we thought a lap quilt to take to treatments would be nice. She likes blue and butterflies. So the front is blue string blocks:

and the back is butterflies:

I'm done with the blue for awhile, okay?

The Black Zinger

Surprisingly, the Black Zinger is not a superhero -- although that would be a good name for one. Instead, Black Zinger is a quilt.

Back when I became interested in quilting, (um, last year!) I spent a lot of time surfing the 'net looking for easy beginner patterns. Along the way I stumbled across selvage quilts and fell in love. Selvages are a tightly woven edge that keep the fabric from fraying. Many times the selvages have writing on them, including the manufacturer's name, the artist's name, the fabric line and the copyright year as well as color dots (or windows) with each color used in the fabric. Cutting off the selvages (and throwing them away) is generally the first thing you do when sewing.

 

So instead of pitching all those odd little strips, I saved them until I had a gallon ziplock full and then pieced them together for what has to be my favorite quilt. The technique is surprisingly easy and the tutorial directions are very well-written, making the construction relatively painless.

 

Karen Griska's blog really has everything you ever wanted to know about selvages and selvage projects, including the tutorial for this quilt. Karen also has a fabulous book, Quilts From The Selvage Edge, which I own and love.

So don't throw your selvages away -- save them for your own quilt. Or send them to me!

 

I Love My Sewing Machine

Spiffy, isn't she?

My machine is a 1930's Singer Model 15-91. My mom gave it to me when she got a new machine back in the '70's (that one has zig-zag -- woo hoo!). It's the portable model, if you can call 29 pounds of metal and wood portable, and it still runs like a top, a very, very loud top (Charlie has suggested it might need a muffler).

I was never a big sewer, but I've used this machine over the years to make Halloween costumes, duvet covers, and pillows. Casey and his friends used it to make jester hats for the middle school Renaissance Fair too. It has turned out to be great for quilting, with nice even stitches and the ability to drop the feed dogs for free-motion quilting.

I have managed to find a lot of the attachments and manuals for my machine on eBay and the Goodwill auction site. I bought a whole box of different feet (zipper, darning, hemming, ruffler, etc.) for $10 and a buttonholer for $12. I haven't found the zig-zag one yet, but I'm sure it will turn up eventually. I'd also love to find one of the old cabinets, that would definitely be more attractive than the metal cart I have it on now.

All my love for my Singer doesn't mean I don't want one of those fully-loaded electronic machines that are out now -- they can do everything but buy the fabric. And the ones that embroider! I would monogram everything I could get my hands on. It would be nice to have different speeds too -- mine has one speed: getthehelloutoftheway.

In the mean time, I'm quite content with my old Singer. If you're interested in one of your own, you can often find them on eBay for under $50 (sometimes a lot less than that). This sewing site is a wealth of information too.

P.S.: I don't usually mash my quilts up quite that much while I'm quilting them, but I had stopped in the  middle to do something else and I liked the way it looked when I came back.

Charity Quilting

I just finished up a couple of quilts for Quilts For Kids, one of my favorite charitable organizations. They provided the fabric for one (the pastel one) and the other one came from my stash.

They supply the fabric pre-cut, which is awesome, and you just finish the quilt however you choose. They ask for them to be heavily quilted (it helps the quilt stand up to continuous washing) so I practiced my free-motion quilting.  I may have over-done it a little bit -- I'm pretty sure this one will last quite well!

Guess what my favorite color is? This is completely from my scraps, which is a good feeling. It's an ode to Amy Butler's Lotus Brick Path Quilt, which means I liked the look of her quilt but I was too lazy to actually read the directions to make one just like hers. Here's the free pattern or you can just cut a bunch of rectangles and sew them together like I did. I backed it with some zippy striped seersucker. I managed to relax a little on the free-motion quilting on this one, perhaps I'm getting the hang of it now.

Better Than A Plastic Bag

After spending yet another fun-filled half hour sorting through my Zip-loc bag full of double pointed knitting needles in order to compile a complete set of number fours -- so I could, like, actually knit something -- I caved and decided to make my own needle holder.

I looked at a bunch of tutorials (here's a pretty complete list) and just kind of winged it. Basically, you put two pieces of fabric together, with some batting in between, and fold one end up to make a pocket and sew. I added the little flap on top so the needles don't come flying out and some inopportune moment and bound the edges because I like binding.  Instead of a ribbon I used a button and a hair band to close it.

Easy peasy.

Quilt For Mom

My Mom recently moved to a new part of her assisted living community. Her new room has a nice little sitting area so I thought I'd make her a throw quilt and some pillows. I had a "Blessings" jelly roll so I tried out a new pattern, the "Easiest Ever Jelly Roll Quilt". 

It was easy. And a little weird. You sew all the strips together end to end so that you have like 400 feet of 2 inch fabric. That was interesting. But it worked out. The only thing that really bothered me is that you have no control of which fabrics wind up next to each other. The control freak in me hates that.  But I gave her a donut and she chilled out.

I added a couple thin borders and the binding out of Blessings yardage and the back is some random beige print fabric I found at Jenny's.

I still had some fabric left over, so I went all crazy and made a couple of pillows too.

Look! I even put zippers in! My first zippers since high school sewing class. I know how to have fun, don't I?