Planning for an East Coast Autumn

Just a quick drop-in, the last 5 weeks since I got back to Houston have been busy busy busy. Paul went straight to a job interview two days after I got back, and then was offered two jobs within the week following his return. He'd been sending out resumés and doing the odd interview since the end of last year and nothing had been happening so we weren't really expecting this sudden frenzy. We got some good advice about going to visit the prospective new towns, we didn't do that with our move to Houston and we've found the adjustment here pretty hard. So you saw some of our visit to Muncie IN last time, and we also visited Raleigh NC. I took much fewer photos in Raleigh, the weather was not as good and it turns out it doesn't matter because come August that's going to be our new address!!

Street art, Raleigh.

I was completely wiped out last weekend after a month of travel and decisions, following on from a month where I was stuck in Ireland recovering from a bad scald. I had bought some AMH velveteen in a sale a couple of summers ago and planned on making a throw for the bottom of our bed. Before Christmas I had begun cutting out squares from my AMH collection, bits and pieces from various collections (scrap packs, FQ bundles, charm packs, whatever I'd gotten my hands on). But life had gotten in the way, that happens easily for me when it comes to lots of cutting or basting!

Fussy cut prints. The Big Squares.

Last weekend I was in just the right head space to mindlessly cut squares though, fussy cut in places, and then play with layout and enjoy the colours! Paul got into it as well, and the squares stayed on our bedroom floor all weekend. We had to use our phones' torches to go to the loo in the night - totally worth it though to wake up to all the colours in the morning!

I couldn't decide if the gaps should be filled in with more AMH or if that
would be too chaotic, so I tested in the top left corner first.
LOVED IT!

All The Colours!

Blocks got moved, one got replaced with a big leopard print square, I
couldn't believe how much tinkering I did before I was totally happy.

Anyway, this one's packed away into a plastic shoe box now and maybe it'll be my first quilt to make in our new place in NC, when we find one - it looks kind of perfect for Autumn to me! In the meantime, I have two quilts that need making before we leave Houston, one that's a top and partial back. And another that's only a plan, but will need to go to Ireland when we do for visas. I will keep you updated ;)

All The Colours!!!

Kate's Quilt: A Colourful Journey

One of my oldest friends had her very first baby this summer. I've know her well for 14 years, and of her for longer. I've known her partner for close to 12 years. I didn't stop smiling for at least a week after I heard about the baby, and knew instantly I wanted to make a quilt. I emailed and asked if there was anything they would like or definitely wouldn't like (I definitely went overboard, I made a Pinterest board especially for their baby!), and I was told something colourful and maybe an applique animal. It took me from DC to Houston via Ireland, and Christmas to Easter, to finally come up with a design and fabrics I really loved. In the end simple lines and the rainbow won out! I was majorly inspired by two quilts: Dare to be Different by grapes and hearts; and Don't Worry Be Happy by Carina E-H.

My biggest challenge was deciding on what sort of applique animal to do, I considered owls for a long time, but was won back over to elephants because of the Eames elephant that I know has lived with these two for some years now. My drawing skills are all kinds of atrocious unless it involves a ruler, or a full on doodle, so I totally cheated when it came to drawing up the elephant applique. I bought a giant kid's sketchpad and drew a grid on it, then I found an outline of an elephant on the internet that I kind of liked and placed it over a grid in Adobe Illustrator (though I could have printed it and manually drawn a grid onto it either). Then I just copied from square to square in order to scale up the drawing to the size I needed for the quilt, about 20" x 20".

I made some changes as I went, my elephant has no tail because I wanted to hem it for longevity and I'm really terrible/new at applique and sharp turns and points for a tail were right out. I also made sure his trunk was upwards cos that looked happier to me! I think I got him attached to the backing with no puckers on the first try purely through luck, the sheet I used had a little bit of stretch to it and when I was halfway through I suddenly realised that this could all be about to go to pot. But it didn't, thankfully.

I also tried pin basting for the second time ever, and it went horrifically. Mostly because of the aforementioned stretch in the backing fabric, and a little bit because I need to buy a few more basting pins. So the first few lines of quilting had to be unpicked, then everything unbasted, re-basted with trusty spray and I was on my merry way again. I quilted diagonal lines, the spacing set by the square patchwork section, in a yellow thread. And really, it was very hard to send off by the end.

Don't freak out, some pins had been removed during quilting!

But we took it on a walk early one morning beforehand and had a lot of fun taking photos with it in the Houston sun! If I could change on thing, I would make the binding satin. I searched all the local fabric shops here but I couldn't find a navy satin that was the right colour. They were all too blue, and not dark enough, and the ones that matched had glitter in. So that was just a no. Someday I'll make a baby quilt with a sating binding, and that one will be next to impossible to give away!

Quilt Stats

Size: 42" x 45"

Pattern: My own

Top: Free Spirit Designer Solids

Binding: Kona Solid

Backing: Super soft old white sheet

Batting: Warm & Natural

Linking up, for the first time in a long time, to TGIFF over at Quilt Matters today!

A Slow Week

It's been a slow one, sewing wise, life wise. Met my new neurologist on Monday, have a change in medication, the navigation of the American health care system began, it's been confusing and surprising (in good ways, so far). The bad parts are all in the withdrawal and new side effects, sleep is being stolen from me among others, but hopefully this is the low point.

I was prepared Monday, left out some easy to piece blocks from an oft put down project, continued on them on Tuesday.

Laid out my progress, over a year so far, 14 blocks left, seeing it all out is encouraging, such lovely colours - all courtesy of Justine at Simply Solids and her Sew Solids Crew stash club last year.

Since Wednesday I've tried to push myself to get to what I really should be doing - but like any time that word, should, is involved it isn't happening. My brain is not up for altering patterns as I go, and my machine has decided that skipping stitches is so in vogue right now. I've walked away. Though I'm eyeing up a potential couple of hours of alone time on Sunday morning for a thorough machine clean and re-thread! I'm actually enthusiastic about that, another surprise.

Yesterday I gave up on the shoulds completely, and started cutting out the fabrics for my next set of Farmer's Wife blocks. It's slow, requires little brain power (apart from the ones that involve mirrored blocks - why, why!?!), and is filled with colour. I'm loving it.

Very much looking forward to this long weekend (magical words), hoping that I will enter next week more refreshed and more human-feeling. Hoping you all enjoy your weekends, wherever you happen to be!

Change is inevitable.

I've finished two quilts since we last spoke. They are quilt twins, made for a lady I know who wanted one for her grandchild and one for the first grandchild of her next door neighbour. I've talked a little about them before, using Ann Kelle Urban Zoologie teamed with various Sketch colours and white.

Max's Quilt - lovely and crinkly all over from the wash!

The tops went together relatively easily, the quilting on Max's made me tear out my hair and almost swear off machine sewing. Thankfully, Kyle's quilting went like a dream and I was slightly mollified.

Pucks and Tuckers - the worst I've ever had on a quilt, including ones
I quilted before I learned about the magic walking foot, which didn't save
me here. I've put it down to bad piecing on my part and also to vengeful
quilt gods. Thank god for crinkling up in the wash!

The binding is a diagonal red and white stripe - I love it. I should have bought more, I want to use it on everything!

I embroidered labels for each little boy, and even put my very first printed labels on too.

These quilts were delivered the day before I left Ireland - nothing like last minute stress! I'm back in DC, but not for long - just for Christmas. In the time I've been away Paul has gotten a new job in Houston. It starts on the 7th of January and so once Christmas Day is over us (our first), we'll be putting everything into boxes, heading to Houston to find a new apartment, our first car, the new grocery stores, new library, new everything.

Rare Winter sun in Ireland made this a bit washed out...

I'm daunted. The last few months have been constant go, though thankfully all the associated worry is over and my family are all well again. But the idea of going into another state of flux, a new place to settle into, new routines to find, new people to meet - it's a little overwhelming. So I'm taking it one day and week at a time.

I'm grateful to have my sewing machine right now, I'm pottering, doing what takes my fancy. Once we start moving, hand-sewing will be my outlet. I have no idea how often I'll manage to pop in here, or when we'll have internet. I'll do my best. It's more likely that Instagram will provide the quick connections over the next while!

Kyle's Quilt

Having just written it all out, I feel lighter. I am looking forward to the adventure of it, and getting to choose a place to live together (another first)!

I think I'll try popping in and out with picture updates when possible, love to all and

Happy Winter Holidays!

WIP: Max's Quilt

I've been making two quilts from the same materials since the middle-ish of October. They're going to end up at just over 50" square and are fairly simple patterns that I decided on myself. However, I totally got into a rut with Max's quilt a couple of weeks ago. I tried to force myself to work on it for a week and ended up browsing the internet, eating, going for walks, tidying around, basically anything that wasn't working on the quilt.

I had gotten this far.

It took me that whole week of self-annoyance and beration before I just decided to do something else. And it worked. I spent a week quilting and binding a quilt top that I finished in July (more this Friday). And this week I've been speeding along and now have Max's quilt top finished and am about to start the second quilt top this afternoon!! Woohoo!!

I'm using a fat quarter bundle of Urban Zoologie by Ann Kelle, a variety of colours in Sketch and some white solids in both quilts. Max's quilt features fussy-ish cut prints of the Urban Zoologie surrounded by the bright colours of Sketch and then sashed in white.

Slightly odd angle, but I couldn't resist the pretty morning light on the final seam!

I designed the patterns, worked out yardage, and ordered it all. Which worked great, thank god. Because since then I have made multiple mistakes in piecing and cutting maths. I have had to cut extra strips of both the Sketch and the white fabrics because I calculated wrong first time round. And annoyingly it wasn't just one mistake that I kept repeating, but I managed to make whole different mistakes each and every time.

And the last night, when I was ironing my finished blocks I notice these two:

Yep, I sewed the sashing on backwards with a lovely big seam on the front of two blocks... Either this quilt is haunted or I'm losing my marbles this month.

And the final piece of annoyance. Sketch, in my experience which is just with these two quilts, frays like a mad thing. It has been driving me crazy. Even when I go along and clip the threads away they just return to get caught in seams and snag and generally make me growl in frustration. This experience has turned me off buying Sketch again.

I'm going to do a final clip of threads right before basting, but I am a little worried about how the quilt will hold up in the long term. I've been thinking about it the last couple of days, and have decided that instead of quilting on either side of the seams, I'm going to zig-zag stitch over the seams in the hopes that it will reinforce them. But really, I shouldn't have to worry about this sort of thing with modern quilting fabrics. In my opinion.

Admiring the look of the sashing before bed last night.

Enough ranting, it looks pretty and there are solutions to the problems so all in all this is a happy work in progress!!

Linking up to Lee at Freshly Pieced!

Conor's Quilt

I think I need to start actually naming my quilts and not just calling them after the person I gift them to, but I'm not starting today :) I made this quilt back in March/April time, for a little boy who just turned 3 last week! Conor loves all things farm, including tractors and has his own little one to 'drive' around just like his grandad.

When I saw Oink-A-Doodle-Moo by Jenn Ski, I knew it was the one for him. I bought my first ever layer cake, and set about sorting the fabrics and pairing them off.

I decided to sew them into giant HSTs, using the no-loss method.  One blender and one print to make up each one. Then layout deciding took a few days, and the whole of my bed.

Realising I want the blenders as diamonds, but feeling a bit messy.

Till I found the perfect one!

Paired blenders in each diamond, much more cohesive and still crazy colourful!

From this point the quilt was easy to sew together. And I had a lot of fun making the back. I used the end of the green Ikea sheet that has been in almost all of my first ten quilts, some leftover blocks (that ended up too small because the rotary cutter got carried away by itself - totally the rotary cutter's fault) and a lovely soft deep orange fabric.

Please excuse my jumper in the top right of these, running up and down
stairs was hot work!

Then came the marathon basting day, when we moved all the furniture in our dining room.

I've slowly been adding more and more quilting to my projects as I've along. I quilted all the horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines on this one - with a line of stitching a ¼" on either side of the seams. It turned out so soft and beautiful to touch.

I bound it in a sort of denim blue solid, and then put it through the wash!

I don't think that if left to my own devices I would ever have put this amount of colours and prints and patterns into one quilt, but I love how this turned out. It feels to me like it's right on the edge of crazy, and exactly suited to an exuberant 3 year old.

This one's been really hard to keep under my hat for so long, so I'm really glad to send it out today. It was very cheerful to work on during the sometimes grey and dreary spring.

Hoping to be back again in a few more days, with yet another finished hidden quilt. Have a great weekend!!