Fabric and Quilts

Sometimes even I surprise myself with old projects. Other times I wonder what the hell was I thinking.

After reorganizing the garage, I found a bin filled with the rest of my fabric stash and a couple unfinished quilts, along with the feather boas I knew I didn’t leave at the old house. Making room for all that fabric was quite the challenge, as the bookcase I keep everything on was already approaching maximum capacity. However, I managed to squeeze it all in. Along with my stash of quilting fabrics, I also found five yards of heavy duty canvas I scored for $3.96 back in 2002. What I am going to do with it I don’t know, but I put it on top of the bookcase along with the bolts of upholstery fabric for some future unknown project.

There were a few UFOs (unfinished objects) in the mix, one of which I plan on throwing away because, well, it is hideous. Or maybe I’ll finish it quickly and donate it. I haven’t decided yet. The yet to be finished Family Tree Quilt I had started for my mother I will more than likely end up finishing for myself as she should have gotten the original one I made for my grandmother after her passing. Then there is the story quilt based off a children’s book I made back in high school, which has some surrounding blocks and a good base. This I will definitely be working on in the near future. However, since every part of this quilt so far has been hand stitched and appliquéd, may require some time. Considering I started this quilt back in 1998, I think taking my time would be appropriate.

Going Away Quilt

When all else fails, I stare at my fabric stash. This doesn’t necessarily mean anything productive will happen, but at least I’ll look at some pretty stuff for awhile.

I've got a coworker who will be leaving for college to become a veterinarian in a couple months and have been racking my brain over what to do. Then it hit me, a lap quilt was in order. Thinking I had already purchased the perfect fabric of cats doing various cat things, I realized I didn’t actually have this fabric but merely saw it in the store months ago. Turns out I got the birds instead, probably because it was in the clearance section for three dollars a yard. Hmmm… maybe I can work that to my advantage.

Anyway, it appears I have some pondering and/or other fabric to buy for said project. Hopefully she will appreciate the effort that will go into it.

New Fabric

Do you ever intend to do one thing and end up doing the exact opposite of what you said you were going to do? That’d be me yesterday.

I specifically told myself when I went shopping for fabric yesterday for my birthday present from my husband, “No Kate Spain and no Sandy Gervais.” Well, the quilt shop I went to, Fiddlesticks (www.fiddlesticksquiltshop.com), didn’t have any Sandy Gervais, but I did end up buying a bundle of Kate Spain’s new line, Good Fortune. Shoot. I tried. Honestly, I tried to look at some of the more muted and subtle tones of French General or 3 Sisters, but I was immediately drawn to Kate’s modern take on Asian influenced design. Maybe to torture myself I’ll wait until after I work on the Flying Geese Quilt using Central Park before digging into this pile of luscious cotton.

Another surprise came from our good friends Rob and Sarah: Lorax fabric! I share my birthday with Dr. Seuss and love all things Seussical and can’t wait to make something with them. I don’t know if it will be a quilt because I’m thinking they would make absolutely adorable market bags, which would totally fit the theme of The Lorax. We’ll see!

Operation Auction Quilt: Complete

Sometimes I look at a project and say to myself, “Damn, I’m good.” This is one of those projects.

With only days to spare until the actual silent auction at church, I finally finished the baby quilt I set out to donate. I say finally, but I made the top on Saturday and bought and cut the backing, sandwiched it with some Warm and Natural cotton batting and safety pinned it every six inches before quilting and binding it yesterday. I’m still new to machine quilting so I decided to utilize a simple technique I did when I made my niece’s diaper bag, which is loose wavy lines over the seams. It’s like quilting in the ditch but for those of us who aren’t so great at perfectly straight lines.

I have to say the backing I found (on sale for less than three dollars a yard at JoAnn’s) works out perfectly. It was a stroke of luck I even found it since I had already picked up my number for the cutting table and was wasting time wandering around until my number was called when I spotted this gem. Within just a few seconds of seeing it, I heard my number, snatched it up and rushed to the table to have a couple yards of it cut. I only needed one yard, but wanted to have extra for my stash. I’m awful like that.

Because I was so ready to finish this project, it completely slipped my mind to embroider my name onto the backing before quilting it, so I opted instead to make a label. Using some of the selvage from the center panel and a permanent fabric pen, I wrote my name and the year, ironed on some fusible webbing, ironed it onto the back of a section I was about to quilt and did a quick zigzag stitch around it before quilting my last line. It isn’t perfect, but it works.

Saturday's Sewing

Do you ever mull over a project for days and are completely uninspired to work on it until you decide to change everything and magically it gets done in just a few hours? That’s how I felt with this latest quilt.

For a couple weeks now I’ve been racking my brain over what to do for the silent auction we are having at our church during the Advent Festival next Sunday to help raise money for the youth to go to nationals. I had already said I would be making a baby blanket for the event, but hadn’t a clue what I was going to actually make. Then I remembered I had six yards of a Noah’s Ark fabric from Daisy Kingdom laying around that I can’t stand and thought this would be a great way to get rid of it once and for all. I started cutting out a couple panels and chose coordinating fabrics and stared at it all in disgust. Even though this was going to be an unpaid piece that I was donating I just couldn’t do it. There was too much ugliness and pain. Okay, so the pain was simply my disinterest in the project.

And so it was time for a do-over. Time to go back to the drawing board. It was then that I remembered I’d already picked out fabric for a crib-sized quilt a couple months ago on a random trip to the fabric store on my lunch (Shhh! Don’t tell my husband!) because I needed more thread. So I stared at those five fat quarters, decided to use one for That 70s Quilt whenever I start that one, and chose another couple of fabrics from my stash to complete it. With the idea of simply using one of the fat quarters as a center panel, I cut out squares from the remaining fabric and arranged them into a pleasing display. Now I just need to decide whether or not to sandwich it with batting and backing before quilting or use a coordinating piece of fleece for the back. Part of me is leaning towards the easier (and cheaper) of the two.

Stamps or Fabric

I’m torn because of a silly dilemma deciding between two crafts, rubber stamping and quilting. Something tells me one of the two is going to stay boxed up and in the garage.

Okay, so a few years ago I decided to completely overhaul my craft room to make it not only a functional space to actually, well, craft, but also be a guest room that didn’t scare the bejeezus out of our guests. Part of that meant wrangling in my scrapbooking obsession, so I went to IKEA and got a wall cabinet big enough to hold two full-grown adults if you wanted to smuggle them across the border and a stainless steel desk to stamp on, figuring any mistakes could easily be wiped off a metal surface versus a laminated top along with a few storage bins to put the actual items to be scrapbooked in. This looked amazing, with the cabinet filled with rubber stamps and inkpads and pens and glues and pretty much stayed in place unused the entire time we lived there. Oh, I made a few cards here and there or started working on our wedding scrapbook when I’d get inspired to do so, but honestly a part of me got overwhelmed when I realized just how much stuff I wanted to scrapbook I had. A really, really big part of me.

That’s when it hit me. Something about organization curtails my creativity. I mean, I can organize a project as I’m working on it, but if I see everything laid out in front of me ready for the taking, part of the thrill is just not there. I kind of enjoy having to search for what it is I’m looking for, which makes me nervous to instead use the cabinet to hold my fabric stash and put it above the wall where I plan on having the sewing machine here in the house we just moved into. I mean, it’d be a perfect way to contain all those precuts and the typical small yardage I keep on hand, but I know that if I do this I’ll probably end up in the same boat as I did with my scrapbooking stuff. Or will I?

Currently all my fabric, except for the bolts of fabric I have, are in the garage in boxes, for the most part organized into potential projects contained within plastic bags. I’m eager to get it all out, but at the same time, eager to paint the ceiling in the craft room/office white instead of the current blue, which is making the golden hue we painted the walls look dingy. Of course, I’m also eager to get the chickens and all of our fish over here too. Anyway, I suppose I don’t necessarily need to make up my mind just yet as the cabinet is still at the old house, of which the auction was postponed yet again so technically we now have until mid-July to be out, so I guess I should focus on the unpacking process of other things. Of course, the craft room/office really is the last major part besides organizing the garage, but with the garage being the hub of all things unpacked, we really can’t focus on it until we bring in what we want. Then again, we do still need to paint the bathrooms too. Ugh.

Of course, with us currently using the desk as our computer desk, which is great because it is so sexy, I’m thinking it might be a good idea to instead use the cabinet for fabric. Perhaps I can simply organize it in a way that it isn’t really organized. Should I separate by color families or lines? Should I keep all my precuts in one area and yardage on the other side? Or perhaps I should simply shove it all into the cabinet and close the doors and find out what happens. I’m thinking it’ll be a process. Then again, I want the process to be done so I can start sewing again. With so many projects on my mind right now and the inability to work on anything, I’m beginning to get a little stir-crazy.

Muslin

Ever since I was a kid I’ve loved the look of natural cotton muslin and have always had it on hand for quilting and craft projects. Except, of course, when I find a few extra minutes to start the back of my sister’s baby blanket.

Muslin is one of those fabrics that you either love or don’t. Personally I like the look of natural muslin with its creamy and randomly brown-speckled color palette. While many people would shy away from using muslin in a quilt because of its loosely woven nature, I find that after washing it creates the perfect smooshiness, which is a technical term for the puckering that occurs on washed and dried quilts. Okay, so maybe only technical in quilting circles. It also softens up beautifully, which is why I love using it to back my baby blankets.

Of course, if you must know, and to nobody will this be a big surprise, the main reason I was attracted to natural cotton muslin is the cost. It is cheap. When there were sales I’d buy multiple yards at a time, stocking up for future projects. Well, this last year while working on projects for me, my family and my Etsy shop, I must have used up my stash because now all I have are scraps. Lots and lots of scraps. I guess that means I have to go get some more to finish the next couple projects I’ve got lined up. Damn.

Sewing

Ah, finally I was able to sew yesterday. Of course, I could’ve gotten more done.

After going through my stash I realized I have absolutely nothing that would work for a baby blanket I’m working on, which isn’t surprising if you know my sister or her quirky color combinations. So I made a quick trip to one of the local quilt shops, Country Manor. Okay, so quick is a relative term as there is so much fabric to sift through and the lady who owns the place likes to talk. My first stop, as usual, was the clearance room where I quickly found two patterns that would work and was desperately hoping I’d find a third but didn’t have any real luck. I also picked up a few Charm Packs while I was there for both the baby blanket and some White Elephant gifts for tonight’s After Holiday Party for our church’s choir. I’d tell you what they are but too many of them read this blog.

So instead of spending the day sewing, I spent a majority of it doing laundry, dishes, grocery shopping and getting fabric. I really didn’t want to work on the Uninspired Quilt anyway as I am just so uninspired by it still. I did, however, get the center section of the baby blanket started and am nearly finished with the White Elephant gifts which I will finish after I get home from work this afternoon. I promise to post pictures tomorrow of the projects, but sorry Sister… you’ll have to wait to see the baby blanket!

Leftover Quilting

While I wait for inspiration to arrive on The Uninspired Quilt I’ve been working on for several weeks now, I decided to raid my stash of leftover fabrics from other projects. So far I’ve gotten two baby quilts out of it and enough for a third project.

The first stash I came upon was from a baby blanket I made for my second cousin Stella. The fabrics are adorable, featuring ladybugs and daisies, and I felt completely ready to make another blanket using these fabrics. This wasn’t just because there was so much leftover, but because the simplicity in the color scheme, the cuteness of the patterns, and the type of blanket I was going to make all seemed to come together effortlessly. My first project was going to be a small baby blanket or wall hanging, or as many of the recipients have done, both… in that order.

Now, these projects were from the beginning going to be put into my Etsy shop for sale, so why I was able to work on them so quickly is beyond me, unless, of course, The Uninspired Quilt just doesn’t have the same pull. I don’t know, maybe I need to not worry about trying to finish that one for sale and possibly make it for one of my sisters. That might just be what I need to get it done and out of the house. For the wall hanging I made a stencil, cut out the pieces for the front appliqué and started piecing the quilt together. I’ve made quite a few baby blankets in this manner, so it went together rather quickly. I’m sure if I would’ve worked on it continuously it would have been done faster. These wall hangings are super cute and I’m sure if I put my mind to it could get at least two finished every day.

For the second project from the ladybugs and daisies fabrics, I wanted to make a crib blanket, and I knew I wanted it to be blocks, with every other one in the blue background fabric. This took longer than anticipated, not for ease of simply strip piecing and cutting the blocks down to size, but because I decided to hand tie the corners of every square to give it a wonderfully puckered look after it is washed. It’s not that I don’t trust my machine to do quilting stitches on it, I just really like the look of hand tied baby blankets. It gives this crib quilt character and a genuine handmade touch.

I know I can squeeze one more project out of the leftover fabrics and I’m thinking of making a tagalong blanket for a toddler, which will probably be machine quilted for extra durability. I’ve also been toying with the idea of making a mobile or puffy ladybugs and daisies, but haven’t really gotten to the planning stages for that yet.

So what is my goal from this endeavor? To go through my leftover fabric stashes and make new projects from them. And hopefully sell them. I’m pretty sure I know which fabric stash I’m raiding next and can’t wait to get started on a set of baby boy stuff too. Of course, ladybugs are bugs and daisies are arguably one of the most masculine flowers, and the color scheme or blues, red, yellow and green are quite gender neutral, so there is no reason this couldn’t be for a little boy too.


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