Now Offering Longarm Quilting

Well, I decided to take the leap.  And just in time for the holidays!  I am now going to be offering longarm quilting services.  I am starting small and simple, but sometimes that’s all you need.  For now I will be accepting a very limited number of quilts to ensure they are finished in time for holiday gifting.  As I finish those up, I will open it up for more quilts to be sent.   I am only accepting up to roughly a twin size quilt right now.  As the business grows, so will the sizes I offer.  You are of course welcome to submit a request for quilts that do not need to be returned to you by Christmas.  Should I have the time, I will get to these between holiday quilts.

I’ve been busy all week working on the website.  You will find links to designs I am offering, a gallery of images, pricing, batting options (should you choose to purchase through me) and an estimate form.  Simply fill out the form with the requested information for the services you are interested in, and I will send you an estimate within 24 hours.  My About page explains everything about the process.

Alright, since I’ve worked on this website all week…I'm off to do some crafting!

Finished :: “Sweet Tweets”

The “Sweet Tweets” quilt is finished and gifted!  I had to take a few days to consider how to quilt this one.  I don’t do straight lines on the longarm, so I knew I had to deviate from Liz’s pattern a little. 

I asked around, looked online and then I was flipping through a quilt magazine and saw a quilt with something similar to this and I had my idea.  I immediately went in and got quilting.

I am in love with this quilting, especially for this quilt.  It just fit perfectly.  It reminds me a little bit of the wind whooshing around the birds.  As far as I could tell the receiver liked the quilt.  She didn’t mention the fabric, so I hope that means she didn’t notice it was backwards!  I grew to love the quilt with the reverse side of the fabric.  It really did give it a soft look.  If your interested in making this quilt you can buy the pattern on Etsy at Giddy 4 Paisley.

Painting On Fabric

Caley at Fave Crafts contacted some of us who have contributed to the site about trying out some Tulip fabric dye products.  When she asked me if I want interested I thought “Heck, yea!”  I love trying out new things and finding ways to make something that I might not normally buy work for me.  Then after I said yes I thought…is this a good idea with a toddler around??  Yes, I questioned my sanity.  Thankfully, I roped Liz into coming over with her son.  It was like killing two birds with one stone – Brice and Colin could play and Liz and I could work on the project.

Only that didn’t go quite as planned.  Brice decided he was going to be cranky all day.  I’m just hoping it’s because he’s teething and not because he’s coming down with something.  I just don’t do well on these kind of days.  Especially when I have fabric dye on the table and he comes along and pulls on the plastic liner with the fabric dye on it!  But that’s beside the point of this post.

So once I knew the dye would be coming I had to think of something I wanted to do with it.  I knew that I wasn’t going to be tie-dying a shirt.  That just isn’t my kind of craft.  But I knew I could come up with something fun.  I surfed around their eBook for some ideas and was immediately drawn to the fabric painting.  That then reminded me about Amy Karol doing fabric painting her her Bend the Rules with Fabric book.  It was a water colored effect and I had REALLY liked the quilt she made when I saw it in person.  So I had my project.

Liz and I got busy mixing dyes (and getting our hands stained – oops!) and whipped out the Jacquard resist I picked up.  Liz went first to test the waters.  She drew right on the fabric with the resist.  We then took out a blow dryer to dry it out a little faster and then she began painting.  But you’ll have to wait to see her posts for photos of her projects.

After we decided to work on my project, we decided to try something's differently.  After we both came up with the idea to have me do falling leaves, I grabbed a water soluble pen and drew out my leaves.  Then I traced over those with the resist. 

Once we had it dried, I spritzed it with water and started painting, just as you would with watercolors.  The results are amazing!  I love how you can blend the colors together and not have the bulk of a paint on the fabric. 

I tossed it in the washer and dryer tonight and couldn’t be more pleased.  (I didn’t heat set it with the iron first, I forgot.  So Liz will have to let us know how that goes.)  I did apply the paint pretty heavily on most of the leaves, but a LOT of the dye washed out…partially because that’s what’s going to happen, and partially because I didn’t wrap it in plastic and let it sit for the recommended time.  But that was kind of hard to do with this project.  I am so excited to do this again and hope to get to a few more small projects this weekend.  …and of course get this quilted!

Hexagon Inspiration

If the last two posts weren’t enough inspiration for you, maybe these lovely photos will do it for you.  Click on the mosaic to get more info on the individual images.  And then head to your sewing room and get to making some hexagons already!

As an aside, I was asked a question in the comments that I thought was good to answer here.  I was asked about the purpose of paper piecing your hexagons vs. just sewing them together.  There is absolutely no reason you couldn’t just sew them together without paper piecing, you would just want to make sure that you had  cut out your hexagons accurately and left yourself a true 1/4” seam allowance so that all of your hexagons are consistent when sewing together.  Of course, this does require you to cut hexagons from your fabric.  The benefits of paper piecing is for accuracy in size, accuracy in points meeting up and with using squares of fabric instead of hexagons to wrap your paper pieces, it makes for a much faster processes (in that respect at least).  Also, it gives you something to hand sew for those times you are away from your sewing machine.  I love having projects to work by hand and this one is very gratifying in that it goes together quickly and looks so nice and neat with the paper piece.  So I hope that gives you a little bit of insight as to why you would paper piece vs. machine sew.  I will be doing some machine sewn hexagons in the near future and I’ll of course share that all here.

Adventures In Hexagons

I tried just about everything I could think of with these hexagons.  Different papers, different stitches, different methods of attaching…  So I wanted to share all of this with you to let you know what I thought of each method.  And, this would be a great post for all of you to share your insights, too!

Preparing Fabric

I first went with the suggestion to cut my fabric hexagons in the shape of the hexagon with a seam allowance.  It got old drawing the lines around my hexagon and then cutting a seam allowance around that. 

Luckily, I was researching for these posts and remembered Alicia’s post on hexagons, I read it again and saw she was using squares (I only get to skim blogs and look at pictures sometimes).  So now I only use squares.  She referenced the website Paper Pieces and on the right side of the webpage is a link to a hexagon cutting guide.  This guide tells you how big to cut your squares based on the size of your hexagon.  I’m telling you, this makes life SO much easier.  And I think the back is prettier looking.

Paper Pieces

My first hexagons I used were actually not paper, they were Teflon.  I found a package of these at Joann’s and thought it was a good idea.  I like that they were slick and easy to remove from the fabric and that they were reusable.  Very green.  I like to be “green” if I can.  What I didn’t like was how you had to stitch the corners of them to keep the fabric in place.  I found I had to double stitch the corners to keep them down (rather than working the hex backwards, which was too much for my brain) and therefore harder for me to remove the basting thread later.  I also didn’t like the fact that they were thick…thicker than paper anyways.  I don’t know why that mattered to me, but it did. 

Next I moved to regular paper piecing, as explained in my tutorial.  Let me tell you, this went SO much faster.  While the hexes wont be reusable for long, I think you could get 2 or three uses out of them.  I created a 1” hexagon sheet and went to town cutting them out myself.  I know I could have bought them, but everyone locally was out of the 1” size when I was looking, and really, I didn’t mind cutting these out.  Took no time at all. 

My next thought was to try freezer paper.  I cut my freezer paper down to 8.5” x 11” and got it as flat as I could and fed it through the printer.  The printer didn’t really like it on it’s own, but I got it to work well enough.  This was awesome!  I could iron these down to my pieces and not worry about the fabric shifting on me while I was sewing, thus leaving me a little short when I got around the hex.  I had that happen a few times, but made it work.  I worried that there would be a problem with missing the freezer paper when stitching together my hexagons, but it wasn’t an issue at all.  And best of all, once I removed the basting thread, the papers just fell right out of the fabric.

Another reason I really liked using the paper was for how easy it was to keep the paper hexagon in place and still sew together my multiple hexagons.  The paper allowed me to bend the adjoining hexagons when I sewed my rows together.  With the Teflon, I had to remove it before I could do anything, or bend it and make it work.  That didn’t really work so well.  But the Teflon is slightly pliable.  You could try using a glue stick, but make sure it’s a fabric glue stick as I've read regular glue sticks can brown the fabric over time.  I didn’t try this, but this could be a great option, too!

Stitches

The standard for connecting hexagons is the whip stitch, but I found if I didn’t pull my stitch tight enough on the back, or keep them close enough together, when I flipped it over to the front I could see my stitches.  It looked sloppy.  So I thought I'd try a couple of different stitches.

First I tried the ladder stitch.  This worked great for keeping my stitches hidden and on the front it looked good.  But not great.  You could see the ladder effect on the front where the fabric connected to each other.  While it was clean looking, it was kind of odd.  Also, it was a bit of a pain to work this stitch, not as fast as a whip stitch.

Then I decided to do a running stitch.  I went in from the front to the back and then from the back to the front and pull my thread full through the two stitches on this return stitch.  This went very fast.  And it looked great from the front.  So I had my stitch.  I still worked the corners the same as the whip stitch, stitching through it twice to secure.  The biggest downfall of this stitch is not being able to secure loose ends of thread as with the whip stitch.  Doing the double stitch in the corner, on my second stitch I would just slip the needle through the second stitch before pulling it tight and this created a nice knot for me.  This is the stitch I ultimately used and liked.

If you do decide to stitch with the whip stitch (it is a quick stitch) just make sure to keep your stitches close together and pull your thread tight as you go along to give a clean look on the front of your work.

Assembling

I played with a few ways of assembling the hexagons.  If will of course depend on the type of hexagon project your working, but there are a few directions to consider.

First I just did random piecing.  I just started adding hexagon to hexagon, keeping it somewhat even, but no real direction.

The I tried assembling the flowers, that is to say, one hexagon in the center with a hexagon on each of its sides.  Now, if you will be doing hexagon flower projects, this will of course be the way you’ll want to assemble them.   There are two ways to approach this.  You can stitch all the hexes to the center hex first, and then stitch those hexes to each other after that.  By connecting the hexes to the center hex first, you can keep a constant running stitch.  When you go to connect the sides you will have to do each side individually, knotting at the end to secure.  You may choose to connect two hexes to the center and then connect them to each other and continue on in that matter until you’ve worked around.  Again, you will have stopping points where you have to knot and start again, but it’s all even in the end.

Because I wasn’t doing flowers, but a “square” of hexagons for the block, I choose to sew rows of hexagons and then sew those rows together.  Sewing the rows together went very quickly, mainly because I didn’t have to start and stop my stitching.  I just continued from one hex to the next down the row.  You could also do this for the flowers, you would just want to have your hexes assembled and laid out before hand so you can place everything accordingly. 

Resources

I came across lots of helpful sites while reading up on Hexagons.  I’d like to share them here and if I come across any new links in the future I will add them as well.  Let this be your hexagon resources post. 

1. Posy Gets Cozy – Hexagon Piecing (Writes about her experience in hexagon piecing)
2. Postcards From Panama – Hexagon Quilt Tutorial (suggests using glue stick)
3. Craft Passion – Basic Hexagon Quilting Tutorial (links to hexagon pincushion project)
4. Thimble Blossoms – Hexagon Quilt Tutorial (Great tutorial and photos)
5. All Buttoned Up – Oh snap!  That girl doesn’t baste. (Awesome alternative to basting)
6. The Jax Collection – Traditional English Hexagon Patchwork Demonstration – Video 1 and Video 2.  (Great videos demonstrating how to make and connect your hexagons)
7. Incompetech – Hexagonal Graph Paper PDF Generator (generate your own hexagons in any size you need)
8. Paper Pieces – Hexagon Cutting Guide (how big to cut your squares of fabric and also a great spot to buy paper hexagons)

And that’s what I've learned so far.  I have some more ideas, but we’ll have to wait to see what comes of them.  You can be sure I'll share more as I learn more.  I hope that all of this information is useful to you and that you find something to make piecing these a little easier for you.  Happy hexagon sewing!

Tutorial :: Hexagons

October’s block of the month is hexagons.  A warning: these things are addicting!  I’m going to give a quick run down of how to make the block here, but for a more informative discussion on hexagons and everything I tried, please see my separate post on “Adventures in Hexagons” next posting.  There are many ways to make your hexagons, but the purpose of this tutorial is to learn the English Paper Piecing method.

Preparation

1. Download the 2” hexagon template and print off three pages.  Cut out the hexagons.  OR purchase a set of 2” paper hexagons at a local fabric store.  You need a total of 22.
2.  Cut 22 – 4 1/2” squares from your fabrics.

Directions

1.  Lay your hexagon paper onto your square of fabric and fold down one corner over the paper piece, flush against the straight edge.
2.  Fold over the side to the left of your first fold over the point of the hexagon, making sure the second fold is flush against the side of the hexagon paper.
3.  Insert your needle and thread from the front of the fabric, through the paper piece and to the back side to the right of the fabric fold.  Pull thread through leaving a tail on the front side of the hexagon.  No need to knot it.
4.  Insert the needle from the back towards the front going through the fabric fold and paper back to the front of the hexagon.

5.  Fold down the fabric to the left of the fold you just secured and repeat step 3 and 4 to secure it, keeping a running stitch from corner to corner.  Repeat this 4 more times until your hexagon is wrapped in the fabric.  Leave the tails of your thread long and don’t worry about knotting them.  If I was worried about my thread slipping out, I would go back in and out of the fabric where I first started securing the hexagon.

Do this for all 22 hexagons.

6.  Place two hexagons right sides together, mathcing the sides at the corners.  Insert your needle at the corners, grabbing just the fabric and not the paper hexagons.  Don’t worry about knotting your thread, just leave yourself a little tail.  Insert your needle again into the same hole from back to front.  This is called a whip stitch.
7.  Continue whip stitching down the length of your hexagon, keeping your stitches close together.  Catch the tail of your thread under your whip stitches as you go along to secure it.

Your captured tail will look something like this under your stitches.

8.  Whip stitch to the end of your hexagon and again insert your needle into the corner twice, just as you did at the start.  I do place a tiny knot at the end to secure.  Open out your hexagon and you will see that the stitching has created a tiny ridge.  From the front you will see a seamless connection.

As an aside, here is how I quickly tie my knots (something that I just learned recently)

1.  I place my needle on top of my fabric to the immediate left of my thread.
2.  I wrap my thread around my needle twice, going from right to left.
3.  I pinch the wrapped thread under my thumb and pull the needle and thread up and through the two loops.
4.  I now have a perfect knot at the end of my work, holding it securely in place.

Continue sewing your hexagons together creating 3 strips of 4 hexagons and 2 strips of 5 hexagons. Lay them out so that you have a good visual of how they will be sewn together and grab your first two strips.

9.  Sew your strips together.  You will be sewing “Y” seams, which are really very easy to do.  You will just match up the sides of your hexagons and slightly bend the hexagons as needed to match the sides.  I like to start at the top and work my way down so that I am only having to knot my thread at the end instead of several times along the way.

Here is what your seams will look like as you piece together the rows.  The piecing here shows how the blue/green check has been sewn to the pink vine and blue posy.  Next the orange flower will be sewn to the blue posy and then the orange tile.

Continue in this fashion until your whole block is pieced.

Cut some strips of fabric, whatever color or print that you choose.  I am using white as a filler piece in my blocks, so I continued that theme here.   Decide how much of your hexagons you want peeking through and draw pencil lines on the hexagons.  I drew mine so that I had a square (centered on my hexagons) of 11 1/2”.  I then cut strips of white fabric to be 1 1/2”, laid them on my block, rights sides of fabric together, and used my penciled lines as the guide for placement of my strips.  I then sewed them down with a 1/4” seam allowance.  Finally, I trimmed my block to 12 1/2” square.  If you had not already decided to remove your papers before sewing, do so now.  That is what I did for my block.  I just used a very short stitch length when sewing my boarder fabric on so as to make the tearing away of the fabric easier.  This way I knew that my hexagons would keep their shape as I sewed.

I loved the effect of this block being boxed in by the white.  I feel as though I'm looking at a framed picture, or looking into a window.  Framing this block out just finished it off for me.  I hope you will give these a try, they are so much fun and easier to take with you where ever you may go.  Don’t forget to read the accompanying post on my “Adventures in Hexagons” next posting.

Tutorial :: Cathedral Window

Here it is, Septembers block of the month. Finally.  The title of this post should really be “adventures in sewing".  I have to say, I love how this block looks, but until I find yet another way to do this, I think this will be my only cathedral window for awhile, although I did find some short cuts that I haven’t seen discussed elsewhere.  In this tutorial I will give the measurements and instructions for making a cathedral window block for the quilt along.  At the end I will have a lot of links to different tutorials, all of which I read before doing this one to find what might work best.  I’ll also discuss my shortcuts in the hopes that it will help you. 

Directions

First off you will need to choose a background fabric (in my case I chose white) and cut yourself 4 – 12 1/2” squares.  You will need to choose 4 prints for the “windows” and cut them about 4 1/8” square.

1.  Fold your fabric in half, right sides together, and sew down each side.  Clip the corners.
2.  Pull open your fabric and match the seams you have just sewn.  Pin along the edge and sew across, leaving an opening at the center to turn right side out. 

3.  Turn right side out and iron.   Don’t worry about the hole left from turning, that doesn’t need to be closed.
4.  Fold in two opposite corners to the center of your square and press.
5.  Fold in the other two corners to the center and press.
6.  Flip over and leave to cool.  I find this helps to keep its shape.  Complete the other three in the same fashion.

**Note** No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get my points to match up perfectly in step 5.  I just did my best and fudged it later on.

7.  Placing two of these pieces on top of each other (backs together) sew along the crease line you pressed in the last step.  Complete for the other two pieces.
8.  In the same fashion, sew together your two pieces creating a block of four as shown above.  Your triangles are going to be what forms your window.

9.  Lay your prints inside of those triangles that you sewed together to attach your white squares.  In the photo above for step 8, you can see how the two triangles form a square on point with a seam down the center, this is where you will want to lay your print.  Pin in place.  Repeat for the other three prints.
10.  Roll over your edges of the triangles and pin.  I found pining at the ends and in the middle was best.  You will see a natural curve in the fabric as you pull it over and pin it.
11.  Machine stitch from one end to the next along the curve of the folded over fabric. 
12.  Repeat step 11 for all sides and all prints.

Now, you could stop at step 12 and leave your corners unrolled, or you can create the rolled edges on the corners as well.  You may decide to put fabric in the “half window” along the sides, or leave it white as I did here.

You may not find that you have this problem, but I found that when I sewed together my two sets of squares in step 8, I was left with a little hole in the center of my four white squares.  After I had completed my block, I simply went back and very discreetly closed the hole.  I did my best to run my needle and thread through the layers of fabric so as to hide any stitches.  You may not have this problem, but I suspect this had to do with my squares not being perfectly square at the start. 

So now for how I made it easier on myself.

1.  I used Steam-A-Seam on my prints and ironed them in place.  Now I didn’t need to worry about my fabric shifting as I was sewing those edges down.  The down side to this is it’s a little stiff.  I’m hoping after a good wash that this will soften up.  But I’m not sure that it will.  Because I did this, there is no poofing of the fabric, which can be kind of nice, but it saved my sanity.

2.  I used Elmer’s Glue to glue down the edges of my white fabric on the windows.  I pressed it with a hot iron to heat set it.  Because this is water soluble, it will wash out once my quilt is washed for the first time.  This made the process of holding the edges down and sewing them in place SO much easier. 

And now to the links.  I referenced each of these tutorials before making this block myself.  Each was a little different and had some great things to offer.  If you are thinking about doing this block, I suggest visiting each of these sites.  Good luck and I hope you’ll share your experiences (and blocks) with me here and in the Flickr pool.

1.  Hyena In Petticoats – Cathedral Window Quilt Tutorial (perhaps the most popular);
2.  Angie’s Bits and Pieces – Cathedral Windows (she has a great chart for figuring out what size to cut your fabric for your desired square size);
3.  Treadleworks by Tammy – Cathedral Window (great run down from a class she took);
4.  Making Ends Meet – Cathedral Window Tutorial (great, basic instructions);
5.  Quilter By Design – Cathedral Window Quilt (gives fabric requirements);
6.  Heartland – Flower Cathedral Window Quilt (gives fabric requirements and instructions with a few tips);
7.  Kosher Nostra – Cathedral Window Quilt Pattern (a twist on the classic);
8.  Sunshine Creations – Mock Cathedral Window (get the look with out the work).  She also has a tutorial for the traditional block on her blog.

Fresh MD blogged almost a year ago about this cathedral window quilt (above), c.1950, that she picked up on Ebay. I absolutely love it and would love to have one like it some day. 

Finally, here is a mosaic to get you inspired to make your own (click on the photo to follow the link for more information on each photo).  I wish I had some more patients for this block, I'd like to make some pillows or even a quilt, but maybe after the holidays are over.  And of course we can’t forget our inspiration block by Rita, whose Flickr photostream is a constant source of inspiration for me.  The second photo is one of her beautiful blocks. 

Craft + Color + Sew

Enter those words, and here is some of what you get.  Well, except the last one, that’s been in my favorites for awhile now.  I love the sewing machine painting.  The quilt on the bottom right with the little camper…I have been working on an idea to make a quilt for my mother- and father-in-law for Christmas with their toy hauler and quads on it.  This was just the inspiration I needed!  Click the photo to go to the Flickr page and see the source for each photo.

Magazine Delight

Thank you so much for all of your comments…I’m feeling much better about my mistake.  And much better for just going with it.  Yesterday after I laid it down for awhile to do other things and then came back to it, I liked it a lot better.  It didn’t seem as bad as I thought.  I hope I feel the same way when I walk back to it this evening after I'm done posting.  I’ve decided to do a blanket stitch around the birds…and it’s taking awhile.  I’m slow with blanket stitches.  I’m almost done with one bird.  That means 7 more to go.  Maybe if I give myself a goal of a bird a night…  I had another goal for myself today,  I didn’t make it.  But the nights not over yet.  October is almost over and I still haven’t posted September’s block.  Bad me.  I picked up the Fon’s and Porter and Stitch magazines on Sunday at Joann’s.  Apparently Sunday is a really bad day to go to Joann’s.  Never again!  The Homespun is a gift from Tam at 1/4 of an Inch.  I helped her to acquire a book from here in the states and sent along some pretty fabric as a surprise.  We had talked about Homespun and she asked if I’d like a copy.  Of course I would!  I really loved this issue, there were quite a few projects I’d like to put on my “list”.  Maybe after Christmas I can get to them…  Thanks so much, Tam!

“Sweet Tweets”

My friend Liz made this quilt for a new member of the extended family.  As soon as I saw it I knew it had to be a pattern.  I helped with proofing and I’m making one now a friends new baby. 

Only something went wrong.  It is so like me to do something like this.  Can you see it?

I put the Steam-A-Seam on the WRONG SIDE of the fabric.  I didn’t even notice until I pulled off the paper backing to iron it down and realized the sticky side was on the right side of the fabric. 

So now I’m not sure what to do.  It took a little time to trace those birds, cut them out and iron them on.  I really don’t want to do it again and waste all of this fabric.  Plus, I’m out of Steam-A-Seam.  I read this article in a Quilts And More  issue about using the wrong side of the fabric to give a vintage, faded look to your quilts.  So I'm going to go with it and hope for the best.   You can buy your own pattern in her Etsy shop and enter her giveaway on her blog for a chance to win the pattern for free!

Trick or Treat Tote + Pattern

I wanted to have a little bag for Brice for Trick or Treating this year, and I knew I wanted to make it myself.  I also knew that I wanted to do something with a pumpkin on linen so I combined the two.  I’m not sure when I decided I wanted to do some embroidery, but I started sketching things out and came up with the above design.  It’s absolutely fitting as Brice LOVES his “meows”. 

I stared with the cat and added the pumpkin, but kept thinking it needed something else.  Hence the tree.  But it was no easy matter trying to draw a tree that said “fall” but was still fun and cartoonish like the cat and pumpkin.  With my moms advice I finally decided on the tree in the design. 

I found the dots at Joann’s along with the lining fabric some months back.  I had thoughts of making them into a trick or treat bag for Brice, but this wasn’t what I was originally thinking, but that’s just fine by me. 

I have had the idea of doing a pumpkin appliqué on a bag since my apple bags.  I made it up as I went along, using the sketch from my embroidery for my pattern.  As an after thought I decided to embroider on the pumpkin, but knew embroidery for the vine was a perfect choice all along. 

He loves this little bag.  He gave it a kiss and a hug and happily caries it around on his arm.  It’s just the perfect size for treats and will serve us for many years.  Not into Trick or Treating?  I think it’s the perfect size for a little library tote, too.  Now it’s time to go make one for yourself.  The free pattern includes instructions for making the bag as well as the embroidery design and pumpkin appliqué template. 

Treat or Treat Tote Pattern (PDF)

Snapshot Sneak Peek

More to come in the way of a FREE pattern later today.  I hope. 

Rugby Stripes Blanket

Finally!  The eBook and pattern are done and listed in the shop.  Sometimes, it takes me way too long to get to things.  But you are all so patient.  So I did two listings – the first is the eBook, which includes all of the basics of crocheting to get you through this blanket and beyond.  The second is just the pattern and crochet diagram for those of you that are more experienced.  I still consider the pattern for a beginner, but more for the beginner that has at least one project under their belt.  Liz was my pattern tester and eBook proofer.  She is always honest and gives the best constructive criticism.  I don’t know how I would do these things without her!  Now that this is finished, time to work on the Color Pencil Portfolio pattern… 

Tiny Stitches

Do you sense a theme going on?  They’ve consumed my free time.  But I think it’s because they are so portable.  And addicting.  Little by little I'm getting to my project started last week.  Very little.  But little is better than none!  Sometime soon I need to finish Septembers block – it’s on the “To Do” list…and October’s block should probably be posted in October.  Overall, it was a productive weekend if my weekends of the past few months are anything to go by.  Now to see what this week brings…

I know, I know…I'm such a tease with my photos sometimes.  But all will be revealed soon.  It gives you something to anticipate and look forward to, and it gives me an excuse to pop in and say hello.  Happy Monday!

Multi-Tasking

Or is it “Crafters-ADD”?? I can never just sit at the computer and do one thing.  I’m either looking at a million things in my browser(tutorials, Ravelry, blogs, shopping,…) or I'm looking at a million things and making lists or drawing out ideas for graphic design stuff or patterns, …or quilting feathers.  As has been the case this whole week.  All week long I've sat with a pen and paper in front of my keyboard and as I wait for pages to load and drawn feathers.  I’ve quilted feathers a few times, but I'm not happy with my work.  So I'm drawing them to get better.  This is what I do before I quilt a quilt, I draw what I'm going to be quilting to get a better idea of the movement.  To program it into my hands and brain.  It was something I was taught when I took a longarm class all those years ago and it’s something that I still do.  I’m training my brain.  It’s kind of fun.  I like making designs and then trying to make the feathers follow the designs.  Of course I have to try other designs along the way too.  I’ve been talking with Erin more about quilting on our longarms lately, it’s been nice to have someone to talk to about that.  She pointed me over to this site today, it’s very helpful for showing you how to get the design. 

Blog-friend Kathy and I have been corresponding over email for some time now and I helped her with a few questions and as a thank you she made this beautiful accordion book with photos of Brice.  She is going to be teaching a class on making this and boy do I wish I lived in Winnipeg, because i’d be signed up for that class in a heartbeat!  You can read all about it on her blog (and see the flip side) and take a look at all of her beautiful scrapbooking.  I love the world of electronic scrapbooking, but haven’t taken the leap yet.  I’d really like to, but I have SO much on my plate as it is.  Someday soon, though.  In the meantime, I just like reading her blog and seeing everything she does.  It’s very inspiring for me.  Like many others, I pull my inspiration from a variety of areas, and scrapbooking is one of them.  I’m anxious to get this little booklet and display it for us all to enjoy.

Sometimes I Craft

Little bits of things are being worked on.  Quilts quilted, new ideas drafted, fabric cut…  I’ve been spending a lot of time on Ravelry the past few days.  I have some new knitting projects in the works.  Great for taking along to visit with grandma.  We had another set back this week, and another short stay in the hospital, but she should be going home again today.  I’ll be glad when this is all over and she’s back to her healthy self again.  The quilt is my moms “Hip To Be Square” quilt with Joel Dewberry fabrics.  I’m using a variegated thread on it, the colors are just perfect!  Now I'm off to enjoy some hot cider.