WIP Wednesday

Only one picture today. This is the beginning of my FMF Popbeads quilt.

More of an update tomorrow.

Actively working on:
Popbeads
Birdie Stitches
Single Girl quilt-along
3x6 Sampler Quilt Mini Bee

In a holding pattern:
That Girl quilt-along
Sliced Coins quilt-along
White-on-white quilt (this needs to move up a category to the "active" list)
Blockapalooza
There's a Square in There
Bottled Rainbows

This week's stats:
Completed projects - 0
Currently in progress--too numerous for actual count

Go to Lee's and Cheryl's blogs to see what everyone else is working on!

WIP Wednesday

To start off this morning with something totally off the subject, I like new yellow No. 2 pencils, freshly sharpened. They seem to collect around my keyboard. I know I could have a cute mug filled with them, but they would probably still be in various places on my desk. We have been making friends with bartenders collecting various wine and liquor bottles over the last year and Mark then slumps them into cool shapes that are great for entertaining--you know, wine and cheese parties. You can use them for crackers, olives, etc. College guys like Corona beer bottles to throw their spare change in. Anyway, someone gave us a Frexinet champagne bottle. Those bottles have a matte finish, but after Mark fired it, it came out nice and glossy. Voila! My pencils have a classy place to reside on my desk now.

Okay. Moving on to something more WIP-ish.

I joined the Single Girl quilt-along and have struggled over what fabric to use. And being so flaky, every time I see someone else's selection, I think, "That's it. That's what I want to do." The quilt on the pattern cover is made from Katie Jump Rope. So I was going to do that, because I have collected quite a bit of it over the last year. And then someone decided they would use Katie Jump Rope mixed with Flea Market Fancy. Hey, that sounds like a good idea. Then I decided maybe I would make a Christmas quilt because I have a lot of cool contemporary Christmas fabric. Then I saw that Corey was using all solids. And I loved that idea. And then I saw that several people on Flickr are not matching all their rings, making a ring or two or three of a different color. Genius.

Okay, folks. This is my final decision. I'm sticking with Katie Jump Rope.

Then I started pulling out coordinating solids (sorry for the lousy picture--the lighting was terrible in the late afternoon) and I think I'll make three rings of only solid fabric. It's my compromise of all the things that appealed to me: Katie Jump Rope, solids, and a couple of rings that were different from the others.

I'm making progress on my spool quilt. Good thing, too, because I leave for the quilting retreat a week from tomorrow! I machine quilted around all the brown spool parts, and I'm doing big stitch around the sides of each spool. I had read Kate Conklin's big stitch tutorial and liked the idea that she was trying to make the stitch on the front and the stitch on the back of the quilt relatively the same size. I tried that and it totally felt awkward for me. Do you think hand quilting is kind of like your signature, individual and unique?

WIP Wednesday and Color Therapy Thursday

First things first. I need advice on just one color of perle cotton for my Spools quilt. I decided to outline each spool with off white No. 8 perle cotton. Around the border I am going to use variegated in a swirly line, like thread. By last week I had decided to big stitch the quilting needle in the bottom border rather than applique it on. So here's the question: would you use grey pearl cotton for the needle to more closely resemble a silver needle? Even though there is no grey in the quilt itself?  Or would you use brown pearl cotton because there is a lot of brown in the quilt?

Yesterday Charlotte and Levi did a Valentine's project using this great "love mail" tutorial from Noodlehead, cute little packets, one side vellum and the other white card stock, and then stuffed with M&Ms and sewn shut (by me...). I got the Valentine's M&M assortment. While I never eat blue M&Ms (personal protest--weirdo...), I have no problem with seasonal M&M colors.

I was going to have Charlotte write both her name and Levi's name on the front of each Valentine in the "from" area. Her name is long, and while she can write it very well, she really needs a good 8 inches of paper. These Valentine's were only 4" wide. Things started out well enough, and then she ran out of room. So she just put the rest of her name randomly wherever she could find space. Her whole name is there, you just kind of have to search for it. And sorry, Levi, there was no space for your name.

Then I sewed the front and back together, just leaving an opening of a couple inches at the top. The packets then got stuffed with M&Ms.

This is what I love about art projects with little ones. You give them the rudimentary instructions, and then sit back and watch how their incredible little brains interpret what you said.

While there were four colors of M&Ms in the bag (white, red, and two shades of pink), Charlotte only wanted one color in each of the packets she stuffed. After watching her create the pattern in her macaroni necklace, it makes me wonder if she is going to favor linear and symmetrical creativity in her projects. It will be interesting to watch.

Levi, on the other hand, wanted all the colors.

This was a fun project (even though they always look so serious--art takes concentration!) and educational--lots of practice in counting those M&Ms. And plenty left over for eating...

WIP: Works in Progress Wednesday

Here is a progress report on Spoolin' Around (what do you think of the name? I'm pretty happy with it, so if you think it's too dorky, um, don't tell me...)

Anyway, use some imagination at this point and envision the white border on all four sides rather than just the top and bottom. I didn't have time last night to sew the last two borders on. Oh, and also ignore those ripples on the top and bottom borders. Not sure what is going on there. I carefully measured the  quilttop and borders. They are both the same width. Anyway, I'll work on that too.

Things changed a lot in the last week. Last Wednesday I was still pretty set on doing a small inner border and then a larger border using the challenge fabric. Then Jessica left a comment with a GREAT suggestion (thanks, Jessie!) and from there I ended up with a 1/2" inner border. And let me just make another observation here. Do you ever buy fabric for no known reason, other than "you'll know it when you need it"? Alexander Henry has a few colors called Heath, a wondeful blender fabric.

The brown colorway was the perfect solution when I was making border decisions. The challenge fabric has a lot of negative white space, and in a few places it would butt up against a tipped-over spool, and I didn't like the white against the white. So I needed something to separate it, and this was perfect. A solid would have been too jarring, but this brown and white "mesh" fabric was a great transition. So I'm saluting the decision to buying fabric just "because." Because at some point it might come in really handy.

Next came a 1 1/2" border of the challenge fabric and then a 4" white border. I had tossed around the thought of appliqueing a needle on the bottom border and big stitching some "thread." Instead, I am going to big stitch a needle, and then the thread will wander around all of the white borders. I'm thinking variegated thread?

My next dilemma is the quilting around the spools. I was thinking of quilting 1/4" inside just the brown spool part with brown perle cotton. Alternatively, stitching around each spool with white perle cotton.

Further decisions, which I won't have to make for at least two weeks: I got this companion print, which I could use for the back, or the binding.

Oh, and I kind of snuck this in on the bottom border. When I cut the selvage off, I had only cut 1 1/2" so it was a little too small to just sew it in to the border. Oh, well...

I'm linking up at Naptime Quilter for Workshop in Progress and Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday. Check out what everyone else is up to.

I just had a random thought. Yesterday I mentioned that Mark's fused glass plate appeared in a quilt magazine put out by Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims. Have any of you ever watched The Quilt Show? After Alex did eleven years of Simply Quilts on HGTV, she and Ricky Tims teamed up for a web-based quilt show. I renewed my membership recently, and I received a free gift certificate for a 1/2-year membership. I can give it away to a friend who is not a Star Member of The Quilt Show. And it doesn't even involve your postman trudging through the snow. I just email you the info and you go from there. If you are interested, I can give you the information. It is entirely free to you. So as a giveaway, anyone want to be my friend? Leave a comment to enter. I'll pick a winner on Friday morning and get the info to you.

WIP Wednesday

In the last week I have gone from this:

to this:

to some of these:

and finally to this:

I decided on two slightly different shades of solid brown for the spools, especially important where the spools were touching and going in the same direction. Should maybe have gone a little lighter with the brown, but I worked with what I had in my stash because (a) it was already in my stash and (b) I didn't have the time to order something different.

My next dilemma will be the borders. I need to use the challenge fabric somewhere, so the obvious choice will be in the border.

I'm thinking about separating the main part of the quilt from the border with a 1" border of brown and white stripes. Thoughts?

Then on to quilting. I want to big stitch using perle cotton. Still thinking exactly what kind of quilting. Any thoughts or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Oh, one more thing: I was thinking of putting the challenge fabric border only on the top and two sides. On the bottom I would put a border of Kona snow and applique a needle and then big stitch some thread. Dumb idea? Too busy? Just a thought...

Check out what everyone else is working on here and here.

Workshop in Progress (WIP)

One of my favorite quilt retreats, Quilting in the Pines, is coming up next month. Each year we get 1/2 yard of a "challenge" fabric to make a quilt. When we arrive, the quilts are hung around the room and then everyone gets a chance to vote on their favorite, with the grand prize being a $100 gift certificate to our local quilt shop.

It's a "blind" contest so it's always a lot of fun to try to figure out which quilt your friends have made.

Here is this year's "challenge" fabric, Larkspur Meadow by Alexander Henry.

Even before I received the fabric, I had an idea in my head so I was just hoping the fabric would cooperate. Whew. Totally perfect for my idea.

Yesterday I sketched out my plans. Don't worry. The friends I'm attending with aren't faithful readers (and I should probably talk to them about that...) so I'm not giving any secrets away.

The challenge fabric will probably be used as a border. My plan for the body of the quilt is to make spool blocks in different sizes. Each square is 2" so the quilt without the borders will be 30" by 30". This was my first sketch, but the placement of the largest spool, down in the right-hand corner, was kind of bothering me. It seemed to draw the eye right down to that corner.

So I moved it around and put it more in the middle.

What do you think? Does that make for better visual flow?

I have two different values of "woodgrain" fabric, a medium tan and a darker brown. Originally I had thought of making spools light and some dark,  but then I thought with all the different colors of "thread," that might be too chaotic. Any thoughts on that? Should the spools all be the same "wood"?

Any "threads" of thought you may have will be greatly appreciated. Cheryl at Naptime Quilter started up Workshop in Progress again so I'll be linking up there for some further feedback.

There is still time to give me your thoughts on fabric donation and enter the polka dot giveaway here.

Jolly...

...because it is now

and I'm done with 2010.

I'm still drinking my coffee out of this mug...

because the color combination is awesome (red and aqua) and the sentiment is too.

I just finished hanging up my Sudoku Snowmen quilt in the hallway (which accounts for the odd camera angle...)

We (and by "we" I really mean my daughter-in-law, Christa, who has done a huge amount of work on this quilt for Levi--I'm merely outsourced help) are seemingly nearer to completion of this quilt (a gazillion l" strips, people!)

These strips of color

are slowing becoming units that look like this.

I may have mentioned to some of you machine quilters that I hope to hone my skills in the area of machine quilting in 2011.

In a totally "out of body" experience, the other day I heard myself saying to Christa, "If you want me to, I'll quilt it."

We'll wait and see what she decides...

The value of graph paper

I said yesterday that I was going to cut into my Flea Market Fancy fabric last night. Instead, I ended up going to my LQS holiday open house. Then I came home and started plotting the best way to use FMF fabric. My big question is: how has this fabric come to have such an iconic status? Sure, the colors are great. Sure, the designs are wonderful. But great and wonderful fabric hits the shelves on a weekly basis. So it's just puzzling to me. But I would love to know why personally I am willing to spend way over market value for a fat quarter!  And why can I give away literally yards of fabric that I know I won't use, and then freak out feel a bit apprehensive when I see this little scrap on the floor that could inadvertently be thrown away? Is therapy in order? (And please don't suggest fabric therapy as I think we all know what that means...)

When I was clearing out my sewing room, I went through stacks of old quilting books. I quickly thumbed through them, and then most of them went into the donation pile. There were a couple of patterns that looked interesting enough to make a copy for future reference. One of them was this one, based on an old vintage quilt. The designer called it "Mama's pop beads." Anyone old enough to remember pop beads?

While the fabrics in this quilt did nothing to draw me in, I really was intrigued by the design. With a few change-ups. In the original quilt, all the "beads" were small-scale blue prints in the same value, and the connectors were different colors. My original thought was to also strip piece the beads. Each bead would be the same color family of FMF, but it would have a good variety of fabric in the bead, probably including some that were not part of the FMF fancy line.

But then I got out my graph paper and colored pencils so I could check color placement. And that's when I had a much better idea of making each bead out of one single FMF fabric, and all the connectors will be a brown fabric from the FMF line, all against a background of Kona snow. Much less sewing, it will show off the fabric, and it will have the clean and modern look that I'm going for.

So what do you all think? Is it time to make the first cut?