Learning the hard way

A couple months ago I was flattered to receive an invitation to join Cocorico {A Patchwork Bee}. For lack of a more acceptable description, it's a Ringo-Pie knock off.  A creative bee for those of us who are in awe of the talent in Ringo Pie. Despite my better judgement (it will be stressful, challenging, hard...) I decided to go for it. And I'm glad I did because the girls in this group are amazing!

First up is Lauree who chose "anything from the kitchen that goes on a shelf...especially if it has special meaning to you or your kitchen." I'm crazy for vintage cookware - namely CatherineHolm. I dream of owning a shelf full of pieces. But mostly I want the fondue pot. I will never use it - all that melted cheese/fat/chocolate is too much for our 30-something bodies.  But oh how I love the look of the fondue pot.

And it reminds me of my dad.

My dad could cook only three items: fried tomatoes, scrambled eggs, and beer fondue. He loved that beer fondue. We would have it every new year's eve when I was growing up. And sometimes other "special" occasions.

I don't know why I thought a fondue pot would be a good first go at designing my own paper pieced pattern. It took an embarrassingly long time to draw the pattern, then to figure out how to put it together, then to sew almost every piece incorrectly.

In the end, it's lumpy, some seams are a very scant 1/8", much of it is hodge-podged together because I couldn't make certain sections work the way I planned. And the wallpaper. Oh the wallpaper. I had to cut my idea of a set of matching fondue forks because I ran out of wallpaper.  The wallpaper was also a hard lesson in learning to think carefully about sewing order.

I showed the block to my engineer husband who said it's "nice" followed by "somehow this doesn't work, like it needs to be upright to make sense." while pointing to the obvious...

Clearly not a sewer.

Despite the imperfections, I am totally in love with the end result and want to make one for myself. Or maybe keep this one and make a better version, with cleaner lines for Lauree. I wouldn't want to bring down her quilt with my crooked wallpaper and haphazard seams but I so hope that she loves it anyway!

all in one year

Here we have the first quilt that I started AND finished in the same year! And it's only August. And the fabric was free (thank you Robert Kaufman Fabrics!). And this is a do-over. Go figure.

This quilt was made for my local Modern Quilt Guild's Kaufman Kona challenge (a few months ago!). We were each given one charm pack in the brights colourway and told to make a solids-only quilt. No prints and (I think) just one colour for the background.

It. Was. Tough.

I love Kona and the variety offered but man that's a lot of colours in one little charm pack. The mix of primary's and, what I would consider, pastels was a real challenge for me (that's the point, right!). I tried so hard to come up with a design that used all the colours but couldn't do it.  In the end, I left out the 3 purples, a couple primary greens, and a pink. Oh, and the white charm.

The background and binding is from my stash - Kona bone, I think. Perhaps not the most wise choice, considering I was thinking baby while making this. The quilt is backed in some random print from my stash. I'm sure there was a name on the selvage but I forgot to read it before tossing the scraps. I love the cirlcey-dotty nature of the print. Pretty.

Specs:

Size: 40"x47"
Fabric: 1 Kona charm pack in the brights colourway, 1.5 yards Kona in bone.
Batting: Warm and White
Thread: pieced with Aurifil 50wt in off-white, quilted with Mettler 40wt in off white.
Backing: Some random print from my stash
Happiness Level: Surprisingly good!

I wish that charm packs were available in the colourways of the fat quarter solids bundles.  I'd have a use for those.

Random Crap

The hubs is out of town tonight so I thought I'd walk down the street and get some Chinese.  I got side tracked at the bookstore...and the clothes store...and the miscellaneous stuff store.  An hour later I was at home eating leftovers while perusing my random crap. 

The Pantone notebook (Chronicle Books) must have been designed with quilters in mind. It's cute, portable, and check out the inside.

3/4 of the page is graph paper and the bottom quarter is blank. It's almost like they envisioned someone sketching block or project ideas and jotting down notes on the bottom.  Love.

Happy Thursday!

A Pouch

For someone who despises installing zippers in my sewing, I sure do put myself in a position to make a lot of pouches! I was very excited when I got my partner for the Pretty Little Pouch swap because she's one of the first people I ever met on Flickr and I really like her a lot. She likes bright colours and linen and wanted a large pouch. I hope this makes her happy.

The pouch is approximately 9"x6"x2".  I had one 9" zipper in my stash so I set out to make a pouch that would fit. To make the blocks,  I started with a small square for the center then sewed triangles onto each edge and trimmed to a 1/4", of the point, on each side and repeated.  Much to my amazement - it worked!

The linen is thick and nubby, and new to me. I was a little surprised to see how out of control my needle felt during the top stitching. But I think the wobbly lines add some character. The back is more linen and I top stitched various lines to add a pattern. I like how it turned out.

I doubt that I can recreate this pouch but I think I'm going to try to make something similar for myself because even though I sew a lot, I still keep my work toiletries in a ziploc bag!

Little Girl Quilt

64"x68"  5 charm packs Dream On by Moda

One year and one month. That's all it took to finish my first charm pack quilt! Actually, that's how long it took to get around to quilting it. I finished the top last June. This past weekend I was looking for fabric to back Swoon, and came across my Dream On quilt top. I decided to quilt Dream On so it didn't risk being in the same bin at this time next year.

I also tried spray basting for the first time - something I don't plan to try again for a very long time. What a nightmare! I know that spray basting is crazy popular but I had The. Worst. Experience. Ever. In fact, if there was ever something that could make me stop quilting forever, spray basting would be it. But I digress. I don't doubt that it was a toxic combo of user error, brand and a dash of bad juju.

So, I grabbed my trusty basting pins and started over. Lucy was excited.

You can tell that I made this quilt top a year ago because back then I had no idea that every seam should be pinned in order to get the points to match. The points are as much as 3/4" off. Yes, you read that right. On a 5 inch charm, I managed to be off by almost 1/5!

This was my first time using (semi) straight lines on a big quilt. Straight lines are FAST! Now I see why they are so popular. I also really like how the quilt is softer than the quilts that I tried stippling.

The binding is a random Kona (I think) in a fuschia-ish colour.

Dream On is a really cute line. I'm hoping that a recipient at Project Linus will think it's pretty too. Even if it is a year late.