Eeek! Where has the time gone! I want to say that I’m over here killing it and knocking out all kinds of UFOs and there are a lot of pictures so get ready.
That would be a lie. I haven’t done anything on those UFO’s.
Why not? That’s a great question. The shop has been a bit on the busy side. We have had more folks express interest in our beginning longarm class (yay!) as well as quilters bringing in quilts that need quilting or repairing. Combine all of that with kids going back to school and adjusting to our new schedules and we kinda scratch the surface.
No complaints though – I love that we are getting to meet some new quilters at the shop as well as seeing the beautiful tops that we are being trusted with to bring out their beauty.
But still, why not? We have talked about the whole motivation factor before. Sometimes we just don’t have it in us to do it. Sometimes there are other things that are taking precedence where we can’t get things done. There is no real point in trying to cram in everything, sometimes there just is no time. It really is okay to take a step back and take care of those things that are demanding our attention. Thankfully for me, we are settling down into that schedule and I will be able to get back to those UFO’s very soon. I was really excited to finish off those flower wall hangings. Momentum even carried me into a UFO that I have seriously procrastinated starting (is it really a UFO if it hasn’t been started? I think intent matters here). That is the Safehaven block of the month from Thimbleberries. You can take a peek at it here. Yeah, yeah, I know it says it’s from 2000….I’ve had the kit for a while and at first is was really intimidating so I kept putting it off. Once I finished floral wallhangings, I took another look at it. Turns out that it isn’t as scary as I remembered and I have 2 blocks completed. My debate now is whether or not to go ahead and applique the circles now or wait until more blocks are completed as well as the debate of which applique method to use. I’m really leaning toward a lightweight fusible and then stitching around them as it seems that will be the quickest method for me and this project has waited long enough.
Don’t worry though, I’ve got a hand applique project (or two) still waiting in the wings. Once upon a time Char and I thought it would be great to do a P3 Designs pattern as she has done an aboslutely gorgeous Halloween Baltimore Album quilt. Seriously. If you haven’t seen it you should click here. If you like that one, you should check out the rest of her available patterns. This lady is seriously talented and her work is beautiful. Of course now that it’s getting close to spooky season, I almost want to dig this one out and see if I can nudge it along a little more.
Hmmm. It almost feels like motivation is starting to visit. Maybe I should take advantage of that while I can.
It’s time for our monthly UFO check in! How are you coming with yours? I am still plugging along and will be really happy to get this one off my list of things to do! You may remember me talking about this one in previous posts….it is a flower of the month series with fabric designed by Ro Gregg and patterns by Nancy Mahoney. I might have that backwards, but that is where I am going to stay. These came in kits with instructions and are from 2008….yes, 2008. I thought it would be easy to do one kit a month. After all they are small and while not terribly simple, they are not overly complicated. Trouble was that I was still working a full time office job, had a baby that October, and we were running the shop in the evenings and weekends. What time? What was I thinking? At the very least I did make it in to my local quilt shop and picked up each of the kits and have had them waiting. Because if you have one you should have them all! Right? You are with me on that right? Well, I thought it would be nice to hang and be able to change out each month. I’m much closer to that goal now!
Since they are a flower of the month, there are 12 kits. I had thought I was being smart and gathered those kits and read the instructions and got all the fabrics cut so I could work on them at retreats. Then Covid and no retreats. The fabric was still cut and waiting for me….but I now have to read everything again to make sure I’m doing the right thing. It slows my process down a little bit. In February I pulled them out thinking, great! This is a big project to get completed and I can wait to move this off my list or at least move it into the queue for quilting!
I’m lumping them all together rather than thinking of them individually because I really just want to get them done and it has been a long time. At the beginning of the month I had 4 of them ready to be quilted and one ready to be bound. But (of course) I added in an extra step. The fabric cuts for these kits were very generous so I kinda added a layer of difficulty. There was also a panel that went along with these fabrics and patterns. Of course I picked one up and kept it with all of the mini kits. With the cuts being so generous, I have enough fabric to complete an extra center block to put with the panel. Curious about the panel? You can find it here. I will say I did not realize that it was for stitchery and I thought it was something to be colored….either way, I have it.
In February I was able to finish 5 of the tops and have one more partially complete with the last one waiting in the wings. Even though I should be moving on to something else, I am going to stay with this one and get those last two finished. Most of the UFO’s on my list for March were new things to start (like kits I’ve had waiting or patterns I’ve matched up with fabric to create) and rather than cutting something new and creating a whole new UFO, I think I would be better off this month to finish these lovelies and look at the the UFO’s I didn’t get finished in January and February to see if I can finish up anything else like that cardinal cross stitch….. Progress is progress right? It sure is!
So, here are the ones that I did get ready this month….I didn’t worry about photographing the second center blocks because they are just going into another UFO. Originally I had thought that I would border the panel with these blocks, but now I am not so sure. It might be something that I scrap entirely or use the center blocks in some type of setting and incorporate the panel into the backing. I think that will need to percolate a little while longer before I make a final decision. Here are 3 of them….Lily of the Valley, Narcissus, and Cosmos.
The last are Cosmos (again), Aster and Rose. The last two to complete are Daffodil (which is almost complete) and Chrysanthemum. I might have miscut things on the Rose as I had to piece together some things and the green in there is not the green from the kit….I can’t seem to find that so I either lost it (most likely) or never had it (unlikely).
I wish I had more to show and I really was on track to get those last two completed but I got a little confused on some of the instructions. I should also admit that I fell down a rabbit hole with my kids as we have been playing a lot of Minecraft…I know…it’s a video game. However, they are now asking me to play with them and we can all hang out together while doing it and that is important. Since we are all playing together, it’s kind of like working on a group project and we can talk about ways to work together in a group which is another great lesson to learn. They can take the lead on most of the game because they know more than I do (for now) and can do things more quickly than I can (for now). But they are learning that we each have our own skill set and for them I am the Queen of Resources. Whenever we go adventuring I always make sure I have extra food, supplies, whatever needed for all of us which has come in handy many times. One of them is very good setting up farming and taking care of animals while the other is good at trailblazing so the rest of us have an easier path to follow. They still need to work on communication and not being bossy, but we will get there and hopefully have some fun while we are doing it. It has cut into my sewing time a bit, and I’m okay with that because I’m not sure how long this will last and I am starting to look forward to this time with them and being a part of their world.
If you are not terribly familiar with Minecraft…it’s too much to explain here, but I will say that it has the most convoluted series of tasks that you have to complete in order to battle the final foe (or Ender Dragon) that I have seen. However, battling the final foe is not a necessary goal of the game and one could spend an inordinate amount of time creating and crafting and building in their world.
Anyway, I think I am now off to google some Minecraft quilts to get some inspriation as that just might have to be a thing for Christmas…..maybe a wall hanging for their rooms with their favorite things from the game.
Happy quilting and we hope that you are also making progress on your UFO’s! I’m hoping that I will have those flowers complete and ready for quilting by the end of this month and who knows what else I will be able to accomplish!
Since it’s the first of the month, let’s talk about those UFO’s shall we? In case you were wondering, I did complete the latch hook complete with rug binding. Just don’t look too closely at the binding. That part is not really done well and I am thinking that at some point I will need to redo that binding.
Ta-Da! It has also been given to my son where it graced his floor immediately. One done only about a million to go (or so it feels). It is time to move on to February! One of the projects that came up was a project I bought from a quilt guild garage sale. In case your guild hasn’t done one of these, it’s pretty freeform. They set aside one of the meetings to do this once the business portion is complete. You can bring in items you wish to get rid of and sell them. So there are usually books, kits, fabric, notions, really just kind of anything. You get a little cash with the added bonus of getting rid of things you don’t like or didn’t work for you.
I came home with this:
Look at all the batik! And then it sat because that pattern looked hard. However, I have now done my own similar mandala without the fancy pieced block in the middle and figured why not! Since it’s number cam up, I should at least get it out and see what’s what.
Lots of precut strips so I can make more strata. Not necessarily my colors, but it still has some potential.
There are a good amount of wedges cut and just waiting to be sewn together. So, I figured my first step was to press everything and take it one step at a time.
Some leftovers that I can use in other things – bonus!
I thought it would be easiest to just do the things that were obvious and so I have sewn the wedges together and pinned it to what I think was intended for the background of the mandala. There are not any strips cut from the brown so that is my best guess. It doesn’t look too bad on there, but it does feel a little blendy to me. The more I look at it the more it grows on me and I’m not complaning. After all this was a quilter yardsale item I probably got for $10 or less and it’s all batiks!
If you are not familiar – this set of strips sewn together is referred to as strata. Althought maybe it should be stratum….I of course had to go look things up just to make sure that I really was using the correct terminology (Stratum: one of a series of layers, levels, or gradations in an ordered system). Either way, I started to work making my own strata and got my first couple of wedges cut. All should be good in the wood, right? Spoiler alert…there was Trouble with a capital T. Take a good look at the picture below.
Did you take a good look? Do you see what I see? I bet you do. It’s fairly obvious. The two wedges to the right are the ones that I added. You can see that things start out looking pretty good, and my strips are all in the the correct order but something has gone awry. I measured my seam allowance on the back and her seam allowance and we were both at 1/4″. The cutting was already done so that was all done by the same person. All I can really think is that it is the differences in our machines somehow….If you have suggestions or know what could be going on, please drop a comment.
I am not comfortable going on with this project as there will be a very obvious shift and I’m pretty sure that even if I shift up a little, things are not going to line up well although I am willing to give that a shot next. Thinking I could pin at each seam intersection, but I’m not certain that will be enough to bring our wedges into alingment.
So, then what? We punt. It’s pointless to put it back in the box as I will still have the same issues the next time I try to work on it. At this point, I am thinking that I will take the wedges apart and kinda flip flop them so they are more of a straight line. I think that brown might make a nice sash of somesort and I could turn this into more of a table runner without having to cut more wedges. The rest of the strips and strata that has already been cut will most likely be used up in smaller projects like table runners and mug rugs that will end up on our Etsy store. No guarantees, I might be able to figure out what is going on, but I’m not going to invest a ton more time in trying to make it work. My goal is to complete something with it and if that ends up not being the pattern it arrived with, then so be it. Fingers crossed something works!
This was also on my list…omg, it’s almost done. Can anyone explain to me why I didn’t finish it? No? Me neither. What it is lacking is the outlining stitching in black. Yep. That’s it. No, it’s not very big so what do I do with it?
Here you can see what the finished project looks like. There is not much outlining at all and I have the instructions and materials to finish out the framing of this. I’m thinking this will not take very long at all and my other son has a love of cardinals so I will pass it along to him, if he likes it.
I have some other things on my various UFO lists that I may get a chance to work on depending on how these two things finish out. One of those is to practice crocheting with crochet thread. It’s not something that I have worked with very much. I did attempt a snowflake ornament a while ago, but the smaller hook sizing feels different to me and there are different weights of cotton thread. So, I have been sitting and practicing my tension and soon I will try the little snowflakes again to see if I can raise my comfort level. I’m not sure I want to try anything larger than an ornament at this time, but maybe that will be something I can look forward to once I gain some proficiency.
How are things going with your UFO’s? I did get my sewing area mostly cleaned up….I really should finish clearing my ironing board (although I do need to get a new cover for that…) and my cutting space. It’s just little stuff that I need to find homes for and I have procrastinated about that a bit… That’s okay though, It will all get done eventually. *fingers crossed*
Hopefully you are also making progress on your UFO’s or whatever project you are working on.
How has your week been? Hopefully you are staying warm and healthy. Have you been working on any projects or maybe made any progress on your crafting area?
I have! Slowly but steadily I am making progress in my room. My cutting table is just about usable and I have most of my sewing table cleared. Next up is the ironing board. Why is it that flat spaces seem to have some sort of magnetic power that attracts all the things to be placed on them? Do you find that to be true in your area? (Or maybe even the rest of your home?) I did not take any pictures of my room, maybe once it is all cleaned up I’ll share what my home space looks like.
As I was going through and finding homes for everything, I realized that I did not list every single project on my lists. Which is okay (and makes for fewer lists!). The number for this month is 12 and that happens to land on a latch hook kit that I thought I had all the yarn for. Well, one of my number 12’s. I took a look at what was listed at 12 and chose one that I could work on in the evenings without needing to be in my sewing room.
Latch hook kit? What decade are you living in?!? I’m sure we all have those older projects that have been lying around or you inherited. I haven’t done one a quite a while and had one that looks vintage modern. I thought it would be fun. However, I do not have all the yarn. 😱. I know right? Don’t they all come in kits? I used to think so, but I have two canvases that are sans yarn. This is one of them. I don’t know if you can tell from the picture but the yarns are two different lengths and I have the stuff for the long yarn sections. Although now I’m debating whether or not to do it all in white…maybe I should see about finding a light grey for the shorter sections. Either way it’s going back in the UFO pile for another time…..
Yeah, that looks every bit like it is from the 1970’s doesn’t it? But it also looks kinda cool…. However, with not having all of the materials it will just have to wait until I have everything. I’m not rushing as I have plenty of other projects to work on. I ended up swapping it out for a different latch hook that wasn’t on my list. This has been a low stress project to work on in the evenings while watching tv. The bonus is that I am a lot faster at this than I used to be and this project is almost complete. Double bonus is that one of the boys has laid claim to it so I won’t have to figure out what to do with it when it is finished. I know you are totally curious about what it could possibly be so of course I need to share a picture.
I did forget to take a picture of this project when I first started to work on it, so I folded it up to show the section that was done.
And here is where we are now. I am hoping that in a couple more evenings I will have it completed!
Honestly I’m still a little surprised that I’ve gotten so much done. It is working up much quicker than I had anticipated and I’m kind of excited to complete it. The real challenge will be remembering how to apply the rug binding but I think that I have some instructions around here somewhere. Fingers crossed that I can find them!
Hopefully you are also making progress on the things you need – whatever they may be. If you are challenging yourself to get some of your UFO’s completed, or perhaps get yourself started on a challenging project, please feel free to share your progress! We love show and tell!
Are you ready for the new year? It’s so symbolic – the ultimate chance for a new beginning and we are fortunate to have that chance. Let’s face it, after the last year or so, we could all use a new beginning.
How are you going to use yours? Do you make resolutions? Do you consider it just another day? Do you consider it an opportunity to try new things or break old habits?
I prefer to use it as an opportunity. For the last few years I took the time to create a UFO list (or rather lists….) numbered 1-12 to work from through the year. You probably remember me talking about American Patchwork and Quilting’s UFO Challenge. I do tend to talk about it a lot. Not that I have gotten a lot of things done, but I keep hoping that it will help me work through my lists. I would like to say that my lists have gotten shorter…they really haven’t. I won’t say that they have grown, but I will say that I do like to have a list of my projects. That may sound a little strange, but I find it easier to work off of my lists. Maybe that’s just me, but I suspect that I really just like being able to cross off the things that are done. If you are curious about their UFO Challenge, there is a group on Facebook where people share their victories and progress on their projects. Be careful though, you may find more inspiration for new projects and lengthen your list!
I also have this vision that if I can get some of these UFO’s completed that I’ll be able to get rid of some storage in my sewing room so it won’t clutter so easily. I will admit that I do keep shoeboxes as they are sturdy for holding projects. Fingers crossed that I can make some real progress this year and send them to recycle! Some of those shoeboxes are empty, but many of them are occupied. We all have those visions don’t we? That if we complete something other things will fall into place? Let’s make this a year where that actually happens!
The question becomes where to start and once again that is going to be cleaning my sewing room. Many of you may have spent some serious time in your crafting areas during the holidays trying to meet those gifting deadlines. It’s no wonder why our areas become a little more like a war zone than a crafting space. So, what better way to get started than to straighten up and get reacquainted with all of those projects and ideas for projects?
I’m betting for some of you that it won’t take long to do this and I wish I could say that I am part of that group, but I have already spent a few hours trying to get things put away and I know I will need to spend quite a few more. My goal this time is to give myself a clean slate that hopefully I can stick with over the course of the year. Fingers crossed!
It seems like I do write about this at the begnning of every year. You can revisit last year’s post here. It may feel repetitive to start in the same place each time, but I think that giving our spaces a refresh at the beginning of the year is a great way to reinvigorate our creativity.
If you are looking for something a little more concrete, Just Get It Done Quilts is doing a declutter challenge. You can check her out at justgetitdonequilts.com. She may be exactly what you are looking for. You just never know when someone will give you a different perspective that will inspire you. Even though she is a few days in, that doesn’t matter – just start where you are and go forward.
If lists aren’t your thing, but you still feel like you need something written, try a journal or a planner. Did you know that there is actually a Quilter’s Planner? You can check it out at quiltersplanner.com. Maybe that will help you with your quilting projects through the year.
Wondering what I worked on in my sewing area this week? I was finding a home for the UFO’s that had been displaced when I rearranged my space. Some were reboxed and some are going out the door and others are on my list so let’s see what we can get done this year. I have also mostly cleared my cutting table and put up the new curtains that I purchased a while ago. Trash was taken out and I started boxing up my scraps to bring over to the shop so we can use them for testing things or scrappy projects for Etsy and such. Next up is clearing my ironing board….do any of you have a cordless iron? What are your thoughts?
Hopefully this year will bring some new beginnings where you need them. Please feel free to leave comments here or on our Facebook page. We would love to know where you find your inspiration or how you are approaching your quilting projects this year. We would love to see pics of your sewing space if you care to share them! This year we are hoping to keep our blog up to date and take you on our journey of finishing the unfinished.
I know, we still need to make a decision about the sashing. What could be taking us so long? Well, holiday season. Don’t get us wrong, we love the holidays! Right now things just get a little crazy with everyone trying to get gifts completed on time. With the pandemic, people have been sewing and getting tops done and trying to get those caught up as well. This just makes things a little busier at the shop and we don’t always get back to our own projects.
That being said, New Year’s is one of my favorites. You may have have seen posts about it before, but I do like to talk about it. The New Year is a great symbol for new beginnings. It creates an opportunity for a new start, and don’t we always love a chance for a new start?
How will you use yours? Create a new UFO list to work through? Maybe get all the supplies for the new hobby you have been itching to try? Maybe fix the things that you didn’t get to this year? It’s prime time to make a list, get your thoughts in order, or even start getting the items so you can make a great start! Maybe you are on track to finish up the last things from this year list. If so, great job! If not, remember that we all do the best we can.
What will we do? Well, I’m not sure we need any new hobbies (although I did pick up a tatting shuttle…..I’ve been a little curious about how that works.), so we will probably be making a UFO list. If that is your jam, be sure to check out American Patchwork and Quilting – they have a UFO group on Facebook where you can share your work. But be forewarned….It may cause you to add projects to your list….. You can’t say we didn’t warn you. The last time I filled out multiple copies of their list. Basically, you list your projects 1-12 and each month they draw a number and you work on that project. Can you fudge it? Sure. It’s more of a fun and encouraging way to work through those UFO’s rather than a place of set rules.
Are you looking forward to the New Year and do you make special plans around it? We would love to hear about it! Finishing some UFO’s? We would love to help you if we can (especially the quilt related ones!). Leave us a comment here, or on Facebook! If learning how to use a long arm quilt machine is one of the things on your list, January is a great time to come in for a class!
I bet you thought that we forgot about our ever-so-patiently-waiting Jacob’s Ladder blocks. It is time to do something with them!
When last we left them we had our 3 trouble maker blocks flagged so we knew what we were dealing with. Now is the time to make the decisions for what to do with these blocks. The end goal for this quilt is to have a bit of a sampler at the shop to showcase some different quilting ideas to show customers when talking about how to quilt their quilt (either by us or by them). With 15 blocks at our disposal, we have the opportunity to show many different kinds of quilting and it will probably take us a little while to get the quilting portion completed as we will need to think about this quilt a little differently.
Because of how we intend to use the quilt, I felt we needed to be careful with what kind of setting was used. There is a great book for setting if you are interested – it is called Great Sets by Sharyn Craig. I may have mentioned it before, but you can find it here. She showcases lots of different ways to set your quilt and some of them incorporate a secondary design. I recommend this book for the inspiration it may give you when it comes to setting your quilt blocks.
But back to Jacob. I am opting to do a border around each block. It is a setting we often use for t-shirt quilts and it lets us use 2 colors for sashing (which is great to incorporate high school/college colors) and this will also solve the issue for our trouble blocks. I do not want to attempt a straight sashing where I will be trying to make sure things are lining up correctly and where the 3 lovelies will show how they are different. No matter how I try, they will look off because I will need to make their sashing strips slightly wider/longer to ensure that they fit with the rest of the blocks. It is true that I could cut down the rest of the blocks to the smallest size, and typically that is what we do, but I am afraid that I will lose some of my block definition if I give the rest of them a hair cut. I am not looking for perfection, I am looking for done and creating something usable.
Before I get too much farther, this may very well be a longer post and fairly picture heavy. I also hope that you will leave us some comments on the various fabric options that are on the table. Please note, that these are not necessarily the exact fabrics I would use, but to audition some different options. Maybe I’ll even talk about some options you would never have thought about!
But first, it’s good to know exactly what kind of layout I’m talking about – so here is a picture of a t-shirt quilt we completed and it is sashed as I plan to sash the Jacob’s Ladder Blocks.`
You can see in the picture above how each shirt is bordered in either blue or gold and then set in an alternating layout. Darker shirts put with gold to brighten them and lighter shirts with blue to help them pop and not get lost in the gold. Blue shirts put with gold so they don’t get lost in the sashing. Just little things to think about, but I’m sure you get the idea. This will be the layout for this quilt.
As we already talked about, with this setting I can make everything a uniform size easily and our trouble maker blocks shouldn’t stand out too much. It also will let us treat each block as a bordered mini quilt to showcase different types of quilting for a shop sampler.
However, finding the fabric to balance everything without turning it into something crazy is going to be a challenge. Never fear! I took some chances and now we can look at some different options! I know it’s not really fair to say that it would be this style of fabric but not this exact fabric, but some are ear marked for other projects and some there may not be enough of to do the job.
Let’s Dig In!
Here are our first two options – a dark and a light….tone on tone…pretty traditional. The dark is a dark dark grey/black and really lets the colors of the blocks shine. The gold lets the scrappy block shine through but it muffles the brown/gold of reproduction fabrics block. While they look okay, the color combination might not be the best and I don’t feel much when I look at it. It’s okay, but I think we can do better.
This time I grabbed a nontraditional type of fabric to go with the black – a lovely blue watery stripe. I initially thought that the gold was not what I was looking for while the black was okay. Since the blue is a directional print, I would need to be sure that I cut the fabric the correct orientation which means more tricky math. However, I don’t hate it. I’m not sure that it is paired well with the black, but I don’t hate the blue. We tend to think of our sashing as needing to be plain most of the time. However, we are going to challenge that a little bit. I hope.
I thought I would look to see how that stripe looked on the other direction as well as how it paired up with the gold. I grabbed two different blocks for each audition so that they would all get to play and so that we could have things like this to talk about. It’s a great illustration for how the blue block gets lost in the blue fabric and how the blue strip makes the pink/white block really pop while it looks boring on gold. I’m not hating this combination, but I need to think through a little more on stripe orientation if I choose a stripey fabric.
I know, we are totally taking this train off the rails. Why can’t we use a busy print? We can. Is it right for this quilt? Maybe. Maybe not. You can easily see that the busy floral fights with block made up of busy prints. However, for the calmer tonal block, it works fine. My eye drifts right to the block without dwelling too much on the busy sashing fabric. My eye also skate over the gold fabric and right to the tonal block because that floral is successfully framing it. While I don’t love it, it certainly does give me some options that I might not have thought about before. I think it is important to note that the busy print is not so effective for the block with busy prints. Having a busy print is fine and it looks like these blocks would need a calmer option as well to really be effective.
Egads! What did I do! If one is good, more must be better, right? Maybe not. Putting these two lovely prints do work with each other, but not so much with the blocks. The green leafy print is absolutely eating the orange and green block. When flipped, the green and orange block is not faring much better with the floral. If there were a calm option, the green and orange block would be begging to land there. Sometimes more is not better, but we never know until we try. Auditioning fabric can be so important!
Well, what happens if we choose a calmer print? Let’s bring back our blue watery stripe. It looks okay with the green leafy print and it doesn’t fight much with the tan/red/green block. The blue and print block gets absorbed by our stripe and doesn’t seem too bad with the green leafy print. Hmm. I was kind of liking this combo to start with.
Let’s get our gold back out and see how it looks with our leafy green print. While they aren’t fighting much with the blocks, I don’t feel like this combination is really adding any interest to the quilt. Both of these blocks are easily seen on either fabric, but it just feels boring.
Here is our last block and since there was only one left, it got to lay over our black and leafy green. This is not a bad combination either. The green obviously won’t be the right fabric for all of the blocks while the black is calm enough that it can handle any of the blocks.
So, there you have it! There are 8 different pairings above. I’m still feeling partial to the blue stripe. Which one was your favorite? Hopefully this will help you look at sashing fabrics a little differently. I like my sashing to unify things and this is definitely a scrappy quilt so some unification is necessary.
Please drop us a comment here or on our Facebook page to let us know which are your favorites! I’m not completely sold on any of our combinations, but am finding some of them to be interesting. Leaving us a comment just might be what we need to narrow things down a bit. You never know, the choices you suggest just might just end up in our quilt!
We talk about the tip of the iceberg at home a lot. How icebergs are tricky things…that you can only see a portion above the water while the greater mass lies below the surface. We talk about how the tip of the iceberg represents our final product; the result of our work. The mass below represents the work that it takes to get the result, or the part of the iceberg you can’t see. The boys wanted to start a podcast – so they are learning a lot about the work that lies beneath the surface.
A couple of weekends ago they also got to watch us go through a bit of that as well. They helped to load items that we had lovingly crafted and packed them into our vehicles so we could unload at show one. They came to see our end result where we had our items unpacked and displayed. At show two they had the opportunity to see how we turn a stack of boxes and crates into a shopping display, talk with shoppers, and then dismantle it all into packing boxes and load it all up once again. At this point all I have to really say is, “Think of the iceberg”, and they know.
Our quilting is like icebergs, people enjoy the finished product but don’t always understand the work that goes into the creation. There are seemingly unlimited pattern and fabric choices and combinations. Then there is the money for supplies which always seems to be increasing. Lastly (and possibly most importantly) is the time we dedicate to the creation. Some of us have projects that are really large icebergs. We hope you keep plugging away on those – we know the effort you are putting into things!
A lot of the time when we talk about icebergs, we are talking about how no one really cares about the part that is below the surface – the unseen work that needs to happen. That is until that work isn’t done. Everyone likes to focus on the part that can be seen. That’s our Wow! Factor.
Previous to opening QBY – we both worked in a law office and occasionally I would bring in a finished project and my boss would always ask the same question, “How many hours did that take you?” I didn’t really get it at first because it was my creative outlet and the hours didn’t matter. However, to him where hours are billable, he was attributing a value to it in way that I never thought of that also gave credit to the effort I put into it. A lot of people take our finished creations for granted so it was nice to have recognition for the time put into things.
There are countless memes or posts about how much fabric costs, hours totaled, the monetary cost of other needed supplies like thread and batting and finally adding up to a grand total showing why quilts can cost so much. Honestly, I think that type of thing just gets passed around by and to most of us who understand and gives us a way to commiserate with each other.
Hopefully you don’t find yourself having to field these kinds of questions regularly, if at all. Maybe a better way to start explaining things is to talk about the iceberg. After all, we know how the Titanic turned out!
Happy quilting – and don’t give up on those projects that have a larger iceberg!
Hopefully we can now get back to our regularly scheduled posting habits!
We will certainly pick up where we left off with our Jacob’s Ladder blocks, but that will have to wait until next time. They are all sitting patiently waiting until it is their turn.
We also fell down a bit on UFO stuff. That’s okay too. I’m sure that we have all realized over the last year or so that sometimes life happens and we have to shift our priorities to take care of those things that are necessary. Hopefully you are all making UFO progress in some form or another.
Maybe you are like me, constantly tweaking your sewing area because some new idea has taken hold and surely that idea will make my crafting area just that much better! To that effect, I recently acquired a 6ft workbench. I have been wanting one where I could keep my Cricut and embroidery machine (because we can never have too many hobbies right?) sitting out and at the ready on a sturdy surface where I can use them. (Or perhaps learn to use them better that I do currently…) Previously they were sitting on flat surfaces where I would need to move them to actually use them. Now I have some storage under the bench and need to get a shelf or two for above the bench and that area should be all good. At least until I get the urge to start changing things up again.
It took a little rearranging to have the space for the workbench. Which prompted me to really clean out my book and pattern cabinet. Since it has doors on it, I can cram a bunch of stuff in there and close the doors. Out of sight, out of mind. I had to unload it to move it, and took that as an opportunity to really evaluate what I have in there. I was also able to repurpose some cubes and a stand to other parts of the house.
For the record, I have binders where I place my individual paper patterns in slip sleeves. I also keep block of the month patterns together in another binder. I have torn apart magazines to just keep the patterns I like and those are in another. If you are looking for ways to store your patterns, this had really worked well for me. I can just take the whole slip sheet out and put it with the materials for a project and I can keep papers with all of my notes for that project in that slip sheet as well. If you are a super organized person, you could even sort by type of pattern (applique, paper piecing, etc.) or designer, or theme, or however you work best. I know, actual binders are expensive, but often Goodwill has a few.
I ended up going through all of those binders. Well, there are 4. And all of my books. And then my magazines (which were totally over flowing my magazine file holders). I discovered that I have come quite a way on my quilting journey and that there are many books and patterns that I have outgrown, purchased on a whim, or was saving for later that I can really let go.
Can you believe that I had two laundry baskets full? I was a little surprised. My books and patterns all fit nicely on the shelves now and I can see how much my tastes have changed as I have grown as a quilter. Does it hurt that I spent money on all of these items that I don’t need anymore? No. Chances are that we have all spent money on things that ended up not being a good idea. Maybe it was a duplicate, maybe it broke right away, or maybe it just didn’t work out the way you thought it would. It’s okay. The things I am removing from my crafting space are all things that brought me joy at one time. They provided me some inspiration for projects or even the instructions for the project itself. They helped to move me forward on my quilting journey. These items have served their purpose and by letting them go, another quilter can find their inspiration and continue on their quilting journey.
Maybe you have some of those types of things in your crafting area. Things that you bought once upon a time and they have become things that you won’t use any more. Maybe you even feel guilty when you see them in your sewing room. Remember that you have options. Check with your friends and see if they would like to trade items with you. Or list them for sale and see if you can get a little cash for them. Don’t let those items continue to hang out. Use them to make charity items, donate to your guild, or gift a quilter that may need a pick me up. By moving these items out of your creative space, you will feel freer and your may find that your creativity jumps a notch or two without that guilt weighing you down. It’s easy to get caught up on the financial aspect – but these items have served their purpose for you and it’s time to move them on. I’m still finding things that I need to move along. Life is ever changing and we just continue to adapt.
Hopefully you continue to tweak your crafting area to make it more serviceable for you. It seems like that can be a never ending project, and it some ways it is. Sometimes we have to move it all around and find the way that works best for us.
It dawned on me as we published our last post that we hadn’t talked about April UFO things. My apologies! I know there are only a couple of weeks left in the month, so lets make this an easy thing.
Make 2 practice blocks. Wait what? I don’t know about you, but I am not terribly good about making a practice block when embarking on a new pattern or technique. Char and I have been designing some of our patterns and making a practice block has really been helpful and I’m not quite sure why I haven’t done it before. (Stay tuned because we are getting really close on those!)
So, what is the point? Why do I want to “waste” my time and fabric for a practice block?! I just want to dig in and work on my quilt in my fabulous fabrics!
Well, there are a couple of good reasons why a practice block is a good idea. The first is color placement. If you can make your practice block out of the same fabrics that you intend to use for the quilt, even better. Otherwise using similar colors and values will help you to see if your block (and thus your quilt) will be balanced. If your practice block doesn’t have enough contrast or the fabric you thought would be showcased isn’t, you now have an opportunity to make adjustments before you cut into the yardage for the quilt. Since many of us do all of our cutting at the beginning, this saves us from having a major problem of pieces cut the wrong size or ending up with a quilt we do not enjoy. Let’s face it, sometimes the ideas in our head work out better than they do when we try to put them into practice.
The second reason is to try out that new technique. We all know that practice makes perfect but we don’t always take that time when it comes to new techniques. Many of us expect to just do it on the fly. After all we have been quilting for a while and if it doesn’t turn out perfect it’s okay. While I do agree with the sentiment that done is better than perfect, I also think that it is better to set ourselves up for success. With trying a new technique, we may find that have to do more ripping in order to get things right. While fabric is fairly forgiving, you can only rip so many times before that piece becomes too frayed to use or ends up with a hole. If you are someone who likes to only purchase just enough fabric for the project this could be a problem (and also why buying a little extra is a good idea). You may also find that you prefer a different way of doing things, and it could affect your yardage requirements.
As you go through the process you are going to want to take some notes. Perhaps you are modifying the color layout and need to remember what changes you made. While you work through a new technique you may make modifications and it’s helpful to remember what those are. Personally, I am not terribly good at the notes part and I often remind myself to get better at it. It’s helpful to pick up a UFO and find notes reminding me of where I left off and what I had in mind. It takes a lot longer to sift through papers with seemingly random numbers trying to decipher what was in my mind that day. In fact, if you are not a good note taker (like me) this might be a good time to revisit some of your UFO’s and make the notes they need. Journals are helpful for those projects that are on repeat such as baby quilts and comfort quilts. This makes an easy reference guide for me to know what shortcuts or modifications I have made and lets me get back into a project easily.
At the end you may be thinking what will I do with these practice blocks…well, you could make a quilt, or a wall hanging with them. Think about the fabrics that you always seem to have on hand. If you can’t or don’t want to make a practice block out of the fabrics for the quilt, choose a color palette from your stash: red, white, and blue; French Provincial; jewel tones; batiks; reproductions in 30’s or civil war are all viable options. If you have such on hand all the time, use some for a practice block and at the end of a few projects there will be enough blocks for a quilt for you or to gift or to donate. Maybe make some baby quilts or throws or a sampler unique to you. Use one as a quilt to keep in the car to use in winter emergencies or at the park. Maybe you want to practice hand quilting and one of these would be a great place to start learning. If you are making practice blocks from the intended quilt fabric, perhaps a couple of pillowcases from practice blocks would be a nice touch. There are lots of options.
If you are a serial starter, I recommend that you keep your practice blocks and any notes you make with your project until the blocks are completed. Sometimes we have to put projects down and move on to other things that have deadlines. If you are someone who sticks with one project from start to finish, I would still recommend that you keep your practice block with the project for easy reference until your quilt blocks are completed.
Quilting By-You 