Hope and kindness

Hi all, and welcome to November! Yes, November! Who can even believe it? 2019 is just racing toward the  finish line, isn't it? It freaks me out a little, to be honest. Know what else is freaking me out? We had no trick or treaters! Not even one. It was so, so weird. At our house in Wisconsin we would have tons, like you-need-10-bags-of-candy numbers, and last night not a single one. So my students are getting Halloween candy as a bonus for coming to class Friday, because if I keep it here you know what will happen, don't you? That's right, a hubby with a stomach ache.

So this week I finished up those happy little word quilts that I was working on:

Aren't those darling?  They're pretty much exactly what I wanted, and I have the perfect place to hang them, too.

The little "hope" quilt measures about 8 by 13 and is made entirely from scraps, mostly from the string jar. Even the single fold binding is a scrap. This is the first time I've ever made lower-case letters and I'm thrilled with how it turned out. I quilted it with the walking foot, and I'm thrilled with that, too. (And look at the mum!)

The "kindness" quilt got something of a makeover from the last time I showed it. I wasn't happy with the letters just in a banner-type line, so I cut them apart and tried a few different ways to put them together. I finally settled on the 'dancing' layout, which works with these letters and with the word itself, too.  I quilted this little quilt in a 45 degree cross hatch with the walking foot, which did not take long at all. This one also got a single fold binding and I am really happy with how it turned out.  Kindness measures about 7 by 24 inches.

These little quilts were free-pieced, which means I made the letters through trial and error, without any patterns. I used Lynne's Liberated Letters tutorial and it helped so, so much. (You can buy it HERE.)  I would really like to make a few more for practice because I have a *great* idea for a quilt made entirely of words. I'm not sure which practice words would go with what I already have, so if you have any suggestions, let me know!

Everyone have a wonderful weekend! The temperature is supposed to drop about 25 degrees or so overnight, so I hope I'm not a popsicle by the time you're reading this!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or Not Friday, and Quilting is More Fun than Housework.

Just a word

Hi everyone! You know those "word of the day" calendars? The word of the week for me is cash. It's been an expensive week. This week I paid taxes on my car for the *third* time-- when I bought it, when I moved to Delaware, and now when I moved to Maryland. Maryland's taxes were by far the worst, plus they came with a huge fee for a car inspection and the plates on top of that. It's like they really don't want people to move here or something.  Did I mention that the hubs has a car, too?

But I digress. . .let's talk quilty stuff, which is so much nicer to discuss than the time wasted at the DMV. (Excuse me, the MVA.) I did manage to get a few things stitched up this week, in between waiting rooms. First off, I have one last purple block to show:

This is what I made from the purple scrap I showed a bit ago. It was inspired by the block that Angela posted this week. I'm probably not going to make any black blocks, but this one sparked just enough to get me to use up that purple. Yay! And take a look at that lovely mum! I found a farmer's market near here and they had a whole bunch of these, along with some great tomatoes. The plums were awesome, too.

The other thing I did this week was work some more on the letters and words I've been putting together into mini quilts. I promise I did not make any of the words I was thinking repeatedly this week. (Those would be too R-rated.) I haven't decided what to do about the kindness panel yet, but I did finish this new word panel:

This is my favorite one so far! I made some lower case letters and they are actually readable. I didn't want to crop this picture because I love the trees in the background, so you can't really see how rounded the letters are, but I clipped all the points. I think they look great. That little "e" took forever but was so worth it.  Pretty sure that I'm going to go back and round the corners on the "h" as well. That little tail is not working for me.

Speaking of not working, sometimes experiments don't work out. You can see that I tried to make the "p" fancy or something and it just looked weird, so I had to lose the little tail. Not sure what I was thinking, but I definitely want to try some different fonts and ways to make letters.  I have several more words in mind, too.  (Still can't say enough good about Lynne's tutorial, either. It's great!)

That's the news from here. Hope you're having a good and inexpensive weekend! I'm going to drive my car with the very expensive plates to the grocery store and see if I can still afford something for dinner. It's a close call-- we'll see what happens!

Perfect esses

Hi everyone, and greetings from the hot zone. I think someone forgot to tell the weather that it's October, because it's going to be 95 today and I am so done with it. I want to pack away the summer clothes but I don't dare. As soon as I do, you know it will hit 100, right?

Down in my nice cool sewing room (which is still an absolute mess, though I did get new light bulbs so now I can see the mess) I've been working on making some letters. Yes, including some esses, though I'll bet that some of you thought I misspelled that word in the headline. (This is not a political blog!) Here are my fun letters:

I can definitely read that word! And look-- the esses, which have been the worst letters ever for me to make, turned out great! I might go back and "clip" the other corners in them just to soften them a little more, but they definitely look like they should. I am so pleased.

You can see that I also remade one of the Ns. It just didn't look right, so I pulled it out and made another. I saved the first one, though, and I might use it somewhere else.

I struggled with some of these letters quite a bit, and then I finally gave in and bought Lynne Tyler's Liberated Letters tutorial. It helped so much. It was like taking a class, and then it just clicked. And look at that S!  (You can get the tutorial HERE. Totally worth the price.)

Now that I put it all together into a banner, I'm not sure that I want to keep it that way or if I want to break it up or otherwise arrange the letters differently. I know that I'm going to hang this in my office with the little Joy quilt and the banner is awfully long. I'm too lazy to go get the actual measurement, but it's more than 18 inches. I have this idea that I'll hang several of these mini words together, so a long one could go at the top, but maybe I'd rather have it be more square. Not sure. Requires more thought!

These letters are really fun to make, and they do go together pretty quick. I pulled out the string jar and used those, but it does take a *lot* of the background fabric. And it makes a fun mess, too. I was in such a great mood after those successful esses that I started another word in a different "font." Hey, if you're going to play, play! Anyone want to guess what the next word is?

Hope you're all having a great week so far and haven't melted away. Seriously, a cool breeze would feel great right now, wouldn't it?

Bit of this, bit of that

Hi everyone! Apparently the trees have gotten the message that it's now fall because the leaves have started falling around here. Or maybe it was the fact that it was 95 degrees here on the first day of fall, I don't know. I do know this: it rains a whole lot less here than it did in Delaware, which is odd because it's not that far away. Huh.

So, it's been hot and dry, which is okay and makes having the sewing room in the basement pretty comfortable. I'm making progress on getting things put away and cleaned up, but I still need to get a cutting table and a wastebasket.  Somehow my wastebasket got lost in the move.  How crazy is that? I've been basting some small quilts and just generally still getting organized, so I've been working on a couple of small things in between over the last few days.

Here's my first little project:

Yes, this is a new thing, because why not? A while ago I made a little bitty free-pieced word quilt called Joy, and now I'm making a small free-pieced word quilt to go with it to hang in my office.  Can you guess what this word is? I'm not that happy with the Ns, but I'll probably leave them since I know I'll be cursing over the dreaded S letters. Kindness indeed!

I also dipped into those pesky purple scraps and made a couple of Tiny Tuesday blocks, but I'm really looking for a way to use up this scrap:

This is a years-old piece of leftover strip set, and I just can't bring myself to toss it.  I have this weird thing about it, but I really would like to use it up, maybe in a tiny block. Any suggestions out there?

Finally, I've been finishing up the gray 4 patches for my nephew's quilt:

I have about 30 more of these to make (because the pattern calls for something like a billion of them) and I've used up a LOT of the gray scraps I had. The only ones I left out were the flowers, and I don't think I'll need to sneak those in at all. Just have to add here that 4-patches are boring to make, and gray 4-patches are doubly so.  The quilt is going to look great, but getting there is not half the fun on this one!

So that's the dispatch from my sewing room for now.  I do have some things basted and I'm looking forward to getting a couple of them finished up really soon.  And the search for a cutting table goes on! Hope you're all having a good week!

Joy comes in the morning

Hi everyone, and happy Friday!  I do love Fridays.  When our kids were small, it didn't really matter that it was Friday because the work was unending, you know?  But now I really, truly appreciate weekends.  It's one of those good things about getting old (ish).

This week I finished a little piece with free-pieced letters:

Joy!  I know that most people advocate trying your own name first, but my name is made up of stupid, pointy letters that just do not look good together.  Really!  Not that I didn't try it, but I do have to work on it to make it look better.  More on that later. . .

So I made "joy" for a couple of reasons, mainly because they seemed like easy letters (how do you get easier than "o"?), but also because it's a fun word.  You can't be unhappy when you make a little "joy" quilt.

To make this, I raided the giant jar o' strings:

I should do something about emptying that, huh?

Then I made the letters, which takes longer than you think. I was going to leave it just as a word and then combine it with some other words, but it looked so happy that I decided to finish it as a little quilt all its own.  I pulled out the strings again and just added them to the word panel, log cabin style.  I did this quilt-as-you-go style, which means that I layered the name panel with some backing and batting, then added the strings right on top of the batting, then pressed like it was a normal thing or something.

Of course, I had to stipple the name panel after that, and I really stink at stippling.  I know, I should practice more.  I do like how it makes the letters pop, though, so I should really do it more often.  The binding is leftovers from the Serendipity quilt.  I stripped off the gray side of the binding and just used the 1-3/4 inch yellow.  Its a single fold binding, but it worked great, and it used up that wonky scrap of binding.

This was my second foray into free piecing and I'm surprised about how much I enjoyed it. It does make a mess, though:

Hope everyone has a great weekend.  We are finally going to see our grandson!  I feel like I could fly there without a plane, I'm so excited!  Talk about joy!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finish it up Friday and Oh Scrap!
 

Old dog, new tricks

Hi all!  Hope everyone managed to survive the storm okay.  Even by Midwestern standards, that was an impressive amount of snow. (We had about 21 inches.)  And it's still hanging around, too.  I understand it snows regularly here, so why aren't they better at clearing the roads?  It's a mystery.

While we were snowed in, I actually didn't sew much of anything!  I. . .cleaned.  I know, I can't explain it either!  The hubs and I also watched some movies and then went out on Sunday and dug out the cars.  That was exhausting.  Other than that, I have been learning some new things and I did do a little bit of practicing this new technique.  Take a look:

Free pieced houses!  Who knew I had it in me?  (I told you I was obsessed with houses.)

For those who don't know, free piecing is a technique that involves no patterns and no measuring.  You simply cut pieces (with scissors!) and sew them together, trimming and pressing as you go, then square up at the end.  Some people make things really wonky, but wonky makes me really nervous, so I tried to make things fairly straight.  These were my first two:

Really simple, right?  Even these were really hard for me, so I made them and then had to take a break and get my head around things.  When I settled down, I made two more:

Look, doors!  For some reason, I was a little happier with these, and a lot calmer, even though I made a few mistakes.  Trim everything off straight, really!

So the only thing left to do was make a house with windows too:

Ta-da!  I'm actually pretty happy with how this one came out.  It actually looks like a house!  By the time I made this one I was getting a lot more comfortable with the process and enjoying it.  "Free-pieced" does not mean sloppy or poorly constructed, and it took a few tries to convince myself of that.

If this technique made me so nervous, why did I try it?  Well, it's always good to try new things, especially if they're outside your comfort zone.  It's how we learn and grow.  Plus, I have really been impressed with some of the free-pieced quilts that I've seen, and I am really looking forward to getting Julie's new book on free-pieced barns and trying some of those out.  My real goal is to make some free-pieced letters, so that's the next thing for me to try.  Now THAT will be nerve-wracking!

I think I want to live in this happy house!

Hope you're having a wonderful week and that your streets are all clear.  Midwesterners, you have no idea how lucky you are.  Want to come out and give the East coast some snow-clearing lessons?  They need them!

Sharing at  Linky Tuesday,  Let's Bee Social and WIP Wednesday.