Mini Friday

Hi folks! First, thanks so much for all of the wonderful comments and emails about my blog anniversary. I'm happy to still be here too! There's still time to enter the giveaway on the last post if you're interested, too.

This has been a very busy week for me. Lots and lots to do, much of it very tedious. It's that time of the year. I still managed to sew, though! Priorities, you know.

I managed to make up a couple of minis this week. I know I should be working on the bigger quilts, but I really needed some instant gratification! Here is the first little mini:

It has been raining like crazy here all week, so I just managed to dash outside between the raindrops and take this picture. This was the only semi-dry spot. The fence was way too wet and the bench was soaked too. I don't mind the rain, except that it makes taking pictures more difficult. You don't have to shovel the rain, after all.

This little quilt is made from some of the leftover fabric from the abandoned Loyal Union sampler quilt, and it only measures about 16 by 20. After I quilt it up, I plan to add some buttons in the center of those squares. The pattern came from this book:

This is a great book if you're looking for a small project. I think the biggest one in here is 40 by 40. There are a lot of smaller projects, too, many of which can be made with scraps. What's not to love?

The other mini was this little beauty:

Yes, that's a walrus. His name is Paul.

This is, of course, the great state of Wisconsin, only 9 inches square. This was paper pieced and I am amazed at how it came out! The pattern was really good and very detailed. Look, it even has the details of the Door County Peninsula and the shoreline of Lake Superior!  I got the pattern from the Patchwork and Pastry Craftsy store (available HERE) where Irene has patterns for all 50 states, plus a bunch of other very cute things.

Wouldn't this make a great quilt label? I also want to make it in red and white. It's the Badger State, after all.

Outside on a very wet boulder!

I made the background here blue for our two Great Lakes, Michigan and Superior, and our thousands of inland lakes (more than Minnesota!). The state itself is a green batik, representing all our trees, foliage, and forests, including the Chequamegon National Forest. This really is a beautiful place. If you haven't ever visited, come on along! Give me a call when you get here and we'll go fabric shopping!

Everybody have a great weekend. I'm definitely getting some fabric shopping in, plus we'll probably end up having dinner out once. I love it when that happens!

Linking to Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict and also Finish it up Friday. And Lorna is hosting TGIFF this week, so let's meet up over there too!

Goals are nice

Hi folks! Well, we put a lot of the garden to bed for the year this past weekend, so now it's time for me to put some quilty projects to bed too. Here is what I'll be working on for a little while this week amidst all the stress and general mayhem. I have a very hard deadline for something very important this Friday, so I may not get to everything, but its always good to have goals.

First, I want to finish (and quilt up!) the Halloween paper-pieced project. I think it would be nice to have it actually finished in October, don't you? Here is it's current state:

It needs the remaining details and then quilting. By the way, if you're considering making this, the fabric amounts listed in the pattern are greatly exaggerated. For example, the pattern called for 3/8 yard of the green, but I only used a 3 inch strip, so plan accordingly. While I was piecing this, I had to tape some sections together because they were too big to print in one piece. I used a tip from Bonnie Hunter and used "paper bandaids"

These are just labels used instead of tape. They worked great! I sewed right through them and they were easy to rip when I removed the paper.

I've also been cutting out a bunch more Drunkard's Path blocks.

I decided to keep the original green. I want to start putting some blocks together this week so I can see what they look like together. While I'm thinking of it, does anyone have a good use for the leftover "bites" that get cut out of the squares? They seem like such a waste, but they're an odd shape. Maybe I'll just stitch some of them together into circles. I hate wasting fabric!

 I also have a small pile of things to be quilted, so it's time to get a move on!

Okay, it looks like a small pile, but believe me, that will take me a while.

I also have two quilts that are all quilted and sitting here waiting for binding.

Pretty backings, aren't they? Wait until you see the quilts!

That looks like a pretty ambitious list for me for the week, so we'll see how far I can get!  

Linking to Linky Tuesday, Fabric Tuesday, WIP Wednesday, and Let's Bee Social. Happy sewing, everyone!

One final note: I had to disable anonymous comments on the blog because of a very persistent spammer. If you want to say something but don't want to register, go ahead and email me: academicquilter AT gmail DOT com. Thanks for understanding, friends!

Small victories

Well, I don't know how your week has been, but it has been a very stressful week here, with large amounts of rain and gloom. This was compounded by almost 48 hours without Internet, phone, or TV. I know. It was like living in 1990 all over again, without the cheesy sitcoms. This affected several homes near us as well, so we weren't alone. It took a while but three different utility crews finally fixed it, including our totally fried cable box.

I did finish a few things this week. First up is the black/gray Odd Fellow's block:

Happy dance! I think he looks great. And I'm really hoping that either November or December is a black and white fabric month. I have ideas--and scraps!

I also made up those snowflake blocks into a small table topper, about 30 by 30:

I went with a monochrome look, which I think worked. Also, I decided not to rip and restitch the blocks after all. I figure after I quilt it and wash it I can touch up the seams with a marker if they still show, as Julie and Lorna both suggested. And if some thread shows, oh well. I'll find a way to live with it.

And I made up two test Drunkard's Path blocks:

I'm not sure I like that green. It's richer in person, but it's a bit pale. I may have to make a few more with different greens. Or pink! Pink would be nice too.

I also found this very useful book on modern Drunkard's Path quilts:

I think I'll be making a traditional layout, but this is a very nice book if you are like me and like to look at pretty things. It also has some useful ideas for piecing and color choices and such.

Finally, this is where I am with the paper-pieced Halloween project:

All the sections are pieced, but they need to be joined and there are a number of details which have to be added in, like fangs on the tiny vampire. Proof that big pieces do not necessarily mean fast and easy. I might get to do some more work on it this weekend.

Hope everyone has a great weekend. We are pulling out the annuals this weekend, since they are mostly dead now, and maybe dividing some perennials too. Oh boy. Can you feel the excitement? We may even get in the last lawn-cutting of the year. Now that's a cause for celebration!

Linking up to Confessions of a Fabric Addict, crazy mom quilts, and SoScrappy. Be sure to stop by!

Little bits

Hello friends! We are having a dark, wet, and gloomy time around here, so I hope it's warm and sunny where you are. It is October and this is what we expect about now, but that doesn't make it any easier. On a related note, does anyone besides me miss the smell of burning leaves? I know it's air pollution, but that smell really means autumn to me.

Well, since I finished Burgoyne Surrounded last week (which is now at the quilter--yay me!) I thought I would stick to some small projects this week. I know I still have the Ocean Waves quilt to finish (and not far to go on it, either), but I am just not up for working on a big quilt right now. I just don't have the mental energy. Plus I want some immediate gratification!

While I was mucking out the sewing room this weekend--which was a disaster, let me tell you--I found these snowflake blocks:

Someone gave me these a while ago. (I mean years ago. True story.)  They are well-made, but as you can probably see, they were sewn with white thread. Take a look at the close-up:

Yep, you can see the white thread showing through the seams.  It's pretty distracting. These are constructed on a 9-patch grid, and I think I can just rip the main seams and restitch them with a dark gray thread and call it good. I don't want to put a lot into this, but I still think I can make them look a little better and use them in a winter table topper or something. I forgot to measure them, but I think they're 9 inches finished.

I also started on one of the paper pieced projects I showed before:

This is the Halloween one. Did you know that some patterns that are printed in the magazines are also available in easily printable form on their websites? I never really paid attention to those little notices in the magazine, but lo and behold--there they were! No tracing! Just download and print. It was great. And you can see that I couldn't stand to use gray so I used this star/sky print instead. I like it. This uses big pieces, so I hope to finish it this week.

I also decided that I'm going to give Vicki Welsh's "Cross the Drunkard's Path" quilt along a go. It goes until the end of the year, so I have a shot at finishing something by then. I have these to use:

I've had these templates forever, so now I'm finally going to put them to use. They make 4-inch finished blocks. And I always seem to get carried away with these things, so I'm limiting myself only to the fabric I have here. There is almost a yard of the floral fabric, all leftover from a backing for a previous quilt, so it's in pieces. There's also about a yard of the green, which is not a Kona but an Art Gallery fabric which has a great hand. I think I can make a fairly small quilt and enjoy the process during a high-pressure time for me here near the end of the year.

That's enough for now, don't you think? Also, I did see that Bonnie Hunter has released the colors for this year's mystery at her blog. It's in brights. Oh, the temptation! I suspect I know what I'll be doing in January!

Linking to Linky Tuesday, Fabric Tuesday, WIP Wednesday, and Let's Bee Social. Hope everyone has some happy projects to work on this week!

Blowin' in the wind

Hello, and happy last day of September! Am I wrong, or has the weather been crazy the last few weeks? We had a beautiful summer weekend, except that it's September, and we just had a 15 degree temperature drop in the space of an hour. When I got home, it was 78 degrees and blowing like crazy outside. An hour later it was 63 degrees and still blowing. Gave me a big headache. I'm sure there's rain not too far behind it, too.

Lots going on here. Still working on those same two quilts. Yeah. . .I don't know why I decided to make two of them with so many pieces each at the same time. But there is progress, and that's keeping me going. Let's see if I can get one done by Friday. Could be a challenge, but I'll try.

In addition to those quilts, there is this:

Yes, that is the fields and furrows quilt being basted in my kitchen. I refuse to crawl around on the floor, so I basted it in sections on the table. The backing is taped under the table and clamped to the table as well with these babies:

Very handy! I also basted the Dancing Nines quilt and both of these are now ready to go! Not sure exactly when I'll get to them because my sewing table looks like a thread bomb went off, but I'll have them done sometime in the next couple weeks. (For those who are interested, Wanda Hanson has a nice thread basting post on her beautiful blog HERE. I do pretty much the same thing she does.)

After the success of the polar bear paper piecing, I pulled out two more projects that I've had for a while that also use large pieces. First there is this one:

I figure this would be good for the rest of those orange and/or yellow scraps I have. There is also this one, which is slightly larger:

Both of these are from Quiltmaker magazine. I was all set to start cutting pieces of fabric and making kind of a "kit" of fabrics and traced patterns so I would be ready to go. Then I discovered that I had not a single thread of gray fabric anywhere in my stash, either solid or prints. Not a thread! How can I make a squirrel and a raccoon without gray? So I guess I have to go shopping. Oh, the hardship! But at least I have most of the patterns for these projects traced and ready to go as soon as I procure some gray fabric. (Yes, I know the squirrel in the picture is brown, but the squirrels that live in our backyard are gray, so I want gray.)

The last thing I got done this weekend also involved getting ready for another project. This one is a hand applique project that I think will take a long time. I've been wanting to try back basting applique, so I spent some time this weekend prepping the pieces. Look how big they are: 

They're huge! That can only be good for me, though. Easier than the tiny ones. I'm using these fabrics:

I bought these at a rummage sale for $10 this past spring. Never used them before, but I figure I can't really go wrong. I also got some greens from Vicki Welsh's shop to use for leaves and stems. With all the dark cold nights that are coming, I think this will be a good project for the evenings this winter.

Anyway, that's what's up here! Really going to try to finish up one of those quilts this week. They are both thisclose, so keep your fingers crossed!

Happy sewing all! I'll be back Friday, which will be in October. Can you believe it? I can't!

Linking to Linky Tuesday, Fabric Tuesday, WIP Wednesday, and Let's Bee Social. Stop by and say hi!

Small diversions

Hi folks! How has your sewing week been?  I had a great birthday, complete with chocolate cake. How much more can a person ask for? Plus, the weather has been more like June than September, which is great for now but I'm sure there will be a big crash later.

I am still working on the same two quilts. Ocean Waves is about half finished and a little bit stalled because of the 9 inch squares of white I need for the remaining triangles. I guess I'm going to have to suck it up and cut some yardage for those. Burgoyne is zipping right along. The new ironing station really helps. Just have to finish the 4-patches (nasty little things) before I can finish all the blocks. Both of these make boring blog pictures (and some boring sewing, let me tell you), so how about some small diversionary sewing?

First up is the second orange Odd Fellow block:

If you look carefully, you can see the leaves changing!

He's a cutie, even if it was hard to find a "sober" piece of orange. I was worried about the lines in this fabric, but it turned out to be no problem at all. And now we're done with orange! Wonder what the next color will be?

Then there is this little guy:

This is called "You Got Cookies?" and was in the November/December 2012 issue of Quiltmaker. Very fast paper piecing. The best part is that I did find a small piece of white flannel for the hat band and a little bit of green bias tape for a tiny flange at the edge of the hat. I did have one problem with this pattern. Sections 5 and 6 both had to be extended by about half an inch in order to fit correctly. I've never experienced that with a paper pieced pattern before, but I could have made a mistake, so if you make it, measure all the parts first. I think he's darling, even if he was a little trouble.

Last is this little baby:

It's a jungle out there!

This was a very popular item made from this tutorial by Erin at Dog Under My Desk. She calls it an earbud pouch, but I plan to use it for my pedometer because for some reason manufacturers don't think women need pockets in their exercise clothes. They are wrong, and I don't want to make more pockets. This should work well.

That's what I did this week! Hope you got a bunch of sewing done, and that none of it was as boring as making 4-patches.

Linking up to Confessions of a Fabric Addict, crazy mom quilts, and SoScrappy. Have a great weekend!