Knitting the Blues

Leftovers, Day Three orThe Last of the Turkey

I have tried so many times over the last few days to take photos of this thing so I can put it away until next November.  The weather hasn't been very cooperative and when it was (yesterday morning when I only had a few minutes before I was out for the day) the camera battery died during the Pumpkin Patch photo shoot.  Bummer.  So this is what you get, but I'm sure I'll take more when I hang it next year.

Look at that face!  I guess some details are in order.  This is a pattern from Pieces from my Heart called Presidential Pardon.  I did the equivalent of knitting a pattern exactly as written in the exact yarn and color with no modifications.

Oh wait!  I did modify the pattern as I mentioned previously.  I didn't hand applique, but fused the feather and face pieces and stitched a blanket stitch with my sewing machine.  With that time saver I had this top completed (with the mistake) in one evening.  Any time I saved was lost in square surgery, but that's okay.

Other than that I did use the pre-cut charm pack used in the pattern, the fabric line is called Gobble, Gobble.  For non-quilters, a charm pack is a grouping of pre-cut 5 1/2 inch squares from the same line of fabrics.  I love these fall fabrics.  The pumpkins, the polka dots, the orange and brown.....

I backed and bound the quilt with the brown multi polka dot fabric that is in the turkey body.  Nothing fancy or pieced, just sandwich and quilt. 

So, at first I was just going to stitch in the ditch and hang this bird, but I had been practicing machine quilting every day on scrap and practice fabrics and having heard someone say you should really just dive in and practice on real stuff I decided to go ahead and sort of stipple all around the outside of the turkey squares.  I feel quite brave showing a close up of my quilting.  To be sure there are sections that are works of beauty and overall I am not unpleased.  I have been learning how to relax my body more than anything else, it seems to make the biggest difference.  I also know that for now anyway, working in short bursts, taking frequent breaks is a good idea.  Keeping my hands moving at one speed consistently and balancing that with the machine speed to make even stitches is a learning process reminiscent of my early spinning days.  And after that section pictured above I started stitching into the ditch along the seams, sort of in and out to make it look like the quilting disappears into the seam.  That looks a lot better.  And if I allow my mind to wander even a leeettle bit.......  Well, it isn't pretty.  Learning, learning. 

I am not sure about the un-quilted blocks, they poof a little.  The fabric was unwashed so I think a trip through the washer and dryer might help that, shrink the fabric up a little.  Maybe next year.

Hey!  You guys liked my Pumpkin Patch!  You should definitely plan a pumpkin or two, they are really quick knits.  I am not a particularly fast knitter and I could knit a large one in an evening in front of the television.  And knitting them in the round saves the seaming time.  Yay!

In other news.......

One hundred thirty-two.  Or DAY THIRTY!!!!!!!!!!!  I did it!  And it wasn't even much of a chore!  And I still have post topics to get to!  And I didn't resort to photo only posts every day!!!!!  And I even posted more than once on some days!!!!!  And I started another blog!!!!  I must be freaking NUTS!

What Pre-Cuts and a Few Hours Will Get You

Did you read yesterday's post script?  I'll bet you thought I was kidding!  I had this project laying around and since I didn't want to sandwich the quilt top last night I decided to whip this little thing up.  Great idea!  Good.  So I got all of the blocks together and got ready to, as the directions suggest, applique using my favorite method of hand applique.  Apparently my favorite last night was the one in which I use my hands to fuse the pieces to the quilt top and machine blanket stitch.  I didn't have a lot of time, ya'know?  Let me be the first to say what you are probably already thinking.  It is not the best method for this project for a few reasons, the big crease down the center of the turkey's head being only one.  BUT, it isn't terrible and I am more than willing to live with it (although I am thinking that fusible batting might be better next time, added thickness between the fabrics).

So I'm blanket stitching around the turkey feathers and body and decide to go to bed because I don't have the right color orange thread and it was late.  Then I take another look.

 

Let's take a closer look, shall we?

 

What the!?

Time to don my surgical gloves.

 

And in the end I decided to use brown thread around the orange feathers, but thank goodness I didn't come to that conclusion last night!  I don't know if I would have been happy picking out the embroidery.  Actually, I wasn't really happy performing surgery, resigned would be more like it.

 

I've been too distracted to think about a Ten on Tuesday list.  I might come up with one by the end of the day, though.  We'll see.

One hundred twenty-five.  Or day TWENTY-FOUR!  Aren't you glad I remembered to document the crazy around here this time?

A Tale of 20 Fat Quarters(Plus 2 and a Backing and a Binding)AND It's Thursday and I'm Thankful

It's Thursday and I'm Thankful:

1. First, for Sally and Cynthea for getting into the spirit for remakes and covers.  I had forgotton about those great movies, Hairspray and the the Producers!  Of course! (BTW-sorry Sally!  I didn't know I'd be spoiling DWTS for you.  Next time I'll post a spoiler alert!)
2. For Wonder-Under,
3. and Blogs that inspire,
4. and that I learned to read (don't we take that for granted?) so that I can learn to do so many things.

Onto the never-ending black and white and red. 

In the midst of this project I took a break to surf the internet and found Cluck, Cluck, Sew, the blog of a really creative and fun quilter/sewer/blogger whose site is filled with colorful and inspiring projects, a cute family and informative tutorials.  In this post she was participating in a scrap-busting project and her contribution was what got me thinking.  And thinking.  First I was thinking that my scraps were not big enough to do anything with.  I mean, some of my scraps were about  a half an inch wide, hardly worth keeping. 

Here is where I should tell you something else about me.  I don't do scraps.  Not in fabric, rarely in yarn.  To be clear, I keep scraps.  And keep and store and organize and buy little Rubbermaid containers for them, but I am rarely creative enough to actually do anything with them, well, except for those little balls of sock yarn, I love the "fruit bowl" I've made with those.  Things are changing around here, though.  The scraps are becoming my muse.

So after all of my thinking (while cutting out other projects-totally thinking about the scraps-waiting for the quilt to come back to bind-scraps, scraps, scraps!) I pulled out those little strips and started pressing them to see what I had.  Not much, but out came the Wonder Under and I ironed them on.  If you are also inspired, remember to cover every bit of the wonder under by either overlapping the fabrics or putting in some extra scraps so that the iron is not accidentally fused to the wonder-under.

This is just the beginning of the fabrics fused. I forgot to take more pics, but some of those pieces were small, I was wondering why I was bothering!

After that I cut the strips apart and started cutting shapes with barely an idea.  I had decided that I didn't want to use as many cut pieces as Allison (Ms. CCS) used, I was going to go simpler and quicker and make one quick, little pillow.  I do have other things to do, ya know. Stop.Laughing!

But you know me, always thinking.  I mean, two really is better than one, right?  And even after cutting these pieces out, I still had tons of scraps left, even from what I had already ironed to the wonder-under.  Once I got started I was on such a roll!  Just free cutting and placing the pieces, and I got so many out of such a little bit of fabric.  I am looking at every little bit of fabric with new eyes. 

 

You can see the threads before I trimmed them off.  It is easy-peasy applique, just iron on, leaving the raw edges and then stitch around the pieces.  I used a straight stitch just inside the edges, but you could zig-zag or use your machine's blanket stitch if it has one.  Pretty little pillow tops, right?  And this is where, once again, I further complicate a project. 

This is the point where I could have just slapped the pillow fronts to the backing fabric, sewn them up, stuffed them with a pillow and been on my merry way, but as you can see....

The gears started turning and I imagined that it would be so much more dimensional and cushier if I just sandwiched the fabric with some batting and did a little quilting.  Nothing big, just outlining all of the bits to give them a teensy bit of pop.  I could have free motion quilted around them, but after one try I decided that my skill was lacking so I put my walking foot on and put a straight stitch around everything.  I totally love, LOVE my walking foot, by the way.  I love that it has two "feet", one that is open so that I can see exactly where I am stitching.  While I loved the effect on this pillow, the other still had so much open space and I had  been experimenting with free motion quilting so I decided to just give it a go.  I made a deal with myself that no matter how bad it was I was going to let it go.  It was my first real bit of quilting and heck, it was going to Gillian's house, what did I care if it totally sucked?  I totally stuck with that plan, well, except for the five or six times I picked out some of the quilting and re-did it.  Other than that I left a lot of little mistakes.  I even quilted in a free-motion birdy. 

 

 

Gillian loved the little birdies, there is one on the other pillow as well.

Okay, there is your sneak peak, it's late and I'm leaving this post for now, the final chapter will be tomorrow.  I took way too many photos and at this moment there is a danger that every one will make it into this post.  Who knows, that could happen tomorrow as well.

One hundred ten.  Or day TWELVE!  Or maybe I will put a photo of this project up every day for the rest of the month!  That will get me right into December and make NaBloPoMo a cinch!

 

A Tale of 20 Fat Quarters(Plus 2 and a Backing and a Binding)Part Two

Back to the Happy Hour pattern book.  When we last visited this project I had made a quilt and used some scraps for the back using an idea for scraps in the same book.  The book also had a cute little table runner to use up scraps and I just could not stop myself from making it.  At the time I was unsure Gillian even had a table (her previous roommate got it in the separation-I've since learned she does have a table). 

Now, the whole idea for me was to have a quick little add on to use up some of the fabrics used in the quilt.  It started out that way, I quickly pieced the top of the table runner (okay, quickly would be wrong, there was some obsessing over the placement of fabrics, but once I decided that it was OKAY for all of the black fabrics to go on one side and the white ones on the other it was smooth sailing.  I tried really hard to integrate, truly, I did.) and was set to just lay out a piece left from the backing, sandwich it to quilt and move along.  As I was pressing out the zebra fabric it occurred to me that the zebra fabric is directional and if Gillian ever needed to turn it over all of the zebras would be facing in one direction, not very user-friendly.  Then it occurred to me that I could piece the back of the runner by slipping in a strip of contrast between the zebra fabrics, each facing opposite each other.  Wouldn't that be fun?  Wouldn't that take longer?  Am I getting obessive?  (Getting?)  This was negating the whole simple little add-on deal.  This was making more work.  So I decided that I should quick!  Just sandwich the fabric and quilt it, quick!  Only, there were these two warring voices in my head, "Just let it be!  Just sandwich the fabric!"  The other screaming, "NO!  You know it will bother you!  You know it will be better if you do the extra work!"  "But then there is the cutting and the seaming and the centering to make perfect...."  "And after all of that it will be a reversible table runner!"  On and on they went until I couldn't stand it for another second!  

I think it was worth the effort in the end, don't you?

I still had some pretty hefty bits of fabric left and inspired by all the many quilt bloggers who just grab up those bits and piece them improvisationally, I thought I would try it.  If you know me you won't be surprised that this is hard for my brain.  I like things laid out, planned, cut to size, lined up and sewn in an order with a predicted outcome.  Just grabbing up fabrics and putting them together then squaring them up is difficult for me, but I love the look and thought this was a great way to try it on something small, useful and easily pawned off on a daughter if I didn't like it.  I kind of loved it, and pawned them off anyway.  That is love, I'll tell you!  If you look closely (but not too, I didn't do a good job of it) I even did my first free-motion quilting EVER!  I loved it!  

Aren't they adorable!?  The top two are mimics of the quilt blocks and the last rest are total improv.   And yes, I centered zebra heads on the backs of the, hmmm, coasters? mug quilts? Whatever you call them I needed an intervention big time. I was begging my family to take away the black and white and red fabrics. Please! Stop me!!! Did they? I don't know about you, but I think there may be a part three to this story......

One hundred seven. Or day NINE! I really shouldn't do this, showing off my quilting as I am, but the artist responsible for the quilt I posted yesterday is Christine Fries-Ureel.  You should visit her website.  She didn't know how to quilt at all a little over ten years ago.  I totally want to take a workshop from her, you know, to make sure that she is teaching everbody as well as I taught her.  AHAHAHAHAHA!

Helga

You're back!  It must be to find out just who that secret-keeping witch is who has popped up on this blog.  I have become really enthralled with Tilda, a design line by Tone Finnanger.  As far as I know, five of her crafting books have been translated into English, including Crafting Springtime Gifts which includes the design for the witch.

 

I loved making her, although the translations leave a lot to the imagination when it comes to the construction.  I think that an advanced beginner would have no problem creating a successful project from the patterns, though.  There are lots of opportunities to make any of them your own.  The original pattern is for an Easter witch, apparently witches are good and associated with Easter in Scandanavia, but I wanted to send Gillian a Halloween decoration and adapted it all to a fall theme.  Luckily she is more fall than Halloween as Gillian only got her on Friday, so she can leave her out for the rest of the season.  Gillian has named her Helga, which for some reason seems so totally appropriate for her.  It is a name that I love.

 

Ah, the little details! I dug deep into my sewing machine's decorative stitch library and found one that so totally complemented the apron fabric, I just had to add it.

 

Again, on the sleeves.  Isn't it just so.frickin'.CUTE?!

I have to say, I can never get the hang of stuffing these things.  It takes forever and I am never happy with the result.  I am really loving the angels and other crafts in Tone Finnanger's books, though, so I may be getting a lot of practice to make perfect.  If you have any tips, I'm happy to hear them.

She is so cute hanging on a wall, too.  I can see a collection of these hanging in a row.  I'd better get cracking!

One hundred.  Or day 2.  But where is the knitting!?