A Wiscasset twin

One of my last finishes of 2012 was a present for my dad.

You may remember last year, I made a quilt for my parents for Christmas.

My mom, however, promptly laid claim to it, so of course I had to start work on a quilt for my dad, too.  Luckily, I had a couple of jelly rolls of Minick & Simpson's Wiscasset squirreled away for a rainy day, and spent the summer making up some blocks when it wasn't too hot out.  I used Kim Brackett's Blessings from the Hollow pattern from her book, Scrap Basket Sensations.  

I have to say, I tend not to be a traditional pattern girl.  I often mess with things, cobble together my own spin, etc.  Not in this case.  I give major appreciation to Kim--this was a great pattern.  Clear, easy to follow, and with great results, if I do say so myself...

I had a bit of extra yardage of Wiscasset, too, so used a sprigged cream print and a dark blue paisley as borders.  

The backing fabric is Kona Cadet and the binding is Kona Navy.  I love the solid backing--I quilted a quarter-inch inside the inner borders of each square and along the inner edge of the star shapes.

It was finished about a week before Christmas and Dad?

Loves it!

(Sorry, no gift photos--he ran off and hid it from my mother as soon as he'd opened it!)

Quilting against the clock

When I originally set myself a timeline for a quilt that needs to be finished by a certain deadline, I try to pad it a little, to leave myself room for the inevitable SNAFU.  It doesn't always work out the way I'd like it, but I don't like to deal with more stress than I have to, and I hate to make quilting stressful.  I enjoy it, after all!

However, back in late October, I thought I had plenty of time to finish this quilt before the November 1 deadline--that being my grandmother's 90th birthday celebration.

I used the Granny Square tutorial (appropriate, no?) from Blue Elephant Stitches, and a jelly roll each of Butterscotch & Rose by Fig Tree Quilts and Moda Bella Cream.  The finished quilt is a great throw size, about 60" by 70".

But I wound up with a slight snag.  See, I was pushing to finish this by November 1, and even had the whole last week of October off, but then Hurricane Sandy happened on October 29.  Here in CT, we knew a day or so in advance that landfall was imminent, and that power outage was inevitable.  See, we dealt with Irene the previous year and were without power for 4 days, and then had a snowstorm that followed Irene and were without power for 8 days.  So we stocked up on firewood, charcoal for the grill, bottled water and canned goods, and put away anything that might be blown around the yard.  And then I quilted like my life depended on it, so that the electricity-reliant part of the process would be done before we lost power.  I finished machine sewing the binding to the front of the quilt at around 5pm...

The back fabric is another Fig Tree fabric from a different line, Mill House Inn, and the binding fabric was a serendipitous find at JoAnn's a couple of years ago.

And then a scant few hours later, we had this happen.

40ft pine tree blown over on our cars.  :(

Which looked like this in the stark light of morning the next day.

In any case, all's well that ends well--the insurance and tree service people were hugely helpful, my car's been replaced (the madman's SUV was actually fine), I finished the quilt although poor Gram's party was put off by a week--my parents and grandmother were all without power for over a week, and the madman and I were lucky to only be out about four days this time.  

And Gram?  She loves her quilt.  

Swooning, babies, Valentines

So, do you Swoon? As in, are you one of the over 800 quilters participating in Katy's madcap Swoon-along on flickr? I am, and we're all mad for Camille's pattern, and it's awesome to see everyone's different takes on the block. Of course, say Camille and Katy in the same paragraph and you know I'm there! And here's what I have to show for it...

Three Swoon blocks (these big babies finish up at 25" square) and a slightly blurry pile of fabric that needs putting away. My sewing room is a disaster, always. Perfection would be boring--that's my story, and I'm sticking to it... In any case, I have a fourth block cut and ready for piecing, and plan on going for the full 9, plus some borders to make it big enough for our queen-size bed. And this one? I'm sending out for quilting. It'll be the first I haven't quilted myself, and I'm a bit nervous about it. Cart before the horse at the moment, though.

In between Swoon blocks and all the bee blocks I've been cranking out, there was time to put together a Valentine's Day mug rug for The Madman,

to match his Man Cave quilt, currently draped over MY quilt in said Man Cave.

Also, does it count as a commission if you're not getting paid for a quilt? Didn't think so. We'll call this a favor, then.

The Madman's co-worker and cw's girlfriend are expecting a daughter next month, and TM asked me if I'd make them a quilt. How can I say no to a man who helps me baste my quilts? So I weaseled the nursery colors from his co-worker (pink and brown) and started thinking. I had a small stack of Weekends by Erin McMorris in pinks, golds and browns, which I had won from a Fat Quarterly giveaway last year, saving it for the perfect project, of course. So I added a few basics from my stash, and went with simple patchwork to show off the big prints. And wound up with this:

Thanks to the Saturday storms that cleared off in time for me to snap a photo before it headed into the wash! I quilted it with straight lines, two on either side of each vertical seam, using the edge of my walking foot as a guide. To the Weekends fabrics, I added a brown solid, some Kei Honeycomb dots in pink, a pale pink with square dots from Aneela Hoey's Sherbet Pips, and Tula Pink's Birdcage print in pink from her Plume line. Oh, and a brown and cream sprig from Liz Scott's Sugar Pop line, which I also used to bind it.

I backed it with a pink and white floral from City Weekends by Oliver + S, which is so, so soft and cuddly. Hope the parents-to-be love it!

I know I do! The finished quilt measured at 38 x 44", and I used 6" squares to piece it. And that's a second finish for the year--I am on such a roll!

I have some cool pictures to share later this week from the annual Fabrics and Fabrications quilt show in Southport, CT, which I attended last weekend with my grandmother. See you then!

Project Monogamy

AKA, finishing a project.

First of all, where the hell did January go? I blinked, and it was over. I had a week off in the middle, a stay-cation, marred by the death of my godmother, who I've known since I was hours old. The world is a sadder, duller place without her, and I miss her like hell. I spent most of the rest of my vacation in my sewing room, losing myself in piecing and color and old episodes of SVU on Netflix. Ask my husband--I was not a joy to be around that week, crying at the drop of a hat, not sleeping well, and no nerves to speak of. I'm on the other side, and I'm grateful I had the time away from work and people to get my act together. I'm also lucky to have a husband who just holds me when I'm a mess. :)

But from all dark places come bits of light, and at the end of the week, I'd finished my first quilt-along. EVER. My favorite fabric maven, Brenda, started a Bust Yo Scraps! quilt-along at the beginning of January, and boy, did I have scraps to bust! I pulled all of my blue, aqua and green scraps, then threw in a few odds and ends in gray and black. I cut and cut and cut and sewed for hours, days. I'm not normally one for sticking with a project to the end, and I'm still not sure what was up with this. Maybe because it was the first quilt I was making just for me, specifically? I don't know.

All I know is, at the end of the week, I had this.

Said awesome husband helped me baste it, and I started working on picking a binding. I thought I knew just what I wanted, until I pulled it out...

Have you ever had a different idea of what a fabric in your stash looks like? I somehow remembered this Tula Pink fabric as being much more green than this, but when I pulled it, it read paler and more gold than I'd remembered. I spent several hours kind of casting around aimlessly, pawing through my stash. I lit on this DS Quilts print, and decided to run with it. Two hundred and seventy-some-odd inches of binding later, I had this...

The quilting, usually my least favorite part, was smooth and easy and pleasurable on this one. I never know how the quilting will go--sometimes the easy stuff takes me ages and plenty of frogging, sometimes the ones I think will be more challenging are fast and easy. I decided to try and take it easy on myself for this one, and just went with straight lines about a third of an inch or so to either side of each block seam. I used Warm and Natural batting, which allows you to quilt or tie up to ten inches apart. My quilting lines are about seven inches apart across the blocks, and it made for a soft and cozy lap quilt.

This quilter finally has a quilt of her own. It has scraps of so many favorites, and it's backed with another DS Quilts print.

My first finish of the new year, AND one that would work really well with Jelly Rolls or Charm Packs, too. It went super fast, and I'm so happy to finally have a quilt on my own--now I can stop stealing the Madman's Man Cave Quilt when we're watching TV! (Although, this quilt, which finished at about 54"x62" after washing, is slightly bigger than the Man Cave Quilt, and now the Madman is whining about needing a bigger quilt, too. *sigh*)

Now, on to the next project! Hope everyone else had a good sewing start to the new year, and I promise I'll try and post again before March!