New Holiday Traditions: Crafty Exchange!

By the time you're reading this, my good friend L will have received her new quilt that I based off of  Susan Beal's "Bright Furrows" design in Modern Log Cabin Quilting. This, after a long facebook exchange where a former student of Zips' posted a link to the "Bigger on the Inside" shawl pattern with the note "if anyone can do this, you can!" Being a huge new Doctor Who fan, and not a knitter, I knew when to call for help. So I appealed to L, who is a knitter, and we struck a deal (after much enthusiastic "really!?" and many excited exclamation marks): I quilt her a lap quilt, and she knit me a cool TARDIS shawl!

Zips helps me iron the seam allowances away from the center square.

L gave me her fave colors: robin's egg blue, sable brown, and maybe some red-orange. I ran with it, and got a stack of quarters to work with.

And after piecing the quilt top, was left with several spare log cabin squares and a ton of leftover 1 3/4" strips, mostly in the blue and brown (it's one of those cut-as-you-chain-sew kind of patterns). So I went nuts with these in improvising the back of the quilt. I was really happy with how it turned out-- it turned into a kind of reversible quilt! 

 Here's the finished back (most of it, with Zipper patrolling the perimeter).

And the finished front of it too. Much more logic to the arrangement. Look at 'em furrows! 

I sent it off yesterday, and L should receive it tomorrow, just in time for Christmas. I can't wait to hear from her when she does get it, and I'm holding off publishing this particular post until I know she's already laid eyes on it. And you can bet I'll be posting pics when I get my hands on the shawl she's knitting for me. I can't wait! I'm really excited that someone other than my immediate family will be (hopefully) enjoying the fruits of my labors. I hope I have another crafty exchange with someone else soon. This was really fun!

A Sad End to my New Quilt

This has already been the craziest winter I've experienced in a while. In the fall I taught four classes while writing and finishing my dissertation. I drove 1600 miles cross country for my dissertation defense, and then AGAIN for my graduation. For the remainder of my winter break, I did very little aside from eating, watching movies, and getting back into quilting (modern quilting). The two trips and the expense of participating in commencement and buying a very serious-looking diploma frame embossed with the university logo (hey! how many Ph.D.'s am I gonna get?) forced us to have a modest Christmas and I wanted to make something nice for my parents gift. So I went through all my books, scoured the internet for a good-lookin', do-able pattern and found this tutorial for a quilt called Tunnel Visions, a nice simple pattern with measurements I could tweak for my crib-sized batting. So I pared it down to 20 blocks (5 across, 4 down), pulled out some leftover off-white squares and triangles from my first quilt, and cut some corresponding colors.

As it is here, all laid out, is how I had wanted it. I never anticipated I could mess it up. The darks and lights and the sort of three-D box repeating pattern makes sense to me. I even carried the pieces square by square to the machine, and row by row, so I wouldn't mess it up.

But no sooner did I start sewing than I started messing up my own plans. I messed up the positioning of the middle 1/3 of the blocks in an entire row. I sewed one row together vertically instead of horizontally, I sewed the blocks together backwards. Everything. Probably compounded with the fact that I was going to gift this to my meticulous mother! I just kept going and eventually had a quilt top that was (mostly) as perfect as I could get it.

Of course the fun part of quilting is making the top. The rest of quilting-- the actual "quilting" part is where everyone stalls (including me). I suck at basting. I'm too impatient (like my baking skills!). Zipper and Mini love to chase the tail of whatever thread I'm using, making all of my careful smoothing and taping and un-bunching of the layers completely useless.

But I did it. I made it. I finished and did the binding and made up my own quilting style.

Here's Bijoux enjoying its luxurious, colorful comfort under his paws.

When I presented my parents, who live three hours away, with my freshly finished quilt, a gift, after all, for Christmas, my dad shrugged and suggested my mom would probably be the one to use it, since she's the one who lounges under blankets on the couch (let alone brightly colored ones). While both of them were standing there, I self-deprecatingly told them not to look at the back, since that's where its pucker-y imperfections are the most visible. They promptly looked unfolded it and looked primarily at the back. Then my mom asked if I had washed it yet. I hadn't (I just finished it the night before). She took it, folded it back up, and put it in the laundry hamper in their bedroom.

Zips has half a mind to drive up there and get it back. I'm just going to keep sewing one for myself instead. It'll be even better, and more perfect. And I know Zips will love it and appreciate my hard work every day.

Quilting in the New Year

I've just discovered I fit into a category: Modern Quilter. This is an actual term. A glance at my list of crafty bloggers there on the side will give you an idea of what that entails. Mostly non-traditional forms, creative patterns, lots of bright colors with solids. And the celebration of a prevailing aesthetic of "wonkiness." Yay! (this means my inability to sew in a straight line will not deter me!)

For the past couple of years, all I want for my birthday is a gift card from the fabric store. Since my birthday is in late November, this gives me a chance to stock up on supplies to keep me busy through the holiday season. (one year I gave my parents handmade bathrobes and pajama pants and something like pencil cases for Christmas, thinking they would cherish gifts sewn by their daughter. I'm still not sure they realize I made them... they never said..)

This year, I didn't have a chance to buy fabrics until after the holiday, but I've blown through my fifty bucks, mostly in pre-cut quarters. I stacked them up with some of my leftovers from previous projects-- I like the spectrum! Oh the possibilities!

The local Jo-Ann's here is rather small and always packed, so just grabbing quarters gives me the chance to just grab a bunch of different bright colors I like and GO. And I got queen-sized batting. I'm excited. I am also the proud new owner of Boo Davis's Dare to be Square Quilting. I have a couple of cream and taupe fitted sheets that we no longer use, so I've had my eye on them to cut 'em up and work them into a quilt (I've also saved a lot of beloved pajama pants that I've worn literally to pieces...I'm thinking jammies and sheets used to make a quilt that I will continue to sleep under has a nice poetic quality).

I was initially going to make the "Does Not Compute" robot quilt for my first project for the new year, but fell in love with the look and name of the "Two Left Feet" pattern. So I cut and stacked the 304 pieces---
And started putting them together, one by one. This was mind-boggling because each of the 20 major blocks was TOTALLY different, but also because the colors of the one in the book were blue, gold, and brown. My dominant colors were red, blue, and "other" (green/yellow/orange). So for all the blue pieces in the pattern, I subbed in my reds. For the book's golds, I used my blues. This got REALLY confusing when I would look at a blue strip in the pattern and a blue strip of fabric in my hand and wonder what I was doing next...
But I made it through-- I think I started cutting blocks on Dec. 30 and finished sewing the rows together on the 4th-- and now have a great quilt top... that Zips won't get off of.

After I spread it out on the bed to take this photo, she parked it (as you see here), and then tuckered down and stayed there all night. Then all day the next day.

I'm glad she likes it. I worried when I was picking the colors that with all the red and blue and white, it would look patriotic-- but I think the blues are more mediterranean and the overall effect of the different fabric patterns is kind of Japanese. I'm going to use one of the taupe sheets and some leftovers to piece together the back of the quilt-- then comes the tedious sandwiching, machine quilting, and binding. I think I may do the pj pants mini-quilt before that happens. (to get back into the groove of quilting and binding before a queen-sized project) Hopefully before school starts next week!