Fresh Sewing Day November

October was a pretty good month! I finished that biggest to-do, Kelly's baby quilt, got done with bee blocks on time, whipped up some birthday gifts, and even got to do a few things for my 'weekday' apartment. I'd say that my approach last month of not setting goals served me quite well.

1. Grandmother's garden bee block    2, 3. Snowflake bee blocks

4. Tron cowl    5. Lavender sachets    6. Improv curves bee blocks

7. Little Whimsy baby quilt    8. Pillowcases

9, 10, 11. Ombre wall art

Today also marks the first day of being back to work for me since turning in my thesis. I'll be soaking up science policy know-how in Sacramento for the next year. A new job, a new town, and a new little nest -- changes are a-comin'!

I would say my goals for this next month are to finish a few handmade touches for the new place to make it feel like home. I also want to get back to hand quilting my medallion quilt and finish it soon. By the new year? Maybe that's ambitious. Other than that, a serious goal will be to stick to the yarn stash and current queue! That will be a tough one. 

Linking up at Lily's quilts for:

newton sleeps, i sew

I picked out a pattern for another studio pillow. Back in August I made a block for the Bee Sew Modern bee that I ended up really liking. Having recently acquired a nice navy print from the clearance section at the fabric store and remembering I had this pretty little calico leftover from Anna's Pinwheels in the Park quilt, I had the perfect set of blues to pair up with a rather large scrap of linen. 

It took me most of an afternoon to cut strips, piece my way through these blocks, and trim them. I used 6" squares as the foundation and cut 1.5" strips that were 8", 6", and 4". My marks for lining up the first strip were made 2" from the corners. As a note next time I should cut 1.75" strips. I used a scant 1/4" seam and was just kissing the edge of the corner with that last light blue strip. It will be fine, but more wiggle room would be had with slightly wider strips. I might even like it better with 2" strips and 2.5" marks on the foundation. 

I had to layout a few squares just to see the effect of my fabric placement, since I sort of guessed what would look best in terms of order. I'm happy! Newton isn't quite sharing my excitement. While I sew, he snoozes on the deck chair in the living room. He won't be happy when the construction outside is done and that chair goes back outside! Poor kitty. We're so mean. 

studio beautification part un

This week I've been hatching plans for pillows to use on my daybed in the Sac studio. I started in on a bright and colorful pillow to brighten up the otherwise pretty neutral-looking side of the room where the bed is. Using navy/orange/purple in one pillow looks a little Halloween-y right now, but I'm sure I'll like it when all is said and done. 

I'm using a free paper pieced kaleidoscope pattern from Red Pepper Quilts. I hope by using primarily navy in the blocks that I can bring a bit more of that color into my living space --- I'm pretty good on purple ;) When the pieces are all assembled I have the fabric arranged so that the secondary star pattern is all navy and the scrappy purple and orange fabrics dance around the block in no particular order. 

So far the block is 16.5" square. I want it to snugly fit on a 24" pillow form --- I'm always bad at remembering how to size pillow covers to get the fluff that I want. I think maybe 22" finished? I hope I have notes on my dogwood pillows somewhere...  I think I will add a plain navy border around this rather than more kaleidoscope blocks. I'm liking 16 and keeping the center as a navy star rather than 25 which would make the center a purple and orange cross. That might be getting a bit obsessive. 

I also want to put a zipper in the middle of the back instead of using an envelope closure. We'll see how well that goes! After this is finished I have plans for one or two more large pillow covers. Of course, I can't decide what I want to do. Typical. 

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced. I'll be looking for inspiration in the rest of the links, for sure. 

Little Whimsy, finally complete!

This quilt has been a long time coming! I started it in April and then got stalled mid-year with that whole PhD thing. Kelly is a postdoc who worked with me in lab, so I'm SURE she understands that this is a little delayed in coming for her little one who is adorable and 3 months old by now.

I finished it off by piecing together 2.5" strips of leftover fabric from the Dutch Geese block to make binding. The binding was attached by machine, finishing with a zigzag stitch. The bright green of binding looks nice with the (even brighter!) pink background. 

This quilt was especially fun for me because I stretched. I improvised myself a simple setting for this single block that gave me lots of negative space to quilt in. The dogwood blossom quilting, my first large-scale fmq attempt, looks fantabulous and adds lots of texture that I'm enjoying looking at as I sit here typing. 

I couldn't be more pleased with the way this turned out, and I can't wait to wrap it up and give it to my friend, Mama Kelly. It matches her bright and cheerful personality, a trait I valued so much while working with her and which I am sure she will pass on to her little girl. 

43" x 58"

Linking up at Finish it up Friday!

omg ombre

The other day I enjoyed a crafty break from thinking about 'The Move' and 'The New Job'. After spending the weekend packing up what I think might come in handy for weekdays in Sacramento and moving it all into the little apartment I wanted a break from organizing, planning, packing, putting away, you name it.  

Monday when we got back I was catching up on some blog reading and came across some really cute art made with paint chips. Hmmm... what better way to have art with exactly the colors you want? Genius. I also really liked the repetition of one shape in different colors and the gradient from light to dark across the artwork. The other great thing about paint chips besides coming in almost any color imaginable, is that they come in color families. For each color Behr has cards with darker shades (4) and lighter shades (3) of the same base color. That makes forming gradients really simple. 

I had a few canvases languishing in the stash cabinet so decided to pop over to Home Depot to pick up some paint chips. I also decided (with Mom's help!) on a star shape and found myself a paper punch. I think part of the visual appeal of the artwork is that all the shapes are identical, and I would have gone batty trying to cut out a bunch of stars exactly the same. Also I would have probably been unsuccessful. Paper punch it is!

The whole project was easy and downright fun. I punched out all of the stars in one color first and then decided on the six shades I wanted to use that gave me the most appealing (to me, of course) gradient from light to dark. I used foam sticky circles from the scrapbook section of the craft store to affix the stars to the canvas, and voila! Star art. 

I found it best to lay out all of the stars first and then pick each one up to add the sticky bits and put it back in its place. That way I avoided alignment issues from row to row and my stars were evenly spaced across the canvas. After auditioning several options, I decided to alternate the orientation of the stars across the rows but leaving the columns in the same orientation. It looked the most appealing to me probably because it minimizes the white space and nests the stars nicely while still having some order to the layout. 

When Dave got home I ended up going back out to change the purple... I had sort of thought the original one I picked had far too much pink in it, and Dave agreed. But after that slight detour, I now have these three lovelies to find a place for in the new digs, and it was quite a relaxing afternoon and evening of zoning out and getting my art project fix.

Tron cowl, completed

Whew, it's done. This cowl turned out quite beautifully. The fabric is dense but drapey, pleasantly squishy, and has a wonderful texture both for the eye and the fingers. It took me just over three weeks to finish, though I did not make it the full 10.5" wide called for in the pattern. Rather, I stopped and blocked it to about 6". It measures a whopping 56" in circumference, plenty to wrap around twice and have enough slack to fluff. 

Pattern: Array by Shibui knits (free on Ravelry)

Yarns: Cascade superwash 220 (space needle) and Cascade heritage silk (cerulean)

The cowl and this little lavender sachet were gifted to my wonderful and talented riding instructor for her birthday, and I'm happy to say she was surprised and happy to get something handmade. And very complimentary of my "secret talent". I have informed her that it was made for wearing at the barn and is machine washable. She doesn't believe me yet and is afraid she'll ruin it, but I'm sure she won't be able to resist the comfort of a cowl on some of our brisk foggy mornings we are heading into. I've worn my Portland cowl every morning for the last week or so. Cozy. 

I am not sure if I'd make this again with these yarn weights... I might try chunkier yarns to make the inches fly by faster. Unsure. I do really like the way it turned out, though, so it's definitely on my radar for future pieces. 

and why not?

Duvet covers, sheets, pillowcases, etc are all things I LOVE. I don't know why I'm so into linens, but it's noticeable enough that my husband just sort of laughs. It must be the large pieces of fabric that I can change out at will and which often have high color or pattern impact on a space. It's a thing, it doesn't have to make sense. 

At any rate, these items I love so much have always seemed to me to be the kind of thing you buy. I never really considered making them before. But a while ago I bought myself some fat quarters of fabric I really liked (the Floressence prints here, as well as some LillyBelle) and I decided I was going to make pillowcases out of them. Why? Why not. Pillowcases are useful! I use one every day. Also, it is a way to not have to cut up those lovely large scale feature prints that I seem to be drawn to. These florals are especially lovely and would have been so sad to cut up into little pieces. 

After looking at my favorites on Flickr, it seems that I'm drawn to unusual combinations of many prints. Soooo I took two fat quarters of Floressence meadow aroma print and set to finding some quirky prints to partner them with.  I used a tutorial I found some time ago at Cottage Mama to make banded cases with french seams. One modification I made was to use two fat quarters sewn together instead of 3/4 yard of the fabric for the main part of the pillowcase. Therefore, my pillowcases are not quite as big as those in the tutorial, but they fit my pillows just fine. 

The backs of the pillows are "calmer" prints that I can flip up when I'm not feeling so floral, a light gray curio on one and a light purple calico vine on the other. These two pillowcases are destined to brighten up my studio apartment in Sacramento that I have moved into this last weekend. (Hopefully by the time this post is up they'll be happily hanging out on the bed!) Something about these makes me feel like I'm spoiling myself a little bit... custom made pillowcases, ooooh! And why not?