Amsterdam quilt top completed!

I'm a happy camper. Tuesday evening I finished the top to "Amsterdam" our picnic quilt, and I think it's looking fantastic!

I trimmed.

And sashed.

And here it is! It went together really quickly once I had all the sashing pieces cut to size.

I'm trying to decide how to quilt it; I have a few ideas I'm considering. I want to try some free motion quilting, but will have to practice on a bit of scrap fabric first. Wish me luck!

In the Lap(top) of Luxury

I'm thankful that Dave grew up with an avid quilter for a mom because this makes him more prone to being enthusiastic about my crafty endeavors than perhaps the usual bear. A couple weeks ago he came to me with a request for a laptop cover just like mine for his new laptop. He hooked up his computer to the Apple TV and we browsed through online fabric shops on our TV! How awesome is that. To make sure he would really like the final product, I drew him a sketch of what I was thinking (which was an easy sell, it looks a lot like our TimBuk2 bags) and let him pick out fabrics. 

I will admit, I was the one who picked out the orange bicycle flannel. It will line the pouch thus providing a soft place for his computer to live. Plus given Dave's enthusiasm for bicycles and alternative transportation, I feel it is appropriate. It's a bit cutesy, so it is ONLY going inside the pouch, we agreed. 

Behind the pile of strips you can see my approach to making just about anything -- sketch it out and plan ahead. Especially when I'm modifying a pattern, I like to draw things out and add up measurements and seam allowances just to make sure that I won't end up too short in the end. That said, even the most perfect planning can sometimes go awry but at least this gives me the confidence to start and know I'm cutting close to correctly. For this I'm modifying a pattern I've made before from the One Yard Wonders book to include a pieced outside. 

Here's the final cover piece all done in the lovely evening light of my sewing room. I assembled it quilt-as-you-go style on a piece of batting without the flannel on the back first. This let me do some dense straight line quilting in the middle panel and I was able to attach the blue and black strips without worrying about bunching up the back. To fix the flannel piece on, I top-stitched the folded edges of the blue and black strips with some bright orange thread. 

To make the pouch this gets folded and sewn up on two sides then bound. Rather than using bias tape as the pattern calls for, I just used some leftover strips from the blue pearl bracelet print on the front to bind it, treating it like a quilt at the corner. You'll notice a couple of extra stitching lines there at the bottom of this picture. I think Dave was generous when he measured the circumference of the laptop, so it ended up being a bit loose when I slipped it in. It would have been a better idea to fit it before putting the binding on, but silly me. It's ok, this extra flap will just add to the padding.... right? 

Here we get to the "even the most perfect planning" bit. It was just a smidge short. I trimmed the piece about 1/4" at the edges before sewing it closed because I cut it a 1/2" larger than the pattern called for, maybe I shouldn't have done that. Sigh. That's ok, I just cut my binding piece for the top wider than I was going to and went with it. It turned out just fine, I can't even really tell that the binding doesn't have batting in the layers because of the extra layers of fabric folded back on itself. Whew, dodged that problem. 

The flap is faced with the blue fabric I used for the inner binding strips and flips nicely over the top so as to not hide any of the design. Dr. Dave is quite happy with it, and so am I! I used heavier fabric on mine, so this one isn't quite as "solid" but it will definitely keep the scratches away. And it's super hip, in (our) humble opinions. I actually wasn't quite convinced about the black and white fabric when he picked it out, but I'm a convert. It's pretty darn cool. And, ever the materials scientist, my darling husband thinks the yellow print looks like atoms in a 3D crystalline lattice. Whatever makes him happy! (Secretly, I might actually agree with him....) 

Linking up to Finish it up Friday!

Eye candy

I've been on a "fabric diet" for some time now. We all know what happens after diets.... in my defense, Dave started it ;o) he wanted a laptop cover and to pick out the fabrics himself. Also, if I'm honest it was a little bit of stress-relief in the midst of interviews. So a-shopping we went. First stop: Stash Modern Fabric

We picked out some yardage for Dave's laptop cover.

Because I love these collections (Lily Belle and Floressence, both Art Gallery) I got the feature florals. They are just fat quarters, so I'll work them in with some other fabrics I have. I keep thinking of making pillowcases. I really just am loving those two Lily Belle florals on the left. What great colors!

These prints came because I wanted to see what I'd get in a Random Fat Quarter pack... and to put myself over the limit for free shipping. This is the peril of online shopping, adding shipping costs. But why not get something for that money spent instead? So I figured random FQs are better than shipping. I really like the orange print, and the text and dots are useful. The jury is out on the floral. But that's what the random was all about, taking my chances. 

Then, of course Hancock's of Paducah had free shipping so I popped over to see what was going on with their sale fabrics just to see. Of course I bought stuff (I'm weak and was on a roll), but on average paid only $6 a yard!

I got some beautiful blues (lots of Amy Butler, yeah!) including navy, which I've been wanting, and a nice true blue print. Despite all the blues I have, navy and actual "blue" were not among them.

These greens make me happy. The bright ones are destined for a baby quilt, and I really just liked the green mum print and the mannequins on aqua. I might even have enough of the mums to make a top for myself, I think it was a 2 yard minimum since it was like $3 a yard. 

I needed 'neutrals', and the cameos were too good to pass up. Considering some of the other fabrics and that black and white one, I feel an ikat project coming on... 

These are some prints just for fun. (The 1st and 3rd prints are actually from the Stash Modern Fabric purchase, not Hancock's) The Paris map print is super cute, and I imagine the ric rac stripes will serve as some cool binding down the road. 

The upshot of all this fabric coming in is that I cleaned up my cabinet! That's it for fabric for a long while unless I need solids to finish something. Nowhere else to put it! I got a bunch of Kona white last weekend at Joann's that should hold me over through the next couple of quilts. I have an idea for a wholecloth quilt, but I'm not buying the fabric for that unless I see solids on great sale or until I finish up the quilt I just pulled fabrics for. Now to get sewing!

Because I {felt} like it

I'm playing with felt again. This project will be a combination of a few different things that have been kicking around in my head: 1) felt flowers 2) embroidery and 3) fabric in a hoop.

When I first started crafting in earnest last year, I started out with small hand-work projects. I made a few needlebooks for myself and as gifts by playing around with felt flowers and a bit of embroidery. I really liked how they turned out, and have always intended on making more, perhaps to sell, but haven't really sat down to do so. Since then, things have snowballed into quilts and other machine-sewn projects (as well as knitting... always knitting) and I haven't revisited my felt stash. How time flies!

I'm making myself a wall hanging to put over the towel bar in my bathroom. Hopefully this will end up being a collection of hangings, but I'm at least starting somewhere. I picked a few scraps that match the general aesthetic, and am now auditioning flowers and color options for leaves. The leaves are the hardest, it turns out. I don't have many options for green and I don't really want to use "bright" green, so that double leaf is going to have to go. I like the combination of the oranges with the denim. I'm going to try to work in a few more colors through the embroidery, which I haven't thought up yet. I'll likely just stitch on the fly and see what turns out. It worked that way with the needlebooks. 

I'm going to take this relatively slow and steady, stopping every so often to contemplate what to add and what to leave out. I'm not yet sure how dense I want to make the felt component. Likely not much more than I have here, but I'm sleeping on it. 

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

(Puttin') on the fritz

My sewing machine certainly has seen a lot of action this last year. Compared to years past when it has come out only occasionally,we've been through a lot together the last 12 months including my first quilt, a couple of wedding quilts, birthday gifts, holiday gifts, and "gasp" even pajamas. I've got lots of projects planned for this next year. I love this machine. It's my happy place.

What I don't love is how the bobbin winder has been on the fritz lately. Usually I can wind my bobbins by popping them on this post, pushing it to the side, and cranking down on the foot pedal. 30 seconds later I'm done. Lately when I shift this over and start the foot pedal I get maybe two or three turns around, my needle is still moving up and down instead of staying still, and I get an error code and beeping which stops the whole party. This happened maybe once before but fixed itself mysteriously. What had been an intermittent problem has now become standard, I'm afraid. I've thoroughly cleaned out the bobbin case, though it makes no sense that the two would be at all connected. The wisdom of internet troubleshooting has failed me.

See the irritated bird behind the bobbin winder? Yeah. I thought I had it fixed last week working on my tulip pillow when I realized on the decorative tulip stitch setting I could wind my bobbin just fine. Alas this last weekend proved that theory incorrect. Beeping on any decorative stitch, including tulip #32.  Something is up (I think it's a mechanical problem, not a computer issue) and I can't open up the machine to see what it is. And winding bobbins by hand is getting old. 

So Sunday Dave bought me this. By bought me this I mean I went out and picked it up while on a tangential mission to buy batting at Joann's. But really I only got it because when I was first having this problem and we were out shopping, he saw this and asked me why didn't I have one. Truth is, I never really understood the need for it. But now I have a need. Getting around my problem may not be the intended purpose, nor do I want to ignore this and stop trying to fix the issue, but really right now I just want to sew. I've got birthdays and babies to sew for! The needle stops for no glitch! (Those of you who have read back in time may realize that my nieces birthdays are in April. Auntie needs her machine to work.)

I haven't tried it out yet, but it looks promising. And it folds up all nicely into this little bobbin winding spaceship. What a helpful little spaceship.

Knits on planes

The simplicity of that phrase belies the fact that it can be interpreted in two ways: knits as a noun or an adjective. "Knits on planes" sounds like a sensational movie title while "knits on planes" as a descriptive phrase is more of a line item in the notes from a psychiatric interview. As in: "subject displays compulsive crafty behavior... knits on planes." Both are apt descriptions of the essence of this post. I was in fact knitting on planes, and my knits were on planes. Three little words, so much meaning. I digress.

I purchased this yarn at my lovely LYS Nine Rubies Knitting near the beginning of the year, and I was good and waited until I finished the baby quilt and sweater for my friend Anna before digging into it and casting on my intended project. Newton was not quite as disciplined, you can see the pink ball above looks a little raggedy -- it was wrapped around the kitchen chairs several times one morning and needed to be rewound a bit. Silly kitten. The yarn is Baah! by La Jolla and I must say I am really loving it. The strands are tightly twisted with satisfying regularity and the colors are saturated. 

This month I've been traveling a lot. I usually take my Kindle to read books and my iPad with patterns and some yarn to be able to knit but I was in the middle neither of a book nor a knitting project. So I started my new project a couple days before I flew out and worked on it this month on 4 cross country flights from the West Coast to East. Phew! That's a lot of knitting hours. I'm probably about halfway done.

The pattern is Color Affection by Veera Valimaki and is a lovely asymmetrical garter stitch shawl whose stripes lend themselves well to any number of striking color combinations. Mine is feeling a little bit "Miami" right now with the bright pink. But really I couldn't resist a color named "Flamingo Pink" given my love of the gangly pink birds. We'll see what happens when I add in the blue! I do like each of these colors separately, and I think they'll look neat together. Dave had to talk me out of getting a bright green instead of the blue. Not sure what his issue was, but he sure did make a face when I held up the three hanks together. I was thinking "tulips" he was thinking "yikes!" This shawl, much like the title of this post, has some hidden complexity despite the apparent simplicity of garter stitch stripes. It has short rows! This will be my first time working this technique, but really it doesn't seem all that complicated. It does end up having quite the visual impact on the finished product, though. I'm looking forward to starting those in a couple more rows and seeing how they work. 

I love knitting while traveling. While on a layover at O'Hare, a woman next to me struck up a conversation about the colors I chose. She was quite friendly, and as it turns out her husband was also searching for faculty jobs and they were returning from an interview, too! The three of us had a great time chatting about the trials and tribulations, but also the excitement. And as another hilarious example of the smallness of the world, the husband had met my best friend from college while working at Stanford for a short period of time -- in the same lab. See? Never would have talked to them if I didn't have my yarn to say a visual "hello". They even watched my things while I walked down the terminal to go buy a Shamrock shake from McDonald's. Way to go, yarn, way to go. 

My sister-in-law gifted me this fabulous project tote for the holidays this year along with yarn markers and row counters. The part that is folded back has pockets for needles and hooks, and it rolls over to snap shut around the yarn compartment to form a little log with a handle on the top for easy carrying. Love it. My yarn cakes fit in perfectly and it is really convenient to just leave them in there while I stitch away. They don't get tangled up from rolling around like they might in just a regular tote bag (speaking from experience...). As an added bonus it fits perfectly into my carry on bag that ends up under the seat in front of me, so no digging around before stowing my luggage in the overhead bins. And strangers can see the colors you're working with and talk to you about them. And enable you to purchase milkshakes. Thank you, Li!

Now that I'm back home I'm working more with fabric and sewing, but in the late hours of the evening I still sit down for a few more rows on this. I really would like to wear it this Spring!

Sle-EP(P)-y

Through the magic of pre-scheduling posts, there hasn't been much of a break here lately, but behind the scenes I've been out of town on interviews. Since I got back Tuesday night, I've been itching to do something crafty. The thing is, I'm still pretty tuckered and out of whack from the travel to and from the East Coast, so I haven't done anything because I'm pretty sure I'd make silly mistakes. Thursday night I got brave.

I joined a couple online quilting bees that start in April. One is "Get Your Hex On" that is all about enthusiasm for hexagons in blocks and the second is "Bee Sew Modern" where anything is fair game. I've had a great time with the do.Good Stitches circle I'm in and that definitely encouraged me to seek out more bees. I am looking forward to dreaming up a couple of designs of my own as well as getting to know some new people.

Our queen bee for the hexagon bee was ahead of the curve and I received my packet of fabric and templates in the mail a week ago. Irene did such a great job with her instructions and marking up the templates for the design she chose that I decided it would be no problem to sit and baste the pieces tonight. Well, two hours later I found myself completely done with the whole block! It felt good to zone out with some music on and just stitch. I needed that!

This pretty flower is going to be part of a flower ball just like this quilt here. It is quite a unique look! Kind of like someone took a quilt and wrapped it around a sphere then took a picture. It certainly made piecing this section really interesting since the hexagons were all differently stretched.

I'm glad to have had this little project to get me going again -- I've been having fun this weekend getting lots more sewing done!