FAL Progress: not much

May 30, 2013May 24, 2013 Elizabeth E.6 Comments

This is one of those I-think-I’ll-beat-myself-up posts.

I’m participating in the Finish-A-Long this quarter, after having such a gang-busting last quarter. Really, I was hot hot hot.

These were my goals.

1. I glimpsed the Hunter’s Star quilt top when I was finishing up the vacuuming after my sister and her husband left (they stayed with us for a few days and we had great talks). It’s still hanging there, waiting for a border or two and then a trip to the quilter.

2. Hey! I finished something–the Four-in-Art * Fire quilt, titled Doloket.

3. Hey! Something else was completed. Guess I might not have to hate myself so much. Yes, I did finish the Italy quilt — a Schnibbles quilt — part of Another Year of Schnibbles on Sheri and Sinta’s blogs. Title: Take Me Back to Italy.

4. I can’t finish this one, as the sample is hanging in the shop — the shop owner likes it unfinished so she can show people what machine appliqué looks like from the back.

5. Oh, right. Next.

6. Finished this one, woohoo! Title: Lollypop Treat.

7. What was I thinking even listing this? Next.

8. Sigh.

So, I guess it’s not total loathing here in Riverside, just partial. But the one good thing about this FAL is that keeps me honest, and usually focused. But I had to add in another Schnibbles (above, as I know no post is good without photos), and I slipped in Christine’s Philadelphia because the idea was burning in my brain. Okay, confessional over. I guess I should get to work.

200 Quilts · Quilts · Schnibbles

Spoolin’ Around

May 21, 2013May 21, 2013 Elizabeth E.15 Comments

This is my latest Schnibbles quilt: Spoolin’ Around. Sherri, Sinta and I assume, Carrie, pick the Schnibbles pattern we are going to use, but then we all go to town putting it together in our own inimatable way.

I changed up the borders a little, because I wanted mine to all line up a little more, creating a different corner look. Read *here* about my fabrics, including using some sheets from the Porthault design vault.

Spoolin’ Around, au natural

I feel like I’m also creating a Tea Towel series, but really I’m not trying to. It’s just that this towel from Padua, Italy was blue and white and the top just called out for this to be used here. St. Anthony is a Big Deal in that town, as you can tell by his likeness, his basilica, his . . . We went to Padua to see the Scrovegni Chapel. Getting this tea towel was a side benefit.

I quilted this during the last week of class, while listening to Barbara Demick’s novel, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, and I quilted and quilted. Not perfectly, but that’s also the beauty of making these small quilts–nothing’s so terribly precious about them. They’re fun, not a chore. And I aim to keep it that way, just enjoying the process.

I struggled with the border choices: green soft plaid, or yellow spheres, or red/white dots? Not sure I’m entirely happy about this, but I did want something that wasn’t so serious.

I split the sleeve on the back, because I didn’t want to cover up the words.

And I kept their label: Puro Cotone, because I liked it. I used bits and pieces of the border that was cut off from the top of the towel around my label. I have to say it’s a bit wild looking, but again–I was having fun, and that’s not a bad thing when you are quilter. And that’s my June 1st deadline Schnibble, finished a bit early!

This is #114 on my 200 Quilts list.

Quilts

Entering the Grading Galaxy

May 15, 2013 Elizabeth E.9 Comments

(She moans. Loudly.)

But! I will return, because I excel in Grading Avoidance–a skill not all possess, but my guess is if you are a college English Teacher, you probably do. GA, we call it around here.

But I’ve been working on some things.

Like a visit to Arizona to see two of my children and their families over Mother’s Day Weekend. Grandchildren are the frosting on the cupcake of life, or so the sign in my kitchen proclaims, and my husband and I had a lot of fun, but came home tired. Mothering is a young woman’s game.

Received this greeting from another son and his wife on Mother’s Day, as they took a belated honeymoon trip to Paris, France. (I’m pretty sure he’s on the Eiffel Tower.) The card says, “Happy Mother’s Day from Paris.” Awwww. He’s a keeper.

Received my chicken fabric from Spoonflower, along with two textbooks for next year (Yikes! Already??) , and this:

To paraphrase something my students would say, I was like what? I was thinking what is all this? And I was feeling awesome as I lifted it out of the mailbox. I won for participating in the Schnibbles parade last month on Sherri/Sinta’s Another Year of Schnibbles, and had sent off my mailing address so they could send my prize. And What A Prize:

A bountiful harvest of Moda precuts from Avalon by Fig Tree, Simple Marks by Malka Dubrawsky, boho by Urban Chiks, Double Chocolate by 3Sisters, La Belle Fleur by French General, Maison De Garance by French General (those last two were layer cakes), 200 Blocks from Quiltmaker Magazine (a book), and a lovely hand-written note from Ms. Schnibble herself: Carrie Nelson. I was overwhelmed by her generosity and stunned that I even won at all! I have now lots of fun fabrics for lots of fun projects–all thanks to Miss Rosie’s Quilt Company. I feel richly blessed to be a part of the quilting community, as well you know, because I say it over and over and over. And even if I never win anything more again in my life (which is very likely), this one time, hey, I did.

Quilts · WIP

It’s Wednesday, so WIP on

May 8, 2013May 8, 2013 Elizabeth E.10 Comments

Finally! I have a use for my phone app, purchased so long ago and hardly used. Anyone else like that?

Yep, it’s Wednesday so that means I’m thinking about my works in progress.

Well, today, it was Schnibbles. I really had fun making last month’s quilt and although I’m fairly certain I won’t be able to keep this up, winning a prize for my Schnibbles certainly helped my motivation. It hasn’t come yet, so I can’t tell you what it is, but Mr. Random Generator Number HATES me, so I was pretty surprised when Sherri emailed me with the news. But as I lay in bed the other night, listening to the night sounds and thinking about if I should do this month’s pattern, all of a sudden I knew exactly what I wanted to do. It involves old sheets. But not vintage floral sheets.

Long before Martha Stewart ruled the linen universe and long before everyone’s beds looked the same, you could go down to the department store and there’d be all kinds of sheets in all kinds of patterns, mostly percale, but a variety of eye candy for the bed. One day in Wisconsin, in their department store, a set of Porthault knock-off linens were in the marked down bin.

Porthault? I was stunned, and snapped them all up: pillowcases, top sheet, bottom sheet and an extra sheet. The cool part was that the top sheet and pillowcases had a gentle scalloped edge that was taped with blue linen tape. Verrry classy. Well, I wore out the bedding, but still had that extra sheet. Some years ago, I cut it into large squares to use as table decorations for something-or-other, and I knew I still had those lovely lily of the valley pieces of sheets. Somewhere. I rummaged through the boxes in the garage last night and found them (you don’t have fabric in the garage? Really?), and went to work today making my Schnibbles. I have a set of papers coming in on Tuesday when I enter the Grading Galaxy, hoping to return just before my sister and her husband arrive for a week. Now you know why I thought I ought to get busy and get this done.

Here’s the second iteration. The fabric has two-toned blue lilies of the valley and yellow mini-tulips with green stems and little red dots here and there. So I added some red thread and some green thread to two of my spools, along with some yellow spools just for interest.

Here’s a close-up of the fabric. I have my row tag on there, ready to sew up the blocks into the top. I have enjoyed digging into the stash for this quilt, pulling blues from all sorts of different kinds of fabrics. I do like sewing with one line of fabric, I guess, but I always seem to sneak an extra bit from what I have so as to break up the quilt. (I guess that means I don’t really like sewing from just one line of fabric.)

I cut strips of my Porthault knock-off sheets into strips for the first border, and angled the ends to help disguise the seams–I have a lot of seams because I’m cutting from those squares from long ago.

First inner border with cornerstones is on in one of those dreaded nighttime photoshots. I stopped here for the night, and will figure out the outer border in the morning. I was able to slide in three blue blocks made with fabric from my very first pieced quilt (#3 on my 100 quilts list, never blogged about). I like using this fabric in quilts here and there. I like tying both ends of my quilting life together like this.

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced. For sure, I will be at the end-of-the Linky list tonight!

And here’s the only picture I could find of the sheets on the web. Sorry it’s so teensy!

I just went and looked up Porthault *online* and a sheet set is going for about two grand. Yep.
Of course, it is the real thing, and not the knock-off. Makes quilt fabric look like a bargain.