Tag: WIP

Quilts · WIP

Work (still) in Progress

Elizabeth E.12 Comments

Many thanks to Lee of Freshly Pieced, who hosts a group of quilters hard at work.  Schlep back over to her blog to see others who are working hard. And yes, this week, I am a Work, (Still) in Progress.

I’ve feel like I’ve been hardly working on quilting this week, and boy, does that make me tired and cranky.  Creativity really can nourish the soul–cliche alert–but hey, sometimes cliches fit the bill. Sorry.

I actually have spent many hours on a project that I’m just not ready to show.  It’s not because I’m in a book or something, or that some famous person has asked me to test a pattern.  It’s just me.  Working hard.

But here’s something I will write about.  A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, I made a king-sized quilt for my son Matthew and his wife Kim.  They wanted desert colors and liked the log cabin block, so eight billion hours of piecing later, they had a quilt.

Here it is, with Matthew standing on a chair on one side and Dave (my husband) on the other.  Can you spot the turned square (the mistake)?  I didn’t until the moment when I got it back from the quilter, bound it and had these two fine men hold it up.  I died a little, but it’s still there.

I had made extra squares to make them pillow shams, which I did, but then I had a few other squares leftover which I remembered all of a sudden on Friday morning.  I stitched them together, did a pillowcase backing, quilted it, making a fall table runner.

Here’s the backing: Halloweeny fabric.  So now I’m set for both October and November in the decoration department.  I should make some fabulous pumpkins like those on Barb’s blog.  Go and see and tell me you don’t covet them.  Especially the one with the bird’s head.  (Now you have to go and look!)

EPP · Giveaway · WIP

Quilting Along

Elizabeth E.12 Comments

This is a picture of my latest start of my hexie blocks series, taken in my super-duper photo studio: a piece of batting laid down on the kitchen counter, making sure that I don’t put it near the dishes, or onto any stray bits of gravy.  Other times my photo studio is a bigger piece of batting, laid down on the guest bed upstairs, or if it’s medium-late in the afternoon, I can smooth it out on my pinwall, drag in the torchiere from my husband’s den, prop the other light up on the small stereo speaker on my desk, and make sure I turn on the camera’s flash.

Actually, considering my week, this is a stupendous output.  You know, some weeks are GetMoreDone and some weeks are BarelyQuilting.

Now you know way more than you want to about how things are at my house, but I do want to thank Lee of Freshly Pieced for hosting us on WIP Wednesday, where we all scramble to get something done–or partially done–so we can post it up here and say Yes!  I’m still quilting along!  (I love WIP Wednesdays.)  Click on her name to head back to her blog to read about others who got way more done.

But don’t forget to enter the Almost to 100 Followers Giveaway, on the post just below.  I’m giving away two sets of fat quarters–in black and white–perfect to rustle up some Halloweeny quilting!

Quilts · WIP

A true, blue WIP list

Elizabeth E.8 Comments

First off, let me tell you what I’m working on now: Portuguese Tile Quilt.  (To readers of this blog I apologize for showing the top one more time.)  I’m displaying it for my weekly foray to Lee’s Freshly Pieced blog.  Return there to see lots more interesting quilt works, and many many thanks to Lee for hosting this weekly forum.

The above quilt, when it is quilted, bound, labeled (properly finished) will be the first quilt on my list of 200 Quilts, in other words, the above is quilt #101.  A few bits ago while working on my Quilt Journal, I made a list of quilts I need to finish up to add to the 200 Quilts list.  Like women, who NEVER reveal their true weight, it’s an embarrassment for a quilter to realize how many unfinished things she has lurking around the edges.  And I’m not even talking the fabric in the stash that is being held on the shelf for imaginary projects.  Here goes.

Potential Quilts for the 200 Quilts List:
1. Autumn quilt–needs borders, backing, quilting.

Here’s where I left it.  No, I did sew on that striped binding to the left, then I folded it up and hung it in the Guest Room closet.

2. Friendship Quilt

I could have gone on collecting signatures for years, for like all of you, I make new friends and keep the old, but I decided to cut it off at the time I sewed the blocks together.  Now I should get crackin’ and get them sewn together.

3. Wedding Ring Quilt

Yes, I started one of these.  In the leftover Aunt Grace fabrics from the above project.  Which is cut out, but only a little bit sewn together.  I should save this for a summer project, providing I get LAST summer’s project done.  This has a poignant memory attached to it: I took my box of fabrics over to my friend Leisa’s house and we sat and cut and sewed on 9/11, needing each other’s company while we watched and listened.  And cried.  Definitely need to finish this one.

4. Summer Treat

You’ve seen this.  I’ve decided on the border, the backing.  Now I just need to steal some time from somewhere.  And given the quality of the English paper I just graded, I think I’ll give up grading for a couple of days to recover (the student earned a 43 out 100), thereby gaining me some more time.

5. Maroon/Forest Christmas Quilt

This one was made about a hundred years ago in the 1980s.  It’s so not “me” that I haven’t even given it a name.  I would go and dig it out to photograph it, but I am already depressed from grading (see above) and just can’t handle any more disappointments tonight.

6. The famously unfinished Lollypop Quilt, this summer’s gigantor Work In Progress.  I just received my next semester’s teaching assignment and it is a class I have taught before (and loved) so I believe things will align in the Sewing Studio just right in order to get it finished.

The last two are on the first 100 Quilts list, but they are still WIPs:
Hunter’s Star quilt, began when my last child went off to college.  He said he didn’t really like it, so I switched up and made him a different one (each child gets a quilt for their bed for their first Christmas season away from home).  Top’s all done.  Not much else. . . and the last WIP recorded in my Quilt Journal is. . .

Millenium Quilt.  In my memory, I didn’t like it much.  But when I pulled it out of the back of the closet to photograph it, I found I did like it.  Plus those fussy cut pieces of fabric referring to the Millenium (the year 2000) are kind of like a bit of my own personal history.

Now like that proverbial woman who stepped on the scale in front of a room full of people, I have to go and hide for a while in order to recover.

Happy WIP Wednesday!

WIP

More WIPs than I Need

Elizabeth E.7 Comments

Yes, I did the time-honored tradition of quilters everywhere, that when you can’t finish what you’ve got going (Summer Treat, Lollypop Trees) make the leap and add to your stash.  Here’s my latest additions, along with their plans:

Does this give you a hint?  And I in my usual decisiveness, I couldn’t decide between the . . .

. . . pink, or. . .

. . . blue.  It was that farm truck that made me do it.  I owe a couple of Polaroid blocks, and I’m thinking that barn with the quilt would be a perfect candidate for a Polaroid block.  No firm idea for this one, but I am drawn to some of the blocks in my vintage Judy Martin book.

This was purchased to go with the other ocean-themed pieces my friend Rhonda sent me last year.  I have in mind a tote bag, but can’t seem to get to it, so I thought maybe I needed another piece to go with it?  You can see the problem with this way of thinking, can’t you?  

So how could I not get these tone-on-tone Riley Blake Chevrons?  Unlike Rita of Red Pepper, who shows you some stash and then snaps her fingers and the next day the quilt is done, I won’t be showing you anything soon.  I keep having little horrid thoughts cross my mind that interfere with envisioning this in its own quilt, thoughts like the fact that the handout on rhetorical thinking is over there on the computer waiting to be written for class tomorrow.

I fell in love with this Reina and her cherubs, so I ended up getting the whole bundle from Fabricworm:

I added a couple of pieces to this, and so totally want to start slicing through it. New fabrics have a way of dislodging some stuck places, getting you going again on a project.

I was stuck on Summer Treat quilt, because I only cut out enough for a fairly small quilt.  I’m used to lap-sized quilts and there this tiny thing was, plastered to my pin wall for nearly a month, because I had determined it was too tiny and needed to be larger.  Finally I said to my Dave, “Can quilts be small?”  “Yes,” he said in all his wisdom and experience (of living with a quilter for lo, these many years).  That was all I needed to start rummaging through the stash to find the right backing.

All the colors in the quilt are here.  I may even bind it with this for a touch of whimsy on the front against all those solids.

And while this is primarily a quilting blog, and today’s post is primarily about Quilts in Progress, I realized that my tiny universe of quilts is nothing compared to bigger Works in Progress.

Like the elections in America, getting off to their post-Labor Day horserace to the finish line in November.  I assigned my students the task of watching either the keynote or the nominee’s speech for either party, so last week was the Republican’s turn and this week it’s the Democrat’s turn.  I have to say I am enjoying the speech-i-fying, but more importantly, I am enjoying the fact that we have elections at all.

And how about this for a work in progress?

Cue the Karen Carpenter songs.  The reception was done on a shoestring because they are both students (that’s why I was the photographer), and frankly they both look like a couple of teenagers, but their lovely smiles and obvious tenderness for each other reminded me of why weddings make us cry.  Talk about a work in progress.  Theirs has just begun.

So, like a bride tossing her bouquet, bequeathing to another this task of beginning, I wish you all the best in your Works in Progress, whether they be candidate speeches, or packing school lunches, or starting a quilt, or yes, even finishing one.

Happy Post-Labor Day.  Happy Quilting!