Thanksgiving Break!!!

As a teacher I have been looking forward to Thanksgiving Break for weeks! It is the first chance in the year for the students, and us teachers, to have a break - and we need it. 

I am going to relax, eat, and quilt all weekend. There'll be some sleeping in, exercise, and work (grading) mixed in there, but it's all good. Maybe next year I can make something like this to celebrate the holiday:

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Charley Harper

Charley Harper is my favorite artist. You probably would recognize a lot of his work, even if you don't know who he is. Here are some examples:

He did a lot of commercial work during his career and is well known for his self-described "minimal realism." I like the motion he conveys in his work and the interesting perspectives he often uses. So, when I discovered a collection of fabrics had been released under his name using his work I freaked out! (Unnecessarily, but I was excited!) I immediately ordered the whole collection from fabricworm.com. It should arrive this week!. Here's a picture from their website:

I am thinking of using it to make up this quilt from Elizabeth Hartman's site Oh Fransson!:

It should display the prints well.

On a separate note, I've been trying to plan through some of the other designs I'd like to try. There are a couple from Elizabeth Hartman's book The Practical Guide to Patchwork and a couple from a new book I purchased by Natalia Bonner and Kathleen Whiting called Modern One Block Quilts. In order to plan, I've been drawing out the designs from the books and substituting in my own color schemes and sizes. I am surprised the extent to which it is helping me plan. Here's a shot of one of my planning pages:

If I had fabric swatches I would include those with the sheet as well, but I don't have much of a stash yet, so that will come later. This is a plan for a wall hanging I'd like to make for my entryway that picks up on several colors in an area rug that we have. The pattern in Hartman's book is called "Valentine" and it uses a lot of strip piecing. I think a small project with a new technique will be just the ticket for my second project.

Cheers!

Chugga-Chugga-Chugga Shooooo Shoooo!

As, I hope, my title indicates progress is slowly moving forward on Batch of Brownies. I finished two sets of the large blocks in the past week and have one more to go. I hoped to get through the last set today, but just didn't get to it. Here is a photo for proof that work continues:

In the upper right you can catch a glimpse of my green binding, and a wrong-side out view of the backing.

On a separate note I ordered a walking foot and a darning foot for my Bernette (I need to think of a better name for my sewing machine) and they arrived this week! I tested them out Saturday. The walking foot went okay - I'm having some bobbin tension issues (I think) and those continue. I need to take my machine in to be serviced, I haven't done so since I bought it off of ebay. After some trial and error I got the darning foot working correctly, too - though I definitely need HEAPS of practice with it before I use it on a quilt. I think tracing out the pattern before hand would help. Here is a picture of my first ever quilting attempt (I preface that with "first ever" because it is quite bad):

Happy Sewing!!!

Cutting Brownies

I continue plugging away at my blocks. I finished up one tonight. Here it is so you can see the fourth fabric combo:

This let's you see the part of the construction that gives the quilt its name - Batch of Brownies. You make horizontal and vertical cuts through your blocks - like cutting a pan of brownies - to create the offset checkerboard pattern. 

I hope to finish this set of blocks tomorrow night. Once the vertical strips are cut the sewing goes much faster. 

On a different note, I thought I'd share a shot of my work space with you. Several years back when I was sewing I would cut and sew in my dining room. It had better natural light than my "new space," was warmer, and a little more connected to the household, but, BUT, the "new space" is SO much bigger! Plus, there's not natural light available to me right now anyway since it gets dark before 5 pm. Bonus, I can get the "new space" cleaned up in about five minutes if anyone actually wants to play pool. My ironing table is set up just to the right of this shot. It is so very nice to be able to move from cutting table to sewing machine to iron without having to go to a different room.

Completed blocks

I have finished eight blocks! And after working a loooooooooong day at school I decided I couldn't work anymore tonight, so hopefully I'll get a couple more done. For now, here is a pic of my completed blocks:

I plan to do my next set of blocks in the last color combo I chose. The more I work with the fabrics, the less thrilled I am with how they go together. Oh well, live and learn. We'll see how the finished product comes out. And, whether I like it or not I am learning a TON about how these things go together. Onwards and upwards!

Hello again ...

I'm back in the blogging world! I confess, up until last Monday I had not sewed a stitch since my last blog post. Beginning a graduate program and starting a new career as a teacher sucked away all the extra time and brain power I had available. However, I am now in my third year of teaching and am starting to find my groove. I have been finding myself with some leftover brain power and have been trying to figure out what to do with it. Going back to trying to sew garments didn't really appeal to me, but some conversations with my grandma and some friends sparked my interest to check out basic quilts on Pinterest. WOW! They were so beautiful - I loved the interplay of the color palettes, bold lines, and negative space of the modern quilting aesthetic. I thought to myself, "Hey, I want to do one, and I have all the sewing stuff I need already, so why not?"

I picked up a couple of books for inspiration and instruction. My favorite, by far, is Elizabeth Hartman's The Practical Guide to Patchwork: New Basics for the Modern Quiltmaker.

Hartman's designs are lovely and made for beginners. She also includes a variety of fabric ideas for each project to help you picture different ways the quilt could look. She has another book out that is lovely as well, Modern Patchwork: 12 Quilts to Take you Beyond the Basics and her blog, Oh Fransson!, offers some additional ideas, and remakes of the quilts from her books. 

I chose a design called "Batch of Brownies" that relies on an offset checkerboard pattern to highlight the contrast between prints and solids. I thought it looked like a fun way to showcase a variety of fabrics, so I made my way to JoAnn's, braved their Veteran's Day Sale and stocked up on some fun fabric. 

I have finished the back of the quilt, and assembled my 1st four blocks. While there have been some stumbles along the way (three of the fabrics I bought weren't wide enough to cut the correct sized pieces, so I had to patch them AND I made a small error in assembling one of my blocks), I am excited to keep going on this process. I will try to get some pictures  my blocks posted later today. For most of today Jack and I will be up in Seattle cheering on the Seahawks - so pictures must wait until after that. GO HAWKS!

Weekend = YAY!

Well, I took my WEST-E test this morning. I don't know how it went, I guess I'll just not think about it until the scores come out and deal with it then. My Psych class is going well though.

I realize I never posted the picture of my Potato Baker Bag, but here it is now:

I am going to try and crank out a couple of more tomorrow as I don't have any other big plans.

Happily, I got my stamps in from Purple Onion Designs today. I am very happy with them and can't wait to do stuff with them. I don't entirely know what I am going to do yet, but we'll see. I got their perpetual calendar as I thought it would be very useful multi-purposeful and their treat logos which I thought would be good for giving treats as gifts. I was just messing around with the stamps - here is what one of the treat logos looks like:

 

I'll have to get some more ink colors and paper shapes to fancy things up.

The plan is to post more tomorrow. Hopefully I'll have some more colorful Potato Baker Bags.

A Demain!