Sunday 22 June 2014

Hi-Jinx - A finish!

I am not sure how it started...but whatever it was that was slowing me down over the winter seems to have left my system cuz now I'm cooking with gas!  School has been kind of easing up as the year winds down and so I have been contemplating all of the stuff I want to do....and...you guys...ACTUALLY DOING IT!!!  Friday evening, I pulled out the fabrics I got back in December to make my friend Brent a house-warming present.  In fact, over the Christmas break from school I even drafted out the quilt.  Well, he's been in the house for about eight months now and his birthday was looming so I finally pulled it together to make him a quilt.

Remember this?  From January?  Finally got to work on it!
The pattern isn't too complex so I was able to cut out all my fabric pieces on Friday evening after work.  That way, when I woke up at the ungodly hour of 7:30 on Saturday morning (I recall, with great nostalgia, being able to sleep in till noon in my twenties) I was ready to start.  By mid-afternoon I had all my blocks done!
These colours REALLY pop against the dark grey background.  Loves it!
I was so productive, I was able to lay it all out and start piecing the rows together by evening!  When I got up this morning - again at 7:30 (super Grr!), I only had to finish piecing the last two rows.  Then, by lunch-time, I only had a couple of seams left.  Woot!
Last seam -- ever notice how much you're just gunning to get finished by the end?
So...early this afternoon....voila!  I'd like to introduce you to "Hi-Jinx."  My friend Brenty's 40th birthday present quilt!  This monster is a tad on the large side at 81 x 90 inches.  It was so large I couldn't quite manage to get it all in one photograph - even standing on the damned furniture.  Should be fun to quilt...er... ya...real fun.  :0


Also, in other quilty news, I went on a tiny shopping trip to Greenwood Quiltery last Friday with my new sewing-army convert.  You know, I only managed to spend all my grocery money for the next two weeks.  But...worth it!  I picked up all the fabrics for the Swoon-a-long my friends and I are going to tackle this summer.  Lots of Violet Craft Waterfront Park which has these lovely, happy, summery colours, with some Meadow by Leah Duncan and some Art Gallery Squared Elements for fun.  
Maybe not the greatest and most centred picture but its so pretty I don't care.
Check out the luggage sized bag I hauled out of that store!  I'm equal parts thrilled and embarrassed with myself.

And this is PART of what Camille purchased -- its for the Sew Together Bags we are going to make to help her hone her newly acquired and constantly improving sewing skills.  Her choices are TOTALLY up my alley.  This could be the beginning of a beautiful fabric hoarding relationship!
A little Kaffe Fasset and some hot pink Sketch!  Delish!
K, gonna go and keep riding this wave of motivation!  Wish me luck!

Wednesday 11 June 2014

Colour Cuts Done #AviatrixMedallion

I'm making slow and sure progress on cutting out pieces for my aviatrix medallion quilt by Elizabeth Hartman at Oh, Fransson!  In fact, tonight I hit a milestone -- I finished cutting out all (8 million) pieces out of the 20 coloured fat quarters that are required...and this thing has templates!  My grandmother has this theory that I seek out new projects based on how much I will be challenged by them.  Like it needs to be wicked hard for me even to be interested.  Maybe she's right.  I mean, the Aviatrix Medallion is so complicated you have to make a legend for all your fabrics.

See?  Here's my legend.  You are supposed to glue the fabric squares on the sheet but I don't have glue....so scotch tape to the rescue!
 Here is a delicious rainbowy-goodness look at what the cut up fabric looks like all ready to go for the various borders.
Looking at those delicious colours makes me super happy.
To keep everything adequately organized I am putting each border into a separate Ziploc bag...there are 6 borders in total - then, they all go in a bin so it stays together.  I'm not too far into this but I have a deep, sneaking suspicion that things could get mixed up in a heartbeat if there was no system.

These are all the pieces for border 6 - in order of how the legend goes.  There's NO way I'm going to accidentally sew the wrong colours together
And here are all my pieces and my bin with all my colours cut and ready to go.  All I need to do is cut out the neutral shades of grey and I will be good to get to sewing with this one!

Now, to just put this all back in the bin and I'm ready to roll!
Not gonna lie people, I'm pretty stoked about this one!

Tuesday 3 June 2014

Two Things at Once

I multi-task...a LOT.  In fact, I think being successful at my job even requires it.  However, no matter what I do lately, I can't seem to sew AND blog at the same time.  Jeez.  You get one or the other.  Better yet, you get one....and then a gajillion years later, you get the other.

So I have been sewing.  I haven't gone on some epically long hiatus like I did this winter.  I just haven't taken the time to write about it.  I'm changing that today.  Oodles of catching-up pictures will follow.  I hope you like pictures.  They say a picture tells a thousand words -- if so, this is a novel.

So first up, I was in progress making a birthday present for my new niece who turned 5 a couple weekends ago.

I moved down to the living/dining room so I could use my table to support the weight while I quilted.
 I had the whole top made at the end of April and then...? I let it sit.  So I finally bucked down and basted and quilted all in a single weekend.

My mom and niece tried to hold it up so I could get a picture before I wrangled it into my car for the drive up north.
And here is the happy birthday girl on the day of the celebration -- with her Uncle Punching-Bag.  Weird nick-name - I know.
So cute.  She has apparently been wrapping herself up in it since it was gifted.
The same weekend that I was finishing off Maddie's Birthday Tweet, I FINALLY convinced my friend Camille that she could sew herself a pillow!  Hehe.  Did I mention that I'm trying to create my own quilt army?  I'm taking enlistments!  Anyhoo, she decided to make an alternating cool and warm HST pillow.   First, she waded through my ri-DONK-ulously huge stash of scraps to find 25 warms and 25 cools.  Then, I taught her to use a rotary cutter and ruler to make 3-inch sqaures.  She fastidiously cut out 50 sqaures without getting pissed off and throwing in the towel -- I call that VICTORY #1.   Then, she had to mark her squares.
So patient and precise - a quilter after my own heart!!!!
She then chained pieced them together to make a lovely pile of almost-HSTs.
Chain piecing on the evening 1 of the pillow project -- I had SUCH joy watching her work!  Excuse the picture darkness though.  It was kinda getting late.  
She finished the evening by slicing and pressing her chain pieced units.  And VICTORY #2 -- She hadn't quit yet!  In fact, she was having FUN!!!!  By the next morning, she had this lovely stack of HSTs awaiting her arrival:
These are her 100 HSTs - all stacked and pretty.
Next it was time for her to trim and square them up - she patiently trimmed all those HSTs.  However, that;s not the most epic part -- the most epic part is that she saw fit to go buy her own rotary cutter to facilitate the trimming!  VICTORY #3!!!  Once you have a cutter - that's it - you are hooked!  There's no going back!!!
There's not much better than a satisfying pile of fabric trimmings!
She pieced her HSTs together that day in rows of 10 and then learned to pin and match seams to make her pillow.  By the end of the second day, with an envelope backing hastily pieced by me, she had this GLORIOUS finish!
Its SO AMAZING!!!  I want it -- or she could MAKE me one!  
I'm jealous!  But, the best part?!?!  She wants to make Sew Demented's Sew Together Bag next!  Hook.  Line.  Sinker.  Welcome to the quilt army, C!

Oh ya....and I guess I should add, I have also sewn together super boring curtains for my friend Brent's new place.  I HATE this red fabric.  Don't tell him - he's in love.
       

And (as per usual) I have been amassing and hoarding collecting fabrics like its my job.  My very fun and very beautiful and calming and satisfying dream job.
The result of a delicious Pink Castle sale.  They were such a good deal, they were practically free....ish.  :)
And thanks to my quilty friend L, who split a Tula Pink Fox Field half-yard bundle with me, I was able to introduce my  Tula Pink Acacia's to their new room mate.
So...see?  All is right in the quiltaverse with me.  Now I have to go and cut out some fat quarters for my aviatrix medallion challenge (I'm onto you L!)