Oh happy day! I started sewing again. I was experiencing heavy sewing resistance the last few weeks, but that’s all behind me now. I found a cute little quilt-as-you-go pouch pattern and am looking forward to putting it all together. I like this pattern because the quilting happens with each strip – a quarter inch of quilting on each one. I guess that’s the way to do a small quilted piece. I’ll remember that for my next small piece. Once I get these two pouches sewn up, I’ll get back to quilting up the big scrappy quilt I’m about a third of the way through.
Also, I’m sticking to my scrappy style of sewing for the next little while. I’ve decided. I’m totally scrappy and I like it.
One of my swap partners listed her preferences about colour and style like this:
Faves? pink, orange, purple
Least faves? bold, funky, bright, clear colors
I hope I can keep the funky down on this project. But I wonder, who wants less funky? I love the funk! We want the funk! Just like George Clinton in the 70′s. I’ll do my best.
Meanwhile, the neighbour’s kitty, Cesar, was having a little munch on the grassy pieces in the front yard in between spring rain showers.
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I sewed this tiny carrot tonight following this simple tutorial. I only had enough time to make one, but it sure turned out Kee-yute! It’s adorable and I have plans to make many more!
As I was picking out some fabric today for this project at my friendly, neighbourhood Dressew, I ran into my buddy, Fiona. A chance meeting! She was picking up school supplies – she’s studying to be a teacher and has to do class plans and all that good stuff. Here’s how that went:
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I really hope I get this finished by Thursday night. I decided to use the squares that I made the wrong size for my big scrappy quilt (still in progress) to make a scrappy pillow as a retirement gift for a party I’m going to on Friday night. I know. It’s pretty amazing. Funerals and retirement parties. Who saw that coming? I just keep thinking I graduated from high school a couple of years ago. Not. So.
I made two more squares and sewed them together and will turn them into a wonky square pillow. I was thinking of putting a border around the edges, but I’m not too sure about that. It didn’t look right with patterned or solid fabric. Maybe I need to sew some pieces together to make a border so it matches all the other lines. I’m not too sure yet, but I’d better make up my mind soon. The party is only 3 days away.
I’m also figuring out how to be most productive with my evenings so I can get more work done. One thing I did tonight was to move my computer into my craftroom rather than sitting at the computer in front of the TV. That combination creates an incredible time suck for me and before I know it, it’s 11:30 at night and I’m still in my pajamas from the night before. It’s true!
I also timed myself to see how long it takes to put 1 load of laundry away tonight in my productivity kick. It takes 8 minutes. So why don’t I just spend 8 minutes putting away laundry a couple nights a week rather than creating Mount Everest (sans Green Boots) that takes ages to put away? I’m not sure. But I’m hopeful to stop the laundry insanity. In fact, I think I’ll put away some laundry right now to keep the momentum up.
I will post photos of my completed pillow this week. I’m determined to have it done and done.
And done.
This Thursday is Quilting Bee night, and in preparation, I sewed up a name tag for myself. We were supposed to have done this ages ago. Whoops. Anyway, I sewed up a camera name tag. You don’t want to know how long this took me to make. HA!
I sewed strips of turquoise and gray at the top and the bottom of a 4 inch wide black strip. Then I made the mistake of not using fusible webbing for the circles . I should have used the same method I used to make these hearts, because it makes the fabric stay flat and tight when you sew it. Instead, I sewed two circles together, cut one and pulled it inside out so there was a seam around the edges. Unfortunately, when I sewed them on top of each other and then on top of the black “camera” fabric piece, it went all pully. Blech. Oh well. I may make another one using the fusible webbing. I just don’t have time to do that before Thursday night.
I also may add a piece to make it look more like a lens and/or do something a little different for the shutter instead of a scribble of a rectangle done with the free motion foot.
But this will do in a pinch. I think the general idea of “camera” gets across. And, you can really read my name well on the white, so I at least I got that looking pretty good.
On another note, I couldn’t really find a camera quilt block on the internets anywhere, with the exception of one applique camera. I should keep working on this design to create a proper quilt block that looks just like a camera.
