Mom and Me Lone Star

As I posted in my last (pathetic) blog, my mom came for her first visit to Vermont since the wedding. Because it was a quick trip last time, and SNOWING, my mom didn't get to see where I call home. So this time, she came for a week, and we had a blast.
The idea of the trip all started when I mentioned that for a college educated quilter, I felt sub-stupid when it came to Paper Piecing. Now, keep in mind, I have NEVER taken a sewing class (unless you consider my failed attempt at Home Sciences in 7th grade) and all the quilting I have done has been trial and error on my own with books, magazines, and patient friends. Last year, my mother sent me two stuffed priority boxes full of Batiks and two paper piecing patterns. I read the directions, and figured it would be a cold day somewhere before I figured that out. In the drawer they went. So when she sent ANOTHER kit up, this time a fusable pieced one, I owned up to being too stupid for any of it. And poof! She had ticket to Vermont!!!!!
In true addict style, I scooped her up from the airport, and we made a straight shot to our local quality quilt shop. And picked out the fabrics for the "Lone Star" pattern she sent me.

Now, besides basting, I consider the other evil of sewing to be cutting the fabric. And I discovered after all these years, that my mother LOVES to cut fabric. Tedious, boring, repetitive....but she loves it, so I gave her the fabric, cutting mat, cutter, pattern, and off she went.

At this point I am feeling like I really made out. And then the fun began. Did I forget to mention that she also brought up with her some scraps, and paper piecing leftovers and while she cut, I learned how to do paper piecing. Not bad, not hard. But like cutting, it's tedious, boring, and VERY repetitive. But the outcome is stunning, and well worth it. I realize now that if one is going to submit to a paper piecing project, junky movies or tv is a MUST for background noise.

Back to the project. After trying my hand at this new concept of fusable piecing, I came to see how nice and much faster than paper it is.

 And I think my mother was a bit bored.  Or worried I wasn't having fun. Or both. And when it was time to take off for my afternoon run, she made a kind offer to keep working on it. It was then that I realized how cool it would be to do a quilt WITH my mother. One I could keep and cherish for years. Forgetting how crazy good this woman is at sewing, I got back two short hours later to a whole section done and trimmed.

It's my job to finish this thing on my own....I will post more as I progress.

And now my momma has gone home, after an amazing trip with many distractions, time with the grandkids, and grandkitties. Tours down to Burlington waterfront, Middlebury, and around town. 

The dogs are spoiled and a little fatter, and Greta already wonders where the crazy lady is hiding....is it that box over there?

Mom's coming, mom's coming!

I made myself a promise that I would make a real effort to stay with this whole blogging thing. But, it's HARD!!! I follow many great quilting blogs, a few (sarcastic) mom blogs, and I don't know how they do it. To post every day, or even a few times every week is hard work. Right now, I could list my WIP's (7 and counting), my future projects (can't count that high), all the patterns in magazines that are tagged to make, and let's not even talk about the books....
But, my momma is coming to visit! This will be the first time in 3 years, and the first time ever to my house in Vermont! I can't wait. She is coming up to VISIT of course, but she claims it's so she can show in person once and for all how to Paper Piece!!! And to launch it, we are making a Lone Star with that interfacing trick. Yeah, don't ask me....I have no idea. But it means MORE FABRIC!!!!

I shall post the adventure and share with oodles of pictures. I know that a week of visit will be worth many blogs.....till then, here's looking at you! Happy Quilting!

Flying Geese Top

After dawdling, procrastinating, and messing around with 400 little have square drops, I decided to finish this quilt. I have always loved the look of Flying Geese quilts, but never knew just what I wanted to do with it. Then I saw a great line on Bonnie Hunters site (quiltville.blogspot.com) that said that ANY ugly fabric looks better if it's cut small enough....and if it's still ugly, it isn't small enough. So...I dug out all some of my "uglies" in my fat quarter drawer and started cutting.  I haven't done much with White background fabrics; I tend to veer towards beige or off white.  But, here it is! 

200 Flying Geese Units, and 340 half-square units.

 

Lilly approved!

Another shot of the quilt (and Lilly).  Approx 66x70

Now I have to think about how to quilt it. I am thinking of a darker red backing to make the front colors pop. With the last 1/2 square units I am going to make a sash across the back to tie in the theme of the front. Any suggestions for quilt patterns? Stitch the ditch, shadow, stipple????

Irene.....ehhhh

Well, I have been working, a bit slowly, on my first attempt at a flying geese pattern quilt. The major distraction has been those darn little triangles that you cut off to make the blocks. I couldn't just let them go to waste. So, I matched them up, sewed and pressed them, and then started chain stitching them together thinking they could make a nice border, or a cut backing embellishment. After realizing I had almost 400 units, I thought it might make a nice little quilt. Mean while, the main quilt sat on my cutting board in various stages of done, silently wishing I would stop ignoring it.

Now my Dad and his wife are here for a visit.  This weekend is the start of our beloved Champlain Valley Fair. The kids are stoked, the tickets are bought, the ride bands are waiting for wrists to hug....and Irene is threatening to ruin it all. And what I say to all this is....BRING IT IRENE....BRING IT!!!

"Take 20" Quilts

Back to why I started this blog!

I decided it would be fun to show 3 variations of the same quilt. The pattern is called "Take 20" and it's just that. You take 20 fat quarters, make 5 simple cuts, mix them up and, poof! You have a generous lap/twin size quilt. And the best part is how many different ways you can make it.

The first time I made this quilt, I used a Thimbleberries Fat Quarter collection in a Red/Green/Gold that was a perfect match for the living room. Used beige muslin for the back and a simple stitch the ditch.

Then I made one in Blue and Orange prints (with a few fun novelty kid prints) for Aerik...the boy who LOVES orange! Again, beige muslin and a stitch the ditch quilting.

And finally, I decided to make a smaller Crib sized version in Becca's colors. Hot pink, soft orange, and a few pastel greens. White muslin backing, with a hand stitched 5 loop flower design. 

I'm finding it's a lot of fun to find a pattern you like and then see how many different looks you can get from fabric combinations and quilting techniques!  (And let's face it, it's a great cover for "having" to buy more fabric......)

Our July Vacation

Ok, I know I posted Rhianna's quilt last week, and now I'm going backwards to share about our trip.

One of my "bucket list" items was to rent a house for vacation somewhere. I just figured it would be on a beach, but considering 1. how expensive it can be, and 2. that we didn't want to spend more time driving that beaching, we thought we would check out Maine.  Nope, not happening. Apparently the average water temperature in July/August is 60-65 degrees. That is WETSUIT water in my opinion.
So, a little inland, and we settled on New Hampshire.

What's in New Hampshire? Trees. Lot's of them. And Mountains. And Lakes. And OUTLET MALLS!!! I am not a shopper, but my god, are there a lot of outlets in New Hampshire. It should be renamed New Mallshire.

But back to the vacation. We rented a cute little cabin in Conroy (o, so it hasn't had a redo since the late 60s) and we were on a little swimming pond. The kids swam and found tons of fresh water clams.

We went to the outlets, and down to Center Harbor for Keepsake Quilting www.keepsakequilting.com,
took the kids go-cart racing,

went to Story Land http://www.storylandnh.com/, and drove up Mt. Washington. I can honestly say, if you want to see some amazing east coast country, and get back to outdoor vacationing, this is the place to go!

Rhianna's Graduation Quilt

Well, it's done. And it's GORGEOUS if I do say so myself. Rhianna is Tammy's beautiful daughter, and I have known her since she was a wee little one. This past May, this beautiful amazing young woman graduated high school. I thought, "well, I made mom a wedding quilt, so I should make Rhi a graduation quilt". And true to form, it was my pattern choice.



Now in the spirit of tormenting the sweet girl, I sent her a graduation card with snips of all the fabrics I planned to use in this quilt (thanks to her aunt Necy for the color tips). But no word of size, pattern, order, anything. Mid way through, my old machine dies, I decided to pull out the ELNA work horse, go to the VQF and decided for the big 4 0 it's time to buy my own big girl machine. (previous posts).

Now pieced, I started hand quilting it with a gorgeous hand dyed thread that was too fine to use single ply, so....doubled up I went along. Stars done in a 1/4 shadow, sashing the same, and a gorgeous grape leaf pattern on the outer border.

The Pattern was taken from the McCalls Scrappy Quilts collection and it's called 'Royal Order'. They suggested using a gold set of fabrics which a replaced with Blue.

 Lilly gave it her seal of approval.

I used a mixture of Batik and classic tone-on-tone prints for the rail blocks. And now it's proudly living in Kentucky!

Been kinda quiet...

So, I haven't been much motivated to post lately. I didn't realize how hard it is to talk to yourself. Several of my pals have stopped by, but no comments, no followers...sniff sniff.

Anyway, in the interest of staying active and being committed to this whole blog thing, I'm breaking a cardinal rule and posting that I'm going on vacation. I'm taking Rhi's quilt with me (I am finishing the boarder quilting, and hope to have it ready to bind when we return!!!!), my nook, lots of sun screen, and yes, the kids.  I hope to take part of a day and go see the AMAZING Keepsake Quilting and Patternworks in person. And I am even taking money....yay!!! Fabric, here I come!

Also, I have just finished another quilt top, and this time I took my husbands advice and took pictures along the way to show a "progression" of the process. These are the main blocks.

  And the flying geese units.

The main units coming together. This was a chance for me to use up some of that REALLY old fabric I had in my stash, while making it look "younger" with newer fabrics.

Not too bad when they come together....

First just the top...a little ho hum.

And then the top once the batik border and the outer border are added. I love how the flying geese are NOT symmetrical in placement. 

Close up of the black-on-mottled batik border. This is a blend of batiks, and "classic" prints. The oldest had a date of 1994 on the selvage, and then the red multi print I bought just a few months ago. What doesn't show up in this picture is the gold fleck detail. It gives the quilt just a little sparkle. Lots of fun. I haven't taken a picture of it yet, but all the half squares that came from the main blocks I sewed and pressed and will put on the back as a border...a Quiltville "waste not"!

Continuation of Tammy's Quilt

So here is my shout out to two of my dearest, closest, bestest friends! Tammy (the sneaky girl she is) has been reading my blog on the sly and saw my comment that I regretfully did not remember to take a closeup of the quilting detail. So, she posted several pictures for me to steal. Here is the one that I think shows it best~

Thank you Tam!

Tammy and Jason's "wedding" quilt

I realized in looking back through my pictures, that I hadn't explained the one I use as my header, and as my FB id. This quilt is made from two blocks: Jacob's Ladder, and the Buckeye. It worked out to be roughly 64"x64". A generous throw, small bed cover.




 I first saw it as the featured quilt in one of my many magazines, and loved the country cuddly look. And since it was fat quarter friendly, I decided it was time to clean out that drawer of some fabric. Yeah....right. Nice story, isn't it?

I went a little more for the bright and jewel tone colors from my "big cut" stash, and was thrilled with the collective. But man was it a lot of cut, sew, press, cut, press, sew....

My only regret is not getting a close up of the hand quilting. I used a white thread and did a modified shadow stitch around the main pattern, with a traveling outline stitch into some of the background fabric.  I swore this was it, never doing it again....and I now have a bag with the next round of fabrics set aside for the quilt I "won't " be making again....

Necy and Bryan's Quilt

Continuing to post my past quilts, another one I loved doing was this "throw" sized tumbler I made for my dear friend Necy and her goofy husband Bryan. Necy shares my passion for Purple, and hey, Green doesn't hurt either.

This was another of those quilts where I just cut the fabric, tried real hard to be random in piecing it, and hand stitched it with a purple thread in the ditch. 

Funny thing happened today as I was pondering what to post. I went upstairs and picked up a UFO (my oldest daughters THIRD quilt) and laid it out for how I want to piece it up. Stacked the rows in sewing order, pulled the binding and backing fabrics, smiled....and then started looking through my stash for a new project to cut. Now seriously, what is wrong with this???? 3 in bags, cut and ready to sew, 3 tops pieced and folded with backing fabric waiting to be sandwiched, 2 pinned and in some state of quilting, and one I am actively hand quilting for a graduation gift. Oh, and the 2 I started, looked at at various states of pieced and wondered what I was thinking before being relegated to the drawer below my scraps. So why do I need to pull another project into the to do state???? It is an addiction......

"Sew" much news!

I promised myself I would stay with this, but it's hard! I am in such awe of bloggers that can do this every day!
Ok, as the title of the blog states, lot's of news on the home front. First off, I hope everyone had a safe and relaxing holiday weekend.
Last weekend (June 25th), my wonderful hubby showed what a sport he is and went with me to the HUGE Vermont Quilt Festival (www.VQF.org). We pawned the kids off and went for almost 3 hours. Fabric everywhere, machines, ideas...and tons of display quilts. I got to see several long arms in action and got inspired to try many new things. It also gave me a much needed opportunity to see in person several different machines.
After killing my 2nd Brother, I decided it was time to start researching and consider buying my first "big girl" machine. I still have my mother's hand-me-down Elna SU 62, but that thing needs a vintage license plate to be used!
After drooling, oogling, and many late nights on the internet, I narrowed it down to Pfaff and Janome. And off I went to see them both in Middlebury!

2 hours later, like a proud huntress, I dragged home my prize....My new Janome MC6600P. 

Oh do I love this machine!!!! Knee life, Auto thread cutter, HUGE extension table, 10 feet, AccuFeed, and oodles of onboard stitches and 2 alphabets (including foreign symbols I've never seen before!). It also has a 10 inch neck so pushing a queen size quilt through this will be tight but doable. Machine quilting, here I come!!!!

Maggie likes sitting up with me, keeping guard both inside and out.....

while Lilly just sleeps the day away....saving up her energy for the late night feet attack!

*** I have to do a little plug here and tell my reader(s) that if you are in the New England area, looking for great fabric, wonderful people, and superior machines, check out The Quilter's Corner at http://www.middleburysewnvac.com/.  I spent 2 hours there, learned a lot, walked away with a steal, and classes coming out my nose.***

No more training wheels!

After an amazing weekend at the Vermont Quilt Festival (will post more on that later!), we started our second week into summer break. If you can call this summer. Rain....rain....wait, more RAIN.....And then today, when it looked pointless to think of anything else, I look outside and there goes Becca on the neighbors bike, WITH NO TRAINING WHEELS!

For everyone current, and those not, Becca has once again showed her true nature. After mastering the trainer (no peddles), we were sure she was ready for that "big girl bike" last summer. But one look at the training wheels and it was like all her confidence went out the door. And then at the beginning of this spring, she discovered one was loose and decided she wouldn't even try it again....sigh. 

So imagine my surprise, to look out the window, and see her zooming by, with no help! Good old Becca...waits forever to do something, and then up and does it like it's last years news!

So here she is, on her bike, no trainers, looking at me like I'm crazy for wanting her picture.

Basting....sucks.

So I would really appreciate some feedback on this one.

Every quilter has something about the process they don't like or are not as strong at. Cutting, picking fabrics, deciding how to quilt the top, pressing seams....mine is basting. I hate it, and it hates me. It is a critical step in the process, especially for hand quilting because if it isn't done right, your top shifts, you get wrinkles in the backing, and worse.

I have tried several methods, and one the one I like the best is pinning with huge safety pins. I have tried running stitches, and the punch gun thing. But what is driving me nuts is that I can fuss and smooth, and banish all living creatures from coming near the work, smooth out the batting and pin the top on, and pick it up....and there's a huge wrinkle going up the middle or some pucker, or whatever. I work on a large carpeted area so masking tape is out. I have tried pinning the backing to the floor first....

Any ideas or tips? PLEASE???? I would love to hear what other quilters do. Tips of the trade, hints, etc.

I understand many have had problems with leaving comments, so feel free to email me at
 jospaena@gmail.com and I will re-post them for all to share.