Had To

It had been weeks since I sewed. All invigorated from vacation and bursting with inspiration and one of those pesky ideas that just won't go away I had to get in my sewing room and sew. With just a cutting table and a couch I piled, cut, and started sewing. A few days later I had a sewing table and a design wall and three helpers constantly underfoot.

More on the sewing room next time.

For now, let's focus on my current obsession. An obsession it is. A million WIPS to finish, looming deadlines for articles, quilts, and more, and a house that still hasn't fully recovered from the holiday season. All of it thrown aside to work on this quilt.

It started with the Architextures line, a wonderful fat quarter bundle that Carolyn Friedlander herself sent me herself (she is such an awesome friend!) I had a concept in my head for some text letters too. Instead of using the whole line I decided to focus on a few specific colours: pink, navy, and orange.

A note on the colour focus. It wasn't until I was putting away our vacation laundry that I realized why I focused on these colours. Those were the colours I also packed for the trip. Seriously, all my clothes were navy, pink, or coral with neutrals thrown in. Funny.

So I shopped my stash for more low volume prints and a few darks. Then the rotary cutter came out and I started to hack it all up. This is both the terrifying and exciting part. I LOVE this line of fabric and it would be easy to hoard it. But I was giddy with my idea and wanted to get going.

And go I did. In between school pick-ups, swim lessons, play dates, construction, and interruptions I managed to get some letters pieced. And then some!

Touch and Talk (Visit Your Local Quilt Store Day Blog Tour)

Quilting is a tactile art. No matter how pretty something looks from afar, when you are cuddled with a quilt on the couch it needs to feel good wrapped around you.

Likewise, fabric needs to respond to your touch when you are cutting, sewing, pressing. Some fabrics are softer, drape more, or are even silky between your fingers. And those are just the quilting cottons! Quilt batting varies in drape and feel too. From brand to brand and between fiber content. Then you add the quilting and a new dimension of texture emerges. Not just texture you see, but something that rubs and nubs under your fingers and over your legs when the quilt covers you.

This tactile experience begins right when you buy the fabric. Standing the store, too many bolts piled under your arm. Picked for their colours, but when you start editing and dreaming you start to feel the fabric. Some will get discarded because they are too stiff and you aren't sure how much that will wash out. Some will seem too flimsy, seemingly ready to fall apart with a pull on a seam.

This tangible beginning to a quilt is only possible in a quilt store. (With no offense to the wonderful on-line fabric retailers out there.)

Just as quilting is tactile, it is also social. Blogs and more are wonderful for connecting quilters across the world. And for many in rural or remote locations, those surrounded by kids more than quilters, or sewists living in a world of athletes the internet is a fabulous thing indeed. I love my connections that started here. But I do quite enjoy getting into a store and chit chatting as I pull fabric. From the store gossip to the latest fabrics not quite put on the floor, building a relationship with the owners and employees builds more than a retailer relationship. Quilters are drawn together and are tied by a bond only cut by rotary cutter.

As confident as I feel in my choices, a second opinion is always good. It is a challenge to my own sensibilities at times, but always welcome. When shopping in the store it is wonderful to hear and see what someone else might do with that particular fabric. And I'll be the first to admit that there are a lot of good ideas out there, and they might indeed be better than mine.

I must admit that when I was a beginner I heavily relied on the local stores to guide me through challenges I was having. Bring in a WIP and nearly anyone in the store (employee or another customer) is almost always willing to offer insight, opinion, and a little lesson. And usually lots of laughs! Now, if you run into me in a store and you are looking for an opinion you can count on me to offer it, even if you didn't ask me!

Geez, now I really want to go visit my LQS, or the 5 that I am lucky enough to have within 15 minutes of me...

Traditional Pastimes
My Sewing Room
Out of Hand
Along Came Quilting
A Sewing Sensation

And on January 24th I encourage you to get and shop your LQS, wherever you may be. Load up the kids and make it a day trip if need be. Support Visit Your Local Quilt Shop Day!

See more blog posts on the Visit Your Local Quilt Shop Day Tour. A whole host of wonderful quilters are there extolling the virtues of their local shops. Between now and January 24th you can add your post too! I'd love to see where you all shop! There is even a photo contest with some great prizes.

See you at the store, fabric in hand. I promise a chat and a extra bolt of fabric in your pile.

Thirty Three

You know when you move or at least do a major clean you uncover a wicked amount of crap... er, stuff? Yeah that.

Yesterday two of my local quilty friends, Andrea and Lee, came over to help me get prepped and start moving my scattered quilting stuff to my new space in the basement. It isn't quite done yet, hopefully by the end of the week. But the closets are in and were ready to be loaded. So load and fold and inventory we did.

I love my fabric, but I must finally admit that I do indeed have enough. I've really got to use more before I buy more. Or find it a new home. But I've known that for a while. What was more.shocking to me was the amount of quilt tops, WIPs, and intentional quilts that I had.

O   M   G

Instead of burying it all back in bins and ignoring that I might perhaps have a problem with starting and not finishing quilts I decided to actually inventory all those piles. And because I believe in full disclosure of my faults here is a full listing of all the projects awaiting my attention. I've numbered them for full effect.

Quilt Tops - Ready for Quilting

1. Anniversary Quilt
2. Cosmos Blocks
3. Wine Gums
4. Improv Sampler
5. My version of Checkerboard from Sunday Morning Quilts
6. Slaveship Quilt Inspired by The Book of Negroes
7. Gum on Concrete, my version of Splash from Sunday Morning Quilts
8. An old Amy Butler quilt top I picked up a sample sale

Quilts - Basted and Started Quilting

9. Girlie Quilt
10. Low Volume Circles

Works in Progress

11. Mid Mod Bee - Blocks to be assembled into a top
12. Unscripted Bee - Waiting for a couple of blocks, then to be assembled
13. Hand Pieced Diamonds - always ongoing
14. More Cosmic Burst blocks - I have a whole other set of blocks for a baby quilt
15. Voiles - Still cutting and piecing every now and then
16. Name quilt for my daughter - haven't done anything since this post
17. Chandelier quilt - was so close, then discovered a big mistake and have never fixed it
18. Mountain Meadows - have made no more blocks since
19. Liberty Circles - I make a handful every now and then but I'm still not assembling the top
20. Blue and green Christmas Tree quilt - I cut the pieces last year then promptly put them away
21. The alternate pink/black/white blocks I started when working on the girlie quilt
22. Respite - a project started in a Bill Kerr design workshop
23. Pieced Stars - a BOM I started years ago when I wanted to do some precision piecing breaks when doing a lot of improv
24. Japanese Curves - Fell in love with a Japanese fabric and a curvy pattern, took a class, never finished
25. The Water Quilt
26. Maple Leaves

Class Samples (Pieces I work on while teaching, as examples)

27. A values quilt in neutrals
28. Green/Yellow/Orange Improv blocks

Intentional Quilts

29. Sympatico and Organic solid stack
30. Lucky Penny Bike Path
31. Some vintage feedsacks intended for Amanda's quilt from Fresh Fabric Treats
32. Turkey reds, blues, and whites for a striped project
33. A collection of screen printed and low-volume favourites

To cap all this off, as Andrea and Lee were leaving the mail arrived, and in it was a fat quarter collection of Architextures, my friend Carolyn's new line.

O  M  G
!

Wink Wink

Wink Wink

34" by 44''

Special Techniques: Improvised Curved Piecing

Bloggers' Quilt Festival Category: Baby Quilt

Made with and completely inspired by Mark Cesarik's Cosmic Burst line. It came out months ago, but I've been playing with these blocks and this quilt since March. That whole baby, new book, working, summer thing got in the way of finishing this top though. The last stitches in the binding finally went in over the weekend.

Check out all the process posts here:
The Fabric
Making Blocks
Layout Options 1
Layout Options 2
Finished Top
I absolutely love sharing the process like this. I don't always do it in such an intense burst (minus the finished quilt) because I'm always working on a million things at once. Or nothing at all.

And, as much as my little girl would love to keep this quilt for snuggles and fort building it is on its way to a baby boy. My husband actually commissioned the quilt for a friend and we'll be delivering it shortly.

Sharing this as part of the Blogger's Quilt Festival that Amy Ellis does twice a year. She is an awesome lady! And make sure to check out all the other quilts.