Surprise!

I went to Chicago to visit family, had tons of fun, and even visited the Harry Potter Exhibition at the Museum of Science and Industry (the only building still standing from the Columbian Exposition aka the Chicago World's Fair). All was excellent.

When I got home, I had a wonderful surprise! Crystal, of Sonnet of the Moon had sent me a package full of goodies. She included many wonderful quilted coasters, some cloth napkins, a bar of chocolate (Twilight Delight, one that Josh really loves!) a folding fan, and a gorgeous cut of fabric. When I opened the package and looked at all the goodies, Josh noted how excellent a job Crystal did with the fabric choice, considering all those fabrics are ones I would have chosen for myself. Thank you so much, Crystal! I love all my goodies. <3



Also, continuing progress on my DQS7 quilt. I picked up some charm batiks at the quilt shop yesterday and have gotten all my little birds cut out. Of course, I'm deviating from my original plan, but I think I like what I've got. It's too dark to take a picture of my layout, but feast your eyes on my fabric!



Here's hoping my partner likes what I've got going on. She's not blogging much and she only has about three favorites on her flickr page. Ah well. What can you do?

A Giveaway!

Not mine, though I should have one.

Randi is having a remnants giveaway!

All you have to do is leave a comment sharing your favorite childhood television show.

It's tough to choose just one favorite show, so I'll give my top three kid-favorites:

1. Rocko's Modern Life on Nickelodeon
2. Doug on Nickelodeon (and not Disney's Doug, either!)
3. Pop-up Video on VH1

I feel like all I ever did was watch television when I was a kid.!

Getcha some. ;p

My Lightbox

My Lightbox
Originally uploaded by jenamoured

Don't have a lightbox but need to trace an embroidery pattern?

Use your television (as long as it's not one of those fancy plasma or LCD models). Simply use masking tape to affix your fabric to the printed pattern, like so, then tape the whole shebang over the illuminated television screen.

Voila! You have a lightbox. The light from the television screen will allow you to view the printed pattern through the fabric. Pull up a chair and get to work.

Finished!

As promised, here's a look at my first finished handwork item of them month.

You're looking at Bareroots Little Stitchies #177 - August. As mentioned, there's one embroidery block for each month of the year.



I've made a few changes. The only stitches the pattern called for were backstitches, lazy daisies, and French knots. As a general rule, line-only embroidery doesn't appeal to me. I prefer to have fill stitches and variations in texture, not to mention dimension and color. Changing up the stitches called for in the pattern really allowed me to do this.



I chose to use satin stitch to create the tree trunk, and I think it looks beautiful. The roof was created using feather stitches (though I auditioned square stitches and couldn't get them quite right). The sun embroidery includes a buttonhole wheel stitch and French knots to create sun sparkles. The hills were embroidered using a (not so neat) stem stitch to create texture to mimic grass.

Additionally, I differed from the pattern in outlining the door and windows in blue rather than brown only because there was so much brown in the block already. All leaves for flowers and on the grass were embroidered in a different green than the hills and tree leaves, just for variation. Lastly, I added a circle into the middle of the front sunflowers. It adds detail, plus I thought it was cute.

Not too bad... I learned three stitches for this block-- buttonhole wheel (as discussed), lazy daisy, and feather stitch. And after all that practicing, I'm pretty much a French knot expert.


Of course, the whole fabric is distorted and I wish I had used stabilizer. Good thing I cut the foundation one inch larger than necessary.!

A Month of Hand Sewing

red hands sewing
Originally uploaded by Bascom Hogue

What a coincidence! The folks at Sew, Mama, Sew! are rediscovering handwork, too.

To celebrate handwork, the sewing mamas are hosting A Month of Hand Sewing. There'll be tutorials, photos of the day, and giveaways, including this cute little hand sewing kit.

The quiet patience of a needle sewing thread has always appealed to me. A month of hand sewing isn't a bad idea, so I'm going to try not to go near my sewing machine this month. Instead, I'll work on the various handwork projects I've got going.

Buttonhole Wheel

TAST Portuguese Knotted Stem
Originally uploaded by Kay Susan

A while ago I purchased the Leisure Arts Embroidery Pocket Guide Leaflet. It's laminated and folds up just like a map, which is extremely handy. I love using it to refresh my memory on stitches that I already know how to do-- the diagrams are great.

However, it lists some stitches I don't know, which looked pretty cool. The stitch I taught myself today was the buttonhole wheel stitch (seen above in Kay Susan's awesome embroidery).

If you're curious about how to do it, check out this video tutorial for buttonhole wheel stitch from Mary Corbet's Needle 'n Thread.

Variety Hour

I'm getting some brainwaves for my DQS7 project. My partner seems to like applique, so hopefully she will like what I'm cooking up!




Many quilters love putting binding on quilts, because it is slow and meditative-- at least, that's why I love it. But, I do so hate making the binding. Halfway there... all that's left is the ironing. :(



Finally, I got started on some embroidery. I'm working on the Bareroots Little Stitchies #177 August. There's one homestead scene for every month. I don't normally go in for this sort of thing, but those houses were irresistible. I'm tweaking the pattern a bit... stay tuned for details.

Prewashing

Is the devil.

There, I said it.

I hate prewashing fabric. I hate all the unraveling and the strings that happen (even if you use a lingerie bag). I hate ironing a huge piece of yardage.

I just hate everything about it. I have never prewashed fabric and I have no intentions to start. So far none of my projects have had problems, and hopefully they won't start.

(PS- I must admit that I did soak the red batik backing for this quilt because I was terrified not to.)

Back to life, back to reality

In case you were wondering, my 10 day beach vacation was utterly sublime. I did miss my little apartment in my little city, though. A summer rainstorm is rolling in, the wind is blowing, and everything looks a little muted.

List of Projects to Finish In Order of Importance:
1. Gloria's Quilt (back from the quilter and so beautiful!)
2. French Braid Quilt
3. Grandma's Flower Garden
4. Aunt Millie's Block of the Month


List of Projects to Start:
1. Gretchen's T-Shirt Quilt
2. Various Hand Embroideries

Not to mention the doll quilt for my DQS7 super secret partner...

Speaking of hand embroidery... I found something that Crystal will love:
Vintage Fruit Dishtowels Embroidery Pattern. I almost bought them for myself today at the quilt shop... instead I bought some other Bareroots patterns, including one for an Advent Calendar. Don't laugh.

I'd show a picture of my boon, but the lack of natural light is foiling those attempts.

dqs7 button.

dqs7 button.
Originally uploaded by rachelgriffith

Here goes nothing!

Beach vacation

Beach vacation
Originally uploaded by jenamoured

I'm blogging from the beach! I return to Richmond on July 25th, so expect to hear from me sometime after that. I'm not ignoring you guys, I promise!

French Braid

French Braid
Originally uploaded by jenamoured

Here's the quilt top for the French Braid quilt. Of course, it is not at all square and I've already cut off several inches in an attempt to get it square. I decided to fold it up and put it away until after vacation-- that way I don't end up with a placemat out of frustration.

I've still got to add borders to this thing.

Perfect Little Box Pouch

Perfect Little Box Pouch
Originally uploaded by Indie House

Here's a fun and easy-to-follow tutorial on how to make a boxed pouch. I've never put in a zipper before, but this seems an innocent enough project for zipper virgins!

Amy Butler and the Goblet of Fire

It may not be common internet knowledge, but I happen to be a megafan of Harry Potter. Books and movies. Since ABC Family was showing a Harry Potter movie marathon, I moved my table and machine into the TV room so that I could watch and sew. Like I haven't seen those movies millions of times already.

Anyway, I was working on a French Braid quilt (from this free pattern) using Amy Butler's Daisy Chain fabrics. I've finished all the braids and now need to sew them together.

Mischief managed!

Pattern 23033 Caspian

Pattern 23033 Caspian
Originally uploaded by jenamoured

Picked this up for Crystal.

The question is.. does she still need it?

Jennifer Can't Quilt.

It is with a heavy heart that I announce I have abdicated from the position of "quilter." This means I am temporarily demoted to "piecer."

Look, I can't quilt that giant ass quilt, okay? And, yeah, I totally feel like it's cheating to send something out to be quilted, but at least when it comes back it's going to look good. And I'm not going to end up tearing my hair out.

Here's how it happened: I went to ye olde quilting shop to use the tables and quilt. I quilted one circle... it was more like a polygon. So Laura was going to give me some tips on free motioning a big thing (instead of little practice things that are pretty easy), but when she tried to free motion that quilt, the machine started eating thread (it grew teeth). She also noted how difficult it was to move the quilt because my machine is miniscule and also the quilt is heavy. We conferred for about 40 seconds, in which time I realized I must be bat shit crazy to try to quilt that myself (not ready yet!) and needed to send it out.

...

I feel a little guilty and I think I even wanted to cry a little. But at least I get to work on other projects now. :)

Extreme Closeup

I marked the quilt top today. I used the largest circle template from Bigger Perfect Circles and it was perfect!

By the way, if you don't have a Sewline Ceramic Pencil, you need to get one. They are so awesome for marking fabric. Pink is my favorite. Read about them in this PDF from United Notions. (No, I am not working for them!)

!@#% Basting

I pieced the backing to the one block wonder quilt and then spent two hours basting it.




Of course, after I basted and the top was perfect, I turned the monster over to make sure the back was good... Not so much. It had wrinkled and puckered everywhere. Probably because I had been crawling around on it and it shifted.

So, I guess I will be re-basting at the quilt store tomorrow, instead of quilting. Alas.

!!!

Alright, so, finally I got Gloria's quilt top completely finished. It looks wonderful! I have a few ugly pictures to show so that all of you readers (ie, zero) can get an idea of what's going on here. Then, when it's all quilted up, I'll show the final product.



I used fabric from the Natural Effects line by Marcus Fabrics. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough of my original fabric, so I had to supplement with another fabric from the Natural Effects line (same print, smaller scale) and one Al Fresco print. I used this as the border, along with a couple blender batiks.

I think it looks great.

The employees at Quilting Adventures are the bomb because they really helped me out with this quilt, from fabric choice, to layout, to teaching me how to do mitered corners! Also, that's where I took the class to learn how to do a One Block Wonder. They also let me invade their shop and use their huge tables to do my work, otherwise I'd have been sewing that huge top in this:



I'll be basting this weekend so that I can begin quilting it on Monday.

Where have I been?

Oh, just without the internet.

Since my last post I have:
-learned how to do bead embroidery
-learned how to do one block wonders (and created one!)
-started work on a french braid quilt using a moda bake shop tutorial.
-been awesome


I hope people are still reading!

Now, to figure out mitered corners...