Spring Has Attacked My Fabric Stash

I visited my fabric stash this morning with the following assignment: find fabrics that make you think of Spring. This collection on the left is what I was able to come up with. The pinks are a collection of reproduction Civil War era fat quarters I ordered from Keepsake Quilting. The greens are just light greens that I thought complimented the pinks nicely, but there is nothing reproductive about them ;).

I used these pinks in a sampler quilt two years ago and the leftovers were resigned to my stash. They are just so nice that they need to be used in another quilt. I've been planning for a while to use these in yet another baby quilt, but mixing them with the greens and some white in a scrap quilt. I have an extreme love for scrap quilts. The only problem is that I usually end up buying more fabric to complete the scrap quilts, when the goal of such a quilt is supposed to be to use up what you have - not to buy more to go with what you have!

Anyway, there are clearly more pinks than greens, so I will most probably buy a few fat eights of some more light green prints to go in the quilt. I think it will be the next baby quilt I start, after I complete the two baby quilts that are already started. I need to learn to finish one project before starting another!

Goal: Achieved!

My goal was to finish all 60 blocks by the end of the month. Hooray for me - I finished before a deadline!! I started laying out the blocks into the completed quilt top in anticipation of sewing them all together, and it wouldn't fit in my sewing room! I don't have that problem with baby quilts ;).

Books on CD

It is quiet and lonely in my sewing room. I have a radio down there and keep it tuned to NPR. I really enjoy NPR at certain times of the day, but I lose interest when I hear the second airing of BBC news. That'’s why I take books on CD out of the library.

Listening to books on CD while I quilt is a fabulous way to pass time and it allows me to not let my reading suffer from the fact that I am spending an increasing amount of time quilting. However, you should really only attempt to listen to fluffy books while quilting. It needs to be a book you don'’t have to pay super close attention to, since your attention will be focused on the quilting.

The Harry Potter books are fabulous on CD. Right now I'm listening to the latest novel in Jennifer Chiaverini's Elm Creek Quilts Series. While it's not literature by any stretch of the imagination, it'’s a really fun read - sort of a guilty pleasure. I've only just started the book, but there i’s a character that's been introduced who is a stay-at-home mom and has an embarrassingly extensive knowledge of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Needless to say, I've been relating to her a lot. And laughing a lot. Good read, er listen.

Finding Time to Sew

I have a six month old (Simon), and he is my full time job. Finding the time to quilt while doing that job well is quite the challenge. I have a system that is working this week, but he may decide next week that it is no longer a good system and he hates sewing and the fact that I sew and then I will have to find a brand new system.

Simon usually takes a morning nap about 2 hours or so after he wakes up. As soon as I can get him in his crib, I take a quick shower and then go downstairs to work in my sewing room until he wakes up. This usually gives me about 30 minutes of sewing time. Once he wakes up, I change him and feed him and play with him a little to make sure he is truly awake. Then I take him down to my sewing room, place him in his exersaucer and put on some lively music for him. He bounces and squeals along to the tunes while I sew and chat to him. This gives me an extra 15-20 minutes of sewing time if he's in a bouncy mood.

I'm hoping to be able to sell some quilts relatively soon and I won'’t be able to do that while sewing for only 50 minutes a day, so I have needed to sew in the evening as well. My husband and I have recently started using Google Calendar and I used it to schedule quilting time for myself from 7-10 PM on Mondays and Fridays. I did this so my husband will know that he is on baby duty for that time. He's responsible for putting him to sleep and checking on him if he wakes up. Last night was my first night of this system and it worked great. I just hope the baby continues to adhere to the schedule!

My First Stash Sunday

I got the following piece of fabric from my Aunt Ginny about two years ago. I believe she got in Japan when she went there to teach.


I love the complimentary colors. I just love the whole thing, but I'm afraid of ruining it. That's why I haven't made anything out of it yet. I'm thinking that I'll eventually make some sort of wall hanging out of it. Maybe I'll cut the flowers into squares and frame them with a white fabric. Then I'll place them and surround them by blue, orange and white squares. Or maybe not. Maybe I will cut out the flowers and applique them onto a patchwork background. Either way, It will probably be another two years before I can make up my mind. In the meantime, I'll just drag it out every once in a while to admire it.

Does Size Matter?

If you check out my quilting portfolio you will notice that most of my quilts are on the small side. I especially seem to concentrate on baby quilts. There are a few reasons for this:

• I know lots of people having babies and they make lovely gifts.
  
• The smaller the quilt is the less time it takes to complete it.
  
• Baby quilts are fun and cheerful to design.
  
• My machine doesn't have a enough space under the arm to accommodate a quilt much larger than a baby quilt.

I love my sewing machine. I have a Bernina Activa 125. I was going to say that it was the low-end computerized Bernina model (which is still really good), but I can't find it on their products page. It's great because it's a high quality machine, but it doesn't have many bells and whistles. I don't need fancy when all I do is sew straight, with an occasional zig-zag stitch. The only drawback to the machine is its lack of space under that arm.

Two days ago I got my current issue of Fons and Porter's Love of Quilting and discovered an article on extended arm sewing machines. It's my dream machine - no frills and lots of space under the arm. However, it doesn't appear that Bernina makes one and I do love my Bernina. Also, I'm not willing or able to spend $1500 on a machine right now. And I do love the baby quilts. Maybe in ten years when I decide I do want to take the plunge, Bernina will have developed one of their own. Here's hoping...

Extra-Long Twin

For the past two weeks or so, I have been working on a quilt to be used in a college dorm room. For those of you who don't know, the beds in college dorms are an unusual size: "extra-long". It's basically a twin bed with an extra 5" on the end. Since a standard quilt size for a twin bed is 65"x95", an extra-long twin quilt would need to be 65"x100".

Now, I don't know about you, but my quilts are never the recommended dimensions. I do try though to get them as close as possible. So, I figured that with 10.5" blocks I could set it in 10 rows with six blocks per row in order to end up with total dimensions of 63"x105". Hey - I sure am glad to know that engineering degree is coming in handy!

Speaking of degrees, I got mine from Virginia Tech - the same institution where this quilt will one day be residing. The school colors of Virginia Tech are orange and maroon: quite a challenging color combination for a quilt. I decided to minimize the orange by using it as the center of a Log Cabin block, rather than the traditional red or yellow. And then, for the full orange effect, the back of the quilt will be solid orange.

My goal is to have all the blocks done by the end of the month. This is quite an ambitious goal for me, but I should be able to do it provided I don't get sidetracked by another project. It's just so easy to be sidetracked when I have so many ideas floating around in my head. I started making a list and had to stop when I got to ten. I think that writing them down was a bad idea. It makes them more real and harder to ignore.

First Post

This blog is a first step towards making my quilting more than just a hobby. I would eventually like to have a whole quilting webpage, with this blog being just one small part of it. It will be designed by my husband, the fabulous magical webdesigner, and will be hosted at its own domain name (once I think of one I like).

In the meantime, I will use this space to talk about projects I'm working on and projects that are floating around in my head. Hopefully I can inspire other quilters out there, or at least entertain them. I also hope it will inspire me to complete projects on a more regular basis and not just start more unfinished ones!