Hello Everyone. It is after the summer and it seems to be "back to it" after the summer boom. If the seasons and their various levels of busyness were described in economic terms then the summer would be a boom and the winter a recession (where we get cozy and use everything we gathered in the boom)
This summer was a busy one for sure! we renovated our house, sold said house, bought a larger house, planned a wedding and got married at the larger house aannnd now we are heading to the UK in two weeks.
I have managed to carve out time to get in the sewing room, I now have a sewing room!!! i am soooo loving it so far!
I have almost finished up the piecing for this quilt for a client. it is the first in a series of three. The three do not look alike one being a swoon quilt and the other a bird quilt.
The lady I am making the quilts for made me some hand made cold pressed custom scented soaps. soooo yummy. every time i shower it smells milky and real, not chemicalyy and perfumy! thank you Rebecca!
Hi Everyone, I have been busy participating in the design challenge hosted on Instagram by Sandra at mmmquilts.
This challenge is harder than I thought! The challenge is to create 30 quilt designs in 90 days. It doesn't sound too bad right.
Here are my quilt designs 1-16 from the challenge.
I have learned so much about my style, pattern tools, color, not to mention the techniques that will be used to put together the quilt. I am a fairly new quilter 3 years? but I have been sewing since I was really little.
I am still trying to find my own style of quilting so, I tried using quilting apps for the pictures below that I call Double Irish Granny and Ohio Grannies, perhaps the name indicates how I felt about these patterns. lol.
I have started making some of the designs. one of them I designed for a commission and the other I am making for a challenge. You could say that the need to create a particular quilt drives the quilt design.
Because I wasn't enjoying the process of designing on the quilting apps I tried drawing a tile and using a collage maker to rotate and repeat the tiles to make the above and below patterns. I really enjoyed this process because It allowed me to use the Low Fi pen and paper coupled with the High Fi computer technology.
I only have 15 more days for 14 more designs by April 30th. I know that by then I am going to wonder and perhaps hope that the deadline was an April Fools Day joke...
Wish me luck and let me know which one you like the best! and until next time friends, stay curious
I made this quilt for my mom for Christmas. I have started many things for family members and not always gotten them finished. This one I crammed until Christmas Eve!
This is the first time I have tried anything fancy for a quilting motif. It is not an all over design and the batting is fairly puffy so I didn't want to quilt too dense. This quilt is wondrously heavy and snuggly at the same time. :)
I was laughing with a new friend I made at my first quilt guild meeting, about being so bone tired and bleary-eyed trying to meet a deadline and how we keep going. Perseverance my friends, that is the stuff that quilters are made of.
My mom helped me choose the sashing fabric and the widths for this quilt. I spent a lot of my childhood in my mom's sewing room playing with scraps of fabric and rummaging and admiring her stash.
I am pretty grateful to of had that experience and I will always cherish the 70's inspired fabrics and caftans that I subsequently stole and ruined as a teenager.
I owe my mom some crochet shawls too that I wore everywhere as an "outspoken fashion plate teen" I used to wear the craziest of stuff!
Where are all the freaks? Where are all my fearless brothers and sisters?
No matter; I am tamer but still not trusted to dress myself to "fit in" I do get the "you are wearing that?" or the "you cant come with me if you are wearing that!".
I think that shall be my new aim. more of that.
Here is a song that really perked me up today on CBC Radio Two this morning. I am going to try and keep this jive mojo through the day to inspire me.
Until next time friends, stay fearless.
Sarah
Linking to the following linky parties that are super fun!
I love working with clients; they inspire me to do things I would not initially consider doing. Because the Mnoster Mash and the Flying Geese both left my sewing room this week, I felt like I could take on something new.
I have taken on the 30 quilt designs challenge in 2018 It prompted me to plan this one out a little bit. I usually draw out my designs like this early in the quilt stage. Sometimes after large pieces of it have been completed and sometimes before the fabric pull. In this case, It was done after the fabric pull but before any sewing began.
This bear panel is the top part of a larger panel that I think I am going to cut in half to be able to make the quilt more scrappy. It is so beautiful though.
I wanted to find some more animals to go with the bear motif. I saw these darling wolves! I have a thing for wolves right now, but it is true I cannot deny it. This year being the year of the dog I think it is entirely en vogue!
I think I will fussy cut some of these pretty darlings into some squares.
This is the beginning of something pretty cool I think! I am really starting to love the quilts I make. I might have to make one for myself soon.
I was working in the lab late one night When my eyes beheld an eerie sight For my monster from his slab began to rise And suddenly to my surprise I did the mash! I did the monster mash!
The lil monster mash (I call it)
This cute scrappy quilt was sent off this week to a little girl in South Carolina :) on a Simbi trade. I can't bear to sell my quilts yet. They take so much time and thought I would never recover my effort. It feels better to give them away and count them as part of my creative process.
There are so many pieces of different textiles in this quilt. Some are designer fat quarters, some African prints, leftover pieces of clothing, pillowcases, I even see one of my old favorite shirts in there. (the blue pink and grey plaid)
In on of Kaja's latest blog posts (Partial Seams for Total Satisfaction) she talked about being so impatient for the quilt to come together there were pieces missing from the top. In the top right-hand picture, I was so impatient to do some quilting on the top that I left out a few pieces until the very end as well. I wonder how many of us do this? lol!
I bound this with a 5" folded machine stitched binding. I quilted it with an x through each 3.5" square (3" finished)
I used a batting that was fluffy! this thing is cuddly! I really loved having this on my lap while I was quilting it.
The backing is an upcycled duvet cover and it had a rip in it! I put the cutest 6X6 castle patch on it from STOF fabric sweet princess line. I didn't take a picture of it, which makes it a bit of a little treasure.
I can't believe that this started as a couple of scraps and a request. I love the productive magic that comes from quilting from scraps. I pride myself on making something from nothing; my husband recently declared to me "you know what is cool hun, we are makers! we make things that weren't there before, and that is amazing. I am proud to be that"
Hello friends, over the weekend my fiance and I went up to our cabin. We try and make the two-hour jaunt most weekends. The cabin has power but no running water or gas, except for the gas stove which is hooked up to a large propane bottle outside.
I mostly stayed inside and used my mother in laws old sewing machine to do some quilting on the Monster Mash, and the Geese Quilts. I also used my ball winder to untangle the ungodly mess of yarn barf I have up at the cabin in my stash.
I thought that it would be nice to take some pictures of the quilts up there but the light wasn't quite bright enough, the snow, however, was a delightful show.
The Geese quilt is under the needle in my city sewing room now that we are back in the city for the week. I wonder if it will be done for the Friday finishes!?! that would be fun.
Until the next time we can get up there, I will dream and remember the cozy time I spend at our getaway.
Until next time my friends, stay cozy or cool, whichever.
I have had a lot on the go. I bet you guys didn't know that. I am going to show you all what I have been working on (winky face). I will show you what occupies my time and the back room as we call it.
1. This awesome Over the Rainbow blanket
Which is almost done.
2.
The Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds Quilt
Needs more HST's but is coming along nicely
3.
Flying out of my Sewing Room Geese
I have several more rows waiting to be attached to this.
4.
I Did the Monster Mash
3 1/2'' squares need I say more... except I think it needs more punch, more color, more je ne ses quoi.
Things look so different in pictures. I work in a really small space so I don't get to see it layed out much.
Maybe I should join One Monthly Goal and have things like: Make lighting station, Make design wall, Cut up stash.... lol I don't know, it sounds ambitious. I am looking at going back to night classes and well, there won't be room or time for the fabric in my head. (yes I probably have fabric in my head, it's everywhere else)
Thank you for leaving me messages. I have been replying to ya'll on the blog and I am pretty sure the blog doesn't send you the reply. I will be starting to reply from my gmail as of now. I look forward to chatting with you all soon. If you would rather send me an email I am at sarahsbusy@gmail.com
