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Lessons Learned

I pledged to knit nothing else until this blanket is done -And last night I got a lesson on crochet. It's much faster to use a single-crochet to seam the blocks together rather than mattress stitch, and I think the result is acceptable:
You can see a bit of the lighter color in the seam on the front, and I need to carefully make sure the stripes line up, but I am pleased with my first attempt. Only 18 squares left to knit and then on to seams and borders, woo-hoo!

Kendra has been working on faces...Mom and Dad are at the top,
Grandma below with her glasses on. I think the green blobs are earrings :-)

The lesson I learned today is to always measure the width of the quilt as it advances on the longarm. The corollary is that problems do not magically go away over night! I noticed some rippling in the edge of the quilt I'm working on (lovely feathers, if I do say so myself) but I just kept easing it in. Not a good strategy...when I got to the lower border I had way too much excess, so that's when I grabbed the tape measure. I had "eased" about two inches worth along the way. Now I have a date with Mr. Seam Ripper, oh joy. Lots of cliches come to mind - Haste makes waste, primarily!

Winter in July

The Phoenix Zoo had a snow day this weekend. They trucked in mountains of snow and icy treats for all the animals. Ralph, a Galapogos tortoise really scrambled to get his snack of prickly pear!
Here is Kendra checking out the action at the kiddie play area.
I can't remember what species this is ,some kind of South American rodent I think:
Elephants-
And no visit is complete until we ride the carousel. We got there just as one group was starting their ride, so we were first in line, which assured Kendra of a seat on her favorite lion.
Stay cool!

Quilt Camp 2009

I enjoyed a quick trip to Quilt Camp in the Pines this week. When I went for the first time in 2004, I won the roommate lottery and met Jeanne (on the right). She is so much fun...one of those people who you meet and feel like you've known forever. We only see each other once or twice a year and each time is a delight.
We took John Flynn's class, Glorified Nine Patch. My advice if you ever take a class with him - BUY THE KIT. He sells wonderful templates if you want to bring your own fabric, but in class it is much more fun to sew than to spend all day cutting out pieces.

Every year at camp, Jeanne plans an extra curricular craft. This year it was fat free treats:Some quilting magazines this summer have featured patterns for these "quick and easy" pincushions. Mine is on the right...lumpy and lopsided. In my own defense, I was using an unfamiliar sewing machine that didn't like the interfacing and ruffly edges. I figured for a first attempt, finished was better than perfect. Jeanne's cupcake on the left was her fourth try ;-)

The featured instructor was Esterita Austin. She gave a lecture on her quilting journey. (Esterita is the redhead on the left.) It was educational and entertaining. I learned a few tricks about color placement (highlight the contrast between light and dark to give dimension) and fell in love with her stone portal quilts.
Great mini-vacation away from the desert heat. Anyone want to join me next year??

Colors

Quilts of Valor issued a new challenge - use the Disappearing Nine Patch pattern to make a quilt. I've seen this pattern before, but never tried it myself. This version uses 5" squares. My last QOV project decimated my meager stash of red, white and blue fabric so, oh darn, I will have to go shopping before I go any further with this!

Temptation from Wendy:
She organized an I-Spy swap. I have ideas for several I-spy theme quilts, so this will be a fun way to get lots of different prints. (Amy sent me such a big bag of goodies that I am sharing the love!)

Kendra has been busy for about three days now with a highlighter marker. She can even draw a recognizable face! Parents - remember the simple joys of empty boxes and colors :-)

Dog Days of Summer

It officially HOT here in the Valley of the Sun...105 and above every day for the next two weeks at least. And we haven't even had a good thunderstorm yet! I've been puttering around, enjoying my summer vacation, probably like most of my students - not accomplishing much of anything!

Let me recap my holiday weekend, although the camera was not in use.
Friday - drove up to Prescott Valley to drop off a quilt and have a picnic. This was a test run of the kiddo on a road trip. She did great! (Many thanks to Disney and Dora, LOL) It was cloudy and cool during our lunch and then we hurried back to Phoenix for nap time.
Saturday, July 4 - went to a party at a friend's house. Her band, Mirror Image, played a couple sets of rock music and Kendra had a front row seat. She *loved* the drums. Groupies start young these days ;-) Home to bed for the little one. I could just see the top of the nearest fireworks show over the other houses in the neighborhood.
Sunday - ended up as a very busy day with church, lunch with one set of grandparents and dinner with the others!
Monday - one of Kendra's friends from daycare came over to play for a few hours in the morning. The parents stayed so there was lots of good conversation.
Tuesday - took Kendra to music class at Grandma's church! Quick visit and lunch with Grandma, then home since I had a doctor's appointment. Unfortunately, Kendra fell asleep in the car on the way home, which was a bummer because she woke up as soon as we got home and did not go back to sleep. On the plus side, she fell asleep early last night!

Today, we were back to our normal schedule of taking her to daycare so I could get some quilting done. There was a problem with the top that I wanted to put on the longarm, so that got put aside for Grandma to fix, and I put a binding on. It was the second quilt I did all by machine, which is so quick and easy, except for all the pins. Just follow the directions in the sidebar at Patchwork Times.

OK, I'll cave and add a photo...(or not, since it was the same one I put in my last post)
I am knitting some three-color squares for my blanket. I am determined to finish this ASAP! I put away all other knitting projects and did some calculations...only 19 more squares. It's conceivable to finish the squares before school starts, then I have to sew all 81 together and knit the borders. That phase of the project will definitely have to wait until the temperatures go down!!!

Ch-Ch-Changes

I hereby resolve that I will not cast on another pair of socks until this blanket is finished! Here are some tricolor squares... I adapted the original two color pattern for three colors. This lets me use up some of my leftover colors without an obvious repeat. I have been avoiding the seaming process, but I need to get started. I'm sure by the time I've done 100 or more seams, it won't be as intimidating!!

There is a water play area near some restaurants over by Grandma and Grandpa's house. We had a fun evening watching Kendra play.

We packed away her crib, here she is in her Big Girl bed:

I think mattresses are bigger these days...the headboard sure seemed taller when I was a kid. I plan to fill the blank wall with some of the beautiful quilts that have been made for her. Daddy will need to use the power tools, I just need to attach the hanging sleeves.

Photos Today!

I know I should finish something before I start a new project, but this just took a few minutes to cut out and arrange. 3 inch squares for my Halloween Sudoku. I double checked that each fabric was only used once in it's row, column and block of 9. The one thing I may change is to fussy cut one of the fabrics (fourth from the right on the bottom row) since my random cutting managed to avoid showing the monster design completely! Here is the custom longarm project from last week. The quilter used beautiful batiks.

Isn't this a pretty block? I did a simple radiant design coming off the corners of the center square.

See the rainbow fabric in the setting triangles? That's what was making me blind as I tried to quilt curly q's in it with varigated thread! Here's a view from the back:

I had a suspicious mole taken off my shoulder blade today. 3 stitches, and it kind of stings, so I am staying away from the sewing machine and trying to keep my arms down this afternoon. But I have to stay out of the swimming pool for the next 12 days until they take the stitches out. That seems like a long time, especially since the forecast is above 100 degrees for the next two weeks. I guess I'll stay inside and watch lots of movies in the cool air conditioning!

No Sewing Sunday

But, I couldn't let the week pass by without another post! I did not take a picture of the quilt I mentioned last time...some days it's just too much trouble to get the camera and the quilt in the same room! I think finishing 3 quilts in 5 days was a bit too much, I mean really gals, I am on summer vacation here - the deadlines are killing me!! Just kidding, the only deadline I was under was self-imposed, thinking that if I got customer quilts out the door, then I'd have time for personal stuff. But, then I ran out of inspiration, so I took a day off and caught up on TV - season finales that I hadn't watched back in May.

I know that I should spice this post up with pictures of my adorable little girl, but for some reason Blogger doesn't like to import photos from my Firefox browser. It's almost my bedtime and I don't want to switch over to Windows Internet Explorer, wah wah wah. Anyway, cute kid story - lately when I ask her to pick up her toys she responds "No thank you." Ummm, honey, I appreciate the manners, but that is not an option in this situation! It's even sweeter with her toddler "sank you" pronunciation of "thank you." And I crack up when we are listening to her music in the car and she wants us to skip a song "I don't care for this one." Out of the mouths of babes. I hope I can remember these cute moments when she's full of teen angst and attitude!

Mish Mash

I finished quilting my friend's first-ever quilt. (I showed you the sketch last time.) I was happy with the pinwheel feathers in the center.Today's project has me quilting curly q's on a black fabric with rainbow swirls. If I don't go blind, I will share a picture tomorrow!

Check out the One Million Giraffes website...here is my contribution. I have been a giraffe fanatic forever...I have at least 50 in my house! Too bad this kid only wants drawings, I could send him lots of pictures of figurines and stuffed toys.

Amy got me thinking about the 80s yesterday. Big shoulder pads, side ponytails, ripped sweatshirts, leg warmers, pegged pants, Polo shirts, Madras inter-changeable purses, Madonna, MTV, Mr. T, Ronald Reagan, Olympic boycotts...iconic decade for sure!

The process

Fun at the zoo! There is a little water play area and Kendra was brave enough to go through the waterfall. She hates having water on her face, so Daddy showed her how to put her hands over her eyes and walk forward until she felt the water. Of course, the highlight of any visit is the carousel. Today she rode the "li-lon" and gave a big RAWR.The Quilt Show is having a contest in support of Drawing Day, and I decided to play along.

Here is the quilt that I will be working on next:
To preview some quilting designs, I used photo editing software to print a grayscale copy. I lowered the brightness and now I have a worksheet to sketch on. I may be doing alot of stopping and starting since it will be tricky to move between the same-colored areas. I tend to do all my stitch-in-the-ditch before I start the block designs, although I've talked to other longarmers who do it as they move between blocks. I'm afraid I'd miss a side of a square along the way. The next question, do I have thread to match those fabrics??

King Size

Only a peek, since I don't have a large enough space that is not covered in cat hair to take a full size picture! I am so thrilled to finish my mom's Kaffe Fasset Nine Patch. Here is the flower design that I put in the alternate nine patch blocks: Since the cream-on-cream thread did not photograph well, I added some detail on the computer to show the spiky fern border:

And finally, all of the block designs as seen on the back:

My machine ran for about nine hours for this quilt, so I probably spent at least 25 hours when you factor in the time to pin, wind bobbins, advance the rollers, etc. I only have two other customer quilts lined up, but plenty of my own stuff to finish. I love summer vacation!

Ahh, vacation

I spent most of Monday at my longarm. It was wonderful! Actually, it started out crummy because I was trying to use invisible thread and it just would not cooperate. So, there was a bit of ripping out and then I decided on the nice aqua/green Permacore that you see in the right hand block. I got into a rhythm with the curves and got that whole section done.

I am going to use a different color and design in the other nine-patch blocks. I think I can finish this one by Friday, yay!

One of Kendra's grandmas went to Disneyland last week and brought her a princess hat. It's a little big, but she loved it.

I am waiting for the repairman to show up and fix our sliding glass door, then it's off to have lunch with my mom. I packed three projects for some afternoon sewing. I wonder what will get done?!?

Current Events

Quilter's ADD...I started a new project, even though I haven't finished the QOV Mystery or the May blocks for my block-of-the-month project! And I have quite a pileof UFO's tucked away that probably only need a border or something to finish. But, at least this is a stash project, so I do get credit for avoiding unnecessary spending. The pattern is Twisted Sister by Ami Simms. I am using black backgrounds and a variety of brown, gold and green batiks. Hopefully this is a masculine look, because it is destined for another returning soldier!

Friday the family went to the Desert Botanical Gardens to see the Chihuly exhibit "The Nature of Glass." This blue and purple collection was in perhaps the most gorgeous section...right under a palo verde tree that provided lots of shade!

Here are some pink "fiddleheads" with green swirllies (yep, technical term) among some prickly pear.

At the entrance, you are greeted by glass yucca formations and agave/century plants on the terraces. The whole place is beautiful.

Just for Amy

Amy is a quilt-blogging friend (aka The Calico Cat) and she's on an I-Spy kick. I promised her a picture of the one I made for Baby K last fall...here is the back. In real life, it's a dark purple from the Moda Marbles line. I used a simple crosshatch and spirals in the border.

Here's the front side. I'd take a full size picture, but I haven't gotten around to binding it yet. Bad mommy!

May Update

Finished half of a pair of Shur'tugal socks in STR Alley Oop (details on Ravelry).

Almost to the end of the mystery quilt!

Baby K continues to brighten every day with her smiles.

Daddy brought home a huge flower arrangement from his school's graduation, and K "planted" on in the yard.

And then she got in touch with her inner farmer...

Yay Photos!

My life over the last week or so...
I love working on this quilt since the fabrics are right up my alley. Lots of blue and wonderful prints, some batik and lots of Kaffe Fasset! I got all the blocks outlined, then I am filling in some free-hand feathers, using a multi-color thread on top and a navy blue on the back. A tip for stitching feathers that I learned from DeLoa Jones: think of curving into the spine like the curve of a freeway on-ramp. You come in at a gentle angle, not straight across! Also, imagine how a question mark curves from top to bottom. Gidget has a new favorite spot to nap in the evenings. She isn't very social, but she comes halfway down the stairs to hang out.
Here is Kendra with some of our Topsy Turvy brand tomatoes. I added them to the sausage and rice we had for dinner last night.
And here she is before swim lessons. I wanted a nice pose with the pool in the background, but she didn't cooperate! This is our first year of formal lessons. It's a parent-tot class, so I am in the pool with her. We practice kicking and blowing bubbles. She does not want to put her face in yet, but she looks forward to the Hokey Pokey and playing with the toys in the shallow beach-entry area at the end of class each day.

Text Only

Here's a glimpse inside my head...

There are no pictures for this post because the camera is upstairs and I am too lazy to run up and get it. Plus, I want to take a few pictures of the QOV mystery quilt that I am working on, but I'd probably get sidetracked sewing or something and then never make it back to the blog post!

I had a good Mother's Day. I let Daddy get up at 6am with our little angel, and woke up to coffee on the patio an hour later. Their card to me was perfect - a little grumpy-faced baby with the caption "Mom, I know I'm difficult and spoiled rotten...Fortunately I'm cute enough to make up for it." Baby K is two-and-three-quarters, and we get a screeching NOOOOOO if we ask her to do something. Of course, two seconds later we ask and get a sweet "Yes, Mama." On the patio this morning, she decided to jump rope. I missed a fantastic video opportunity because all she was doing was holding a rope and jumping up and down. It made me laugh so hard!

Then we went to church and I was able to sew for a bit while K. took her nap. Then it was off to Grandma's house for dinner. Sunday afternoons are so hard to manage because we can never predict naptime. The plan is always to put her down when we get home around 12:30 and let her sleep 2 hours or so. Today we were late because we stopped for lunch, and then it took a while for her to quiet down. So, we had to wake her up, which is a slow process and she's always grumpy for about an hour. But, it worked out because Grandma has fun toys and K. got to sit on the tractor!

Tomorrow starts the last full week of school here in Arizona. I have one more unit test to give and then next week I will do a couple days of review before final exams. And what will I do with my free time over the summer? Quilt, quilt and more quilting! I have several QOVs to finish this month, then two for friends, then my own pile which I don't even dare to count. At least then I'll have pictures to share!

Guidance

Here is my progress on the QOV Mystery (#7 from Persimmon Quilts). There are lots more red and white half square triangles ready, plus tons of 2 7/8 inch white squares for Clue #2. There are some people who can't stand mystery projects because they need to know what the whole thing looks like, but I enjoy the suspense. Birthday and Christmas presents can sit in my house for weeks ahead of the actual day, too! (That used to drive my college roommate crazy, ha ha.)

A few years ago, I took a class from Jackie Robinson, who told us that we were all perfectly capable of making half-square triangles WITHOUT drawing a line across one of the fabrics! I took that admonishment to heart. Here is the process I use:
Although smaller squares are easier, I am currently working with 5-inch pieces!My machine is set up with a quarter-inch foot, and the extension table has a ruler printed on it. You can see from the Purple Thang (TM) that I have markers to help me line up the fabric. If I am sewing 1/4 inch off the diagonal to get 2 half square triangels, then I line up the point right under the right-hand edge of my presser foot. Then, I watch the bottom corner of the fabric and make sure it crosses over my markers...the spot on my ruler and also the line on my bobbin case. Figure out some markers on your own machine and save some time piecing those half-square triangles.

I saw a hilarious description of the quilt binding process on this blog. (warning - adult language)