Going Round and Round

Am I blowing you all away with my renewed blogging vim and vigor?!! Now that I'm ensconced in my new home and not driving cross-country or living out of my mom's house (which we did for weeks waiting to get into our house—thanks mom!), I'm actually able to sit down a little bit every day to blog. Yay! I've missed chatting with you all!

One of the project I started with my friends back in Utah was a round robin. We each made our own 18 inch square medallion center, then passed it along to the next person on the list. A new talented person every month. I thought I took a picture of my center before I passed it along, but now I can't find it. Sigh. So picture this: I made an extra large spool using selvedges from favorite fabrics. I then waved it goodbye and handed it over to the ever-talented Ella to work on before she passes it down the line. Each person adds at least a 3 inch border, so when we get it back (sometime at the end of the year), we'll have a finished quilt. I'm not sure what size. It'll be so amazing to have a quilt collectively made by such special and talented friends. Oh wait! I already have a quilt like that (see my Gratitude post!), but now I'll have another!

I've been so so amazed and humbled by the incredible talent of the women in this round robin! I don't want to give anything away about what others have done, but let's just say that everyone has set a high bar and I'm a bit freaked out about keeping up with the quality and creativity!

I totally want to write about what I'm doing on this round robin, but have to find a way to do it without giving it away for anyone who might be involved and reading this . . . any ideas? I'll at least show you some of the centers that people have done, editing out the borders that have been added.

Here are two that I'm about to work on:

Aren't these just gorgeous?! So different and each so creative!

Gratitude

Alright, no house updates in this blog, I promise! I'm taking a break to talk about my wonderful quilty friends and wonderful quilty things!

So, because I was a bit preoccupied with my packing up and getting out of Utah (which was quite a feat, given the 28 foot long truck we filled!), I have neglected to tell you all about the most amazing group of friends I have.

Almost two years ago I began to sew, learning most everything from blogs and the internet in general. One of the blogs I was following was Pamela's French Knots, which I found charming and full of great information. One day, I read about a retreat that Pam was hosting about 45 minutes away from where I live, and I decided on a whim to go. I didn't know Pam, and didn't know anyone going to the retreat. In fact, I had never even gone to a sewing retreat before and was still fairly self-conscious and nervous about my sewing skills—or lack thereof! Nonetheless, I gathered up my sewing things (feeling like I was packing to run away from home, I brought so much!) and headed to Utah County for the several day retreat. It was so great! I met the most amazing group of women and learned so much in the few days I was there! Pam threw a great retreat, with yummy food and a terrific class on appliqué.

It was at that retreat that I met Ella, Pamela, Kristen, Sue, April, Emily, and Amy. I'm not sure how it developed, but next thing I knew we were getting together regularly for sew days and retreats. At those days I met many other great people, including Marion and Jenny. Now it's been almost two full years, and I regard these women as great friends who made my time in Utah so special. I think I may have shared this story before, because last time I moved—then it was "just" across town—they showed up at my door with mop and pail (and wearing cute little bandanas) and cleaned our house from top to bottom with us. What a special gift it was!

When it came time for me to move east, I knew that the hardest part would be to leave my friends. I plan to return for retreats and such, but it's still not the same as being in the 'hood! Sweet Ella hosted a lovely farewell party for me the week before I moved, and they surprised me with the most wonderful, gorgeous churn dash quilt. So amazing! Just look at it—here's the front:

And here's the back:

Do you see? It has my first initial in the middle! The pink fabric is puppies from Ella's amazing stash. I had admired it once, and she generously gave me some of the fabric with a blue background. I was so delighted to have that fabric then, but to then discover the same fabric in pink on the quilt . . . so wonderful!

Everyone contributed a square, or binding, or quilting, and then signed it. What a special gift! I always think about my friends back in Utah anyway, but this is a particularly dear reminder. In fact, as I write this post I'm snuggled up in this great quilt.

April, in addition to her contributions to the quilt, made me an amazing, ever-coveted weekender bag. We had talked about making one, but I never dreamed she'd make one for me! I've been wanting one for so long, but they're such a project to make that I was a bit too daunted to try it myself.

Here's the bag in all her glory:

And here's the other side:

Here's the closeup on the front—the clothespin dolls are from my ever favorite Heather Ross:

And here's the closeup on the back—It's so so special, it even has a car pulling a teardrop trailer, just like we did driving across country!

Do you see the great Denyse Schmidt Flea Market Fancy on the bottom? April knows I love my Denyse Schmidt, so she used her fabric throughout. This was my "to go" bag on my trek cross country. You can fit a small country in here!

I miss everyone so much, but I can curl up with my quilt and use my weekender bag and feel so close!

Seeing Stars

I have a friend who is one of those extra special people who remembers every birthday, anniversary, and other holiday with a card or text. I thought it was time I turned the table and let her know how grateful I am for her thoughtfulness. I've also been meaning to try my hand at this starflower block I found over at Ellison Lane Quilts for some time, so it seems the perfect time to make this for my friend! If you haven't yet, go over and check out her blog. She is fabulously talented and has some great tutorials!

This was also the perfect use of my ever-growing scrap heap! I've been inspired by the recent spate of blogs on using scraps and so I've climbed into my scrap baskets and pulled out some some goodies to work with.

I finished the top last night and, amazingly enough, the blocks actually line up! I know this is what is was supposed to do, but that is often so far from what happens with my piecing! Of course, I did originally swap two of the segments when I was sewing it together, so I had to unpick lots of stitches and try again . . . .  Anyway, I think I love this block!

I've been reading on a number of blogs about color value (check out Sew Katie Did or Stitched in Color, for example), and after doing this star block, I get what they're saying. Do you see how the darker blue fabric has a darker value than all the rest of the fabrics. It's not just that it's a darker color, but that it is denser and isn't in balance with the other ones. If I were to do this again, I'd either find a blue with a value more consistent with the other ones, or I'd pull on some darker values in some of the other colors (like the red, orange, and green) as well to balance it across the star.

Now I'm just trying to decide how to quilt this. Should I hand quilt an outline of the star? Or, should I machine quilt parallel lines outlining the start? Or, other suggestions?

Gratitude

I'm not sure about you, but I'm one of those people who doesn't ask for help very well. In fact, it's kind of pathological. I would give away my last dollar to someone who needed it, I would drive to the ends of the Earth for a friend (or even a stranger), but I just am not good at asking even very close friends or family for help--even when I most need it. Even when it's offered, I'm not very good at accepting help. Although in theory I believe we all live in a community and we do best supporting and relying on each other, deep down it's as if I think I'm the exception; that I'm somehow supposed to be totally self-reliant and to lean even a little on someone else means that I'm deficient.

This may be why I find moving to be so stressful--it, by definition, cannot be done alone. Think about it: how many pieces of furniture are in your home that cannot be carried by only one person? Nevertheless, for most of the moves in my life, and there have been far too many, I have moved myself without asking for or accepting any help. About a month ago, when some of my sewing friends heard that Karen and I were moving, they offered their help and the use of their trucks. I was so moved that they would offer their help. Of course I wasn't going to follow up and ask them for their help (!), but their very offer was so moving to me-- that people I hadn't known for very long would volunteer their time, truck, and muscles on such an onerous task! I tucked their gift of an offer away in that place in your heart where you store such things, and then I returned home where I continued packing.

A few weeks passed, and I discovered, much to my dismay, that the house I was moving into was left in terribly dirty shape. Although the landlord was quickly responsive, it delayed our move by several days and added a great deal of stress to our already stressful move. We were juggling the cleaning of the new place, the moving of all our stuff (and there is an awful lot!!) from one place to a mile away to the new place, and preparing to clean out our new place (because unlike the tenants who left our new place in squalid shape, we felt obligated to leave our place in an even better state than we had found it).

Around that time, I received a text from my sewing buddy April, asking me if I was going to be at our upcoming sew day. I responded that given the move and the cleaning, I was going to have to give it a miss. She wrote back that they should turn the sew day into a "clean Shortcookie's house day" instead. I jokingly wrote back that I loved the idea, but was horrified at the thought of other people having to clean up dog fur and dust and such. I went back to my cleaning and packing and didn't give the text another thought . . .  until later in the day when I saw a message on my phone, telling me that indeed, sew day had been cancelled and that the very next day I was going to have four sewing friends showing up on our doorstep with rags in hand to clean out our old place.

Karen and I both teared up--what an amazing gift!! First thing Friday morning, April, Ella, Jenny, and Sue (and Miss Olivia, Ella's sweet little miss) arrived with red bandanas on their hair (with one waiting for me!) raring and ready to work. They tore through the house, vacuuming, cleaning baseboards, bathrooms, dusting, leaving the house completely spotless and smelling wonderfully fresh!

They couldn't stay for long (because they had all had to arrange for childcare in order to make the 1-2 hour drive as well as the several hours of cleaning), but we brought them over to see the new house and treated them to lunch on the porch as the very smallest of thank you's for the most special of gifts.

I learned a powerful lesson that day: I have spent a large part of my life trying not to impose on people, trying not ask too much, and trying to be self-reliant and independent. As a result, I think I have shut some people out by not letting them in when they offered to help in the past. Part of friendship is not just the generosity of giving, but also the warmth and openness of accepting others' generosity. I am so touched and so grateful for the amazing gift that Sue, Jenny, Ella, and April gave us -- not only in giving up time that they could have spent with their families or cleaning their own homes, not only in scrubbing our home clean, but in teaching me an invaluable lesson about opening up my heart and accepting help.

May Update: Quilting Edition

Joining in on Lee's Wednesday WIP! Happy Day Everyone!

I've done it! My very first official quilt! Now, I've made quilts before, but not quite official quilts. The difference being in the quilting. I've done tied quilts before, but never a fully quilted patchwork quilt. I pulled up my BGP (Big Girl Panties), took a few deep breaths, relied heavily on the kindness and continued encouragement of my sewing ladies, and I did it! And here, without further ado, here she is, my Rainbow Sprout quilt:

First of all, let me acknowledge officially how cool it is to have the friendship and support of a very cool bunch of sewing ladies, especially when you're starting out in the sewing/quilting world. Ella hosted an amazing retreat last weekend, and it helped push me over the edge into finishing this quilt. All I had to do was finish the binding over the weekend! The combined humor, advice, wisdom, friendship and encouragement from April, Ella, Jenny (needs a blog!), Marion, Pamela, and Sue (get a blog!! :-)) has been such a true godsend! Thank you! There's so much more to report on the retreat, but stay tuned for that in another post . . .  I'm on the road and couldn't take photos of all the goodies that came out of the retreat!

I discovered the marvelous tutorial for this quilt from Hooked on Needles. And when I say it's an entirely manageable tutorial, BELIEVE IT! It's a great first-timers' quilt. I think it's a great go-to quilt for a baby gift. I'm kind of all raring to go to make another. I made this for our nephew, Cameron Derek, and I was a bit teary packing it up and sending it off yesterday, as joyful as I am to have this wrap him in love and blessings! Most of the charm squares come from Emily's swap I did earlier this year, but I did throw in a few I Spy squares. I even cut into my beloved Heather Ross Munki Munki--both the gnomes and the VW vans (Cameron's dad is a VW fan)!

For the quilting I did what I'm calling a wonky geometric design, essentially square-ish, but deliberately not perfect squares. I guess we officially call those rectangles (from what I recall of Geometry?). I was originally going to just do straight line quilting, but I wanted to do something with a bit more movement in it.

So this, is my proud photo of work accomplished! I also, with TONS of guidance and inspired help from my dear friend Sue over our fabulous retreat weekend finally finished my pincushion/scrapbag (photos to come).

As for works in progress, Oy! So much in the WIP line! I still have miles to go on:
- My messenger bag
- The valance for my mother's house
- Dare try to make a scrapbag/pincushion for my mother-in-law
- Finish the baby quilt for our friend's almost year-old baby (should I just scrap it and do another Rainbow Sprout quilt?)
- There's so much more I can't even remember anymore!

Santa's Workshop

Tuesday, December 13
Crack-a-lackin! Now that I'm back in town and back to the sewing machine, no messing around! Santa's elves have a long list of to-dos still to do!! One has to be discreet, with inquiring minds snooping--er, possibly inquiring--about, but I will give a peek into one project I've been busy with:

Given my poor camera skills, for those who reasonably might not be able to make this out, it's a canvas tote bag with the adorable dog fabric I found on Etsy. Suffice it to say, there may be a few other tote bags lined up on the assembly line (and it may have been in the line of tote-bag-duty that my finger was skewered!). Once I figured out how not to sew the handles upside down and inside the lining of the bag (harrumph!), the pattern was completely easy to follow. I'm using bijoulovelydesigns's pattern, which I found on Tipnut's posting for 50+ reusable grocery bag patterns. I've skipped the bottom plastic insert (which provides helpful structure for grocery use), as I'm intending these bags for more day-to-day "soft" use. I'm making this large size, but I love these so much I'm now contemplating some cute handbag sized ones (about 5x5). By the way, how cool is it that folks share their patterns for free online! Thanks Bijou Lovely and Tipnut! My Christmas wallet is thanking you!

On other project fronts, I'm also cranking out (theoretically speaking, of course!) Keyka Lou's easy envelope clutch wallet. It is a perfect fit for a smart phone and cash and cards, and is a really quick sew.
(photo credit to Keyka Lou--this is from her site. My own wallet has already been used so much it doesn't look this tidy, and I want to hide away the ones I'm making!)

I love love love Keyka Lou's patterns--they're easy to sew (and that's saying something coming from a newbie like me!!), and totally affordable! This envelope clutch takes almost no fabric, so completely affordable. An aside to family who might possibly read this post: please don't think I'm cheap; just saving up for the big gifts! ;-)

Now, I don't want to sound ungrateful for the solid and dependable service that my stolid, 40 year-0ld Susie Singer has provided me, but my yet-to-be-named Oh Brother! has totally changed my sewing! I can actually FMQ with her (and it doesn't look laughable)! I can sew in straight lines without wrestling with the fabric! I'll go back to the free-motion quilting phenomenon, because that blows me away. I thought that was going to take years and years of practice; I hadn't realized how much a steady machine (with really good, reliable tension!) really mattered! Yay technology!

And now, finally (for now), a shout out to my friend Arpana! Karen and I met up for a very quick catch up with our friend Arpana who was in town at the Y (that is BYU for non Utah folks, not the YMCA!) to give a few academic talks. We haven't seen her since the wedding (more than a year ago!) and it was so so wonderful to be able to reconnect with such a dear friend!! Time passes far too quickly and it's hard when we're living in different parts of the country!