Utah, I'm a coming!

So, I don't think I've mentioned that I've signed up for Pamela's fabulous 2014 Quiltbliss retreat in Utah. Yay!

I left Utah mid-summer, not sure of when I'd be back, so I'm really excited to be able to come back to catch up with all my quilty friends!

And what could be a better way of catching up than a four-day modern quilting retreat right in the middle of my favorite snowy season?!

Just look at these funky and fabulous accommodations!

Queen-sized bunk beds!! Totally fabulous, right??

I'm already starting to collect the projects I'll be bringing. Lots to sew, lots to sew, my friends! I've been kind of in a sewing funk of late, as I'm still trying to figure out and settle into my sewing space here. Being back among my sewing friends will be so fabulous! And there will be amazing classes with talented folks like Amy Smart, Anna Morrison, Emily Sessions, and many more!

Maybe I'll finally get around to that table runner that I've been meaning to tackle . . .

Back in the Groove

I think I'm hot on the trail of my sew-jo at last! I was wandering through blogs and found a great tutorial from Amy at Diary of a Quilter for a modern take on the pinwheel. I had some charm squares looking for a home, so I got busy and fell in love with this pattern!

It took no time at all to whip up, even with the addition of the border with 1 inch squares and rectangles. 

Now I just have to figure out how to quilt it. Any suggestions? 

Looking for my sew-jo

So, I'm in search of my sewing mo-jo (my sew-jo, as I call it), as it seems to have wandered off somewhere recently. I love sewing and making things. I want to sew. I spend time thinking about which projects I want to work on. I just can't seem to get myself up and going.

Part of it is that I still haven't fully settled into my sewing room. I need to install shelves so that I can put everything away. Until then, I have piles upon piles of loose fabric and such. I also haven't figured out my set-up at my sewing table. Like where do I put my laptop so that I can follow along on tutorials and such? Right now, it's piled up on top of a plastic basket that started out holding feet and supplies for my Juki, but now has become a catch-all for all things that wander by. If I want to baste a quilt I need to clomp downstairs (in my boot for my injured foot), lugging the quilt, and giant roll of batting, where I can lay it out properly on the dining room table. Then I can either lug it all back upstairs to quilt, or have the machine dragged downstairs for me to work on.

I think the other part of it is this pesky boot I'm lugging around on my right foot. I feel clumsy, I have to use my left foot on the pedal, which is awkward, and my sewing room feels even smaller with this enormous boot.

In my search for my sew-jo, I wander in and out of my sewing room, sort of wistfully visiting my neat fabric piles organized in color order. I just can't seem to turn the ignition!

Not all is lost, of course. I did finish a baby quilt for a former neighbor's new baby girl, Rosy:

The quilting took no time . . . not counting the SIX HOURS I spent sorting out the tension issues. Apparently both my needle and bobbin tension were off, so I kept going back and forth trying to get it right. Still not perfect, but much better.

I also sat down this morning and whipped off these, using Threading My Way's helpful tutorial. There are a ton of great tutorials for these drawstring bags out there. I adjusted the pattern to make a slightly larger bag. These bags are going to be goodie bags for . . . I can't say yet!

So, still looking to get back in my groove, but making a little progress!

Now I'll leave you with some gratuitous puppy pictures from this summer at the beach in New Jersey:

Oh, and by the way, I'm now on Instagram . . . You can find me there at maggieb016

Fabric Hoarding

So, I can't be the only one reluctant to cut into my favorite fabrics, can I? I've been hoarding some of my most treasured collections, afraid to either do something with the fabric and then regret it or to use it up and not have it left. Take my Heather Ross/Munki Munki collection:

I do occasionally cut into these fabrics for my baby quilts—the poplin Munki Munki is just so soft and the images so amazingly cute. But I most definitely hoard it. However, I've recently been so inspired by Susan at Canadian Abroad, who just showcased her gorgeous Heather Ross quilt. I love what she's done, and it's made me consider cutting into and using my HR prints a bit less stingily (is that a word?).

My most prized HR is this fabulous wahini/surfer girls print that's just impossible to find. But what good is fabric if you never use it, and instead just visit it occasionally and stroke it lovingly?!

I did, once upon a time, actually surf (badly), so I particularly love these adorable surfer girls. While I have given away a lot of the things I've sewn, I'm not sure I could give away whatever item contains this. But the more I think about Susan's great quilt, I think this would look fabulous in a quilt mixed with other HR fabrics.

Just picture it, this surfing fabric, alongside HR's Mendocino collection, with its mermaids and sea horses!

A while back, I scored a great deal on a whole luscious yard of HR's pink with VW vans—definitely the right transportation for my surfer girls!

In addition to my Heather Ross, I've also been been hoarding, er, holding onto my Melody Miller Viewfinder fabric. I think I bought the last two yards off of Etsy about 9 months ago, and I've been reluctant to cut into it.

I think it's time, however. I think I'm going to make a shopping tote, using this great grey textured fabric from Architextures. I typically follow Bijou Lovely's tutorial for making the bag. More on this as I get going on it.

Free Motion Quilting Practice

So I have a love-hate relationship with FMQ'ing—I want to be able to do it and I love those (rare) moments when I seem to be challenging an actual, real-life quilter and it works, but I find the learning curve to be slower than I'd like. Let's face it, as adults, who likes to have to learn to be competent at something? But since I've had to do that for sewing and quilting, I guess it makes sense that I have to be patient and keep working on my free motion quilting!

My friend April recommended a Craftsy class by Angela Walters, who is a quilting superstar. For those not familiar with Craftsy, it's a great site for craft-sters, complete with patterns, projects, and online classes. While a lot of the classes and patterns are for sale, there are also some for free. April had recommended the "dot to dot" class that Angela teaches, so I signed up. One of the benefits of these online classes is that once you buy it, you can keep going back to it and replaying the parts you need.

My FMQ efforts to date have been mostly my attempts to replicate what I see out there on other people's amazing quilts. The difficult aspect of that, however, is that it means I'm trying to get mine to look like the others without necessarily knowing how to get there. Also, I started by practicing circles and stippling. While my stippling is coming along, circles are hard for me overall. What I really like about Angela's class is that she's easy to understand and provides great tips for improving my skill. The first lessons are on straight lines—which, despite some waviness here and there, seems to be more forgiving than the circles are.

Here's what I worked on today for practice:

They're the same essential shape—triangles—but used in different ways achieve a different effect. Angela's class provides the pattern for a quilt to use as a test quilting surface, but I didn't want to go to that effort of making a quilt I like only to put quilting on it that I don't like, so I just made a quilt sandwich from leftover batting and some old fabric that's faded and I won't otherwise use. Clearly, I still need to work on straightening my lines, but it's getting better! I also feel fairly proud of being able to do all of this with my left foot on the pedal, since my right foot will be out of commission until December! My left quad is so tired! Funny the muscles you don't realize you use until you change feet!

Angela had a great tip that has really helped me: don't stare at the needle when I'm quilting; instead, focus on where I want the needle to go. She gives the analogy of driving: when you drive, you don't stare at the hood of the car (at least you shouldn't!); instead you should look 2 car lengths ahead.

Check out Angela's blog, Quilting is My Therapy, for some great patterns and tutorials, including some video clips!

The Perils of Sewing

Don't worry! This is not a post where I show you gory photos of rotary cut or sewing machine needle injuries! I decided to go big on my sewing-related injury:

Yup, that's right, I took out my ankle while simply walking across the hall from the bathroom to the sewing room. I sprained my ankle, and ended up rupturing a tendon. Big woops!

When I went to the doctor I was expecting to get an ace bandage, not a monster boot that I'd be stuck with for 3 months!

I appreciate April's suggestion that I go as a storm trooper from Star Wars for Halloween:

For those that might actually want to talk about sewing and not the state of my health, check out what I think will be my next project. It's a fabulous Hummingbird quilt pattern from the always great Red Pepper Quilts. Check out her site: she's offering a free pattern and a giveaway for EQ7!

X+ Quilt Top Finished!

I finished this a little while ago, but haven't shown the finished top. After countless hours and hours of putting together these blocks . . .

I have finally sewn all 99 of them together into this . . . .

I began this one way back in February at Emily Herrick's great Cabin Fever retreat, and only finished up the last 99th block in July.

Now you might (reasonably) ask me why I have 99 blocks in a quilt—the answer is that I started the blocks before I decided to make a queen-sized quilt, and the pattern I was following used 10" squares. Oops! Given that I wanted a range of fabrics used together, it meant that I had to look long and hard for enough fabrics to provide good variation. Although I love the kind of wild X+ quilts that use a wide variety of colors, I wanted something less busy, so I decided to focus mine by using grey, aqua, green, and orange. I then used Architexture's Grey Crosshatch fabric to pull together all the blocks.

(by the way, please excuse my bad photo—In the chaos of my move across country I've misplaced the cord that connects my camera to the computer, so I'm relying on my trusty iPhone for photos. Not quite as good!)