Time Spent Crafting

It feels like I'm getting my mojo back a bit. It could also be that I'm finally starting to fight 10 years of conditioning. Here's the deal, my husband has been working in the restaurant industry for as long as we've been together, 10 years. In that time, we either did the long distance thing and barely saw each other, or were living together but working opposite schedules. So what little time we did have together, I felt this strong urge to at least be near him even if we weren't actively doing something together. Then about eight months ago, my husband broke his hand, he couldn't go back to cooking until it was healed and was out of work for two months. During that time he decided that he wanted to change careers because he actually liked spending time with me and so he spent the next few months trying to find something. Unfortunately that hasn't worked out, but the conditioning of 10 years was still there. So between being pregnant, having lost some of my quilting mojo, and that, it's been really hard for me to tear myself away and spend some alone time in my sewing room.

I also recently celebrated my 30th birthday (Valentine's Day) and on my birthday I always do what I want to do. That included sleeping in, cross-stitching in bed, having my husband cook me German pancakes for brunch, going to the grocery store to grab fruit and some other things I wanted, including a fruit tart, ordering Thai food for dinner, and watching something on Netflix in bed at the end of the day, I also decided to spend time in my craft room. I did and it was quite productive. I finished the top of the braille alphabet quilt.

I also cut fabric and put together one of the three blocks for the November queen bee and got the other two blocks to the trimming down stage.

Not wanting to lose momentum, I've been spending a bit of time each day since then in my craft room and have finished the other two bee blocks.

Made a scrappy improv block for the guild.

And actually got the back of the Michigan quilt put together. I even emailed the long-armer to make sure she was still willing to quilt that beast for me, since it had been almost a year since we started talking about the quilting.

We actually got a snow day today, so my three day weekend became a four day weekend, so I managed to get the memory quilt blocks done for the Bright Modern Baby Quilt and kept working on my leader and ender project.

I realized that I'm woefully behind on my memory quilt blocks and need to make myself a list of blocks I still need to make and then actually find the fabrics I used in my scrap bin or stash. I've got the fabrics laid out for the Braille Alphabet Quilt memory blocks, so I may work on those next.

Community Quilt and DCMQG Meeting

I've had a pretty busy weekend thus far. Luckily it's a three day weekend for me, otherwise my hermit-like nature would rebel that I didn't have a single day to myself.

On Saturday I drove out to Virginia for the DCMQG meeting. It was one of our longer sewing days. Unfortunately, I got a late start, and then almost ran out of gas in the middle of DC. Finding a gas station while on the highway driving through the middle of DC is a crap shoot at best, so I just hoped that my gas would last until I got well away from the Pentagon. Somehow I don't think they're too keen on having anything flammable too near that building. Luckily I did in fact make it to a gas station, but I got there an hour after the meeting had started.

During the meeting we discussed the upcoming quilt show at the Anacostia Arts Center and a few other points of business. We also took really nice pictures for the quilt show submissions. I brought in my Riley Blake quilt as well as my Snowed In quilt to show to the group and had the Riley Blake quilt photographed.

The pictures were taken pinned against a white sheet with a camera on a tripod. I've never had a picture that displayed my quilt so nicely (flat, no feet/fingers, etc.). I am really hoping it gets accepted into the show.

Some other quilty highlights:

 

 

I also got some sewing done. In fact, I'm happy to announce that I finished the top of the Community Quilt.

 



Pretty proud of how it turned out. I also managed to figure out a way to keep the signature blocks near the houses that people made. I just need to sign the road piece next to the house block I made. Even though people sent me signature blocks on all sorts of greys, it worked out just fine. Just like the whites that aren't all Kona Snow. Especially once it's been quilted, I doubt anyone will notice. My design, but I'm thankful that so many people chipped in to make the blocks.

DCMQG Retreat

I am super excited. I have a quilting retreat coming up... tomorrow!

One of the members of the DC Modern Quilt Guild is hosting the three day event in the basement of the fraternity house where she lives. The boys are gone for the summer, and it will be just us quilters for three glorious days!

Since I live just a few minutes from the retreat and will have the car, I may end up back at home for the nights. Also, I am planning on bringing the projects that I just do not want to finish to force myself to do them. These include my April Bitty Bee Blocks and the Hurrican Sandy quilt which really needs to get finished and sent to the latest disaster.

The front of the quilt is finished. But the backing is giving me serious headaches. I have the fabrics picked out, I have the center medallion with the signature blocks figured out. I really just need to put it together, and I'm seriously dragging my heels because I think the front is so ugly.

But hopefully if that's all I bring the first day, I'll be able to knock it out of the park and just get it done.

Archiving My Growing Stash

Since my the fabrics I'd been getting from Joann's were really not worth documenting, at least most of them, some of them are actually good fabrics (there's some Me and My Sister, for example), I haven't been keeping track of what I've bought, quantities, or anything of the sort. Now that I am starting to amass some good quilting cottons, I want to make sure I remember what they are called, what line they are from, and who the designer is.

In the interest of doing so, I pulled out my stack of unwashed fabrics and took a picture of every single one. I have them saved to my Dropbox folder so I can pull them up from anywhere with internet, including my Nook in my craft room. The title of each picture is the name, collection, designer (and producer if applicable), they are then divided into folders labeled with the general color, since that is the way they are sorted on the shelf as well. I am thinking of also adding a spreadsheet with yardage in, yardage used, etc. Because I'm just crazy like that. Now I just have to find my receipt from Tomorrow's Treasures to figure out what some of the FQ are that I bought a while back.

I am also adding another project to my list using the fat eights from Madrona Road you see above. It can be anything, it just has to be ready to share with the rest of the DC Modern Quilt Guild by our sewing day on February 16 or by the end of January if I want it to be considered for the Michael Miller booth. I am thinking a patchwork drawstring pouch, with some Kona Snow as the liner and ties. But I have to mull that around a bit more.