Secret Quilt Project - Finished

I finished my secret quilt project yesterday! I'm so excited and want to post pictures all over the internet. Unfortunately, I can't do that until after the recipient sees it. Grr.

But pictures will follow and you'll be glad you waited I'll be glad I waited.

New blog address and title

Well, I've chosen a new name for the blog and will be moving to a new address. Hope this doesn't interrupt anyone's newsfeeds.

The new name, which it will likely take me a minute to change over to will be Life Sew Crafty. I think it is a much better description for my blog since I tend to lean towards updates on my crafting projects with the occasional comment on the rest of my life thrown in.

Walking Foot and 3x6 Bee

After a little bit of confusion, I managed to attached my new walking foot to my machine. Threaded it and started wavy line quilting my secret lap quilt. At first I thought the walking foot was broken because it hardly moved. That's when I realized that my stitch length was still set to 0 from my free-motion quilting adventure (the outline quilting is done!). I like the wavy lines and walking foot so much that I may skip the pebble quilting on the bottom of the quilt.

 



I also managed to get the rest of the fabric cut for the 3x6 Bee the other day. Here's a picture of the goodness that is waiting to be pieced.

I am also considering making a few wonky log cabin blocks for the Sandy quilt drive hosted here. I almost registered to make blocks today, but I really need to figure out if I have the time to make them in the next 2-3 weeks, what with a trip to Michigan planned for Thanksgiving. I also want to finish my secret quilt project by Thanksgiving as well. So once that's done, I can register to make log cabin blocks with the knowledge that I will actually get them done.

Free motion quilting and 3x6 bee block

So I finished the top of my secret quilt project. Finally! Jig-sawing the top together was incredibly boring. It is now pin basted and I've started quilting. I'm outline quilting and decided to try free-motion because there's so much bulk that turning the whole quilt 360 degrees for every outline just isn't feasible. I'd practiced a bit before-hand, but the quilting is still sloppier than I like it to be, but it's so much easier than trying to turn the fabric all the time.

I finished another block for the 3x6 bee yesterday. Colors requested were turquoise, purple and black.
Although I managed to turn the center square the wrong way, I'm still quite pleased with it.

Aqua v. Turquoise

So at the store on Saturday, I was looking for 2 aqua colored fabrics and 3 turquoise colored fabrics. I'm a huge fan of turquoise; however, I was literally almost in tears trying to find something that would fit. You would think this would be easy, but in practice, differentiating between the two is really hard.

 

I ended up asking the very nice and helpful ladies who work there for some assistance. Of the rather large stack I had in my hands, two ended up counting as aqua, and I only had one turquoise. The ladies had to pull thread for me to see the difference, although if I'd bothered to look online, I might have found the above picture and printed it out. Next time I'll know.

 

Luckily they helped me find two more turquoise and the retail therapy of walking out with a bag full of new fabrics was enough to get me over the last bit of distress. I'm still a big fan of turquoise, but aqua can just go do something else.

3x6 Bee

I finally have some pictures to share. Work continues to progress on my secret quilt project. Unfortunately I had to run back to the fabric store to buy yet more background fabric. I did get the backing flannel sewn together though, and I'm almost done with the front. Just need to finish putting everything together, figure out how to deal with crooked edges, and quilt.

I went back to the quilting shop I found nearby, to get fabric for my 3x6 Bee. Although it totally goes against the grain, I did not pre-wash the fabrics I bought, since the rules for the bee includes fresh (not washed) fabric.

I made the first block using my own colors of cobalt blue, white and black.

The image is slightly blurry, but you can tell what's going on. The pattern is Autumn Jewel Box and the tutorial can be found here.

Then because that had worked out so well, I made Jenn's as well. Her colors were aqua, orange and white and she requested a grey background. The quilt store didn't have a single solid grey and Joann's only had the charcoal grey in the Kona Solids line. I could have wished for something slightly lighter, but other than that, I'm quite pleased with it.

Secret Quilt - Progress

So, I finished what I thought would be the last piece for the secret quilt project yesterday. I measured out the 50x70 inch area I want to end up with and then placed the blocks in that space. I will be filling in the space between the blocks with one solid background color, but even then, there was just one glaring space that needed another block. So back to the sewing machine I went, and whipped up my final final block. Next step: join the blocks together using the background fabric, piece the backing from two different colors of flannel, quilt, and bind. My goal is to have it complete by Thanksgiving so I can turn to other projects.

I will be posting pictures as soon as the quilt is in the possession of the person it is for. Can't wait to show you guys.

Blogger's Quilt Festival Entry

This is my first time joining the Blogger's Quilt Festival. I know I've posted about it before, but I really enjoyed the Bug Quilt I made for a co-worker and think it's my best completed work this year.

Bug Crib Quilt

Quilt Measurements: 38x48 inches

Special Techniques used: Applique, hand embroidery

Quilted by: Me

Best category: Baby Quilt, Applique Quilt, Home Machine Quilted Quilt
Entry #597

 

 

Name Change and Hurricane Sandy

I'm thinking of changing the name of the blog and also the blog address to something shorter and more appropriate to my craftsy tendencies. My blog is far from being well-known enough that it would cause problems if I moved it, and I like change.

I have tomorrow off, thanks to Hurricane Sandy. My husband, unfortunately, has to go to work even though the subway is closed. So he'll be taking our only car. He opens, and his boss said she would try to let him leave early. I hope that's the case. At any rate, I've made him promise to keep checking the weather and come home if it starts getting too hairy (supposed to start getting bad around 2-3pm). Luckily we live in a brick bunker of a townhouse; however, I'm still worried about some flooding in the basement. We did clear the drain by our basement steps, so hopefully it will drain properly, but if it doesn't, the water gets high enough to seep under the door into our utility room. Hasn't ever reached the carpeted area in the finished portion of the basement, but 5-10 inches of rain just might be enough to do it.

In sewing news, I got quite a bit accomplished today. Hoping to get more done tomorrow before we lose power, which is bound to happen. We've lost power during two of the major storm fronts that have moved through this year (derechos is the term I heard used), so I'm sure our pathetic power grid won't make it through a hurricane. I just wish it wouldn't cost so much money to bury power lines so this doesn't happen. Once we finally get a shed, I'm so going to insist on a generator. Until then we have no good place to store one.

Sewing Withdrawal

The last few days, I've either come home after work so late that I've changed straight into PJs and read before falling asleep, or I've been so tired after work that I just wanted to sit and do nothing. However, all of this has meant that I have gotten no sewing done at all. And I miss it!

This is why I am particularly looking forward to the weekend, since I am hoping to get a good deal accomplished, once I've had a chance to sleep, recharge, and get over this exhausted slump I'm in.