Practice Quilting

I've been piecing quilt tops for just over ten years now.  I haven't made very many quilts, I tend to quilt in spurts.  I'll finish three or four and then go a year without touching my sewing machine.  Some of that had to do with apartment living and space.  Now that I own my house and have a sewing room I've been a little more consistent in my progress from project to project.

Now that there's the new addition of my quilting machine, I'm having to learn a new skill and it's been a bit frustrating good challenge.

My mom helped me pin in some lower quality muslin that she had bought and never used because of it's poor quality and set me loose.  This is my second pass over my practice "quilt."  This time I'm using blue thread. The red thread was a pantograph that I was using, but I'm trying to focus more on free motion and not using a pattern.  I'm happy with the results and I can already see some of my progress.  Especially in my doodles.  The actual quilting takes place in my garage and it's just too hot right now to be out there other than early Saturday or Sunday mornings.  Most of my practice has been in the form of doodles.  Which surprisingly actually works.

One of the things I really have to work on is relaxing and breathing.  I find myself tensing up and things start to get jerky.  I'll get there though.  I'm determined.  My mom is impressed at how well I'm doing.. or at least she tells me she is!

Oh Boy! Baby Quilt

This is a baby boy quilt I made for a colleague at work.  It's going to a very young couple in their mid 20s and this is their first child.

Oh Boy! Scrumptiousness 46 x 80

My spell check insists that scrumptiousness is not a word.  But I say it is.  So there.

The pattern is Scrumptious Scrappy Chevron Picnic Quilt from the Moda Bake Shop.  I wanted something quick and easy because I procrastinated too long and had to get it finished before her Baby Shower (today) and a family illness I needed to work around.  The fabric is the Riley Blake Designs Oh Boy! by Lori Whittlock in cottons.  I'm not a big fan of flannel but it's also offered in flannel if that floats your boat.  The background fabric for the chevrons is a solid (spearmint I think was the color) I picked up at my local JoAnn's.

I wanted to try to quilt it myself, but was too scared I'd mess it up.  Hopefully this will be my last quilt that I don't quilt myself.  In future posts I'll be sharing some of my horrible practice quilting.  Right now I'm just going back and forth on the same king sized piece of muslin with different color threads so I can see my work.

This is my 25th lifetime quilt and 5th finish this year.

List of current quilt projects

I am working on a number of open projects.. I'm like the ADD version of a quilter.  SHINY OBJECT!  I see a new project and I just get soooooo excited that I can't keep from starting a new one.  And it could certainly be worse.  A lot worse.  Remember when your mom used to tell you that you couldn't get out a new toy until you put up the one you already have out?  Yeah.  That's what I need - someone to make me finish what I've started before I can start another project.

From what I understand this is an epidemic in the quilting world, so I don't feel so bad with only five (and counting!) open projects.  But I don't want my current project list to get so large that I'm overwhelmed and it causes me to lose momentum (this is only projects I'm currently sewing on.. this doesn't count buying fabric for future projects, because that would just be silly).

Project List:

1. Asian Lanterns - Paper Pieced. I've been collecting Asian fabrics for a few years now and have finally started on this one.
2. Purple Lemoyne Stars - I've also been collecting purple fabrics for a while now and have also recently started on this one.  I am using the Rapid Fire Lemoyne Star ruler for this project.
3. Pam Bono's Spring in Ireland Quilt- I have nothing to link to here.  Thankfully I had downloaded all of the .pdf files before Pam's Club site went down. 
4. Phoebe's Flower Box - I'm using the Moda fabric Weeds by Me and My Sister Designs.  This is my current "bonus" quilt.  I always have an easy put together quilt cut and ready to go as the anchors for my chain piecing instead of using scrap fabric.  My mother taught me this trick and this will be my 2nd "bonus" quilt using this method.  Other than the cutting, this isn't something I ever work on specifically until all the blocks are finished and it's ready to be sewn together.  You'd be surprised how fast these come together!  Does anyone else out there do this?  I'd love to  hear about it.
5. Grandmother's Flower Garden - I am doing some handwork (very very slow progress!) and have designed a hexagon quilt that I really like.  Unfortunately now I have to hand sew all those little buggers together!

In addition to my project list, I also have a few quilts that need to be quilted.

I have recently received a hand-me-down short arm quilting machine and frame.  My mother got a new-to-her long arm machine so I got her old short arm!  Which is now living in half of my two car garage.  My garage in Texas.  In the Texas Summer.  As you can imagine I'm not getting a lot of practice in right now.  Weekend mornings is about all I can handle.  I am starting to understand where the term 'sweatshop' came from.    

I would like to quilt everything I put together from here on out, but it will be awhile before I'm brave enough to load my work onto the machine.  I'll have to start up (!) a couple charity quilts or something!  I recently finished a baby quilt for a woman I work with (the subject of my next post) and I was too scared to try to quilt it myself and had my mom do it. 

How many open projects do you have going?

First Post

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this blog or what it'll turn into.  In a way I want to use it to keep myself on track with all of my projects.  A way to keep up the excitement.  I tend to wax and wane when it comes to sewing.  I'd like to try to keep my momentum going strong so this blog will be an accounting of my work.

I'm also going to document to some extent my other passions and my weight loss journey.  The occasional recipe, travel log or what I'm reading at the moment.  At least that's the plan.