On Point - If You're a Baby

I busted open a couple of Early Bird charm packs over the break and put together a quick baby quilt. 

It was pretty quick overall since you don't have to measure the setting triangles. 

I quilted on my little machine since it was just straight lines along the seams and also because my longarm has a quilt loaded that I don't feel like quilting.   But I'm not taking it off until it's done! 

The backing and binding were already in my stash and happened to also be by the same fabric designer, Kate Spain.   The backing is of course flannel.   Because flannel.     Binding is hand sewn to the back.

I used this tutorial  and it was very easy.  If I do it again, I'll make the original squares bigger and pay more attention to placement because I did end up with same fabrics touching.   And yes, I did take those bits off, reshuffle and sew back together. 

It's currently listed for sell in my Etsy Shop and as always, all proceeds go to charity.

I also finished putting the labels on a bunch of charity quilts -

Resist in Peace

This seems like an appropriate weekend to post a quilt that I made last year.

  

Today marks the anniversary of the Woman's March.    A peaceful yet determined movement to demand and create positive change.   

This quilt is called Resist in Peace.   

A friend drew the design and I made it happen.

Grafitti quilting in all of the background.

There are messages quilted in all over.   Choose Joy.

In each of the stripes, at my sister's suggestion, I quilted a line from this shirt.   

Here it is hanging at the San Diego Quilt show.

The other quilt is also one I made.

We can.

We must.

We will.

Boxy Pouches Galore

I made quite a few of these pouches at the end of 2017.   The first was for a friend going through some medical stuff.   She likes orange and blue.   I like giving myself an unreasonable deadline and then making the project more difficult (aka random* piecing in this case).

I use this tutorial - http://pinkxstitches.blogspot.com/2014/01/boxy-pouch-tutorial.html  and generally make the smaller one. 

Then after that, I thought I'd make 6 more, again on an unreasonable deadline before a train trip with 5 friends to Santa Barbara.  These were made a little more in production style.

and the pink llamas were not planned to come together that way near the zipper but I love it (and kept that one).

Here they are all together.   One of the other girls brought a bunch of little gifts for everyone which fit perfectly in these pouches.   It's like we planned it instead of schemed separately.

I made another for a Spiderman fan.  Although larger and with no interfacing since I was out.

And then two for a staff retirement gift, since I couldn't decide on the fabric and had someone else pick which to gift.   They chose the blue floral.    We paired it with sunscreen, macademia nuts and a Hawaiian Airlines gift card.    I think she liked it.

* I don't do random well.   That opens the possibility that two pieces of the same fabric touch or even worse, the bicycles are going in the wrong direction.

Happy and Hopeful New Year

First day of the new year and first finish.  

It's a bit scrappy and quite colorful, the pattern is from Cluck Cluck Sew.

I only quilted in the white center and did it very densely so the colored parts of the split chevron would stand up/out.

Borders were a bit swirly.  I used one of the new Angela Walters rulers in the yellow but I don't get quite how it works so I'll keep trying.

I went with a crazy pieced flannel back because I have lots of flannel bits. 

Aqua blue solid to bind, hand stitched to the back, of course.

Size is 50 x 63 (not yet washed)

Charity Sewing Day(s)

2017 : Do Something.   

As many of you know, I don't agree with certain things that are going on these days.   So I'm doing something about it.   Actually lots of little things, which added together, will change the world.   Maybe only my minuscule part of it but I believe that matters.   I believe the good that I can add to the world matters.   So we start.   Or continue.  

This year, once a month, I will open up my sewing studio, the Carriage House, and host a sewing day.  On that day we will sew for a specific charity or two or thirty-seven (good is limitless).   The first of those days was today, January 15th.    I chose two causes and we started.

Seven of my friends showed up, at various times and stayed as long as they could.   Some have been quilting for years, some for months and for some it was their first introduction.   There was some ironing, some cutting, some hand stitching and some piecing.   Everyone did something and worked toward a common good.

The first group we are donating to is the refugee community.   I would like to be very clear that some of the national rhetoric and spewing of hate and otherizing does not reflect America.   It does not reflect me.   It does not reflect many that I know.    So here's a little welcome to some family who might be missing their first home, who might be feeling a little out of place and unsure.   So we say -

You are Welcomed

You are Loved

You are One of Us

We will be donating the quilts later this month after the labels arrive and are added.  I am so very happy to report that we will be donating 15+ quilts after this day.   Some I have been rounding up from previous sewing.

This one was finished today -

The backing for another was finished and quilting has been started on it -

Binding was started and nearly completed thanks to four different people on these two quilts -

And then there is the series that I privately refer to as We've Got Your Back.   I've pulled out the tubs of flannel from quilt backings of past quilts and started cutting them into useful sizes.   8 1/2 squares, 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 rectangles, 3 1/2 squares and 2 1/2 strips.    Blocks for 1 full top and 3 partial tops were completed today.    And a whole lot more squares were cut by someone who had never picked up a rotary blade before today (and might still not know that's what it is called).  

The other community we sewed for is a local LGBTQ project.   The blocks were originally started after the Pulse nightclub tragedy but these quilts will go to our local community.  (tutorial)   I'm talking with some friends who will know the best way to distribute.     It's just a few more blocks to add to the rainbow blocks already done.   Love is love is love.   Even when it might not look like the way you love.

It's hard to explain how putting this event together makes me feel.   Hopeful.   Proud.   Delighted with how many busy people showed up.  Anxious to do more.  

So as you go through your own busy day, look around.   There is someone you can help.  There is someone who has helped you and you can show some gratitude.   A little thank you can encourage even the crankiest to do a little something.   Sew a little colorful block for us to add to a few other colorful blocks.    Plant a pepper.   Lend a hand.

It's for humanity.

San Francisco Quilt

My sister turned 40 this year.   On December 15th and I came up with a mad cap idea on December 6th.  Luckily in 2015.   Not that it makes me any less crazy.   I took this pattern by Satsuma Street -

which is intended to be a little cross stitch bit of wonderful. 

And turned it into a more than king size quilt.   118 inches by 120 inches.

It is amazing.  

So here's the whole story.   I downloaded the pattern and then thought, I'll make the Coit Tower, hate the fiddliness of it and then make a pillow and give it to my sister for Christmas. At first it looked like a robot.

Then voila, a tower.

And it was awesome.  I didn't have the solid fabric to keep going so I made a color key and plotted and ordered fabric and looked at ways to break it up into manageable chunks.   And never once did the math of how big a quilt it would be if I used 1 inch finished squares.  

And then I laid out sections to piece together.   I tried to limit the amount of inset piecing I would need to do while still making sure the structures would make sense.   For example, the bridge needed to be solid pieces along the bottom so it wouldn't fall down.

And I ironed.  Every seam open.   Every.  Seam.  Open.

And realized that it was going to work.  Then questioned my sanity.   Then sent 10,000 pictures to my QBFs (Quilty Best Friends) who were happy to confirm that I was crazy.

I taped it to my wall and then picked it up off the floor 37 times.  

I kept track of progress with a highlighter.

I made a ton of water when I started to wonder how big it would turn out.

I sat a puppy in the photo for scale. 

I did math and took up all available floor space.  It's bigger than my studio.  I also had to remake some of these pieces as I also adopted two giant dogs while this was going on.   One of which expressed his displeasure at being left by chewing up a section or two.

My horrible QBFs said make the trolley until I caved.   Then they learned not to sew with me if I was working on this project.   Because I cursed a lot and accused them of stealing pieces, moving colors and other general mayhem.

The towers came together and I mis-cut the sky.   Gray sky, of course.   It's San Francisco after all and I had a plan for the quilting.

In May, I realized that I would never ever finish this project.  

I made pagodas and houses and locked up the dogs to lay it out.   

Hi Stella and Matilda in the Princess Crate / Best Bed!

And I finished the top in July while Bean was visiting and making me drinks.

When I finished it, she said "I think you should hand quilt it" which is code in our crowd for "I truly hate you".   

The only place I could lay it out to get a full picture was my parent's living room which didn't offer the best light.

And oh boy was it huge.   My mom was super helpful in pointing out that my sister didn't own a king size bed.   I didn't care.   I'm an artiste.   I make what needs to be made not what might fit in a small apartment in the city.

And luckily my sister bought a king bed in October.   So art wins again.

And then the backing saga.  Because the top was already heavy so I didn't want to use my usual flannel.   And extra wide fabric backs are not as wide or as tall as this quilt.   

So I mathed a bit more, cut 5 inch squares from every color on the front, pieced a backing, ran out of the aqua greek keys, stubbornly refused to change my plan and started quilting while waiting for another order of the backing to show up.  Which means that yes, I had to wrestle the largest quilt ever through my Janome to finish piecing the back after I'd spent 3+ months quilting most of the quilt.   It worked though, so I'm unlikely to become less stubborn from this process.

It took HOURS to load this thing.

And months to quilt it, if I had not had a deadline, I'd still be quilting.  

bricks in the building

flowers in the field

leaves in the trees

all the designs

siding and curtains

catification in one of the windows, including my sister's three cats

the logo of one of her favorite coffee shops on the trolley as advertisement

pebbling in all the white and gray clouds

Japanese message in the pagoda

message for humanity

clouds and wind (before washing)

After washing the sky had the best texture.  So much crinkly goodness and the clouds puffed up as a good cloud should.  

I hand stitched all the binding in a little more than a day.  And I'm not a fast stitcher.   But I had to get it on that weekend in order to make it to the giant machines at the laundromat.   Where I fretted and paced and took photos of it spinning around.

But oh the deliciousness of it out of the dryer.

It is labeled and you can see that I changed the binding color around the bottom water on the quilt.  Because madness.  I kept track of the bobbins, I used 19 on this quilt.  Plus all of these colors on the front.   

The little olive one was a panicked text to a QBF, who purchased it, passed it to my walking pal and saved the day.

This was truly an epic project.  I questioned myself a thousand times and bored my friends talking about it incessantly.  I am so very happy with how it turned out.  My sister seems to love it so I'm calling this one a success.

And yes, I would make another of these patterns into a quilt again.  But maybe just one of the Mini Cities this time.

And yes, there are still more pictures of this on Flickr.

Click here for Flickr