New Sewing Buddies

My sewing room is still not quite put together yet - there are some large houseplants in there until the weather is warm enough to get them outside, and it just takes awhile to have everything where I want it.

Also, two kittens have joined our household, so I have some company now in the sewing room. Other quilters have cats that always seem to sleep peacefully while quilting's going on. That has not been my experience so far.

There's a lot of this:

And this:

And then me yelling and shooing them out.

Bloom: Blocks 1-9

I started working on Lori Holt's "Bloom" quilt over the past few days. These blocks are so much fun to work on! I trace the shapes required for each block on interfacing, sandwich it with fabric, sew on the lines, invert it, press, glue baste it on the background block, then applique the whole thing in place. It sounds like a lot of work, and it is, but the shapes are so cute, and the fabric is so fun that it doesn't seem very difficult while I'm doing it.

I thought I'd hand-applique these while watching TV, but all the shows I'm watching these days require my undivided attention, so they are getting machine sewn instead. I'm using a cream colored print from my stash for the background, and I thought it looked too yellowed, so I'm just reversing things and using the "wrong" side of the fabric for the front instead. I think it's just right now.

I also get to use my bias tape maker to make the flower stems with, so there's just all kinds of fun being had with these! It's good to be sewing again, especially on a project that so cute and springy.

Course Correction

So, remember when I said I wanted a house and then I went and bought one? Yeah...that turned out to be a bust. I moved in November, and a month later this is how I felt:

Turns out houses are kind of a pain in the ass, and I didn't like living alone. So after sticking it out for a few months, I called my realtor, put it on the market, and sold it in 8 hours. I closed on it on Monday, signed the papers, handed over the keys, and have been sleeping like a baby since.

My old housemate has welcomed be back with open arms, so things are just back to what they were before I got this whole wild crazy house idea in my head. I know most people don't buy and sell houses in a four month time span, but I wasn't happy and I didn't want to keep on not being happy. I was lucky to have a place to move back to so I just decided to be done with it, call it a lesson learned, and move on.

I just got my sewing room set up again, so we'll be back to our normal programming around here soon. In the meantime, I've been enjoying getting settled back in my little rented space. Rented, NOT owned. That's a much better fit for me right now!

Easy Sewing

Depending on what's going on in my life, a complex sewing project can be anything from a fun escape to something that's filled with dread and avoidance. Those are times when simple sewing and easy patterns are in order - just an opportunity to play with fabric and color and not worry about matching seams or perfect points.

This quilt is made from the Joel Dewberry collection called "Atrium", and I like the architectural elements of the prints mixed with florals. The blocks are just traditional Economy Blocks, made from sewing triangles around all four sides of a square of fabric, and I chose to go totally random with no planning or thought.

I utilized Glue Basting again with this quilt, which seems to work really well with the bias triangle edges, and once I had everything glued, I could just feed the pieces through my machine in record time. The top took me about three hours to sew together, and I just have to complete the narrow yellow border, and then add a wider floral print one.

To sit down with a bunch of cut up pieces of fabric, and three hours later have a quilt top you can hold up and say "I made this something out of nothing in the span of three Mad Men episodes"...well, that's some nice instant gratification. I may have had a crappy day at work, or eaten nothing but icecream for dinner, but dammit - I made something pretty today, and that's deeply satisfactory.

Adore-la

I decided to experiment with some curved piecing over the weekend, using Angela Pingel's "Adore-la" pattern as inspiration. I had some linen scraps on hand, so I used those for the background and paired them with some leftover Fat 8th's from the "Superstar" quilt for the petals.

I think sewing curves is fun. I have a weird way of doing it where I don't use pins - it's hard to explain, but this post and video  pretty much sums up what I do. The linen was challenging to work with since it kept warping and stretching, but I just kept starching the hell out of it at every opportunity and we eventually made peace with each other.

This is one of those projects that was more about me experimenting with different techniques and materials. I didn't put a whole lot of effort into colors and placement, and I think this probably could have benefited from a more thoughtful approach.

Right now, I have this on my design wall, just living with it for awhile and deciding what to do with it next.

Bloom Sew-Along

http://beeinmybonnetco.blogspot.com/

Lori Holt designs the cutest patterns and fabrics. When I saw the free pattern she released called "Bloom" I knew I wanted to make it right away!

But that sneaky Lori designed it to be used with her special applique templates, which of course I didn't have. I shopped around online to see who carried them, then I decided I didn't need them because I had enough other quilts to make and plenty of projects to keep me busy, and I didn't need to be spending any more money on more quilting stuff...but...then I kept thinking about the Bloom quilt and how much I like it, and how I hadn't spent any money on quilting stuff in like a whole month, and didn't I want to do more with applique? Finally I just decided to order the damn templates. And somehow a bundle of Lori Holt fabric also ended up in my cart - how did that happen?

http://beeinmybonnetco.blogspot.com/2016/01/calico-days-fabric-is-here-and-getting.html

Lori is walking everyone through the making of this quilt on her blog, one block a week. I'm about 7 weeks behind right now, so I need to get a move on!

A little cleaning...

I have a mechanical, semi-industrial sewing machine made by Juki and it's a workhorse. Unlike a lot of computerized machines though, it needs frequent oiling and cleaning. I'm usually good about doing this - I change the needle with each new project, clean every 8 hours of sewing time or so, and oil once a week, but for whatever reason it'd been a few weeks since I'd done any of that.

Last night when I was sewing, my machine seemed "off". The stitches weren't great, and it just seemed a little clunky. When I opened it up, here's what I saw:

Poor thing - no wonder it wasn't 100%! I attacked this mess with my cotton swabs, toothbrush, and pipe cleaners. I opened up the bottom and cleaned the undercarriage, and oiled it and changed the needle. Sorry Juki - I won't let it get this bad again, I promise!

Snapshots Top Finish

After auditioning lots of different fabrics from my stash, I decided to go with a floral chintz. I was a little worried about the different fabrics blending - the modern Cotton + Steel for the blocks, the 1930's reproduction print for the borders, and then the girly chintz! I may be delusional, but I think it all works really well together.

Now I have to mull over how to quilt this...