WIP--1/22/13

**Warning!!** This post is absolutely random and covers so much random stuff including: quilting, gardening, homebrewing, teaching, mail, etc.

Lately, most of my time has been spent preparing for the upcoming semester that begins tomorrow. I am teaching five classes this semester: four astronomy labs, and one lecture/lab combo science teacher prep class. I have taught the astronomy labs for 3 years now (since I was in grad school teaching as a TA) so those are fairly easy for me to prepare for. The science education class is more difficult. I taught it last semester, but only knew I was teaching it 3 days before the semester started. Yuck. This time, I have much more time to prepare. I give you my completed syllabi (with contact info leaf-ed out)! Woohoo! 

I have also been able to fit in time to work on other things! Things like the amazing and hilarious hamburger potholder pattern. Cheese and patty are done. One bun just needs binding. One bun needs quilting and binding. Tomato, onion, lettuce, and pickles still need to be assembled. Clearly though, progress is being made! Woohoo!

I also had time to whip up a few wonky stars for a bee I'm in. One of our member is sick, so we are putting together a get well soon quilt for her.

Speaking of things that need to get well soon, my Brussels sprouts and broccoli have been infested with cabbage worms. I bought the stuff to treat it, then it started raining (which it NEVER does in South Texas) and I felt that it would be wasted effort to spray treatment in the rain. So when it finally stopped raining, this is what was left. So sad. All 6 plants look the same.

I sprayed the living daylights out of them all, and am hoping for the best. Worst case scenario, I rip them out and re-plant in the spring. No biggie. I also purchased some super fun heirloom seeds for the spring which I am very excited about.

I guess that is the therapeutic thing about gardening is that stuff dies. Sometimes it comes back (though usually not). Either way, you go on and try again or try something else. Eventually, it works out. Or doesn't, and that is okay.

I also finally finished potting everything on my front porch! So pretty!

Oh, yeah, back to crafting! February will be my month in Color Bee Shocked, and I have all of the fabric packing in envelopes and ready to mail. This photo shows the fabric selection.




























I also finished up a mini quilt kit and dcided to turn it into a pillow cover to sell on etsy. Available here, if you are interested. This is my first item on etsy, so I am pretty excited about it!! I really am not too fond of the fabric the kit came with (Moda Double Chocolate), but the pattern could easily translate into brighter, more modern fabric.

Ages and ages ago, I started working on a Twister quilt. If you remember from this post, I have a really hard time actually keeping quilts for myself, so it sat. As luck would have it, I believe I have found the perfect home for it! Bam! Incentive to start working on it again.

In case you have never made a twister quilt, you start by making a square patchwork quilt top like this:

Then you cut it up with a magic twister block template, and sew it back together. Once it is sewn back together, you get this incredible thing! Drastic improvement. Now that it has a purpose, I just need to baste, quilt and bind it. But I am going to hold off until they are closer to actually buying a house.

In news unrelated to quilting, I also packed up all of the leftover grain from brewing beer this past weekend. Yum! Well, yum to the beer. The grain is now for chickens. It came to about 12 quart sized bags. Chickens think this stuff is the most incredible thing on the planet. I am taking a bunch of it to my cousin, who will soon have 15 hens, and already has one rooster and a peacock. Luckily, every time beer is brewed, this magically appears in my freezer!

Finally, I am going to leave you with something super awesome! As you may or may not know, I collect postcards. [I also highly recommend Postcrossing if you, your child, your grandchild, or anyone you know would like to collect postcards.]

Anyways, a friend of mine recently went to South Africa for vacation, and I asked her to send me a postcard. Usually when I ask people to send one, they forget, so my expectations are not too high. Then today, the most INCREDIBLE postcard I have ever seen showed up in my mailbox! Ahhh!!! So exciting!!! She even went on a shark dive, which has always been my dream.

So, that is all of the random stuff I have been up to. How about you?

Resolute

This is not a new year's resolution. This is just something that hit me, and I want to try my best to stick to it.

I am not buying any fabric unless it is necessary for a project I am actually working on.

This means no more online fabric ordering in the middle of the night when I get fabric envy from someone else's projects.

This means no more picking up miscellaneous fabric when I visit new out of town shops on my travels just because it is something I like and can't get at home.

Realistically, this might mean no more visiting new shops.

What saddens me is that it means no more obligatory supporting of small business owners. At least I can sleep easy knowing my money will not be going into big box stores instead.

This means no more "oo, but this is my favorite fabric, so I have to buy it every chance I get!"

This is about clutter and chaos, not money (although hello added bonus). My stash runneth over, and I do not feel bad about that. But I know that I have picked up so much incredible fabric and it all deserves a chance to get used. If I keep buying fabric, stuff will start getting lost in the madness. Speaking of the madness, my organization is slipping because I keep having to make accommodations for new fabrics. Hopefully if there is a set number, I can make my space a relaxing sewing haven that I am proud of.

Plus, I woke up with a decision about going for more grad school (Yes, more grad school. I'm a nut.), and it involves a move. Translation: My stash needs to shrink significantly over the next few years.

Fine Print: If I do happen to find one of the fabrics I have spent so long trying to find (think: Moda Lush line), I will probably allow myself to splurge. Come on, I am human and this isn't really a resolution.  :)

Non-Quilty Crafty

Welcome! Please feel free to skip all of the ranty [goodness] and scroll on down to the pictures. I included the narrative mostly as an introspective tool for myself.

Even though I have been quilting for a few years now, up until recently, I would still say that I was scared to sew. [Sewing = The construction of practical, non-quilt things.] Over the past few months, I have been challenging myself to branch out of my comfort zone and teach myself to make useful and crafty sewn things.

Honestly, my main motivator was that I always intend on making a quilt (or 7) for myself to keep, but every time I make one, I see where I messed up, and am not happy with the end-product.

We are always our own harshest critic, I know. But still I would find myself frustrated with a seam, a wonky bit (or not-wonky enough bit, depending on the pattern), puckering, bunching, binding corners, etc.

These are all simple skills that I have improved upon significantly. But that being said, I am still human and these mistakes still happen. There is at least one highly noticeable (to me) flaw on almost everything I make.

These flaws, however insignificant in appearance to everyone else, left me discouraged and would frustrate me on a daily basis if I had inflicted the torture of looking at them every day upon myself.

So I give them away.

These quilts full of my absolute most cherished and prized fabrics on which I spent days/weeks/months of my time, energy, love, and money were given away because I do not want to look at them. When I realized what was happening, it broke my little heart. These were the fabrics I bought especially for myself to use on projects just for me, and they were gone.

Since a lot of time goes into making a quilt just to give it away (don't get me wrong, I love making, and make tons of quilts for other people, but I am talking about one intended to keep), I decided to learn how to make smaller, quicker things in the hopes that I not be so critical and end up keeping them. At least this way I would still have projects lovingly made with my favorite fabrics.

It started inauspiciously enough with a purse or tote bag here and there. I continued to press on and practice more projects.

My evil plan worked! Even though I could see the flaws in these smaller projects, my practicality overruled my perfectionism and their usefulness convinced me to keep them for myself! Score!

I decided to write a blog about some of these sewing projects I have been tackling lately, in the hope that it will:

1. Motivate me to continue making useful projects.
2. Help me to transfer my acceptance of these projects' flaws into other areas of my life and crafts.
3. Trick me into trying to make another quilt for myself.
4. Act as a therapeutic exercise. 
5. Provide an opportunity for wonderful people to point me in the direction of more projects!

Tote bags were an easy place to start. I do not have pictures of all the patterns I have played around with, but this picture shows one of my favorites. This particular picture shows two Star Trek totes. I used this pattern to teach my cousin how to setup and use her brand new sewing machine since she had never sewn anything. It was a lot of fun!

Pillowcases are also something easy to make. This one was actually made for my mom, but it is still practical, sewn, and crafty so I will let it slide.

I also got over my irrational fear of zippers. Well, I'm in the process of getting over it. The fear is still palpable. This project was from a kit at my local brick and mortar quilt shop. I was tremendously proud of myself for it.

The flaw on it is okay with me, other than the fact that I want to know how to make it not happen. When I sewed over the zipper, it destroyed the tension on my machine. Is that normal? I'm guessing it won't happen on my new fancy Husqvana. Anyone have any insight/helpful tips?

In an attempt to make my life more eco-friendly, I also made these adorable velcro sealed, rip-stop nylon lined snack bags right before the week long cruise I went on. They were perfect! We were able to take snacks on shore excursions with us to save money and possibly avoid parasites since some of the destinations had questionable reputations. I toyed with the idea of making 75 of these for my college students this semester. I'm hoping to talk myself out of that.

Last but not least, I made myself a wallet. I was finding it difficult to buy a wallet knowing that everything in stores was either too big, ugly, too small, or just not right. So what was stopping me from making the perfect wallet? Apparently nothing! I used some of my absolute favorites (main exterior fabric is from Japan and the lamb and interior fabric are both Dutch).

Five Quilt Finishes

I have been out of town for the past 12 days, but am home for the next 12 hours until I leave town again for a few additional days. Upon my return, only 1/14 nights will have been spent in my bed, 4 countries will have been walked in, and 4 major cities in Texas will have been slept in and visited.

I should be soaking up this precious at-home interlude with some quality sewing machine time, but it feels silly to start something now. So my back-up plan was to blog, because, well, why not?

Look!

A blog!

INCONCEIVABLE!

Ahem. Instead of saying it has been so many months since my last post, I will say it has been 5 quilt finishes since my last post. All 5 of those finishes are in this picture-heavy blog, so please keep reading (or scrolling without reading)!

So what have I been working on over the past few months? Lots, actually.

I started working with English paper piecing, especially hexagons and have truly fallen in love with their portability. As a professor, I often find myself with 10 minute breaks while my students are taking daily attendance quizzes, or between classes. Such a short amount of time is not enough to run up to my office and accomplish anything worthwhile, but hexies fill this time quite nicely! I can baste up a few hexies during a break, and stash them away in seconds. All of the supplies take up as much space as a pencil bag, which means it all fits nicely in my purse.

Here are the hexies I have done, thus far. They are for an eventual quilt for myself. This quilt is going to be an ongoing project.

On the cruise I just returned from, I started sewing some into rosettes. Yippee! There are no pictures of that stage yet.

Now, on with the quilts! This one is the baby quilt for my cousin, his wife, and their new baby, KT.

The reason I am leaving town again tomorrow is to go visit them and meet the baby! She was a premie and had some health issues. This meant she was in the NICU when I tried to go meet her. Luckily, she is out of the hospital and healthy as can be. So excited to meet her!

Her father (my cousin) and I were like brother and sister when we were growing up, so she definitely feels like my niece.

Here is the pretty back fabric for her quilt. Notice that it is not babyish at all. Yep, that is common with me.

I even made a cute little reversible tote bag to give the quilt in! That would be pink starry fabric on one side, with sock monkeys on the other!

I also finished the wedding quilt for my friends on time! It came out better than I expected, considering I made up the pattern and the sheer size of it. The groom is very tall, and this turns out to be big enough to almost completely cover him.

In an interesting turn of events, I actually got to sleep with this quilt last night. The couple I made it for hosted a New Years Eve party/slumber party at their new house, and the quilt was up for grabs so I snagged it. This was very exciting for me, because I had never used a quilt of my own making. Mmm, it was so warm. Now I am exhilarated and ready to speed up my personal quilt projects.

I also finished the door-prize quilt for the giant Christmas Scuba Club party thingamajig.

And even completed the two surprise quilts for another cousin's kids. These are the quilts I was stuck on way back here.

Chloe's quilt (Pattern found here) just needed to be basted, quilted, and bound. It came out nicely! FYI: Both of these quilts are tied because the batting was a thicker loft and I found it frustrating to quilt on the machine.

Jonathan's quilt was completely started over with a new pattern and new fabric. For whatever reason, my brain is not capable of completing the Moda Zig-Zag pattern. From now on, any zig-zags I do will be with HSTs.

Here is his new quilt, that is actually completed! (Pattern found here!)

And a close-up shot of the Spider Man detail on his quilt:

The backings ended up being the same as originally planned. Yay!

Wooo! Five completed quilts and a photo-heavy blog post: I am on a roll!

Fat Quarter Organization

Let me begin with an extreme purchase of fabric that I feel pretty guilty about. I was planning on actually using all of this to make cute host/hostess gifts for my cousin and her boyfriend who are hosting Thanksgiving this year in their brand new [to them] house. I thought these colors would be fun while also a little autumny.

When I asked her about what she could really use and told her about the colors, she was thrilled! But then asked if I could use the colors from the housewarming quilt I made them. Here is a picture of that quilt.

As you can see, those are not at all the same colors. Luckily, I still had enough scraps leftover to make everything I wanted to make them. Pictures in a few weeks when I finish the backs. Fronts are done though! Yay!

So that left me with 24 fat quarters that I was not prepared to house in my limited and poorly organized stash. (My local brick & mortar quilt shop has a sale: Buy 10 fat quarters, get one free.) Well as the title implies, I have [finally] found a nearly perfect way to organize my fat quarters!!

Meet the answer to all one of my problems!

My boyfriend and I were out of town and needed to kill some time, so we went to the Container Store since I had never been. Our goal was to find some sort of shelf to keep my fat quarters on. A wire mesh CD tower appeared to be the best bet, until I found this by accident! We were ready to check out and in line, then he had a phone call, so I wandered through the random middle section and found it! Fat quarters fit PERFECTLY!

I was starting to put them in by color, then realized two things:

1. I did not have enough room for all of my fat quarters in just one drawer. We only bought the one in case it didn't work. Next time we visit in a few weeks, I am definitely buying a few more!
2. I was just so excited to see them fit in there that I really did not care about grouping them by color! 

I was able to fit 86 fat quarters in there!! Eighty six!!! Could have squeezed a few more in, but then the ones in the back would be more cramped, which leads us to the only flaw I am finding in this...

The poor fat quarters in the back.

Unless the drawer is removed completely, the last 4 fat quarters are difficult to look down upon and flip though. This is a minor problem, though. I can pull the drawer out completely and it is a non-issue, or I can put duplicates back there, fabrics I don't really like, or just put something rigid back there so they don't go all the way to the back. That would lose the space for about 4 fat quarters, but I was able to fit 86 fat quarters in there!! Eighty six!!! So really, losing 4 would not be the end of the world, considering I have enough in my stash to fill almost 3 of these bad boys.

33.333333

As of today, I am more than 1/3 of my way through my first semester of full-time professoring (I'm making it a word, okay?). This is very exciting because it tells me that I might actually survive. If I do survive and if I get all the same classes next semester, I might even be able to leave my part time job during the semester and save it for breaks between classes.

But that is crazy talk. Thinking in whatifs always frustrates me. As a wee-lass, that was always one of my favorite poems:

"Everything seems swell, and then the nighttime Whatifs strike again!" -Shel Silverstein

Anyways, moving on! This might not be too verbose of a post, but it will be picture heavy as I have been squeezing in time for quilting since I cut back hours at part time job and am now only working about 50 hours a week at both jobs collectively. That is easy peasy.

I was able to finish the September buck a block from my local quilt shop. These are all basket blocks which I probably would have never tried on my own.

As it turns out, I actually really like the way most of them look.

I also completed my block for the newBEES block swap. The leader of this month was time2sew and she sent all the fabric and pattern, so I can take no credit except for the piecing.

Very cute block to get us started for a year of swapping.

Then we switch from newBEES to NuBees...

In my hive for September, I decided to make a spidery looking block out of HSTs. This first one is in my colors, teal, green, gold, & coral.

Next we have the block for Elizabeth. She requested oranges and pinks with a grey background. I love this pebbly grey fabric. I used it instead of the swirly one since this block had some solid in it so the background needed to stand out more (in my mind). Turns out pansies are her favorite flower, so the pink fabric was perfect!

Then we have the block for Christina. She wanted bright colors on a white background. I wanted to try and make it bright but not rainbowy, and I think I accomplished that. Unfortunately, after mailing this block to her, it was returned to me by the post office and she seems to be MIA in our hive. Hopefully, I can get it to her.

Then we have the block for Sara. She requested teals and reds. I asked if she wanted individual teal and red fabrics, or fabrics that included both colors and she had no preference. I also love the way these two colors look together, so I had a good deal of options to pull from in my stash. Yay! I love the way the little apples and the poppy flowers look together.

Then we have the block for our fearless leader, Kelli. Her colors were basically the same as mine without coral/orange. This was the only block I used a different fabric for each arm instead of doing two fabrics. No idea which way I prefer. But I do know this block is pretty!

I also made an angel block for someone who never received one way back in the summer. Made the block for Kira, who is so incredibly nice! She was always so appreciative and friendly every time I bothered her for more info. I used some of my absolute favorite chicken fabric on her block which was very fun!

In news unrelated to quilting, my boyfriend and I made butter from scratch to practice for a lab I was planning for my students! It came out so delicious! Then I turned around and made 18 batches of it with my students over 2 days. I was mildly sick of butter at that point, but now, I am back to proud!

Back to quilting!

I completed 32 + 1 scrappy string blocks for the Scrap Basket String Block Swap. They look so neat together!

Well, I made 36 + 1, but could not allow myself to surrender these four beauties. Something epic will be done with them, I just know it!

I also finished everything for Potholder Pass Swap. I ended up making 4 extra coasters for a total of 8 plus the 2 potholders. I also included a jar of homemade peach ginger jam! Yummy! Here are all the goodies except for the jam which was added on my way out the door to the post office.

Then I tried my hand at paper piecing!

Gimme an 'L'

Gimme an 'O'

Gimme a 'V'

Gimme an 'E'

What does that spell?!?!

LOVE!

I had no idea what to do with this, but knew it was my favorite thing I had ever made so whatever it turned into, I was keeping.

Then I decided to use it as the center focal point of a quilt and surround it with blocks of coordinating colors. So here it is with a few borders.

The darker grey inside border was added in the hopes that it will make this stand out more when it eventually becomes the focal point of a quilt. I would hate for something so pretty to just blend in!

I also completely finished (except for binding) the quilt for my friends' wedding that is in November not October. I was still shooting for finishing as if it were in October, and that looks like it will happen. Unfortunately, I can't show you any photos past the fabric/block selection (found Here and Here) in this post because the bride-to-be and/or groom-to-be could possibly see this and then the surprise would be gone.

They know they are getting a quilt. They know which fabrics I used. That is all they know. Spwee!

I will show you the fabric I picked for the back of their quilt.

Since they really wanted earth tones and modern, I think this is about as perfect of a fabric as I could have possibly dreamed of finding for the backing of their quilt! Yay!

For pictures of the front of the quilt and pretty shots once it is bound and beautiful, stay tuned until their wedding in November or until I remember that I really dislike keeping a surprise a surprise.

Now I go back to my busy world where I work 50+ hours a week. I even get to go out of town for work for the next two weekends! YAY! *eyeroll*

I'm Alive!

...Well, barely.

60 hour work weeks coupled with insomnia have been kicking my butt.

Luckily, I have cut back my hours are my second job to about 20 hours per week. So when you add in teaching/prep/grading/etc., I am now only working 40-50 hours a week! Yess!!

That means there might be a real post soon to show what little bits of quilting and/or piecing I have actually worked on. (Thanks, insomnia!)

But for now, off to try and sleep!