Nothingness-ish

Ooookay, I didn't exactly get nothing done, but I really didn't do a lot.

I did pick fabric for the Secret Tote Bag Swap. I am making a 241 bag, but I increased the pattern size so it will be a little bigger. I have all the exterior bits cut and I think the fabric really fits with my partner's wishes.


Over the weekend, my boyfriend and I finally made some gnocchi al pesto. I have been desperately wanting to try making this. It turned out nicely, but would be better with my pesto instead of store bought.


I also completed the front of a quilt and completely forgot to take a picture of it before getting it off for quilting. I even finished more half hexagons and assembled my first pinwheel out of half hexagons, but naturally I also forgot to take pictures of those.

Hopefully you were able to accomplish a bit more than I was.

One Down, Fourteen to Go!

I am officially 1/15th through with teaching for the semester. Woohoo! So far my classes are going well. I only have a few students that seem to be problematic, but that will get sorted out. Sadly teaching full time and moving means that I haven't been able to do much sewing. But I have done a little!

My boyfriend and I decided to be pro-active and put shelf liner in every single drawer and in every single cabinet (even in bathrooms!) at the new house. This left me with a couple of perfectly sized scraps that I decided to make trivets out of. My thinking is that I will piece the front, add a few layers of Insul-Bright, and then add shelf liner instead of backing so that it will be heat resistant and grippy! Win win! In case you don't know what I'm talking about, it is this stuff:


Here is the first front I came up with:


That first one coordinates with the quilt I made for my boyfriend a while back.

I also started making my first 241 Tote Bag. I am thinking about using this pattern, only enlarged slightly, for the Secret Tote Bag Swap. Here is my progress:


I also basted a few more half-hexies!


I also made some progress on a sample quilt I am working on for my LQS.


I also started working on the re-upholstery job I'm doing on my vintage cedar chest. I picked the pattern (piecing the Houndstooth pattern!), bought the fabric, bought and cut the foam, and then went on a mission for the ruler I need. No one in town has the correct ruler so I ordered it from Amazon. It took forever and arrived after it was supposed to and was SNAPPED IN HALF. Lame. Amazon says it isn't their fault, so I can return it for some of my money back since it isn't being returned in like-new condition. Ugggh. Now after waiting two weeks for this stinking ruler, I'm back to waiting. Hopefully Amazon will do the right thing and give me all my money back. Hopefully I can find a quilt shop somewhere in a 3 hour radius (This is Texas so that includes San Antonio, Austin, & Houston) who has one and I can go buy it in a few weekends. But at least I cut the foam, riiiight?


Okay, so I really haven't done too much modern stuff. Maybe I'm in a funk. Oh well! What have you been working on?

Last Night of Freedom

Tonight is officially the last night of summer. Starting tomorrow my soul belongs to my students since I am back to work as a full-time, adjunct professor teaching 7 classes. Four of them are Astronomy and this is my fourth year teaching them. Three are physical science teacher prep classes and this is only my second year teaching them. I have been busting my butt trying to optimize my plans for all 7 classes and I'm very excited to try out my changes! This is only the second time I have taught this many classes at once, so I'm nervous. But I'm always nervous at the start of a semester. Anyways, I printed all my syllabi today!



As for crafting, I finished two quilts. The first is a super easy tossed 9-patch quilt in fall Civil War repro fabric. This quilt is one of the prizes for Quilt Across Texas-Region 4. Also, this was the first quilt to be photographed at the new house!


Here it is again in the shade so you can actually see the fabric. Oddly enough I like the other picture more. I'm not too sad about this one going away to a stranger.


I also tried my hand at invisible zippers for the first time and came up with this pillow. It is quilted with a basic stipple.


Invisible Zipper!


I finished another Quilt Across Texas quilt, this one using the official fabric for 2013. It is huuuge. Naturally I forgot to take a picture after it was quilted and bound, but it is hanging at a quilt shop in town so I can go sneak a picture later. :)


Because I am in the slow process of packing to move, I decided it would be easier to sell a bunch of stuff, so today I sold a huge laundry basket and ginormous grocery bag full of books and DVDs to Half Price books and made just over $80! I figured I could splurge on these books which came to about $10.  The Spellbinding Quilts book might as well be called "Tolkien & Harry Potter inspired paper pieced blocks." I can't wait to sew up some dragons!


I mentioned the new house, so here are house details. Boyfriend and I went to sign paperwork on Friday morning but somehow the relocation company being used by the seller didn't send out the official "you can have the house" email until today, which sucks because we were planning on using the long weekend for moving and painting, but couldn't.

But since we got official word today, I got to start painting what will be the sewing room! The top two swatches are the colors I was really torn between. The bottom one is from a gallon of paint I found in the "oops" section at Lowes. This means it is a $35 gallon of paint for $5. Here it doesn't look great, but next to those glorious blues and underwhelming brown nearly everything would look kind of blehhh.


That brown is everywhere in the house, even ceilings but we are only painting the master bedroom and sewing room.

Since I already have a gallon of the "oops" paint and am such a tightwad that I convinced myself I could love it, I decided to start painting with it and worst case scenario, it is the first coat for one of the blues.


It is still drying and obviously trim work still needs to be done (I avoid ladders while home alone) but it is definitely growing on me! Or maybe it just looks better not surrounded by the other colors.

Back in Texas!

FYI: This post is random, even for me. It is a mix of sewing projects and travel photos from Ireland.

I dug up all of the scraps from my Super Swoon octopus quilt and decided to start using them. First, I finished a 16" block for a throw pillow. I still have plenty of scraps leftover, so who knows what will happen!

The day before I left for Ireland, I realized two things:

1. I had no hand sewing project to work on during the trip.
2. I had no pouch big enough to hold a hand sewing project that didn't exist. 

I had been itching to make a cheesy EPP something out of 30s reproduction prints, and this seemed like the perfect time. The final decision was to make pinwheels out of half hexagons! I have no idea how many pinwheels I will make or how big the quilt will get, but at least I have a handiwork project to last a few trips. 

Here are the half hexies I finished basting on the plane to and from Ireland. They are 3" half hexagons which means the three short sides are 3" long. 

And here is the zippered pouch I whipped up to keep my supplies in. I used hexie fabric for the top stripe. In this picture, the pouch and I are at Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. At this place, there are a ton of hexagonal rock formations and it happens to be one of the most gorgeous places I have ever been.

Here are some pictures of Giant's Causeway I took.

And because none of the pictures I took really do the place justice, here is a photo borrowed from Google.

Speaking of Ireland, I found some awesome quiltspiration while I was there. This first one is the sidewalk in Cork, Ireland.

Then we have some ridiculously expensive socks I found in a shop window in Dublin. The picture is horrible but the socks are incredible! Each of them would make a great quilt!

These next two are the floor in an incredible little pub in Cork called the Hi B Bar. The place was tiny but so charming. They had a no phone rule and opera playing on the radio. The third generation owner was there and he spent a good amount of time talking to us. So awesome!

I decided to work on the front for another throw pillow. Here is the evolution of planning for me. I start with fabrics cut to various sizes and arrange them in  pleasing way. These are all going to be flying geese. 

Once I like the way they are arranged, I make paper representations of these and work on getting the layout to be workable (as in no y-seams!). FYI: I took this photo after the fact, so the next step is already done. But I swear, I did spend a lot of time moving these suckers around 1/4" by 1/4" to make sure there were no y-seams!

Then I figure out how this is going to play out into blocks that I can sew together.

Then I make it! Taaadaaaa! (The tada really helps!)

I also finished up my project for Mug Rug Revival. I did the FMQ! It isn't great, but I am getting better. :)

Oo! And I fit in some cooking! The Brussels sprouts are from MY garden! The other thing is sundried tomato and pesto risotto with chunks of goat cheese brie melting into it. Omnomnom.

I also got a quilt back from the quilters and finished off the binding. Didn't expect to like Simply Style fabric as much as I did! Well, I did have to add the green which is from Zen Chic. 

Here is a closeup of the quilting, done by Kenneth Butler.

Aaaaand here is the obligatory backing/binding shot.

Wooo! It looks as though a lot has been accomplished, which is wonderful because the semester starts next week and I have a full-time teaching load this semester. Also, I'm moving. But I might be in denial about having to actually pack up all of my sewing stuff. *sigh*

I am leaving you with another picture from Ireland. A very important picture from Ireland. My boyfriend and I with our first pints of Guinness in Ireland, about 1 hour after our plane landed! Sláinte, y'all! 

Calm Before the Storm

I am in that awkward time of year again: The calm before the storm. I start back up as a full-time adjunct college professor in the beginning of September and until then am relishing my time with only one job. Of course by relishing my time I mean sewing my butt of!

Plus, the power steering on my car went out, came back, went out again, and came back again so I am trying to not go anywhere that isn't a requirement (Can't I just stay home and sew instead of going to work? My car is quasi-broken!) which leaves me with a lot of time at home to sew.

I have been working on another purse except this one is for my upcoming trip to Ireland!

Sadly I selected directional fabric and because of the pieces that fold over, some of my trees are coming out upside down. This is ridiculously frustrating to me, so I didn't even take a picture and will probably never finish the bag in this fabric.

But wait! There was happy progress also! I finally decided to sit down and force myself to try more FMQ. I am still too scared to try anything too big, and had only done a teensy bit on a mini-quilt, so I decided to make a potholder. For all of you Billy Madison fans out there, I made the fox blue because I'd never seen a blue fox and I wanted to see one.

Here are a couple of close-ups that show the FMQ.

I used linen for her tail and cheeks and opted to leave these un-quilted so she would look extra poofy and adorable! My mom called dibs on the little fox potholder before she was even done.

I also started messing around with stuff for Mug Rug Revival. Not sure if this will be what I go with, and I can't say much about my partner's wishes to get advice, but this is what I have come up with so far. I was going to start doing some FMQ on it, but the needle on my sewing machine broke and shot at my eye! Scary!

I also finished up the puppy dog quit.  It is a sample for my local quilt shop. I have no idea what to do with it when it come back to me.

Here is a close-up of the quilting, done by Kenneth Butler.

The reason I wasn't able to get a TON of sewing done this weekend was that it was a scuba weekend. The shop I work at had a trip to Reveille Peak Ranch, about 4 hours away. I was actually leading this trip which meant more talking than diving for me. We had almost 20' visibility which is amazing for a murky Texas lake!

The lake is actually an old granite quarry, so the water sparkles!

We even took the dogs! Of course they spend most of the weekend asleep under a tree, but they did both get swimming lessons!

Right now I am a little in-between projects. Mostly I need to come up with a hand sewing project to take to Ireland. The tricky bit is that it needs to be small since I am limiting myself to just a backpack. But for now, I am leaving y'all with a preview of the 2013 Quilt Across Texas Shop Hop fabric. This is the panel that will be available. It is all postage stamps with the major cites! Ack! Can't wait until September to buy it!