Blocks and Hens

I find myself more and more only able to work on quilting projects at night. There is nothing wrong with that, except that when I finish something, I have no natural light to take a picture of it. That wouldn't be so bad if I had a decent camera to work with instead of depending on my cell phone which is on its last leg.

Oh well. So I try hard to be patient and wait until morning to take pictures of things, but tonight, I just could not resist because I finished my first ever quilt bee blocks! Now, bear in mind that my camera is a phone and that these really are not true-to-life color representations due to the whole taken at night with a crappy phone thing...

I found the pattern in a book I picked up from my local quilting shop. This one spoke to me because it looked complex but was actually simple with just HSTs and squares. 

You might remember that I am terrified of the fact that people will be seeing the backs of these blocks... hence the easy ist gut vibe.

Well, I am happy with them, overall. I will post closer/clearer/taken with natural light photos tomorrow.  If I am feeling brave, I might even post a picture or two of the backs! Gasp!!

This is absolutely unrelated to quilting, but two other hobbies of mine are gardening and chicken-taunting. I say chicken taunting instead of raising (which I did, from teeny tiny little chicks) because that is probably what they would say I do. I bring them snacks, then I yell at them for playing in plants they shouldn't play in, for pooping on my scuba gear, for trying to sneak into the house, and for pecking the feet of my dogs/me/mom/boyfriend/interlopers/etc.

Anyways, I have almost given up the "Stop playing in the [insert name of plant that I covet]" campaign. Mostly because I have a day job and their day job is apparently to be disobedient hens. 

That being said, I love them dearly. Here are a few snapshots of them playing in my garden. 

 

First they walk around the garden innocently enough, as if trying to say "Honest, Mom, we were just making sure your basil and cucumbers are growing." I like to think my chickens would be hooked on phonics and super-spellers.

Then, these silly birds think that a spirited game of hide and go seek will persuade me to stop yelling like a banshee. Well, they were right. They also lost... Horribly. Apparently, my chicken spotting abilities have really improved over the last year and a half. 

"I'm not from Amsterdam, but who cares?"

One of my other major hobbies besides quilting is Postcrossing. If you haven't heard about it, here is my concise description of what it is...

You set-up your account and at the beginning you are allowed to send 5 postcards at a time. When you click "send a postcard" you are provided with the address of a random person who lives somewhere in the world (there are options to send internationally and domestic or just internationally). You send these people postcards (sometimes their profiles request certain types like flowers, lighthouses, b&w, etc.) and when they mark your postcard as received, you then get added to the worldwide recipient list and will soon get a postcard from a total stranger. The more you send, the more you are able to have traveling at once (I can send 13 at a time now).

As of today, I have been a Postcrossing member for 784 days. I have sent 231 postcards and have received 219 glorious postcards from places all over the world!

I honestly think postcards are a great thing to collect because they are small, easy to take care of (hello, shoebox!), and they are cheap. Cheap being important here so friends/family on any budget can easily afford to send me one when they are traveling without dipping too heavily into their funds.

Out of Postcrossing, I have acquired 2 loyal pen pals with whom I hope to stay in touch for life. But what makes Postcrossing great is that you do not have to remain in contact with people you send cards to or receive cards from. If you have enough in common, obviously you can both decide to stay in touch, but usually, I don't.

You can also do a direct swap which is when you either find someone's profile and ask them to trade cards with you because you want a card from where they live, or you just trade with someone you received a card from.

Today in the mail, I received a postcard from Janneke who lives in The Netherlands. I had sent her a Postcrossing card a few weeks ago. She sent me an awesome card from Amsterdam. On the back of the card she wrote "I'm not from Amsterdam, but who cares?" and I just thought that was adorable! The card is pretty amazing too! Behold!

Convinced yet? Go take a look at Postcrossing. Also, you can see pictures of a majority of the cards I have sent or received on my profile. :)

Building Blocks

Woot! My first "Work in Progress Wednesday" blog. (Not to be confused with Malt Liquor Monday blogging that results from too many WIPs!)  I have been trying my damndest to work on blocks because I actually checked Flickr at the correct time and made it into a quilting bee! So excited. I am in Hive 4 of NuBees.

I am trying to decide what block to make so I have been trying some out. Trying out new quilt blocks is difficult during home construction because I really don't have access to my iron/ironing board. Normally, that wouldn't be an issue until the end of the blocks but other people are going to see the backs of these hypothetical blocks, and that terrifies me.

So I cut out tons of bits and actually did some piecing, trying to make things look pretty. Then I just started getting frazzled with so many pieces for so many things. I could go no further on any of them because of the lack of iron. Then the contractor who is doing the floors called and said he can't start for at least another week.

Finally, in desperation, I dug out the iron and ironed on the carpet. Rationalization? Carpet is being replaced in the next week or two.

I have made little bits of progress on a few possibly sponge-worthy blocks:

First: One half of a chevron block I tried to copycat. Well, technically I made 4 rows but it was reallyyyy late at night so I didn't think to cut 2 on the opposite diagonal so it is like I have only 2. Unless I decide to make 2 of these blocks. Pretty, but grr.

There is also this fun little one that is done. I love that basil fabric. Not as much as I love lettuce fabric, though. But still, this block was pretty dang simple to throw together. Somehow, in its simplicity, the template I followed didn't work for me! Notice the grey line in the top right corner. Notice how it doesn't go all the way to the edge of the block. Notice my eye twitch. Ah, well, this can be fixed.

 I have also been working on trying to turn a Japanese X Block into a perfectly sized finished 12" block.  The original tutorial (http://badskirt.blogspot.com/2011/04/japanese-x-and-scrappy-quilt-tutorial.html) is for a 7.5" block and that does me no good for bees. Thanks to the insanity on the previous picture, I came up with this gem:

I know, I know... the fabric choice is HORRIBLE. I was just going for the correct sized scraps. Really, I don't care how it looks because I just wanted to see if it would come out at 12" so I could be happy. Well, it came in a little over, but trimming works wonders. The only issue would appear to be at the intersections where the grey triangles, tan squares, lettuce squares, and blue "hatchets" are meeting up. Oh well. I will tweak it. Might try using the same fabric for all 4 hatchets.

Lastly, a picture of two WIPs that are actually organized. The half square triangles are for another block I am toying with. Obviously the fabric bits in the second bag are incorrectly labeled. They are not actually parts for the cedar chest. That would be silly since everyone knows cedar chests are made out of, well, cedar. These bits are for the upholstered cover to my new cedar chest. The cover it has now is yucky and makes me sad. So... quilted cover! Makes sense since the chest will hold quilts! Couldn't find the right colors in upholstery weight fabric so I'm using regular weight and lots of fusible interfacing. If it degrades after a few years of use, I just have an excuse to try again!

So excited to see if posting my progress will motivate me. Thanks to http://freshlypieced.blogspot.com/ for giving me the idea to do a WIP blog entry!

First Post + Quilt

Well, here we are. I find myself confuzzled. I should have started this blog long ago, but have always resisted. Now I find myself wanting to branch out and improve my skills as a quilter and all-around crafter. The only way I see to do that? Constructive criticism. If you are reading this, please, be honest if you decide to comment on my work. I value your input.

On to the quilt at hand... This is a baby quilt for my friend Valerie, her husband, and their soon-to-be little baby girl. I had already made Val & David a wedding quilt ages ago. It was a simple 6" square patchwork. I find those quilts soothing in their elegance. You really have to work to get the fabrics to blend together seamlessly (and it is even more of a challenge to make it look like you just pieced them willy-nilly). Plus, I am sentimental about those types of quilts because that is how I first taught myself to quilt.

But I didn't make their wedding quilt in that style because I liked it; I made it like that because at the time, that was all I knew how to do. Amazing to think how much my quilting comfort zone has increased since then. However, I made their baby quilt with the same 6" square patchwork for two reasons.

1. It seemed like a cute idea since that was the same style as their wedding quilt. I am all for consistency and this, well, it seemed right. (What? You don't get feelings when you quilt??)
2. I was short on time. Not because the baby came too soon or the shower snuck up on me, no, nothing like that. There was water damage in my house and the furniture from the living room (aka my crafting space) has all been smooshed in other rooms for 4 weeks now. During that time, I was also out of the country for a week. (Bonaire is amazing, FYI). Between the constant construction, and not knowing where anything was, I couldn't quilt. So many projects have been put on hold indefinitely. Everything is so disorganized. Finally, I realized I had to make this quilt. 

Instead of being good and using fabrics from my stash, (I just made another baby girl quilt a few months ago so I have plenty of leftovers) out of desperation, I went out and bought all the fabric I would need. Then disaster struck... I COULDN'T EVEN FIND MY ROTARY CUTTER in the chaos!!! Dun dun duuuuuuun!! My mom was generous enough to buy me a new one that is a little different (so it doesn't feel like a total waste when I find my original) in order to prevent me from spending all day hunting through rooms full to the brim for one tiny thing.

So then came the time to sit down and make the quilt. Well, there is no furniture because it is all crammed in the wrong room and piled with stuff so I improvised. By improvised I mean put the sewing machine on a case of water bottles and learned to push the pedal with my knee. This hurts and I do not recommend trying it unless you absolutely have to. 

But I was able to finish the quilt, ahead of schedule, so who cares how much my back hated me? 

Oh! Oh! My favorite part of the quilt is the backing! The baby shower was book themed. Naturally, I used Dr. Seuss fabric for the backing! Yay! 

Here are pictures of the front and back. These were just taken with my nearly-worthless cell phone, so please excuse the quality. :)