More Slow Stitching

Slowly but surely I'm filling up this panel with stitches for the 25,000,000 Stitches exhibit. It's taking a while, but I'm very slow at hand-stitching. Let's call it Unintentional Slow Stitching.

I've been listening to an audiobook version of the new Stephen King book, The Institute which is very entertaining. And it's on CD's! So old-school that I had to dig out my boom box to be able to listen to it.

2020 Finish a Long Quarter One List

 The Finish a Long is now completely Instagram based, but I'm posting my list for quarter one here also, mostly for myself. I kept all the unfinished projects from last year, because they're out in my workspace and I want/need to get them done.

1. City Sampler - All 100 blocks are done, I have the background fabric ready to go. What's been stopping me is that they all need to be squared up. I just have to get in the mood to cut and maybe re-do some of them. 

2. Living Room cushions- the fabric is collected, the zippers and threads and pillow forms are all there.

 3. Color Box - This ones fairly big and needs to be squared up, the binding is made and needs to be sewn on. Then a hanging sleeve and label.

4. May You Ever Return -  The top is half sewn, half pinned, then quilting, binding or facing, sleeve and label.

 5. Stripes -  I have a plan, the "blocks" are mostly done and I have a plan for the setting. It's small enough for me to quilt and then binding, sleeve and label.

6. Celestial Round Robin - the top and the back are ready, the batting is pieced, it needs to be basted. I'm planning to quilt this one myself since it's small enough for me to manage. Then a binding and a label.

 7. Kaffe Blue Squares - The top and backing are done, the binding is almost ready. I just have to get it to a long-armer and then get the binding sewn down and a label added.

8. Griffith Park Skirt - needs to be hemmed and the waistband needs to be done. Just in time for spring a swirly purple skirt.

Getting the Words Down on the Surface

I really wanted to make a quilt to enter in the Century of Women's Progress exhibit, but I couldn't decide on one woman to focus on, so I went wide with the subject...very very wide.

I started out by making a rough sketch on my iPad in SketchesPro.

And since I had my new toy out and all ready to go I decided to try and use it to get words on the quilt surface that I wanted. I loaded up the Cricut with a sheet of Lutradur. 

I used Lutradur instead of fusible backed fabric because I was initially thinking of painting the letters.

 The Lutradur cut very well on the machine and mostly came off the mat easily. There was one font that I chose that made some of the letter sections too small and the Lutradur separated into layers.

Here's all the words before I peeled them off. How do you like all those fonts? The Cricut software has quite a lot to choose from which was a nice thing to discover.

My quilt subject is all about the roles that women can have and how they've changed since we got the vote in this country. 

I used Fabri-Tac glue to stick the letters to tulle netting which worked really well.

 I really loved the shadow in this picture so I enhanced it to post on Instagram. And isn't this font killer?

Here's how one of the words looks on the finished quilt. Once I find out whether the quilt is accepted I'll post more about it (sometime next week).

A New Tool

Hey, so now I have a Cricut Maker, it was a total surprise gift from my DH this Christmas. I know I know you're supposed to say "cricket" but I have a thing about purposely misspelled words so I say "Cry-Cut".  The thing came with a ton of accessories and tools and materials which have been so fun to play with.

 The first project they have you use to figure out the machine and software is this cute card. I guess I didn't take a picture of it with the kite shape replaced with a fabric piece. It's all cut and drawn on the machine. Super easy to use, and I like how well the software works with my iPad.

Here's what the leftovers look like on the sort of sticky mat you use with the machine. It anchors the materials down so that the precise cutting can happen. I have to use a little spatula thingie to scrape them off. It's a whole new thing. I need more paper now....I wonder if that fabric paper I made would work, hmmm.
I've cut some fabric with the teeny tiny rotary cutter already and it works very very well, more on that later.

Wandering Wednesday: Santa Clara

 Last weekend we got to go see one of my nieces competing in a gymnastics tournament. It was held at the Santa Clara Convention Center and I was marveling at how different the room looks filled with young gymnasts and equipment instead of quilts and quilters.

 The light in the parking garage was really striking.

 Maybe these would work for my shadow series.

 I think I like this one best because of the strip of light at the bottom.

 Or maybe this one.

 There are a lot of palm trees in Santa Clara for some reason, not sure why, the really tall ones look like phone polls to me. But the bark of the trees is always so striking. This would make an awesome texture stamp...makes note in file of ideas.

The blossom way up there is pretty though, but it's a second story kind of thing.

Wide Back

I haven't used 108" wide backing fabric before, but I'm going to give it a go on the next two big quilts that I make. The main reason for using this is for convenience and speed, piecing the back for a large quilt takes me quite a long time. I suppose that it'll also make it a bit smoother on the back of the quilt, because it won't have all those seam lines from piecing the back?

MassDrop switched away from carrying quilting stuff and they had these for a good price in their warehouse. I bought two and one of them is a much lighter grey than the other. The fabric feels like its good quality. Studio E has a whole line of 108"wide fabric.

The Simplest Runner

 I forgot to post about this last month. I made the world's simplest table runner by hemming up this holiday striped toweling. I guessed at how much I needed in the store, so I ended up with a napkin-sized piece.

Our tabletop conglomeration of holiday cuties. Yes, they are still out. Our tree got put up a little late this year, and it has to stay up at least one month, those are the rules.

Finish-a-Long 2019

Thanks to Finish-a-long, I finished eleven projects in 2019, eleven, wow!
I might not have gotten a lot of these done if I hadn't:

• thought about them enough to put them on a list 
• made that list public
• printed out the list for myself (gotta have something to check off of course!) 
• committed to working on the projects on the list.

So it worked pretty well for me, and if they're doing it again in 2020, I'll definitely participate.

Quarter 1
Listening to the Details (sold!)

Quarter 2
False Flag Sorbet

Triangle Study

Quarter 3
Weekend Whatever #19

Technology's Spine

Our Sister's Huts

Shenzhen Skies

Slurpee Stitched

Color Collusion

Quarter 4
Body Double

Between Two Cypress

Mega Pinnie

Check this wonderful thing out, it's a Mega Pinnie that friend Jaye made for me for Christmas. It has a Mini Pinnie attached via that awesome giant purple button. The handle on the top is so great for moving it around your workspace or from room to room. 

It's kind of like having a bucket of your most necessary tools, but you don't have to dig around in the bucket to find certain things. Oh and it's a giant pincushion too. The triangular zipper bag that's clipped on holds a big pair of scissors.

The fabulous purple fabrics that she used are so perfect for me. Thanks, Jaye!

Finished: Between Two Cypress

One more finish from 2019, off of my fourth quarter finish-a-long list, "Between Two Cypress".

 This one has a lot of intense free-motion quilting.

Lots of leaves/flame shapes in the quilting.