By Amanda Jean. Don’t you just want to flop onto it, and stay there forever?

To be fair, I’ve been wanting one since Amanda Jean pointed to an earlier, pinker version, and while I love pink to death, seeing the vintage sheet pieces next to another color only makes me covet it more.

Like all things we really want, this one is ever-so-slightly out of my reach. I’ve been collecting vintage sheets to use as quilt backings for a little while, so using the leftovers in patchwork is certainly in my future. But waiting till I have the scraps? Torture. Waiting to amass a big enough stack? Not to mention a well-coordinated stack? Expensive torture.

This seems to be a real theme for me this week - lots of ideas, but not the fabric to execute them. I’ve been dreaming of putting together a Jacob’s Ladder in bright greens and yellows, but all my muslin’s earmarked, so I’m waiting on a shipment. I noticed a group of fabrics I absolutely MUST turn into the Summer Breeze Quilt from Last Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts, but not until I have some brown houndstooth to tie it all together.

(Thankfully, Helen’s got some, so it’s just a matter of picking that up. Still, waiting is waiting. Harumph.)

All this seems to suggest that I haven’t been working on much. Not so. But it’s so much more fun to write about what I’m dreaming about doing, as opposed to what I’m actually doing….

We’re trying to do for handbags what Purl did for Liberty prints stretched across embroidery hoops.

Some of these have sold already, so it’s been a pretty successful experiment!

This has been long overdue. After working 7 days a week for almost a month, I had today off. So here’s what I finished today:

- Blocks for the seeing stars quilt-along. I finished the first about a week ago, the second last night, and the third today, so I’m all caught up.

I almost tore block one apart and replaced the center triangles with red, so that each block would be two-toned. But I decided to wait, as I’m not sure that’s necessary. That’s the frustrating aspect of designing as I go - planning ahead isn’t really an option. Thankfully, Amanda Jean really knows what she’s doing, so this quilt-along doesn’t have many frustrating aspects at all.

I’m also proud to announce that I’m done with my cute skirt.

Man, this pattern was easy. I think the flat-felled seams took longer than everything else, put together. Not that the pattern mandated flat-felled seams. I just think they look awesome.

There was definitely a time, back when I was doing a lot of costumes for plays, when I was tempted to rush through garments in order to wear them as soon as possible. I’m happy to report that I’m over that - I mean, if I’m going to put the time into making myself something to wear, I might as well put the extra effort into making it really special. Hence the fancy seams and the bias tape around the hem, which were totally worth the effort. I can’t wait to make another version of this skirt.

And, finally, one of the perks of working in a craft room that is essentially an irredeemable trash pit is occasionally finding some near-finished gem and finishing it off then and there. I was looking for some sashing fabric for a few quilt blocks when I ran across this cheep cheep I had stitched on a square of cotton, like, three and half years ago.

Why the heck did I not finish it then? The hemming was such a minor task compared to cross-stitching a video game character, and plucking out the waste canvas. So I made short work of turning it into a handkerchief, which matches my new skirt.

I don’t want a summer cold, but at least now I’m prepared.

Oh, happy day! Lookie what’s happening here! A quilt along! AND THERE ARE STAR BLOCKS INVOLVED!

I’m so excited, I wanted to start yesterday, but I’m too busy getting ready for Maker Faire (yay!), and I still need to wait for the organic sheeting I plan to use as the background fabric to arrive from eQuilter. I ordered it Sunday, before the quilt along even officially started. Ditto for choosing some of my fabrics:

There are those who would say that the best part of making quilts from one’s scrap pile is using up all those scraps. And they are on to something.

But.

I am here to tell you that the best part of making quilts from MY scrap pile is working along, so completely absorbed in a project that I’m casting aside the leftover fabric without thinking about it. Measure, cut, sew repeat, until it’s time to clean off the dining room table, and voila: a pile of prints I never thought to mix, mixing themselves. I never would have come up with this otherwise.

I think I’m getting a hang of this craft thing….

I’m blogging from Angelfish & Co. today because I can. (I can has multitazk?) Guess what’s new in the shop today?

MY NEW LOG CABIN QUILT! TAKE THAT, MISTER LINCOLN!!!

Actually, I have no real reason to lord my piecing success over our 16th president. Unless it was my obsession with U.S. history that made me keep at this block for so long, and I cant be sure that it wasn’t.

Notice that Hatbox would not even tread upon the top. She was just that impressed!

I backed it with chenille, because I just want it to be hugged for its entire lifetime. Sorry to be so sappy. I got these pins from the amazing Rox via the pin cushion swap. It’s all made with love and stuff.

Seriously, did I mention that I made a log cabin quilt?

1. sampler blocks, 2. star of bethlehem, 3. log cabin, pink, 4. housedress

Two summers ago, I made some super cute, SUPER pastel quilt blocks in between participating in various swaps and things. I was really ramped up to make a queen-sized sampler, until I did some math, and realized I’d need like, 49 blocks to make that happen.

49 different blocks is not an insurmountable number. But it was enough to intimidate me for 20 months.

My block from yesterday wasn’t exactly what I wanted for the project I’d had in mind, but once I realized it fit in with my summer of ‘06 group, I though, “why not?”

If I make a block every month from now to 49, it’s going to take me like, 5 years to do the top. Oh, well. I guess I can live with that.

I do have a couple of old projects I can integrate into a few blocks, such as the housedress above. That’s left over from a small quilt I’ve been working on since college, and I really like the log cabin-style borders I added. Even though the block still fits with my super soft palette, it seems to be taking the quilt in a new direction. Its no longer so… safe? And it inspired a narrow log cabin border in a Star of Bethlehem block, which I need to rename. Because it features bras and panties.

I don’t know how excited I’ll stay about this one in the short term, but I’m optimistic enough to have made a new tag for the “sweet sampler quilt.”

Hello, A Roll. I think I am on you!

Hi.

Remember when I was done with log cabins?

I lied.

Well, I didn’t exactly lie. I was pretty sincerely fed up with the whole concept, and completely at peace with my decision. But I’ve just had one of those weekends in which I couldn’t wait to start a new quilting project. Only I didn’t know what kind of project, except that I wanted it to be Extremely Spectacular and Nothing Like Anybody Has Ever Done Before.

You can imagine the difficulty I had finding inspiration photos.

So I was reduced to looking, once again, at pictures of log cabin quilts, trying to understand their hypnotic influence on me, when I found this.

And I thought, “Well, I could try a spiral. That seems safe.”

And it was. Relatively.

The main design problem I’ve been having is that trying to develop a continuous-looking line doesn’t allow for any big jumps in value. I had to eschew a lot of great prints because they were too bright, and that’s never fun. Of course, had I simply used a white background, I probably could have gone completely nuts. Or not. There are no quiet little pastels in Rosa Pomar’s quilt, after all.

So my creation, once again, seems destined for cushion-ville, but that’s okay. I think if I tighten up the palette - not everything needs to be a scrap quilt, I guess - I can actually make this work for 16 blocks!

What do you do when the deadline for the Flirty Apron Swap is just around the corner, and you can’t seem to find any of your apron patterns, or even a suitable fabric for starting from scratch?

Well, YOU are probably too responsible to get yourself into such a situation, but I am organizationally challenged in more ways than one. So last night, I googled frantically for a cute apron idea, and found this. Today, I made the rounds of home stores downtown until I found a cute tea towel:

To make an aprony shape, I followed the guidelines of the Ben Franklin tutorial, but balked at hemming.

I don’t know why. It’s not hard. I guess I’m not having an “I like hemming” day. Thankfully, I pretty much never clean my workspace, so I had a big pile of pre-made bias tape getting in my way the entire time I was trimming the towel. Ta-da!

I decided to leave about a 30-inch section for the neck, because who wants to squeeze her head into an apron? I ironed the bias tape to get any kinks out, and folded it in half, marking the center of the tape with a pin.

Then, I pinned the tape 15 inches on either side of the center. It’s easy to do with a cutting mat:

The pins indicated where to start pinning the tape around the raw edges of the towel. A bit of masking tape was invaluable at this stage:

And then I sewed away! Only very slowly, because bias tape can be a real mess when I go too quickly! I reinforced the edges where the bias forms the ties, because there will be quite a bit of stress on that area. Sorry for the blurry pic; all it shows is a straight stitch worked about four times back and forth:

I may have a hard time giving this one up. Good thing I was underconfident in my ability not to screw this up, and bought an extra towel!

So what you’re saying is that by harmonizing all these different elements,
you’re creating kind of continuity in the piece?

– How to Make an American Quilt

Who remembers my recent log cabin post?

In which I made a log cabin block, and, in a fit of ambition, joined a log cabin challenge and swore I’d have a log cabin quilt, made up only of scraps, at the end of the year?

Well, I tried. I really did. I made the February block. And I didn’t like it.

So I made another February block. Once again, I did not like it.

I don’t know if I’m just short on the number of scraps required to make a log cabin block actually look like something other than a hot mess, or if I just don’t have an eye for the log cabin. But, I am, as they say, so over it.

Hambone asked me what I thought I was doing wrong. I told him that everything would look fine during assembly, but once I had two or three blocks, the whole thing would look messy and disjointed.

“I think all log cabin quilts look that way,” said Hambone.

“You do? Well then, to hell with log cabins!”

I value Hambone’s opinion in that, when I ask his advice on a quilt, he tends to point out something I haven’t thought of, and that leads me to make good decisions. Never mind that I usually do the opposite of what he suggests - it’s the discussion that matters, right?

So he was pretty shocked that I swore off log cabins then and there.

“You’re going to stop making a quilt because I don’t like log cabins?”

“No,” I said. “I’m going to stop because I don’t like the quilt. I’m not going to start again because there’s no point in making a quilt you’re not going to like. I can just make something else.”

By the way, I quite like what Jenna is working on at the moment. But I wouldn’t choose to make that myself, which is a pretty good indication of why the log cabin-along was a bad idea from the start. Every now and again, we quilters have to admit to ourselves that there is not time in a lifespan to make everything we might want to. It’s not a fun realization, but it is part of what makes a handmade item beautiful and special.

The original, cute block, by the way, was easy enough to make into a pillow, and is now on sale at Angelfish & Co. I may be a quitter, but I’m a resourceful quitter!

Why is Hatbox looking all, “OMGWTFBBQ?”

Could it be that The Total Love Quilt - yes, I started it so long ago, that the reference to Parappa the Rapper was still vaguely current - could have a cousin?

A CANINE cousin???

It’s FDR’s dog, you guys!!!

I may swoon. I may swoon until these are no longer on backorder!