No more thread basting!

Best decision ever.  Well, best quilting-related decision ever.  Basting is sucky, and thread basting is so sucky that it overwhelms the desire to finish the quilt and leaves me procrastinating and grumpy.  I switched to safety pin basting, and it's working just fine. 

I realized how happy this decision has made me when I sat down to baste the next quilt, which is made from a Moda Bliss charm square stack, some white fabric, and a wee bit o'yardage from a print in that line.  This quilt has been just as fast as the squares one before it.  I think after the battle of attrition that OMG Pink Quilt was, I've needed to feel like I was making fast progress, and simple charm square quilts are fitting that bill nicely. 

This entire thing was pieced yesterday, and half of the quilting is done - I loved the grid quilting so much on the first charm square quilt that I'm doing it again.  The back is a flannel, also from this line, which I think will prove quite snuggly. 

Due to my astonishing ability to fail to plan ahead, I have nothing to bind this with.  Nothing suitable, anyway.  I've got some purple, some jade, and some dark gray.  Meh. 

And another...

It's done! And I must say that I'm really happy with how it turned out.

I decided to go a little out of my comfort zone and quilt this one with a variety of colors. I'm generally bad at visualizing things, so I wasn't sure how this would turn out, but it's a relatively small quilt (32"x32"-ish) and I figured if it didn't turn out well, I could always give it to the dogs. The spoiled, spoiled dogs.

Funny story about the thread... I didn't have all the colors in the "Dual Duty" basic cotton/poly Coats stuff, but I didn't make the decision to quilt in colors instead of white until the end of the weekend.  Other goes past a JoAnn Fabrics on his way to work on Mondays (and only Mondays), so I asked him to pick up the same kind of thread in yellow and orange.  I wrote a note and sent him with the spool of red thread to identify which kind I wanted. 

He brought home absolutely gorgeous thread, shiny and just the right shades, and it was Sulky rayon embroidery stuff, a zillion yards of it and quite a lot more expensive than the basic stuff I wanted.  I opened the bag and said "Oooh! Oh."  When I told him it wasn't the right kind, he said that the lady at the fabric store had helped him pick it out.

Grr, lady at the fabric store.  I suspect that what happened was that he went and stood in front of the Sulky display and she came along and he mentioned needing yellow and orange thread (he swears he showed her the spool I'd sent) and then they spent forever picking out the right shades.  But this means that the fabric store lady believed that my husband needed help identifying the colors yellow and orange.  Now, occasionally my husband tells people he's colorblind just for fun (he's not colorblind), but he insists that he didn't this time, so I was kind of miffed that the lady sold him this expensive not-appropriate-for-quilting thread.  Also, ironically, the only yellow and orange thread I did already have is tiny little spools of Sulky rayon. 

Then, later that evening I went back in, and one JoAnn worker said to another that "the husband" got the wrong kind of thread, and I very politely didn't inform them that actually, they "helped" him figure out what yellow and orange are, while completely disregarding which brand and kind of thread I'd asked for.

Wow, thread story was long.  ANYWAY, it turns out that Coats now makes a slightly different composition cotton/poly thread and it was kind of hard for me to find even knowing what I was looking for, so I probably would've had to go myself anyway. ETA: And I should make clear that I'm more amused than angry over this.  Really, going to the fabric store myself isn't exactly a hardship. 

Great story, Hansel.  Moving on:

I really love it.  I freehanded the straight-line quilting, which means that it's a bit wobbly and imperfect, although the puckering camouflages that a bit.  Using colored thread on a white background really makes the quilting visible, as I probably should have realized. 

For the back I went with Ash, a solid from Connecting Threads (that I ordered accidentally instead of the Gray that I need to finish Cartoon Pinball II and am therefore free to use in other ways) and scrapped the idea of a pieced backing because the other solids I had just weren't working together.  I adore how the back looks with the gridded quilting and the puckering. 

This was taken before the finished quilt was washed, and you really can see the difference. The binding is a darker gray from Kona. 

This one's going to be hard to part with, but it's going up in the shop.  If it sells, I'll use some of what it sells for to get another charm pack of bold fabrics and make another one.

Process and shiny new things

First, a note about the OMG Pink Quilt of Much Pinkness.

I had just been reading in one of my big quilting encyclopedias about different types of face plates (the metal part that the needle goes down through), and you can buy a special one with a very small hole for working on finer fabrics to keep them from getting shoved down the hole and caught in all manner of moving parts down there.  

I do not have any such special face plate, but it would have been ideal for trying to stitch through that stupid white mystery fabric.  But, taking the idea that not letting the fabric get pushed through the hole in the faceplate was key to working with this stuff, I ended up just pinning at the very very edge of the pieces and starting the tiniest titch after the pin.  I don't like putting pins under the presser foot, but I used one of the ones that was already slightly bent and was just really careful to not let the machine needle hit it on those first couple of stitches. 

I also planned to say something about getting the lace edge on that quilt, and in a word or two, it sucked.  Probably mostly because that was the first time I had ever tried that technique and didn't have the edges cut down exactly to the point where I needed them.  For envelope construction, it is very very very important to cut the edges down to size with all the pieces in place the way you're going to sew them.  I cut and then rearranged and things got bad. 

Also, I think that if I do the lace thing again, I'll go ahead and pin the lace to either the front or the back, then pin all four layers (two fabric, one batting, one lace) together.  That will be a lot of pins, but it should also save the pain of discovering that there are points at which the top layer of fabric didn't catch in the seam.  Many points.  Aaaargh. 

MOVING ON! 

After two near-painless sessions, this top is done. 

This is a charm pack of bolds from Connecting Threads, plus three prints.  Two dots and one dandelions. 

And here is a picture of the final layout audition, in black and white for insight into how the values were lining up. 

I did my usual OCD washing of the charm squares before using them.  I cut them down to 4.5x4.5 because some of them shrank a bit and also: OCD.  I plan to straight-line quilt, probably in a billion different colors because that sounds like fun. 

A pieced back might happen - I left two squares out of the front, for numbers and also because they were very similar to shades already included.  But in order for my plan to work, I need to find several more solids, and aside from gray, dark gray, and yardage in shades quite similar to the two I already have, there's not much to go with in my stash.  I'm itching to get this basted and on to quilting, so maybe a pieced back won't happen. 

FINALLY

Pink quilt is finally done.  With just a wee touch of stitch-in-the-ditch quilting around each of the five squares and between the two borders. 

I did go with plain white instead of orange peels, and I like how it turned out that way.  I sometimes shoot past "interesting" into "busy," and this is an excellent example of laziness (do I want to applique 32 orange peels onto impossible to needle fabric? no.) saving the design from business. 

My favorite thing about this quilt is the folded flowers.  They're cute and they made it through the quilt's first wash just fine. 

It was finished using envelope construction, rather than traditional binding, with a lace edge. The back is a nice pink and red stripe.  Note to self: if there's any chance of straight-line quilting, don't use a print with straight lines. 

Soon I'll post about the many problems I had getting this thing done, including getting the lace edge right, cutting squares with the intent of cutting them down and then forgetting to cut them down and then ripping everything apart, cutting them down and sewing everything together again, and dealing with the white, which really, really did not want to be sewn through.  I now have suspicions that it's part polyester and might do a burn test if I can get up the curiosity. 

This one's going up in the shop, probably Monday. 

Pink Quilt of Pinkness

After a day and a half of working on design ideas, it's started:

This will be my first shot at folded flowers, which I'm using Fantastic Fabric Folding for.  You don't open up the flowers until later in the process, so I'm looking forward to that.  I'm probably going to applique the whole petal down, because I'm worried about the fabric raveling. 

This project has had its challenges so far, including math, design questions without obvious answers, and difficulty needling the mystery white (which I actually think might be muslin) that I found in my stash. 

Here's a peek into my design process, which involves graph paper, poor drawing/coloring, and occasional swearing.  I've been searching for something to do with the mostly-white squares that in this drawing contain orange peels.  I don't think I want to do the orange peels, but was feeling like plain white might be too stark.  I want those squares to be mostly white so that the overall design mimics the puss-in-the-corner squares in the center.  For a while I was thinking that I could do white-on-white folded flowers for those squares, but I don't think I've got enough mystery white to do that, so maybe I'll just go with plain white.  That would certainly speed up the process. 

Number 9

It's done! 

 And it looks much better after being quilted, for some reason.  Maybe the extra texture softens the weirdness of the colors or something. 

 That's my favorite block -- I like how that shade of green looks with the dark, almost-blue purple. 

And the back, a blue plaid that doesn't match the front.  I think my stippling is getting better and better - less herky-jerk starts and stops, more even stitch lengths. 

I used Quilter's Dream batting for this one, rather than the Warm & Natural I'd been using.  It's very nice, and a bit less opaque than W&N is.  Judging from having it on my lap to blind stitch the binding, it seems like it's going to be nice and warm, too. 

Next up will be a patchwork explosion of pink for the shop.  My stash has an abundance of pink fabrics and I'm not really sure why, and I'm not usually one to give baby girls extremely girly gifts.  I'm familiar with girliness, though, and can do it when I need to.  This quilt is going to be maximum girly. 

spare a square

So this mess:

Has become this much neater mess:

over the course of today.  And because it's only 8-ish, I think I can get it basted and ready to quilt before being forced to turn in. 

Exhausted from having to piece a millionty squares, and back at the drawing board because my original plan yielded a quilt that was a few inches too big for the intended backing, I almost scrapped the center motif.  I'm really glad I didn't, because it's pretty much the only thing giving any sort of visual order to this quilt. 

On my last couple designs, I've struggled with the issues of light vs. medium vs. dark fabrics, and the problem is in clear evidence here.  I think that for what I'm going for to be successful, I need a variety of fabrics in narrower values ranges.  This quilt is based on the idea of a 10-patch square, two four patches and two larger squares, with two or three of those smaller squares being a different color and popping out from a monochrome-ish background. 

My monochrome-ish background didn't happen, because the values are all over the place.  

There are three yellow patches, which you can probably pick out, but which are pretty close to that pondscummy green and which therefore blend a little more than I'd like.  And I don't even like that pondscummy green, aargh.  I just didn't have enough different prints in the blue-green. 

"Modern" quilting seems to involve working with many different prints from a single line, which all or nearly all involve multiple colors in one fabric.  Rather stark patterns with clear geometric figures and plenty of white set off this nicely-coordinated group of fabrics.  I don't want to go totally for solids, because I like little prints, but what I've been doing so far with my stash hasn't really been working. 

I'm definitely going to finish and keep this one, because it has many fabrics that I love and is just the right size, but moving forward is going to require some re-thinking. 

Victory of the Week

This week tried really, really hard to prevent me from finishing the purple whirlygig quilt, but I finally prevailed:

and it's now up in the shop.  On to other things, none of which, speaking of them, have moved forward at all.  This week was evil.  I think it was the supermoon. 

I've been dreaming of summer, when the house might actually be warm, and a time that will call for a light little quilt (well, okay, a light freaking gigantic quilt) on the bed, rather than the down comforter.  This is entirely an abstraction; two mornings this week we've awoken to thin but fresh layers of snow, and yesterday morning it was twelve degrees on my porch. 

So yes, I've been thinking about that quilt, and maybe basting it will finally happen this weekend.  The back is still in 26 pieces, and the two really big pieces of backing haven't exactly been ironed yet. 

That was a whole thing.  I've never been on well water before now, but after several months of my iron acting very weird and inconveniently spitting out this dirt-ish, gunky stuff, it dawned on me that hey, that is actually dirt.  Dirt that had been separated from the water that carried it when that water turned to steam inside my iron, then seeped out and got intensely heated over and over again, forming an angry cake of burned dirt on my iron. 

This did not dawn on me until a couple of months after trying several internet iron-cleaning suggestions involving salt and baking soda and elbow grease that barely touched the problem but did leave a helpful coating of steamed baking soda that caked out of the iron's little steam holes every now and then. 

Also, there's been a piece of plastic (or something) rattling around the inside of my iron ever since it fell off my table about 5 years ago.  Just so you have the full iron picture here. 

So anyway, I get wise and figure out that pouring dirt water into my iron is a Bad Idea and that perhaps buying some kind of Official Iron Cleaner is a Good Idea.  I got this Dritz stuff that you use while the iron is hot and it totally worked and also smells good in a way that makes you suspect that it's just mowing down your brain cells left and right, like gasoline or curing vinyl.  I also committed to just getting gallons of store brand spring water to use in the iron, and the iron has been happy and non-dirt-spitty ever since. 

Hope I just solved all of your well water + misbehaving iron problems.  Or maybe you're smart and are just wondering how I've managed to finish a presentable quilt at all. 

New on the Design Wall

I have been cutting and cutting and cutting.

I finally finished the cutting this afternoon, and now it's time to start the piecing. On the values quilts, the piecing took seven forevers and the quilting took seven minutes, so I'm hoping that in this case, the piecing and quilting won't take as long as the cutting has.

The top part of that picture, with the colorful mess, is for the back of the gorilla. The bottom part is going to become a purple and green top.  It turns out I have a lot of green fabric.  Not so much with the purple, but enough to eke out enough bits to make this top sufficiently patchy.  I hope.  There's always this part of the design process where I realize with a crash how different things look when in fabric than in colored pencil on graph paper. 

For this quilt, a duplicate will not go into the shop, so I've abandoned any attempt for commercial appeal.  The back of the quilt will be that medium blue plaid that matches positively nothing on the front.  Because I like it. 

I've been reading all about curved edges from a blogger that I can't quite remember off the top of my head, so I'm thinking that this one will have curved edges.  Why not, right? 

I do like sashing.

After a trip to JoAnn's,there is now Kona cotton in Imperial Purple outlining all the blocks, and the top is done. 

Now to smush with the batting and backing, for which I chose a nice purple with butterflies and flowers.  It came out to be about 40"-ish by 50"-ish, but I don't plan to pre-shrink the batting this time, so it will probably lose some length in its first wash.  I haven't been able to go to Art Day for a long time, but am making the trip back next weekend, and my goal was to have this to take with me and quilt.  Looks like I might be into another top by the time I get to quilt this.  That's good, because it will give me time to figure out what the best quilting pattern might be.  Right now I'm at a loss. 

You are what you are and you ain't what you ain't

Greetings!  It's Saturday, which means quilting is happening again. 

Sometimes I marvel at how quickly something can go from a sketch on the page to pieces on the design wall:

In this case that may not have been such a great thing, because about five whirlygigs into this quilt, I thought of a modification that might add some interest to this rather basic top.  Oh well, another quilt for another day. 

When I was quilting several years ago, I built up quite a nice, pretty diverse stash.  It's rather short on light brown fabric (although I think in general the world is pretty short on light brown fabric) as well as pieces big enough to serve as backings.  So deep into the planning of this quilt, I realize I don't have anything for the back that would match or coordinate or look decent.  And most of the pieces of fabric that are represented here are getting pretty small.  Maybe there isn't even something suitable for the binding, although there's a weird not-purple-not-blue polka dot that there might be enough of for that.  A quick stop at the fabric store yesterday yielded a fat quarter of one of the purples you see here, as well as a good chunk of plain white fabric, but if I used that for the back I'd be right back in the same place of not having any for the quilt tops that I need white for. Also, plain white backs are boring.  

The values quilts (one of which is now in the shop) were all from stash, every fabric and thread of them.  Using a fugly dark green jungle (?) batik for the back of the one I'm keeping allowed me to use only stash, and because I intend it to be a wallhanging, that worked out well. 

So I'm thinking maybe this quilt needs some dark purple sashing and an interesting print for the back.  I also seem to have exhausted my stash's supply of unique purple prints for whirlygigs, so either I need more of those or the plan for this (square) top needs to be scuttled or significantly modified.  Not sure yet what I'm going to do, but a trip to the store seems to be in order. 

Snow Day II

Oh wow.  Most of our snow had melted and the driveway was ice and puddles yesterday morning.  Then rain turned to snow, about 26 hours ago, and it's still snowing.  Really really hard. 

Which means no work for me, no leaving the house, even, which means lots and lots of quilting.  I finished the values quilts, both of them, and mine is ready to hang.  Or, because I neglected to sew on hanging sleeves, tack to the wall.  I love sewing the binding down by hand, but hate sewing on hanging sleeves.  Not super logical, but that's how it is. 

They're in the wash now, probably being ripped to shreds and bleached beyond recognition.  (Why do I think the washer is out to destroy my stuff?  Hard to say, but the belief hasn't faded after one successful washing.  Maybe two will do it.) 

Knitting is also happening!  This is my Multnomah shawl:

in BMFA silkie, ST-1 colorway.  Love that garter stitch. 

Not sure what to do now.  My gorilla quilt could use some work - I've got a bunch of pieces cut for the backing, so maybe putting that all together is up next.  I've got a couple more quilt designs in my head and ready to go, except I need more white fabric.  Will probably make Connecting Threads my go-to for solid white.  I used that for Cartoon Pinball, and it's surprisingly soft and not as sheer as the Kona muslin I used for the gorilla.  But unless they can beam it here, there's not much to get done on new tops today. 

I'll do my best to get the values quilt up in the shop today, assuming it survives its bath.  

Proof

I've finished binding Cartoon Pinball I, and it's in the dryer now.

I took these pictures before throwing it in the washer to prove that it really did exist, and really was finished, just in case it got destroyed or shrank to the size of a coaster or slipped into a wormhole in the universe through a portal in our washing machine. 

It will go up in the shop just as soon as it's dry and I have some shopworthy pictures of it.

careful with the merch!

So I'm plugging away at the values quilts.  I jumped into this project with both feet before realizing that just about every damn intersection in this thing is going to require precision piecing. 

Precision piecing is not my enemy, not at all, but after working for many hours on point after point, I'm ready for a relaxing break dismantling bombs or training porcupines to synchronize swim. 

Or it might be time for a quilt on the theme of wonky rectangles. 

Although they're not all perfect, several have come out as well as I could imagine triangle points in fabric coming out, such as this one:

and that keeps me going. 

It hit me in the middle of this huge pile of point matching that I have no idea how I'm going to quilt these suckers. 

Bah, niggling thoughts for another day. 

Post 200, and a WIP

Howdylee hey, neighborinos!  I've been very, very busy with very, very pressing things.  At the top of the list is procrastinating on binding (really even just finishing the binding of) Cartoon Pinball.  Half the binding is on!  What is wrong with me?  

That procrastination has provided a lot of other things, though, namely:

Whoa!  What's this?  It's a values quilt in blues and greens.  Though my conscious mind is surprised that I've done all this work on a new quilt (or two), the evil homunculus who apparently runs my brain knew this was coming. 

And say, what is that lovely-looking design wall behind it?  Why, it's a huge chunk of batting in the bedroom, which I spontaneously rearranged and annexed for quilting.

Today was a surprise, late-in-the-game but seriously-go-home-now snow day.  I got home around 2, after *not* spending any time lodged in snow banks (yay!) and have been working on this sucker all day.  When I looked up and saw that it was 9:24, I was shocked and simultaneously realized why I'm so hungry. 

Which of course means that instead of eating dinner I should write a blog post. 

Happy weekend!  I plan to crush my to-do list, and I hope you have just as much luck with yours. 

DittenCraft on Etsy

Hey!  So, I opened a shop.  In it, currently, are pincushions:

Of which this is one.  There's a patchwork one that's green and a stripey one that is stripey.  Elegant-stripey, not like crazy-stripey. 

Some handknit socks will go up later today.  And then, maybe next weekend, there will be quilts.  Also, hand tie-dyed baby clothes! 

It's dittencraft.etsy.com.  Check it out!   Let me know if I've spelled anything wrong!

Blocking Shawl and Domain Name Change

First off, here is Icarus!

It is whompin,' even missing the last repeat of the first chart. I'm not sure how to wear a shawl this big, but will definitely figure it out this week. The temperatures have plunged again, and there's now an impressive wind to boot. I'll take nice pictures tomorrow.

Second, I'm moving the blog again (again!) but this time the description should be all-encompassing and won't need to change when I take up tatting or glassblowing or whatever other crazy thing I become obsessed with. After I post this, I will move over to dittencraft.blogspot.com. Please follow me over there for continued chicanery.

And a set.

It's amazing what actually working on stuff will do.

The socks are coming along nicely. So far, I'm really happy with how the pattern's breaking up the pooling.

A prototype

So today the pattern is actually: spend an hour actually doing something, then spend 30 minutes on Etsy killing my confidence that I'll ever sell anything. Good times!




Coasters?! We don't need no stinkin' coasters!

Time to be productive again.

SNOW DAY!!!!!!!

I got up to check conditions, and we've only gotten about 5 inches so far, but it's coming down and there's barely anyone on the road, which means it's probably not getting cleared by all the traffic like it normally would. So I e-mailed work and said, and I quote, "Oh hell no!"* and now I have 10 found hours.

Snow day! Woo! I'm going to liveblog it! No, I'm probably not going to liveblog it. Maybe if it's spectacularly productive. Otherwise it will look a lot like this:

7:20: Ate some Cheerios.

8:03: 4 more rounds done on sock.

10:31: Napped.

10:49: Daytime TV sucks.

et cetera.

This is a great chance to finish Cartoon Pinball, but that's going to take some serious willpower. I might be bad and start something new.


Finally, here's a picture of what should be mountains:



But you can't see the mountains because the snow day is in the way.

I hope that you have a snow day too! Be careful out there!

*this is not a quote