My First Finish of the Year

I finished binding my Gracie Girl quilt over the past week.  It is my first finish of the year.  The print fabrics used are all Gracie Girl by Lori & Kassidy Holt.  The pattern is called Sunburst and was a freebie that came with the kit I bought from Fat Quarter Shop four or five years ago.  I used the Unwind pantograph in a custom size to quilt it.  It is a small lap size at 51" x 60".


My kids finished their stuffed animals.  My daughter made her seal pretty much on her own.  My son's flounder was a joint effort.  They both seem happy with their makes.
It's been a kind of rough week.  The only thing I feel like sharing about it is that one of our cars is acting up.  It's 11 years old, so the cost of the repair will determine whether we fix it or trade it in for something new (along with a car payment).  The car has had a good life, and other than the three deer strikes last winter and basic maintenance it's been essentially trouble free. 

I'm also not enjoying the cold snap/Polar Vortex.  I'm cold all the time and don't feel like doing anything except huddling under some quilts.  And whenever it's this cold, the furnace runs all the time and I just get a mental image of the electric meter numbers spinning so fast you can't see them. About the only real productive thing I've done is work on the final layout of my borders presentation papers for my next guild meeting. I guess I can sum it by saying that I dislike January and I'm glad it's almost February. 

My husband got the carpet installed in the sewing room closet.  A coworker of his gave us their leftover carpet pad and let us borrow his carpet stretcher.  The carpet itself is a remnant left from our upstairs.  He says I should be able to move stuff into the closet as soon as he has the threshold done and the door put back on.  
Here's the to-do list again:
  • wire the outlets
  • install one more light
  • install a drop ceiling in the big closet
  • install carpet in the big closet
  • install knobs and pulls on the desk and cabinets
  • clean all the cabinets and install the shelves inside them
  • finish the countertop
  • install shoe moulding along the cabinets
  • install a smoke alarm and wi-fi booster thing
  • put on the doors for both closets
  • install doorknobs
  • get some glass cut for one set of cabinet doors
  • finish up the crown molding
  • finish making the top for my cutting table
  • break down, move, and reassemble the long arm
  • move all my stuff in

No Finishes Yet

Well, it's been a week.  I haven't finished anything yet, but I've started a few things.  Story of my life!  Ha ha!

I quilted my Gracie Girl quilt last week and am slowly (very slowly) binding it.  The binding is a dark navy and I have trouble seeing my stitches in dark colors, so I've been working under my magnifying lamp.  Hopefully it will be finished by next week!  I'm just short of 3/4 done now.

I started making four mug rugs.  The pattern is called Millennium Falcon Cockpit Mug Rug by Isabella's Whimsy on Etsy.
I did order some fabric for a new quilt top.  I already have the backing, so I just ordered a solid that matched.  I'm waiting for that to arrive.  I also ordered a mystery mini quilt kit.  I know what the fabric looks like, but not what the pattern will be.  I may or may not make the project.  I think I'll need to finish a few things before I start these new things though. 😁

My kids somehow found some free patterns for making your own beanie stuffed animals and insisted they must make some.  We started on my son's yellow flounder last night.  My daughter is making a seal with her leopard(?) fabric.  I had to go digging through my stash to find some polyester pellets so we didn't get very far last night.  We'll probably work toward finishing those tonight and hopefully be completely done by the weekend.
I finally finished ripping apart and reassembling my cross quilt.  The top is now done.  So far I haven't been able to find any matching backing fabric.  I'll need to make a trip to a quilt store some day when I have time to drive.
I've also been working on a presentation for my guild about how to attach borders to your quilt top so that the top lays flat.  That's nearly done; I just have to organize the information and make it look pretty.  I may share it here after I give the presentation.

My cross stitch projects have stalled out.  I have mistakes in both.  When I get frustrated, I need to step back for a while until I have calmed down.  Sometimes it takes a really long while.  I know where the mistakes are in the corgi pattern. I just have to decide whether I want to rip out what I did or just try to adjust and fix what I can.  I haven't found my error in the Devil's Tower one.  We're also still stalled out on our puzzle until we have a larger work space.

I got a surprise #getyourquiltywishesgranted package yesterday!  This one was a trade.  I sent various scraps and she was going to send me some selvedges.  Better late than never, and it was a nice surprise to an otherwise mediocre day!
My husband has been hard at work in my sewing room.  The trim is all painted and the drop ceiling is installed.  
 
In case you missed it last week, here's what still needs to be done.

  • wire the outlets
  • install one more light
  • install a drop ceiling in the big closet
  • install carpet in the big closet
  • install knobs and pulls on the desk and cabinets
  • clean all the cabinets and install the shelves inside them
  • finish the countertop
  • install shoe moulding along the cabinets
  • install a smoke alarm and wi-fi booster thing
  • put on the doors for both closets
  • install doorknobs
  • get some glass cut for one set of cabinet doors
  • finish up the crown molding
  • finish making the top for my cutting table
  • break down, move, and reassemble the long arm
  • move all my stuff in
Speaking of moving all my stuff in, I'm a bit worried that even with this big space, my stuff will not fit.  That's pretty embarrassing!  I know that there is a lot of stuff I could sell or donate, but still.  I guess I just need to work a lot harder at finishing things.  And spend a lot of time reorganizing things so that I can see and use what I have.

Why I Should Sew Alone, or, Don't Sew When You're Tired

I had high hopes for the amount of sewing I'd get done over the last week.  I was going to put the borders on the Gracie Girl quilt, make at least a top during the quilt retreat, and start putting together the Sewcial Bee Sampler top.  Plus I thought I'd quilt Gracie Girl too.  Ha!  Big HA HA!

I put the borders on Gracie Girl yesterday.  I really wish there would have been a bit more fabric included in the kit so that I could have either 1. cut the borders the length of the fabric to avoid seaming, or 2. been able to match the pattern better for the seamed borders.  The border fabric has a pretty big, bold pattern and it is pretty noticeable to me where all the seamed parts are. They are only little chunks, under 12", so I feel like it's just a bit odd looking.  But it is now ready to quilt.  I'm not sure how I'm going to quilt it yet, but it is ready.  I have backing fabric.  It's not a super huge quilt, nor is it something that's going to be used a lot, so I think I'm going to try to piece some batting remnants together on this one.  The plan is that this will be a decoration or lap quilt as needed in our office.  It has similar colors to the blinds I made several years ago.  My husband thinks it's strange that I'm making a quilt for the office.  I think that every room is improved by having a quilt in it!
As far as the Sewcial Bee Sampler, I went back to JoAnn to find more of the background fabric I used.  The one they currently have is much more yellow that the original and the dots are slightly different.  Bummer.  So I got a background fabric that has similar base fabric coloring even though it has a different pattern.  Hopefully it will look okay.  I haven't done anything further yet.

I packed two quilting projects and a knitting project for my guild retreat over the weekend.  Most of the time I just go on the Saturday, but I paid for the whole weekend this time.  What I didn't anticipate  when I signed up is that we would have a lot of things going on at home.  Or that there would be a big snow storm.  So it was pretty hard for me to relax.  I went to the place on Friday evening.  I worked on my cross quilt.  I got a very fitful, poor night's sleep.  I was really cold, there was a light outside shining in my window, and it was hard for me to block out noise from other rooms.  I got up and kept right on working on the quilt top.  By mid-afternoon I could barely keep my eyes open.  I kept working on the top.  I was down to pressing the sashing strips and adding the two outside sashing strips.  I got up to use the iron, decided I'd rather press it at home, and that I was just done.  So I just packed up and went home.  And slept 10 hours that night!  And nine the next!  So even though I really enjoy my guild mates, I think I'm better off just going for only Saturday in the future.  Tired, cranky Anne-Marie is not very fun.

I looked at what I'd sewn at the retreat and noticed how pretty much nothing matched up.  So I've been doing a ton of ripping and reassembling.  It's so frustrating.  I don't think anyone enjoys ripping out stitches.  Lesson reinforced:  don't sew while you are super tired.  You will mess up. I'm not really sure how I want to quilt this or what backing fabric I want to use.  I made one with the same pattern for my mom a few years ago and wasn't really happy with how I quilted it. I attempted to do the same style as the original quilt pattern maker used, but it just wasn't for me. This is the cover quilt on issue 31 of Love Patchwork & Quilting.
It's really wrinkly due to the amount of ripping and resewing I've been doing.
My sewing room is inching along.  My husband has all the trim on the walls and is getting ready for painting.  We also added a new bookcase outside the door of the sewing room.  I think he has that primed and ready for painting as well.  I've been cleaning the floor and have mopped it several times, trying to have it as spotless as possible before trim painting. Anyone have tips on cleaning vinyl plank flooring?  I tried using a vinegar and water solution and a microfiber mop, but that didn't cut the construction mess.  I then mopped twice using Spic and Span, and that looks better, but still not totally ideal.

After the trim is painted, we (my husband; at this point I am basically only helpful in cleaning up) still have to wire the outlets, install one more light, install a drop ceiling in the big closet, install carpet in the big closet, install knobs and pulls on the desk and cabinets, clean all the cabinets and install the shelves inside them, finish the countertop, install shoe moulding along the cabinets, install a smoke alarm and wi-fi booster thing, put on the doors for both closets, install doorknobs, get some glass cut for one set of cabinet doors, finish up the crown molding, finish making the top for my cutting table, break down, move, and reassemble the long arm, and move all my stuff in.  Gosh, is that all?  I'm probably forgetting things.

What new projects are you working on?  I want to finish up my works in progress.  I'm about halfway through my list now.  I wouldn't mind adding in something new, but I'm not feeling any inspiration either.

Finally Figured Out

I've had a Sunburst/Gracie Girl quilt kit from Fat Quarter Shop for a long time--like four or five years.  I've had it cut out for a long time too.  The problem was, I couldn't figure out a way to piece together the angled cuts accurately.  I had a lightbulb moment on it last week.  Why on earth this took me so long to figure out may forever remain a mystery.  I'll write it off as middle age mental fog!
I remembered that back when cutting shapes with templates was a common technique, a lot of acrylic templates would be shaped so that the dog ears would already be nipped off prior to sewing.  Plus, the nips in the templates would help you align the pieces properly.  Marti Michell was a big promoter of this technique back in the day.  I was considering going digging in my things to find some old template shapes.  Then I remembered that I had a set of Triangle Trimmers, unused, at the ready, and pulled them out.  These are a set by Fons & Porter that is readily available at JoAnn.  The Folded Corner Clipper by Prairie Sky Quilting will also work.  I'm sure there are other, similar tools available as well; these are two that I own that I know work for this technique.

Anyway, for these strips, I used the pink triangle in the Fons & Porter set.  Just line up your edges to the template and trim off the dog ear point.
For the opposite angle, rotate the template around and repeat.
When you are ready to sew, your pieces will nicely fit together every time and you will not need to trim any dog ears off either.

Here is what the sewn unit looks like.  I do want to mention that this quilt had you cut templates from paper.  My templates weren't especially accurate since they were print outs, nor was my cutting from said templates.  Still, with the method I ended up using, the pieces were all close enough that I could still get a pretty accurate top.  Don't be afraid to use pins or gently stretch your fabric to make points line up.

Speaking of working to get your points lined up, I came across a 2013 blog post by Ebony Love of LoveBug studios that I definitely think is worth a read, including the comments.  You can also follow up with her follow up, down at the bottom of her post.
Anyway, back to quilting. Here is half of my pieced top.  I'm still working on the sewing.  Luckily, you can still find Gracie Girl (by Kassidy and Lori Holt for Riley Blake) yardage available on Etsy, so I was able to purchase matching backing yardage. I chose the aqua clock pattern.  :)  I'm hoping to finish off the top this week and quilt it next week.  I have my guild retreat this weekend, so I'll be working on other things then.
We easily finished our National Parks puzzle last week.  Once we figured out that the posters were in alphabetical order it was even easier.  We did start a new puzzle, but realized once we built the border that it won't fit on our table.  So it's in limbo for now until we decide what we want to do.
Have a great week!

Best of 2018

Happy New Year!  2018 was full of peaks and valleys for us. And those valleys were really deep. I thought I'd try something a little different today and look back at my five favorite finishes of the year as a way to lift my spirits. I'm linking up with Meadow Mist Designs for this post.

You can click on the title of each item to go to its original post.

1.  Postcard from Sweden 

I participated in mmm! quilts' QAL for this.  I love my finished quilt and its matching mini.

2.  Kaffe Walk About 

This quilt was my first finish of 2018 and I still love everything about it, from the fabric to the quilting.


3.  Sew Together Bag featuring Alison Glass fabric

I made this as part of a swap.  I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, and I'm super happy every time I see it lurking in the background of its new owner's posts on Instagram.


4. Cross Stitch projects

I completed quite a few simple cross stitch projects this year.  Here are a few of them.


5. Nessie

Such a simple, quick make, but this is the first quilt that my son has actually used, so it's a winner in my book.
I finished 29 quilts, mini to huge, in 2018, nine cross stitch projects, two sew together bags, three Woppet bags, a quilted pillow, six burp cloths, and a hand-stitched ornament. That's not too bad. You can see them all on my 2018 finishes tab (link up above). I'd like to continue on this year with finishing old works in progress.

My goals are to move into my new sewing room, long arm quilt for others, take better, more consistent, photos, and update my blog look and/or blog address to reflect these changes.  All I have to do is come up with a name, which is surprisingly hard to do.

Speaking of my sewing room, we installed the flooring this week.  It is Adura Max luxury vinyl plank in the Gunstock color way.  This is the first time we've used this product.  It was quite easy to install and we had very little scrap.  I think it actually looks like a wood floor.  Here are a few in-progress photos of the installation.


Finally, now that we have finished and put away all FLL and Christmas stuff for the year, the kids and I started a new puzzle.  This one is posters of National Parks.  Just like with the Mustang puzzle last year, we decided not to look at the box at all in order to make it more challenging.