Quilter's Depression

Things are not going well.

A couple of weekends ago, I set out to quilt together the layers of the Jacquelyn Quilt. I staked out the largest piece of floor space I could in our condo, which was in the kitchen. I spread out the bottom layer of fabric for the quilt. It didn't fit. I did my best to tape it into submission, figuring the rest of the quilt would fit in the space, it was just the extra inches of backing that were being unruly.

So, I centered and smoothed out the batting and the quilt top. In the process, I was just dorky enough to take a picture of the wrong side of the quilt top.


Look at all the pretty seams!
















So, the quilt was laid out and prepped for the pinning. Take a moment to let the ridiculousness of what you're seeing sink in.





That's right. This is the largest stretch of open floor in our home,and a full-size quilt does not fit in it!


I spent two plus hours crawling around on the floor, inserting about 150-200 safety pins in the quilt to hold it together. My knees hurt for days. Not just to the touch, but when I put pressure on my legs, a shooting pain would slice through my shins/knees. After all of this, I turned over the quilt to see how I had done. There they were. Big honking wrinkles in the very center of the quilt.

I put the quilt in the corner for a day or so, hoping the wrinkles would go away. They didn't. I cried. Then I took the quilt apart.

The new plan is to set aside a day where we move our couch, our chofa, my sewing table, and the barstool table to create a full floor space for pin-basting the quilt. I'm currently putting this off until the Grandma quilt is ready for the same happy task. Then I can spend one day moving furniture and pin-basting both quilts.

Now all I need are knee pads!

Have you any Wool?

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Twenty-five yards full.

My mondo bolt of wool batting just arrived, and I am set for the next eight years of quilting. So, for now, I am feeling good about my quilting prospects. Buying batting in these quantities is a pain in the arse, but it will certainly make things easier down the line.

My extremely ambitious goal for this weekend is to finally, FINALLY finish the Jacquelyn quilt, and finally update this site with some new pictures. I also have a trip to the quilt store in Elmhurst penciled in for tomorrow, so if anything, I will have tales of shopping successes to share. Hopefully successes. I'm going to be successful!

Unexpected Progress, Still Slow

So, NaNoWriMo hasn't taken over my life as I thought it would. I'm still able to have time in the evening, as well as write. And I've still been able to make progress on the quilting front, albeit a tad bit slower than I would really like.

This past weekend was the Greater Chicago Quilt Expo, which was a wonderful excuse to buy fabric and get in the quilting spirit. I bought a sizeable amount of luscious oriental cottons, to be used on a quilt for Charles's Grandma. I have miraculously been able to find fabric that would not only work into the color scheme of her room, but also be an Asian theme (a special interest of hers), AND washable cotton. So, I have found the answer to the fabric puzzle, which is always exciting.

I'm trying to focus on this, and not the growing frustration that has been born from the fact that I have to go to separate places in town in order to get the items I need to quilt. Gone are the days when Jo Ann's was the answer to my problems. And gone are the days when a quilt shop is just a short drive away. So now I'm hitting all kinds of places around town in the search for things like good thread and wool batting. I now have to PLAN AHEAD. I have to coordinate my schedule and my quilt shopping schedule. And then whine about it.

So, Progress Check:

Jacquelyn's quilt is nearing completion. I have to put another border on the quilt top before I layer the three layers together and start to quilt.

I STILL have to sew on the label for Carlee's quilt. I don't know why I've been putting this task off for so long.

Grandma's quilt will be designed, pieced, and quilted before the trip to St. Louis for Christmas. I'm feeling like this is a definite possibility.

The quilt expo really gave me some great inspiration, and I'm hoping to actually get some quilting done for myself/my own experimentation next year. Maybe.

Not an Ending, but a Hiatus

Alas, here we are. October 31. The Jacquelyn Quilt is not completed, and it will not be completed by the end of October as I had planned. But, perhaps that's okay. I don't know what this month will bring, but there may be some stolen moments for quilting in the midst of the writing. If not, I may be in for a world of pain in December. I have at least two more quilt projects that I'm hoping to squeeze in in December, so I'm desperately hoping that I can find the time in November for tying up loose quilt ends.

The moral of the whole story is that one should not expect any updates from me in the month of November. The quilting Megan is signing off. Here's hoping I will be signing back on in December victorious.

Really Struggling

I try and try and TRY to be good, but here I am, facing a self-imposed deadline that will not be met.

Let's review. The goal: finish two quilts by the end of October. And here's why: This year I will be participating in the National Novel Writing Month program, which means for the month of November I will be desperately trying to churn out 50,000 words of copy. With Thanksgiving factored in, this works out to between 2,000 and 3,500 words per day. It's a lot. But I'm hoping it's enough to get the writing kick-started to the place it needs to be. But, all of this means that there will be no moments left for crafting. Enter self-imposed deadline to have all things crafting completed by the end of October so I will have them before Christmas.

But problems. Problems.

My Baby Lock is angry at me again. I KNOW that I am doing SOMETHING wrong, but I just can't quite figure out what it is. This is the second time with the mondo problem, and I have to make it to the dealer again. I just want to sit down with someone and have them tell me, "Doing this is BAD. Just don't do it." But until that blessed, blessed day, it's down to my second-in-command, the Husqvarna. Which is turning out to be a piecing powerhouse, I have to say. But, when it comes to the quilting and making of labels, there's nothing like my Baby Lock.

The other variable in this entire equation is the fact that work has completely exploded on me this week, edging out all other non-sedentary activities. Seriously, the whole "eating well, staying active, staying on top of craftland" plan has gone down the tubes this week. It's been about getting home late, crashing early, getting up early and hitting Starbucks, getting to work early, and repeating the whole viscious cycle. I actually had a three-hour block of time to myself last night at home, and spent its entirety vegging out in front of the tube. I would have felt vaguely guilty about the whole thing, were it not for the fact that I have been working my toushie off.

So, the moral of the story is that YES, I could be working on the remainder of the Jacquelyn quilt on the backup machine, but NO I just don't feel up to the task. So, here I am, having to accept the fact that it will just not get done when I thought it would. In sum, to err is human, and to accept your limitations is divine.

Better Late Than Never

This post is "better late than never," as the purse was actually completed LAST weekend, and not this past weekend. It's just taken me a week to get my act together and write about it and take a picture of it.

The project itself was also a case of the same. I have had all the supplies for it for about a year now. I acquired the velvet at a moving sale for a fiber artist who used to operate out of the building I work in. It's a lush dark blue velvet. I bought the zipper and the cording ages ago with the idea of making a purse in mind. I didn't know that I would be doing just that, but over a year after the fact.


The inspiration for this project: the need to have a book with me wherever I go. There have been several times over the last several months when I've found myself waiting at a restaurant over the weekend, or waiting here or there for something or other to be done. And each of these times I wished I had a book with me to entertain me while I waited. So, I decided to dust off the supplies and make my own purse that would carry a book.

Why make a purse? Why not just buy one? I've tried that. And I've tried that. I find, time and time again, that the strap style does not suit my needs, which is to be able to strap it on over my shoulder and forget about it. I want to be able to keep a purse close to me, but not have to worry about carrying it or putting it down when I want both hands free. It has been ages since a long strap on a purse has been readily available, and I can only long for the days when a longer strap is back in vogue.

Anyway, the construction of this purse went pretty well, for my first venture into accessories. I embroidered the plain velvet, then sewed the zipper on the two sides, and then sewed the sides together. Add in a couple of internal pockets and the hand-sewn strap, and you have yourself a purse! I'm pretty excited about how this turned out, even though the book is a little tight of a fit. I may try this again, with a longer zipper.

Quilter's Wrist

I have been injured in the line of Quilt duty!

That's right. The repetetive motion of pushing down on a ruler and using the rotary cutter have created a soreness and pain in my left wrist.

This past week I've picked up work on the quilt for Jacquelyn. Sunday night I spent cutting strips and squares, then pinning them togther and marking them for the next stage in the operation: making squares out of two half-square triangles. Last night I took up the task, which involved a lot of sewing, a lot of cutting, and an impossible amount of ironing.

The next interminably long step in this project is to square up these pieces, then cut them into five separate pieces. Dare I go back for more? Can I take more cutting?

The Maze Quilt

Another One Bites the Dust! This one is the quilt for my impending niece. Carlee Ann is due to be born at the very end of this year. Some would say that it's utterly uncharacteristic of me to be working ahead like this. I would have to agree. But, I have to get these quilts finished while I have the time.

This quilt is certainly the most fun of all my quilts. Note that I'm not saying it was the most fun to do, but that in and of itself, it is a fun piece to look at. And hopefully sleep under. Incidentally, it WAS fun to construct.



As you can see, the maze design worked out. Hurrah for Electric Quilt! I did end up using some commercial fabric, but you can see the red button fabric that I created. And that blue maze fabric with all the circles? That's my creation, too! I used washers and sea salt for that effect. I strip pieced the design, then quilted it in concentric squares.

Here's the fun effect that you CAN'T see through the magic of a digital camera. The thread I used to do all the quilting: GLOW-IN-THE-DARK! This is also the thread I used to finish the edges, and inscribe the label on the back. So, little Carlee with have a surprise when the lights go off!

Setbacks

Dear friends, I have learned a most valuable lesson. That fuzzy fabric that's oh-so-soft, right next to the polar fleece and flannel? The one that makes your hands rejoice because nothing, nothing has ever felt so soft? The fabric that doesn't SEEM too stretchy when you pull on it in the store? That fabric, no matter what the precautions you take, is impossible to work with. Here's my experience with it:

I picked out a lovely red color of this fabric to use as the border and backing on the Maze Quilt. I love using soft fabrics like this on a baby quilt, but I think I got lucky on the first quilt I did. I found fabric that was amazingly cooperative, and I was still basting with pins, so I didn't run into the same problems. This time around, things were very different.

The red fabric sheds massive quantities of red fuzzies when it's cut, meaning that my furniture, my floors, and the insides of my sewing machine were covered in red fuzz. The edges then curl, making the art of lining up edges almost impossible when adding a border to the quilt top. And forget about ironing the seams. Already, I was having misgivings.

Then I went to make the quilt sandwich, a process that involves layering the backing fabric (enter more red fuzzy fabric), the batting (fusible batting), and the quilt top (the pieced maze). This was the first time I was going to work with fusible batting, but it basically goes like this: apply the steam iron to the top of the quilt to fuse the three layers together. They remain fused together while you quilt, meaning that you can skip the nasty step of pin basting the quilt. It's supposed to be a big time-saver. Supposed to be.

As I was actually quilting, unbeknownst to me, the backing was separating from the batting, and bunching up underneath my stitches. I was more than halfway through quilting the top before I figured this out, though. ARGH! Now, I've had to rip out all of these stitches, find a new backing fabric, buy more batting, and try again.

Just when I think I have my act together and that creating THIS quilt will go smoothly, I encounter another "learning" experience. I can only hope that the more experience I have, the less disastrous these opportunities for learning will be.

The Tara Quilt

Finally! A quilt is finished! A quilt is finished!

I made this quilt as a birthday present for a friend. (Tara, as I'm sure you could deduce from my oh-so-subtle pattern of naming quilts.) I could have finished it almost two weeks ago, if it weren't for my indecisiveness. I had the design completed and the sandwich quilted and still couldn't decide which way was "up." Was this a vertical composition or horizontal? Which side should be on top? There were, of course, four possibilities, and I couldn't choose. It didn't help that the options I was leaning towards were in direct opposition to the options Charles liked. What to do? The answer: let the future owner decide.

So, I bundled the quilt up and tied it a bow to present it to Tara on the day of celebration. She could then make a definitive ruling on up-edness, and I could bring it back home and add the hanging sleeve, binding, and my signature.


So, for the quilt construction itself. I experimented with fabric collage, which is a technique I have been wanting to try for AGES. Originally, I was going to create my own piece of fabric with this technique, then cut it into smaller circles and use to make an overarching design. I would then create a small quilt from this design and quilt the layers together. From there, I would cut the quilt up into small "inchies," or 1"-1.5" squares. My idea was that these could be hung somewhere together to show the overall design, but be individual units as well.

Clearly, this is not what actually happened. Here's what did: I created the large piece of fabric by collaging together bits of fabric, the strings I've cut off other bits of fabric, pieces of yarn, and angelina fibers. I sandwiched these bits between two layers of Solvy, and went to town stitching them together. This proved much more difficult than I had been led to believe. To start with, the Solvy was thin and didn't lend a ton of support; contents tended to shift during stitching, as the basting spray I used was useless in these circumstances.

Then, the moment of truth. I washed the finished product under some water, and presto! I had this delicious piece of fabric that was purply blue with sparkles. I couldn't imagine cutting this up into smaller bits. I wanted to keep it just like it was! That's when the project changed and I decided to layer it on top of a black background (the perfect color to set off the hues and sparkles in the collage) and quilt it. It would look like a piece of art that had been matted and framed. I was liking this idea more and more.


Again, it was easier said than done. If I would have planned this, I could have created the collage on the background fabric in the first place, rather than having to stich it onto the black fabric and quilt it at the same time. The fringe around the edge of the collage really caused problems all the way throughout the quilting process. It kept getting wrapped around my sewing machine foot, which meant I would have to stop sewing and CUT this beautiful fringe in order to free my machine.

In the end, of course, I am very pleased with how this turned out. I found myself, once again, wishing I could keep it. I'm beginning to wonder if this is the mark of a job well done.