Rainbows Be Done

Very close to two years ago I took all my scrap fabric and made crazy blocks in every color of the rainbow. It was a great exercise in creating crazy blocks, but not so much in thinking projects through. Once I had these blocks they weren't what I thought they would be. I envisioned a rainbow quilt, but it just didn't seem right.

Then I thought bags in every color would be great. Then purses.

Then I wanted to burn them all and just be rid of them. So slowly, every so slowly I've finally gone through all of the blocks and this is what came of it all.

1 bag

7 purses

7 color baby books

2 baby blankets

 

I learned a lot. Now who wants to buy something and help me empty my inventory so I can start all over again. =)

Almost Done!

I finally made some progress on the black and white tree quilt. Everything is basted/pinned and ready for quilting now.

I even learned a few lessons along the way:

1. Taping the quilt backing to the floor is not an optional step, even on small quilts. It helps eliminate wrinkles that later require taking out and putting back in pins. Ugh.

2. Some fabric is better than others for raw edge applique. I'm still figuring that one out.

3. I tried sewing on leaves in groups so that I wouldn't have hundreds of tiny pins poking my belly while I sewed. This worked. Unfortunately it also led to some uneven grouping of leaves and not my best layout ever. Perhaps the poking of pins in my belly will not be a problem in a little while.

4. I want to find a different width for my binding. Cutting strips at 2.5 inches, then folding it in half makes for too narrow of a binding for my tastes. I'll work on this one.

5. Not so much a lesson, but I need to figure out why my permanent fabric marking pens died on my so quickly. Not cool.

Wish me luck as I finish up the quilting and binding this week/weekend! I'd love to have this quilt done and move onto a special custom order I've received. More on that tomorrow!

Doe It Ever Get Any Easier?

I had the best of intentions of finishing this quilt last weekend, but it felt more like I took one step forward and two steps back.

I had the whole quilt top put together, then I decided I didn't like the borders, too many mistakes. So I went to JoAnn's and bought the right fabric. I ripped seams and sewed on the new borders lickety-split. I was even impressed with myself.

Then I basted all 3 layers together and quilted the top in a zig zag pattern. Bad news, it looked awful! I just had bad luck with this quilt and too many errors in the beginning that built up over the course of its completion.

Error 1 - I repurposed an old bed spread for the white squares on the quilt top. The fabric is slightly stretchy, not even a match for my walking foot. Plus it's thick and soft (why I chose it) so it was hard to quilt, causing pulling and stretching while I quilted. The stretchiness also let me get away with not squaring up the squares as much as possible, leading to the pattern not always lining up perfectly. I cannot emphasize enough that cutting the fabric correctly right away in the beginning is so important to a stress free project!!!

Example of the squares not lining up - I do love that white fabric though, look at the raised details!

And when everything doesn't line up and the mistakes start to accrue, it leads to even more wonkiness in the end

Error 2 - I picked a soft and cuddly fabric for the back. I think the feed dogs couldn't pick it up as much, causing more stretching and bulging.

post edit - here is the back after quilting from the middle first. Of course I miscalculated a row on the front and the middle rectangle isn't centered on the back! Oy a quilt of many mistakes, but I tried my best.

Error 3 - I didn't start quilting in the middle. I started on one end and worked my way to the end. Oy. I felt like an idiot when I realized what I had done. The stretching and pulling just magnified itself as I went.

So I spent the weekend pulling out stitches instead of putting the final touches on the binding and we're back to square one. I have a freshly basted quilt on my sewing table and I hope to find the time to finish it. Wish me luck!

post edit - I hunkered down and got all but the hand stitching of the border done yesterday

Abandoning One Project for Another

I've had a grocery bag full of black and white scraps sitting on my bedroom floor for awhile. God bless my handsome husband for not cursing my overflowing fabric bin!

I had an idea to make black evergreen trees on a white background in a repeating pattern.

Then I made this tree quilt for a wedding gift and now I'm hooked. So I cut out some leaves and even found some solid black fabric for the tree trunk. I pulled out a soft gray fabric for the background....and saw faded spots! No!!!!!!!! I washed it in hopes it was just from storage, but alas, the fade spots stayed.

Not happy.

There goes my idea to make a quilt with only materials I have on hand.

 So while I mourned the death of that idea (for now) I moved on to making a quilt for Whirlwind. She's been quickly outgrowing all the baby blankets that were lovingly gifted to us when she was born. I "accidently" bought too much fabric for baby #2's quilt, so I've decided Whirlwind needs one too, but big enough for a toddler bed. I saw an excellent pattern in a quilt magazine that Santa put in my stocking.

Wish me luck that I can actually finish this one!

My Crabby Day Part III

So my husband brought us outside for a walk after my less than stellar afternoon. We walked along the canal path and pointed out the wonders of nature to our daughter. She was enjoying herself, despite the fact we have to fight her to do almost anything now a days. but at the apex of the walk she lost it. We wouldn't let her walk down a steep and not so stable embankment to fetch a rock to through the water, mean parents that we are. We said no and she lost it. Funny. God said no and I lost it. I hate life lessons.

I won't tell you everything is hunky dory now. It's not. I'm still a little mad. It doesn't help to have 5 months of pregnant hormones coursing through my body, but I'm still mad. And I'm okay with that. I will wait on my God. He will bring me what I need and I trust in that.

On a positive note I found these beauties during our walk. Aren't they just perfect for some printing/stamping? I can't wait!

My Crabby Day Part II

After 3 broken needles in one hour I came undone. I went into our tiny half bathroom and cried. I hate to admit this. I hate to admit how much I lost it, but I want to be honest and sometimes that means sharing the uncomfortable, the truth. I cried. I didn't just shed a tear or two and dab it away. I bawled. I let it out. I sat on the toilet in the dark and ranted.

Apparently I was upset over more than a few broken needles. I was mad at God. And I wasn't afraid to tell Him as much. Hey, if He's the God I believe in, He can take it.

I was mad at the great plans my husband and I continue to make for our family that always fall through. I was mad that I didn't know or understand His plan. I still don't. And I'm still not perky and happy about it. But I accept it. Because His ways are greater than my ways. And His thoughts are higher than my thoughts. I believe that and I try to remind myself of that, even when I'm sitting on a toilet seat yelling at Him. I also know He has a sense of humor in all of this. Why else would I end up in the bathroom?

When my husband came home I shared my lovely rendition of the day with him. He corralled the toddler into a coat (not an easy feat) and ushered us all outside for a walk...

Views of the backside of my free motion quilting experience

When I first started the backside had these loose stitches.

But the straw that broke the needle's back (corny I know) was when the tension discs for the top thread grabbed the thread and created these messy knots on the back. (Please note the really nice stitches to the right!! I did something right!) This is a regular occurance even when I straight stitching, but in the free motion quilting aspect it actually broke the needle. I'm taking my machine in for some maintenance. And hopefully I know enough about what I'm doing now to  guide the store employees towards correcting this problem. It's not as simple as adjusting the tension knob, something else is going on. If all else fails I'm going shopping.

And as always any advice is always greatly appreciated!

My Crabby Day Part I

This past Saturday was not one of my finer moments.

Do you remember those table runners I was working on? Well I was finally ready to quilt them. I have always stuck with the "stitch in the ditch" technique, too scared to try stippling or anything to do with free motion quilting. I finally sat down with my sewing machine manual (God Bless that manual) and verified on the internet (got to love the internet) and was ready to start scaring myself with some free motion quilting on my historic sewing machine. I took the foot off. I raised the throat plate. Ready Set Go. Not so bad for my first time, right? Don't answer that. I was proud of myself. That's all that counts.

But then I broke a needle, and another needle and another needle. Within an hour I had broken 3 needles and my inner reserves were crumbling. I came undone...

Fear of the Cut

Remember that rainbow baby book I was telling you about yesterday? Well it obviously came from my pile of crazy rainbow blocks. But there's a problem...you see the original blocks are odd shapes for all the projects I want to do with them. So I've been forced to consider cutting them. Oh the horror of cutting up my sewing. It hurts my heart. But I had to finish this book and get it in the mail. I am a to do list kind of girl. I don't like to leave things undone.

So I faced my fear and sliced and diced. It was wonderfully freeing. Now I can make whatever my little heart desires. And I have all these fun new shapes to play with!

Lesson Learned: I'm not going to make so many blocks in advance again unless they're for a specific purpose. Making 35 blocks for inspiration's sake (and to use up scraps) almost sucked my soul dry and left me with some unusable blocks (for now).

Live and Learn

I finally got my fray check to work. It smells nasty and requires a light touch. Unfortunately it does not work very well on nylon. Can you see the bubbly impression it left around the edges?

Nylon has also turned out to be less than ideal for block printing with ink. Maybe I'm not implementing the heat setting portion of the program correctly, but nylon is currently out of the running.

Failure

Once upon a time I was a perfectionist. Shocking I know. Some of you who know me are reading this and saying "wait a minute, she's still a perfectionist." Yes, in some ways that is true, but I want to share a lesson I've learned about failure along the way.

I grew up striving for perfection, excellence, and success. I loathed mistakes and screwing up. But that didn't stop me from making mistakes. Instead I would wallow in my failure and beat myself up. I can still remember failing my cpr test in college, walking back to my dorm room and throwing myself on my bed and sobbing in dispair. Dramatic, right? Why do we think going away to college at 18 years old makes us adults? It doesn't. I was still a child. And in some ways I still am. Nearing 30 and I still have trouble remembering I'm an adult. But I digress.

I've even turned down opportunities to try new things just because I knew I would fail. Water skiing, rock climbing, social gatherings (yes I fail at social interaction a lot!).

Through the obstacles opportunities God has placed in my path I have learned a lot. I have learned that I am not perfect and thank God for that! Who wants to be perfect? I have learned that it's the process that counts, not the end product. Sewing has been the best outlet for me to learn about failure. It is one of the very few activities that I have perservered in, even though when I started I failed a lot. I still fail today. But it's not the end of the world. I carved out time to sew and create and that's what matters.

So today I would like to introduce you to some fails. I had fun making them and trying new things with them, but they aren't etsy shop worthy. It's okay though. They've helped me learn what to do better next time. Thanks fails.

How about you? What fails have you learned from and now embrace?