row by row fail

I was initially incredibly excited about the row by row experience. Between something to get me out of the house and something to motivate me to sew, I was pumped to finish something, even though I've got two baby quilts to finish before the babies arrive, a show quilt to finish before September and ... there was another and. I've forgotten it. Maybe it was trying to win a bundle of fabric.

Anyway.

Excitement. Then I started reading some of these patterns. Maybe it's because I'm a teacher. Maybe I'm tired from spending the last month moving things around in my house to get things ready to move things in from me grandparent's house that we're breaking apart. Maybe it's the migraines. Maybe it's a combination of all of these things.  But wow... some of these patterns were very poorly written.

You tell me to cut rectangles, squares and rectangles and star points and I'm just going to cut... and then realize after the fact that I just cut up a whole quarter yard of fabric that I didn't need to cut up. Part of which I needed for other parts of this project, and not in the shapes that it's now been chopped up into. And this fabric is seven or eight years old, and I can't get any more. Even though I read the pattern ahead of time. Twice. I still cut up a quarter yard of fabric into all the pieces for a star block that needs two different colors of fabric. Was it because I was tired? was it because a very high energy friend stopped by in the middle of my cutting spree and I lost track of my progress while I was cutting? Should I have taken my own advice and highlighted the different fabric parts different colors [even thought I can't find a pen, pencil, paint brush or roll of tape to save my life because it looks like we are moving even though we are not] because that's how the pattern should have come to me IN THE FIRST PLACE?!

I don't know. But now, I really appreciate the subscription I pay for the quilt magazine that comes bi-monthly, with the patterns that are tested by a team of people for just this reason. Because, inevitably, I'm going to be too tired to notice that I'm cutting up a quarter yard of fabric that I don't need to be.

Row by row... by Row 8...?

At this point I have completely lost track of what row I'm on, or that is to say, have collected, without looking in the binder. The coin purse/ closed shop, extra shop/ minus a shop put my mental count off - and I do get that the mental math should be easy to figure out, but I can't remember how many places I stopped at in the first place. So... I'ma go with this is number 8. 

Anyway. Saturday on the way to a memorial service I picked up another row (8?) at Bee Happy Quilt shop in Union City. My dad almost drove by the place because he said all it looked like was used cars. How he missed the quilt patches every where on the signage, I will never know and my frenetic and insistent 'turn now, turn now'...

Dad: 'But it's not here'

Me: 'don't you see the quilt patches every where!?'

Dad: 'this isn't a quilt shop its a used car lot.'

Mom (in the back seat): 'that's because you can't see the signs, dear.'

Dad(who still thinks he knows): 'but it's a used car--'

'JUST STOP THE CAR!!!'

After we've pulled in and there was slight grumbling from grumpus, Dad says: 'Oh. Well, I guess they do have a sign and a quilt out front. But it still looks like a used car lot.'

I guess this says two things, about quilters and this shop. 

Also, all I'm asking for is a  little trust. That's all. Just a little trust that when I say stop the car, there's no argument concerning my apparent level of reason and intelligence. 

Anyway. Picked up the row and snapped a picture of the quilt out front. 

a row by row 2015 winner from Oregon

I shamelessly lifted this off Facebook this morning from a friend's wall, but I really like what Lorraine did with her quilt in terms of color use and layout. I'm putting in here so I can remember it for when I finally get myself pulled together to do mine.

 

A Common Thread has a winner! Lorraine Odell of Salem. And get this. All that applique is hand done! She used 13 rows from Washington and Oregon
Border
A Common Thread, Portland, OR
Just for Fun Quilting, Vancouver WA
The Quilted Dandelion, Clatkanie, OR
Sharon's Attic, Hillsboro, OR
Speckled Hen Quilts, Aurora, OR
Sister's Fabric, Chehalis, WA

Center Panel
Piece By Piece, Eugene, OR
Cool Cottons, Portland, OR
Quilted Strait, Port Gamble, WA
Fabric Depot, Portland, OR
Modern domestic, Portland, OR

Back
The Mill End Store, Milwaukie, OR
The Fabric Mill, Orem, UT

row by row experience - row two!

in keeping with the water theme of 2015, this super cool row did nautical flags!!! GAH!!! So cool! I haven't seen nautical flags pop up anywhere yet! lots of boats and other things, but no nautical flags! :D
 

I discovered that Ta-Da Quilting Studio does not sell fabric, but they do sell paper piece bits and wool rug hook kits. They also have a blog; Click here to go visit it.


So now I'm thinking of signing my name in the quilt with nautical flags, and I'll be able to use this row as a size guide line. It's a shame I'm not from Ohio, as the row ends with OH, but adapting the nautical flag [which also corresponds -or is, I'm not sure - to the NATO alphabet: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot and so forth] to squares for a quilt is not difficult; I did it before in a sampler quilt.

row by row experience 2015 - row one

I finally got on the cool kid train and picked up my first row pattern at Kelly's
Sewing Corner in Erie! I'm keeping everything organized in my wicked cool binder from my college days as a member of Alpha Psi Omega - I don't remember what our rush was, but we picked Wicked as our musical and I did a fusible appliqué for my binder instead of printing out a color image and sliding it into the front of a binder pocket.

I also picked up some excellent fabric to help tie the quilt together -  the beach glass was made especially for the Row By Row experience this year. And for Erie, why no one has lobbied for beach glass fabric before, I'll never know. People are obsessed with the stuff. For real.

I'm going to use my batik stash for this project, since one of my goals is to move on with a bin of finished quilt tops/finished quilts and not bins of fabric... we will see how that works out... you should see how many bins of potential projects I have... forget the bins of loose fabric...

Anyway. The first row I picked up!

 The star part is pretty straight forward, I just found the cutting directions confusing at first - like the 'cut star points' {what? oh, you want me to cut out squares, gotcha. Tell me that first, the way you told me to cut out 4 rectangles.}

 Then to complete the row, you have to make the chevron wave blocks and add 'bubble fabric' [the dark bars]. At least the chevron is sewn by making strips, or I'd have thrown this out the window, or made it up myself.

When I make this myself, I plan on grading the colors of the block so that chevrons go light to dark the way water would. I appreciate the use of nautical fabric, but I found it a little busy myself.

Two quilts for the road

This is the last, the very last of the purple fabric from a chain mail quilt from 2008. 

This was a quilt along from a website I can't remember the start and the bullseye a were supposed to alternate but it just didn't look right. So. Editing.

June July and August

And that's three more for the road. 

Downsizing

 Current project. Just Improvising.

3RQG show 2014

'In the Drink' 22x31 Beth Conlin, PGh, Pa

'Cats having Fun' 70x70, S. Schmeltz, Pgh, Pa

 

'Cat in the Hat' 60.5x63 S. Schmeltz, Pgh, Pa

"Twinkle, twinkle' 38x51 Lauren Jonkman, Pgh, Pa

 

'The Little Dipper'  54x 54 Deborah Swoyer, Eighty Four, Pa

'Broken Dishes' 100x110 Kathleen Kucerovy, Pgh, Pa

 

'Ring of Stars' Sharon Hanson, McKeesport, PA

'Emerald Spring' 84x84 Rita Palic, Monaca, PA

'Earth and twig' 41x43 Gerri Bobnar, Jeannette, PA

'Periodic table' 95x65 Beth Conlin

deux par deux

 

Not sure why I've got this burning desire to make, make, make. I've got two quilts at binding stage, a small wall hanging that is being quilted as I can get to it and now more tops. Forgive the awful lighting in my apartment - I run into the problem of light and space very quickly. This one is done except for the border and is hanging in the closet. The one below was listed as "experienced" and has been the biggest pain to put together that when I finally got the braid assembled I put it away before I threw it out from frustration - the rest should be a piece of cake.

We're currently locked in a low pressure that brought along some frigid cold temperatures. An infographic from NOAA listed this region as HOTH, and I heartily agree with them. If only we had tauntauns. I have the day off, but since it's so cold and everything is canceled [and I have a sinus infection] is it worth going out? No, not likely. Even though I could really use some cough drops, OJ and chicken soup. Okay, and a fabric run. Which really tells me that a day of rest was a good thing. I should probably just stay home and fold socks.

Quilt Company East show, 2013

quilter happy hour.

quilt along. or something.

Mystery Quilt - Tranquility

In the  choice between doing an online bee and a mystery quilt, doing a mystery quilt along won out, for several reasons. Mystery quilt doesn't involve paying for postage. Or driving to the indy/ specialty fabric store and buying 'modern' fabric. I can use stuff I've got laying around my house. Until I have a paying job offering disposible income, this seems like the more responsible of the two choices [as fabulous as it would be to get a package from out of state or potentially internationally].

I've seen mystery quilt-alongs before, and I've always thought to self "but what if you get done and you hate it?" This is the chance taken when signing up for anything with an unknown outcome. In the battle between "but what if I hate it" and "just try it", the urge to just give it a shot won out. This project requires three color values, which I was able to scrounge up from my stash. Like the majority of my work, it's going to be a scrap quilt, but hopefully with a slightly more unified, cohesive feeling. Maybe someday I will go to the fabric store and buy more than 1 yard of something at a time. Really go wild and buy 3, with the intention of using it on the top and not the back.

There is also a time deadline to this project; the moderator gave 2 weeks to finish cutting and sewing the squares, and I'm a little behind, partly because of the scrounging. Shout out to Center for Creative Reuse for their fabric section and the yardage I found there for $1.50 that matches the colors of this project. Honestly, I don't know what I would do without places like CCR.

Here's my fabric selection, which is still in a state of uncut. I need to get on that at some point.

cutting on the bias

sewing bias tape [a haiku]

paired triangles...
parallelogram ...
no bias tape. hell.

It's my not so favorite time again - time to bind quilts. Or almost time to bind quilts, which means finding the fabric I set aside for the binding and making bias tape. Despite viewing and reading multitudinous online tutorials, I still mess up making a continuous strip every time.  I think it has something to do with offsetting the the corners when making the fabric tube; somehow, what starts out as say a 3" offset ends up 2". Or 1 3/4". Even if I put the lines on the fabric to line everything up. Still doesn't work.

This is supposed to be easy-peasy-lemon-squeazy. And yet, I am defeated by two triangles of fabric sewn into a parallelogram. If you know who Pidgeon is, you understand my frustration: right now I'm asking why. Why. WHY?!

So for my latest two projects, I opted to finish one with bias tape [refer to haiku above], and the other with simple non-bias strips, sewn on with mitred corners. Which I've never done before but had the added bonus of me not having to worry about everything lining up on the bias tape parade.

Needless to say, option two went a lot better for all parties involved. Except that I accidently snipped a corner of the binding off. So I have to figure out how to patch the corner... hmm...