Crafty A.D.D.

I feel like I've had crafty A.D.D. lately. I get to a mid-point with a project and then just completely switch gears! Does this happen to you? I was so psyched about my hexagon QAL quilt, but I keep finding ways to put off basting and quilting it. Though I did finish one of my distraction-projects last night:

This started a week or so ago. I came home from work one night and thought "I finally want to do something with that cute robot fat quarter I won a while back." So I started putting together a haphazard log cabin block. (Side note, I think I'm liking "haphazard" better than "wonky." Thoughts?) I was planning to make a small wall hanging, but then I remembered I had a naked pillow form in my closet, and it just grew from there.

Here's a close-up of the quilting. It took a while, but I really like the effect. I just quilted straight lines within each "log." And since it's a pillowcase, I didn't have to hide the thread ends, I just pulled them to the back, tied them off and trimmed them. Gotta love that!

I was walking home from work last night and the craziest thought popped into my head: "I'm craving a jelly roll." For those non-quilters reading, no I was not craving a pastry. I was craving a lovely roll-up of 42 2½"x44" strips of beautiful fabric. I think a huge part of the reason is that I kept coming back to stare at this beautiful patchwork table covering that Aneela at Comfort Stitching made with just a jelly roll and some background fabric.

I ended up ordering a Fandango jelly roll from Piece N Quilt. Natalia is de-stashing and has a few bundles of 10 fat quarters that she's selling for only $15 (that's only $6/yard)! I had to pick up one of those, too, of course!

So no more shopping for me for a while, but at least I have a billion projects to work on in the mean time. I just need to work up the motivation to quilt some stuff that's already pieced. The quilting is definitely one of my least-favorite parts of the process. Encouragement in the comments is always greatly appreciated :) How do you power through your least favorite part of the process?

Things to come...

So instead of washing fabric, I spent today recording a cello part the boyfriend wrote me for one of his songs. I'm holding out for one more thing to arrive. Since the Fat Quarter Shop is located about 15 miles away from me, it should arrive tomorrow! (Sometimes I wish shipping charges were calculated by the mile...)

Remember when I wrote a post about buying quilt fabric? I said: "if I find a good deal on something I just can't live without, I would probably impulsively buy it, and then create a project for it."

The example I used was the Everything but the Kitchen Sink collection by RJR fabrics. Last week it was the daily deal at the Missouri Star Quilt Co. and of course I had to get it. I got a charm pack plus shipping for under $10 and proceeded to spend the next couple days trying to figure out what to do with it.

After pouring over "recipes" at the Moda Bake Shop and myriad images and tutorials from other quilty blogs out there, I decided I'm going to make whirlygigs, inspired by Cathy at Quilting on Turtle Hill. I'm going to add sashing to mine, which will make a good-size lap quilt with about 20 blocks. So thanks, Cathy, for feeding my little habit :)

ps: it's Tuesday, so check out Julie's list of giveaways. AND jaybirdquilts is doing a giveaway of some awesome American Jane stuff from Burgundy Buttons.

and in sale news: Fabric.com is having a sale in honor of National Quilt Month — they have something like 1,200 quilting cottons on sale for $3.99.

Shopping for quilt fabric

It's really easy to get caught up in the thrill of counting the dollars you've saved versus the dollars you've spent when using a coupon or buying something on sale. I am infamous for only thinking about how much I "saved" versus how much I spent. But if you buy a yard of $10/yard fabric for $4 and never use it, have you really saved $4, or have you just lost $6?


And when impulse-buying fabric, it's always a guessing game: "I love this fabric — and it's 40% off — how much should I get?!"

So I'm beginning to find it incredibly helpful to keep a list on my computer of projects on my to-do list, including the yardages I need for them. That way the conversation in my head goes a little more like this: "I love this fabric! I could use it for that project for my mom for Mother's Day. And it's 40% off!" I know exactly how much I need, so I don't wind up with too much or too little. I find online shopping overwhelmingly convenient, since I am a night owl and you can check prices at a plethora of retailers without leaving the couch.

And speaking of great fabric deals, I just discovered the Missouri Star Quilt Co., which offers a "ridiculous brand new quilting deal" every day. Their "daily deal" looks to be somewhat addictive.

And, contrary to everything I said above, I feel I must add that if I find a good deal on something I just can't live without, I would probably impulsively buy it, and then create a project for it. This collection is a great example: 

(Another great example is the Happy Campers quilt I'm currently making for my dad's birthday — I got five more blocks done today AND my backing fabric came in the mail. Thanks, WhipstitchFabrics!)

I love puns

It's not too terribly often that I actually laugh out loud during a SNL opening monologue. A lot of the times the host isn't someone particularly funny, it's just someone who has a movie coming out. But last night Zach Galifianakis hosted and he, of course, did a bit with the piano. (If you don't know anything about Zach Galifianakis other than he was in The Hangover, you're missing out.) I was drinking my coffee this morning, watching SNL on TiVo, and nearly spit it out when he said:

I don't know what I'm talking aboot. Excuse me, I've been in Canada, opening up for Miles Davis — Kilometers Davis.

It just completely caught me off guard. I made my boyfriend watch it later, and I still giggled the second time around. That made my day.

I spent way too much time on my computer today and no time at the sewing machine. Sadly, I haven't made much progress since Thursday, when I knocked out 15 of my Happy Camper blocks (only 10 to go). I did, however, decide how I'm going to quilt it once I get it all put together. Nothing fancy, just squares echoing the design. I haven't quilted in a long time, so something simple will be nice to get the feel of the machine again.

I also spent a good portion of my day playing with my camera. If I didn't know a few things about photoshop, the pictures I've posted so far would be hideous. I know I have a good quality camera, it's just a matter of getting it to take pictures the way I want. So I used my "baby," Pierre, and my first completed quilt as models while testing various settings:

The quilt is called "scrappy stars." The label was one of the piano keys from the border appliquéd on the back. I just wrote the name and date in sharpie. It fell off after a couple wash cycles, though. I found a bunch of leftover scraps from this quilt when I was cleaning the other day, though, so I think a new label is in order. Maybe I'll do something along the lines of the one I made for my "Turning Twenty" quilt...

In sale news: eQuilter.com is having an anniversary sale. I would definitely be taking advantage if I hadn't already spent my fabric budget for March.

My new best friend

Well I got a lot done the past few days. I finished cutting my fabric for my dad's Happy Campers quilt earlier this week. Yesterday I finished laying everything out:

I'm sure this would have come along a lot quicker if I weren't so anal about how the fabrics are distributed. But since I am, I pinned up each block and set the stack by my machine. 

I finished sewing three rows (15 out of 25 blocks) yesterday! I usually struggle with keeping seam allowances consistent, so I decided to measure after every piece I sewed on. It took some extra time, but it was well worth it. I didn't rip the seam out every time I was off, but knowing how much I was off by allowed me to fudge it a bit with the next seam, so my blocks still came out 12½" square.

I also discovered my new best friend: Magic Sizing. I read about it on a few blogs and decided to give it a try. When I first started, I was spraying my fabrics down with Faultless spray starch, which has a heavier weight and made my fabric way too stiff. The Magic Sizing has a lighter weight. Keeps your fabric from stretching too much while you're sewing them without making them über stiff. Love it! And for only a little over $1 at Wal-Mart. It's one of my new can't-live-without-it quilting supplies. Right up there with my rotary cutter.

This is one of my "fat" log cabin blocks. If anyone is interested, I'm happy to post a tutorial when I'm done on how to turn one jelly roll and one charm pack into a quilt top. I know it's pretty common sense, but it took me a while to figure out the math on cutting the strips to get what I needed for 25 blocks (and I'm pretty good at math!) — so let me know if that's something you'd be interested in!

ETA: SoFunFabrics is having a sale! Check out the $6.99/yard listings for Sandi Henderson's Meadowsweet collection. (It has me wishing I hadn't already spent my March quilting allowance...)