Beginnings of a Quilt

The quilt is officially in the works! I've bought the fabric, and even started cutting. It's going to be a very bright quilt, with black as the faux sashing. The darker green in this photo is a more of a lime than an olive, but no matter how I messed with the white balance of the photo I couldn't get it to turn out correctly.


For the top I need to cut 98 squares (10 strips) out of four different colors, and 392 squares of black (40 strips). This of course doesn't include the two borders, but I'll cut those out later, as a break in between sewing all these blocks together. I've already cut out the darker green (a bit of a dark lime green color) and made them into blocks! This morning I cut out the dark blue strips, but haven't made them into squares yet. I was hoping to do that and cut out the lime green tonight, but work was so crazy today I was exhausted by the time I came home.


My iron has also turned brown, because I've been a bad sewer and have been using tap water rather than distilled. So I'm going to try a variety of remedies I've heard about in order to fix it. My iron's a cheapie iron that I got because my dad bought it for my sister when she went to college but she never used it. Hence, it is now mine, and although it's a cheapie, it does the job. It just consumes water like none other, which is why I've been using tap instead of distilled. Since I don't want to ruin my iron, it's time to switch back to what I should have been doing all along.

Operation Quilt

I really want to make this quilt for my first quilt. It's called a jewelbox quilt.

It looks relatively simple, but is still stunning. I'm definitely using black for the faux sashing. I have 3+ yards of a lime green, and 2.5 yds of a nice green, so I think instead of using them for the messenger bag, I'll use them for this quilt. They're high quality, but a little rough (broadcloth), which I'm hoping will soften with washing. If I go with these, it means that I would stay with the solid theme and buy other solid fabrics for the quilt. Then I wouldn't be able to take advantage of Joann's $1.99 sale on quilting cottons. Decisions decisions.

I haven't decided whether I want my quilt to resemble the picture above, trading out the colors of the blocks and using more fabrics, or whether I want it to resemble this. This only uses five colors, and the same colors/the same block is repeated over and over.

Oh the fabric!

A woman on craigslist was selling quilting cotton for $2 a yard, so of course I snatched some up. Look what I got, all for under $20! Almost all cuts are >1, most being at least 2 yards.

This woman had an insane amount of great purples! So of course I grabbed tons!


Alice of course had to investigate the purples. They met her exacting standards.


She had this great black and white print.


I even grabbed a few fabrics that were still on the bolt. I just love that rainbow! As anyone who knows me will testify, I am very big into the bright and bold colors. That fabric definitely fits the bill. I'm not sure what it's going to be yet, but I'm sure it will be awesome.


Then there was the beautiful blue.


I've recently acquired enough fabric that I have to think of ways to store/sort it. I don't have that much, but since I've decided I love applique, and probably will love quilting, my cotton stash went from non-existant to fledgling. So I spent one of my days off sorting through and categorizing my fabric, as well as washing and folding. I haven't gotten to the ironing stage yet. So I still have a mound of fabric that needs to be ironed, folded and put away. I love buying new fabric, but I hate the whole washing, detangling, and ironing part.


I had another great find at Goodwill. There's one by my work, one by my house, and many on the way to and from. Most recently, I found a Singer book on Machine Quilting. It's a great intro book, and will be really helpful when I finally start a quilt. So that makes my crafty Goodwill total to date... hmm. A huge bag of lace, a huge bag of buttons, a cardboard cutting board,

>30 yards lightweight sew in interfacing,

4 panels of Winnie the Pooh Christmas panel fabric, four Christmas gifts, a three drawer 8.5x11 organizer, and a Machine Quilting Book. That's just the crafty stuff I've found there. Goodwill, how I love thee.

And here's a photo of the green I was talking about in my last post. Do you see how much lighter the left side is? It looks like two completely different fabrics! That's not the underside, that's how much lighter the 'light' side of the gradient is! I don't know how on earth I didn't notice it before.


In case you can't tell, I'm trying to be better about including photos in my posts. I am a huge photography geek, and a computer geek, but for some reason I always get side tracked when I'm about to take photos for the blog.

Well... that didn't work

I'm working on my mother's Christmas present, getting everything prepped, cut out, etc. She reads this blog, so no specifics on the project until after Christmas. She knows it will be sewn and uses fabric, so I'm safe to post this.

Anyways, so I bought this great green fabric. It has a wonderful pattern, and the color matches the other fabrics perfectly. I was ironing the fabrics when suddenly I realize that the color looks off. I spread it out, and low and behold, the fabric goes from this nice spring kelly green to a very very light icky lime green color. Crap. At first I'm convinced that the color has just washed out. But to wash out in a perfect sequential gradient? Hmm. So off a googling I go. Low and behold, the entire series of fabrics in this line are gradients. How the hell did I not notice this on the bolt? Really, how did I not see this?

So now I have a day off that I won't be able to use working on my mom's present because the green ties this entire project together, and I can't go to the next step until I have the green. I'll have to wait until I get paid on Friday so I can go to Joann's again and find another green. I had a hard enough time finding this green, and now I get to start the process all over again.

Sometimes, I think I am my own worst enemy.

Motivation

Maybe it's the record setting heat, but I just haven't been able to focus lately. There has been no sewing, no knitting, and no beading. I want to do them, I have all the materials to complete several projects, but I just can't find the motivation to do so.

I'm hoping it passes soon. I want to work on my mom's christmas present, and do start some beading to sell at ArtSplash next year!