rhymes with spoon

Hi. (Taps mic.) Is this thing on?

Sorry I've been away for a while. Combo of work, life being nuts, and needing a bloggy break. But I'm ready to be back at it...just in a different space. I've decided to retire this space, but I hope you'll check me out over here.

Sorry I've been away from this space. It's been a combination of things...work getting busier, weather getting better (and thus keeping me away from my computer), feeling like I don't have very much to say, and feeling overwhelmed by the internets. Le blog, facebook, flickr, twitter and email...all so hard to keep it together when work gets busy. Besides, I'm chained to a computer all day at work...the last thing I want to do when I get home is stare at a computer. Plus, I'm starting to think I will have to seriously scale back at-home internet time if I'm truly to take advantage of summer here. Seriously, after the last several months of winter, a clear, sunny day feels positively sublime. On those days, I feel as if a fog has been lifted. Amazing what a little good weather will do.

Although I'm trying to scale back on internet time, I decided a few weeks ago to start a year in pictures set on flickr. It's not that I fancy myself a good photographer (far from it) but I find that it's a good exercise in staying positive. Taking a picture everyday allows me to keep track of my days, see beauty in all the little things around me, and perhaps (over time) improving my paltry photography skills. If you're interested, you can follow along here.

I'll probably be over there more until I figure out what I want to do with this space.

Thanks for all compliments on the quilt. The evenings here are still quite chilly so it has been the perfect thing to curl up with after a long day of work...and there were many of those this last week. I am thinking about posting a tutorial for how to make two tone binding (I would definitely tweak the method I originally consulted if I were to do it again) if there is interest out there for it. I think it's a very handy quilting technique to have in one's arsenal. I've started a few projects since I wrapped up the quilt but mostly I've been trying to clean, reorganize, and take inventory of what I have on hand. I can't find ANYTHING right now! To that end, I just joined Sunday Stash at 1/4 of an inch. Here is entry #1: loads of light blues that i picked up last year at Sew Mama Sew. (Left to right: Poppy on Blue-Sofia by Robert Kaufman, Blue Dots-Wee Play, Wee Play Dots-Wee Play.) These will hopefully someday become summer tops or dresses.


Here's the other thing that has kept me from much crafting this weekend. I got together with a few co-workers to chow down and watch the Kentucky Derby. My Saturday was consumed with making a lot of good BBQ and some good old fashioned red velvet cupcakes. They were a big hit! Today was spent recovering and cleaning up from last night's festivities. The last of the pulled pork leftovers from last night are baking up as empanadas as I write. There will be much baked goodness to enjoy throughout the week. Hopefully this week will be a little calmer than last. Have a great week!

Finally! A quilt! Done! I am so proud I can barely speak. Not because I think my quilt is *that* special. Rather because I had an idea of what I wanted this quilt to be. I did some math and made up a pattern and I followed through on this project to its completion. Bonus that I managed to use up an entire bag of scraps from my Oh-Fransson box o' scraps. And though it is rife with little mistakes here and there, I learned a TON in the process. A part of me feels like I've been quilting forever but I just realized that this is only quilt #3...although by far the largest I've made to date. I haven't measured it yet but it's probably around 56" x 56".


Here's the back. I love the Anna Maria Horner fabric I used for the backing! The solid strips are bits of Kona cotton from the stash and I was able to use the very last little bits of scraps from the front to join the solid strips together. No waste on this quilt! I stuck with the single direction diagonal quilting. I used a bamboo/cotton batting and I love how it shrunk and crinkled up with all the cotton fabrics I used. I like to think of this as my first "grown-up" quilt in that this is the first quilt I felt confident enough to use nice fabrics and batting for.


And here's perhaps the niftiest thing (to me at least) of all. I loved all the suggestions I got on the what color to bind the quilt with but there just wasn't a clear consensus. And I really, really couldn't make up my mind. I did a little research online and found this tutorial on how to make two-tone quilt binding. It really wasn't that hard and I'm generally pleased with the final effect. I would probably do it a little differently next time but overall I felt like it allowed me to have the best of both worlds on this quilt--a very modern looking quilt front and a bright, springy quilt back.

Now more than ever I am in absolute awe with all the talented people out there who seem to pump out quilts at an alarming pace! I don't know how they do it! I feel like I need a break before I can think about tackling another one of these!

Thanks for the comments on my last post. They were helpful. If you have other ideas or thoughts or just haven't commented, please keep the comments coming. As promised, here are some pics of the quilt now that I'm nearing the binding phase. I spent some time working on the quilt again last night and am feeling a bit stuck. It's amazing to me how something as plain and simple as a solid colored binding can really change the color of the quilt. As you can see above, I'm deciding between a dark grey (which I think is more in keeping with the blocks on the front of the quilt) and a bright grass green (which I think brightens up the front of the quilt but is more in keeping with the brighter colors on the backing print). Sorry no picture of the fully pieced back but this Anna Maria Horner print is what predominates. Your thoughts?? Grey or green??


The other dilemma is the quilting. I still SUCK at free motion quilting so I opted for boring old straight lines, knowing that I wanted to get this poor, neglected quilt done sometime this year. I was originally opting for a diagonal criss-cross grid but now that I've finished the lines in one direction, I also kinda like it like this. Your thoughts?

Thanks in advance!

I'm feeling a bit b-l-a-h. It's almost May and they're predicting snow for the afternoon. A *big* part of me is considering hanging on until September until my lease expires and moving back to Seattle, bad economy be damned. I can handle the grey, rainy Seattle winters. But grey skies and snow? In April? Not so much....

Not much in the way of crafting around here. I was out of town last weekend (thanks for showing me a great time in Louisville Katie!!) and have been working late more than I'd like to. I'm still hoping (perhaps irrationally so) that I will finish my quilt this weekend. I'm about a quarter of the way through the quilting and am auditioning bindings.

So if anyone is reading this out there, there are some things I've been mulling over lately and if you have any thoughts, please weigh in.

1. I'm facing a camera dilemma. I have a Fuji FinePix S6000fd which is a pretty serious point and shoot. I can't decide if I should take the plunge and get a DSLR or dedicate my limited camera dollars to having a good point and shoot that is easier to lug around. I realize that a DSLR and a point and shoot are not at all the same (high picture quality vs. convenience and portability), but I'd be curious if people have had really good experiences with one or the other. (And in particular any models you might recommend.)

2. I'm turning 30 at the end of the year and am trying to figure out how I can celebrate this milestone? I had considered attending this workshop as a gift to myself until I saw the pricetag. Yikes! I'm sure it's a wonderful experience but I'm not sure I can justify that kind of an expense. I guess I had rationalized it this way...I wanted to celebrate my 30th in a way that incorporates at least one of the major passions of my life and this seemed like a good way to do it. Beautiful textiles. Creative people. Southern food. Handmade goodness. A project to take home as a memento. I had talked with a few friends of setting up a trip fund to have my friends contribute to, you know, to defray the costs, instead of getting me a birthday gift. One friend thought that it was incredibly tacky. Another thought it was a good idea and if I could get enough people on board, I could make the trip manageable. I realize this is terrifically selfish...I'm not asking people to contribute to cancer research or saving the world, but hey you only turn 30 once, right? Thoughts? Other creative suggestions on way to ring in my 30th?

3. I'm trying to figure out what color to use for the binding on my quilt. Right now it's between a solid green binding or a dark grey binding? (I'll try to post pictures later....) Thoughts?

The floor is open to all your suggestions....

First, thanks for everyone who dropped by to share in the good news and congratulate me. Words cannot describe how RELIEVED I am about passing the Illinois Bar exam. With any luck this will be the LAST bar exam I ever take. (Fingers crossed.) Still, I'm sure you've gathered from my recent posts that I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. I have now been in Chicago for over six months and am still a bit out of sorts in my (still new to me) place. My current apartment, while still a decent size for Chicago, is much smaller than apartments I lived in when I was in Minnesota. There is significantly less space to spread out and even less storage space. I'm a person who gets stressed out by clutter so often the thought of unearthing a massive craft project after a long day at work just makes me a basketcase. I feel like I have fabric coming out of my ears and WIPs a mile-high. Maybe it's just the urge to spring clean but I feel like I need to weed out, organize, and rethink how I'm going to live and work in this space since I'm stuck there until at least September.

Which is why, I was pleased to see this at Tallgrass Prairie Studio:

A proverbial (but necessary) kick in the pants. I love making lists so here are my goals for April:

1. Finish the quilt I started back in December.
2. Finish the summer blouse from Heather Ross' Weekend Sewing. I need to sew in the second sleeve and fiddle around with the fit. The project stalled out because I was really unhappy with the fit. I don't know how much wear I will get out of this project but I just want to have it done with.
3. Finish the top from a Japanese sewing book that I have. I have it all cut out and ready to sew. I just haven't built up the requisite patience to sew it.
4. Take inventory of my fabric stash and reorganize everything so it's in some workable order. (This I may not finish in April.)

I wish I could aim to tackle a longer list but most of my crafting time is limited to the weekends and I will be going out of town this weekend. Knowing that I'm already down one weekend I've been pushing myself to do a little sewing after work. It's been challenging but rewarding. I've made really good progress on the quilt:

I started quilting it last night (very simple straight line quilting as I still SUCK at free-motion). This may not look like much progress from where I left off in December but this is the product of loads of work. I've been making the pattern up as I go so there has been some adjustments in measurements, healthy use of the seam ripper, and some moving things around. When things weren't lining up properly I had to entirely re-do the horizontal sashing at the top and the bottom of the quilt. Why is it that it takes 10 minutes to sew something but 30 minutes to rip it out??

Anyway, I'm proud of the progress I've made so far and I have to say unearthing those old WIPs and tackling them feels really, really good. Now if only we can start getting some actual spring weather around here....then maybe I won't be so sleepy all the time!