WIP Wednesday

I haven't been doing much sewing lately as life in general has been a little nuts.  Work is consuming most of my time right now and it's eating all of my brain power so by the time I get home I am worn out.  It's times like these that I am thankful for my 7 year project aka my hexagon charm quilt.  Hand sewing just doesn't seem to require much brain power although I can tell when I start getting tired because my stitches get too tight or too lose depending on the day.

I still love this project and I know my hand sewing skills have improved since I started it for sure.  I switched part way through to a ladder stitch which when I'm not sewing too tightly makes the stitches invisible.  That's something I struggled with at first using a whip stitch several of my seams are visible.  At one crazy moment I actually considered taking it apart and starting over but I've decided just to keep going.  I think it's good practice and all quilts need some humility in them, right?

Be sure to head over to Lee's this week and see what everyone else is up to.

Google Reader Replacement

So I know it's old news by now but I still can't believe that Google is getting rid of reader.  It just seems silly to me, especially after reading an article today that shows 500,000 people moved to Feedly within 48 hours after the announcement.  When I first heard about the change I saw a ton of people recommending Bloglovin.  I don't know if it is better than feedly because honestly with a cute southern name like that I was sold.  I've officially moved my own reader list to bloglovin and I hope to see more of you following over there or  in whatever format you find works best for you.  I'd love to hear if you've made the switch yet and if so where you went and what you like about it.  Also if anyone knows how you can see how many followers you have on feedly I would love to know that too.  If you're on Bloglovin you can follow me by clicking on that little link over there on the right sidebar.

WIP Wednesday

How is it already Wednesday again?  Some weeks I think it takes forever to get here and other weeks it seems impossible that it is here already.  I took a little break from my complications quilt this week.  As much as I love that quilt and everything I am learning from it I just wasn't in the right head space this week to push through and invest what it takes.

I started working on Color Therapy instead.  Talk about intense.  That quilt is so many things all at once.  Right now I have put the breaks on it.  Maybe I will pick it back up but maybe not.  You can read more about it here.

I gave away my Central Rails quilt for Christmas to a friend who mentioned several times how much she liked it and who I knew was really wanting a quilt.  She is going through a divorce and I really wanted to give her something special that would be like a hug everyday in her new space.  Unfortunately for me that meant giving away one of my favorite quilts.  I love Central Rails because it is the one quilt I have finished as part of the Old Red Barn Quilt Along group.  I don't think in the time I have been quilting I have ever made a quilt more than once.  But I really wanted to remake this one so I started a new version with a Lucy's Crab Shack Jellyroll.  I made my Central Rails quilt with 2 jelly rolls to get the size I wanted so I need to order another one before I can finish this quilt but I am excited about having this quilt back in my life soon.

Be sure to head over to Lee's and see what everyone else is up to this week.

Color Therapy

I don't usually get overly personal here-I like to keep it light and stick to the quilting.  I tend to think that as people part of our job is to help the people in our lives become better people because of that sometimes we hurt the ones we love and sometimes they hurt us.  Hopefully we come out the other side better for it.  I've been going through what feels a little bit like a bad breakup with a good friend but through it I am trying to find the positive and come out better on the other side. 


I don't know where I want to go in my quilting journey.  It's undefined for me and I'm okay with that.  So many times I've been asked well what do you want.  What is your goal?  Do we have to always have a goal?  I didn't get to go to Quiltcon but I did get to watch some of the lectures on Craftsy.  If you haven't checked them out yet be sure you do-there is some great information in there.  Jacquie who's blog I have read for a long time now said "Make what you love and love what you make."  That seems like such a simple statement but if you take a minute and really think about it it's not that simple.  We spend so much of our time and energy trying to please others.  I do typically like the quilts I make but I don't LOVE all of them. 

I decided to throw it all out there for once.  I made nothing in my sewing room off limits and I just went for it.  I started with this photo from my pintrest board because I thought it would make an amazing quilt.  It has awesome lines and colors and I thought I could do that in fabric and really love something.

In the process I was healing.  I was erasing the doubts I had allowed into my head that I wasn't good enough to be a part of this community.  That I wasn't creative enough to have any impact.  I'm still not sure what role I want to play.  I have no big plans to become a fabric designer, write or book, or even release my own patterns.  But I do plan to continue to make friends here, share what I make, and at the end of the day make what I love and love what I make.

All that through starting a new quilt.  I'm sure I will continue to learn and that as I figure out more about myself things will change along the way.  Just like this color therapy quilt.  At block one I was in love.  Thought it was going to be amazing.  Here I am three blocks in and I hate it.  Funny how that works out sometimes.  But the important thing for me in this one is that I tried something new.  I went out of my normal box.  I can't say at this moment if Color Therapy will ever evolve into a finished quilt but I'm thankful that I took a chance.

WIP Wednesday

I haven't been doing too much sewing this week but I did make a little more progress on my complications quilt.  I made several new blocks before adding on to the first part of the puzzle.  There are a lot of things about this project that I like including the fact that it is forcing me to think out side of my normal box.  When you make all of the blocks for this quilt there is still a lot of empty space left.  In the original quilt that space was mostly filled in with small squares.  I have used postage stamp squares in some cases but have also been trying out using some larger pieces as well to show off some of the larger prints in these fabrics.  I have also made duplicates of a few blocks to take up some of the larger spaces.  I'm still very much smitten with this quilt and for every frustration and complication that comes along I find something else to love about it too.

The next part of this quilt that I can put together has some strange angles so I am thinking about piecing another chunk of it before trying to attach it.  This piece still needs about this same amount on the right hand side.  Most of that space is blank in the original design so I am still trying to figure out exactly what I want to do in that space.  You can find the original directions here.  And see the quilt that inspired me to start this crazy project here.

Be sure to head over to Lee's to see what everyone else has been up to this week.

Setting Seams (A Tutorial)

My SIL just started sewing this past Christmas by making some emblished dish towels, pot holders, and an table runner for her sister.  She is now knee deep in her first quilt and it appears to be going great.  I tell you that to tell you this.  When I first started sewing I had a ton of problems getting my seams to lay flat.  No matter how much I pressed and pressed there always seemed to be a little fold in the fabric right at my seams that just wouldn't fold flat.  One day as I was sewing with my mom she showed me that I was suppose to set the seams first.  I had no idea what she meant but she taught me what she had learned in a class when she first started quilting.  I assumed that everyone did this until a friend asked me once how I got my seams so nice and flat and showed me that annoying fold of fabric on her quilt seams.  I took some photos (sorry they aren't the best) and thought I would share what I do here just in case there is the off chance that some of you still don't know about setting your seams.


Keep in mind I press my seams to one side so if you press your seams open you probably don't have this problem.  To start you will want to sew your seam just like normal.  Then lay your piece on your pressing surface.  The side you are pressing your seam to will be facing up.

Then you are going to press the seam.  Be sure to press DO NOT use the back and forth motion you use for ironing clothes as this can stretch and warp your fabrics.  I use a dry warm iron when I press my seams.  When I first started quilting I used steam like it was my best friend.  I later found that this too can cause your fabrics to warp and become distorted.  I know some people still prefer steam-I do when ironing my fabrics prior to cutting just be careful if you chose to use steam.

Now open your fabrics and press in the direction you want your seam to go.  This should leave you with a super flat, super crisp seam.

Please don't judge my ugly ironing board cover.  I really do have every intention of making a new one someday.  It's just one of those projects I haven't found time to get to yet.  And I'm sorry the photos are a little blurry I took them on my iphone a while back to help out a friend.

WIP Wednesday

Even my trimming bin is happy with these colors.

I can't believe that it is already Wednesday again.  It feels like the week is passing by so quickly and so slowly all at the same time.  I haven't really made a ton of progress in the sewing front this week.  I managed to make a little progress on Complications Quilt.  That's what I'm calling it for now-it needs a better name but well this quilt has proven to be very complicated to me so I am going to refer to it as that until I come up with something better.

I had been working with the assumption that I would make all the blocks first and then start trying to assemble the puzzle pieces together.  I of course got ahead of myself though and decided to put together the first chunk of the puzzle.  It has grown a little since I snapped this picture but I am really glad I decided to start putting it together because it really helped me see that while I thought I was dispersing the colors pretty evenly I had large sections that didn't have as much contrast as I had hoped for so I was able to make some corrections.

My other project this week was to update the look of my blog a little.  When I first started blogging I was lucky enough to win a blog header in a give away.  I used a basic blogger template and called it done.  I eventually changed my background to a template from a free site and thought it looked okay.  Occasionally I have updated that template like now to give it a fresh look.  Just recently though I figured out that I could add to the header templates and all through a site like picmonkey.  So I took a basic header template that matched my background over to picmonkey and added in some more elements and then I got this.

I have to admit I am pretty proud of myself for figuring it out.  I'm not the most technology savvy person out there so little things like this are a big deal to me.  Although I am learning more and more and there are some great tutorials floating around out there.  Oh and see my pretty comments button up there, I made that too with some free clip art and the addition of a little text.

Be sure to head over to Lee's and see what everyone else is up to this week.