Chain Quilting

Posting has been slowed because I was back on a slow grind again. I kept putting off hand quilting my Irish Chain quilt, but it's getting warmer out, and I need a light weight blanket for my bed, so I had to really buckle down.

I had to get it *usable* if not finished so I got all the diagonals quilted, and did the circles in the center of each gray block, then did the binding. I'll do the motifs in the center of each circle as I get the chance, but at least I can put it on my bed now and get rid of the heavy comforter.

It's very big, which is good, my boyfriend is very tall, and it needs to cover both of us!

Drawing out the center wreath motif. 

My very sophisticated templates--the top of a cookie container and a piece of posterboard. 

I did manage to get one motif quilted, just to see how it looks. I'll keep plugging away at them! I realized you can't really see the binding in any of these shots, but I just pulled the backing around to the front.  

In other updates, did a few more Dear Jane blocks, they always cheer me up. F-8 through F-13. Nearly halfway through the main blocks. At this rate it should be finished in, oh, 2016 or so. 

And a super quick project, I've begun jogging a bit and needed something to hold my iPod, so I made a little  arm band. In making this, I measured around my bicep--11 inches now! It was about 9" when I started working out, so hurray for that. I've also nearly got abs--nice to see positive results. 

Short Things

Lety-RZ's super-deluxe jumbo prize package is on it's way to Texas! Hope you enjoy the miscellaneous odds and ends I've included! 

Another cat means another cat bed (yes, exciting, I know) Wharton's an enormous cat, so I made him a larger, rectangular bed. He likes it, although they steal each other's beds pretty frequently. 

I've also been on a shorts kick. Again, while I'm not pledging to be totally 'no-buy' for spring clothes, I'm trying my best to see things I like, and replicate them rather than buy them. Not that I've see cloud-themed shorts anywhere. This one was my idea. The top stitching a little wonky, but overall I'm pretty happy so far. 

Yes, I did the front pocket area too. I'm still not sure if I'll also do the bottom hem with a cloud pattern. Making it line up at both seams won't be fun, but I'm working on it. 

Don't think I've forgotten about my Irish Chain quilt, either. Any time I'm out in the living room I'm working on quilting it. You can't really see it, since it's diagonal lines through the patterned 'chains' of the quilt, but I'm nearly finished with that part. Then to figure out what to put in the gray squares. You can see one of them has a circle quilted on it, I'll probably do that in all of them, then I'm thinking maybe doing a different flower motif inside each one? Not sure yet. 

Well Basted/Well Vested

I brought the Irish Chain quilt to school with me one evening, and managed to get it all basted on the 12' print tables. It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Now I'm wishing that I'd gotten thicker battering, though. I'm sure this will quilt really nicely, but it's not going to be very warm. I'm thinking of buying a down comforter and just using this on top (for me, at least, my boyfriend is very hot blooded, I'm sure this will be the perfect weight for him. 

Also while I was at school getting my jump-suit patterns in order, I traced out a darted-vest pattern from a vest I own. It was a little bit of an oversized fit, which I liked. Last night I couldn't quite commit myself to one of my existing projects, so I made up a quick vest with some thrifted fabric to test it out.  

The back--I hate that weird silky stuff they normally use as the back on vests, so I just used the same fabric throughout. 

 And the lining, which is actually a scrap of hand-dyed fabric from one of my students this summer. Anything they didn't take with them joined my fabric stash. Most of it got cut up for seam samples, but I had a big chunk of this, and it matched nicely. 

Progress on the rag-rug, with my new shoes there for size-reference.  This is six shirt's worth so far. Slowly getting better at joining the braids together, it's a bit lumpy in the middle. 

Bedroom Essentials

It's occurred to me that the two projects I'm working on right now are both for my new bedroom. I've always been awful at decorating, I tend to just go for ugly utilitarian furniture. But I'm trying to make an effort to make our new apartment a little more homey and pleasant on the eyes. I finally bought a bedside table for the bedroom, and stopped using one of Seamus's old amps to put our alarm clock on. Baby steps! 

The backing and batting for the Irish Chain quilt finally arrived. I couldn't find an extra wide backing fabric I liked enough to justify the cost, so I bought 9 yards of a normal width fabric on sale. I think the busy multicolored floral is a good match for the busyness of the front. I'm now waiting for a chance to get to school to use the print tables to baste it together--I don't have enough floor space in my house for it. 

I've also wanted to get some rugs for the apartment, we have pretty rough wood floors, and I think they're going to be cold in the winter.  But any rugs I liked were too expensive, and any that were cheap were ugly and gross feeling, so I decide to make a braided rug. 

$9 from the thrift store for starting materials. I washed and dried them to get the 'thrift store smell' out. Then  I cut them apart and cut into 2" strips. 

Strips joined and wound into balls! The knit fabrics fold onto themselves really nicely and leave a clean edged tube. I went for florals, blues, and purples, and each braid has a light, medium, and dark tone. I figure it will go well with the new quilt, and I have a neat painting on the wall that's largely a periwinkle tone. 

So far I've got yards and yards of braid, but I'm only just starting to spiral it into a circle. 

A Large Quilt!

Well, I think this is officially the largest thing I've ever sewn. It doesn't fit on the floor, and it juuuust fits on the wall. I think it's about 108" x 108" I'm going to have to bring it to school to baste it on the print tables. Right now I'm waiting to purchase the backing and batting (since I'm pretty sure those will cost way more than the quilt itself did) I was going to back it with muslin, but I realized it's so big I'll have to turn the edge down on my bed, so I want to get something a little more decorative. 

And here's me for size reference. I'm looking awkward! On the bright side, it is certainly big enough for both me and my boyfriend. All my previous quilts have been sort of one-person sized. 

So I worked on the quilt the majority of this week (I'd really like to finish before it gets cold) but I also did a little dying--I still have a lot of this silk/wool blend from the first Mariah coat. The top row are the colors I dyed originally, the bottom ones I just did. There's a bunch of regular cotton thread left too, I really want to dye a full range of colors and get back into embroidery. Because I need another thing to be working on. 

Current things-in-progress:

-Irish Chain Quilt (top done, needs to be quilted)

-Braid Coat (still making braids)

-Dear Jane Quilt (nearly done Row D)

-Red Cableknit Scarf (haven't been taking pictures, but it's about 2/3rds done)

-Repairing old Cape (going to start over)

I'm sure there's other things I'm forgetting too. And I'd like to make some clothes to wear for fall too-I donated/threw out a lot of clothes due to our short-notice move. 

Lots of Progress, Not a Lot of Pictures

I've been working quite hard this week, but mostly on rather slow-progressing projects, so it doesn't look like much!

The braid coat is starting to look like something! Very exciting to see it start to come together, I had lost a bit of steam on this project--so labor intensive--but seeing this is getting me excited again. Imagine the middle of the 'long' strips is the shoulder seam--the short ones end at the neck. So you're seeing a vest laid flat, basically, with the side seams open. Just one more 'long' strip and four 'short' ones. Then we'll see how much silk I have left, which will decide how I tackle the sleeves. 

Broke out the colorwash Irish Chain again too. I'd really like to finish this before it gets cold. That seems  long way away in the 90 degree heat we're having now, but I know it'll be here before I know it. So another diagonal row was finished this afternoon. It's definitely going to be big enough for our queen bed, the only problem is that it's so big I don't know how I"m going to baste it together!. As you can see, it doesn't even fit on my studio floor as it is. 

Things are Growing

Somehow all the projects I've got active now involve tiny patchworking. After this I really need a knitting or crocheting or even embroidering project. 

The color wash quilt is growing. I don't think I quite realized how big I was making it. I believe the finished size I plotted for was 94.5" by 105" which is way, way bigger than any of my other quilts, but I did want one that fits both me and Seamus underneath. But still, laying out on the floor, it feels huge already. Not totally sure how I'm going to baste this one together, I might have to bring it to school. 

More Dear Jane blocks, I brought them home on my little Jersey vacation. These are D-4 to D-9. I'm slowly getting better at the applique blocks, though I don't think it'll ever be my favorite technique. 

Another double-sided braid strip is finished. I need to start casting about for a strip or ribbon-like material to join them together. Maybe a matte grosgrain ribbon? I'm not sure. 

And the interior, looks like one is off by a strip or two, I'll have to check that out. I love the gradient effect so far though. I'm feeling like it might be a little shorter than I'd like, it was hard to tell with just a single strip. I think at this point, I'll get them all to this length, so I can get a better idea of how it will look (and see if I have any pieces left) and then decide if I want it longer. 

My fabric for the jumpsuits has been ordered, I decided to keep it basic with a cotton broadcloth. I would have liked to use rayon twill because it dyes and drapes so well, but I was a little afraid it would be too tricky to sew, and might fray through the dye-baths. Once that gets here I'll be cutting and sewing lots of jumpsuits, and probably make another sample. 

Irish Chaining

Two more Dear Jane blocks down--here's C-12 and C-13. Pretty easy ones, the little half-square triangles on C-13 were fiddly, but not too bad. Now I'm on to row D, almost a quarter of the way through (the main blocks, then all those triangles!)

I was generously gifted/purchased lots of little floral scraps from various lovely quilting ladies on my Yahoo quilt groups, and since quite a bit of them were already cut into 2" squares, I cut the rest down into that as well. I'm going to try to make it into a colorwashed Triple Irish Chain.

Figuring out the color variations, and how many blocks of each I'll need. 

Starting to sew them together, it's amazing how fast things go together when you're using a sewing machine. Sometimes it's a nice break from all the hand work I end up doing.

If this post seems quilt heavy, no worries. I'm also still working on the braids for my jacket, but the progress isn't very interesting looking at the moment. I've also purchased some heavy-duty wool felt that I'm tooling around with to make some shoes/boots. I've missed making them!

Stripping, Piecing

So the colorwash shirt is pretty much finished! The only snag is, because of the fact that the button placket in the front is so pieces, I don't really want to try and do button holes through it. So I'm waiting on ordering some pearl snaps to use instead. I think it'll give the shirt a neat western look. 

Cutting the dark strips now for the braid jacket. I really need to get a move-on with this, I knew it would be a long term project, but it's starting to get ridiculous. Hoping to get a few more middle shades dyed this weekend and then, finallllly start putting the braids together. 

Four more Dear Jane blocks! C-8 to C-11. Nothing too tricky with this group, thankfully.

And because I was having trouble picking the colors for each block as I go, I jury-rigged a design wall so I could see the whole thing. It's just a wonderfully obnoxious as I had hoped! Also a good motivator to keep working on them. 

Colorwashed

Recently I've been sort of entranced by colorwash or watercolor quilting. It seems to have largely fallen out of favor, and definitely has a very 90's vibe to it--it's almost cheesy? It walks the line, that's for sure, but that's what I like about it.

Anyway, it takes a lot of different bits of floral fabrics in different values and colors to work, something I didn't have. I put out a request for scraps on a quilting group, and some lovely ladies sent/are sending boxes of scraps and squares for very reasonable prices. And so I'm playing around.

One lady sent me what was originally a quilt kit--it was all 2" squares. So I got them organized from light to dark. 

And I wanted to work small, so I cut them in four, giving me 1" squares. Let me tell you, 1" squares are difficult to work with, very fiddly. But I finally got the hang of chain piecing them together, and started making a gradient. Well the strip I made was just about the right size for a shirt collar...and is all spiraled out from there. 

From top to bottom: collar, button placket, two cuffs, and a braid trim for a pocket. 

The collar that started it off. The blue-and-white stripe on the backside will  be the body of the shirt. I'm going to keep the rest of the shirt very simple, no piping or detail or anything. 

Tried out a little bit of braid-piecing to trim the collar. The pieces were 3/4" I quite like the effect, I might try to make a tie this way.