What I did this week

I am a science geek and wow I love this.  made of pure geeky awesomeness

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJvAL-iiLnQ&feature=player_embedded

so with that out of the way.  I have sewn a fair amount this week did I finish any project no.  I worked on the scriffly quilt for my new nephew.  I got about 3/4 of the way done with a baby quilt for a collage friend.  I would have finished it if I hadn't run out of the yellow fabric I was using for a border.  I got enough to do the inner border and the binding and should be able to finish the top tonight.  it is a super cute disappearing nine patch center with a twin in inner yellow border, an 2.5 inch pieced border and another yellow border and then pink border.  the quilt is super cute, and perfect for a baby girl. 

I, as usual, have way too many projects in progress.  and a couple weeks ago I discovered the pinwheel sampler quilt along at p.s. I quilt.  I fell in love with the project and of course they were already on block seven.  I took some time deciding what fabric I wanted to do it in.  and settled on midnight garden by maywood studios and white as my background fabric.  I also decided that this would be a hand project.  I am going to at least hand piece the top using english paper piecing.  I need a project I can carry with me and stuff and to keep my hands busy when we have friends over to play games on saturdays nights.  I am not a night person and have been known to crash out at 10pm while they keep going on the game for several more hours.  if I keep my hands busy  I can make it till the end with out falling asleep.  I got all of the pieces cut out for all of the blocks and I finished the the first block of block one. yesterday I started the first of block 5.  yeah I am doing them out of order but I reach into the big bag and grab a smaller ziplock bag to randomize the placement of the different pinwheels.  since when I finish one pinwheel I am going to sew it to the previous pinwheel, top assembly as I go.  

What have I been up to

I was doing a lot of quilty not a lot of writey.   so I mentioned in my last post the pink quilt top is finished.  the bebe and I felt lazy and took a day off of work and I finished a green one in the same pattern for my mom for mothers day and 2/3rds of a top for one of the twins.  I took the green and pink top up to the long arm quilter a week ago.  it will have them done in a couple weeks,  not before the bebekins birthday maybe by mothers day.   I was very nervous about taking my quilt tops up to the long arm quilter.  I was worried she would hate my tops and she would find all of these technical problems with my quilts blah blah blah and my quilts wouldn't be good enough and I suck at quilting ect.   

I went and picked up grandma and we got the bebe packed in the car and drove to santa fe.  we were suffering from spring delusions.  where you walk out side dressed for warm weather and it is windy and overcast and 60 degrees.  The long arm quilter lives out side santa fe in a historic rural compunity where lots of people have horses and cows and such.  The bebekins insisted that the horses and cows were all JoeJoes  (the name of her dog).  big giant dogs.  it was all rather cute and some days you can't argue with an almost 2years.  The long arm quilter liked my quilt tops and it was all good.  while we were up in santa fe we visited the quilt store up there.  it was quite wonderful.  we also went to the JoAnn up there and found the most lovely fabric to make a smock with for the bebekins to wear  at preschool while doing messy activities.  it is lemons and limes 

so this past week I made the smock for the bebekins, I put iron on vinyl on the white and yellow and green.  cause really making a smock out it other wise is just stupid.  it came out lovely and it is the bebekins new favorite article of clothing cause of the huge pockets that you can put a lot of cool things in.  I have a picture her wearing it, but the camera is not with me to down load. One of my friends came over this week for quilting night and that was fun.  we haven't done it in a couple weeks and it was good to do it, even though I was sewing the smock not quilting.  

I finished the quilt top for the girl twin and got about 1/3 of the way through the quilt top for the boy twin.  which is a good thing as the twins were born at 9:19 last night.  welcome to the world twins.  mom was having some complications so they came a bit early and a bit tiny but every one is doing well this morning.  they have enough tiny baby quilts so having the other quilts in a couple weeks won't hurt anything.  the girls quilt matches bebekins quilt, but is purple.  the boys quilt is a Scriffly quilt.  I am using the Moda Cherish Nature fabrics.  I think they will be wonderful quilts for them. and and about 50 x 50 and 55 x 55  they will be good size quilts till the babies get to be descent sized.

Eye Candy

I had a hard time motivating my self to do anything last night.  I sat in front of the computer and had to fight the lethargy and get my sewing machine out.  I finally did and I finished this top last night.  I need to come up with a better name for it than  "valentine's day puked up."  the pattern is petite autumn fairies. and I was calling it petite rose fairies till I started piecing it.  I am not a pink person.  I wanted to put on the invitations for the bebekins baby shower if you get me something pink you will be shot.  I also though about putting its a boy when we knew it was a girl, just so I wouldn't be overwhelmed by pink.

 

So then you might ask why did you just make a pink quilt for your baby girl.  yeah good question.  I love the Michael Miller Flower fairies so much that I though it would be a good idea and I really like this quilt top cause I really like the fairies.  The fairies as so sweet.    I am hoping to take it to the local long arm quilter this weekend to have it quilted, cause well my skills just not up to par to match this quilt.  and while I could wait and build up my skills at free motion it will be alot longer than I want to wait.  that and it is an easy way to get the quilt finished so I can tuck baby girl into bed with it.  I made this weekend two pillow cases to match it.  both have the edging of roses and an accent of the pale green,  the main body of one is the darker green fairy frost of the quilt and the main body of the other is the soft ballet/bubblegum pink that I am using as the backing.  I also finished the tote bag to match it a while ago.  currently though it is being used to store my stabilizers and batting pieces and such, so I don't have a picture of it.  I need to do some more spring cleaning and organization to get to it and get it usable.

so here is another side project I finished.  I tried my hand at english paper piecing and made a grandmas flower garden table runner.  I have a square kitchen table and a toddler that likes to pull on things.  square makes it so she can't pull stuff as easily.   I am happy with it other than sayng GAAHHHH I made a terrible choice in the color of thread I used to quilt this.  and when you are using a paper template for the quilting and sew over it, don't use blue painters tape, it will gum your thread and pull the threads as you try to get it off.  I think next time I am going to try scotch tape and see how that goes.

 

I made it reversible so if you don't want hexagons you can have squares.  I like it.  I think it came out reasonably well.  I still rate my free motion skills at a c+ maybe a b-.  you at at least tell they are supposed to be butterflies and that my stitches are relatively straight and you can tell what the pattern was, but I did terrible about traveling along an already quilted path and my stitches are fairly uniform on one line but that line may not match the line next to it.  practice practice practice and I need more of it and on quilts when I am done with them I don't have to keep looking at them.  I have some baby quilts in the works, for just such practice.

 

Easter and such.

With easter I didn't get much done this past weekend other than acquire a new iron. Last week with out my iron I started a grandmas flower garden table piece, move of a square candle mat or large trivet than a table runner. it will be 16 x 16 finished. I used english paper piecing for this cause I could sew my fabric to the template and then not have to worry about ironing the top till I was done, and gave me something sewing crafty to do till I could go get an iron. My inlaws came into town over the weekend to play with the bebekins, so with them in town I couldn't really set up the sewing machine and work on some of my other quilts over the weekend cause well there just wasn't space in the living room. the English paper piecing makes hand piecing a cinch. I loved it. I got the whole top piece done over the weekend and it came out really well. Then in figuring out how to quilt the little piece I came across inspiration on how to quilt two of the tops I have done and basted to their batting and backs and have sat for a couple months cause I have had no idea how to quilt them. I have thought about stitch in the ditch and wanted something more than that for these two quilts. I actually came up with quilting ideas for at least 4-5 quilts so now I just have to do it. The two big quilts are going to be at the end so I can practice the free-motion quilting on quilts I don't care about as much first. I am particularly needing to work on maintaining an even stitch length.

I am pretty sure my babble is pretty much incomprehensible today. sorry. there is a fine line between not enough medication to make me feel better, enough medication to make my allergies go away and too much and being in the groggy trying to not fall asleep on the keyboard. I usually err on the side of not enough when I am at work. Stupid plants. I am usually only bothered about 1 month a year so it isn't too bad but during that month it still sucks.

I am off to the library to go pick up some books on sashiko.

Grandmas Christmas Quilt

I saw the quilt kit for this quilt on a website of a local quilt store.  I sent the link to my mom and she fell in love with the quilt so much that we went out and got the kit that weekend.  I offered to make it for her as a Christmas present.  I got it almost done for Christmas had about half the quilting done.  I got half the quilting done and then decided I hated the way the quilting was going so I pulled out all the quilting with a seam ripper and then redid the quilting.  So Grandma got her quilt a couple weeks ago.  With the scraps  I make a matching quilted pillow top.  The cat absolutely loves the pillow  the pillow is his and he isn't going to argue with you about it.  Here is a picture of him sleeping on it.  The remodel  of Grandmas room is done and so we got the quilt hung up on the wall earlier this week and now that it is up on the wall it is easy to photograph.

The quilt is a pieced quilt with some appliqué.  The fabric is Michael Miller.  I used the Fairfield Organic Cotton/Bamoboo batting.  I love that batting, it is so soft and quilts up beautifully.

Here is a little lap throw I made last fall for Mom/Grandma.  The bebekins is learning how to talk and calls Grandma Mom cause that is what me, my husband and my brother all call her so she decided that I am mom and my mom is mom.  so I am trying to break a life long habit of calling mom mom, and calling her grandma instead 

broken iron

so tonight i figured I would tackle some of the ironing of work shirts and throw in ironing some of the lovely dyed silk from this weekend.  I cut half yard pieces of the ends of the yellow, orange, peach, pink, lilac, and green. I got my silk soaked in best press and then dried in the dryer and I get to the last piece and I keep having all these problems with the fabric sticking to the iron and the wrinkles arn't steam out properly.   I struggle through it and go to unplug the iron and it is barely hot.  damn it the iron broke.  now what do I do tonight.  the bebekins is asleep and hubby is off somewhere playing with friends.  I can't finish ironing the clothes cause well the iron isn't getting hot.  I can't work on baby girls dress cause it needs the interfacing fused to the silk for the bodice.  can't work on my submission for AAQ contest cause well  I need to get my freezer paper hexagons to stick to the silk with the iron.  I can't work on the rose fairies cause I am working on the long seams and like to press them open before adding the next piece.   I guess I can work on something else*sighs*

Since I can't work on my project I might as well write the post on ironing freshly dyed silk.  when you dye silk you are subjecting it to heat and being wadded up and wrung out and squished. you end up with something that looks like it will have permanent wrinkles. while the silk setting on the iron is a low heat with no steam.  this is good for a finished garment.  the dyeing process is pretty good at setting in wrinkles.  so here is the easiest way to get them out.  last wash to get the rest of the dye out use a cream rinse for hair on the silk.  this helps soften the fibers.  dry the silk on tumble dry in the dryer.  this will help release alot of the wrinkles, but alas there will be the stubborn ones.  I would recommend the next step even if you are using a heavier silk then the 5 mm habotai I am using (think shear almost gauzy).  I soaked the fabric in best press and put it in the tumble dryer for about 10 minutes.  this stiffens the fabric some so that you can iron it with out distorting it.  Habotai in particular is very easy to distort when ironing it, even the heavy habotai.  something like a dupioni or a noil not as easy to distort.   If the fabric is the stiffness you desire,  you will just use steam on your fabric to get the wrinkles to release and get a beautifully smooth press.  if you want it stiffer you will spray it down with more best press and press it smooth. don't be afraid of using a really hot iron, a hot iron makes this easier to press silk, so does steam and damp silk.

I am using the 5mm habotai on a couple project cause I want the shear effect of the fabric and the way when you have several layer the light plays with it.   when I use the pink on a backing of a quilt I am going to use several layers cause it is a thin fabric and the several layers should give me the intensity of color play and the strength.

Silk and more silk

The sillk dyeing went really well this weekend. I got some Jacquard procion MX which is a cold water dye that can be used for silk. you add some vinegar to the mixture to make it an acid dye. I also got some Jacquard Green Lable Silk Dye. It can be heat set or it can be set with dyeset. I heat set it steaming it in the microwave instead of on the stove. I got some wonderfuly luminous colors. I was going for pastel springy colors not the really really vibrant bright colors. I dyed the fabric in 4 yardish incriments. I am going to use the yellow, orange and orangy reds to make a sunflower quilt. The pink is going to be backing for my rose fairy quilt. I think it will be become baby girls. she spent so much time this weekend rolling in the silk.

The pink silk I dyed with Rosey Petal RIT dye, using 1 cup of vinegar in the dye bath.  I did this in the wash machine and there are about 9 yards of the silk that I did all at once.  it dyed true to the package and is the right rosey pink to match the rose flower fairies

There are two greens shown here.  two diffrent dye types, same color, same fabric.  the olivey color is a kelly green RIT dye with the vinegar.  The springy green is the kelly green Jacquard green label silk dye microwave steamed.  this just shows the difference between they dye type can make.