My stalkee was Liz from oh sew liz.  From my stalking I discerned that she liked pink, circles, scrapiness, and that she had two sons.  Having a little man myself, I thought ths she would like something that was solely for her, something pink and girly and wonderful!  So that’s what I did.

One of the rules for this round was that you had to use at least one of the following blocks: churn dash/shoofly, log cabin, drunkards path, N.Y. beauty, or flying geese.  I decided on the drunkard’s path since I have always been afraid of curves.  I thought it would be both a challenge, and yet not too much of a challenge.

I followed the tutorial available on The Sometimes Crafter, but of course, I didn’t EXACTLY follow the tutorial. Toward the bottom of the post she talks about an alternate method for pinning the curves, starting from the center and working out.  This, of course, stretches the fabric slightly when you’re sewing.  You still get perfectly shaped blocks, but you have to trim off the edge.  Somehow when I did this, I lost the little “lip” of straight edge where the blocks meet, so I ended up with 1/4 circles that went all the way to the 1/4 inch seam allowance.  Huh. I didn’t think anymore about it until I started sewing the blocks together and they weren’t looking quite how I had planned. What did appear was a big blue heart. How cute is that?

In the tutorial on The Sometimes Crafter, she doesn’t really talk about how to find the center of the curves, so I thought I would take a picture of how I like to do this – after the pieces are cut out, I fold them in half and finger-press right at the edge that is to be sewed.  I folded the blue, or concave, piece so that the right side was in and the pink, or convex, piece so that the right side was out, this way I can not only match up the center, but they actually “fit” together.

I quilted the piece all over in pink thread and bound it in blue but didn’t take a picture because sometimes I just get a little excited and forget. Luckily, Liz took a picture when she received it, so here’s her shot:

In return for all of my work, I received this amazing quilt from Anita at Bloomin’ Workshop:

I adore the flying geese, I love that they are super scrappy and the giant ric rac is amazing. Just sayin’.

For Hive #1, March/April 2012 swap I made up a block based on the knee socks quilt block from The Modern Quilt Guild:

 The tutorial for the original block can be found here: http://themodernquiltguild.com/2012/03/04/100-days-week-of-using-what-you-have-knee-socks-quilt-block/ .  I’m going to have to explore it further soon, I love it that much.

For Hive #8, April 2012 swap I made wonky churn dashes for all (except one hive member who didn’t want a wonky block so I made her a special non-wonky one ):

 I have a new love for churn dashes, I think.  The first time I really worked with this block was to make the baby quilt that is currently for sale on Etsy.  I really didn’t like the pattern then, but I was also working hard to preserve and use every scrap of the print because I only had enough for that one small quilt and it’s out of print now. With these I had a little more freedom to play around and I like the effect. 

Next up, a report on my Doll Quilts, the one I sent AND the one I received in turn.

I made this quilt for my friends and their little girl (who should be here any second!), using those brilliant prints – Mendocino by Heather Ross. I’d been holding onto the fabrics for a while and I finally figured out what was stopping me from really getting down to working with them – variety. Somehow I’d managed to only get the fabrics with light or white colored backgrounds – mermaid on white, octopuses on pale pink, etc. The moment I added some more color to them, BAM! I had a quilt.

The block is a really simple one, but with near endless possibilities. It’s no secret that I love a rail fence quilt and this is my variation on the simple rail fence block. I played with calling it a “split rail fence” but I like “Missing Rail” – it makes me imagine little kids peering through a gap in a fence that their ball just went over.

This tutorial makes 24 blocks – 4 more than you need to make the quilt I made.  You can use the blocks on the back of the quilt, make a pillow from them or just make the quilt larger.

To start, you need a quarter yard (either fat or skinny) of 8 different coordinating fabrics.  In addition, you’ll need a quarter yard (not fat) of white for the vertical sashing, & some fabric for binding and backing.

Start by cutting out 3 pieces of each fabric that measure 8 ½” x 9 ½”

You can do this next bit using the stack and whack method – stack up all your like-colored pieces and cut them so that you have 3 new slices: one that is 8 ½” x 4 ½” and two that are 8 ½” x 2 ½”

Mix up that middle 2 ½” slice so that they are randomly paired with a matching 4 ½” and 2 ½” piece and sew them back together to form 8 ½” squares.

My sashing is made from 2 ½” strips of white cotton and the blocks are only sashed in one direction (vertical)

You can mix up your blocks however you like, mine are turned both horizontally and vertically, but the variations are endless:

My suggestion:

No sashing, all blocks turned vertically:

Only two colors, blocks turned 180 degrees each iteration:

I had a little bit of trouble with the block initially – turns out the needle wasn’t centered in my sewing machine’s throat plate so I was sewing more than a quarter inch seam allowance without even realizing.  I ended up over-compensating and so the blocks all had to be trimmed down, but this is both good an bad — bad is that I had an extra step to do to clean up the edges, but good is that my swapping partners will be receiving perfectly shaped 12 1/2″ blocks with perfect edges.

But, I don’t really chat much with those folks.  And I’ve been missing having a sewing buddy.  To that end, I’ve opted to join some swaps!  Years ago I used to participate in swaps through several lists on yahoogroups.  I’m still on those lists but over the years they have become less and less and less active.  I’ve done a few other swaps, in the mean and in between time, via the Quilt Art mailing list and some ladies on there.  But I think I was missing the connection part, where you get to talk about what you are working on and show them pictures and, well, make friends.

Imagine my shock to discover a booming community of swappers on flickr?  I mean, what a strange place to encounter this kind of activity.  And yet, it’s strangely fitting.  I feel a little like the last one to arrive at a party and they started the games without me.  Inserting myself feels complicated and uncomfortable, but I think I’ve found a few groups where I feel less complicated and uncomfortable.  But anyway…

The first swap I’m taking part is a group that swaps blocks monthly: Nubees.  There’s a website and such coming soon.  I’ve already chosen my fabrics and the block I’ll be making for each of my swap partners:

The block in the center is using my colors (purple, orange, teal & yellow) and the fabrics around the edges are the fabrics I’ve chosen for my partners in their selected color pallets. The block is “Envy” from Modern Blocks, which I received as a Christmas gift this year.

Next up, I’ll be participating in the Doll Quilt Swap cycle 12!.  It’s a blind swap – you make and send a small “doll” quilt to someone  who doesn’t know who you are and you receive the same in return.  I received my name this morning, so now I have to start stalking my partner and find out what they like!    I’m very excited about this one.  My quilt wall could use some serious refreshing.  That one is due to be sent on April 2ndish.  Expect to see some blog posts about it.  I have nothing to show for that one yet, but I’ll get there soon!

Way back in the Spring, I saw on Craft a post about a totally awesome Spock quilt. Event though there was a tutorial on how to design the quilt, I thought, gosh, I wouldn’t know where to start.  I showed it to some co-workers who thought it was awesome and that it would be a great gift for our boss, who is a Trekkie extraordinaire.  But ethics being what they are, it really wasn’t appropriate for me to make it for him.

Fast forward to Octoberish when our boss announced his retirement in early December.  I immediately thought of the quilt and did a search to find the post again. Lo & behold, not only did I find the original post, but I found that Carol, the brains behind the blog Funthreads, had started a really amazing, simple to follow, quilt-a-long!  It made the whole project a lot less daunting.

Carol’s quit-a-long makes a twin-sized quilt in eleven parts. I thought a wall-hanging would be much more appealing to our recipient (and also easier for me to complete!), so I printed out each week of the quilt-a-long and wrote in new measurements for the pieces.  If you want to change the size of a quilt pattern, do not skip this step!  Have you ever tried to halve or double a recipe without re-writing the ingredient measurements? I ended up having to triple a batch of cupcakes just recently because I thought I could do the doubling math in my head as I went!  When halving quilt measurements, be sure to take into account the 1/2 inch for seam allowances. Remove the 1/2 inch from the original measurement, divide the resulting number in half, then add the half inch back in.  This will give you the correct (finished) measurement and your full 1/4 inch seam allowances all around.  Also remember that when you halve both the width and height you are essentially making a quilt a quarter of the size of the original.

I free-motion quilted my version of this pattern only in the black/dark parts to make Spock’s face stand out more.  I also stuck mainly with white/cream and black/grey for the darks and lights.  I have to say I am exceptionally proud of this project. Not only was my boss thrilled with his quilt, but I really enjoyed making it – always key.  I’m looking forward to designing my own quilt next, using the Funthreads tutorial – I’m thinking a Dr. Who quilt in TARDIS blue next?

Last night Caleb came out into the living room carrying one of his small chairs.
   M: Caleb, what are you doing?
   C: Mommy, I want to show you how much I love you!
   M: Ok…
   C: (climbing up on the chair and reaching as high as he can) I love you this much!
   M: Wow, that’s a lot! I love you too. How about we put the chair back now?
   C: I love you all the way to the moon and back!
   M: Well I love you all the way to the sun and back.
   C: Mommy, we can’t go to the sun because it’s too hot and we’ll get burned.

Caleb has been bugging me for a little while now to teach him to sew. On the surface, this is adorable, and oh golly gee, he wants to spend more time with Mommy! And wow, he wants to learn about what Mommy is doing! But when you really think about it, the 4-year-old kamikaze approach to life is not what I would call well-suited to the sewing room.

I’ve been working so hard on getting things ready for the Etsy store and other projects that I feel like I’ve been neglecting my mother/son bonding time. So this weekend I relented.

Our first project together was  this little stuffed felt heart.  I had to prop up the pedal so he could reach it.  Originally I thought he could sit on my lap and I could control the pedal, but I think getting to use the pedal was part of the appeal of sewing!  He had an amazing amount of control over the pedal, though.  You know, at age 4, those synapses are still building their neural pathways…when I said “stop” he would keep going for a few more stitches…but he never went fast enough that I got scared he would sew through his finger (One of my biggest fears in teaching a new person to sew).  And he seemed like he really, legitimately wanted to learn to sew, which is more than I can say for other people who have asked me for lessons.  I showed him how to leave a hole open on the edge and flip the heart inside out, how to stuff it and how to stitch it closed.

In hindsight I should have attached a little loop of ribbon to it and called it an ornament, but I didn’t.  It’s a little bit of a funny shape and so the 4-year-old boy that he is decided it was a boomerang!  He took it to school today so I’m sure to never see it again – hence the quickie cellphone picture.  At least I have something to treasure.  Of course, he was not happy about the picture either…

Visit me here: http://hastyquilter.etsy.com/

And use the coupon code SHIP4FREE for free shipping!

Total items completed: 15

Total items currently in process: 6

Days left in the month: 8.
Items left to complete: 15.
Days left until Small Business Saturday when I plan to reopen my etsy store: 4.

I’m starting to feel really excited about Small Business Saturday!