Noooooo

I just wrote up a pretty long post, and it got completely dumped when I attempted to submit it. :/ 

Well, guess I'm not going to post about all the work I've been doing this weekend. :( because I spent 45 of my sewing minutes typing it up! And Sunday bedtime is creeping closer. 

Here, you may have pictures instead of words. 

I squared lots of 12" blocks with my new ruler. 

I sewed them to other 12" blocks. 

I took a break to straighten my hair. 

I currently have four completed strips of four 12" blocks pieced together. 

And I have two four-strips left to do tonight. 

Then I need to piece all six strips together tomorrow night. So that the two auction tops can go to my sons school and the auction committee meeting on the 12th. 

Snappy pants!

Does anyone other than me remember snap away sweat pants?

Apparently major retailers everywhere have forgotten the fabulous-ness that is snap away sweat pants. Or they are way overcharging for this luxury, and this is a major bummer for me. Because my seven year old Tony is playing Pee Wee basketball this year! Which is great, except for the fact that it is COLD outside. I have been to no less than six stores and also the great internets looking for tear away pants he can wear as we are in transit to his practices and games because the whole pulling your pants off over your shoes sucks thing is the reason snap away pants were invented in the first place.

Alas, I can only find those stupid things in his team colors on eastbay.com and for an OUTRAGEOUS $35. These are sweatpants, people!!

So, all this to say last night I bought some snaps and a snap tool and in the very near future, I will be chopping up some sweatpants and attempting to make them snappy!

I have a ton of quilt work I want to focus on as my deadline for having both auction quilt tops finished is the 12th, so I can send them in for the classrooms and moms running the auction to see, but hopefully this will be a quick project and not a total disaster. If it does become a total disaster, well, I may just end up out $35 plus shipping and handling...

My first quilt finished!!

I finally finished the quilt for Baby J! 

I'm super excited because I don't even think I did a horrible job or anything even though I had lots of challenges. 

And now I am confident enough with my free motion foot on my machine and with my ability to follow a (simple) pattern free motion that I'm not terrified I got in over my head with the quilts for the auction. 

Here are some pictures. I'm hoping to deliver it sometime this week!

This I snapped while I was quilting it. I went with spider webs inside all the action blocks and sort of swirly zig zag triangle thingies in all the sashing. (Yes technical terms!) I do wish the webs were slightly more visible from the top, but it's okay because in the back they definitely show. 

^^Woopsie! Can't flip this picture mobile and it's just too much to email it to myself on the computer. Perhaps I will remember to go back and edit this post and do it then. 

Adding the binding, I actually just used double fold bias tape instead of making my own quilt binding because it was easier. I don't know if "normal" quilters do that, but they always seem to refer to binding as an entirely different thing. I'm not sure! This worked well for this project though! 

And I decided that instead of dealing with mothered corners, I'd just chop them off! My stitching on the bias tape went slightly crooked around the curves.. I could have fixed it, but it was minor and would've been way more work to rip out those stitches. :/ here's the whole thing! 

And here's the last one zoomed out a bit so you can see how big it is! Our couch is huge. Reclined like that it could fit four adults laying down not squished. ;)

I didn't actually measure it after I washed it. Perhaps I should before I give it up to Baby J. Before adding the binding and washing it was 41 inches by 51 inches. So hopefully J will get MANY years of love out of it!

Cutting cutting cutting cutting etc.

My lord, quilting a big quilt of tiny pieces must take FOREVER. I feel like I've been spending weeks cutting out 6.5 inch squares. In reality, it was just a few hours this past weekend. In my head, it's been WEEKS. Weeks, I tell you!

Auction quilt #2 status?! 

ALL finished cutting! Whew. My wrist is tired. (and YES I was using a rotary cutter!) 

I have a feeling I'm going to be VERY sad to see this one go. I really love it already. It's even sadder because this is the one my son's square is featured on! 

His is this adorable little "star" square! 

Isn't it CUTE?! 

I know I've got to give it up though. :( Last years art projects went for $200-300 at the auction, and they were on poster boards! I'm really hoping these will rake in some big dollars for the program. And maybe I'll get BOTH my kids involved in something similar for a future "family" themed quilt to keep forever. Yes. That sounds like an excellent plan...

In the meantime, a more short-term plan is to start piecing this baby after I finish Baby J's quilt, but before I start quilting Auction quilt #1. Hopefully I'll have some more work done on it a little later this week!

Pre-Dawn Project!

What's a girl to do when it is 3:30 am and you are stuck awake taking care of one of these??

Work on a project of course. I spent 3-5am going back and forth between dumping puke buckets, starting cartoons on netflix, and making a dragon radar! 

It's now 6:45am and I'm at work, so looks like just a quick photo summary will suffice. (Don't worry, no puke-pics!)

1. Take everything apart. 

2. Put seven smiley face stickers on the light lens thingy. 

3. Spray paint light green. 

4. Clean up vomit while waiting for it to dry. 

5. Tape it up. 

6. Spray paint again with dark green. 

7. Cuddle toddler for a few minutes. 

8. Peel up all the tape. And the smiley stickers. 

9. Paint dragon balls orange with nail polish. 

10. Put it all back together and admire your handiwork. 

And there you have it! Needs a couple more little touches but much more impressive than my first attempt. 

As you may be able to tell, I don't like to limit myself to doing each craft once. I prefer failing multiple times before doing it right. It allows much more of a sense of accomplishment when you finally get it right(ish).

Where the Magic Happens

I figure while I sit in here watching Sex and the City on DVD and putting off working on another project, I can take pictures of my room!

I truly love having my own space. Prior to taking over this, my older sons old room, my crap was literally EVERYWHERE! It was shoved in bags and boxes all over the place and just a general disaster. I can confidently say bunk beds were one of the best crafting purchases I've made in the last couple years. Stuff is still somewhat disastrous, but it's disastrous in my own space and my husband doesn't have to look at it! He's (luckily for me!) a very tidy man and it drove him nuts to have fabric and notions and rulers and bags full of Joanns purchases I hadn't found a place for yet all over his domain. 

So, without further ado, my space! 

We will start with the worst one, the pile.. This corner has my sons scooter, his sewing machine, and boxes of trash I haven't gotten out of here yet. 

Number two, my hello kitty TV! (Goodwill score for $6!) to the right you can see my yarn stash in the pink Rubbermaid and my spare cutting mat. 

My shelving! It needs a redo. And I tore it apart recently looking for something that WAS on the shelf but isn't now. Which is why there are heaps of fabric instead of nicely folded stacks. This was the closet in here and I made the shelves myself. Which I'm pretty dang proud of even though the "shelves" themselves need to be replaced with something sturdier to stop the bowing... 

Top fabric shelf is supposed to be for quilting fabrics, bottom is for battings and fleeces and super thick things, and the middle is for everything else. Up on the VERY top are works in progress, and down on the very bottom are my Rubbermaid of scraps and just.. Stuff. 

Up next is my "design wall" meaning I staple gunned a flannel sheet my mom gave me onto this wall. It works for now. I was going to make a PVC frame and stretch it over. But that damn thing was impossible. The pipes are sitting on the floor mocking me and my staple gun worked ten-bajillion times better. It's not attractive, but it's functional. 

Last but ABSOLUTELY DEFINITELY not least... Where the magic happens. I got my pfaff anniversary edition machine for my birthday last year and it may just be the love of my life. It was super duper on sale and I love it. The desk was acquired for free by a trade involving a fish tank. The Ott light I received for Christmas this year from my mom and I love it because my room isn't exactly bright. And off on the left is a brand new addition. An adjustable height 4x2 table I picked up at costco. :) under that table I have my "tackle box", and two dollar store trash cans. One for actual trash, and the other for scraps that need to be moved to my big bin. the eventual plan is to have tools and rulers and stuff mounted on the wall above this table here so they are always handy. I also very recently acquired the ironing board from a friend for FREE! My favorite price. :) I put it where it is so I can just spin around in my chair... Cut, spin, press, half-spin, see, half-spin, press, half-spin, throw it up on the wall behind me.. And so on... It works pretty well! 

And thus ends the tour of my little paradise. :)

Baby J quilt progress update

I bought some tape! This means it's time for disasters in spray basting version 2.0. I definitely worked out some bugs this time, but a couple new problems have popped up!

I think my biggest issue with this is the minkee that I chose as a backing, but I managed to get it taped down on my living room floor mostly flat, and not very stretched out. THIS time I opted to spray baste in tiny sections. I did not take any pictures, but I basically laid out the backing on top, peeled back a few inches, then sprayed, stuck, smoothed, and peeled back the next part. It worked much better than spraying a giant top mounted on my design wall. 

Then I took my sandwich to the ironing board to set the spray baste with some heat. 

Next up I "stitched in the ditch" on all the longest straightest lines of the quilt. I decided to use red thread in my bobbin and invisible thread on top. This was going amazingly until I rolled my chair over a part of the quilt which was on the ground. The result: 

A three inch wide gash in my top! 

At this pint, I was ready to say forget it and pour myself a big cup of rum and coke and then take a nap instead of sewing. And then I thought if the cute little boy who has been waiting since before he was born to get this damn blanket and I soldiered on. 

I opted to fray check the area because I'm fresh out of fusible interfacing and just zigzag right over the tear. 

On the front it took me a minute to find it. 

On the back it's slightly more obvious. :/

About an hour later I had all my ditches stitched, including around the outside border. WOOHOO!! I can cut off the ugly backing now! I realized halfway through lopping off the fourth side, I'm not supposed to do that yet. Eff. That is supposed to be done AFTER I do the free motion quilting, so that I have something to hang onto when I'm quilting around the edges. :/ wellll, next time I'll remember. 

And THEN I flipped the thing over. I have two pretty decent sized crinkles in my minkee. :( and no idea how to fix them. I'm leaving them and hoping that they will blend some once I get some designs in there. Cross your fingers it works out! 

And this is where we end the day. Because I really don't have any idea how to put my free motion foot on my machine. Way to go, Katie. 

Here's the biggest shot I can get of the top, without taking it back out to the living room floor. Yay tiny spaces. 

Creations in various states of completion...

Here we go.. A list if all the items I have started making or need to make and may or may not someday finish. 

1. Quilt for baby J, my friends baby. (Who is now toddler J. He turned one in December.) it's going to be pretty awesome when it's finished. IF I finish it. Quilt top is done. Needs to actually be quilted though.  

(No picture. It is the aforementioned sticky heap on the shelf right now.)

2. Quilt #1 for the Montessori auction in April. I hope to finish this baby ASAP, my deadline is really the end of March though. Top is complete, that's it. 

(This picture was taken before I actually sewed the binding on.)

3. Quilt #2 for Montessori auction. Same deadline, currently cutting. 

(This one is my plan for the quilt.)

(This one is a picture of my fabrics I've chosen) 

4. This one is actually a three-in-one deal. At the end of March, Nick and I are going to Emerald City Comiccon. I really want to be Bulma from the Dragonball series. And I think it would be amazing to be three different Bulmas on three different days. March is shaping up to be extremely busy. Status is not even started!

5. I'm sure my husband needs work done on his costume also. YAY March!!!

6. Curtains. These will be put off for a very long time I'm sure. Because hello, I have a bunch of other crap I haven't done yet! But our kitchen needs new curtains. The hubs has chosen a Star Wars print. It's in the pile. 

Is that everything? I don't know. I'm sure there is more. It hasn't reached my radar yet. 

Spray Basting--a total disaster.

Well... According to both the internet and a quilting class I recently took on craftsy, spray basting is THE way to go for a quilting project. 

Considering that I, novice (meaning never done it!) quilter extrordanair, am racking up quilt tops without battings, backings, or bindings, I figured its time to actually quilt one. My three in progress quilt tops happen to be one for a baby which I started for a baby shower in December 2012, and two which I have agreed to donate for an auction for my sons school, with a march deadline. One of those two is finished, the other I was waiting to start until I got these first two little projects quilted. 

Teensy tiny problem. Apparently I suck at this part. 

Firstly, I decided the easiest way to spray baste this thing would be to throw it up on my design wall and spray away. (Opening the window first of course. Because of the use it outside only warning, duh!) The two feet in from of and around my wall are now incredibly sticky. Woopsy. That explains the outdoors warning. You don't even want to see the bottoms of my feet right now. I figure I'll just roll with it for as long as I'm hanging out in my craft room tonight. 

Next up, getting the front attached to the batting. Now... Where the hell is my tape? Oh yeah, it's effing GONE. Gone. Gone. Gone. I tore apart my room. My husband tore apart the rest of the house. We don't have any freaking tape. I tried to get the two pieces attached anyway. Nope. Not gonna happen. Sticky, crinkly, yucky mess. 

Current progress in basting baby quilt together?  

In a sticky heap on the shelf. 

Guess it's time to start piecing top number three instead. :/ maybe tomorrow I'll find my tape, and the courage to try again. Maybe I'll take pictures that time. Considering most people that blog also put pictures with their words?...