So last night my MIL and I hit Southampton Quilts to look for a beige grout color for my brother's quilt and more paper templates. She also took me to the Apollo Grill for dinner. Waaay more money than I would have spent for dinner but the food was great, the atmosphere was so tacky it was cute and she was paying. What's not to love?
Anyways, I did find a great beige, but don't have a picture since I'm at work (shhh!), but trust me it's pretty. So I figured out yesterday I need 630 (!) hexagons of this color, so I started cutting them out. Well, I was thinking maybe it would be a good idea to count the squares I had cut out of the other colors just to make sure I had enough. I mean, I was pretty sure I did, I am pretty anal about these things. But I did change the size I was making half way through the planning stage and had to redo the math pretty quickly, so I just wanted to check things out. Thank God I did now and not when everything was almost finished since I realized I was 3 red squares short. 3! Out of 210! So close and yet so far.
I studied the pattern for a while to see if I could fudge it somewhere, but as anyone who knows me knows, I really am not a fudger. Just goes against my grain. Then I almost went over to my MIL's house to see if there was anymore. I'm pretty sure there wasn't, but maybe...but then I realized it was 10:00 PM and she might not appreciate me skulking down in her fabric room (yes, it has it's own little room) when she was probably asleep. So guess what Toby and I will be doing on "date" night tonight after we drop Marley off at my mom's? Yep, stash diving to find 9 more inches of red fabric.
The only good news in all of this is that of all the colors in the quilt, I'm least committed to the red. I like it ok, and it was free, but it's not really perfect. I know my MIL doesn't really like it. And I've only completed 1 flower so I could probably just use another color if I had to. But what a pain in the neck...
Friday, July 11, 2008
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
How did we survive before this?
This whole myspace/facebook age is amazing (how old does that make me sound??) Apparently I signed up for facebook awhile ago and totally forgot about it. My old college roommate who I haven't spoken to in forever found me on it. Then I found a few more old college and high school friends and then more found me through them. And myspace totally rocks my extremely nosy world. I get pretty annoyed when people mark theirs private though. Why shouldn't total strangers have access to your life (just kidding). It's all really pretty neat. How the heck did we survive before this? Oh yeah - something to do with paper and stamps and way too much work...
Doing the math...
So the other GGQ I’m working on is for my brother, Mark, and his girlfriend, Janelle, for Christmas. Well at least I’m hoping the quilts for them. Strangely enough, they have a green couch and I have a green couch. So far I’m loving this quilt and think it would also look great on my green couch. But I will be strong and at least try to give it away when I’m done.
This is another MIL’s stash quilt. It’s actually really pretty fabric which she had earmarked for another project that she finally admitted she’d never get to. I usually don’t get to steal earmarked fabrics, but she made a very kind donation since it’s (supposed to be) a gift. She didn’t have enough of one of the colors, so I will have to buy one, but that’s still a lot better than buying it all!
Through the magic of Microsoft Visio, which I have at work but have used much more for craft related endeavors than actual work, I was able to map out the quilt, which is another variation of the GGQ which looks like stars:
Even though I’m really trying to finish my other quilt, I did let myself make one flower and some of the star point triangles:
Pretty, huh? The picture really doesn't do the fabric justice. I love fabric with gold in it. I still need a beige to go around the outside. I’m going to try to get it soon, since I don’t want to be left doing all the beige at the end (this is tedious enough to begin with, even mixing it up a little with the colors).
Being the completely anal person that I am, I finally did the math on how many hexagons I’m going to need to make a quilt that’s 5 flowers wide by 7 flowers long, which I’m hoping works out to a good size:
Centers – 38
1st Layer – 210
2nd Layer – 426
3rd Layer – 630
Triangles – 436
This adds up to a whopping total of 1,740 hexagons that each need to be cut, basted and then sewn together. I must be nuts. But I really like the fact that since it’s not a scrappy design I don’t have to think too hard about it. I’m sort of in the zen zone of basting.
At least I will be until I run out of the paper backing and either put some flowers together so I can take out the papers and reuse them or (much more likely) buy some more. Hopefully when I buy the beige fabric.
In a perfect world I’d love to give them a finished quilt for Christmas, but realistically I’m probably looking at giving them just the finished top since even if I got the top done relatively soon (which is a joke in and of itself) it takes forever to get them quilted. But that’s okay – Mark and Janelle are used to me. Last year I gave them each 1 knitted sock for their birthdays (which happened to be right around the same time).
They eventually got the other one.
Of course all of this might be moot for awhile. Toby’s cousin’s wife is having a baby which I think I need to make a pumpkin hat for. She’s due in December and at first they said they’d be having a shower the Saturday after Christmas, which gives me plenty of time, even given as craft-fickle as I am. Last I heard the mom-to-be’s mother wants to have the shower on Labor Day weekend. For a baby due in December. Doesn’t that seem a little early? And who wants to go up to NH for a baby shower on Labor Day. Maybe I’ll just be sending a gift…
This is another MIL’s stash quilt. It’s actually really pretty fabric which she had earmarked for another project that she finally admitted she’d never get to. I usually don’t get to steal earmarked fabrics, but she made a very kind donation since it’s (supposed to be) a gift. She didn’t have enough of one of the colors, so I will have to buy one, but that’s still a lot better than buying it all!
Through the magic of Microsoft Visio, which I have at work but have used much more for craft related endeavors than actual work, I was able to map out the quilt, which is another variation of the GGQ which looks like stars:
Even though I’m really trying to finish my other quilt, I did let myself make one flower and some of the star point triangles:Pretty, huh? The picture really doesn't do the fabric justice. I love fabric with gold in it. I still need a beige to go around the outside. I’m going to try to get it soon, since I don’t want to be left doing all the beige at the end (this is tedious enough to begin with, even mixing it up a little with the colors).
Being the completely anal person that I am, I finally did the math on how many hexagons I’m going to need to make a quilt that’s 5 flowers wide by 7 flowers long, which I’m hoping works out to a good size:
Centers – 38
1st Layer – 210
2nd Layer – 426
3rd Layer – 630
Triangles – 436
This adds up to a whopping total of 1,740 hexagons that each need to be cut, basted and then sewn together. I must be nuts. But I really like the fact that since it’s not a scrappy design I don’t have to think too hard about it. I’m sort of in the zen zone of basting.
At least I will be until I run out of the paper backing and either put some flowers together so I can take out the papers and reuse them or (much more likely) buy some more. Hopefully when I buy the beige fabric.
In a perfect world I’d love to give them a finished quilt for Christmas, but realistically I’m probably looking at giving them just the finished top since even if I got the top done relatively soon (which is a joke in and of itself) it takes forever to get them quilted. But that’s okay – Mark and Janelle are used to me. Last year I gave them each 1 knitted sock for their birthdays (which happened to be right around the same time).
They eventually got the other one.
Of course all of this might be moot for awhile. Toby’s cousin’s wife is having a baby which I think I need to make a pumpkin hat for. She’s due in December and at first they said they’d be having a shower the Saturday after Christmas, which gives me plenty of time, even given as craft-fickle as I am. Last I heard the mom-to-be’s mother wants to have the shower on Labor Day weekend. For a baby due in December. Doesn’t that seem a little early? And who wants to go up to NH for a baby shower on Labor Day. Maybe I’ll just be sending a gift…
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Well here I am...
Here it is, the inaugural post (well actually not really since I posted a testing123 post last year and that's as far as my first blog attempt went...) But this is the REAL first post, regarding my project du jour, my Grandmother's Garden quilt - with a twist. My MIL started doing one of these and of course I had to join along (see title above re: fickle crafter). I tried my hand at quilting before, but never liked being tied to a sewing machine. I need my crafts to be pretty portable and "done in front of the tv"-able. Hence my addiction to sock knitting.
But the Grandmother's Garden quilt seemed to satisfy most of my requirements. I could do it anywhere, with a little pre-planning and it was all done by hand, which I really like. There's a great tutorial of how to make one here so I won't get into the specifics of how to do it. Needless to say it's pretty tedious and time-consuming. Right up my sock-loving alley.
Most GGQ's look sort of like this:
With a connecting color or "grout" as I called it, in between each of the flowers. I didn't really like this at first, so I tried something different, without the grout, which gives me this:
It's a pretty crappy picture, but this is what it looks like without a connecting row. I kind of like the more modern look this gives.
The strangest thing about putting the flowers together this way is that the rows sort of go on the diagonal, with partial flowers used to fill in where you need them. Again, I like this modern twist, but I know it makes my MIL twitch when she sees it (I figure it's good for her). Trying to figure out how many more flowers I need to finish it is a little tough though. By my best guess I need 3 more whole diagonal rows and then a bunch of partial rows to square it off. I have quite a few flowers finished, and we'll see how far they get me. I'm pretty much ready for this to be done, since I've already started another GGQ for my brother and his girlfriend for Christmas - a not scrappy and more traditional pattern, but that's for another post.
Oh yeah I forgot the best part of this quilt. I'm using all different fabrics - no flowers are the same. I'm reusing about 10-15 different yellow centers, but I'm trying not to put like centers next to each other. Anyways, I haven't had to spend a dime on any fabric - it's all my MIL's scraps. She probably has enough fabric to make a million of these quilts. I'll eventually have to pay for a batting, backing fabric and the quilting, but for now it's nice to have a "free" project.
Well I guess this is probably long enough for an inaugural post. I tend to ramble when I type as well as talk I guess. Hopefully I'll be back - I definitely have enough projects to ramble on and on about.
But the Grandmother's Garden quilt seemed to satisfy most of my requirements. I could do it anywhere, with a little pre-planning and it was all done by hand, which I really like. There's a great tutorial of how to make one here so I won't get into the specifics of how to do it. Needless to say it's pretty tedious and time-consuming. Right up my sock-loving alley.
Most GGQ's look sort of like this:
With a connecting color or "grout" as I called it, in between each of the flowers. I didn't really like this at first, so I tried something different, without the grout, which gives me this:
It's a pretty crappy picture, but this is what it looks like without a connecting row. I kind of like the more modern look this gives.
The strangest thing about putting the flowers together this way is that the rows sort of go on the diagonal, with partial flowers used to fill in where you need them. Again, I like this modern twist, but I know it makes my MIL twitch when she sees it (I figure it's good for her). Trying to figure out how many more flowers I need to finish it is a little tough though. By my best guess I need 3 more whole diagonal rows and then a bunch of partial rows to square it off. I have quite a few flowers finished, and we'll see how far they get me. I'm pretty much ready for this to be done, since I've already started another GGQ for my brother and his girlfriend for Christmas - a not scrappy and more traditional pattern, but that's for another post.
Oh yeah I forgot the best part of this quilt. I'm using all different fabrics - no flowers are the same. I'm reusing about 10-15 different yellow centers, but I'm trying not to put like centers next to each other. Anyways, I haven't had to spend a dime on any fabric - it's all my MIL's scraps. She probably has enough fabric to make a million of these quilts. I'll eventually have to pay for a batting, backing fabric and the quilting, but for now it's nice to have a "free" project.
Well I guess this is probably long enough for an inaugural post. I tend to ramble when I type as well as talk I guess. Hopefully I'll be back - I definitely have enough projects to ramble on and on about.
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