Anita's Wedding Quilt

So Anita got married . . . back in February.  But here's the deal.  Anita is from Taiwan and her husband is from St. Louis, so what they did was get married at the courthouse in February, they had a traditional Taiwanese wedding over in Taiwan in March (the pictures are amazing and crazy), then they had a reception in St. Louis in April for their stateside friends.  So in the spirit of making her wedding festivities last as long as possible, I've taken until just now to finish their wedding quilt.
         

The quilt I chose to do was a chevron design.  I got the pattern from a website that popped up for me a number of times,  including on Jenny's blog; she made this quilt a few years ago for a friend.  I did something a little more modern, both color and pattern-wise because I felt that Anita and Trevor (who is a tattoo artist) might not be sooo into the flowery pastel-y fabrics I've used for past wedding quilts.  I hope I'm right!  The fabric, instead, is a few different Marimekko fabrics, which I scored on sale for like $3 a yard at Crate and Barrel Outlet.  I supplemented with some solid colors from JoAnn Fabrics.

fragile glass and hard alcohol mixed well at the wedding reception

            The wedding reception, by the way was a great affair (on April 14).  It was held at the 3rd Degree Glass Factory in St. Louis, and all us guests got to ogle beautiful, one-of-a-kind glass pieces while we got all cocktailed up, and then I bought myself a vase, so there goes the money I saved by making them their wedding gift (although, I think most people will agree with me that making a quilt isn't necessarily cheaper, especially not if your time is precious!)
           Anyway, the quilt's in the mail.  I hope Anita and Trevor will like it!

So many quilts

About 5 1/2 years ago, my paternal grandmother passed away.  She was known among her friends and family as a great traveler.  She loved to eat out.  And she had the best, most interesting clothes.  She also never liked to throw anything away that could possibly have another use someday.
Keeping these last few things in mind, when I helped to clean out her closet, I kept most of her funkiest clothes and brought them back to Chicago with me, where I cut and sewed, very sporadically, for the next 5 years.  The results were 6 quilts, for my sister and 5 cousins, each made up of about 90% of Bunny's (that's what we called her) clothes, and supplemented with a few fabrics I think she would have liked.
Figuring I should really get these done before I start grad school in the fall, I set to work throughout June and finished off all the quilts for my cousins (I finished my sister's quilt in time to give it to her for Christmas this past year).  Here they are, in all their glory, now having been sent off to each cousin:

Shari's quilt

Jenny's quilt

Chip's quilt

Josh's quilt

Gabe's quilt

The thing that I really like about making quilts for people, other than getting the chance to be creative, is that while I'm working on it, I think a lot about the people I'm giving it to, and, in this situation, I thought a lot about my grandmother.  I think she would be proud to know that we're all able to remember her in this very tangible way.

Decidedly Domestic Sunday

            Thanks to it being a not-very-sunny Sunday, I woke up this morning and didn't feel like getting out of bed at all.  Instead, I stayed in bed reading for a while and finished the first few chapters of my next book club book, Jeffrey Steingarten's The Man Who Ate Everything.  The first chapter was all about figuring out the perfect bread recipe, and as the morning wore on I found myself craving some fresh-baked carbohydrates.

              Luckily I have all the necessary bread-baking ingredients on hand at all times, so I was able to whip up a few loaves without much effort (thanks to my kitchen-aid mixer) and in no time (minus the few hours it had to rise - see above) I was snacking on my hot, whole wheat bread (see right).  For dinner, I will supplement it with some chicken soup that I made on Tuesday (sans recipe - for the first time).

I also had plenty of time to work on my quilt this afternoon.  I spent a few hours piecing together another 1/3 of it (see my cabin-fever post from the blizzard a few weeks ago).  I have 2 baby showers coming up in March and for about 5 minutes I thought I might put some baby quilts together, so I was trying to clear off the quilt wall so that I could lay them out, but I have decided that would probably be crazy of me (although that hasn't always stopped me in the past).  Instead, I just slowed down and enjoyed my sewing for the afternoon, even though I broke a sewing needle half-way through.  Anyway, it's really coming together.

Meet Vicky

Last Friday I woke up early, wanting to do some serious sewing and about 30 minutes into my project, my machine had a total meltdown. I tried to be patient, took it apart, figured out what was wrong, and also figured out that I couldn't fix it. Yes, I will take my good old Singer sewing machine in to a shop to get fixed . . . someday. But in the meantime, meet Vicky.

Vicky is my new love, she is a sturdy, Husqvarna Viking who can embroider letters and everything. And thanks to Vicky's help, I finished a quilt on Friday. Free motion quilting is a lot of fun with my new baby.

I've also spent most of my weekend cleaning for my mom's visit. She's coming on Tuesday and we've got some fun stuff planned, but to be honest I won't be surprised if we stay home and sew for most of her visit. Just in case you thought that all of my craftiness comes from nowhere, here's a picture my mom sent me of her latest weaving project. Beautiful.

Birthday gifts bound for Rhode Island

I know I've been MIA here for an inexcusably long time.  The first reason is that I haven't been doing many crafty projects, so I haven't had much to report on.  The second, and main, reason is that I've been having a hot and crazy summer (the summer has been hot, and I have been crazy).  I might get into that more in a later post.  But anyway, I'm back on the wagon, crafts-wise, and here's what I've been up to in the past week or so.

            Yesterday was my sister's birthday.  She is the quintessential "I can't think of anything to get her" girl, but she does like bags, so I made it a little more personal this year.  At the new Michael's that opened [a dangerously short] walking distance away from my house, I picked up a set of canvas bags, and some new paint and spouncers.  My sister loves all things pirate, so I stenciled this skull and crossbones onto some freezer paper and more or less screenprinted it onto the bag (with some helpful pointers from my friend Brittany, who I met in screenprinting class last spring).  I think the skull and crossbones turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself.  The initials, not as well, but you get the idea.

            The day before my sister's birthday, one of my best friends from high school, Dan, and his wife had their first baby - a boy who they named Henry.  I had had a fleeting idea of making them a baby quilt, but no definite plans or anything.  So I surprised even myself when I woke up yesterday morning, about 12 hours after hearing the baby had been born, and said to myself "I'm going to make a quilt for Henry today."

            This was a marathon of quilt-making.  I picked out fabrics that I had on hand, and went off to JoAnn Fabrics to pick up some backing (cute blue flannel checks) and batting (fusible - I had never used it before and I doubt that I will again. . .).  After making a quick stop at Target as well (JoAnn and Target are across the street from each other, so I can never go to one and not the other), I was back home, ironing, cutting, sewing, basting, quilting, and binding.  I finished binding the quilt at about 9:30 last night, making the whole quilt process about 12 hours from start to finish.  Only in the summer can I really devote a whole day to a project like that.  Well, that's not totally true, but it's mostly true.
The quilt is in the washing machine now, hopefully getting de-bunchied and less stiff (that fusible batting!) and I hope to mail it off this afternoon.

            I hope that Dan, Emily and baby Henry enjoy the quilt.  But with this heat, they probably won't enjoy it for a while.

Anaïs's Quilt and Wedding

            About a month ago, I started cutting up fabric for a quilt I was making for my friend Anaïs's wedding.  The one other quilt I've made for a wedding (last July) I finished more than 3 months in advance.  Since I was only starting the quilt with about a month to go until the wedding, this was very last minute for me.

            Luckily, the blocks did come together rather quickly once I started the sewing.  Nate's family was in town last weekend and Nate's mom helped me baste the quilt and mark the lines for quilting.  I had some fun with the binding; when I was at JoAnn Fabrics last week, I found the Bias Tape Maker machine I had been eyeing on sale!  So that should help with a lot of quilts to come :-)

             The fabric I used was a jelly roll of Amy Butler Love fabrics.  I like the different colors in this Amy Butler collection, and I also like that some of the patterns come in flannels as well as cotton, so I made the backing a warm cuddly flannel.  The front of the quilt was a Daisy Chain pattern which I got out of a book of Jelly Roll Quilt patterns by Pam and Nicky Lintott.  This is my first Jelly Roll quilt, but I had some fun doing it, so I definitely will try more of the patterns.  The main color of the quilt, yellow, was a fabric I found at JoAnn to supplement the jelly roll.

          With about 24 hours to spare, I finally finished binding the quilt and threw it into the washing machine.  Friday evening was spent box the quilt, wrapping it up, and finding the perfect card (a repro of an old postcard) to go with the gift.  

            It wasn't planned, since I didn't know which wrapping I would use, but the wrap job ended up matching my wedding outfit perfectly!

            The wedding was a very nice affair, just outside of Chicago in Elmwood Park.  We had a whole table full of Colgate people, many whom I "knew" from Colgate, but had never gotten to talk to before yesterday.  Many Congratulations and Best Wishes to Brian and Anaïs!

First Day of Spring in Chicago

            After a week of mid 60's (slash lower 70's) temps in beautiful Chicago, spring rolled in like a polar bear.  On an iceberg.  Eating a snow cone.
            I had a lovely Saturday planned and reserved - a trip to the Field Museum to finally see the Diamond Exhibit (it ends next weekend), dinner at the Chicago Firehouse Steakhouse, then walking 1 1/2 miles north to the CSO to hear and see Mitsuko Uchida conduct the orchestra and perform 2 Mozart Piano Concertos.  The first time Nate and I went to the CSO back in 2006, we heard Uchida perform a Mozart Chamber piece, as well as a piano concerto, so we were very excited to hear her play again.  And I cannot wait to tell my students how low she bows - she almost gets her head down to the floor.

            Anyway, the lovely Saturday went off without a hitch, save for the weather.  Our walk from the Field Museum to the Steakhouse was luckily not too far, but the sights chilled us a bit.  I suppose our Chicago statues are quite used to the cold winters, but they still made me feel extra freezing.
            The walk from the Steakhouse to the CSO was much more grueling.  Although our bellies were full of warm, delicious food, they weighed us down and made the whole walk seem so much longer.

            Now, Sunday night, we're home after a matinee showing of A Single Man - Colin Firth was great, and the visuals throughout were amazing.  It's time for me to really get going on a new quilt I'm working on for a friend who's getting married in just over a month.  It's a jelly roll quilt made from Amy Butler Love fabric (plus a few extras).  I keep saying that once I get going on it, it'll come together really quickly.  I suppose if that's going to be true, I'd better get a move on!

Thank God it's Hugh-Day

Yesterday I kicked it (back) into high gear with some crafting. After whipping together some cookie dough for an upcoming get-together and throwing a sweater into the washer to felt, I finally got to quilting my Colgate quilt. It'll be a long process because I'm doing the quilting by hand, but it's easier than the previous Hotchkiss quilt I did (will post pics at another date) because I have made up templates of the images I'm quilting into it that I can trace each time. So now I just need a lot of time and a less tense back and I should get it done before you know it.

And keeping me company the whole day was Hugh Grant - I had a mini-marathon of "some absolute classics" - Music and Lyrics, Two Weeks Notice and Notting Hill. Aahh Hugh.

Summer Road Trip Part 2 - Shailer's Wedding

The second main stop on our road trip was Skaneateles, NY where my friend Shailer was getting married.

The wedding was at the Frog Pond B&B, to the northwest of the town. It was a very cute stone house with a pond (and frogs), a nice outdoor spot for the ceremony, and an old barn, where the reception was held. Shailer is a very crafty person and she had done just about everything for the wedding herself, with a few forgivable exceptions:

Her wedding bouquet (and her husband's boutaineer - sorry, that's not how it's spelled but I couldn't find the right spelling on my comp's dictionary) were made of clay. They were absolutely perfect looking and she'll get to keep forever. The woman who made the bouquet posted it on Martha Stewart - my dream.

The cake was made my Shailer's cousin Stephanie. It was a blackberry cake and was absolutely amazing. I almost had the waiter bring me an extra piece. Shailer's wedding theme was Lovebirds, which showed up on the cake, of course.

It was a beautiful event, start to finish. I only hope Shailer wasn't too wiped out by it because I might want her help when my special day comes up

:-)

Nate the Great and I stayed overnight in Skaneateles at the Packwood House, a new hotel run by the Sherwood Inn (where his parents lived for a year early in their marriage - we tried to get a room there but it was all booked up already in Jan.). We got to have breakfast at the Sherwood Inn on Sunday, then spent a very nice few hours walking around downtown Skan. and looking in many real estate office windows and picking out our dream houses. There are many to choose from in Skan. and to live in that town I would put up with my not-so-dream house. Take it from me; if you're looking to live in a small town, Central New York is the place to be.

I never posted this picture before because I was afraid Shailer might read about it. The Amy Butler Midwest Modern quilt I was making early this year was Shailer's wedding gift. I posted plenty of pictures of the front of the quilt, but I never posted this one - the stuff I put on the back. This is a picture I found on their wedding website, scanned into my computer, then printed on printable fabric. I also copied their Save-the-Date (which Shailer made herself) onto printable fabric to put onto the quilt (shown).

Basted, quilted, and bound!

My midwest modern quilt has been sitting on a chair in the living room, calling to me, for the better part of a month.  I had all the layers finished, and the binding ready to go, I just needed that final push to get it all done!

Thursday afternoon I set to work and basted, basted, basted.  Luckily, I have enough floor space to lay the quilt out completely flat, or else this would have been a serious mess!  

I used Bamboo cotton batting, as suggested in the quilt instructions.  I liked the weight and the texture of the batting, but I found that it would stretch when I pull it, but wouldn't bounce back, which meant that my quilt was a little doomed.  It was impossible to get all of the layers 100% flat. 

I nevertheless went ahead with the quilting - just some simple, 

straight, diagonal lines, spaced evenly with the quilt blocks.  I was pretty pleased with the top side of the quilt (and no, I'm not showing you the back).

Friday afternoon was binding time, and I used the method I though up when working on my Midwest Modern placemats.  I was again very happy with the results and look forward to many more finished quilts - I have a few more on the way!

Red at the Head of the Bed

In order to gain proficiency at machine quilting, I did a little home decorating project.  I am very picky about furniture, so I have not yet bought a bed frame for our bed since we moved and got this new mattress, over a year and half ago.  As a makeshift headboard before, I had 2 euro sized pillows hanging from an ikea curtain rod.  I finally decided to use the same curtain rod to hang a little quilt from, so I gathered a bunch of my red fabrics and put them together (with a little shock of yellow) in a strippy patchwork headboard.  I'm pretty proud of it for less than 2 days' work.

Placemats a'bound!

Amongst prepping to make a couple of cakes for a dinner party tomorrow night (see future post!) and cleaning the apartment, I found some time today to finish up my placemat project.  I bound one of them following directions for the midwest modern quilt, then the second one with my own interpretation (which I think was better/cleaner/faster) of those instructions.  

I haven't read through the directions you sent me yet, Jenny, but I will before I bind the quilt!  I still have to quilt it, so it'll be a while anyway.  But these placemats are a good taste of what is to come!

Midwest Modern Placemats

When I first set out to make my Midwest Modern quilt, I had thought I would be sending it away to a real quilter for the actual quilting.  As I worked on it more and more, grew more attached to it, and thought about the process, I started to think I could quilt it myself on my sewing machine.  Also, I plan to give it as a gift to someone, and I would really prefer to do all the work myself, to make it more special.  

So the real issue became making sure I know how to quilt on my sewing machine.  My cousin, Beth, after reading about my quilt and gushing over the colors and fabrics, planted a seed of an idea; she mentioned how cute it would be as a table runner.  I took it a step back and decided to make 2 placemats with some of my left-over fabric.  

I pieced them together on Friday and moved on to the quilting today.  

Beth, these are for you.  I should be done with them soon; now I just have to bind them with a coordinating fabric.  

Weekday morning patchwork

Since I am a piano teacher, I work mainly in the afternoon/early evening.  This leaves my mornings free for me to be productive (sometimes) with my other interests.  

I've been working on the Midwest Modern quilt.  The picture on the website makes it look a little confusing, but it's really just a basic patchwork.  That means that the hardest part is actually cutting out the fabric, which I did last week.  Once you get on the sewing machine and start putting the pieces together, it goes along pretty quickly, especially since you see how fast the quilt is growing, and you're more eager to finish it (at least that's how I am).  

Yesterday I started putting together the center blocks for the quilt.  In the above picture are all the pieces sewn together, ready to be ironed, trimmed down to a perfect square, and sewn to the other blocks.

And here is the entire center block, patchwork-ed together!

Midwest Modern . . .

Could be a description of me.  But it is actually the name of my next big project, which is an Amy Butler design quilt.  I've been ordering many different Amy Butler fabrics from Etsy, but since I never follow instructions to a T, I didn't have enough fabric for all of the back panels, so I set off to JoAnn Fabrics this morning to pick out a few solids to go with the fabrics I already have.  

The poor, bored woman at JoAnn's who cut out my fabric said they were nice colors and asked if I was making a quilt, which I took to be a green light to talk about all of my quilting plans.  I showed her the few A.B. fabrics I had brought with me to match colors to.  With the blankest of looks, she said "that will be lovely."  

Crafty Weekends

Last weekend, I got off of my bum and made a big step forward in a project I've been working on for a while now.  Using all my t-shirts from college, I'm putting together a patchwork quilt, with a Colgate "sweatshirt blanket" as the backing.  A few years ago I did the same with my high school tshirts and was quite happy with the results.

This weekend I did a few smaller projects.  Saturday was my friend Katy's birthday, and in preparation for a new Colgate Alumni book club we are starting up, I made her a bookcover that is an appropriate size for all of those best seller books.  I was pretty happy with the design, but right away, of course, I thought of improvements - I do plan to make another one soon.  

On Sunday, Nate and I went for a lovely 4 hour brunch at our friends' Bob and Magda's apartment.  Magda has just bought them a large dining table and chair set which I think is probably from the late '60's, early '70's era.  Magda is thinking about recovering the dining chair seat cushions (or perhaps I talked her into it . . .) so we got to have a nice long talk about where are good places in the city and online to purchase neat fabric.  When we got home, still chilly from this Chicago winter, I was inspired to make some draft dodgers for the windows in our family room.  The chair where I sit most of the time when we're watching TV is right next to a window and I feel like the cold air is constantly blowing onto me.  I got out some fabric I bought a while ago at Ikea and got to work.  I filled them not quite full with pinto beans - making them not quite full I found helps them to be "moldable" to the contours of the window you're trying to insulate - and voila!  It was a pretty successful weekend, craft-wise, and I am especially proud because the book cover and the draft dodgers were both made from fabric that I bought with no specific project in mind, and now I've finally made use of it!