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I Must Be Insane...

...because it's 11:41 as I start this post, and I'm still not in bed.  I need to be up by 0600 in order to get myself and Zeb ready for the day.  Me?  I'm still going to the Madison Quilt Expo.  Zeb will be spending the day with Grandma again, as hubby has to work.

So, why am I still up?

I volunteered to bring chips and cookies for our tailgate lunch tomorrow at the Expo.  I went the easy route with the chips, and bought one of those assortment deals.  Done.  Easy.

The cookies?

I decided to bake them.  That's the part where I'm officially nuts.  I made peanut butter cookies and chocolate chip cookies.  I even decided to experiment a bit, and used whole wheat flour to replace half of the white flour.  I tried the peanut butter.  Not bad.  It's been a long time since I had peanut butter cookies, though, so who knows if they're actually any good?  Same goes for the chocolate chip.  New recipe, with the whole wheat substitution.

Everyone gets to be my guinea pigs tomorrow.  If the cookies are a success, I'll share my recipes.  If not, I'll bury the cookies and hope no one finds them.

Oh, and just to balance out the fact that I'm falling off the diet wagon with the cookies and chips, I'm packing carrots and celery sticks.  Maybe I can balance out the guilt with some healthy snacks.

Think Modern Thursday #6...

... is going to be delayed until next week.  I'm working extra hours this week, along with having had house guests, and haven't had a chance to actually write the post.

Who knows?  I might even show off something I see at the Madison Quilt Expo this Saturday!

Ta-Daa!!!

A few nights ago now, as my son bathed, I sat and watched him and put the last stitches into Escapees.  I tacked down the hang tabs, and then threw it in the wash with my laundry.  I was a little nervous - this is the first quilt I've done without pre-washing all of my fabrics first, in forever

Not the  best picture - I'll have to take another when I've got a proper wall display set up.  Escapees is a bit too large for the three meager pins holding it up at the moment, so it's a bit saggy.

I'm very pleased with the quilting.  I straight line stitched throughout the piece, which nicely emphasizes the simplicity of the shapes as well as the floral print - if I do say so myself, lol.  Actually, the floral panels are done in a diagonal cross hatch pattern.  I'd originally planned on doing those panels with free-motion flowers, but a test run showed that free motion flowers detracted far too much from the print itself.

I outline stitched around all of the triangles, 1/4" in from the seam lines.  I used two different colors in the top thread:  a burnt umber to match the sky and a blue that matches the floral print.  The burnt umber thread was used in the robin's egg blue geese.  The blue thread was used in the burnt umber sky triangles. For the green and black sashing strips, I stitched 1/16" away from the seam lines to out line the black.

Throughout the quilt, I used black thread in the bobbin, giving the back what I think is a really cool graphic quality.  I'm really enjoying playing with my threads, so it's a theme I'm sure I'll continue with future quilts.

And now that I have this one finished, I might have a second quilt finish to show off soon-ish.  I'm prepping the backing for Flying Geese II, and I'm hoping to get the works on the quilt frame tonight.

{Why} I Do What I Do...

Rachel, of Stiched in Color, asked readers why we chose handmade.  "{Why}?  What got you started?  What keeps you going?  Why is it worth it?"


Honestly, I'd never really sat down and given this much thought.  Weird, right?


So here's my attempt at muddling out the winding, and often freaky, trails of my mind...


I craft because I choose to put something out there that is as pure a distillation of my creativity as I can manage.  Fabric, thread, and batting just happen to be my tools of choice at the moment, and few things inspire me so much as the colors and patterns in a print.  


I love the satisfaction I have when I look as something I've finished.  Sure, that satisfaction is all wrapped up in threads and knots of anxiety and should-have-dones and perceived mistakes, but I finished.  I can look at those finished pieces and see the hours of my life that have gone into them.  You'd think that mentally tallying the hours that went into a project would actually serve as a deterrent to returning to quilting, but it doesn't.  It actually drives me back to the sewing table, because what empty hours those would have been!


I do this because this is my time, my freedom to be (or not), my time to simply express.  I work out a lot of stress, tension, and aggravation when I'm quilting.  Actually, it might be better to say that I transcend those things.  When I'm in the right head-space for quilting, time and my problems melt away, and I can view all those things that were bothering me from a completely different place, gaining perspective that wasn't there before.  You'd be amazed at the number of concurrent tracks that are running through my brain when I'm in the zone!


I put so much of myself into my crafts.  You can tell my favorite patterns and colors from the things that I've made.  You can tell when I've felt adventurous, and see when I had my "Aha!" moment.  Most of all, you can see the caring.  I want my son (and anyone else I've ever made a quilt for) to know how much I love him, every time he wraps himself in a quilt that I made.


Finally, I do this because I love the history and tradition.  I may do things differently from those who came before, and see color and shape in a unique manner, but that's okay.  I love looking at modern quilts and seeing the ties to older quilts, despite the startling variations in color, theme, shape, and symmetry.  For me, each quilt is another thread tying me closer to those who came before, those who made because it was make do, or do without, and those who made because it was a fashion statement and a challenge to their skills.


For a hobby that I picked up on a whim, with little more than a handful of scraps, a library book, and needle and thread purloined from my mother's sewing box, quilting fulfills so many of the niches in my soul.

Two More GO! Give-Aways

Like I said, these are everywhere!

Check out I'm Just A Guy Who Quilts for Ryan's give-away.  He's got five ways for you to enter:  1. Leave a comment on his give-away post saying "Hi" and that you'd like to be entered.  2. If you follow his blog, leave a comment letting me know you follow.  3. Visit the AccuQuilt website and leave a comment telling Ryan what dies you would pick out if you won. Remember you will get 3!!  4. Tweet or Facebook about this giveaway and share the link with your friends and leave a comment telling me you did. Please include @RyanWalshQuilts in your Tweet so I can verify your entry.  5. If you have a blog, share this giveaway with your readers and link to it. Remember to come back here and leave me a comment with the link and you will be entered again!  Ryan's give-away is open until September 5, and he'll announce a winner on Monday, September 6.


The give-away Jo at Jo's Country Junction lasts a little longer.  Jo's closes September 8, and she'll announce the winner on September 9.  Jo's give-away is much, much simpler, and will select two winners.  One will win the GO! Cutter, and another will receive three dies.  Simply leave a comment on her give-away post, saying which prize you'd like to win.  That's it!  Easy, no?

Think Modern Thursday #5 - Bee Mod Quilt

Today's quilt is sort of a two-for-one deal.

Get ready for this...

It's double-sided!

This particular quilt is the joint effort of the Bee Mod Quilting Bee, though it belongs to Lauren, aka uppitygirl on flickr.  They are all also members of the L.A. Modern Quilt Guild.  The talent of these quilters makes me so jealous.

I love this side!  I'm totally biased, and this is my favorite side.  I love the circles.  I keep wanting to do circles in a quilt, but I'm a little intimidated.  I think my favorite block is the one in the bottom row, second from the left.  The combination of turquoise and that rich sunshine yellow just makes me happy.  I love that the white, for me, enhances the quilt, instead of overwhelming it.  That's the way I normally see white in quilts now, anyway, a detraction, drawing my eye away from everything else.

This side may make me revise my opinion on non-symmetrical/wonky log cabin blocks.  I'm not a big fan, never have been.  I think it's the lack of structure, oddly enough.  I'm just not a wonky kind of gal, as you all know.  I've made a couple of wonky log cabin blocks, but not a complete quilt.  I might have to try my hand at a mini-quilt, just to test it out completely for myself.

I love the strong, highly graphic prints throughout this quilt.  I really love that each side has a theme that unifies all of the blocks, while each stands on its own.  The very selective color palette is awesome, proof that we don't need a riot of colors to make a visual statement.  

I think what makes this quilt so intriguing to me, visually, is that these are all disparate, yet unified, visions of several different artists.  Each of them put their own spin on the end goal.  You can almost catch glimpses of their personalities in each block.