Sunday Sewing

I feel like I should be watching Twilight or New Moon, but I watched the last half of Scream 3.   I hear that there is going to be a Scream 4 and it's rumored that Ashley Greene (Alice in the Twilight movies) is up for a part.

I sewed all the New Moon letters together.  I would have started to quilt it, but the batting I have on hand wasn't long enough.  Darn it!

It's going to be one big quilt!  75" wide right now.  I really should plan better....

My New Moon Problem

I was working like gangbusters on the New Moon Quilt and then I hit a brick wall and...., okay, I got busy with the Eclipse blocks.  I ran out of fabric, which I still haven't replenished, and got discouraged because I couldn't figure out how to make things work.

I routinely overlook the obvious solutions.

Even though I stop working on a quilt, it doesn't mean that I stop thinking about it.  I've been thinking about New Moon a lot!

I'm kicking myself for how dumb I've been.

I will piece the letters together, including a strip of fabric between new and moon, so that I can sandwich this strip with batting and backing.  I think I'm going to outline quilt the letter or something and then I will bind it.  This section should still be able do what I want it to do in relation to the moons as long as I add enough black fabric, probably by a strips added to the top and bottom, and use my ribbon idea.

I'm still trying to figure out how to use the pattern I bought and incorporate the tulips.

I'm serious when I say that if I can overcome this problem, the rest of the quilt will be so much easier?!

I Got Sunburned!

Ouch!

I can't believe it, but I got sunburned today....  It must have happened today at S's soccer game.  Her game started at 11:30 and finished about about 12:45.  I got just enough sun to turn my chest and the side of my neck a nice bright pink!  I didn't realize it until I looked in the mirror this evening when we got home from the soccer awards ceremony.  Now that I saw it and realized it, it hurts.  LOL  I didn't think I'd have to break out the aloe this early.  Here am I always warning the kids to get their sunscreen on.

The days are slipping away so I have no time to be lazy.  I've been searching online and in my memory to find a penguin block.  I had a bevy of choices, but from juvenile to realistic.  We wanted realistic and not too whimsical.  I finally remembered that I had purchased a penguin pattern from one of my favorite designers, Silver Linings Originals.  Linda is the best for her realistic animal and flower paper piecing patterns.  (I've used her patterns before.)

I've printed the pattern and now I just need to pick out my fabrics.

I haven't abandoned New Moon.  My next step is to piece the letters together.  I didn't consider the space I would have to place into between New and Moon so I have to figure out how that changes my design.  Always something with me.....

Rainy Days and Headaches

Rainy days and headaches always get me down.  It's a good thing it's not raining because I have a headache.  I woke up this morning with one and nothing I've done has gotten rid of it.  I'm trying to not let it slow me down today, but I so far not so good....

It's another soccer Saturday.  S has one more make up game next week, but today was her last game of the schedule.  A's last game was today, too.  The games overlapped so M went to A's game.  S's team lost.  The BBQ and awards ceremony is afternoon.  If not for the tournament on Memorial Day Weekend we'd be done.  I'm ready for a break and I think the kids are, too.  Getting them to go to practices has been difficult and everyone knows how I hate to argue.

I hope everyone is having as productive of a day as they want!  I'm rarely too sick to quilt so I am sure I'll be working on something or another today.  I'm trying to figure out more New Moon stuff to do.  I printed Jacob's note onto fabric so I need to finish that and move onto the next block.  I've got a pattern on order that should arrive next week for Rosalie's Story.

New Moon: New Moon

New Moon: o

New Moon: m

New Moon: w

Wah is right!

The w is one of those that blocks that I hope I never have the need to piece again.  It was tough....  Only a couple of the seams interlocked.  I had to seam rip more than once.  I'm not perfect and this block certainly isn't!

So, try to look too hard at my points.  Block is cropped slightly to square up my scan, but most of the seam allowance is included. 

On another note, Oprah treated her audience to a rough cut of Eclipse during the taping of the May 13th show.  The lucky butts are screaming about how good it is.  I'm so excited and.....jealous!!

New Moon: e

Cropped of seam allowances, 6"

New Moon: n

Some unknown ailment got in my way this afternoon making me feel too blah to sew much.  Oh, well!  It's always something with me....
The n in the photo above is slightly cropped inaccurately of its seam allowances because I feared it will look too strange and wrongly drafted/pieced because the center triangles touch with the seam allowance.  I can't have people thinking I'm an idiot.....as far as this "n" is concerned.

I jumped headfirst into piecing the letters so I'm hoping big time that my idea is going to work.  M tried to help me, but I'm going with my original idea.  I hope it doesn't tank like my cheesecake brownies did today....

New Moon

I finished the last two letters tonight.  Is it too much of me to be thrilled with my work?  I can't say that I had fun doing these letters, but I feel great having done them.  I'm sure that a better designer would have done a better job.  And, I haven't actually pieced them yet so they could turn out to be utter crap in actual fabric.  On paper they look fine, though....

I'm going to try to piece them this weekend in between soccer games and other responsibilities.  I think I'll need to to get more gold fabric.  (I'm fortunate that the quilt shop is having an overstock sale with 24% savings with cash payment.)  I also need to decide on the size to make them.  I drafted them as 6", but my moons are 6" and I think I want the letters to be smaller.  I also have completely figured out how to accomplish the effect I want so that the letters roll, pull, or flip over the moons to loosely mimic the opening title sequence of the movie.  I'm pretty sure that my idea is impossible and too grandiose even for me....

I may have more time to overthink things, though, as I'm VERY tempted to go to the Mancuso Quilt Show tomorrow.  It will all depend on whether I can be controlled enough to go with money burning a whole in my pocket because there is also a vendor mall.  I already had my treat getting my nails done--it was either that or lose them to growth.

I have also picked out the first Eclipse blocks so I should probably really stay home!  Kismet....  a cool block showed up at one of my favorite sites.  I also went to Goodwill and picked up a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt.  I'm trying to decide on whether or not to use Bubble Jet or not....the quilt artist who had a shop in my neighborhood was decidedly against the solution as she said it is one of the worst products to use because of deterioration, weak colors, etc.  I haven't been able to find much to corroborate her claims online so I'm very torn despite the fact that she is a highly respected fiber atrist. (Heather Thomas)

W is for Waaaah

The Wthat gave me fits.

The sectioning game me trouble.  I had to look for other letters online.  The way I did probably is the least best way.

M is next.

Eclipse Charity Quilt

A group of Twilighters contacted me a couple of weeks ago to make a commissioned Eclipse quilt.  We finalized plans today!  The quilt will be raffled off at their event on behalf of a nationally recognized cancer charity.  (I hope to be able to spill more of the details as soon as I have permission.)

I could hardly keep my mouth shut about the whole thing, but my zipped lips paid off because everything fell into place this afternoon.

Let's just say I was very motivated.....

So in addition to finally finishing the New Moon Quilt, I'll be working around the clock on an Eclipse Quilt.

Savoring

I'm feeling my late night last night, but I had to check in one last time.

I'm falling asleep on the job. M just got home from a 12-hour day. He had to be at work at 6 a.m. for a fire pump test. I love his job, I love his job....I love...that...he's employed! One week down. One week to go of on call madness.

I took pity on him and brought him home some pralines and cream ice cream from Baskin Robbins. Tonight was $.31 scoop night and we took advantage. S and A ended up with double scoop stomach aches. Our location was packed, but properly staffed so we had our ice cream in no time. We all savored our treat.

I'm reading a new book called Incarceron. (Please see side bar for link as I'm too lazy right now to link in this post.) I like it! The story is very original one. I'm not a good reader--I read too fast and miss a lot of details because I'm always in a hurry to finish a book. I got about a third of the way into the book, read some reviews, and decided to start over and take my time so I could pay attention to all the details. I think I already have some things figured out about the mysteries of the book, but I'm still enjoying it a lot.

I made my first run on the New Moon e this afternoon and this evening when I got home from ice cream.  I'm ready to leave it as is....I think.

The only trouble with all this computer quilting isn't that I haven't been sewing and I need to!

(no MediaFire this time)

Give Me an N

I'm glad I didn't give up on this!

I kept at my N and I think I did it.....

I typed an n in Word and then copied it to the clipboard.  I pasted it into Paint, made it red, and then saved it as a .bmp file (format EQ5 accepts).  I cropped as much of the background out as I could. I used the EQ5 Easy Draw application.  6" block.  Imported the n, centered it and adjusted so it fit the 6" square.  I sectioned the block out and then went at it to get the shape of the letter, including as much of the curves as I could considering it's a paper pieced pattern.

This is what I ended up with....MUCH better than my first attempt in my opinion.  This is the colored version. (batik fabrics from the fabric library)

The drawing or pattern.  I let EQ5 group the sections, but I renumbered them.

There is a free program available called Cute PDF that I downloaded onto my laptop.  I used it to convert the pattern to a .pdf file.  (really cool little program that hooks up to "print" in EQ5, but really just saves the file to your computer as a .pdf.)

I uploaded the file to Mediafire as a stored file.

Now to sew it.....I'm my own pattern tester.

I'm eager to try an e.  It's going to be TOUGH!!!!

A Paper Pieced World

Don't freak out and think you came to the wrong blog!  I'm actually writing about quilting in this post.....

And, word has it that I have no room to talk about M and him not finishing things as I'm long list of quilt UFOs is longer than my arm.  Don't I know it!

I'm nothing if not stubborn.  Stubborn is as stubborn does. Stubborn is especially stubborn when I'm trying to avoid doing something else.  I'm actually surprised that I'm being stubborn over this since I give up on so many other things.

Okay!

Why do I insist on this unnatural attachment to paper piecing everything?  It's not that I can't applique.  I'm not that crazy about hand applique:  needle turn or any of the other methods.  I could master the technique if I put in the time to practice.  I'm fairly skilled at machine whether it be blanket stitch or raw edge fused. Applique is simply put not a method I enjoy.

According to Cynthia England any picture can be made into a paper piecing pattern.  I have her book that shows how to do it, but I have yet to be successful.  I have watched tutorials on You Tube.  I have begged for assistance from my dad.  To be blunt, my brain just doesn't work in the right way for me to be able to do square up images and divide them logically into sections.

Recognizing this hasn't stopped me from trying....Hello..... STUBBORN, remember?!

My latest tortured attempt is to convert the Times New Roman font (only certain letters for now) into paper piecing patterns using EQ5 (After initially attempting to do it on paper and then EQ6, I went back to EQ5 which is still on my dinosaur of a laptop.  EQ6 has too many new tools and functions that make me twitchy.  I'm going to place the drawing book on order when I have some spare change, but until then I'm using what I know better even if minimally.)

This is what I finally came up with.  I used way to much border and so the sections are goofy.  I need to try again.

Design Isn't My Thing

Strange day today.

M ended up taking Z out for his b'day lunch and movie. (M wrangled his way into doing the job when he found out that the reason Z wanted me to take them was because he thinks M rags on him too much. I think Z was afraid that M would embarass him in front of his friends. M took offense, but I guess they worked it out because the next thing I knew M was taking him?!) Only one of his friends ended up going. Ian is Z's friend from my mom's neighborhood. He's a nice kid and he's never been in any trouble. M doesn't totally approve because Ian is almost 16 and Z is just 12 tomorrow. Ian is really nice to Z, though, and I am so thankful that he didn't bail on Z today. They have hung out together for years since the kids spent all that time growing up at my mom's. They don't get together much anymore since the kids don't go to my mom's much these days. Z hasn't been able to make friends this year.

S assumed that because I wouldn't be taking Z that I was going to take her and her friend about town today. I wasn't prepared to do that and she had a fit. I got pretty annoyed with her, but ended up taking her and A out to Target so she could shop for some b'day gifts for her. She ended up with a new jean skirt and shirt, some stuff from the $1 bins, and some play food. I would have taken them to lunch, but she wanted cinnamon rolls from Target?! Her friend's mom texted while we were out so she ended up there for the afternoon.

I spent the afternoon doing laundry and sewing some in between some other chores. I was supposed to make Z's lemon cake, but I didn't have my mom's recipe since she forgot to bring the cake mix and the recipe when she dropped the kids home on Friday. M got it when he was with the boys this afternoon. I went to make the cake tonight, but I don't have all the ingredients. Dumb!

The kids want to take donuts for school treats tomorrow. More expensive than making cupcakes, but probably just as well for me to do this instead of making five dozen cupcakes. I can't believe Z wants to take some, too, but he said other kids have into his advisory/homeroom class.

Back to quilting..... I've never been good at designing anything. I usually use a pattern, book, or magazine to make my quilts because I can't design to save my life! I continue to struggle with the New Moon Quilt because I can't figure out how to set the blocks...that I've hardly made. I sewed the moon blocks together tonight. I know in my mind what I want to do, but I can't think of the best way to accomplish the idea. It's times like this when I wish I DID belong to a group at least to get some advice. I've tried doodling my ideas, but I am no artist! The other thing is I am so frustrated trying to paper piece my letters. I think I am going to have to applique.

On another note, I worked on more bubbles today. I am so proud of myself. I'm taking it slow and piecing the blocks very methodically so as not to waste fabric. I was frustrated on Saturday for awhile because the tension on my machine hasn't been spot on for awhile. I've been overlooking the fact that it's not been right through a couple of projects, but enough was enough. I fiddled and fiddled with it today. It's not perfect, but it's way better.

I guess there are SOME things I can live with.

Design Wall Monday

I've got a couple of things I'm working on this week:

Keeping the Faith Quilt



I'm chain piecing as much as I can, but I had to make some blocks to make sure the fabrics I picked out were going to work. There is some drama associated with making this quilt and church. I can't make a quilt without drama.

These are my fabrics:



This is the quilt from the pattern (Quilts with Style, May/June 2005):



44 more blocks to go!

I also am going to try to work on the New Moon Quilt this week so I can stop thinking about it as I go to sleep every night.

I "need" Photoshop!

Let the lobbying begin.....

I need Photoshop Elements. I've wanted it for a loooooong time, but I always manage to buy something else instead of investing in the software. My new strategy is to charm M into buying it for me. How I'm going to accomplish this feat of wifely manipulation will be a stretch even for me. (All in good fun--I'm well aware that M sees through all my shenanigans.....)

I need it for quilting. I do!

If I had the software, I could have really wowed you with graphics on this set of blocks:



I finished the new moon tonight. I's more than a black square--I actually pieced the moon so look closely. I thought about using a different black for the moon, but M said no. I almost always listen to him when it comes to fabric choices. The plan was to sew more tonight, but my late night is catching up with me. I'm off to bed.

Who Needs Sleep When I Can Stay Up and Sew?

Me! I'll be tired tomorrow....