New Year's Resolution...Finish the Isle of Skye Quilt in 2009

This is the quilt that I MUST get done in 2009. I started it in the summer of 2005 when I took the On Land and Sea class at Quilt University. In the class I basically got the background and middle grounds done except for some details. I have been struggling off and on with the foreground because I am having a hard time translating the photo into fabric. So the quilt has been hanging on my design wall just staring at me for years. I have bought so many batik fabrics to use in this quilt I probably could make 5 more landscape quilts. I keep thinking that if I just find the right fabrics that I will finish it. I guess that philosophy has not worked up to this point.

The scene is from a photo we took on the Isle of Skye in Scotland in the summer of 2003. It was a really beautiful place and the reason I picked this photo when I took the class. I probably will not get a chance to work on it until this summer when I am not teaching. Or maybe I should work on it for 1 hour each week to see if I can make any progress. Seems like there is always another project that gets in the way of working on the Skye Quilt. Or maybe I use that for an excuse???!!! Yep...excuse...

I think the problem is the same thing that is always the problem when I work on quilts is my tendency to over analyze my fabric choices. I struggle so much with this aspect of quilting and really envy anyone that does this with ease.

This past summer I learned to threadpaint and free motion quilt so maybe this quilt was waiting for me to acquire those skills since it definitely needs both of those. Or just another excuse???!!!

Most years I do not make resolutions (except maybe to take off weight). But I decided to make this quilt my goal for 2009. Happy creative 2009 everyone!
Chris

Husband Loved His "Scotland the Brave" Quilt Top

Well another Christmas has come and gone. It always amazes me how the preparation for Christmas goes on for weeks and weeks and how quickly the actual day passes. My daughter loves her Nikon D40 which was pretty much her only gift. She has been taking photos like crazy. Now we have to figure out what kind of case to get her for it. If you have a SLR and have a camera case that you love let me know about it....thanks!

My husband had very few ideas for gifts for himself this year so we had to come up with a few on our own. We got him spicy candy. One was chocolate covered toffee with cayenne pepper in it and the other was caramels with habanero peppers in them. Yes, we do eat really spicy food in our house. We also bought him a stone mold to make shortbread which is one of his favorite cookies. I did finish the quilt top and he loved it. He even figured out that the silhouette of the bagpiper was him. After looking at it for about 1 minute he asked, "Is that me in the middle of the quilt?" I thought for sure that he had seen the quilt before Christmas since I had it hanging on the design wall in my sewing room. He claims that he did not even peak at it while it was hanging there. That is so much better than what I would be able to do. As a kid I used to sneak into my parent's closet and find all of the presents. I am not as bad as an adult, but I am still tempted to sneak a peak!

What did I get? I got my wonderful Sew Perfect Sewing Table. I have been using it for a few weeks already. I also got a wonderful book called "Creative Quilting: The Journal Quilt Project". My daughter bought me the DVD for the "Nightmare Before Christmas"....I guess to get my ornament idea for next year! (My daughter loved the Mayor ornament that I made for her this year.) I also got some people for my New England Village set up. My MIL bought me a bendable bright light that I attached to my machine today.

All in all another wonderful Christmas with family....
Chris

The Village is Set Up

Yesterday we set up our New England Village. It is a lot of work setting it up, but it looks really nice when it is finished. We usually keep it up until mid January. I always have to put some pieces of orange peel near the rocks to keep our cat from jumping up on the village. Our cat also loves to hide under the table skirt and then jump out and attack anyone that walks by. I think so far I have been attacked about 6 times!

Chris

The Christmas Projects Keep Coming

We gave my parents a gift card to the grocery store for Christmas. That tell you something about the economy when that is the type of gift you are buying. I wanted to have something for them to open so I am giving my Dad one of my Santa ornaments (from a previous blog) and I decided to make some oven mitts for my Mom. I never made them before, but they came out pretty good. In the photo they look white and washed out, but the background is shades of tan. They look much better in person.

I quilted the fabric before I cut the mitts out. This was a good way to use up some Christmas fabrics and some batting scraps. I hope she will actually use them. I could hear her saying that they are too nice to use. One year we made them a giant gingerbread girl and gingerbread boy and she had those in the freezer for more than a year before they finally ate them. That year she said they were too pretty to eat!
Chris

Scotland the Brave

It sure is an ugly day in New Jersey. We are having a wintry mix of precipitation as the temperatures hover around freezing. We are enjoying snow, sleet and freezing rain and apparently this is the first of a series of three storms that we are going to have. Today is the first one, the second one is on Sunday, and the third one is on Christmas Eve. Yikes...I am not a winter person. This is the view out of my sewing room window. My daughter is on her way home on the train from Boston today and her boyfriend is going to pick her up at the train station. I will not relax until I am sure she is home safely.

With all my pent up anxiety, I have been working on the bagpiping quilt and I now have the borders on and the letters fused in place. I decided to only use words from the song "Scotland the Brave" across the top and the bottom borders. I used Microsoft Word to create the letters. I picked a font I liked and changed the size to 150. I printed that and traced the letters onto Steam a Seam 2 Lite.

I don't think I will have it quilted in time for Christmas, but at least the top will be done. The next step is to use invisible thread to stitch the letters and the bagpiper down.

Chris

The Pipes, the Pipes are Calling.....

I am now done with finals and I am making some progress on the bagpiper quilt for my husband. I have sewn all the blocks together for the double Irish chain and have cut out the bagpiper silhouette to put in the center block. The silhouette is my husband in NYC for the Saint Patrick's Day Parade. That was his first big parade as a bagpiper. Yes, my husband is tall and thin. I am short and wide. He never struggles with his weight and I have a constant battle with mine.

Now I have to figure out what words to use in the border. His favorite piping song is "Scotland the Brave" so I want to use words from that. I just have to figure out which ones. I have to decide if I am going to go around all 4 borders with words or just the top and bottom border. I was going to do the letters in paper piecing, but they are so small I thought that would drive me crazy even though I have been called the "Queen of paper piecing." I am going to fuse the letters and that will give me a chance of having it done for Christmas.

Chris

Done With the Mayor!!!!!

I can't believe that I am finished with the mayor ornament for my daughter. I thought for sure that it would have taken a lot longer. It probably took me about 10 hours to make it from beginning to end since I work very slowly. It came out about 7 inches tall. All in all it has been a very productive day. Now to take a project off of my to do list.

I told my daughter that I finished the ornament and asked her if she wanted to see a photo of it or wait until she comes home on Friday. She said that she wanted to be surprised. I can't wait for her to come home because I miss her a lot.

I am sure my daughter and husband are already thinking about what ornament I will be making next year....

Let's see will it be the ghost dog? Oogie Boogie? I'm not sure which one I will make from the movie next time...

I have a whole year to decide.
Chris

"The Mayor's New Clothes"

The Mayor is now stuffed and ready for clothing. I think I might pretty much finish making him today! I thought it would take all week. The snap works pretty well for the rotation of his head. You can see his two faces in my photos.

My husband was amazed that I was actually going to try to make his head rotate like it does in the film. My daughter would have been disappointed if the head did not rotate so I am glad the snap worked. Well I have to run and get going on the clothing.....
Chris

Body Parts to Stuff

I am making some progress on the mayor and now have some body parts to stuff tonight while I watch TV. I have sewn his body, his head, his arms, and the tall part of his hat. Once I have them stuffed I will sew his arms to his body and then make his jacket and white collar for his shirt. I think making the clothing will be a lot easier than making his head was.

He has two different faces on his head so I have to attach his head so that it can rotate around to show the other face. I am thinking of using a snap for that. I hope that works because I do not have another idea.

Making the tall part of his hat was really difficult because it is so skinny. I tried to make it in cotton, but I could not turn it. I did not have any knit black fabric so I used a pair of sweat pants that had gotten too short after they were washed. I hate when that happens, but at least I found another use for the fabric.
Chris

Christmas Projects Crunch Time

Now that my classes are done for the semester and I only have to give some final exams next week, I can really start to work on my holiday projects. What do I have to do at this point?

1. Make the mayor (from the Nightmare Before Christmas) ornament for my daughter. I just drafted a rough pattern of the mayor's body and will starting to sew that today. I think I may try to create his body as a paper piecing pattern. Once I have his body sewn I will design his clothing. In the movie his jacket fits really snugly so I need to know how fat he will be once he is stuffed in order to get his jacket size right. My husband says that the mayor is probably the hardest ornament I ever made my daughter and I think he may be right. I will figure it out even it it takes me till Christmas Eve to finish it!
2. Work on the "Bagpiper Quilt" for my husband. I am making a mini double Irish chain. I am going to put his silhouette as a bagpiper in the center block and put the words of some song around the border. I started to design it with EQ6 and I started piecing the blocks yesterday. They are going to be made in blues and white. Blue is his favorite color. The size of the blocks is 5 inches and the overall size of the quilt with borders should work out to about 36 inches by 36 inches. I got the chance to sew on my new sewing table yesterday and it was wonderful!
3. Sew some labels on some quilts for gifts.

Now that does not sound like too bad of a list! That is if we still had a month to Christmas.... Now if I could just find some elves to clean my house and make the cookies. Actually I don't make the cookies...my lovely husband does.

Chris

My First Fabric Card!!

I was in a Christmas card exchange in one of my yahoo groups and I had a hard time coming up with an idea for the card. I spent a lot of time thinking about what to do during a 2 week period. I was worried that what I would make would be too simple. The people in the group are really talented and I did not want to disappoint the person that I was exchanging with. In the end I decided to make a winter scene and try out some thread painting. Now just so you are aware of it, I have done very little thread painting or free motion quilting. That lack of experience did not stop me and I went forward with my idea.

I fused on the larger trees and the cabin in the woods. I thread painted branches and other trees and grasses. I think it came out pretty good, but there are some things I would stitch differently if I could do it over. I guess that is the good thing about a card. It gives you the chance to try out something and improve your skills, but it is not too big. How do you think I did?

When my husband saw it he said, "That's a nice little quilt!" That made me feel better about sending it. My husband rarely makes comments about what I am working on. So that is something when he makes a comment.

I have more projects to work on today. My husband put my new Sew Perfect sewing table together and we put my machine in it last night so I am all ready to go this morning. The table is my Christmas present. I guess Christmas came early for me this year. It is going to be wonderful to be able to quilt and not kill my neck and shoulders.
Chris

The Santas are Done!

I finished the Santas this morning. I thought that I would have only been starting to make them today, but instead they are all finished. That is such a good feeling when you finish a project! I can remove one of the items from my to do list. Before I pack them up to send to my ornament exchange buddies I took a couple of pictures of them so you could see how they turned out. If you don't mind paper piecing it is and easy ornament to make. I have seen a lot of paper piecing ornament patterns in the past, but nothing like this one. Today I guess I will start the next item on my list of things to do...holiday card exchange with the Thread Society group. I only have to make one card, but I got one of the talented moderators as my exchange partner. I have never made a fabric card before so this will be a first. I am excited about doing it, but I have not decided what I am going to make yet. Hopefully I will get started on it today. I am waiting for the creative juices to start flowing.....

Meanwhile I am baking pumpkin bread to send to my daughter in college. Next week is her last week of classes and then she has finals. I'm sure she could use something good to eat during this stressful period.

I received an ornament from one of my exchange partners yesterday. It was so nice coming home last night and finding a package in my mailbox. The beautiful ornament I received was from Flicsha. She sent me some candy and some mint tea as well. During the night I heard a ruckus in the kitchen and I had to get up to check it out. My cat was on the table chewing on the bag of mint tea! I guess mint and catnip both attract cats. I hope he enjoyed it because I won't be able to now.
Chris

Paper Piecing Santa Ornaments

Today I was so sick I stayed home from work, but decided to get some quilting done. I have to make 5 ornaments for an ornament exchange in the Like Minded Artist group so I decided to start to work on this project. I found the paper piecing pattern in Miniature Quilt Magazine from November 1996. I still have all of my miniature quilt magazines and I still pick out projects to make from them. I searched through my scraps last weekend to get ready for this project. I thought that doing the paper piecing would take a long time, but it only took me about 1 hour and 45 minutes to piece all of the Santas. Each Santa has 13 pieces and will be 6 inches long when it is done. For the first time I did not have to rip out any seams after making a mistake! I usually make at least one mistake while paper piecing.

Now I have to sew on some backing fabric, turn and stuff the Santas. I think I will use seed beads or french knots for eyes. I hope the people that are going to receive the ornaments will like them. Right now I am ready for some cold medicine and a nap!

........I am back from my nap and I have sewn and turned the Santas. They are a lot smaller once they are turned. The directions said to use a piece of batting during the layering and sewing. Also it said to leave a side open for turning. The first one I sewed I followed these instructions. I did not like the batting and I removed it. I also did not like leaving a side open. I sewed that shut and cut a slit in the back of the ornament for turning. I will be putting a tag on the back of the ornament so the slit will be covered by the tag. I think they came out cute! I guess my job tonight while I watch TV is to stuff them. I can't believe how far I got on this project today. I thought for sure it was going to take all week to make these ornaments.
Chris