OMG! REMEMBER ME?!

I'm fairly certain I noted early on in my blog that I'm pretty well terrible at blogging and that I eventually stop keeping up. Well, looky there! It happened...I stopped keeping up. Is it post-election depression? Is it laziness? Is it the coming zombie apocalypse? Who am I kidding - it's laziness. But here I am!

Though I have most definitely been slacking on ye olde blog, the same cannot (thank goodness) be said about my quilting efforts. Here are a few examples of what I've been up to in the past several months.

I've been doing a lot of smaller projects between bigger bed-sized or lap-sized quilts. The Prince love symbol pillow was my first paper-pieced project and was for our annual friends' Christmas gift exchange. My friend Shawna was the recipient and was good enough to share her photo with me, as I forgot to snap one (in my defense, I was on my deathbed with an awful case of the flu). The BB-8 pillow was another paper-pieced project and was really fun! He took the place of the Christmas pillow.

This is a 16.5" squared tabletopper I pieced this weekend. It's a simple pattern I improvised - sixteen 3.5" scrappy green pieces that were snowballed on three corners with 1.5" squares. The stem was appliqued on after the piecing was top. It's on top of my living room end table right now.

Several of these are projects I'm using as a distraction from adding the borders to this beautiful monster...

It's a free pattern from Fons & Porter called Aunt Gracie's Garden. The piecing was fun and not at all difficult - just four-square units, half-square triangles and triangle recs. It's the borders I'm dreading. Mitered corners and applique. Honestly, I don't know what I'm waiting form. I've already made all the applique pieces (flowers and leaves)!

See? It's all right there! I just have to do it. I'll get over it eventually, but till then...why do today what you can put off till tomorrow! 😉

She Done Bloomed!

Ummmm...has it really been almost a month since I blogged? Ay yi yi! Truth is, I didn't have much in the way of quilting to share, so it potentially would have been a full page of "Ummm" and "Huh" and "I don't know." Nonetheless, I've got some bidness to discuss now!

The Bloom Sew-Along is my first sew-along. While it's been rewarding, it's also been a lesson in patience. I tend to dive right into projects and go, go, go till I'm done. I finished the actual blocks for the sew-along about two weeks ahead of time and did the block and row layout in order of completion. I wasn't too sure about this approach, as I'm definitely a newb to the applique game. My fear was that it would go from disaster at block one to pretty darn good by block twenty. But, that wasn't the case. They all came out, at the very least, good!

Don't you love my design wall? It looks remarkably like one's living room floor. Upper left is the first block, and lower right is the last. Not too bad, right? After sewing together the rows, I decided on a bright border print.

So bright and cheery! I've got one quilt at the long-armer right now, and once that one is done I'll take this one in for quilting. I don't mind doing the quilting myself, but this one's a little out of my size comfort zone. Like I said, doing one block a week was a real test of my patience and made the payoff feel like it was never going to happen. But it did...in spades!

After that project, I wanted something relatively quick, so I opened up this book...

...and revisited some of the projects inside. I'd previously made a few pillows from it but never an actual quilt.

That's one of the pillow tops I made (minus the pillow form, obviously), and it's now on one of my armchairs with a coordinating one.

Tim was away this weekend, and that meant I was a pseudo-bachelor for a few days. And boy oh boy did I get wild while he was out! I quilted like a madman! Typically when I'm in a quilting zone, I go into survival mode, meaning I eat as quickly as I can so I can get back to piecing and cutting. I ate more than a few PB&J's during the weekend. With the steady chatter of Investigation Discovery playing in the background (I'm an addict), I was a workhorse! What did all that activity net me?

Sixy-four 6.5" great granny squares! I love the mango Robert Kaufman Kona Solids background color.

Those are a couple of my favorites, with fabrics from Ellis & Higgs, Lori Holt, Lecien and others I love. There's a whole lot of color in there, and I love it all.

The picture isn't the greatest quality, but I've sewn them together in quadrants and will piece them together tonight. I tossed around so many ideas on the border and, I must admit, most of them were borders that would be quick and easy. When I want it done, I want it done quickly. Ultimately I decided that I want even more colors, so I'm going to border it with scrappy four-patches. This one, I'll quilt myself; at a finished size of 56" square, it's easily manageable.

This week, I'm again linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts so check out all her quilty goodies!

Picnic Quilt

Yesterday was kind of a dull day, just a monotonous Tuesday morning. That is, until 9:45 when I got one of my favorite calls. "Hi, Dan. This is Millie P's, and we're calling to let you know that your quilt is ready to be picked up."

HOT DANG!

Then my day wasn't so boring, but I found it hard to focus, because all I wanted to do was get out the door and get my quilt so I could get it home and bind that baby! I handed it over to them four weeks ago and was eager to get the job done.

That's the quilt top pre-quilting. I went with an all-over feather pattern.

There are a couple of close-up pictures of the quilting. They did a great job (as usual)! I didn't waste anytime once I got home; I picked out a fabric for the binding, a little yellow chick pattern from Lori Holt's Calico Days line, and got to cuttin'.

Here they are all cut, joined and pressed. Aren't they just precious? I decided to do this one completely by machine. When I'm making a quilt for somebody else, I attached it by machine and then hand-turn the binding to the back. I need to brush up my machine-binding skills and this one is staying in-house, so I wouldn't mind a few mistakes by completely machine-binding it.

Now that she's all done, I just have to run it through the wash and snuggle with it in the basement.

I love how colorful it is, and the layout made it really fun to piece the blocks together.

Now that I've ticked another one off the to-do list, I can move onto the next! :)

Today, I'm linking up to Lorna's Sew Fresh Quilts Let's Bee Social.

When Does Stash-Building Become Hoarding?

I have a thing with fabric. A big thing. While I wouldn't say that it's completely out of control (yet), I do have much more fabric than I can use anytime in the near future. It is not uncommon amongst quilters and sewers, but that's not excuse. I need to scale it back some, but that proves exceptionally difficult when there is always new fabric hitting the market. Apparently, I relish the opportunity to go, "Oh, for cute!" and then hit the ADD TO CART button, because it happens all too often.

Take for instance this morning. I was happily avoiding work and my web browser accidentally went to The Fat Quarter Shop (I just hate when that accidentally happens!). That's when I saw these...

They spoke to me, and then I did some speaking to my wallet. We had a disagreement, but I won. It's too easy to make purchases like that online, so I try not to make a habit out of it. A few weeks ago, I made a trip to S.R. Harris, a great fabric outlet that sells all their quilting cottons at 50% off retail, and midway through the trip my cart was already starting to fill up.

There were sixteen bolts in there when I took this photograph. By the time I made it to the cutting table, there were twenty-five! The most ridiculous part of that trip? Most of those fabrics on the right are from a great Riley Blake collection called Happy Harvest. It is a collection I already own, as a fat quarter bundle and some additional yardage. "Why then were they in your cart?" you might ask. Because I was afraid I would run out...before I even used them! And because issues. Madness. Luckily, I came to my senses and left with only 7 pieces of fabric.

I do take some amount of comfort in knowing that I'm not alone in this affliction. About a year ago, a well-written and researched article was making the rounds in quilting circles, Quiltanomics: The Real Cost of Quilts. There was a ton of good information in it, but the number that blew my mind was this one:

[Quilters'] buying power each year is $3.76 billion – with “dedicated quilters” spending over $3,200. What I found jaw-dropping was the statistic that dedicated quilters typically own $13,000 in tools and supplies, and their fabric stash is worth close to $6,000.

SIX. THOUSAND.DOLLARS. That's just fabric! That doesn't include the sewing machine, the tools, the furniture or the time (one of the biggest expenses). I keep that number in the back of my mind to make me feel like I'm in control. Some call that denial; I call it...well, that's probably what I would call it, too.

It's time for me to put a moratorium on fabric purchases. I'll take a few months off and give my finances a big break. Except for maybe a bundle of Halloween fabric. And maybe Lori Holt's Cozy Christmas bundle when it's released next month. Oh, and I need a few solids, too. Dammit!

Know who's sensible? Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts. Give her blog a visit, would you?

Bedfordshire Top = Dunzo!

As suspected, the mitered borders were a challenge. A manageable challenge, but a challenge nonetheless. Start to finish, the borders probably took about 6 hours. Lining up those 1/4" partial seams at the corners isn't the easiest thing in the world, but the overall seamless effect it gives the patterned border is nice.

Here's a peek at the best looking corner...

Not bad, eh? You don't get to see that not-so-best corner. :) She'll be headin' into the quilter this weekend!

Jinny Beyer Frightens Me

A little over a year ago, my Aunt Kathleen asked me if I was willing to make a quilt for her. I was hesitant at first, because making something at somebody's request puts a different set of expectations on the finished product. In my head it does anyway. When I make a quilt of my own choosing, it's made with the notion that I can give it to whomever I choose (or keep it for our house) when I'm done with it.  But having somebody else asked me? Oy. Nerve-wracked issues galore. Of course the issues are in my head and the final - or near final result as is currently the case - will be just fine. Even very good!

After talking her down from a queen or king sized quilt to a lap size, she sent the quilt kit from her home in Phoenix to me in the Mini Apple.

There it was...one of the scariest things I'd ever seen. A Jinny Beyer pattern and accompanying fabric.  How scared was I? So ridiculously scared that I put it off for a year. Jinny Beyer is an amazing quilter and designer. There's a reason she's so revered. I'm sure Jinny herself is sweet as can be, but her patterns frighten me sometimes. Those diamond shaped strip sets (cut at 1 15/16", no less!). Those bias seams. And scariest of all, those mitered border prints sewn to the quilt to give the illusion of a seamless print. To paraphrase Whoopi Goldberg, "Dan...you in danger girl."

A week ago, I finally got down to it and started cutting the strip sets and sewing them together. Though it was time consuming aligning the strips and marking them on the quarter inch to make sure those points come out well, it was worth it. They look so good! Of course, there were a few that look just okay, but you don't get to see those. :)

I cut the remaining half square triangles, making sure to handle them delicately so as not to stretch the bias at all. I pressed them in half along with the sashing to make sure they were attached evenly by matching the centerpoints.

Then it was all just a matter of sewing the halves together, again being mindful of the bias seams on both halves. It wasn't long before I had a pile of 16 blocks. Now to sew them together in quarters.

And after sewing together four of these quadrants...

...I had a completed center! I love the pinwheel patterns. All I've got to do now is the borders. Four of them. I'm still nervous about that part as it's something new to me, but what all of this has proven to me is that my fears thus far were virtually all for naught. It just took me out of my comfort zone, and that's rarely fun for me. This, however, proved to be pretty fun. What I've learned is that Jinny Beyer isn't scary at all. I'm just a scaredy cat!

The secondary pinwheel pattern created by joining the quadrants is beautiful, even if it put Audrey and Rita to sleep in the background. After the borders, it's off to Millie P's for quilting, then bound and off to Phoenix!

Sometime in the near future, I'm going to create a quilt out of this lovely fabric...

It's called Fresh Lilacs by Maywood Studios, and it's a perfect set of prints for a friend of mine who really loves lilac, green and black together. Winner, winner...tofu dinner?!

Off to the The Quilter & Weekend Tidbits

It felt good to get another quilt top done, but once that part of the process is done I get obsessed with piecing the backing. It's another one of those thing where if I don't do it now, I won't do it all. I'm not always the most adventurous with the back of the quilt - often just a solid color - because I like the focus on the top and because...lazy. But this weekend was a start in the right direction! Still not the most creative, but I pieced four different small prints together.

It should look nice with the quilt, a 69-inch square. I don't know if I'll ever get tired of this happening when I'm piecing...

Those points lining up properly on a four-patch make me giddy. I folded it up neatly with the top and 100% cotton batting and off to the quilter it went!

When I don't do the quilting myself, I always take it to the good people at Millie P's Quilt Shop in Anoka, MN. They do a terrific job of quilting and are always very friendly. The downside is this -- I can't just drop off the quilt and go. I've always got to shop, and they've got a large fabric selection. How I managed to leave with only two yards of solids is beyond me (actually, it's because I spent $60 the day before at SR Harris).

I picked out a pattern and soft yellow thread for the quilt, got an estimate of a 4-week turnaround (baaa!) and decided to do some shopping.

The big draw to Anoka for a lot of shoppers is the antique shops. There are a lot of them, and they are stuffed with lots of goodies. So stuffed with old things that after a while, my throat gets dry, my eyes start itching, and I get a headache. Allergies are a joy. I stopped into Amore Antiques and walked out with this beauty.

There's a tiny scratch on one side, but $23 for a vintage pink Pyrex casserole? Shoooo...my mama didn't raise no fool!

I planned on doing some quilting today, but after a look around my messy sewing room, I couldn't do it. I had to put some stuffz in order. Things were a mess. I try my best to put fabrics away as I'm done using them, but I was in such a hurry to get the quilt top off to the quilt shop, that there was fabric everywhere. EVERY.WHERE. I folded up the fat quarters that were mostly in tact and cut the rest up into strips for later use -- 1.5", 2.5", 3.5" and 5".

Now things are in a semi-orderly state, I can sit do other things I enjoy like nerdy kitchen alchemy. Today I made a fresh batch of soy cashew yogurt.

It's tangy, creamy, smooth and delicious. It's also very easy to make. I'm vegetarian, inching toward vegan and trying to cut out as much dairy as I can. Most of the time when people say, "It tastes just like the real thing!" I don't believe them. This, however, is an exception. I buy plain yogurt and sweeten it myself with a little fruit and agave syrup, and this tastes every bit as good as regular plain dairy yogurt. Actually, better. Homemade yogurt is one of those things that really does taste better than store bought. It's also great for cooking.

The house is quiet, things are in order and now I'll sit down and watch a little (okay, a lot) of Investigation Discovery. It's my drug of choice.

Beagle Beagle Quilts is (Sort Of) a Go!

Hello! Thank you for visiting my brand new blog. It is - obviously - very much a work in-progress, and I will be making improvements in the coming weeks. I'm just getting the layout started and I'm not finished with it, but I know that if I wait until I am completely satisfied with the look, it would never happen. Until then, it's partially wack and partially the Mack. Really bad rhyme. Really, really bad. Nonetheless, here we go!

As the name suggests, I'll focus on my beagles (I have two - Audrey and Rita)...

...but mostly on my quilting.

The dogs keep me sane (while simultaneously driving me bonkers); the quilting keeps me focused. We've had beagles as part of our lives since 1996, and I don't know that that'll ever change. I learned to quilt at the same time I learned to sew, about two and a half years ago. Most of my creative energy goes into that...as well as my hard earned dough. I could've picked a cheaper hobby, but I love it!

I'll do my best to update at least weekly, and you can also expect occasional posts on cooking and photography.

See ya 'round!