Ship Shape Finished

The second quilt finished this past weekend is Ship Shape.  Right around a year ago I started this quilt from my stash of thrifted men's shirts.  I had been inspired by a photo in Country Living magazine years earlier, which I had ripped out and saved in a binder. 

I found the free block pattern, Sail Boat Block 2, at Quilter's Cache website.  I modified the cutting instructions so each block would turn out 9-1/2 inches square.  That meant cutting the small HST blocks at 3-7/8 inches and the larger at 6-7/8 inches.

The blocks were then set 7 across x 8 down.  I liked the no-border look of the inspiration piece, so I just bound my quilt in a red and black print from JoAnn.  There is one pale red pinstripe shirt used in the quilt, and the binding brings that out while providing a nice accent for the rest of the shirt fabrics.

Ship Shape was shipped off to Melissa at Sew Shabby Quilting for an all over panto called Van Gogh, which I thought looked like swirling ocean waves as much as Starry Night.  Love the effect!

Melissa did a fantastic job, and fast!  I'm sure my backing was a challenge  (and I'm sure that is an understatement).  I was using up a piece of blue and white older fabric in the backing, as well as a strip of large shirt fabric blocks.  The backing was just barely big enough, were I to have quilted it on my domestic machine.  When I decided to send the flimsy out for quilting, I added muslin strips on all sides of the backing so it would be able to be loaded on a longarm.

I knew it was going to be close, but until I trimmed the quilt after it came home and saw that on a couple sides I was shaving off only about an eighth inch of the actual backing, I didn't realize just how close.  I'm sorry, Melissa, for any gray hairs I caused!  I won't do that again, I promise.

Ship Shape was sleep tested last night, and I'm happy to say it passed with flying colors.  If you've got a shirt stash you're wondering what to make of, I highly recommend giving this simple but stunning quilt a try.  I think it'd make a great Quilt of Valor too!

One of Two

One thing this frigid and snowy winter is good for:  Making me not want to leave my house.*  I have been hunkering down, holing up, and hermiting away, trying not to think about the elements while working my way down the list of UFOs.

And so there were two more finishes this weekend.  First is the bright baby quilt made from leftover drunkard's path and monkey wrench/churn dash blocks.

I quilted this in a loop-de-loop with Aurifil thread.  I intended to just do a regular meander but my hands had a mind of their own and started doing barrel rolls right out the gate, so I just went along for the ride.  Whee!

Edited to Add:  I've been asked what the turquoise and pink floral border fabric is above.  It is Gypsy Girl by Lily Ashbury for Moda.

Okay, so here's the back.  I love polka dots.  And polka, for that matter.  Which I am not seeing represented on the Grammy awards** this evening.

It's getting late, so I'll be back tomorrow with the second finish.

*Monday's high—I repeat: high—is to be -5 F., low of -19, with a wind chill advisory of -35 to -50 F. by Tuesday with (of course) blowing and drifting snow.  Winter blows.

**Forget rolling out the barrel.  If I were playing a drinking game for every time LL Cool J licked his lips while hosting the Grammys, I would be unconscious right now.  I think he'd be forgiven, though, because everything else about him is pretty fine.

Silver Lining

I finished a quilt that had been basted since September.  It sat around waiting for, I don't know, inspiration? the right mood? a not-sore shoulder?  When I awoke in the wee hours on Thursday morning and couldn't get back to sleep, it suddenly seemed as good a time as any to get started on it.  I conceded that it wasn't going to have the "right" thread or the "perfect" predetermined quilting pattern; nope, in that moment, what was needed was somewhere to focus my attention, and that trumped everything else.

Thus, the cloud of insomnia had a silver lining:  One UFO down.

I quilted vertical lines down the whole thing, trying to vary them somewhat so they weren't completely straight yet not totally curved.  Wonky took a little practice.

I like the back almost as much as the front.  Isn't that the way it goes sometimes?

* * * * *

Today was caramel corn making day.  Every year I make a big batch for my coworkers at the clinic and bring it in the week of Christmas.  But they started asking about it last week already, so I figured I better bump up the delivery date.

You can find the recipe in my post from three years ago here.

* * * * *

I discovered this gem on my hard drive recently.  It's me and my siblings circa 1968. 

Paulette, Nita, Darrell, Russ c. 1968

Dad especially liked to line us up for photos around the holidays.  I so appreciate that we have such great documentation of our growing up years on film, goofy as some of those pictures are.

I'm on the left in the red sweater.  I love my sister's shirt with the Nehru collar, the bark cloth curtains, our antique Knabe grand piano with a bazillion little fingerprints on it, and most of all, my brothers' sweet faces!  Almost as if they can't wait for Santa and are trying to convince him they've been very good!

Linking to A Stitch in Time 2013 Finishes and Can I Get a Whoop-Whoop!

UFO No. 1 Down

I'm happy to have finished the first UFO of the year, and managed to get it photographed just as a few flakes were starting to fall.  Now it looks like a swirling snow globe out there, whew!

Fun colors and fabrics in this one, I think.

I did my usual meandering in a variegated Sulky thread.  I am curious to see how this thread holds up in the wash and wear-and-tear real world.  Methinks it may not be quite up to the task, but perhaps I'll be surprised.  Live and learn, at any rate. 

The back is a Moda Marbles with a batik strip in the center.

I need a good name for this quilt, whose working title has been "Number Three," based on which choice I went with for bordering it.  I was thinking along the lines of "Bright Pathways," but that sounds a lot like a counseling center.  Other than that, I gots nuthin'.  Brainstorm away in the comments!

This is one of my first quarter 2013 Finish-A-Long projects, A Stitch in Time January 2013 finish, and I'm linking to Can I Get a Whoop-Whoop? too!

Finish-A-Long Q1 List

I don't know if there's a statute of limitations on "what I plan to do in 2013" posts, but it feels like I'm late to the party.  Not that I haven't been thinking of it, or that it took me 10 days to put this post together; I've just been finishing up some other things first.  Anyway...

There is carryover into the new year in the form of several UFOs, which I aim to finish in 2013.  To keep on track, I'm going to hitch up with the 2013 Finish-A-Long with Leanne at She Can Quilt.

Here are my projects to finish in the first quarter of 2013, one per month:

"Number Three"

Snail's Trail

"Hubcap Diamond Star Halo" 

(music video on the layout process here)

All are quilt tops in need of quilting.  I procrastinated on them in 2012, thinking that after working through the 2012 Free Motion Quilt Challenge, I'd have all sorts of new skills and confidence.  I did a couple months' worth of tutes right on track in the beginning of the year, and then life got in the way and I got behind and really just dropped the ball.

Fortunately, most of the tutorials are still available, so that's something else I plan to do in 2013, revisit the FMQ Challenge.

But that won't hold up the show to finish my UFOs, even if I have to meander stipple every last one of them, or (better idea?) send them off on a fabulous vacation to the longarmer!

I think it's a very manageable, short list for this quarter, and still gives me plenty of leeway to see what other trouble I can get into, too!

The Vanishing UFO

There is one less UFO in my life, and that is a very good thing!

It was starting to feel a little claustrophic in the sewing room, like I was surrounded by things in varying states of half- or almost-done-ness. Add to that a craving for variety and the itch to do something else other than the current project, and you end up with this.

A finished zigzag baby quilt!

See? I can finish something...eventually.

There's no baby in anyone's immediate future, that I know of. This was just one of those things begun last year and then shelved, as I mentioned on Wednesday when I kvetched about basting. I felt like finishing it.


This is the first quilt I have quilted on Jane, my Juki TL-98Q. She is a workhorse, that Jane. It took me a row or two to get comfortable with all the stopping and pivoting, but I got the hang of it.

I didn't have enough of the Joel Dewberry Deer Valley Columbine print for the whole back, so I had to piece one together. I'm trying to conserve my dwindling scraps of Erin Michaels Lush, the blue and rust colored floral, so I just put little peeks of it in the backing.

By the way, if anybody knows where I can still get a bit of the of the deer paint-by-number print (preferably in Sky, but beggars can't be choosers), let me know. I have an affinity for vintage paint-by-numbers, but unfortunately I showed up late to the Lush fabric party and it was mostly sold out by then.

I think I like the back of this quilt almost as much as the front!

I'll be linking to Sew & Tell Fridays. Thanks for visiting, and be sure to check out the other talented Sew & Tellers over at amylouwho!