Well, I never thought this day would come, but I am finally making myself my very own quilt.

When I saw the Swoon pattern I immediately admired it. I was really excited to see a classic block pattern hit the “modern” quilting world with such frenzy. So many modern quilters are adverse to classic that they turn their nose up at tried-and-true patterns. Dude, you do not have to use Laura Ingall’s Wilder fabrics just because it’s an old block! (Though I’m personally waiting for calico to hit an upswing at fabric stores again.)

Though while I liked Swoon, I never made any plans to use it. I just had enough on my plate.

But THEN, my original plans for making me my own quilt fell thru. I had this fantastic idea to make a quilt inspired by these Frank Lloyd Wright window masterpieces:

You know, an Art Deco quilt. With Anna Maria Horner fabrics.

But I couldn’t find the right fabric for all the white space. And the quilt would have taken forever to do and I don’t have a lot of forever time these days.

I had temporarily given up my “own quilt” dream when I was flipping through one of my mother-in-law’s quilt block books, researching the Swoon pattern (as I knew that it was an old block). Unable to find the Swoon block, I decided to indulge and go to my bookmarked page that has my current favorite blocks on it.

And there it was. I realized that my two favorite blocks were variations on Swoon: Carpenter Star and Dutch Rose. Same block layout, just different use of color. Ha!

I took it as a sign that I should make myself my own Swoon quilt.

Instead of trying to do a certain theme (like using all Anna Maria Horner fabrics), I’m just using all of my favorite fabrics that I have been hoarding because of their intense beauty. The quilt probably won’t have any matchy-matchy going on. But it will have pretty-pretty.

The block here is my first one. I’ve had this brown dictionary text fabric forEVER. When I opened it up to use it in this block I was pleasantly surprised to see bird lithographs scattered about the fabric. Naturally, I couldn’t resist: I put a bird on it. The pattern you can buy makes a 24″ block. For my uses a 20″ block works better. It’s fun making large blocks!

Coincidentally, this block was finished the same time I finished my rough draft of the Rooster story for my book. I am considering doing a block each time I finish a chapter for my book. As motivation to keep working on each project.

I have to be honest: I don’t immediately think of the quilt pattern. Thanks to my husband’s influence I have become a fan of The Dresden Files, a popular fantasy book series.

Don’t judge me.

You like fantasy, too. You just don’t know it.

Don’t think so? How about Chronicles of Narnia? Or The Lord of the Rings? Yeah. Those are the gateway books, friends.

Admittedly, I haven’t read a single Dresden book (there are currently 13 penned). I’ve seen them lying around the house but I just wasn’t ready to read a book whose back flap featured a man looking at me like this:

No offense, Jim Butcher. But you’ve got the “fist in chin” thing going on, the penetrating mind-reading stare, and, well, LARPer hair. I was skeptical: could this man really write about a dry-humored 30-something wizard taking down bad guys in current day Chicago?

But then I listened to some of the tales while riding in the car with my husband (and I even watched the TV show based on the books).

And yes, this man can write.

I’m guessing it’s because underneath the LARPer hair, there is a 30-something dry-humored man living in current day… Kansas? Anyway.

This was the photo that greeted me on the back flap of the latest Dresden Files book. I'm just glad he's not trying to look into my soul anymore.

And now when you think that this post can’t get any stranger, I’ll do a 180 and actually talk about the SEWING dresden. Cuz that was the whole point of this post, anyway.

I originally wanted to make a cool patch to use as the label on the back of Isabel’s quilt, like the pinwheel I did on Olivia’s. I wanted to go 30′s style so I chose dresden plate. I was going to do a black and white piece with a yellow center. As I searched for a good tutorial on piecing dresden plates I found one on the Sew Mama, Sew blog written by Oh, Frannson. Her plate was black and white. That of course meant that I had to use her tutorial.

Then I got the great idea to run a strip of dresdens a little off-center down the back of the quilt, making the quilt REVERSIBLE. Coolest mom ever, right? I was even going to make one colorful instead of black and white. To be all artsy.

Imagine my dismay when I finished one plate and realized that since it’s an appliqued piece, machine quilting with it on the bottom would prove to be difficult, as the blocks do not lie flat.

Boo.

I still determined to put this one in, though, and just got out my white fabric to piece together the back and get quilting this thing.

Boo again. My two different swaths of white fabric were not matching fabrics. Not even close. One was chintzy wrinkly Kona (no offense, Kona! I still use you!) and one was a luxurious beautifully draping white.

I had committed to scraping together $18 to buy more Kona white for the backing when JB tells me with excitement that I should do a black and white back on it. I have asked him to sketch his vision for me so I can see if it’ll work. Until then, this pretty little dresden plate is sitting in my sewing room, cheering me up and frustrating me at the same time. It makes me happy to look at it, but also aggravated that I still haven’t begun quilting Izzy’s quilt!

(…Wow. I just did the math on that. I thought it was only 6. No wonder we look so young in the early house photos!)

The place needed more than a makeover in 2005. It needed something akin to the Extreme Home Makeovers you see on TV. Only without the complete teardown. And slowly but surely, with the incredible help from family and friends, we have brought this girl back to life.

The full bath was awful when we first got the house. I don’t know how anyone could stomach bathing in that place. We ended up gutting the room and doing all new fixtures, etc. JB and Mr. Rich even painstakingly put up subway tiles for the tub surround.

And the room was mostly awesome when we were “done.” But it was painted white. And I didn’t have any inspiration to hang curtains or really decorate. It also had a few fiddly things that needed attention. But a couple of weeks ago JB and his Dad worked hard to fix all those fiddly things and then JB whipped out his paint roller and gave our bathroom a healthy new glow. I even made a valance and put up framed photos I had taken. Woo!

So here it is. In case you are feeling ungrateful for the bathroom that you have, feast your eyes on what you could have had, if you had bought this house and never had it improved. (I’ve spared you the  need for a strong gag reflex, as I have not included close-ups of some nasty stuff.)

1.) Note the grimey window. That's how the previous owners rolled. 2.) Notice the blue flooring. It was laid overtop the original tile in 12" squares. The squares separated, leaving a nice sticky adhesive to collect any and all bathroom indescretions. JB cleaned up that mess over several days. He gets a Gold Star for life for that one. And for not puking once during the ordeal.

I think this is self explanatory. The previous owners, on the day of showing, did not bother to clean the tub, but rather to give the IMPRESSION that they intended to clean, by dumping a bunch of comet into the tub. Hmmm...

Back in the 20's someone thought it was a cool idea to have a separate tub and shower in the same bathroom. Sadly this shower was neglected for too long and could not be saved. Not that a separate shower would have made sense. We put a shower head in the bathtub and converted this to a closet. (Also note the shower hardware tossted on the floor. The shower didn't work, and again, they wanted to give the impression that they cared.)

The walls and floor were 3-4" thick slabs of concrete. I dropped several chunks on my feet as I worked. I swear I broke at least one toe during the shower breakdown, which is why I have toe arthritis when it rains or snows. JB thinks I'm being dramataic but I'm sticking to my story.

The old cast iron tub was not salvageable. It was too pitted to clean properly. Being probably near 500 pounds, we had to sledgehammer it to more manageable pieces to haul out.

The ceiling had to come out, too. This is looking down into the bathroom from the attic. It was here that I inadvertently picked up a squirrel skeleton that was entangled in an old shag pillow. The look on his squirrelly skull was that of terror. As though he died a horrible death. Good. Tree rats. He and the shag pillow were part of a mound of trash that was sitting on the rafters above the bathroom, caving the ceiling in. I hadn't wanted to fix the ceiling but my father-in-law said that I probably wouldn't want the ceiling coming down on me while I was bathing. And knowing now who was in the pile of garbage, I say that my father-in-law was 1000% right. Sadly, this was not the only dried up squirrel that we encountered during renovations.

I didn’t take any closeups of the awesome valance that I made, but take my word for it: it’s awesome. I know–curtains are easy to make–but it took a lot of math brainpower to make sure this valance came out right. Math power which I try to keep on reserve for important things like designing quilts or paying the bills. There was over 100″ of material and cotton ain’t cheap these days so I had to be wise. I also lined it with some of the free fabric from Bev and now it’s a reversible valance. Oh yeah. Coolest valance on the block.

I did a load of research on Bungalow Bathrooms. I desperately wanted two pedestal sinks put in but had to opt for a regular sink. One sink is less to clean than two, so I am okay with this compromise.

I need a good tagline yet. Any suggestions? So far I've got "Ordinary till you cross the county line." And the cover image isn't set in stone.

Well guys,

there’s a reason I  haven’t been sewing as much and blogging as much about sewing.

Can you guess???

Okay, yes, Children have interfered. Illness. The Holidays. Mouse Wars. Social Life. Working Nights and Weekends.

But when I still find a few free moments here and there and those moments have been spent on Writing a Book.

There, to all of you who ever said, “You need to write a book!”

I am.

Who knows if/when I’ll finish it. What it’ll be like. But I’m doing it.

This, my 33rd year, is my year of adventure. My year to accomplish one of my life goals: write a book and put it on my bookshelf so as to admire it.

If I deem it sensible enough I may make a few copies to share. Mostly with you, you who have encouraged me to write a book. But this dream can only come true with a little help. Can you help encourage me? I can get easily discouraged when writing my book because I don’t want to do it unless it’s perfect. Or perfectly funny. Whatever. And for me, I can’t just sit down and write. The story has to come to me.

Good renditions of tales usually come to me when I’m relaxed and not stressed out. When I have had a significant amount of quiet to think. I won’t even be thinking about the story I write but then BAM, words are there in my head, stringing themselves together in clever ways. And if I can get to a computer, all is well.

The last time that happened was this summer when I was on vacation. I penned Buzz. And only those who took Biology in Mayberry will know who THAT one’s about.

So now instead of writing one tale every 1 to 2 years, I am trying to slap down 10 in as many months. A few I’ve already written (they still need editing and to be made longer if possible,  though). The rest are just waiting to be told!

Two years later I have finally finished K’s Citrus quilt.  I gave it to her for Christmas.

I really wanted to photograph it against freshly falllen snow but the Grand Rapids skies have only been able to muster flurries so far this year.  Which is quite odd.  In fact, today I took the girls for a walk in the stroller. Usually this time of year the winds are bitter and the sidewalks are impassable with ice and snow. But today it was sunny and 52.  A good time was had by all.

I also had a good time shooting this quilt. Even though on the day of the shoot it was so cold that my fingers froze inside my leather gloves. A pretty quilt can make one overlook such icy hardships. So here she is, in pictures.

I used my polarizing filter even though I wasn't photographing the sky or anything. I think it helped realy saturate the colors.

I bound it with Tula Pink's Prince Charming. It's got frogs. It's awesome. In a few spots I got it so the frog's eyes were peeping at you from the binding.

I can't resist black and white.

And with that time I finally finished Isabel’s Trip Around the World quilt top!

Not to toot my own horn or anything, but isn’t it cool? Haha. I’m just really excited about this one. I’ve always loved this pattern and enjoyed sewing on each row, watching the colors grow and seeing each new fabric add a new dimension to the quilt.

It’s sort of a lot of work, but if you like this pattern I can tell you that the end result of your toil is very rewarding.

The finished top is 76×87. It’ll shrink more with the quilting. (My quilts are always 10% smaller than my original calculations, so now I draft larger patterns to make up for this. And I even prewash my fabric!) Hopefully it won’t be too short for her bed. My goal for a twin is for it to be 100″ long. And I have  yet to get one that long. ha.

I was hoping for a thick fresh blanket of snow to be my backdrop but it's looking to be pretty brown around here this Christmas. This morning O looked out the window and, dismayed, cried, "Jesus, bring more snow!" So we prayed for snow for Christmas.

The quilt top has already served as part of a fort in its short life. I need to quilt this thing before we use it all up!

]]> http://www.polkadotsparrow.com/2011/12/taste-the-rainbow/feed/ 7 http://www.polkadotsparrow.com/2011/12/fashionable-book-storage/ http://www.polkadotsparrow.com/2011/12/fashionable-book-storage/#comments Wed, 07 Dec 2011 21:01:19 +0000 April http://www.polkadotsparrow.com/?p=2158 Continue reading →]]> Do you love to read?

I love reading so much that I don’t read. Does that make any sense? When it comes to books I have no willpower and I know that if I get sucked into a book I will neglect responsibilities such as folding laundry, washing dishes, vacuuming, and feeding my children. Everything else takes second place to a good book. Therefore in this season of my children’s lives, I cannot read like I used to.

UNLESS, it’s a children’s book. Cuz those are quick reads and I can do it with my children, thus not ignoring them while entertaining myself with an epic tale. Mischief managed.

So while my personal library hasn’t been growing much, my daughters’ paged collections are starting to get a little overwhelming. A few months ago I counted and we have over 100 children’s books. We keep them mostly in the living room and their bedroom and space was getting limited. I was clueless as to a solution until I read Star Sparrow’s post about a book sling she made for her new baby. She found the tutorial at Penny Carnival.

This was IT! We don’t have any room for more furniture in the girls’ room, but I could hang a book sling behind their door, which is just wasted space anyway.

Yes!!

JB liked the idea too and so we decided to make three.

I love Lizzy House’s 1001 Peeps fabric and was excited when JB thought it was cool, too.  So two of the slings are made with that. I like it because it’s whimsical but not too baby-ish. And then for some contrast I made the middle sling with Joel Dewberry’s Heirloom fabric, which I’ve been admiring for some time.

The slings were easy to make. I’d say they were relatively easy to install, too, but that was JB’s job so really, all I can say is that it LOOKED like it was easy for him to do. I don’t think he cursed once!

Have wasted space behind a door? Put up a book sling!

Not because I don’t want to. But because of the cost.

Blogging is extremely time consuming (as most of you fellow bloggers know!). Especially blogging about sewing.

It takes me 2-3 hours to create each post. This includes photographing my subject, uploading photos to my computer, choosing photos, editing them, uploading them to the blog, writing content, inserting photos, arranging photos, editing content, previewing, previewing, previewing.

And to be honest, if I can squeak 2-3 hours of free time out of my week I’d rather spend it sewing.

So to keep my blog alive I’m posting this week. But this time I’ll tell my story through photos and try not to edit, edit, edit too much.

So for six years our living room wall looked like this. For a majority of the time the wall wasn't even colorful. It was white. After six years JB and I devised a plan for what to hang above the couch. But it would take me about another six years of handquilting a map of Lake Huron and some islands to make it.

So impatience prevailed. And we ended up framing three Loulouthi prints. Bam! Instant better!

Now please note that a proper window in our living room would look like this (we have five windows in our living room!). Smartly trimmed and curtained.

So I was hesitant to show you my new decor because as you can see, the place still needs help. These windows have been missing trim and curtains for EVER. And since we painted the walls last year, the couch no longer matches. And the pillows, well, they've seen better days. The whole area needs a makeover but at least I'm starting with my wall hangings!

And just to throw in a little April honesty here, don't go thinking I have a June Cleaver life. Widen the shot and you get the truth: not only does my couch not match my walls anymore and my windows remain untrimmed, but my little dolly has been sitting there, incensed that I am not picking her up. Don't worry, she's since been rescued. ha.

If you dig this fabric like I do, check out Anna Maria Horner’s shop, the designer of these cool prints.

In the last week I also inherited a pretty hefty fabric stash.

From my Grandmother, who was also a quilter, you ask?

No.

From someone very much alive. And though one may be tempted to wonder if she has dementia after willingly parting with all this fabric, I can assure you that she’s quite sane. So with insanity not an option, there’s only one adjective to describe what she has done:

Generous.

Way totally generous.

And we’ve never even met.

Is the suspense killing you???

The story of Bev and the Super Awesome Fabric Deployment

Earlier this year I received an email from my husband’s cousin’s aunt. (Don’t try to figure it out. You’ll just get more confused.) She had been reading my blog and seeing all the things I’ve made. And it made her think of herself at my age, when she first married and had young boys and all these dreams to quilt and sew for them. She would often pull all nighters sewing costumes, etc. But quilting was another story. She had bought the fabric and made the plans. But then life got in the way as it always does. Other endeavors demanded her time as her sons grew. Until one day she realized that they were grown men and that she honestly didn’t know when her life would slow enough for her to quilt anything for anyone.

Yet there was this fabric.

Yards and yards of high quality quilting fabric.

Waiting. Lonely.

That’s when she sat down at her computer and wrote me one of the coolest emails I’ve ever received at PolkadotSparrow: “Would you like to have all my unused fabric?  I need to be realistic!  I’m NEVER going to find time to do all that quilting. ”

My eyes got wide as I read her email. My heart rate went up. I called my mother-in-law, who knows Bev and her good taste. She got excited, too.

I especially love the green on the far right. Such a great hue.

But I didn’t know just how huge of a blessing this was until I received the fabric last week. Bev lives just a few miles from my family in metro Detroit. So when I planned a trip to visit my sister, Bev dropped off her stash at my Granny’s house for me to pick up on my way home. (I would have loved to have met up with Bev in person but circumstances just never aligned.)

Three large and two medium totes sat in Granny’s driveway when I pulled up. I barely got them all in my car. I was in a hurry to beat rush hour traffic so I just peeked briefly at the present.

These are very large pieces of fabric. Often several yards. So many options!

And when I got home it was like Christmas.

My stash lacks small prints and traditional fabrics. Bev gave me a load of small prints and traditional fabrics. My red fabric stash was small, but now it’s been beefed up. And blue: um….I have enough blue fabrics to make, seriously, like 10 bed-size quilts. I washed all the fabric so that I could mix it in with my existing stash (of already washed fabrics) and folding some of those pieces was quite cumbersome. I think she bought entire bolts (15 yards) of some fabrics.  Hello, backing fabric! I can usually make a quilt top without having to buy too much fabric, but a quilt back is another story, as it requires several yards of one print (or a couple if you piece it) to comprise a back. But now I have huge swatches of really pretty prints.

I may never have to go to a fabric store again!

Okay, so that’s a lie. Going to the fabric store is an obsession for me. But now I have my own fabric store at home! So now this winter when the winds are howling at my windows and swinging through the trees and the snow is piling up at my door, I can sew. Sew, sew, sew.

Thanks to Bev. And her fabric obsession. (See, I’m not the only one.)

Yeah, it’s a lot of fabric. It doesn’t all fit in my dining room, sadly. I need a sewing room! haha.

A few weeks ago I acquired a lot of fabric for said projects, including:

Filling up this garish blank space. (Please don't notice the missing trim around the windows or the missing curtains. That's yet ANOTHER project that is in limbo.)

Making some of these for the girls' room.

(This cool book sling tutorial can be found at Penny Carnival.)

I need one of these for work. For reals. I am tired of carrying my belongings to work in a clear plastic work-provided bag. You can't bring your purse onto the sales floor. So I'm going to put a clutch in the plastic bag. I don't like advertising my belongings in a clear bag.

(For more cute patterns check out Keyka Lou’s site.)

Finishing the never-ending quilt. Yes, I just finished the handquilting. Yay!! Hazzah!! And now she's sitting in a heap on my ironing board. My goal was to finish the handquilting before the holidays hit and I was slammed with social obligations, etc. Heh. It feels good to obtain SOME goal! But making binding, machine sewing one side of binding, handsewing the other side, making and affixing a label (still not inspired on that front) and washing and drying still await. Blarg. No offense, sister, but I'm ready to start something new.

So there you have it. I am still crafting. But just at a lagging pace.