Design Wall Monday

Nuts and Bolts!  50 little octagons done.  Lots more to go.  I'm beginning to think of the next EPP project. 

This is a quilt-as-you-go class that I'm taking at The City Quilter.  It'll become a doll quilt.  I like the technique and may do something a lot nicer and larger when I finish.  I like this store very much.  There is a bright vibe to it.  Lots of unusual designs and great classes.  I just catch the train into New York, and walk over to 25th.  I pass FIT as I walk, and one of these days, I'm going to take a look at their current museum display.

Whoo hoo!

I got into a Dear Jane class at The City Quilter!  Yes, indeed!  I've been checking their site for days and days, because the classes fill very quickly.  And this one in particular is extremely hard to get into.  I'm so excited I could just jump up and down.  But then my rotten right knee would hurt.  So, I'll be mature and not jump.

I also signed up for a hand-quilting class.  This should be interesting given that I have cranky wrists.  But I'd like to try and anyhow, it's an adventure.

I finally decided on a quilt for elder DD, and started cutting out the pieces.  This is going to take forever.  Good thing I like to do it.

Yippee!  And leftovers for dinner, too.  And the Biggest Loser on TV tonight.  What a day!

scrapperjen - These little blocks finish at 4.5".  Can you just imagine it?  I'm so psyched.  I think I'll learn a ton of information.   

Snowball Rail Fence. Quilt-As-You-Go quilt

I started a class last week Tues at The City Quilter in New York.  This one is a Snowball Rail Fence, and it is constructed as a quilt-As-You-Go quilt.  I'm having such fun with it.  I can make my mismatched seams and wonky lines, and it looks adorable.  Clearly I'm not meant to be a traditional quilter.  I'm too innacurate for that, but I have mastered wonky.  Not by choice, but because that's the way I sew.  So here's a pic of what I have so far.  I don't think it will be much larger since it's meant to be a little wall hanging.

Those turquoise corners turn the square into a snowball.  Neat, huh?  Yep, all you experience quilters, I know.  This is not brain surgery type of quilting, but it suits me just fine.  There will be a little bit of that turq fabric put in where the blocks come together.  Cute and fun as can be.

Here's another layout:

I'm using all batiks.  I just love them to pieces, literally.  And the colors are glorious.

So which do you like better?  I'm leaning toward the top layout.  I did try alternating vertical and horizontal blocks, but it looked too mish-mash for me.  If you look at each block, you'll see that none of my stripes are the same width.  This was actually done on purpose.  I decided to embrace wonky-ness.  Also, some of them are on a bit of an angle.  That was also done on purpose.  OK, I lied.  That's the way I sew, but I've also embraced that bit of off centered stuff, and I like it.

Am I ever going to be an ace quilter?  Are you kidding?  But I'm having the time of my life with this.  Elder DD already wants a real quilt made this way.  For that, I'd make the blocks bigger.  She'll have to pick out fabric with me.  It's a tough life, but someone has to make these decisions.  And then I thought I could make place mats using this strip method.  A busy print on the other side (these things are reversible), which would hide the Hub's food messes (evil laugh here), and an assortment of something or other on the front side.  Again, I'll have to make the sacrifice of buying more fabric, but I'm tough and can handle that.

Knitting is proceeding apace.  I made an idiotic mistake on the charting for Arachne's Delight (see previous post), but I think I fixed it.  DragonYady, the poor soul, gets to test knit it, so keep your fingers crossed that I've repaired my goof.

Otherwise, I'm making socks for me.  Nothing exciting, in fact I'm using some of my patterns which are on Ravelry.  I like the patterns, haven't knit anything beyond basketweave in many months, so I'm happy to repeat some of what I've already done.   Pics?  Boring.  They are just cute socks.

Sharon - I wonk; therefor I am, I guess.  I think wonk comes naturally to me, precision is totally not me.
 Henya - It's not particularly difficult, the problem lies in my inability to both cut straight lines and sew a straight seam.  So, to compensate for that, I've decided that wonky quilts will be my forte.  If you can't beat 'em, you might as well join 'em.

I'm doomed, totally doomed. Doomy doomy doomy doomed!

First I had a fabric, thread, and stitchery collection. I still have it even though I'm not doing any of that lovely stuff.  But someday.....

Then I had a yarn/knitting book collection.  Still have it of course, although I'm putting a lot of knitting books in tubs today because I need the shelf room.

Then, my bad sister visited, and got me crocheting, so of course, I have a crochet book collection.

And now?  Doom, ladies and gents, Doom!  The worst kind of obsessive compulsive disorder there is:  fabric collection.  Shoot me know.  I'm totally addicted.  At least once or twice a week, I haul out all my bags and admire my ever-growing collection.  This is sex at its rawest!  (Uh oh, now I'll get the dreaded not suitable for kids reading injunction.)  I have to look at it, fondle it, drool over it, pair it up with matching or mismatching mates.  It's a sickness of the worst sort, and it's all Miss P's fault.

Miss P:  are you reading this? You had to visit me in April and bring me The Quilt.  You must have planned this wicked behavior forever.  Says your gram:  if an 8 year old can do it, so can a 67 year old.  Well, now you're 9, and taking a break from sewing, and your poor, lonely, much-maligned Grammie is totally caught up in fabric and sewing.  I'm doomed, I tell you, doomed.

Let's get to the meat, ahem, fabric of the matter.  Saturday, Hiz Hubboness and I went into the city (aka New York for those poor unfortunate folks not lucky enough to live near the city) for a trip to The City Quilter.  We took the train of course, got out at 32 St, and walked down to 25th to The City Quilter.  Oh my gosh.  Fabric.  lots of fabric.  my favorite fabrics of all:  batiks.  And the best part?  Competitive prices.  New York prices can be higher than out in the burbs, but not this store.  And they will cut a 1/4, 3/8, etc cuts of fabric.  So, for the great price of $25 and change, this is what I scored:

7 pieces of fabric, each enough to make doll clothing for less than what an outfit from the AG store would cost.  And they are quality fabrics!  I may use them for quilts or for doll clothing.  Doesn't matter, at that price I can always buy more.  And if the fabric is no longer there, there are tons more to choose from.

I'm very lucky in my location.  I can drive or take a 2-stop train ride to Aardvark Quilt Shop in Morris Plains, and they have a ginormous selection of fabric.  Beyond amazing!  Also nicely priced, and they are lovely people, to boot.  And I can drive about 45 min to a Joanne's, although I'm so lazy that I don't do that unless I can convince the Hubs that he wants to take me.

And then there is the internet.  Online shopping is fabulous.  Here's what I scored this week.

All bought from sewfreshfabrics on Etsy., and at incredible prices, even with the shipping!  Are they not weird and wonderful.  I think they are for quilts just because of the size of the prints, although the last 3 might be OK for dolls.

And then more from Sew Fresh Fabrics:

Don't ask what I'm going to do with these, but they are so cool!

And finally, these pretties bought from I can't remember where.

So I think I maybe have enough for the rest of the year.  Yep.  Not.  But I haven't ordered any fabric yet today.  The day is still young, however.

Off to tubify more knitting books, and then move the quilting books to the empty shelves.

Scrabblequeen   - I swore way back when that I was never going to sew again.  Famous last words.  The neatest part about this all is that the fabrics are now showing up in my head as yarn colorways.  This never ends, does it?