life+running » patchwork

Patchwork + Hot wings

chimes — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 15:00:00 +0000

The patchwork class I taught Saturday and Sunday was a success. I even learned something. Two of the ladies in the class were hardcore quilters, but needed help figuring out how to pick fabrics and wanted a fresh look at things, which is why they took my class. I kept getting guff for not pressing my seams correctly, so finally one of the ladies showed me how to press and set my seams. You press to the dark side. Tee. Hee.

We made a hugetastic mess.

I brought my improv piece to use as an example for class and ended up finishing it. WELL, not completely finishing it. I want to do some embroidery on it. Then it will be finished. Mini quilt? Pillow? Wall hanging? Who knows.

We had a giant table and an ironing board area set up and we needed every inch of that space. The Workspace had two huge tubs of fabric, and everybody brought some of their own. There were some really interesting finds in the bins. I picked out some spiffy 80sesque fabrics for my first project. And went a little crazy with the quilting.

Seriously? I’m pretty sure this was somebody’s screenprinting project. But I cut it up and used it for the back of my potholder.

On Saturday I taught everybody how to make a wonky log cabin block. I wasn’t sure how long it was going to take the class to complete a block and turn it into a potholder, but it ended up taking up about one 3-hour class period. So on Sunday I had everybody throw caution to the wind and make an improv block — no planning, just creativity flowing. I gave everybody a piece of my fabric that they had to use in their improv block — just to spice things up and make it harder for those who were already well out of their comfort zones.

Letitia, The Workspace coordinator, took my class. Which kind of made me nervous because this class could have gone horribly wrong if super-hardcore quilters showed up and weren’t wanting to learn new ways to do things or break the rules. But it didn’t go badly [ other than the crazy amount of people working in the woodshop behind us being really loud ], and she had a good time too. Here she is stitching away.

I was really proud of her improv block potholder. The fabrics she chose were really great. And just look at that stitching! She should probably get a long-arm sewing machine and have people pay her to quilt.

And thanks to my new knowledge I learned from a master quilter, my seams are so much better in my second block that I made in class [ on the left ] than in my first block [ which I turned into a potholder ]. I’m so glad somebody finally showed me that pressing my seams properly makes a difference. I pressed the seam together to set it, then pressed to the dark side [ to the darker fabric ] so the seam doesn’t show through. I didn’t press to the dark side on seams that had a bunch of different seams within them — got too bulky and the newest seam wouldn’t stay put. But seriously? This little tidbit of knowledge is going to make all my pieces so much nicer.

Look how straight the seams on the left block are. Then look at how crooked and frankensteiny the seams on the right one are. I’m somewhat amazed at the difference that a little extra ironing made. And it really didn’t take any extra time.

Beautiful.

Gross.

In addition, I learned little tidbits about canning, sewing circles, and how NOT to pack your carryon when traveling — and to always put the things you actually can’t live without in your carryon. There’s so much we can learn from our elders!

Here’s one of the blocks done by one of the other ladies in the class.

She initially had some traditional pink floral instead of my bright pink and another brown / khaki instead of the teal. I pulled out the bright pink and she loved it, so I gave it to her, and we decided to add the teal to complement the teal in the bright pink fabric. I think she learned a little bit more about pairing fabrics and picking colors.

On a different note, about 2 hours into class I got a text from Mark that said: “Just butchered about 10 hot wings. I’m awesome.”

Huh?

I leave him home alone and he makes incredible food from scratch — usually not using a recipe. Bread on Saturday. Hot wings Sunday. Once I left for 3 days to go to my cousin’s wedding in Fairfield, and he perfected Chicago-style pizza.

About an hour later I got this photo. He’s been wanting to try to make hot wings from scratch for a long time. Now he’s succeeded.

He didn’t make about half of the wings he bought so I could do a run-through with photos for the blog [ see, he's getting better! ]. I will have step by step instructions because these are multitudes better for you than the flash-fried version. If they weren’t so salty and if there wasn’t butter in them, I’d give them a green light. I might have to see what I can do to lighten them up after the first go-round.

This was a pretty eventful Sunday for me. I usually try to sit around and do as much nothing as possible on the weekends. What about you? Do you try to cram a bunch of fun stuff in on the weekend? Or do you sit at home and relax?

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Improv Block Progress + Patchwork Class

chimes — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 15:00:00 +0000

I’m teaching a modern patchwork class this weekend. I’ll be showing how to stash, scrap bust and make some pretty sweet improv blocks. There’s still time to sign up … you know.

Currently I’m working on this super girly improv piece. I thought I’d do something different and was inspired to use all my scraps from my Mendocino quilt for the strips between the pieces of fabric.

I’m liking where this is going. You?

I’m even using my last little bits of Wonderland.

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mendocino progress

chimes — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000

~~Quite some time ago~~ — okay, a realllllly long time ago — I posted some quilt blocks I had put together. Yes. I realize there was a 2-year time lapse there …

This year I’m going through the giant pile of WIP quilt pieces and finishing them. I swear. For real.

I decided to use some pink around these blocks to give some relief to the eye between the busy blocks. Normally I’d use white, but I thought this dark pink was nice and went well with the blocks. I’m liking how they are turning out.

I’m also slightly obsessed with Barbara’s Puffins. Any flavor. They are gluten free! And delicious. Definitely not sugar free though.

I’m excited to make a design wall for the guest / craft room so I can put these together. Next month’s crafty endeavor!

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FO Friday: MJ Beat it Pillow

chimes — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Mark’s brother-in-law likes MJ probably as much if not more … okay … who am I kidding? Nobody could like MJ more than me.

Anyway, I had a threadless shirt lying around and I decided to make him a pillow out of it. I like how it turned out. I think I like it better than if the shirt would have fit the pillow because I added some contrasting patchwork on the side.

[and it's envelope-back, so if it's too cheesy for him, he can easily change it out]

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Tu-tu-tu-Tuesday: Camera Cases

chimes — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 12:00:00 +0000

I’ve got another great tutorial I’d like to share with you. It comes from Sew Mama Sew — camera case/iPod cozy tutorial.

This is a great project for beginners. It takes a little amount of fabric and a small investment of time. I like this project because it takes me as much time to make one of them as it does to make 5 of them, so it’s great to make a ton of them for craft shows.

Here’s one that I made [there's a ton of these in this post as well].

If you make one of these, send me a photo of your finished project and I’ll feature it in a gallery of reader submitted crafts from tutorials I’ve shared.

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5, 4, 3, 2, 1 about chimes

chimes — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Hi. I’m chimes. If you’ve been reading my blog and are just now figuring this out, well howdy. I’ve decided to try Craftzine’s 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Profile questions. Enjoy!

One Project You Are Particularly Proud Of

1. My musical flowers pitcher. And the resulting photos of it. I really miss my little brick wall porch at my old place in Des Moines.

Two Mistakes You’ve Made in the Past

1. Not saying no when I should. I’m to proud to admit when I can’t take on a project — I love being a jack of all trades. I recently took engagement photos of my friend’s little sister and her (now) hubby. I really shouldn’t have. I’m not a photographer. And I said yes to taking her WEDDING photos too.

[okay, so they didn't turn out too horrible]

2. Using parchment paper to bake these amazing brownies. The result? What my roommate coined “reverse brownies” — gooey on the outside, done in the middle.

Three Things That Make Your Work Unique

1. I’m cheap — but in a good way. I use EVERY scrap of fabric — including the selvedge edges — every discarded dish, every possible inch of batting and use cereal boxes for patterns for sewing projects. I’m currently making a map of the states quilt out of pieces of fabric that are less than 2″ big. Partially because I’m a fabric hoarder too.

2. Asymmetry. I hate symmetrical and being matchy matchy. I will never make a quilt from a traditional pattern — it has to be wonky.
3. Obviously, I love handmade objects. And as a graphic designer in my professional life, I try to incorporate hand-done items into my work as much as possible — whether it’s my own illustrations, found objects, fabric or paintings created by a friend.

[album cover for a band I was in that never took off]

Four Tools You Love to Use

1. Rotary cutter. I have no idea why, but there is something so damn therapeutic about cutting fabric and placing it in neat piles.
2. Adobe Creative Suite (especially InDesign — use it daily at work)
3. Sewing machine — ~~I sometimes think I need a fancy one with more bells and whistles, but the freebie one I got from my aunt has been kicking out great projects and working just fine~~. I actually got a new Janome in October and it has been rocking my world! I even completed a quilt last month using that machine with no blips in the fabric or dropped stitches. I’m saving my old machine for threadbangin’ more crafty projects.

4. Sketchbook + Prismacolors. I don’t just do things. I think them through first and find several ways of accomplishing what my desired end result may be. It’s surprising what you come up with when you take some time to brainstorm.

Five Inspirations

1. Quilters like Fussy Cut and Oh Fransson!
2. Michael Jackson. Yes. I’m serious. If you’ve not read my blog before, then newsflash: I heart MJ.
3. Every DIY and craft blog out there. ever. I think I follow all of them in my google reader.
4. My granny — she left a TON of unfinished projects when she died and I’ve been randomly finishing them up in the past several years. Here’s a quilt I completed out of blocks she made from what we think may have been old clothing (she was also cheap and thrifty).

5. And I have to mention my boyfriend. He’s constantly helping me refine my work and offers up suggestions and critique as well as an incredible amount of support.

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craftathon

chimes — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 15:00:00 +0000

We are moving again soon. And this weekend is the last weekend that I don’t have plans before the move, so I’m getting my last hurrah out of my system because all my crafty stuff has to go in storage as soon as possible.

I started going through my craft stuff and decided to finish off some UFOs this weekend.

I started with some bags …

(pink little zippy pouch)

(geometric little zippy pouch)

… and some more — 17 to be exact — quilted cards …

… but then I found a whole mess of white fabric, which I had no idea I had — my granny had left it in a bunch of unfinished projects she ultimately didn’t get to finish and her craft supplies were gifted to me. So, I decided it was time to finish my vintage scrap fabric (courtesy of Adria) strip quilt.

I’m still in progress today. I could have finished last night but I really don’t have room in our tiny apartment to lay out the quilt, and this is one that I have to lay out and think about. Here’s a photo of the progress. I’ll post a tutorial once it’s finished. It’s really quite easy, but takes a bit of thinking.

Here’s what I’ve done so far:

Decided I wanted to do a strip quilt that kind of zig zagged with the scrap fabric Adria gave me — this, but without the border and with more variation in width and length of fabric.
Cut all the fabric scraps to 2″, 1.5″ and 1″ wide pieces. One inch is probably too small, but to get the most out of this fabric, I had to go that small.
Sewed all of the 2″ wide scraps together to make a really long strip, and did the same with the 1.5″ and 1″ scraps. Did this last year and pulled out the finished rolls of strips yesterday to start putting this together.
Figured out that I wanted to make a 50″x50″ quilt. Originally I was going to go with twin size, but I realized I wasn’t going to have enough vintage fabric to do what I wanted to do.
Cut 50″ wide strips from the long strip of each width I’d sewn together.
Laid them on the floor to make 50″ wide — this required cutting the strips in halves and thirds. See above — the bottom piece is the full length that I want and is used for measuring.
Cut 2″, 1.5″ and 1″ strips out of white fabric and added them to the ends of the vintage strips to make up the width difference so they measure 50″ again.

Here’s what I’m doing today:

Deciding where I want the vintage strips to line up in the quilt, then cutting the end of the white off (where it goes past 50″) and adding it to the OTHER side of the strip (so there’s white on both sides).
Trimming everything to 48″ or so wide since inevitably there will probably be a math error on my end.
Pinning 3 strips at a time together and sewing them into a wider strip.
Repeating until the quilt top has been finished.

And that’s my day today! Patchworking and probably running 6-8 miles. If I finish the quilt top in just a few hours (hoping so — I got where I currently am now with this quilt top in 3 hours yesterday), I’ll work on some more bags. I found the motherload of scraps I was saving of Wonderland …

… so I’ll probably be making some more zippy pouches out of that. I’m loving the zippy pouches. I need to make some more wallets, but I like to make the zippy pouches so much more. I figure I’m doing this for fun and not for money, so if this stuff sells, great, if not, I’ve got Christmas presents taken care of. Or maybe I can keep something for myself for once.

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FO Friday: T-shirt Quilt for my Cousin

chimes — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 11:00:00 +0000

Um, I may have gotten the t-shirts for this in the spring of 2009. Like March 2009. Regardless, I finally finished it. It broke my sewing machine twice. Twice. Therefore, not making any more quilts (at least quilting them). So if you want a quilt, I’ll make the top, but you’re on your own for getting it quilted.

I also hate t-shirt quilts. I think they’re boring and stupid and I am not sure why people love them so much when there are so many beautiful quilting fabrics or vintage fabrics out there to make a quilt from instead. I’ve made 3 t-shirt quilts now — but the first 2 were really deconstructed. And the first 2 were because I wasn’t sure if I was going to like quilting, so I didn’t want to BUY fabric until I knew if I liked it or not.

Anywho — the twist on the regular t-shirt quilt here is adding the lyrics to Lateralus by Tool on the back of the quilt. I just quilted straight lines to make it easy. And I used scrap fabric that coordinated for the binding.

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le bebe

chimes — Tue, 24 May 2011 10:23:56 +0000

Did I mention that I make onesies? I think I did a couple of other times. I do, but I don’t sell them. Just for gifts.

Check this cutie out! This is my friend Dani‘s niece.

She is TOO cute! So cute, that I used the last of my wonderland fabric for her tie in the 2nd pic.

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FO Friday: Little Zippy Pouches

chimes — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 11:00:00 +0000

I’m going to be doing Craft Saturday this month on April 30th, so I’ve been working on some crafts.

I made a rule for this show — I can’t buy any new supplies — only use what’s in my stash and scraps. That way I can reduce the clutter and save some cash.

I had half a mind to get rid of ALL of my crafting supplies when I moved last month, but I decided to keep some of it. I might have gone insane without it, but I was getting kind of burnt out. I needed to find something new and interesting and fun. No more crafting for OTHER people. It’s okay to craft for yourself. Sometimes. And the stuff you make doesn’t have to be useful (these are actually useful things I learned from Amy Sedaris’s book).

I present to you — little zippy pouches.

These cute little pouches are perfect for makeup bags, emergency kits for your purse, travel crafting supplies and many more uses. I’ve had one that I made a LONG time ago that I used for my makeup in my gym bag. They were also a great project for scrapbusting. I’m a big fan of wonky asymmetrical patchwork and I made myself use ONLY what was in my scrap bag for these — so no cutting any new pieces. There are 3 here, but I’ve got 5 made and will be making a few more. They’re kind of time consuming, but I enjoy making them, so I’m going to have a few for the show at the end of the month.

And yes, I’ve also decided my label is going on everything. It will go on the inside of most of my stuff, but I thought it made these pouches look a bit more finished and since they’re scrappy to begin with, I thought it was a nice touch.

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