WIP Wed. once more

After taking a much-needed hiatus from the record-keeping, I've decided to join the festivities again at Lee's blog Freshly Pieced for .

Sadly, I've also decided to abandon my initial list of UFOs on this forum. It seems that projects for the present and future are taking precedent, which is just fine by me.

So, here goes:
Completed

bee blocks
solid improv blocks for Friends + Fabric bee on Flickr

New

Blooming 9-Patch

Talked about in more detail in this blog post.

In Progress

One more set of potholders, destined for Etsy

just gotta get those bindings stitched down, looped around and off they go!

Custom order holiday place mats
(this is my first sneak peek of these guys... the customer has seen the fabric choices, but not the finished product yet)

I've also been receiving blocks from the Design Camp [think outside the block] improv bee, so I'll be looking forward to playing around with those in the coming weeks!

And this quilt top waiting to be basted and quilted:

So, what's the final count?
Completed - 1
New - 1
In progress - 4
(man, I like the look of those numbers so much better than the 14 and 16 including UFOs dating back 5+ years!!!)
Thanks for bearing with and taking a look at what I've got going on! If you haven't already, go check out the other updates linking up at Lee's blog!

Stitching and Camping

To begin with, I have FINALLY gotten a couple of new items up in my Etsy shop, also titled Surrounded by Scraps. It had been way too long since I had updated that little venue so I am glad to have a little momentum back.

But in order to get a few of the newer items up sooner rather than later, I did have to take some binding work away with me camping this last weekend. My reasoning was twofold: we were going camping primarily to celebrate 2 friends' birthdays and I had intended to sew up a little gifty for the birthday kids before the trip, but fell short on time. But here's a little hint on what I had in mind...

(both part of the Alexander Henry collection)

The second part of this equation is that I had spent the time I had in my sewing studio before the trip trying to make some new potholders and get the bindings machine sewn on to take with me, INSTEAD of working on the birthday presents, so I figured I'd better actually have that handwork with me to have SOMETHING to show for the oversight!

and with a little fire going

trying to smile for the camera - feeling a bit foolish, I have to admit!

Now, thankfully I wasn't the only one playing at hobbies. J was trying his hand at starting fire without matches or flint, simply with the power of the sun! He got the bark smoking, but no flames to be had this time around...

The first night it was just J and myself at a campground on the east side of Mt. Hood with a creek running right by. The following day we drove around, back toward Portland to meet up with the rest of our party at a campground on the Sandy River. Fun was had, horseshoes were thrown, pinecones were fetched and breakfast was quite a to-do!

(look at all of those camp stoves in action!!)

It was a great weekend, and I even have new potholders that survived (and will be in the next load of laundry to be sure there are no remaining campfire fumes attached - I promise!)

WIP Wed - a little catch-up

As I sit here after a lovely dinner of mac 'n' cheese from a box, watching the last disc of Project Runway Season 1, I am trying to take stock of the activity of the last week or two. And then I'll be linking up with Lee at her blog Freshly Pieced.

I managed to get my tutorial up for the March round of the Friends + Fabric Stash Bee, a wonky diamond log cabin block

Also, along with finishing the quilting on the wall hanging I'm making for the For the Love of Solids swap on Flickr, I whipped up a small set of coasters from some of the scraps

And it has occurred to me that I have somewhat neglected my Etsy shop in the last few weeks. At the small craft bazaar that Saskia (the lovely and creative environmental chemist behind Base Natural) and I attended in December, I was asked if I had a wider selection of pot holders, and since then I've sold a couple of sets, so it's about time I replenish.

And as for continuing projects...
I finally basted and have started quilting the November quilt for the Bliss circle of do. Good Stitches

I've also added another quilt top to my growing pile of quilt tops awaiting quilting (though I suppose we can call it even with the previous project coming off of that pile!) - the Encapsulated quilt that I had started several years ago in a class with Portland quilt artist and teacher Lee Fowler.

And now there's the big sigh of relief. Coming in JUST under the wire is the already too often mentioned Tangerine and Wine quilt! Complete! However, not quite finished... I have it posted to the Flickr group for the Tangerine Tango Challenge but have been struggling with the photos for the MQG call for entries for the 2012 Fall Quilt Festival in Houston. Their photo requirements are strict! And I'm sure I'm overthinking it, but that's my nature. So, I have Wednesday and Thursday to get a couple of good photos of this quilt, with the perfect lighting and not needing any color correction (I've already taken dozens of photos, both full shots and details) in order to make that deadline.

So the final tally (and this actually spans a bit more than a week, since I missed last week...)
New - 3
Completed - 3
In Progress - 4 or 5
Unquilted tops - 14

Thanks again for showing interest! And if you haven't already, it's time to check out the other bloggers linking up for WIP Wednesday!

WIP Wednesday

Well, this past week had a very different rhythm to it than the previous week or two, but I still managed to check a few things off the list (some expected, and some completely not!)

Completed
The Hopman baby quilt:

I got the binding finished up on a very slow and slightly snowy day at the quilt shop.

FMQ pot holders:

Throw quilt from YEARS ago:

Silly little table topper:

A few of these were simply a matter of bindings, but that counts as completed, right??

Some Progress
Summertime Stars quilt top:

Quilt top is pieced and on the shelf of tops awaiting quilting... it may be there a while;-)

Test block for Friends + Fabric bee:

I still have a fair amount of work on this one before it's ready for the next stage.

No Progress
Encapsulated
Trip Around the World
November Bliss top
Nubees quilt top
Warm/Cool QAL
place mats already cut out

This week's tally:
New - 2
Completed - 4
In Progress - 8

Go check out all the other activity in blogland through the links on Lee's blog, Freshly Pieced


Here's to a great week ahead, kids!!

recycle, reuse, repurpose

Keeping in line with the theme of pulling old projects off the shelf of oblivion, I surprised even myself this afternoon! The earlier part of the day was spent crossing a couple of smaller items off my list, including getting those star blocks pieced together in a finished top:

which, to be fair, looks very much like the photo of the individual blocks displayed on the design wall, found in this post.

And then I took a lunch break, and maybe enjoyed an adult beverage, too;-) So, coming back to the studio I spent some time at the ironing board pressing new fabrics and regrouping. But I was not ready to dive in to one of these new projects just yet.

So, where does that leave us but finding a NOT-SO-NEW project! I don't know if any of you remember these?

a false start I had on that placemat commission that ended up looking like this. Though I had decided that this wasn't right for the client, I still like 'em, so I stowed them away for a bit.

One of the issues that had come up initially is that one of the placemats ended up short. And I didn't have enough of the focus fabric to scrap the large piece and cut a replacement. So, what does one do with 2 discarded placemats, one of which is too small to be useful as such? Why, cut them into a pair of pot holders, of course!!

As for quilting them, I went against the grain (no pun intended). For pot holders I generally use a simple, straight line quilting, because let's be realistic, no one cares how fancy the quilting is on the tool you're using to pull the casserole from the oven, right? But this fabric gets me every time! I was drawn in by the little vines and leaves on the print, and it evolved into an actual feather quilting motif! Who'da thunk it?

And can you believe this was my first foray into free-motion quilting on the Bernina?!? Though I prefer my trusty Viking in SO MANY WAYS, I do have to concede that this machine handled Beautifully with FMQ!! Not even any tension issues on the bobbin thread, which I find inconceivable! However, that said, these might not be so practical as pot holders any more! Just one of the sacrifices we'll make to push our creativity, I guess.

Pot holder and place mats

There is nothing like having a specific goal (read "deadline") to compel me to get s*** done.

I quilted and bound that pot holder for our PMQG / KCMQG swap...

(like those little martini glasses??)

And really, the theme of the week has been binding. I have 3 sets of place mats on which I have sewn bindings, one of which is the long-overdue commission, the other two are new additions to hopefully have a decent inventory when Saskia and I have our tables at a holiday bazaar next month. (more info to come soon...)

My thimble finger is about to get quite the workout!

Thursday is swap day

Last week I came to the realization that I need more structure. Part of that process will be assigning different general projects to different days of the week. For instance, Tuesday is now a "merchandise" day, for making (primarily) place mats and pot holders:





My new schedule allots Thursdays to working on bee and swap projects. Last week I worked on blocks for the do.Good Stitches bee on Flickr. Megan, a.k.a. Canoe Ridge Creations, posted a tutorial on her blog for a simple as pie bow tie block.


She showed us an array of clear, saturated, rainbowy fabrics as inspiration for the palette... which seems to be a trend right now. Not an unwelcome one, I must say.

In addition to the bow tie blocks, I dedicated quite a bit of time to cutting squares for the Warm Cool Quilt Along hosted by Jeni at In Color Order. I shared a little more about this process in my previous post, found here.

This week, however, I moved on to working on 2 other projects, one of which I thought the deadline had passed me by. The Portland Modern Quilt Guild is putting together a banner to represent the group at the annual Sisters' Outdoor Quilt Show in Sisters, OR, along with a selection of member quilts which will be on display at the show this year (the second Saturday of July, for those who are interested!!). Admittedly, I did not get the memo in time to submit (have I mentioned that I am terrible at keeping up with my blog list and online newsletters??) so I do not have a quilt in the show, but several of my Portland colleagues will, along with hundreds of other Oregon quilters! However, I did get a chance to do a block to be added to the banner for the guild, which I dropped off at this evening's meeting.



I kept going back and forth about what design I would want to use to sum up my quilting style in one 6" block, sketching ideas, but came up with this simply by revisiting my own Flickr photostream. I originally did a quilt from one of Judy Hopkins' books (whose name escapes me right now, I have to admit) several years ago as a wedding gift for some friends.


A perfect way to combine string piecing and working with an awesome modern focus fabric (and this piece of Heather Bailey's Freshcut I have Jenn, Sunnyauh to thank for!!)

But the bulk of the day was dedicated to working on Cruz's blocks for the Seams Perfect Scrap Bee on Flickr. She pointed us toward this tutorial from Freshly Pieced.


I LOVED working on these blocks, though was thrown off by how long it took to actually select each round of 3 fabrics! And I do have to say that it was a challenge to keep my hexagon blocks even as I went around, as can be seen by the wonky angle of a couple of the strips, but hopefully it won't make too much of a difference. Next month is my month to host that bee, and I still have to get my sample blocks and templates together before the end of June, as I think I will have to send out bits for paper piecing... more to come on that one later. All in all, I think this will be a good schedule to keep to, assuming I am able to keep to it!