Category Archives: Quilting

It’s offical–I can’t keep a secret. My friend Laura saw the block for her wedding quilt last week, since I can’t keep my mouth shut or things hidden in my house. On the plus side of this, it does mean that I can post pictures of its progress though.

Laura was pretty excited about it though. She thought the colors were pretty much just what she had wanted. I’m more excited about these colors to start with than I was with Wedding Spectacularrrr. It took awhile before that one really grew on me.
Either way, this is just one of the 30 blocks in the quilt. The squares in the block are about 2 inches each, so it’ll probably take me a while to put together. I’ve been taking a bit of time off from it though, since my two scarves have been getting a lot of my attention, along with the quilt I’m working on for my Granny. I’ll post a picture of that when I get the whole top pieced. That should hopefully be by the end of the week.
And on a quick sidenote: The new job’s great.

I know it’s been mentioned time and time again, but I love the Quilt Index. It’s a slow night here at work, so I’ve been scanning through it. It’s such a great place to go to get inspired for color or pattern ideas.
I’ve been thinking about pieces of the antique Grandmother’s Fan quilt that my Granny gave me. Right now, I’m using yellow quarter circles, but I found this verson of a similar quilt, and I’m thinking about possibly using the red instead. It’s so much more vibrant than the yellow.
I’ve also been thinking recently about how important it is for me to be a good, consistant quilter. I had been working on the quilt for Laura and Steve at work the other weekend, and someone mentioned to me that it’s unbelieveable that I’d want to do all that small work by hand. I think it’s hard for people outside of this art to understand that quilting is, in fact, an art. No one would ever go up to a painter and ask why they put small details into to their paintings. I think it’s why I was so worried that my Wedding Spectacularrrr quilt would be appreciated, after countless hours of hand piecing and quilting were put into it. But it makes me want to work harder as a quilter; to become exceptional in my work.
Oh, and by the way, I got a job. It’s temporary for the time being, but it’s a start. My last day at Fox is this Sunday, and Monday morning, I’m an aid for a special education boy in a first grade classroom–at least for a little while. It’s quite a career change, but I’m feeling good about it. Yay, for somewhat steady work!

I’m stuck here at work, with no work to do (okay, I’m actually waiting for a soundbite from the Howell Melon Fest to come back to the newsroom before I finish my last story tonight) and I can’t sew since I left my thread on a table in my living room. My philosphy is that even if they don’t have work for me to be doing here, I might as well at least be working in some sort. So I guess I’ll blog instead.
(Oooh…people are jumping on big trampolines on the Olympics right now. At least the Olympics are recording on my TiVo right now.)
I did want to mention that I really think it’s cool how people have started to notice this little website of mine. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve gotten mentions or permanent links on Material Girl, All Too Quilty, Quilt Reflections, In A Minute Ago and Albedo Designs. I’m really excited that I’m not the only quilt blogger out there, and that people are actually reading about my work. I think there’s a lot more really great quilt work that’s being documented online than I know about, and everytime someone leaves a url with a comment, I’m excited to check out what they’ve done, or like to do.
Awww….swimming is on. I’ll be so glad when I don’t have to work evenings or weekends again.

So I’m still cutting pieces for the latest round of wedding quilting (when will you people stop getting married?!?) but I couldn’t help myself and I started sewing. After a while I just had to do something else but cut. I know I ought to use my rotary cutters to help out, but I feel like I have more control over the fabric when I use scissors. It’s probably the same reason why I don’t like machine quilting either–I get a feeling of controling what I’m doing when I sew by hand. It’s also the old lady in me creeping out. You know I’m actually a 56-year-old in the body of a 23-year-old. It’s weird.
But when I’ve been stuck here at work (only 21 more days left until the Channel 10 takeover) in the evenings I’ve been on the search for new good quilting websites. Is it just me, or is there really no good quilting websites? Everything that I’ve found has just been pretty useless. Although, in the past couple of months I have found that All Too Quilty, and more recently Quilting Reflections, are another two quilting blogs that are good sites, that are written by people who are actually good quilters. But overall, I’m really blown away by the fact that quilting is hardly represented on the web. They’re all knitters! Where did all the knitters come from?!? Knitters make me jealous because I wish I could do it. It’s just another thing to add to my book of things to do after I finish the projects I’m already on.
Good news for me! My nearest and dearest friend Kate, is visiting from North Carolina this week. I see a shopping road trip in the very near future for us!

So I’m pleased to report that all went well with the quilt giving. It was a mighty traumatic weekend and all, since it was very much like giving my child up. (Okay, so I don’t have children, and I’m sure it would be worse to give up an acutal child, but it was pretty hard.) I spent much of my evening strolling by the gift table to make sure that people were still looking at it, and it hadn’t been pushed aside or buried by the plethora of presents surrounding it, as seen here:

We went to watch the newly married couple open presents the next day and got to see them open it. I, of course cried. They spread it out for everyone to see and they all started clapping. I was emotional, and I felt like a big dork. But it was all good, and we had a fun day.

See? We know how to have fun and look good, all at the same time.
But now, you may be asking, “Sarah, now that you’ve finished this quilt, what will you be working on next?” Now that’s a pretty stupid question. The big project now is to get the next round of wedding quilts started, along with about five others already in progress. I’ll post pictures of everything, minus Laura and Steve’s quilt since I know they think they’re going to be sneaky and try to find out what it looks like here!

It’s finally done! Last night my quilt was offically finished at 10:11pm. Today I washed it, had a photo shoot, and wrapped it up. The wrapping is actually really cool! I wanted to let people at the wedding see it, but I didn’t want people putting their sweaty, dirty hands all over it. So I bought some cellophane wraping, and put it in that, so you can see a section of the quilt, along with the patch with their name, the date, the title, and my embrodered name on it. That way they don’t have to worry about it getting nasty, but people can still see what it is.

So anyway, here’s a couple pictures of the finished project. It’s just a few, and I have more up at AvenueB in my quilting photo gallery.

(Sorry Dad, I know you didn’t want to be in the picture, but it was the only one that showed the quilt completly.)

It’s got the date, the couple’s name, and the title in the box, along with my name embroidered below.

It’s all done! I can’t believe it.

So I’ve been trying to decide on a pattern for a new quilt that’s going to be a wedding gift, and I’ve been really stumped. I know the colors I want to use, but up until now, I had no idea what to do for the pattern. TADA! I so found my quilt. Since I don’t want to give away the surprise of what it’ll look like, I won’t link to the actual pattern. But it’s still fun to look around at Jinny Beyer Studios anyway. I just have to say it’s going to be tough trying to talk about this project and not give anything away.
Speaking of my other wedding project….I’ve got to get it done. Today is June 29th, and the wedding is on July 24th. That means that really, I need to have it done by July 17th, so that I can bond with it before I give it away. They’ll be standing there, at the gift table, and I’ll be crying and yelling “don’t take my baby away” and A&V will be pulling it out of my arms yelling “no, you made it for us. We’re taking it away and never ever letting you see it again!” Ahhhh!!! It’s torture! I’ve still got the three sides of the border to do, and the first side took me about four days to do. I’m not sure if the rest of it will take that long though. Then I have to sign it, and bond. I don’t want to give it away now! Here’s a picture of half of it though!

So I really like to quilt. That’s pretty obvious. I also really like to use the Internet. Put the two together, and you’ve got quilting websites, like mine for example. I’m wondering where the other people like me are lurking. Today I strolled over to Stargazey Quilts Online and I had honestly thought it was a neat site at first: there are some neat patterns, some cool pictures, and it’s another person with a new quilting idea, which in my opinion is always appreciated. But then I read on, and the site starts to annoy me a bit. They think it’s quirky to end all of their pattern names and ideas with a “Z,” like “appliquez” and “samplerz.” That’s just not cool. It’s like the Homestar Runner e-mail when Strongbad does the band names. So please, come up with some not annoying quilting websitez. (I had a fish in college that I named Jaw-z. He was a rapper fish. He also didn’t live very long.)
Speaking of pets, we’re getting a dog! Kasey the four-year-old Golden Retriver stayed with us this weekend, and she’s coming to live with us in a week or two. Her family is moving to Taiwan, so we’re adopting her. Yay!
And in other good (but not too good–I don’t want to get worked up over this one either) news, I got a call today while I was at work, about an interview for the Communications Representative position with the Department of Agriculture. I can’t put into full words just how much I want this job. It’s not just that I want to leave the exciting world of Fox 47 this time, but I REALLY want this job. Really. Keep your fingers crossed that good things do happen to people who get passed over for other crappy jobs!