Category Archives: Quilting

I have a confession to make: I’m afraid I might be a compulsive hoarder. Want proof? Just have a look at my stack of new fabrics and tell me I’m not crazy.

I’m currently somewhat obsessed with watching shows about people who have compulsive hoarding problems recently. I’m also somewhat obsessed about starting new projects that involve new fabric. Do you see the parallel? ARE YOU FEARFUL YET?

But look! SNAILS! Can we even begin to discuss how much I love this fabric? Because I do. (But do you think that red and cream Amy Butler dot print matches the red from the mushrooms? I actually already had that one and pulled it out because I couldn’t find a red that I liked when I found the other four colors. Thoughts?)

And then I’ve been collecting browns and greens. I think this is going to make an fantastic top, but I have no idea what to do with it. I’m stumped on what to start. So far, my only idea has been to make a Single Girl with it, but I’m not sure I have enough variation in fabrics. Again, thoughts?

And here are the miscellaneous fabrics. I’ve been picking them up since the beginning of the year now, and I’m pretty sure they don’t all really go together. I need to keep planning with this team. All wonderful, for sure, but not all necessarily meant to be together. Which I think is a hoarding-type thought. I think.

The one good thing about all this is that I haven’t acutally begun any projects yet. (Which I think is certainly adding to this issue!) I’m still on track to get the quilting on my Love Beads quilt finished up by the end of the month. I’ll also hopefully be back with two finished knits by the end of the week. That is, unless I become buried alive by my fabric, yarn and craft supplies.

Send help in the form of Rubbermaid bins and mental counseling soon!

Seriously. It’s hard work. FIVE YEARS of work, in fact.

It’s such an awesome pattern–called Love Beads–and is from the book The Modern Quilt Workshop by Bill Kerr and Weeks Ringle of Funquilts. (The book is one of my favorites–it was one of the first things that really sparked my interest in making modern patchwork.)

I pieced the top back in the fall of 2004, and started quilting it sometime over that winter. I wanted to be all ambitious with the hand quilting, so I had the brilliant idea to free hand, thin spirals in all the circles. And while it looks GREAT, I burned out on it quickly. It’s been sitting, collecting dust and pet fur ever since.

It’s one of those projects that I felt really guilty about leaving there. I really thought it had the potential to be a fantastic finished quilt, but the idea of hand quilting THAT much….ugh. No thanks.

In keeping with my post from a few weeks ago, I’ve just been trying to weigh out what I REALLY want to be making these days. For the past few years I’ve focused my energy into making items for craft shows and Etsy, and while I still enjoy doing that, I really came to the conclusion that I’ve not finished much for myself over that time. Between really slow sales at shows and online (which is depressing when it’s all that you foucs on), I decided it was time to get back to quilting circles.

And you know what? I enjoyed it.

The circles are done, and I’m on to the major task of finishing this bad boy off. I’ve started marking out my diagonal stripes that will serve as the background. To my surprise, it’s moving fast. I’m hoping at this point I can have the quilting finished off by the end of March. It’s going to be a stretch, but I think it’s possible.

That way, no one can tell me that I don’t finish what I start.

So, hey. I just want to say, that if you get bronchitis, it sucks. You cough, and cough and cough and do little else besides cough and sleep. In fact, today was the first day this week that I didn’t wear pajamas all day. I even went to work. It was a big day.

In fact, I took a picture of my happy bronchitis face. See how happy I am? So, so happy.

During my time on the couch this week I’ve been thinking about wanting to get down to business on some of my projects. I started piecing these blocks over the past summer and due to other projects and craft shows that I did last fall, I never finished them up.

Today’s plan was to figure out how many I have completed, and how many more I have to go. At this point, I have 23 finished blocks and I’d like to have 40 finished for a 5×8 grid. Each block is about 12 inches square, but even with 40 blocks, I’m not sure about the size.

So here’s my question for my fellow quilters: Do you always have a set size in mind when making quilts? Part of me is concerned that if I don’t at least make it as large as a twin size that it will be useless if I ever decide to use it for something other to cover up with on the couch. Any input into how big you decide to make your quilts would be appreciated. I’m having trouble coming to a decision on what I should do.

Hopefully I’ll be seeing a little more of my sewing table in the next few days (minus the cough drop wrappers, of course). I’d like to get these blocks tied up so I can do some top piecing here in the next few weeks!

I know this may come as a shock but, I’m finishing a quilt. A real one! I figured it was about time, seeing as though I have my a-maz-ing new sewing machine now.

When I started this quilt (FOUR YEARS AGO) I was a firm believer in the idea that a quilt wasn’t a quilt unless it was completely made by hand. No sewing machines allowed. I now realize that is a dumb idea. Seriously dumb. No freaking wonder I burnt out on quilting.

Hand piecing everything + hand quilting everything = kinda boring.

I’ve always really wanted to come back to working on this quilt. I put it away partially because I had a lot of trouble figuring out what I wanted to use as a backing fabric. (I ended up going with a super cute Michael Miller print–white with black exclamation points.) But the real reason why I gave up on it initially is because I was really tired of hand quilting. I had just finished this for two of my friends and I really just had enough. I thought about machine quilting at that point, but I’m glad that I waited until now. My old machine was so much less reliable about even stitches than my sexy new machine. (yep. I said sexy.)

But even with my new machine and walking foot on, I’ve had a hard time controlling the spacing in stitches. It’s been getting better, but I’ve noticed that I have to be really careful about not letting the weight of the quilt pull at all while I’m feeding it into the machine. I was also really thrown off by not having tight tension on all three layers of the sandwich. When I hand quilt, I use a hoop to hold the layers tight, but when you sew on a machine, you really just leave it all up to your basting work. It’s odd at first, but I’m getting used to it now.

So, just a little more quilting to go, plus the binding. I’m ready to have this four year project finished.

Goodness! Hip To Piece Sqaures is now a toddler! Today is the 2nd birthday for this little concoction of mine. I just wanted to take the time to thank everyone for reading this silly thing–your comments and conversations have meant a lot to me over the past two years. When I started this, I never imagined reciving the constant support for the things I do, or getting to know all the people that I’ve met across the country and world. So THANK YOU ALL, for making this fun to do–hopefully for many more years to come!