peek-a-boo

How are you? Things are great here. I'm busy and (dare I say it for fear of tempting fate?) happy. Just poking in here to share some quick peeks at stuff I've been working on for upcoming classes. First, there's this Union Jack pillow:

Next up, I whipped up a herringbone quilt top using some awesome Halloween themed prints by Lizzy House from her new line, Guising:

This soon-to-be quilt checks two items off my "quilts to make" list - a herringbone quilt and a Halloween quilt. I am super-eager to quilt this one because I have some ideas I want to play with in terms of the quilting itself.

I'm still in the process of binding the pile o'quilts that have accumulated on my shelves, but I think in the next week I will have them finished. Or at least, that's my goal, and I'm trying to stick to it.

snapshots of my late-night obsession

When I can't sleep, which has been par for the course the last week or two (I usually pass out at 7:30 - 8 while putting the kiddos to bed then wake up around 1 or so gearing to go), I watch YouTube videos of free motion quilting and then practice, practice, practice. FMQ is one of those things that looks so easy when other people do it yet I've always found it intimidating. Now, it's all I wanna do. So far it's been like drawing with my machine, which is great. I love to draw. I love to sew. And these late-night doodlings on fabric have been especially satisfying because there's something so wonderful about the very act of sewing. I enjoy the process immensely.

Finally warmed up, I figured I would try it with one of the tops I have that needed quilting. There is a world of difference between doing it on small and manageable scraps, which I totally got the hang of and was starting to see significant improvement, and a larger quilt, which was a whole lot harder to maneuver. I get the gist of how to roll and hold the quilt, but it just doesn't feel natural to me, and I struggled with getting my curves right because I had trouble with holding the quilt. Maybe I was trying to make the loops too large? It felt more controlled and I got neater results when I made smaller shapes. I had to play around with the tension, and my stitches were so not even because I was moving faster than the machine (derf). So I really had to practice what I preach to my students and be patient with myself and accept the fact that I was not going to get perfect FMQ results on my first top. But practice does make perfect, or at least, much, much better. There's going to be more FMQ in my future, including a class I hope to take soon. In the meanwhile, I'm going to keep playing with it. There are feathers to be sewn, dagnabbit!

dressing up the wee

So, uh, remember when I was all psyched for the Kids Clothes Week Challenge? Well, I made stuff - two tops and pair of pantaloones - and just never got around to writing about it. Heh. (I was lazy and distracted and simply threw some quick snapshots of my FOs into the InstaGram pool.) So here I present to you my KCWC projects as modeled by the wee. The hair styling for this shoot was courtesy Salon Finn. I'm lucky to have such a little helper who was so eager to get involved in the shoot. Alas, I did not get a chance to make him what I had planned, but there's still time to sew up some shorts for him before it's totally summer.

The items I whipped up for KCWC were easy-peasy 1-hour projects. I made two tops with contrasting sleeves using the Sweet Dress pattern again. I really love this pattern. It's super-easy to modify and expand upon it. I'm hoping to try more variations on it in the future.

I also banged out a teeny pair of pantaloones using the leftover scraps from my Schoolhouse Tunic (which I still haven't properly photographed and blogged about - derf!). I didn't use a pattern for those and just winged it using one of the wee's pants as a guide. In retrospect I should have taken into consideration the fact that I was using jersey pants with a woven fabric and cut them a little larger, like maybe just 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch on each side. These ended up being just a bit snug on her. I don't expect her to fit into them in another week or two. Meh, so now I know better for next time. And there will be a next time. Because you know what? Kids' clothes are such a quick and satisfying project. For someone who doesn't get to spend much time with the machine these days, it is especially gratifying to be able to knock out a finished item in one sitting.