2015 New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop

Posted on July 12, 2015 by Quilting is in my Blood

Welcome to Quilting is in My Blood
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Hi, I’m Mary, and I’m still a relatively new quilter who NEEDS a positive outlet like quilting to counterbalance the sometimes very difficult (though often rewarding) work I do as a mental health therapist. I preach self-care to all my clients, and for many years, making mosaics was how I decompressed from hard, draining days. If you want to know more about my mosaic work, check out my quilting in glass post. Now that I’ve been bitten by the quilting bug, my mosaic supplies are gathering dust, and my fabric stash and quilting supplies are taking over!

The title of my blog is to honor my mother, Cleo, who was equally passionate about quilting. I’m sure I disappointed her that I had no interest in quilting while she was alive (and groaned when we had to stop at ANOTHER fabric store), but I’m definitely making up for lost time. Earlier this year, my sister sent me a couple of her unfinished quilt tops along with some of her fabric stash, and I look forward to finishing these quilts to share with other family members who love my mom’s quilting as much as I do.

I’m thrilled to participating in the New Quilt Bloggers group hosted by Yvonne@Quilting Jetgirl, Cheryl@Meadow Mist Designs, and Terri Ann@Childlike Fascination. They all have been fantastic blogging mentors, and you should take a few minutes to check out their quilts. These women know what they are doing! There are over 70 of us new bloggers partipating, so we’ve been broken up into four different hives led by the four hosts which provides a greater level of support. I am fortunate to have Cheryl as my hive leader, and I’m learning even more from her by participating in her Midnight Mystery Quilt-a-long.

My Quilts

I’ve been quilting for almost nine months. The first quilt I completed in March ’15 was for my modern cowgirl friend (positives and lessons learned blogged about here).

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In April ’15, I finished my second quilt AFTER I had my first quilting meltdown (blogged about here).

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The quilt I feel the best about is my Everyday Quilt. It was my first quilting project started in Oct ’14 but not completed until May ’15. It’s the only quilt I’ve kept so far  (blogged about here).

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I tell my friend at work, Beverly, who is an accomplished quilter that I’m not in Quilt Kindergarten any more. I suppose Confident Beginner is the best classification for me. I’m even taking a seven-evening beginner quilt class at my local quilt store, Threadbear, partly to support a friend who wants to learn how to quilt (and I don’t want to teach her!) and partly to fill in some of my own gaps since much of my quilt education has been trying a variety of tutorials online. The same day that I signed up for the class at Threadbear, I registered for an intermediate quilting class that will start at the end of August at the local community college. I did email the instructor to make sure I’d understood her correctly when I met her last fall that she welcomes quilters of all proficiency levels.

I’m also EXTREMELY excited about going to QuiltCon in February, but I may have signed up for too many workshops. I plan to take Thursday during the day to go some lectures before my first workshop, and Friday is a light day, but then there’s Saturday and Sunday morning:). I’d love to know who else is going.

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I do have some interests besides quilting–honest I do!

My favorite vacation spot is Kauai. I went there last year with my family, and I often think of the saturated colors in Kauai which were such a contrast to the muted colors of the northern New Mexico high desert where I live.

Books over Movies: I tend to read more than watch movies but on my vacation last month, I really enjoyed watching The Book Thief. I belong to a women’s book group, and we read the book a couple years ago. I thought the movie did the book justice which in my opinion is unusual.

Something unusual about me is that I am a die-hard San Francisco Giants fan and not just because they have won three World Series championships in the last five years. I’ve been going to games in San Francisco for fifty years. I remember seeing Willie Mays and Willie McCovey play, and I saw Hank Aaron hit one of his 755 home runs. I regularly watch games on my iPad on MLB TV and am as much of a fan of the Giants’ TV announcers, Kruk and Kuip, as I am of the players. I usually have a game on when I’m quilting and look up when I hear the roar of the crowd or the announcers sounding excited.

A blogging tip I’d like to share from my limited blogging experience is to copy and paste the codes for your blog buttons in a separate electronic file. I’ve written an email to myself that I keep in draft form, and I keep adding the code for buttons as I add buttons to my blog. The reason I do this is because when I switched from one Word Press theme to another, I lost all my blog buttons and had to start from scratch gathering the button codes.

I just learned a really cool quilting tip from Ann, the owner at Threadbear. She taught me how to use two rulers to rotary cut fabric if you have your cutting table against a wall like I have at home. How I was taught to cut my fabric with a rotary cutter is to fold the fabric in half and square up the right edge of the fabric, then walk around the table, and place the ruler down to start cutting strips of fabric. But if you can’t walk around your table and you want to cut for example a two-inch wide strip of fabric, you line up your ruler two-inches from the right side of the fabric:

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Then you place your long ruler right against the short ruler:

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And then carefully pull away the short ruler, and you are ready to cut your two-inch strip without having to walk around your cutting table or flipping around the material.

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Now I have a question for you: how important do you think it is to sew a scant quarter-inch seam? I’m still sewing with a quarter-inch presser foot with a guide but am thinking of taking the training wheels off in the future, so I can start developing proficiency with a scant 1/4-inch seam.

Please check out the other bloggers in my hive who are participating in this week’s blog hop:

Abby@Hashtag Quilt
Shelley@The Carpenter’s Daughter Who Quilts
Megan@Sew Stitching Cute Quilts

Posted in 2015 New Quilt Bloggers | 29 Comments

Finish-Along 2015–3rd Quarter

Posted on July 12, 2015 by Quilting is in my Blood

I have decided to join the  3rd Quarter of the 2015 Finish-Along in hopes that it will motivate me to have three quilts completed by early October. The first is My Birthday Gifts wall-hanging that I wrote about in my Do-Overs post.

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The next one is the Fashion and Food quilt that I am making for my niece, Mary Frances. So far I have just gathered the fabric for the inner rectangles. I was going to use blender fabrics for the outer squares, but I think I’m going to use a medium grey to keep it from being too busy. My niece knows I am making a quilt for her birthday next month (it won’t be done by her actual birthday!), but she doesn’t know anything about the design or the fabric. My sister helped me pick a few of the fabrics out which is probably my favorite part of the quilting process. Mary Frances follows me on Instagram, but I don’t think she is following my blog, so I think it is safe to post about this project here (I hope!).

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The last project I am listing for this quarter’s Finish-Along is a colorful baby quilt I have just started. I am taking a beginning quilting class at my local quilt store, Threadbear, partly to support a friend who wants to learn how to quilt (and I don’t want to teach her!) and partly to fill in some of my own gaps. I have already learned a cool tip for doing rotary cutting when your cutting table is against the wall like mine is. See pics of it in my 2015 New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop post here.

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Posted in WIP | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Everyday Quilt–Quilt #4

Posted on July 11, 2015 by Quilting is in my Blood

When my friend at work, Beverly, forwarded an email to me in Oct ’14 with a subject line that said “Make the nifty, efficient 5-yard Everyday Quilt,” I was intrigued. The email was from our local quilt store, Threadbear, and it provided information about the three-evening class for “confident beginners” to make the Everyday Quilt top. I was far from confident but decided to take the leap and sign up for the class.

I bought my fabrics at Jo-Ann’s which I had no idea was considered mid-grade fabric. I just knew it was a fairly affordable way to see if I liked quilting and wanted to invest more into it. (Yes and Yes!) I really like the way the five fabrics compliment each other. I was advised to pre-wash these fabrics prior to cutting them, something I haven’t done since buying better quality fabric at Threadbear and online.

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By mid-November I had all 35 blocks completed and three rows sewn together, but I was really struggling with lining up my blocks so I decided to put it aside (my first UFO!)  to work on mug rugs for Christmas presents. When I picked this project back up in April 2015, my quilt-piecing skills had improved from completing three other quilts, and I finally did feel like a confident beginner! I even felt like I could modify the design slightly and feature the beautiful fabric medallions used in the blocks as the outside border and threw in an inner border of dark grey to set off the outer border.

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After finishing the quilt top, I decided to piece together a solid turquoise back and turn my quilt top, batting, and back over to longarm quilter, Peggy Lopez O’Neil, requesting a simple stipple design. I was a little nervous about it, but after I got it back from Peggy a few weeks later, I was pleased with the end result. And I definitely felt relieved to have skipped the quilting part of this project. I then squared up the quilt (ugh!) and got the binding hand-sewn on minutes before I had to leave on a trip to Michigan to see my sister (and visit Pink Castle Fabrics!).

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Quilt Guild Fabric Swap Challenge–Quilt #3

Posted on July 10, 2015 by Quilting is in my Blood

I joined my local quilt guild in January 2015 and felt like a total imposter, but three months later with a little more confidence, I decided to participate in a fabric swap with another guild member. The fabrics provided to me were very colorful and attractive, but they weren’t my typical color scheme. I decided to use a rail fence pattern as well as trying diagonal machine quilting using strips of masking tape as quilting guides. In order to turn my quilt top into a tabletopper, I decided to add a turquoise border and backing and orange binding–my two go-to colors. It was satisfying to do such a quick project.

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My First Quilting Meltdown–Quilt #2

Posted on July 9, 2015 by Quilting is in my Blood

I started a quilt for my stepdaughter in January ’15. I had a wonderful time shopping for fabric both at my local quilt store,  ThreadBear, and online. I even had a fat quarter of dachshund fabric printed up at Spoonflower. I found a pattern on Etsy called San Francisco Window Boxes that looked doable for a newbie quilter. Certainly, the piecing of the blocks was straightforward. And sewing on the sashing strips wasn’t hard either, but when I went to do straight-line machine quilting, that’s when disaster struck, and I had my first quilting melt-down. Because my blocks weren’t accurately lined up, when I quilted across the sashing, much of quilting looked diagonal to my quilt blocks rather than parallel to the blocks. Not good!!! If I’d been active on Instagram back then, I would’ve posted a pic of how terrible it looked using the hashtag #sashingsucks! When I stopped by Threadbear a week or so later and started telling the owner, Ann, about my first quilting melt-down, she said to me, “It’s good you got that behind you.” That sort of made me feel better 🙂 I did not take a photo of how awful it looked. If you look closely at the pic below, you can see that many of the blocks are not lined up with their neighboring blocks.

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The first thing I did was to revise my deadline for finishing this quilt. I really wanted to get it to my stepdaughter by her birthday the end of March, but it became clear that I could not meet that deadline. I then started to brainstorm on how else I could quilt these blocks which were squares within squares. I decided to quilt each block individually after viewing this video of double-knotting thread-tails and then burying the thread-tails by Pile O’ Fabrics (scroll all the way to the bottom to view the video).

This ended up being a very labor-intensive endeavor. For each of the 24 blocks, I double-knotted and buried 32 thread-tails. I got a little faster as I went along, but the machine quilting for each block took between 60 and 90 minutes. I never want to do that again!

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The other lesson learned with this quilt is that I was not ready to use spray basting for a larger throw quilt. My entire back shifted resulting in asymmetrical side borders. I wish I had read this Craftsy blog on Spray Basting Your Quilt first.

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I was much happier with my binding on this quilt than on the binding on my first quilt, Modern Cowgirl Friend. I machine sewed the binding to the quilt front and hand sewed the binding down to the back of the quilt. Here’s the requisite cat/quilt pic with my cat, Jackson, looking very cozy. And no, this wasn’t posed. He would not move when I placed the quilt over him!

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One final lesson learned with this quilt is know who is following you on Instagram. I was just starting to learn about Instagram and decided to share pics of this quilt with a friend who was encouraging me to start posting photos on Instagram. What I didn’t realize is that my stepdaughter would see them too! So she had a preview of coming attractions.

Posted in 2015 Finishes | 9 Comments

Modern Cowgirl Friend–Quilt #1

Posted on July 9, 2015 by Quilting is in my Blood

I know I’m doing things a little backwards having already posted six blogs and not having blogged about the four quilts I’ve finished, but I’ve decided to create a 2015 Projects page for my blog, so I’m in catch-up mode now!

The first quilt that I completed was in March 2015 for a dear friend’s 60th birthday. I did a few things right, and of course, there were lessons to learn making this quilt. I was happy with my choice of fabric for my friend who loves horses. She has her own horse, lives on a small ranch, and enjoys walking the ranch searching for arrowheads. I also think the simple design of sewing together 5.5 inch squares 6 columns by 8 rows worked well. And I love how the distressed fabric on the back of the quilt reminds me of leather, perfect for my modern cowgirl friend! Overall, I feel good about the straightline machine quilting since it was the first time I had done this other than for a mug rug.

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As far as what I wished I’d done differently, first is that I wish I had documented the work in progress in photos and had taken better pics of the finished quilt. I don’t even have a photo of quilt label on the back. I wish I’d had a quarter-inch foot with a guide which would have helped me sew a more consistent quarter inch seam. What I am least happy about regarding my first completed quilt is the binding that I sewed down by machine. There is an uneven maroon seam around the perimeter of the quilt sometimes a quarter inch inside the binding which makes me cringe when I even think about it!

I do have to say that my friend was very pleased with her quilt. I definitely met my goal of improving my quilting skills which does not happen without being willing to make some mistakes. I specifically applied one lesson learned on my next quilt and took the time to hand-sew down the binding on My First Quilting Meltdown–Quilt #2.

Posted in 2015 Finishes | 3 Comments

Quilting in Glass

Posted on July 4, 2015 by Quilting is in my Blood

For many years when people would ask me if I quilted like my mother did, I would respond, “I quilt in glass.” I’d go on to explain that like a quilter, I would cut bigger pieces of glass and tile into smaller shapes and then place the pieces together in a certain pattern or design.

My first mosaic project  in 2005 was a set of four coasters, two from a Mosaic’s Mercantile coaster kit and two that I made with additional materials using the kit pattern.

Coasters, design by Mosaic Mercantile

I then fell in love with mosaics made out of tempered glass, took a class from the fabulous mosaic artist, Ellen Blakeley and primarily made tempered glass mosaics for a few years. One of my favorite tempered glass mosaics is a mosaic plaque I made in 2006 with tempered glass, stained glass, and a border of glitter tiles that hangs in my office at work to remind my clients and me to remember to breathe.

Breathe Grouted

In 2009 I took a Millefiore Mirror class from Laurel Skye and that is when I started to design small blocks that worked together with other blocks to make a cohesive mosaic using tinted tile mastic to adhere a variety of tile, glass, and metal. I think a photo might explain it better:

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In recent years, I have frequently looked at quilting websites for inspiration. Here is pic of a stepping stone I made in 2011 with a framed cross block pattern designed by Marcia Hahn of Quilter’s Cache. As much as I find photographing quilts to be challenging, at least quilts don’t catch the glare from the sun or the light in the room.

Framed Cross Stepping Stone

In 2012 I made a mosaic top for the vanity in our new bathroom using iridescent stained glass.

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Later in 2012 I decided to recreate in mosaic some of the quilt blocks that are in a quilt my mother made for me about 35 years ago (I sure wish she had put labels on her quilts which reminds me I still need to put a label on the last quilt I finished). She made the quilt in the country-style color scheme of light blue and pink, but my color preferences have significantly changed in the last 35-40 years (thank goodness!), so I made this mosaic table using iridescent glass tiles in greens, teal, yellow, dark coral, and almond. I’m in the process of taking and gathering photos of my mother’s quilts and plan to do a blog later this summer devoted to my mother’s quilting.

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In 2013 I had a lot of tempered glass to use up, so decided to paint an end table gold, tore up pieces of copper leaf sheets, and glued the copper leaf on the table with a quick-drying adhesive called Mac glue. I had no idea that the glue would oxidize the copper which gave it such a cool effect. When I grouted the table with black grout, it even further oxidized. I call this my Happy Accident table.

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I made this trivet for my sister’s 70th birthday in 2014 modifying Marcia Hahn’s Brother Bear/Sister Sun block pattern from Quilter’s Cache.

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The last few years I have made mosaic Christmas ornaments for my family and close friends. These are quick projects comparable to making a mug rug. Here’s a pic of an assortment of them.

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This past Christmas I decided to make a more improv style Christmas ornament using gold and copper 24K gold tiles with both smooth and textured surfaces.

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I honestly don’t know how many more mosaics I will make. I’ve promised my sister one more mosaic Christmas ornament. I can tell you as I’ve increased my fabric stash, more and more of my mosaic materials have been moved into my storage shed to make room for fabric and other quilting materials. It might be time soon for mosaic supplies destash but definitely not my 24K gold tiles!

 

 

 

Posted in Mosaics | 10 Comments

Sunday Stash #2

Posted on June 29, 2015 by Quilting is in my Blood

I’ve been to the  Kate Wolf Music Festival four or five times over the past several years but those trips were prior to the onset of my quilting addiction. This year when I decided to join my family for what we jokingly refer to as “The Hippie Fest,” I immediately looked online to see if there was a quilt store anywhere near the festival. I was thrilled to discover that The Fat Quail Quilt Shop was right on our way, just a few miles from the festival grounds. Thankfully, my family was on board for a stop en route, and I was able to get my fabric-touching fix.

After wandering around the store and picking up a couple random fat quarters, I saw a quilt on the wall that had some grey and black modern rose batik fabric I hadn’t seen before. I asked the owner of the shop if she sold yardage of this striking fabric, and she said, “Only in that assortment,” pointing to bundle of fabric with a cringe-worthy $95 price tag. But the substantial amount of the modern rose fabric was just too enticing, and my other justification was “what a cool souvenir from this vacation.” So I decided to splurge.

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Beach Balls Quilt

Close-up of Grey and Black Modern Rose Batik Fabric

Close-up of Grey and Black Modern Rose Batik Fabric

If anyone knows where I can get more of this fabric, please let me know. I just love it and would love to use it in some other projects.

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Fabric bundle for Beach Balls Quilt

Then I saw the pattern for the Beach Balls quilt next to the fabric bundle and asked if it was included in the fabric bundle. You guessed it, it wasn’t.

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The pattern has half-square triangles which I haven’t done yet. I plan to buy Jeni Baker’s book when it comes out in October, Patchwork Essentials: The Half-Square Triangle and try making some half-square triangles prior to taking her Mastering the Half-Square Triangle workshop at QuiltCon. I learn so much better when I practice a new skill at my own pace and figure out what my personal downfalls are. The pattern also has Ying and Yang blocks with backwards “S” curves and Fan Blade blocks with regular “S” curves. Yeegads! This quilt is definitely not going to make my 2015 Finish-along list! Maybe after QuiltCon in February and Glamp Stitchalot 2016 hosted by Pink Castle Fabrics hosted by next June, I might be ready to tackle this quilt.

I loved the greys and yellows in the Beach Balls quilt hanging in the store, but I think it needs a pop of teal like in this t-shirt I bought at the festival.

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I might have to hide this assortment to keep myself from raiding it until I have more intermediate quilting skills. Hopefully, I won’t hide it too well!

Linking up with Molli Sparkles Sunday Stash.

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Sunday Stash #1

Posted on June 21, 2015 by Quilting is in my Blood

Since I have more stash than anyone who has been quilting for less than eight months should rightfully have, I decided to link up with Molli Sparkle’s Sunday Stash. I recently was lurking around the websites of the hosts of the 2015 New Quilt Bloggers, and I saw that Terri Ann@Childlike Fascination shared about a giveaway from the Etsy shop Sew me a Song for a Rainbow Text fat-eighth bundle. When I read about it, the giveaway had already closed (don’t you hate that?), but I decided to treat myself to some of that colorful text fabric. It arrived just two days later! Sew me a Song gets extra points for their quick shipping. I spent some time arranging it this morning kind of like Pink Castle Fabrics does with their bundles. I never knew how much time fabric arranging could take! But isn’t it pretty?

Rainbow Text Bundle

Rainbow Text Bundle from https://www.etsy.com/shop/sewmeasong

I’ll be able to share about some more stash soon because I found out that I did win a giveaway yesterday. The hosts for the 2015 New Quilt Bloggers were able to get some awesome prizes for  the Blog Hop Week 1, and I won the Parrot fat-quarter bundle from Pile O’Fabric. Very cool! Read about the giveaway and prizes here. Week 1 Giveaway

Look for me to do some retroactive Sunday Stash blogs next month about my recent trips in May to Pink Castle Fabrics and Hip Stitch Fabrics in Albuquerque.

Posted in Uncategorized | 15 Comments

Do-Overs

Posted on June 13, 2015 by Quilting is in my Blood

This gallery contains 7 photos.

I’m not fond of do-overs, and I know I’m not alone in that feeling. But sometimes they just have to be done. After being given so much beautiful fabric for my birthday in March by four different people and wanting … Continue reading →

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