WIP Wednesday

Yay, I'm so glad to be back on track with Lee at Freshly Pieced:

Good pics are tough in the winter, folks.

A couple of easy finishes this week: two blocks for my Block Party Bee. Mary has January and she chose this super sweet fabric with little bunnies. She thoughtfully included a strip of paper for piecing in her packet.

Normally when I put together wonky strips of fabric, I just eyeball it and trim up later. Using the paper made the piecing so much faster and easier, but when it came to peeling the paper off, I thought it made the stitches a bit uneven. I might try it with a lighter paper in the future.

I'm counting this one as a finish too. I put together all the HSTs for my brother's quilt.

Fabric self-portrait

I know, I know...how many times will I say I finished those blocks...I'm holding off on piecing them into criss-crosses because I might want to try this new basting method if it works out on Mumu.

In progress this week: my spelling. I realized with embarrassment that I've been calling my current quilt-in-progress "Mumu" (which, according to Wikipedia, is, among other things, a Nigerian word for 'idiot'...cruel irony...), where I meant to say "Muumuu" (a colorful Polynesian dress). Well, too late to change it now.

I'm eager to get the backing of Mumu done so I can snuggle up with this beauty. I sewed a bunch of leftover scraps together, then cut them up lengthwise.

Wish I could just throw the scraps on a wall and sew 'em where they stick. They look so lovely in a heap.

I'm determined not to throw away any scraps larger than these. Every bit of this fabric is going into the quilt.

Luckily "mumu" also means 'intelligent person' in Mexican slang. I don't feel like I've fully solved the puzzle yet, but I'm trying to use this opportunity to take risks and be less controlling.

And since we're talking progress...I have been doing AWESOME at getting up at 6am every weekday (weekends were ambitious. It's pointless to get up in the dark with nothing to do.). I get to see the sunrise every day, and I really enjoy it. My whole day is better. It's amazing how shifting of a couple hours can slide a whole new lens over the day. I haven't been sewing every evening, however. I'm usually way too tired to focus. Stretching has fared better; it's fitting into my routine daily. Yay for change!

No Progress
Spring Sampler (I have totally lost steam on this one. Scrappy mojo is lost.)

I'm considering jumping on the Swoon bandwagon. I've long since purchased the pattern, but still yet to settle on a set of fabrics. The truth is, this block looks amazing in basically every color and tone combo...mmm, indecision!

Let Block Party Bee Begin!

Friends, I live in San Francisco. Where everything is hip, modern, and progressive...except quilting. Since the amazing Peapod Fabrics closed, going to the fabric store means a) sifting through bins of fake fur, glitter spandex, pleather, and felt in search of material for a Halloween/Pride/Street Fair costume, b) paying $100/yard for designer silks and upholstery fabric to go in your fancy mansion, and/or c) finding the 2-3 bolts of outdated cotton stuffed into the back corner and wishing you were into something else, anything else-- since the materials for knitting, painting, decoupage, re-upholstery seem to be on hand at every turn. It makes Joann's look like Mecca.

How does such a beautiful city lack beautiful fabric choices? I don't know.

For example, I once made a t-shirt. After a 3-day, 4-store hunt for a piece of jersey. Not that I found some options and didn't like them, no, I mean I bought the first one I actually found (it wasn't ugly, but it was expensive).

It gets worse! I lived in the same building as a fabric store for a year and didn't buy anything there except elastic and ribbon. Yeah. It's like that.

I guess the best city in the world has to have at least one flaw.

Anyway, the point of this rant is to say that the virtual modern quilting community has become my water in the quilting desert. Which is why I was SO EXCITED when my first package of fabric arrived from Shelley, officially kicking off my FIRST BEE EVER, the Block Party Bee!

For our first month, Shelley picked the confetti block. Here's what she sent:

Don't know how she knew, but I'm glad I got a ton of green :o) So I added a bit from my stash:

Looks pretty good, if I do say so m'self. I'll be cutting into this one today.

Since I was laying out fabric, I pulled out this little square of Canyon Flutter by Alexander Henry (sent to me gratis with an order from Fresh Modern Fabrics!) and set up some pieces for another block in the yellow and green sampler I've been working on.

I've also been cuddling up with a little hand-quilting in the evenings. My liberated cables are progressing nicely, now that I've got the hang of it.

Much much better than trying to make them perfectly even! I love the organic flow of the curves.

It's hard to get a good pic of the white on white pattern, but I can assure you...it looks cool ;o) Time to go play with confetti.