Peas In A Pod

Gentle Curve Piecing--February Challenge

Ahhhh---Spring Break!

At first, we had planned to go to Arizona to see my parents.  But that didn't work out.  So, we decided to have break at home this year.  Then, Papa Pea thought we'd remodel a bathroom this week.  But the weather is so crappy that it would be hard to haul drywall around without it getting wet.  So, we decided to wait for spring.  So...Ahhhhh...Spring Break!  I do have a little schoolwork to do this week, but I'm going to try to get in some sewing and R&R this week also.  I haven't had a spring break at home in years!

Today, I'm going to reveal my gentle curve piecing project/challenge project that I'm doing with Lynn, Alamosa Quilter.  Lynn posted hers earlier this morning, so you'll want to go check that out for sure.  She has a completely different take on it, which I love!  You will recall that we are working out of Jean Wells' book Intuitive Color and Design.  This is the second "assignment" in the book.

I was a little less than enthusastic about this second challenge.  Why?  Well, I felt like my first one went pretty well, and I was afraid it would be downhill from here (how's that for confidence?!).  And this involves curves---scary.  And I didn't have an inspriational source I was as excited about as I was that photo of our skating paths.

Then, I found this picture in a magazine and thought, maybe I can do something with that.

I mounted it in my sketchbook, along with the greeting card I had received and was going to use as color inspiration.  I sketched an idea and colored it on the right side.  I thought I'd make some gentle curves on top, put a solid piece of fabric on the bottom and appliqué some colored spots to represent the marbles, and do some pebbling for quilting (something I've never tried before).  Okay, now I was getting excited.

I grabbed my pile of fabric.

I cut a bunch of strips.

And I started piecing.  I did okay as long as I kept the curves pretty gentle.  If they got too swooping, I had trouble.  See in this photo above how the darker blue curves into the green and causes puckering?  I left that one in, but I had another one that was much worse, and I cut it out.  I also didn't like that straight line of orange, but I ended up leaving it in.  I struggled with two things.

1. I found it REALLY hard to make this look just like my drawing.  So, I gave that up and just pieced what I thought looked good.  That was an easy fix.
2. The book was pretty clear on how to do a gentle curve from top to bottom (like the light blue to white on the far left).  But it didn't really tell you how to get those curves in that go only part way up...for example the white to the blue on the lower left...see how the blue then goes into the green?  I really had to play with that for a while to get it.  More on that later.

I was starting to get the hang of this.

I kept on piecing and then trimmed it up.  I then attached this darker blue to the bottom.  I trimmed the whole thing to about 12.5 x 15.5".  (Lynn and I agreed we would shoot for sizes around 12 x 15" finished.)

Okay.  Now, I had to figure out what to do next.  I started thinking about using appliqué to sew on some circles of color to represent some of the marbles.  Then, I got an idea...

I looked at this awesome pile of scraps I had and thought, "What a shame to waste some of this cool piecing.  I wonder if I could sew these scraps together and come out with something.

And I ended up with this.  I thought it was pretty neat.  I looked at my inspiration photo and back at this. I  thought, "Gee, this sort of reminds me of the swirlies inside of the marbles.  Wouldn't it be cool if I could somehow cut circles out of this and appliqué them on for the marbles?!"  But, there are so many seams on this, I thought that would be REALLY challenging...to cut out, to turn edges under, and to sew on.

So, then I thought, "What about reverse appliqué?"  (For those of you who don't know what this is, this is when--instead of sewing a piece of fabric on top of your background fabric--you cut a hole in your background fabric and sew your other fabric behind it.)  I have never done reverse appliqué, but I've seen it done.  I looked to the web for some inspiration on technique.  I found this tutorial from Textiles4you that was quilte helpful.  I adapted it for my purposes.  More on that later.

I used a bobbin and traced some circles in random places on my dark blue.  I cut out the holes, put the stripped fabric behind, and sewed.  (I'll give more details in another post.)

I am starting to dig this.  I really like how this turned out.  I trimmed off the extra fabric underneath.  Now, it's time to quilt.  Big, deep breath.

I quilted the top with my walking foot.  I just followed the lines of the piecing with matching thread.  I used my Aurifil threads (some 40 wt, some 50 wt) for the quilting, except for the pebbling.  That is a King Tutt variegated thread in a 40 wt.  The pebbling was really scary and sort of hard.  I practiced for about an hour before I did it on here.  I still need a lot of practice.  There are tons of mistakes on here (like pebbles that overlap, a few funny stitching lines), but overall I am really happy with it. 

I told Sweet Pea that while I was doing it, I felt like a kid on a high diving board, standing there, looking down, holding my breath, and being so scared to do it--scared to belly flop and that it would hurt (and be disappointing).  But, I didn't belly flop.  I did okay.  I think I would have liked more big circles quilted in, but that's okay.  The mroe I did this, I found I got better and better at regulating my stitching speed, and I got a lot better at retracing where I'd been when I needed to backtrack along my stitching line.  I am really, really proud of myself for jumping in this scary pool.

Time to choose a binding color.  I really liked the orange and the blue on the right.  Tough decision.

I opted for the blue.

Still excited about the pebbling.  You can see some of my mistakes here, but I don't care!  I am still proud of myself!

And here's the back.  I sewed a little hanging sleeve on, too.  There's a quilt show coming up in Marshall.  Maybe I'll put these little quilts in it...

To be consistent with last time, I'll do a what I like and what I don't like about this:

WHAT I LIKE:

• I love the color scheme I chose.
• I love how the quilting turned out, and I'm especially happy with the big leap forward I made with the pebbling.
• I like piecing gentle curves.
• I found I can draw inspriation from pretty mundane stuff.

WHAT I DON'T LIKE:

• Not much to say here.  I am so happy with how this turned out!
• I would like to have had some larger circles in the pebbling.  Note to self, do this next time.
• I still need a lot of work on deeper curves.  I should explore that sometime.
• There's so much quilting on this, it's pretty stiff.  I guess it's a good thing it's a wall hanging!

What do you think I should name it?  I am thinking of "Finding my Marbles" (instead of "Losing my Marbles").  :-)  These exercises are really helping me to learn so much about myself as a quilter and "artist" (if I dare use that word).

I am so happy with how this turned out.  I am excited to move on to our next challenge.  I guess Lynn and I will have to talk about what that will be.  :-)

I hope you enjoyed this little walk through of my project.  I was thinking that tomorrow I could post some more detail on how I dealt with some of the curves and how I did the reverse appliqué.  I was afraid it would make this post too long to include it here.  Even then, I might need to break that down into two additional posts.

Hope you are all having a lovely day.  Be sure to stop over and see what Lynn did with her project.  You'll like it, too.  Thank you, Lynn, for helping me grow and stretch myself in new ways!

Until next time,

Mama Pea

Life Update--UFO Update

Well, after a day or so of rest, I'm starting to get back on track.  Before I do my UFO update, I thought I'd tell you just a little about where we were the past couple of days.  We went to Ypsilanti, Michigan, which is where Eastern Michigan University is.  Every year, they host a regional conference for the Behavior Analysis Association of Michigan (BAAM).  It is always a good conference with a good lineup of speakers.  We got a room at the Marriott--splurged a little.  Sweet Pea came with us, so her big reward for sitting in sessions and behaving well was to get to go swimming at night.  We had a wonderful time.  On Thursday night, we had dinner with a bunch of our graduate students and students from EMU, along with several speakers at the conference and the conference organizers.  One thing that's really cool about this conference is that a number of very well respected behavior analysts live in or around this state, and they attend the conference.  In fact, several faculty members at Western Michigan University, where I work, are considered to be some of the most prominent members of our field.  They are not only wonderful scholars, they are wonderful people.

They were at dinner with us, too.  Here's Sweet Pea helping my colleague pick out a sticker.  He is the president of our international organization right now, which is very cool.  The other man on the far left is a professor emeritus (retired) from WMU who is one of the most prominent men in our field.  It was a very enjoyable evening.

It was fun to see everyone, have a little break from campus, take an opportunity to learn from my colleagues, visit with our students and other students, visit with colleagues from other universities, etc.  But, it's physically draining, so it's good to be home!  Again, sorry for the gap in my posts for a few days.  I should know better than to promise posts when I'm at such events!

Okay, now for the UFO update.  Last Friday, when I went to my Friday Night Sew In, I took along a UFO to make progress on.  I didn't want to do hand sewing again, so I pulled out one of my other UFOs to work on.  I decided to take something that wouldn't require a lot of thinking on my part, since I tend to spend a lot of time gabbing with the girls at these things.

You may recall that a while back, I won a jelly roll from Fat Quarterly (I blogged that here).  I decided I would join in their quilt along (which was pretty well under way at the time, so I started off behind) and make a quilt to donate to the Kalamazoo Autism Center for fundraising or however they wanted to use it.  (Incidentally, the man who is getting the sticker from Sweet Pea above is the man who runs that center out of his very own pocket to support children with autism, their families, and his graduate students.)  You might recall that I had completed about half the blocks...they had the prints from the jelly roll on the outside, and a Kona solid on the inside. (I last blogged about that in October...here...man, I've let this slide for a while.)

To refresh your memory, they look something like this.  Very simple blocks to sew.

I decided I would alternate these blocks with blocks that had the solid on the outside and the print in the middle.

So, I made these at the Friday Night Sew in.  Pretty good progress!  I need 40 of them.  There are 20-something finished.

And you can see I have the remainig ones started anyway.

After I laid out the ones I made at the Friday Night Sew In to photograph for you, Sweet Pea said, "Can I help?"  I told her, "Sure, why don't you lay out these blocks (with the pattern on the outside) so I can take a photo to remind people about these blocks.  Just thrown them out here like I did."

She said, "No, Mom.  I want to make nine patches!"  haha!  So, she set them up in nine patches.  How cute is that?!  It made me smile!  Definitely a quilter in the making!

And I'm this close to being done with Tree of Life!  I got the birds and twigs on.

Everything is sewn down except these two twigs and the dark green leaf.  Then, it's ready for quilting!  I put this lower bird on in the same spot that Edyta did in the pattern, but I think I should have put it up higher.  I think it looks a little bare above the bird.  But I think it looks okay.

Hop on over to Susans' blog, Blackberry Creek, to check out what everyone else is up to on their UFOs.

In closing, I'd like to thank those of you who e-mailed me to make sure I was okay after not blogging for a few days.  I really appreciated your concern.  You are all so sweet, and I really enjoy your friendship a lot.  When you all don't blog for a few days, I honestly miss you, too!

Anyway, I told Papa Pea that some of you had e-mailed and wondered where I was.  He said, "This whole blogging thing is just a bunch of women socializing on-line.  You e-mail and gab with each other on-line.  I just figured out that that's what is really going on!"

I laughed and said, "What took you so long to figure that out?!"  I really laughed out loud at that one.

Too funny.

Hope you are all well and having a good weekend.  I have to be honest with you...I am sick of winter.

Until next time,

Mama Pea

Hanging Chair SIgn Tutorial from The Quilted Fish Design Team-Jana

via www.thequiltedfish.typepad.com

Hi Everyone,

I am so sorry I did not get my blog updated for the past couple of days. Papa Pea, Sweet Pea, and I were all out of town. We went to Ypsilanti, Michigan--the home of Eastern Michigan University--for a conference. I thought I would have some downtime to update my blog while I was there, so it was my intention to get my posts up. However...I was clearly wrong! I haven't been able to get on the internet to do much of anything the past few days. I am really sorry! I extend my sincere apologies to Jana, of The Quilted Fish Design Team. I am sorry I did not get your tutorial posted in a more timely fashion.

Look at this cute little Hanging Chair Sign?! How cute is it?! I could just see this as a sign you could hang on the chair to indicate it is someone's special day--birthday or other special event. Wouldn't it be cute for that?! The place of honor at the table. So, hop on over to Friday's post at The Quilted Fish to view the free tutorial!

This tutorial was expertly written by Jana.  You might want to hop on over to her blog, Adventures of a Cross Stitch Drama Queen, and check it out as well.  Don't you love that name?  Jana and I both share a love of Diet Coke.  I think we're both equally addicted!

Hope you're all having a good weekend!  I'll get my UFO update posted for you tomorrow, too.  Again, sorry I have been so far behind!  (Story of my life lately.)

Until next time,

Mama Pea

Some Good "Squishy" Mail Days!

For the past few weeks, I've had some good squishy mail days.  I haven't had a chance to report on them yet, so I thought I'd do it all in one post!

I have been needing some new thread for my gentle curve piecing project so I can do the quilting.  On Friday, I ordered some threads from Red Rock Thread Company.  You might recall I ordered from them before. I am so amazed at their service.  I ordered Friday morning, it was shipped by Friday afternoon, and it was in my mailbox on Tuesday (remember, Monday was a Federal holiday, so no mail)!  I really can't recommend them highly enough if you have never tried them.  I was excited to get my threads:

I love Aurifil thread!  I ordered these to do some quilting on the orange and teal pieces of my gentle curve piecing piece.  Can't wait to get going again on that!  I have been stalled until I get the thread.  I can't find it in this town, so I have to order it online.

I wanted some variegated thread for the project, too.  I would have ordered Aurifil, but I couldn't find the colors I needed in that.  So I ordered King Tut, which has always been a good variegated thread for me to use.  I thought the dark blue would be variegated, too, but I guess I was wrong.  The variegated on the right might be too much "busy-ness" for my piece, so I ordered the blue in the middle for more subtleness, and the dark blue in case I wanted even more subtleness.  I'll do a  practice piece and see what looks best.  More on that soon!

My SIL, Linda, lives near where Nancy's Notions is.  They had a big sale the other day, and she asked if there was anything I wanted.  I went through the catalog and found a few things I wanted and asked her to pick them up for me.

This is a book and accompanying DVD.  I saw these shows on TV and thought some of the techniques demonstrated were really cool.  I don't sew clothes too much, but this skirt was pretty cute.  Mostly I wanted it for the techniques demonstrated (which I could use on other things).  For example, how to put in an invisible zipper and how to do some neat ruffles.  In the catalog, this bundle was $42.98.  Linda got it for me for $14.06 with all her discounts!!!!  Wahoo!

And an invisible zipper foot for my machine.  If I can figure this out, I am thinking I'll try to do a tutorial project on invisible zippers.  What do you think?

And a CD of embroidery designs.  I have been wanting to do some quilting with my embroidery machine, but most of my designs are not appropriate for it.  I have a project that I've been waiting to do, because I needed some designs like this.  It will be a reversible table runner and will use the embroidery as reversible quilting.  This was regularly $79.99 and Linda got it for me for $37.49.  Another great deal!

That's what I asked for.  Then, she sent me these as bonuses:

Some fun fabrics and patterns!  These will be fun to have. Thanks, Linda!  The fabric will be fun to add to my stash.  The mermaid doll will be fun to try.  And I really dig the Halloween pattern.  I don't think of myself as a big Halloween fan, but I must be, because I love making Halloween stuff and a lot of the decorations at Halloween.  I really appreciate all this, Linda, and I'm putting a check in the mail to you today!  :-)

On another front, I have had some lucky streaks again!

Sherri from A Quilting Life e-mailed me a while back and told me I won a jelly roll of this Swiss Chocolate (how can you go wrong with a name like that?!) fabric by leaving a comment on one of her contests.  I was so shocked!  It came in the mail the other day.  She apologized because she had to unroll it to mail it in the Priority Mail package.  The post office told her she had to unroll it to make it more flat.  Neither of us had heard that one before.  But no matter.  I told her it spared me the agony of having to open it.  It's always hard for me to open them, because they look so pretty all rolled up.  Not sure what I'll do with it yet, but I'm sure I'll find a good use for it!  Thank you so much, Sherri!  If you have never checked out her blog, you should.  She's always working on a number of really nice quilts.

And then Shelly of Prairie Moon Quilts told me I won this pattern in a contest she had.  So cute!  Thank you so much, Shelly!  When she was giving sneak peeks of this, I told her it must say "Sweet Pea" and she must be making the quilt for me!  Haha!  I have a few thoughts of what I'll make with this, but I'm not there yet.  So, I'll keep pondering that for a while.  If you haven't checked out Shelly's blog, you should also do that.  She is always up to something fun and interesting.  I have realy enjoyed my "cyber-friendship" with her!

Whew!  I feel like I need to put myself on a moratorium for a while.  I have so many things I want to work on!  Summer can't some soon enough, when I can really concentrate on some of this stuff.  At least spring break is next week.  It will be nice to have a little break.  We are thinking of tearing up a bathroom and replacing it over break.  Sigh.

Well, better run.  Tomorrow I'll have my UFO update for you, and on Friday, a new Quilted Fish Design Team project!  Hoping you are all warm and with power these days!  (It's the simple things in life, right?!)  Have a wonderful day!

Until next time,

Mama Pea

 

Thoughts on Teachers, New (to me) Yarn Store in Kalamazoo!

Good morning, everyone!

Before I begin today....not to get into politics or anything...but in case you didn't know there are a lot of bills being proposed in the Wisconsin, Ohio, and Michigan legislatures that are attempting to limit collective bargaining for state workers (including teachers), asking them to pay a higher proportion of their own insurance, etc.  Now, I have never been really sure about unions (especially for teachers), BUT I also don't think our good teachers get paid enough or supported enough.  There was something flying around on Facebook about how much teachers make and how much they would make if we all paid them a babysitter's wage (incidentally, which would have them making well over $100,000 for their 9 months of work).  So, I've been thinking about the contribution that teachers make to our society.  And then I saw this.  It's by the same guy who did that other poem that many of you liked so much.  So, I thought I'd share it...

..and ask, "Have you thanked a teacher lately?"  One of your teachers?  One of your kids'/grandkids' teachers?  One of your quilt teachers?  Just a thought!

Ice storm update:

Well, the kids are still off school here again today, because the roads really haven't improved much.  But the university is still open.  Papa Pea just told me that to make the 17-min commute to work, I better leave at least 45 min before my meeting...because it's going to take that long to get there (based on how long it took him to get home from class last night).  Sigh.  Spring, where did you go?!  Come back!  I miss you already!

It's snowing here today.  We have a few inches of snow here now, which helped a little with traction on the roads.  I am grateful that we've never lost power.  I heard on the radio that there are 160,000 people without power in southwest Michigan.  One of my faculty colleagues told me she's "winter camping" at her house.  They've been out of power for 2 days and probably won't get it back for at least 2 more days.  My graduate student called me yesterday to make sure we were okay. Apparently they had not had power all day.  He wanted to make sure we were all doing okay.  I felt like such a heel.  I hadn't even thought that others may be out of power (in my own little world, working at home) or checked on any of my friends!  My secretary told me she still has no power.  She washed her hair in cold water today and brought her blow dryer to the office to fix her hair!  Her house was 48 degrees last night!  Brrrr!  And all of her food in the fridge and freezer is spoiled.  I e-mailed Linda, The Quilted Pineapple, because I haven't heard from her in so long I was worried about her.  She replied (from her iPad) that she has been sick and is now without power.  I feel bad for my friends!

Okay, back to the task at hand.  At my Friday Night Sew In, one of my friends, Holly, and I got to talking about knitting socks.  I knit mine one at a time from the cuff down, and she knits hers two at a time from the toe up.  I was wearing some of my hand knit socks, and she had brought her knitting with her in case she got sick of sewing.  I asked her where a good yarn store was in town, as I haven't really gone looking for one yet.  But I'm about out of sock yarn and wanted to know where one was.

She said, "Oh, you have to go to Stitching Memories."  Okay.  So, on Saturday, after Sweet Pea and I picked up her unicorn, we went to check out Stitching Memories.

I drive up to it and think, "This looks like a nice store!"  (As you can see, this was BEFORE our lovely ice storm hit on Sunday.)

I walk in and see this!  (The sound of angels singing rang through my head...as if the Pearly Gates had just opened!)  Wow!  This is a fully stocked, full-service stitching shop!  Mom, when you come to visit, you have to come here with me!

This is right inside the front door.  You can see Sweet Pea playing with their toys.  This whole wall is for stitchery....cross stitch, needle point, embroidery....Look at that collection of silk ribbons just above Sweet Pea!  (Sweet Pea was actually upset when we left becasue she was having so much fun with their toys.  She told me next time we are in that store, I need to shop longer!)

A close up of the stitchery wall.  What a riot of color!

To the right of the front door...more goodies.

The classroom!

The check-out counter.  They sell Trollbeads!  (Cue the angels singing at the gates again!) Yay!  I haven't found anyone in town who sells these, and I've been wanting some new beads for my bracelet.  Papa Pea has been looking for them, too, because he and Sweet Pea like to get me beads for Mother's Day, etc.  I found out this is the only store in town that sells them!

This is a little book nook right inside the front door and behind where Sweet Pea was playing.

I did get this pretty Alpaca wool sock yarn and cast on a new pair of socks.  Isn't this wool just lucious looking?  I'm still doing cuff down and one at a time (even though this pattern is for two at a time).  It's a different sock pattern with lots of decoration on it, so I wanted to only change that one thing right now.  See the little "baubles" along the top of the sock?  I had a little bit of a hard time figuring them out.  I had to rip them out the first time, as I realized I had done them wrong.  But, now I have it figured out, and they're not bad at all.  I can't wait to be able to wear these.  This sock also has a rolled cuff, which will be interesting to see how I like.

I finished some other socks over Christmas break, but I don't think I ever showed them to you before.  Here they are:

I was wearing this pair at our Friday Night Sew In.  That's partly what got the conversation going with Holly.  I love wearing my hand knit socks.  It just makes my feet feel special!  And these wool ones are warm!  (Unfortunately, Papa Pea, trying to be nice, did the laundry and washed and DRIED my cotton socks.  They are now about the size of a size 5 foot.  Too bad my feet are sized 8.5!  I will have to find a new home for those socks.  They are too big for Sweet Pea.)

This store had a lot of interesting yarns that I haven't seen before.  I will have fun shopping here.  I don't know if I should hug Holly for introducing me to it, or if I should spank her.  I could get into serious trouble in this store.  I enjoy knitting about as much as I enjoy sewing, and I have a much easier time doing this activity in the car...

Well, that is it for today.  Hope all of you are warm and with power.

Until next time,

Mama Pea