"Modern Quilt Patterns" E-book review

Not too long ago, I received an email soliciting a book review for a free modern quilts e-book.

I like when the words "free" and "book" come together in a sentence. Even more so when the book is about quilts...and I certainly trend towards modern styles. So I said "sure thing!"

The e-book is McCall's "Modern Quilt Patterns" and you can find it here. (Really. It is free. You do have to enter your email address...but you can opt out of receiving emails if you wish. That's what I did, and I have not seen a single email from them.)

There are 3 patterns in the book: "Baubles and Beads," "Rainbow Rhythm," and "Lemon Squeezy." As you might expect in one of the McCall's magazines, the patterns list fabric requirements, cutting instructions, piecing directions, and present a color assembly diagram. They also provide ideas on how to quilt, and include a tutorial (with photos!) for a quilt-as-you-go technique for "Lemon Squeezy."

The photographs are nicely done, showing each quilt in a "model" setting (across a couch, table, or chair) and also presenting a laid-flat, full-quilt picture-quite necessary, in my opinion. (How else would you know what it should look like?)

Overall, this is a nicely planned and presented e-book, and the patterns should be no problem to follow.

However, I doubt that I will make any of these patterns myself. Why? I guess they just aren't "modern" enough for me. To my eye, they look like more traditional designs using bright colors. The only quilt that I might concede as being a "modern" quilt is Lemon Squeezy, and that is more because it utilizes quilt-as-you-go construction than from a design standpoint. Maybe I'm being too nit-picky (it wouldn't be the first time), but I just didn't have that "WOW" factor that makes me want to dive into my stash and start quilting.

Weekend Windup

Well, I got quite a bit done this week!
For starters, I finished the baby quilt:

Now I just need to convince Tim to drive up to Fukuoka with me and visit Ikea, so I can get some furniture for the nursery...it needs decorating.

Next, I finished the Halloween quilt with 2 months to spare!

This is probably the easiest quilt I've made. It took 2 charm packs, a panel, plus the backing & binding. The quilting design was pretty easy, too:

It seemed so obvious, as soon as I had it basted I just knew it was going to be a spiderweb design. And it looks pretty cool from the back, as well as the front. Now, we're just waiting for October to arrive so we can deploy this one on the couch...

And I'm still knitting. But this weekend, I decided to go with a sweater, rather than another soaker. Tim tried telling me that sweaters are useless, the baby will never wear them, he never wore sweaters as a baby...I pointed out that he was born in May, which is typically warm anywhere in the States, and his family moved to Hawaii before he was a year old...so of course he never wore a sweater. Of course, I was a winter baby, and came home from the hospital in the worst blizzard of the decade, and in every picture of me I'm in a sweater, hat, mittens, and several blankets.
So I win.
Here's where I am today:

And tomorrow, hopefully, I will finish this one and start the next.

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Almost There...

Tonight, inspiration on how to quilt the baby quilt struck while Tim was out catching some Taco Bell for dinner. (Don't judge. I'm pregnant and had a craving for Mexican food. In Nowhere, Japan. I'll take what I can get.)
Anyway, I'd been fretting for over a week on how to quilt this thing. Did I want to use a free-motion quilting design, or just make neat, parallel lines all over it, or make a nice diamond pattern? At one point, I had a tab open for each of Leah Day's heart designs...but decided to hold off on that until after last week's sonogram. And I'm glad we did, because I know I would've regretted putting hearts all over a quilt destined for a baby boy's nursery.
---Which is where I take a moment to say, "HooRah, we're having a boy!" On my mother's side, this is the first baby boy in 3 generations. On my husband's side, this is the first time the firstborn was a boy...as far back as anyone can remember.

Ok, back to the quilt. I realized that because the number of squares going down the long side was prime (11), there was no way I could get any kind of diamond pattern to look right. No matter what angle I used, they would all look just a little bit awkward. And I didn't really want to just stitch-in-the-ditch, but I also couldn't imagine an appropriate FMQ design.
So I compromised, and used steps...

It's sort of stitch-in-the-ditch. I just outlined those nifty stair patterns the fabrics made. The back (which I will totally photograph once the binding is done!) has zig-zags all over.
I had the binding all pinned, and was getting ready to sew it...when I realized that 1) I didn't have any bobbins filled with red thread, 2) the only red thread I have is Aurifil, which is great except that 3) my primary Brother sewing machine, a CP-7500, does not like winding bobbins with Aurifil and 4) my backup Brother was tucked away in a closet in the tatami room, with an upended loveseat blocking the door. ( Also- 5) It's after 10 pm here.)
So tomorrow, I will finish this quilt.
(At least, I hope I will.)


Linking to Fabric Tuesday...click that cute button with the sewing machine on my sidebar to check it out!

Friday Night turned Saturday Morning

The best part of the week came Friday morning, in the form of a telephone call informing me that I no longer have to work overtime. Which is really, really great, because it was honestly getting quite difficult to take care of everything. (Bending over and reaching into a knee-high metal box with a pair of pliers and a screwdriver? With 20 weeks of baby belly? Not fun.)

So this evening, I intended to work on the baby quilt. The backing fabric I ordered arrived in the mail, I had everything pressed and laid out and...well...

 ...it's pin-basted! (That's something, right?)

But I have no idea how I should quilt this thing.
Should I go for just a stitch-in-the-ditch, and let the fabrics show? Should I make parallel diagonals? Should I stipple? Or bubble-quilt it? Or something else entirely?
Unfortunately, Tim is zero help on this. He usually gives color approvals or vetoes designs he doesn't like. But that's it.

So, any ideas? (Seriously, I need suggestions.)

In the meanwhile, I've got a crochet afghan I can work on...

More stuff I accomplished while away from blogspot

On Sunday, I mentioned I had more projects to share.
Here they are.

My mom sent me the BHG All Small magazine with a sticky note that she liked this pattern. The sample in the magazine was very cute, but it was done with all pink fabrics. I couldn't do that, even if I did know we were expecting a girl. (We won't find that out for a couple more weeks.)
So, I used a Fat Quarter bundle that had a pretty good mix of green, yellow, red, pink, and blue. The fabrics came from the Apple of My Eye and Millie's Closet collections from Riley Blake. (Note to self: when you get a fat quarter bundle that is only available for a month, write the collection names down! You don't want to spend hours clicking through thumbnails online, trying to find the pattern just to order backing fabric.)
The backing & binding fabric is on order, along with more batting. I'm really excited about this quilt, because it's intended for the nursery!

Ok, like many, many other women, I have a thing for bags. So I found this pattern and had to make some:

The funny thing about these fabrics, when I first received the bundle I just set it aside, thinking that I didn't care for them. Silly me. That purple? It's got moons, stars and storm clouds!

And that green floral-looking one? There are tiny skulls hiding in it!

How did I not see those earlier? I noticed them when I was cutting the fabrics. Anyway, these things are darn cute and take about 20 minutes to make. If I were back home, they would totally be favor bags for my baby shower. But I'm not home, so I don't get one of those. (Neither did my mom. There seems to be a pattern of moving very, very far away before the first child is born in our family.)
My point is, I am going to wind up with a ton of these little things, because they are pretty addictive once you start.

There's also my jump-start on decorating for the holidays...since we had just moved here last fall, we weren't able to really do much for Halloween or Thanksgiving. So right now I'm working on a Halloween themed quilt to toss over the couch come October:

The plan is to finish this one before August, so I can maybe finish another afghan before September, and perhaps get the Christmas stockings and quilts done before the baby arrives (which will hopefully happen before my parents arrive, since it would really suck for them to fly across the ocean only to spend half their visit waiting for us to come home from the hospital.)

Seems like a lot, right? Except I've been ignoring my blog for the past few months, so it really isn't as hectic as it seems.

Linked to WIP Wednesdays...Check out the button on the right-hand side of the screen! You know you can't resist it...

Definitely Summertime...and lots of photos!

I've been seriously remiss at writing anything in recent months. It's a bad habit to get into, since the less I blog the less I think about blogging, and the less I feel like blogging...
So I'm back. Sort of.
And I have a lot of catching up to do...

Let's start with the quilts. Remember that quilt top I pieced back in March? Well, I finally finished it:

I machine-stitched the binding on this one. It's something I tried when I finished the quilt for my nephew Lincoln, and it really works for me. It may not be quite as pretty as hand-sewn binding, but it is so much faster (and requires far fewer curse words!)
Here's a bit of detail on that:

Those mitered corners turn out great, too.
This quilt is currently adorning the back of our new sofa, along with my City Lights quilt:

And the Painterly Stripe Afghan:

Yes! I finished afghan #2! Which means I still have 4 more to go if I'm to make my goal of six for the year. I think I'm behind schedule.

There are a bunch more projects that I've finished, but I think I'm going to save those for a bit later this week. I need a reason to keep blogging, after all.

Weekend Wind-Up

I think this weekend was too short. It's already Sunday night, and I am in no shape to go to work tomorrow. (Actually, I'm in perfect shape to go to work, but I just don't want to.)

The new quilt is...on hold. It's Tim's fault. No, really, it is...I use a spray starch method for applique (there's a great tutorial for it at Piece N Quilt). The problem is, Tim can't stand the starch smell. Nor can he stand the lemon-scented starch smell. And of course, our Japanese house makes it impossible to avoid smelling that starchy smell no matter where I am working (unless I go outside, and then how will I plug in the iron?). So, it's on the back burner until we have some sort of compromise.

Of course, I still managed to piece a quilt top today...I got the Blogger's Choice fat quarter bundle for March on the same day I received The Hunger Games books, which means that it was ignored until this week. And then I looked at the fabrics, made a decision and came up with this:

Now I just need some fabric for backing & binding. I'm not sure if I should use one of the print fabrics, or just a solid color...

Oh yeah. I had a bunch of triangles left over from this, so I tried making a Yankee Puzzle block:

 

And sometime during the Seinfeld marathon evenings (the library has the entire series on DVD), I managed to knit another dishcloth. These are almost useless in our house, though, since I'm the only one who uses them instead of sponges...and I'm exempt from washing dishes.

That about sums it up for the weekend. I hope yours was as productive as mine!

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Moving right along...

Despite working slightly extended hours this week, I managed to get another panel done on the new quilt. Then again, appliqueing the prints really does save tons of time. (Thank you, Kelli, for pointing that out!)
Music helps, too. For instance, I managed to get this 18" square completely done in less than 5 minutes 20 seconds.

How do I know this? I started right at the beginning of Eddie Vedder's Hard Sun (it's from the Into The Wild soundtrack, if you aren't familiar with it), and the square was finished before the song. (Yes, I do mean pinned & appliqued, with time to take a picture in the middle.)

The next square did take longer despite being half the size. This was largely due to the print itself, which demanded I turn it this way and that to get it going in just the right direction. Oh, and Trapt provided the background for it.

And then, Semisonic helped me finish it off with the gorgeous purple:

Seriously, I cannot imagine cutting these fabrics any smaller. Large-scale prints like this beg to stay in large pieces.

--Oh yeah, Mumford & Sons has been singing to me while I write this post. It's been a wonderful evening.

Linking to WIP Wednesdays at Freshly Pieced. Check out the button on my sidebar if you're curious.

The New Quilt

Yesterday, I was able to do whatever I wanted all day. This meant watching movies and working on the new quilt. I still haven't figured out what to call it yet.
Anyway, I've had the fabric for a few weeks but I hadn't started yet, probably because I was a bit nervous of this thing:

 See, when I was calculating yardage, I realized I needed about 11.5 yards of solid fabric in addition to the prints. When I settled on this color (it's Bella Solids by Moda in Tranquil Aqua, if you're wondering), I was all set to just buy 12 yards (I'd rather have too much than not enough). Then I realized the discount on an order of 15 yards would be cheaper than 12.
At no point did it occur to me that 15 yards meant an entire bolt. 15 yards doesn't really compute in my head. I blame working in metric for this lapse in mental process. (Yes, I know how long 15 meters is. Let me blame the metric system anyway.)

Really, I was a bit intimidated by that thing. And it was a pretty darn big bit.
But this weekend, the sun was out, Tim was asleep, the movie had a good soundtrack...and I felt brave.

I'd already decided on a couple things with this project:
-I'll be doing this "Quilt-as-you-go" style. It's going to be a queen-size quilt, and my little Brother machine has a small harp space. Really small. As in, a twin-size quilt would be tough to fit, doing straight-line quilting. Forget about free-motion.
-I'm going to applique the prints, instead of piecing them. Why? Because I want to. Because it won't have visible breaks in the print patterns. Because it will still look nice. Because I won't screw up my math. Because I sometimes have issues with matching seams. Because I can. Because I feel like it.
Is that cheating? ....possibly. But if I have fun, and it looks good in the end, isn't that all that matters? I'd rather "cheat" at this and enjoy the process, than do it "the right way" and tear my hair out in the process.
Here's the justification on it looking good:

These are the first two squares on the first panel. See how it overlaps? If I pieced this, there would be a visible break in the pattern on the orange square. (Yes, I could have gotten extra fabric and taken great care to match the pattern...but really, I have neither the time nor the inclination to do that.)
Here's the next two squares:

Again, I have an overlap. Why worry about cutting so many pieces and then perfectly matching them up again? I'll stick with the applique. Besides, it's so much fun!
We'll see what else I manage to get done today...


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More Coasters!

Despite my recent bout of depression, I have managed to complete a couple little items.
Like these coasters:

I have to say, I'm not thrilled with how the binding turned out. I tried something new, and it didn't work so well for me...but these were meant for our house, anyway, so it's no problem.
Actually, I tried a couple things new with these.
For one, I strip-pieced them. That's not really new for me, but I remembered to take a picture this time:

Then, I played around with free motion quilting. I did the green ones in a bubble pattern, the blue took stippling, and the pink...well, it was supposed to be a kind of angular stippling, but I need some more practice, I think.
Another new experiment:

See it? Yes! The backs are fussy-cut. At least, two of them are. I didn't exactly have a lot of scrap fabric to make these, so I did the best I could.
Overall, I'm happy with how they turned out, and Tim says "they fly well," so they must be ok.

Mug Rug or Table Topper?

I finished this last week and don't know what to call it.

It's 14" square...which makes it a bit too narrow to be a place mat, a bit too big to be a mug rug (which is really just an over-sized coaster, but I'll stick to popular terminology), and too small to properly be a mini-quilt.
I'm promoting it to my sister as "a table centerpiece mat." Something to put underneath the flower vase.

At any rate, it's my entry for the Modern Mini Quilt Challenge, hosted by Jennifer at Ellison Lane Quilts. (Yes, it's that new button in my sidebar that took me forever to figure out how to add!)

This is the first time I've actually joined a quilting challenge, quilt-along, or anything like that.
Oh, yes, the fabric...I received the "Blogger's Choice" Fat Quarter bundle for February, and these were the fabrics that jumped at me and said Use me! Use me! Make us into something pretty!
From the center, I used:
Daisy Cottage Gray Leaf Stripe
Pam Kitty Morning Yellow Powder Puffs
Mimosa Orange Pop Ditsy
Nursery Basics Earth Gingham
and
Fly a Kite Red Dot (binding)

Overall I'm happy with how it turned out, and hopefully my sister will like it too. (It's going in the box to her as a surprise gift, along with the scarf, beret & coasters. And maybe some Japanese sweets.)

Weekend Wind-Up (photo-heavy)

Three day weekends are awesome.
Especially when your birthday falls on one...even better when your husband manages to throw you a surprise party. Which is exactly what happened on Saturday, when I thought we were just going over to a friend's house for dinner. Instead, the house was decked out in Hello Kitty birthday decorations (yeah, the Exchange is kind of limited on party supplies, and this is Japan, after all!)
Here are two of the sweetest things from the party:

There are two mini-bouquets in there, from a co-worker's two adorable daughters. I love flowers, and these are now brightening the LDK.


The other great thing about three-day weekends is the amount of work you can get done! I don't mean catching up on paperwork at the office (although I did get called in for an hour to fix a problem), I am of course referring to all things craft.

I managed to crochet another panel for Tim's Babette blanket:

And here is the entire project thus far:

I got started on the sweater I'm making for Tim:

Another thing I made was a mug rug.

Ok, I feel the need to explain something here. I'm not really a "mug rug" type of person. I am a coaster person. I have several gorgeous sets of coasters that I am quite fond of using. Not a single one of them is made from fabric. I prefer stone or wood.
However, I like to practice free motion quilting, and I like to play around with different ways to cuts fabric to little bits and sew them back together. Hence this little guy.

He did, in fact, provide a place for my coffee mug this morning:
But I'm pretty sure he's going to go in the stack of mug rugs that are, in fact, a chronicle of how my skills improve with practice.
(This one is much, much better than the first oversized coaster I made.)


Finally, there is the super-awesome finished object that I am oh-so-happy to announce completed.
My nephew Link's quilt:

Now I've completed both quilts (there was also Liz's quilt that I completed a couple weeks ago), I can throw them in the washer, then dryer, then box them up & ship 'em across the sea.

And then, I can start planning exactly what I'm going to do with this newly-arrived fabric.
Yes, that's Kate Spain's Good Fortune line. I am totally in love with it.

Weekend Wind-Up

This weekend, I came very close to finishing my to-do list.
The goals were as follows:
1) Finish the quilt for my niece.     I got this one:

Have I mentioned how much I detest hand-sewing the binding? I really, really need to find another way.

2) Make another panel for Tim's Babette blanket.
Again, accomplished:

This is going to be pretty big. Right now, it's about 26"x17", and it will be more than four times larger when it's complete. If it makes a decent bedspread, that will be awesome...but it will likely end up adorning the couch.

3) Organize the tatami room - Still in progress. Tim decided the tatami room off the LDK should be my sewing/craft room. He even cleared away all the stuff that had been sitting there since we moved into the house. This weekend, I added a shelving unit to the closet, and tried to organize my fabrics and yarn...I think I need more containers, though. The challenge is trying to keep things stored with some sort of logic, instead of just stuffed into drawers or cardboard boxes.

4) Make an apron. -Fail...but this is not a make-or-die situation. I was actually starting to lay out fabric for this project, when I noticed that one of my elephant figurines was a little dusty. So I stopped to dust it. And then I realized that the entire shelf needed dusting, which then led to a full-on assault on dust throughout the house, followed by four loads of laundry. No apron, but the house is clean!
I did, however, sew a crochet hook case, which just needs binding added before I photograph it. And as I mentioned before, I detest sewing binding.

Goals for this week:
1) Finish a knit object. We'll see what I come up with.
2) Order fabric for a quilt that Tim wants me to sew.
3) Order extra fabric so I can finish my nephew's quilt.
4) Figure out what I need to finish getting the tatami room usable.

Am I missing anything?

Weekend Wind-Up

Remember last Sunday, I showed you my City View quilt top & said I'd have it complete this weekend?
I succeeded.

I'm convinced there has to be an easier way to finish binding, though...every reference I've read, says to machine stitch the binding to the front of the quilt, then hand-stitch to the back. It works, but...I'm not a very patient person. It took about 6 hours to hand-sew. I need to do some experimenting on this.

I also finished a crochet beret:

I think, if I make this again, I'm going to add a couple rounds to make it wider.

So, two projects down...just another 6 to go. Of course, a few more projects will surely be added before the list gets down to 4 (especially since Mom is commissioning a hat, and I ordered the yarn for Tim's Babette afghan as soon as he approved the color scheme). I like to stay busy.

Too many projects?

I do have a tendency to bite off more than I can chew. And then, being incredibly stubborn, I'll force myself to get it all down.
That might be what has happened here this weekend. Might. It depends on who you ask. If you ask Tim, he'll answer emphatically that I have too many projects at the moment.
But if you ask me, I've got just enough to keep me busy.

First, I am really making progress on my City View quilt:

It is fully quilted! I used 8 full bobbins while quilting this. Wow. No matter how many books, magazines or blogs you read, you really don't anticipate things until they happen. I should mention, this is a small throw-I used crib-sized batting (45"x60") and had about 3 inches extra on every side.
Not pictured: the binding that I made. It's currently pinned to the quilt edges, but since Star likes biting at pins I put it up immediately. I had to shoo her away more than a couple times while I was pinning. I also had to retrieve one of the pins that she pulled out with her teeth. She does this with any type of pin or needle she can find. (And yes, we initially discovered this "bad kitty" move the hard way.)

Second project: In keeping up with my goal of 6 afghans in 2012, I started the Painterly Stripe afghan. So far, I have 7 rectangles complete, out of a total 24:

I'm using Lion Brand Homespun in Painted Desert and Wild Fire. I have to say, I adore this colorway. I've been to Petrified Forest National Park, and seen the Painted Desert...and it really is as fantastically colorful as these pieces turned out...my camera really doesn't do it justice:

Ok, third project: Another crochet beret. Unfortunately, I don't have a photo yet, but this one is a prototype to show Mom. She asked me to make her a beret-type hat, and I want to give her options.

And the fourth project: I'm attempting to knit.
Yes, you read that correctly. The crochet snob who insists that there is nothing you can't make just as well, and probably faster, with a crochet hook has taken up a pair of needles. Why? Because...well, I guess I didn't feel like I had enough going on.
Ok, honestly it's because there are far more knitting patterns for sweaters & socks than crochet ones, and knitting uses less yarn. That's really it.
I became a crochet snob in response to all the knitting snobs at my LYS in Ventura. Every time I went in there to buy yarn for a project, as soon as they learned I crocheted, without fail, there would be a long, audible sniff followed by a lecture about why I needed to knit, not crochet. (Considering I had to buy one or two more hanks of yarn for my crochet project, than if it was knitting, you'd think they'd like crocheters. Or that I crochet so quickly that I'm done with two or three projects before their one is complete...I buy more yarn!) Anyway, as a response to their incessant snobbishness, I became very biased against knitting.
Of course, I'd probably still be a crochet snob if I was back in Ventura. But I'm not, so I won't be bothered anymore.

Hmm...I forgot to list the two quilts that I'm making for my niece & nephew. They're kind of on hold right now, but as soon as the City View is complete I'll pull those out again.
So that makes...6 projects currently in progress. Nope, it's really 8...there's the afghan for my sister, and the mystery afghan that I'm working on. (It's not a mystery to me...but I'm keeping it a secret for now.) Is that too many? If so, I'd like to know why?

Tim asked me to finish at least one project this weekend. I'll make it two: City View & the beret.

And it's on!

Last night, I decided to sit down and quilt the City View quilt I pieced over the weekend. I'd been trying to decide whether to just straight-line it with a walking foot, or if I was going to use free-motion quilting. I finally decided "No guts, no glory"...and went ahead with free-motion.
I'm using a bubble pattern:

I honestly don't know where I saw this first, if it was on Leah Day's blog or if it was in Elizabeth Hartman's book "The Practical Guide to  Patchwork". It's in both places.  At any rate, it really isn't difficult, the toughest time I'm having is getting everything to fit on the table, under the machine's arm, in my lap...

But despite wrestling with the fabric, this is really fun!
I remembered to take pictures frequently, too...I took a photograph every time I had to change the bobbin. There are a lot of pictures, but it's pretty cool seeing how this progresses...

First Bobbin

Second Bobbin

Third Bobbin

Fourth

Fifth

Sixth

Yep, 6 bobbins already and I'm still not done...I estimate another 3 or 4 to go. And this is just throw-sized! Then there's still the binding...yeah that scares me a bit. But I'll get there.