Here is my last finish of 2012.

A twin size bear paw made at my brother's request to be given as a Christmas gift.

The only direction I was given was to use fabrics that a little old lady would like.  I chose mostly reproduction prints from various Windham collections.  I love repro prints for their intricate patterns and details.  I like making quilts that can be appreciated from a distance, and then with a closer look you get a chance to admire the more delicate aspects of the print.  Most of all, I love mixing all those intricate prints together.

The back is a large star inspired by one of Jeni's tutorials.  I based the size of my star on the smallest piece of fabric I was using, so it's smaller than the tutorial, but I think it has impact and is a great surprise for a quilt back.

I'm in the middle of three quilt tops now, so with any luck I will be back soon with my first finish of 2013.

Want to see more?  Check out my post for the tula pink sew along over on Sara's blog, Sew Sweetness.

I like to take quilt pictures at the one room school-house site just outside of town.  It's usually closed but on this day they were open for visitors so we were finally able to see the inside.

One of my cousins was married this past summer.  I wavered back and forth about what type of quilt to make and finally landed on this pattern from a craftsy class I had signed up for a few months before.  The solid grey is Kona ash and the rest of the fabrics are a mix from Art Gallery.

It's the first week of school. To be more precise, it's the second day of school which for our district is the first full day.

I'm normally the first one to cheer the first day of school.  I'm the mom who has the countdown for the first day of school started on the last day of school.  I usually host a brunch for friends on the first day of school to celebrate the quiet.

Even as a kid I looked forward to the first day of school...

...not this year.

Cj started middle school.  This means a new building, new teachers, new paras, new pick up and drop off plans.  Somewhere mid summer I started waking up in the middle of night with my heart pounding...Does he have to change for PE?  Will they continue his binder schedule system?  How will we get him to work a padlock?  When will his teacher have her baby?  Who will be his para?  Will his shoes fit?  Will he be able to open his new water bottle?  The answer to all these questions?  I could say, doesn't matter, it will all work out, but you know that's not my style.  The answers are as follows, no, yes, I found a padlock you that you turn wheels to make a word, in 8 days, two great ladies, no, yes.

From the sounds of things, both the kids had a great day and were ready to head back for more today.

I survived.  I did not cry as I left the school yesterday.  I almost did.  I was incredibly grateful for a group of friends who distracted me with eggy casserole, chocolate pecan coffee cake and lots of laughs.

Lulu has her bestie and the therapy dog in her classroom so she's set. (Her teacher is the dog's caretaker so she spends the first half of every day in their class.)

Cj woke up the night yelling about monsters, but fell back to sleep.  He woke up this morning ready for the day.  On the walk to school, he reminded me 3 times of our pick up meeting place and double checked to make sure he had chocolate chip cookies in his lunch.  Take that autism!!

Now on to something completely different.

My brother's flag quilt is finished.  My aunt did a great meander on her long arm with variegated blue to grey thread.

If he doesn't like it, I'm keeping it.  Well, first I will kick him in the shin and then I will keep it.

This quilt is for my brother and his fiance.  He is a serious history buff and she lived in Great Britain for many years.  They asked for a quilt last year and when I suggested something with flags, they loved the idea.  Then he told me it needed to be king size.  Then I panicked, then I made them this kickin' quilt top. This quilt by Amy Smart became my jumping off point.

Both the Union and American flags are pieced according to their official sizes.

Three of the American flags have 13 stars that have been hand appliqued.

The flags were my starting point and from there I looked to history for my next step.  I loved the idea of a central motif surrounded by border upon border as seen in quilts from the late 1700's to early 1800's.  Unfortunately by the time I came up with this plan, my panel of flags was too wide to have all that extra border on the sides.

Things like this tend to happen when you plan as you sew.

So I went with bands at the top and bottom.  This book cover gave me the idea to make rows of off kilter flying geese.

I kept the feel of the historic quilts by adding corner blocks to the borders.

A red star in each corner that was closest to the flags and then Union shields on the corners of the flying geese rows.

Here's the completed quilt top.

Did I mention it's huge!  We had to bring it outside for a picture and call in our neighbor for an assist.

I've sent it off to my aunt to long arm and I can't wait to see it when it's done.

Long story short, I'm working on a quilt for my brother. It's going to be king sized which, to be honest, makes me hyper ventilate, but I'm working through it.

Here's what I have so far.

I get to spend the day sewing with friends.

I'm bringing brownies for everyone to snack on.  The recipe can be found here, but I used 1 teaspoon of mint extract in place of the espresso powder.

hi  

I've been sewing, honest, I have.  I've been sewing so much that a lot of other things have been thrown by the wayside.  Important things like taking pictures of projects and writing posts and ironing.

I'm doing surprisingly well at keeping up with my 365.

These are a couple of photos from February.

I'm also following along with Faith's Solstice series over at Fresh Lemons Quilts.

Here's what I have so far...

I'm loving how they are coming together.

Here's my dad's Christmas present. All of the prints, except for the red center prints are from Windham Fabrics The Brick House line.  The solid black is also from Windham, but it's from the Gee's Bend line.  The red and black print that is at the heart of some of the blocks is something special my mom picked up at the Museum of the Fur Trade's shop.  It's a reproduction of one of the five fabrics that William Clark took with him as presents for the Indian tribes he met on the Lewis and Clark expedition.

I love this quilt - the color, pattern, prints, the wool quilting, the whole thing, love love love!

I chain pieced the log cabin blocks.

Chain piecing sped up the process since there were so many blocks.  The pattern is Straight Furrows, from the book, The Classic American Quilt Collection - Log Cabin.  Yes, the price on that link was right!  I paid a dollar plus shipping for my copy of the book.

Here's the back of the quilt.  It's pieced with large sections of the fabrics that I used on the front.

I quilted it in a diagonal pattern through the heart of each block.  I used aurifil 12 wt wool in ivory.  It wasn't trouble free because the thread split on me a few times, but I found if I lengthened the stitches, used a 90/14 quilting needle, and kept a steady speed I had much better luck.

I love the fuzzy look of the wool thread in this quilt.

It adds a sort of homespun feel to the project.

I know some people would probably want to avoid that, but I say enjoy what you are making.  I like fabric - modern, reproduction, print, solid, whatever - I love all of it!

The past few weeks I've been getting ready for a trip.  It was a big deal because I haven't travelled solo since the 90's.  I was feeling confident until one night when cj was in tears asking how I could leave when I promised him I would always be there for him.  Talk about some Mom Guilt!  I took a deep breath, had some friends and the spouse promise me that all would be well and... I went to the Sewing Summit...

It was cloudy when I arrived, so I was shocked to see the mountains outside my window when I woke up the next day.

All I can say is there are not enough adjectives to describe the trip...amazing, funfilled, overwhelming, thoughtful, kind, inspiring, exhausting, hilarious...

It was lovely to hang out with people who's blogs and tweets I've been following for so long, and also to meet new people {including Megan's awesome Mom & Dad!}

Honestly, it was just great to hang out and instead of typing LOL we could actually just laugh together.

I was lucky enough to be Amanda's teaching assistant.  You can blame the boom of mini quilts that's about to happen all over the internet on her uber-inspiring class.

I got to sit with Claudia during the improve piecing class.

I know what you're thinking a bunch of ladies on the loose, there must of been some crazy nights...

like this, but she's Canadian, and she's awesome...

mostly, this happened...

(thanks for sharing your pic Amanda)

I love this pic too.

All the classes and dinners and chats and stitching flew by and I was heading home before I knew it.  Oh and  I also saved a camera.

Things at the cottage were fine.  The spouse learned how to make tacos, lulu was thrilled I was able to find sock monkey flannel to make her some new pj's, and cj keeps the little owl I found him by his bed at night.  He had some trouble sleeping while I was gone and there were a few extra "NO" and "I don't want to" last week, but he seems to be getting back on track.

I'm doing my best to finish all the projects I've already started before starting anything new.

We'll see how that goes.

I always forget all the little short cuts that can make patchwork go more smoothly. I think about strip sets only after I've individually stitched an entire postage stamp style quilt.

So, when it came to making a non-traditional rail fence block I put extra thought into what I could do to make the piecing part go a little more smoothly.

Here's how I make the blocks for my broken fence quilt.

I cut 12 1/2" squares of fabric.  (a total of 36 for my lap quilt)

I want 5 bars in each block so I work with 5 pieces of fabric at a time.

I stack the five pieces on top of each other and make 4 random cuts with my rotary cutter.

Then divide the pieces so that each block had a slice from each fabric.

I stitch the pieces together with a 1/4" seam and press.

After pressing, I trim each block to 10 1/4 " square.

This method gives you 5 blocks at a time, but my quilt is made of 36 blocks.  For the last block you can just make one block with individually cut strips, you can make an extra set of five (use extras on back or in another project), or you can do one set of six.  I will warn you (because I didn't think this all way through when I chose this option) if you do six cuts, your block will be shorter than 10 1/4" .  I simply add an extra strip on those blocks.

For this quilt I cut the bluish blocks vertically and the reddish blocks horizontally.

happy piecing

I managed to make my deadline for teacher gifts. Today is the last day of school.

We went this morning to watch the kids compete in the school olympics.

Both kids competed in the three legged race and neither one fell over!

I made a set of pot holders for Cj's teacher.  I found some fabric with math problems on it and couldn't pass it up.

Lulu's teacher will be having her first baby near the end of August.  She's planning a yellow nursery so I went with a group of fabrics from Kate Spain's Central Park line.

The pattern for the block is the box block from the book The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt.

I enlarged the template a bit from the one in the book.  I did outline quilting in a sort of tic tac toe pattern on each block with a variegated yellow to cream thread.

The back is a solid piece of the zoo print from the Central Park line.

I'm off to pick up my new fourth and second grade students!

Erin and Amy, creators of the Sewing Summit, asked us to share why we sew. I spent yesterday thinking of all sorts of deep thoughts about my reason for choosing sewing as a hobby.  I planned to use words like creativity, necessity, control, process, and usefulness.

I've spent the last few weeks reading all sorts of heated discussions about what is modern and what is handmade and whether it's all right to buy fabric for a big time quilt maker to sell her designs at a chain fabric store.  All of that overthinking left me in word overload.

When I woke up this morning I realized I sew for two reasons...

1. it's fun

2. my baking hobby was making me gain too much weight

the end

I just love this Freebird line from MoMo.  I also used it for the spots quilt that now lives with my mom.  The colors are rich, the patterns are bold, and what's not to love about all of those different polka dots? I based the block design on a traditional rail fence pattern, although those are usually more unified in color and made of staight lines.  That's why I decided this is more of a "broken" fence for me.

The back has some more of the pieced blocks along the right side.  These block are next to a band of print that is one of my favorite pieces of fabric around.  I just love those big blue trees.

Inspired by the some the sashiko embroidery that's been popping up around the interweb, I quilted it with chocolate brown thread in a ripple pattern, wider ripples at the top that get closer together as they spread out across the quilt.  I'm really pleased with the how well the wave effect turned out.

It's listed at etsy and big cartel.

If you would like it to come live with you, just let me know.

A yarn shop opened about 3 blocks from my house.  Honestly if my little town would get a quilt shop I would never have to leave the city limits again. At my first stop, I found the yarn.  Then came home to start knitting and realized I didn't have a size 2 needle.  No problem.  All I had to do was walk back up the hill.  At this point, I knew I had to switch to a size 6 for the crown, but did I check to see if I had a 6 - of course not.  A couple of days later the brim was done, I was digging for 6 but only came up with 8 and 9.  No problem.  I really like having a yarn shop in town.

The pattern is "aloof" from hattitude, a book of knitted hats that a friend gave me for the birthday.

I've also been working on a quilt.

I've have definitely been eating far too many of these.

I've been patching jeans.

I've also discovered that iLs takes a serious commitment.  I didn't really think an hour a day, 5 times a week would really bite into a schedule, but it does.

The other thing I didn't expect was to see a such change in him, but that's a story for another day.

There has also been play dough.  This time it's blue.

play dough

1 cup flour

1/3 cup salt

1 Tablespoon cream of tartar

1 cup of water

1 Tablespoon oil

liquid food coloring

Mix flour, salt, cream of tartar, water, and oil.  Place over low heat.  Stirring constantly until it is the consistency of mashed potatoes.  Remove from heat.  Add food coloring.  Stir until color is blended.  Knead dough until smooth.

I didn't plan to make a postage stamp quilt, but it seems that's what I ended up doing. I knew I wanted to do a black and white quilt.  I already had a great mix of black & white and black & off white geometrics.

I knew I wanted to bind it in a bright color and this blue jumped out at me from the shelf.

I started out by cutting 4 1/2" squares, but they were too big for what I had in mind.  I ended up cutting each of them into quarters.  I loved the look until I started to stitch them up - all those little corners to match up.  I randomly stitched blue corners on some of the blocks just to add a little color.  I was afraid I was going to run out of blocks so I decided to add the blue cross to use up some space.  I'm so glad I did.  I think it makes the quilt top much more interesting.

I didn't have a plan for the back until I was wondering around the shop with the blue under my arm and spotted Kate Spain's Central Park line.

It's machine quilted with an old gold thread.

I didn't want it to be too  structured since the blocks were already arranged in a strong grid.  I decided to go with a wandering diagonal.  I didn't use guides so that the stitching lines would have a bit of flow to them.

It's listed for sale over at etsy and big cartel.

I took some squares from a charm pack along with some extra yardage from a previous project and put together some more pot holders. For the first one, I cut four charms into smaller squares.

For the second one, I cut the charms into triangles.

For the third pot holder, I cut them in half.

I pieced the backs together with the extra yardage.

Then I wrapped them up and gave them to a friend for her birthday.

cj was to start a new OT program today, but the weather got in the way.

I was up and ready for the day so I sent the kids off to school and caught up on some things in the kitchen.

The spouse drank his way through another batch of cocoa mix, so I stirred up yet another batch.  Our milk was getting a little close to the edge so I made some rice pudding.

I have had a box of chocolate chex on the shelf since Christmas and finally mixed up some puppy chow.  I also bit the bullet yesterday and started cutting up the echino helicopters for cj's quilt.  I have been stitching on those today too.

When cj saw the first few block he announced they were "perfect!"

It seems my brother hasn't picked up his mail in a while.  Either that, or he did pick up his mail and doesn't like his Christmas present.  Of course, the third possibility is the postman decided he was getting a bit chilled with all the snow and decided to cozy up with it himself.  However having known my brother all my life, I'm going with the first option.

The front has Civil War battle scenes along with portraits of Lee and Grant and confederate and union money.  I based the pattern loosely (very loosely) on the idea of a flag, blue and white on the left red and white stripes on the right.

The border is a repeat of the Gettysburg address in Lincoln's handwriting.

The back has a bit of piecing with the battle scene panels in bands of blue and ivory stars and stripes.  It's channel quilted every inch or so and bound with a burgundy and khaki floral.

If it turns out it was the postman, I'm hoping the postman is as much of a history buff as my brother.

Lulu is in first grade and it seems they do a lot of fun work with different patterns.  She was playing around with blocks at home and came up with this.

We thought it would be a great pattern for a quilt.

I decided to go with Hunky Dory by Chez Moi for Moda.  Along with some solid ivory squares from a charm pack.

I love the way it turned out.

I did outline quilting to accentuate the blocks.

I'm especially pleased with the back.  I love those deep blues and bright pinks together.

It will be posted in shop by the end of the day.