Getting there...

Moving is Not. Fun.  But I'm getting there, carload by carload. One more trip and I should be ready for the movers -- the goal was to get as much there by myself as physically possible, though I'm about to give up.

Fortunately I have someone to help. He checks the cupboards to make sure I've gotten everything.

Hey, you! You forgot the mixer up top! 

I'm also getting antsy about sewing again. Almost all my sewing stuff is already in the new space, though I've been hanging on to my Bernina...you know, just in case I have a sewing emergency.

I think I can work with this:

Most of the stash, minus the bolts. Those boxes were way too heavy for me to lug up from the basement.

This is about 2/3 of the upstairs bedroom in the new place. Two huge closets to the left of where I'm standing and two more windows behind me (not sure why I didn't take a photo from the other end of the room), so plenty of storage and room to work, which will be a big change from what I'm used to!

The dark walls aren't ideal, but some better lighting should take care of that. I think I look at shelves and tables online almost every day, weighing how I'm going to set it up. I'm not buying anything until I get there permanently, which hopefully will be soon!

Well...

Yes, I'm still here. Sort of.

Lots of happenings in katekwiltz land have occupied me since spring, starting with what I thought was a badly sprained ankle at the end of March (it's recommended to use ALL the steps when walking downstairs, don't miss the last two and end up on the floor!) that five weeks, three sets of x-rays and an MRI turned out to be a broken leg. When I do it, I do it up right.

Five weeks of crutches and six weeks in a boot blew a hole in spring and summer, and then Mom fell.  Again. A trip home to help Dad while she was in rehab for a broken pelvis and knee the size of a basketball made it painfully clear that I needed to be closer than a five-hour drive away. I'd been thinking about it for a while, dragging my feet because I've been in Chicago for THIRTY YEARS and I LOVE it here, love my condo, love my neighborhood, and love this city and its buildings and the lake and the life I've made for myself. But duty calls, and I'm the most logical and mobile offspring ("I can work from anywhere!" -- famous words I never should have spoken) to uproot and move back home.

As luck would have it, the neighbors two houses down from my parents were, at the same time, considering full-time retirement to their house up north, and after a few serendipitous conversations we agreed that I'd house sit for them. So I have started packing, and carting carloads of boxes and thirty years of my life back to Michigan, which isn't the simplest of tasks. Staging my condo is even more intimidating, given my style isn't exactly thirty-something city hipster and I actually like furniture that I don't have to put together myself.

Somewhere among all the chaos (it wasn't my sewing leg that I injured, thank god!) I finally finished a top I'd started long ago:

"City Lights"  98" x 84"

It's about 8" longer in both directions than I'd like, but I really liked the size of the 14" blocks. 42 different solids and tone-on-tone fabrics, with Kona Snow in the majority of them, others pale yellow or pale blue. I love this color combination, and the boldness of it. Can't wait to have it finished! The goal was to have it sent out for quilting so I could have it on the bed for staging, but that hasn't happened. It's packed away somewhere (Chicago? Michigan? Who knows?) and when I find it, I'll hand it off to the longarmer at my new LQS and I can begin this new chapter with a fresh modern bed quilt.

Starting over in a geographically familiar place that has changed dramatically in attitude since I left for college is pretty daunting at my age. I have a few high school friends in the area that I've been in contact with on Facebook, but I'm picking up a city life and lifestyle and dropping it into the verdant mall-laden auto-centric suburbs of Detroit, with my parents largely dependent upon me. Not sure how this is going to go.

The grand upside to all of this?  The 22' x 12' second floor of the house I'm moving into is going to be my studio. After sewing for fifteen years on my kitchen table and all my fabric stacked in plastic tubs, this is going to be heaven.

I just hope I'll have time to sew!

Deferred gratification saves the day...

I am toiling on a project that seems to be dragging on forever. It's taking up a lot of room in my kitchen studio, and reminds me daily of its presence -- and my inability to make progress. It doesn't help that my ankle hasn't been improving so I've been spending more time on the couch with my foot elevated. It'll be a miracle if I can ever get that butt dent out of the cushions.

I missed IQS this year because of the stupid foot, so in order to make myself feel better I went shopping in my stash and found a "Lottie Da" layer cake I'd bought last year. I had kind of forgotten about it, but seeing it made me happy and eager to make something with it all over again. It's very spring-y!

A quick trip to ilovefabric.com found me some coordinating solids. Because buying fabric ALWAYS makes everything better...right?

Now this layer cake and its matching solids are atop my craft cabinet where I can see them every time I hobble through the kitchen, so I think about what I'm going to make with them, and get all excited about the prospect of a new quilt. But here's the rule I laid down for myself:  I can't touch them until this other project is out the door.

There they sit, giving me the incentive I need to finish up what I have to, just so I can play later. So far it seems to be working and I'm diving back into the grudge project (which really shouldn't be a grudge at all, I'm just fickle) with renewed vigor.

But come to find out after an MRI yesterday that my sprained ankle is also some shredded foot ligaments AND a broken tibia, which explains why, after five weeks, things weren't improving. O, the joys of getting older and hereditary osteoporosis! Six to eight more weeks on crutches and the doc doesn't think surgery will be necessary, but progress has been slowed again. I am NOT a happy camper.

I may have to buy more fabric!

Goodies from the mailman...

Amazon.com's recommendations are sometimes off-the-chart weird, or they keep trying to get you to buy religious books because you bought a theology textbook as a gift for your sister three years ago and won't believe it's not your top interest any more. I don't usually pay attention to them, but last week some items caught my eye.

Their first recommendation was right on the money, and it was in my shopping cart in a flash. All I can say is WOW.

Yes, that's a crutch. I'm a klutz.

I didn't hear about the Red & White Quilts exhibit until it was well underway in 2011. If I'd known it was this spectacular, I would have dropped everything and hopped a plane to NYC, with a stop in the borough to grab my best friend who pushed me down this quilting rabbit hole in the first place during a visit to a Brooklyn quilt show twenty years ago. I'm truly sorry we missed seeing it in person.

For anyone to have collected 653 unique red and white quilts in their lifetime is impressive enough; to see them all exhibited at once in the way they were must have been truly staggering. They've taken a picture of every single quilt for this book, and it's mesmerizing. Amazon's "Look Inside" feature gives you a good idea of what to expect: hours of pouring over what really is an infinite variety of two-color quilts. It's right up there with Nancy Crow and Gee's Bend for inspiring coffee table books. I'm not much of an endorser of anything, but I'd say treat yourself and get this one wherever you can, you won't be disappointed.

I'm not sure what led Amazon to entice me with this second book, but I bit and ordered it. It breaks down the construction of intricate Islamic tile designs with some history and design illustrations. Thumbing through it, I'm translating some of the patterns into English Paper Piecing in my head. It comes with a CD-ROM and basic patterns to jump-start some ideas. Lots of possibilities in there.

Unfortunately, I was so excited about the arrival of these books that I missed the last two steps down to the lobby and pretty much ended up in the mail lady's lap -- the poor woman thought I'd hit my head because of the string of expletives coming out of my mouth as I lay on the floor. I sprained one ankle pretty badly and tweaked the other one (fortunately not enough to totally incapacitate myself). Nothing was broken, but lots of swelling and some tendon damage will keep me off my feet for at least the next two weeks, if not longer. So not much sewing going on here, but I have Netflix and some awfully good reading material to keep me occupied!

Snow/sew day!

Yesterday marked the first measurable snowfall in the city since December 17; it's been a weird winter here in the Midwest.  A couple inches fell in the morning, and then last night the winds shifted, the "Lake Effect" took over, and I awoke early this morning to the unfamiliar roar of the snow plow and the scrape-scrape-scrape of someone cleaning their windshield on the street outside my window.

Outside my window, 6:30am

It's gorgeous to look at, but my best course of action this morning was to fire up the coffee and start sewing instead of venturing out.

Excavated UFO #43

100% flannel, ~60" x 60"

I finished piecing the borders from most of the orphan blocks and scraps I found in the mystery bag with the center blocks. I have no idea what my original plan was for this quilt way back when, but judging from the number of strip sets, there were more of those 25-patch blocks from the upper left corner in the works. They're cute, but 1" flannel squares are bulky and I didn't have the patience to do anything more with them other than string them together to put in the borders.  I do love me some flying geese, though (especially flannel ones!), so I may have to keep those in mind for another project. The top and bottom borders are different widths (hey, working with what I had), and it's a little wavy and wonky, but I can live with it.

Since there wasn't any goal in mind besides finishing the top and making room in the bin for another UFO, this will probably sit in limbo for a while. It would have been nice to have it all done and snuggle under it today, but there are other quilts for snuggling.

For now, I'm happy to be able to cross this one off my list.

Archie's favorite stage of quiltmaking...

While he gets pretty jazzed when those quilt blocks hit the floor and need to be rearranged, Archie's favorite stage of the quiltmaking process is undoubtedly when it's all put together and hanging on the ironing board. And I have to admit, sometimes I've left it there for a few days longer than necessary just so he can do this:

He totally understands "Go hide."

Now about that quilt...

I hadn't sewn since before Christmas. The machine was gathering dust, and I'd gotten pretty obsessive about knitting, even after the holidays. I was hellbent on finishing a bulky sweater I'd started when it was -10 out (without a pattern, no less, but that's a different story and I'm making progress), and had gotten on a bit of a decluttering jag when I found a bag of blocks and miscellaneous pieces from a quilt I'd started several years ago (like, 2011). It was abandoned for many reasons, but last weekend I threw the blocks down on the floor and figured I was just a lazy so-and-so for not putting them together sooner.

It's much more vibrant than in the video (I used the same fabrics in another quilt, also long ago), and it's growing on me the longer it hangs out here in the kitchen. I'm debating about the border but have vowed not to let that derail its completion.

Sometimes it takes an easy finish to jump-start all those other projects.  At least that's what I'm hoping.

Taking a break from sewing...

I decided to mix it up this year. My loved ones have enough quilts, and I hate being so predictable.

I'm knitting instead. Cowls and scarves for everyone!

Two more to go! My wrists may never forgive me.

Progress...

Strip sets are pieced and pressed, Step Two is complete! Still a lot of cutting to do, but that can wait a little.

Taking a break from sewing to go out and cheer on the 2016 Marathon runners down the street.  It's a beautiful morning in Chicago!

A sneak peek...

I feel as though I've been cutting pieces for this quilt for weeks.

Another design I got into my head and couldn't get out, this one's for me and my bed. Archie, in his over-exuberance, has pretty much trashed my existing quilt, and it's time for a new one.

A better shot with better lighting, and a photobomb by Archie

Forty-two different yellows and blues, no repeats. And all ready for piecing this weekend.

Too many choices...

I think for now this top is done. I played with it for a couple weeks, added some blocks, took some out, added them back and then some.

I finally feel like I can't add anything else, so I'm content with leaving it this size (55" x 48" -- a decent lap size). My problem is having too many choices for the backing, which has put me in total indecision mode.

I found a beautiful turquoise/teal/tan leafy batik last week that was perfect...then in doing some digging for something else found another turquoise batik I'd have to piece with leftovers from the front...and also found a piece of Minkee the exact size I needed for this top.

If I use the leafy batik or the pieced back, I can quilt this as densely as I want, which was the original plan -- close, wavy quilting to echo the inset strips. Using the Minkee, I wouldn't be able to do that -- and I've kind of been saving that piece for a winter throw for the sofa, and I'm not sure I am in love with this enough to keep it in my living room.

I have to let it percolate for a while.  But look on the bright side:  it's a finished top, and no longer in pieces in my UFO pile. Which for me, is a big deal. I'll get it quilted...someday.

So much for pressing...

The top was draped over the ironing board next to me while I was sewing, and I watched him pull it down so he could curl up on it.

Apparently there aren't any other fabric-covered surfaces in my condo worth napping on today.

Where the heck did August go?

It's hard to believe that today is the last day of August!

I started the month out on a roll -- I quilted up a table runner and was on schedule to get it done in time to ship it off to my sister for her birthday, had a hand sewing project to work on during the Olympics...and then all hell broke loose.

Couch potato no more! There's always EPP!  Go USA!

Not possessing Wanda's foresight, I didn't heed the message that my workhorse computer was failing. Granted, I only had one day's notice, and the warning itself shouldn't have precipitated such a meltdown, but when it crashed, it crashed completely, and I lost several weeks worth of work. Stupid, I know. I'm usually conscientious about backing up my data, but I'd gotten busy and had put it off, and I'm still kicking myself two weeks later for being such an idiot.  I lost a lot of sleep mentally tallying what I could pull off email and what was irreplaceable, and eventually just accepted the fact that there were some things I would have to recreate. To add to the stress, this happened two days before a major project came my way. Between trips to the computer store to salvage my hard drives (nope) and meeting deadlines using an infinitely slower laptop, I was spending 14+ hours a day doing work and my sewing machine was gathering dust.

Early Saturday morning I delivered the first round of documents to my client, marched into the kitchen while the emails were still sending, opened the WIP bin and pulled out the first thing I laid hands on.  I needed to sew.

Looking back through my blog posts to find out when I started this, I'm ashamed (but not surprised) that these 48 5.5" batik blocks were from the spring of 2011. 2011! In 2011, my nephew was nine and came up to my shoulder. He started high school last week and is over six feet tall.

I was, at the time, trying a new technique, and apparently got tired of it because there were another ~50 blocks in the Ziploc that had been paired with inset strips but not sewn. Because of my impulsive sewing outburst Saturday morning, however, I created an conundrum for myself:  I'm pretty sure I don't want to do more of this wavy inset technique, so this has to be a medallion of sorts among the remaining solid blocks, maybe? I've laid out a couple different options, but nothing is floating my boat as of yet.

I'm afraid to go too long without making a decision with this one or it'll end up in the Duffle Bag of Doom and the leftovers to the WIP bin, so any suggestions are welcome.

And let me serve as a cautionary tale to BACK UP YOUR DATA!!!

Quilt as you go-go is done-done...

Remember this project?  Another one left sitting in a pile in my kitchen/studio, and the next on the list as I work my way down through it. I still have a few to go, some more intimidating than others, so, coward that I am, I'm getting the easy ones out of the way first.

The girls -- and I, for that matter -- ran out of steam, and vacations and school and soccer and sleepovers got in the way of them coming back for more sewing lessons this spring, so I was on my own to finish this quilt up.

I thought the sashing would calm it down, but it really didn't. It's blindingly bright -- pretty sure it will cheer up some small sick child in a hospital somewhere.

The back is much more subdued, and less likely to induce seizures. I actually like this side better than the front.

Now that it's done, I feel a little "meh" about the Quilt As You Go process. It was a great project for the girls, but it seemed less...I don't know -- satisfying? to finish the individual blocks and then sash them together. I'm glad I did it, but not sure I'll do another one.

But then again, never say never...right?

Gettin' stuff done...

I finished the flannel quilt and found yet another half-baked quilt in a pile that just needed additional quilting and a binding. My oh my, it feels good to get some of these things done! I'm on a roll!

This one was an experimental design, not for anybody in particular (started over a year ago??? Doesn't seem like it, but I posted this), so it got tossed aside when other deadlines loomed. I do that a LOT, don't I?

Ten Kona solids + Snow, 43" x 36"

It's a happy quilt, and it's fun to hang out on one side of the color wheel every once in a while. I might have to try it in other colorways at some point -- like when I run out of other projects. Hah!

Archie's quilt...

I started this quilt last Fall with leftover scraps from this quilt. It was one of those things where the pieces were hanging around in a pile and I thought it would be nice to use them up, along with my "up north" flannels.

Archie's Quilt, 60"x52", flannel top and backing, marbled cotton binding

I've made so many quilts with these two flannels I've lost count. But that's what I get for buying by the bolt off eBay about ten years ago -- I'm an impulsive bidder and I couldn't resist. There's a lot still left over, so if you like pine cones and pine trees and really soft, snuggly flannel, let me know and we can work something out.

Anyway, midway through making this, of course something brighter and more fun came along to work on and it got cast aside. Mostly to the corner of the sofa, and at some point during the chilly winter it became my go-to throw for watching TV -- half quilted and unbound didn't really matter, it was just as snuggly if I avoided some of the safety pins along the edges and tucked them in so Archie wouldn't play with them.

Then last Saturday morning dawned, and a strange sense of I-need-to-finish-something came over me. I'd just washed up the rose and green quilt, and the momentum was too powerful to resist. Next thing I knew, the quilting was finished and I was putting the binding on and it was DONE.

This one's for us. Or him, since he seems to have laid claim to it.

I guess I made my cat a quilt.  Is that weird or what?

Rose and pale green, she said...

"My client is having a baby girl and I need a quilt."

Any opportunity to rid my condo of fabric and batting is a welcome one -- even moreso when a friend is willing to pay for it.

"Her color scheme is rose and pale green."

Pale green I can do. But rose? Not a color in my repertoire. Conjures up images of dusty, darkened Victorian rooms with faded wallpaper and lots of lace. Not me. At. All.

I knew before I started combing through my stash that I didn't have anything resembling rose -- I'd have to buy fabric. Fortunately, the International Quilt Show fell about a week after my friend's request. I set off with high hopes, but apparently rose isn't very popular right now. And I'm usually really good with color, but had a difficult time defining exactly what true "rose" was -- some candidates were too pink, others too peachy.

If you were at IQS and a stranger asked you "Would you say this is rose?" well, that would have been me. I asked a lot of people. A LOT.

In the end, I found a rose(-ish) and green Kaffe Fassett dahlia print, a half yard of Aunt Grace solid that a few helpful showgoers thought came close, and another darker solid that was a match to the Kona Deep Rose on my color card.

When faced with specific color choices, I typically choose to aim around them so I don't miss the mark all together. I was hopeful I'd be close, but not very enthusiastic.

"Oh, and nothing too 'out there'," was another part of the request. Which I took to mean I should stay pretty traditional. Initially the dahlia print was going to play a bigger part in all of this, but it really didn't read "baby," so I used it sparingly.

I dragged my feet on this because I wasn't feeling it, but once I found the flannel backing two months later and pieced it, things perked up a bit. The quilting and a little piece of green there in the binding gave it a little more personality.

And, of course, before it gets washed, the QC inspector needs to test for nappability. It passed.

SO happy to get this one packaged up and out of the house. Finally!

Home again, home again...

Well hey, I'm back. My plans for Spring got upended when a weeklong visit with my parents turned into much, much longer. They're getting so old, and fragile, and moving them out of their house at this point would cause more confusion than good...so we kids motor on, providing a level of support that's acceptable to them, and hoping and praying for their health and safety.

I spent a great deal of time in the garden, laying down mulch and rescuing Dad's roses from Canada thistle, my new nemesis.  It wasn't until after I'd spent an entire day yanking 597 of them out of one bed (yes, I counted) that I read that doing so could potentially split the root (which can burrow 15 to 20 FEET), resulting in two new shoots, and twice the headache. Sure enough, within just a few days those suckers started poking back up through my fresh mulch, and I spend the next weeks cutting them off and applying Roundup in an effort to stem the tide.

On the upside, a few days of unseasonable warmth nudged the roses into action. They get about a month of unbridled bloom before the Japanese beetles descend, so I was happy to get some good pictures.

That last one is an old fashioned, on a bush that once belonged to my great-grandmother. It's close to a hundred years old and still going strong. My grandmother gave it to my dad when my parents bought their  house in 1952. That gift turned into a lifelong obsession, a seat on the district Board of the American Rose Society, and ~300 rose bushes (currently -- at some point we had more than 600). One look at his yard and you can tell where my fabric hoarding gene comes from.

And hooray for hand sewing projects! I thankfully took my hexie project with me to work on. It finished at 35.5" x 7.25" -- odd dimensions, I know, but it's made to hang in a particular spot and should fit perfectly. It's a little wonky along the edges (I didn't cut the hexie halves as carefully as I should have), but that will get covered up with binding anyway. I also could have been more precise when I cut my fabric pieces now that I see them showing through so clearly. There were some other challenges, and I have yet to speculate about quilting it -- for now, I'm just happy that it's done.

Not bad for a first effort, and I don't think it's my last. Hexies are fun!

A little Spring inspiration...

I was cleaning the hexie scraps off my coffee table this morning when this caught my eye:

Spring has been very slow to settle in around Chicago this year. We've been on a two-month roller coaster of high and low temps, accompanied by rain and gloom. These colors just popped against the Kona Snow, and of course got my imagination going on the color palette for yet another new quilt. They're pretty striking together, aren't they? And oh so happy on a damp, dark day.

And in pulling the above pic off my camera, I also found this one. I caught these tulips in bloom on a rare sunny(ish) day venturing out to my cousin's in the suburbs last week, where at this time of year it's 15-20 degrees warmer than it is near the lake. Those same vivid pinks and bright greens just pop.

I think it's a sign.

Uh-oh...

I wasn't feeling real great last weekend and the weather was pretty dismal. Spending a couple days on the sofa binge-watching the last season of "Downton Abbey" was pretty much all I was up for...except I hate just lying there, being totally unproductive.

Out of curiosity I'd bought some 3/4" hexie papers at the International Quilt Show a couple weeks ago (another post, and unfortunately my photos didn't turn out very well, so not much to show). I'd never done English Paper Piecing before and figured I'd try someday, and cutting and basting little scraps fit in very well with the weekend's planned event, which was, well, being a couch potato.

"Someday" doesn't usually come this quickly:  my first fabric purchase was in the closet for six years before I decided to attempt my first quilt!

So I pulled out my cache of solid scraps and went to town. I might rearrange some, add a few more flowers and I still have to finish all the border pieces, but I think it's pretty cute so far. It's destined for a friend with the perfect empty spot on her kitchen wall. She keeps bees (that lone yellow hexie is somehow going to become one, haven't thought that far ahead yet), so the hexagons are fitting.

It's laid out across my coffee table as it gradually gets pieced together. And covered with magazines every night so Archie isn't tempted to weigh in on an alternative arrangement.

Who knew hexies could be so addicting?

One more...

Here's a full pic of another Lenten Quilts for Kids project. Technically, I guess it's not really a quilt-as-you-go -- it's really more foundation piecing, given the back is one piece of fabric. Whatever you call it, it turned out OK.

I learned a few things (see this post), and will probably attempt it again if I need a quick no-frills project.

It ended up being 40" x 46", and very, very pink.