Fabric Friday Week 22: March 31

I can't believe tomorrow is April. This winter has been L-O-N-G. We've had so much cold and snow, which we've definitely needed...but with the pending spring we now get worry about potential flooding from said snow...Fun times. Still, I'm glad to be anticipating warmer weather. 

I'm also anticipating a leap across the pond, and so I thought I'd pull out the fabric I purchased last time I was in London at Liberty. I haven't done anything with it yet, and I didn't intend for them to be a specific project, but I feel like the colors all kinda work together so I'm tempted to keep them together. They're the Tana Lawn, which is just so smooth and fine, I'm looking forward to sewing with them.

When I arrived at Liberty, I knew I had to bring some Betsy home with me. I crushed hard on this color way, and I really love it. And I'm such a sucker for navy so it should come as no surprise that I sprung for a navy too. 

First Quarter Status

I end up hearing a lot about quarters when my husband talks about work. Quarterly goals, statistics, all sorts of things. I'm sure you do, too. And it just kinda bleeds into life, right? Well, I suppose really, it's okay, I mean, we are 1/4 of the way through the year already (Really?!) and I thought it would be a good time to check in with some in progress things. So here's my status.

I have two quilts at the quilter's that I'm expecting back any day now. They've been out for 6 weeks now, so it's about time. They are my All the Good quilt and a Christmas Shimmer quilt. No rush on either of them but I am starting to get antsy!

I just finished my sampler WIP, and I'm excited to have that wrapped up. It's waiting to go to the quilter's when I pick up my other two, along with my Little Women economy block quilt.

I am also working on my EPP WIP, and I've appliquéd (is that the right verb?) the EPP center onto a piece of fabric I've had in my stash for ages. I made a daughter a pair of pajama pants and had just enough left over for the center portion, which is great! I've also pieced the strips of churn dash blocks. Next up, I need to trim the center to size (I cut it large just in case it shrunk down while piecing, or in case I wasn't quite centered with it). That's got me a bit nervous, though, so I've been avoiding it, haha.

And, I'm working on a linen top right now. After I finished the sampler top, I decided to try this Fira top out of linen. I made a muslin to check the fit at the bust, and the darts were not happy (possibly due to the stiff muslin fabric, possibly due to my quick careless sewing since I thought I was checking the bust fit and not the dart placement...). I made a slight adjustment to them and I'm working my way through this pattern with a scrap of linen from fabrics-store.com from a different project. It feels good to use up leftovers! And, as long as I don't need the rest, I'll have enough to make a napkin, which I've also been slowly working on. I thought it would be nice to have some linen napkins, and that I would use up what I have left that isn't large enough for something else. They'll be mismatched, but I think that will just add to the charm. 

(Checking on the fit before I top stitch the yoke down on the shoulder)

So, next up are finishing the Fira top, finishing the EPP medallion quilt top, hopefully binding my quilts when I get them back, and then I want to make a couple of t-shirts for the summer in some specialty knits I bought from Salt Lake Sewciety. One is a merino wool, and the other is an athletic material. 

Fabric Friday Week 21: March 24

Last weekend, I needed a birthday gift for a sewist friend. AND, it just so happened that the two closest quilt shops were having sales. The first was having an intonations quilting day sale, and they had a huge table with closeout fabric plus 15% off everything else. The other shop was having a clearance sale because they had a flood a few months back and are needing to close for a couple of weeks while their floors are refinished, so they're trying to clear out (undamaged) inventory so they don't have to move it. I bought a seam roller for my friend, and then several yards of fabric for myself (and I'm considering going back for a 5-yard cut of one of the pieces I bought, it could be a great background or backing...)

Everything I bought was blue or green...lol, they all actually look good together, but I was not going for that. I guess I really have my favorites. I was disappointed I didn't find any yellows. But I'm always down for blue. 

Two I picked up fell squarely in the periwinkle category and I really love them. Periwinkle is such a pretty color and it's not one I've thought much about lately. Or ever, I guess. So I decided to pull a bundle around the periwinkle fabrics, and I'm so happy with it. 

Have a great weekend, and always say yes to fabric sales! (Just kidding, be financially responsible. Unless you don't want to. Then buy the fabric.) :)

Fiore Skirt

I am really excited about the trip we are planning for the summer. We're going on a bike tour in France! The company we're using makes reservations at the hotels for you and provides all the bikes and routes, and you get to spend a week biking between hotels in France. I'm really excited, I think it'll be really great. But, it's the summer, in France, so it'll be hot, and I'll be wearing bike shorts, which aren't all that attractive, so I thought I'd whip up a linen skirt that I could quickly throw on over my bike shorts, and that would be nice and cool when we weren't on the bikes. I've already made a Fiore Skirt by Closet Core and I love it. I should have made it a tad bigger, as it sits higher on my waist than I like, but it's a great skirt. I made it out of a rifle paper canvas, so it's got good structure and I think it's a great length on me. I made the view with the buttons that hits mid calf (though on me it hits just below my knees, lol). 

This time, I opted for linen, a leftover cut I had in my closet. I traced it at the next size up and treated it like a wearable muslin, since I already knew my size, and went for the wrap version, which hardly needed a muslin anyway because you can adjust the buttons to your waist. I whipped it up pretty quickly, but thought I had placed my buttons well, but they were far too loose and the skirt looked a tad ridiculous. I didn't realize how important it was for skirts to sit at your natural waist.  I've got them sorted now, though, and though they could be a tad tighter, I'm okay with where they are. 

I used leftover linen from Fabrics-Store.com, and I was just shy. I had to use a slightly different purple linen for the the pocket and the facings. I used a couple of mismatched buttons from my jar, and I had thread leftover, so this project effectively didn't cost anything. (obviously I bought the fabric and other supplies, but for projects that have already been made, so it feels free, lol, but I guess a better word might be economical. And who couldn't use some economizing these days, amiright?).

I think it turned out great, and my biggest complaint is that I don't have many tops that look great with purple. Oh well, I've got some light merino wool in gray that I intend to make into a t-shirt, and it should work well. Oh, and somehow, after my first wear, the waistband seam ripped apart in the wash. I was able to handstitch it back together easily, but I thought that was odd. Not sure what happened. I also really love that it's the same pattern as my canvas skirt but looks entirely different because it's a different view and different type of fabric.

Fabric Friday Week 20: March 17

Wow, twenty fabric Fridays! I'm kinda glad I started numbering them, because 20 feels like a big number and an accomplishment. 

Today, I have a bundle that I pulled that was inspired by the scenery we saw on our drive home from Evanston last week. We had visited a friend at their cabin for the weekend and we wanted to leave before sunset because part of the drive is snowed in and really narrow and I really didn't want to do it in the dark. So we got a few last views of the beautiful area with the nice afternoon light. The snow was heavy, the sky was blue, and there were bits of butter yellow (maybe the sun reflecting on the snow?) and forest green from the evergreens. It was just lovely. I don't much care for winter, really, but last weekend was really nice. Really beautiful. 

And I love this bundle I pulled, more than I expected. I might add to it and use it for a Wasatch quilt, a pattern I bought from Compass and Wildflower Studio. We'll see, though, as always. My list of things to sew grows and grows and I'm just not quick enough to get to them all. 

Revisiting UFOs

I was attempting to reorganize a couple of drawers in my sewing room without completely reorganizing my sewing room a month or so ago. It didn't really work that well, so I don't really recommend that approach. However, it did unearth a couple of UFOs that I've avoided for a few years. It didn't really unearth them; I've always been able to see them and have just ignored them. But this time, I wanted to reclaim the drawer space so I gave them a second look. 

One was the 6" sampler that I've hinted at recently. I had a sampler all sashed and ready to quilt complete with a backing (but not basted). I was going to attempt to machine quilt it on my domestic and felt like it was a size I could achieve. But...well, I wasn't all that interested in doing it. I have too many other things I'd rather do. So, when I cleaned out that drawer, I took a hard look at it and decided I needed to either finish it, or get rid of it. I decided to finish it, in a different way than I had planned. I decided to take it apart and set the blocks between hourglass blocks so it would be larger and have the appearance of stars. But, I didn't have quite enough blocks, so I have been adding to them over the past few weeks. I think this will be a lot better for me and the way I use quilts. This picture doesn't have all the blocks I have finished in it, I'm up to 56. I'm shooting for 60 so I can make a 60x72 quilt.

The second was an English Paper Piecing project I started when I was pregnant with the twins. I wanted to make sure they both had baby quilts and figured I'd have zero time to finish them after they were born, so I really wanted to finish beforehand. But...I got nauseous in my sewing room. It was the most tragic thing! Still, I wasn't about to be deterred, AND I was bored just sitting on the couch all day. So I decided to try English Paper Piecing the top. I saw an amazing design on Instagram and it had the piece sizes, so I just kinda went for it...but I ran out of steam. And felt a lot better, so I opted to make the baby quilts on the machine instead.

The problem was that when I got to a certain size, it because really hard to continue to add to it. I was adding from the center out, and figured I'd get around to rounding it out into a square eventually...but I couldn't figure out how to do it. So, I left the center and the completed blocks to add in the corner and forgot about it. 

But, I'd really like to finish it up somehow. I do like what I have, but adding to it seems daunting and it's way too little and not square. So, my current plan is to buy some yardage to appliqué it on to, and then add to it in a medallion style to make it larger. I'm going to start with a border of churn dashes and then I might do a zigzag or a diamond type border around that. 

As for the squares I had made (hexagons, I guess, more precisely), I decided to make more in different colors and make it a block based quilt rather than medallion, so I've started basting more diamonds. And I think I'll go with the color scheme I posted for my Fabric Friday on March 10. I'm out of practice, I haven't English paper pieced in years, so the basting is going slowly, but I'm looking forward to having some handwork to work on during movie nights and things. And I think it will be much easier to finish, since it'll be more in rows than this one and won't require so much thought to square it up. 

And, if I'm not mistaken, those are my only UFOs. I have a bunch of orphan blocks and leftover HSTs that I would have made as I cut them off of other projects, but I don't consider those UFOs. I'm pretty proud of myself that I don't have more! I did do some UFO clearing out during the pandemic and I'm sure that helped a lot. 

Fabric Friday Week 19: March 10

I was looking through my No Scrap Left Behind book (by the amazing Amanda Jean Nyberg) and stopped at the color scheme page she has. I know the basics, but sometimes, hearing someone else say it can help you think about it in a different way. One suggestion she gave was to think about a favorite vacation and think of the colors you associate with that place. I thought that was interesting, and kinda hard, if I'm honest, because when I think about old European cities (my fave destination, of course), I think of old stone buildings, which are all going to be light to medium neutral, earthy colors. NOT my favorite colors. But then I thought of some amazing pictures I took on a photo tour of the Louvre at night. Inky black sky, yellows, oranges, and a few reds from the lights and lit pyramids...it's just stunning, and I thought that would make a great color scheme. I quickly pulled some fabric and I really love it. 

It's really similar to the colors I pulled and used for my Florence clamshell quilt, but let's not focus on that, lol. The deep saturation of the navy and dark purple add intensity that that quilt don't quite have, so I'll take it. 

Fabric Friday Week 18: March 3

I've felt stymied a bit with fabric pulls the last couple of weeks. It feels like all my pulls really feel the same. It feels discouraging, if I'm honest. This last week, I pulled out my scrap bins because I want to work on finishing up an old WIP, a sampler project I started years ago. I had 49 6" blocks that I had sashed together with a magenta solid, and I even had a backing prepared. It was small, but I wanted to try my hand at free motion quilting on my domestic, and I felt like it was a doable size. 

But...it never made it to the top of my list to work on because I just didn't really want to. So last month, I decided that I needed to get rid of it or do something about it. I decided to take it apart and do something else. I did some math, and figured that to make a quilt the size that I like quilts, I could do a 10x12 layout, alternating my sampler blocks with hourglass blocks so that it would form a bit of a star pattern. I'd need 60 sampler blocks, so I needed to make more, and I've been working on that this past week. I'm up to 53 now, which is progress. 

I'm using scraps for the blocks, of course, so I've pulled out my scrap bins and they were sitting on the floor. Instead of turning to my drawers of fabric this week for my pull, I turned to my scraps, and this is what I came up with. I think it works pretty well. Not sure I'd use it for a full quilt, but I think it's decently balanced. 

In unrelated news, with my scrap bins out so I can pull fabrics for my sampler blocks, I'm overwhelmed by the amount of scraps I have and should probably work on a scrap project soon...