PQ 16.1 Cryptids Uncle

This is where I gave up on my first challenge piece for Project Quilting Season 16.  I didn't really give up.  I just decided that I was not going to be able to get it finished in the time allotted while staying true to the vision.  I did not want to compromise on what I think is going to be a really cool quilt.

Not a lot of story here.  I just started drawing, digitizing and stitching cryptids.  I actually drew 12 of them and digitized 11.  I only stitched out 9.  (Unicorns are hard).  I kept stealing cryptid ideas from Challenge quilt chat.  Anything was easier than that elusive unicorn.  

I know the rough sketch of the Very Shy Monster who lives under the bed and collects happiness to save for a gloomy day doesn't exactly look like the sketch.  I figure turnabout is fair play.  I can't ever draw what I see in my head.  SO it is only reasonable that I can make what I sketch in fabric.

A Very Shy Monster.  No bed.  No zipper.  But I might start making tote bags with him on them.  Anyone want one?

Nessie.  Just a bit of her.  Because, unlike the shy monsters who will jump out and hug you if they like you, Nessie is camera shy.  

So camera shy that by the time I got her in focus, all I could see what a bit of her tail.

Cthulu.  Again just a glimpse as he swam out of sight.

CT is a lot more steam punk than I knew,

The Nine Tailed Fox.

Yeah, I'm not crazy about the fabric either but I had to use stash and I am woefully lacking in brown and orange and anything else that looks like fox,

 

PQ 16.2 Uncle v2 Unfinished, Unironed, Untrimmed, Unispired 'Umbre' Quilt

You know that sinking feeling when you've spent the entire week knowing that you were absolutely NOT going to make a quilt for week 2? When even the fleeting notion of a bookmark of last resort is too much to contemplate? When you are completely uninspired by the challenge (sorry Trisha Priewe Frankland )? When your only glimmer of a fun project is shot down in the chat and is probably beyond the contents of your scrap bin?

And yet...

There you are. Standing in Hobby Lobby trying to buy buttons at 3 o'clock Friday afternoon. When three bolts of fabric start screaming at at you at the top of their little linty lungs. It is hard. But you turn your back trying to find the proper size buttons. But you realize they aren't shouting. They are singing. (Poorly, because they only have little linty lungs after all.). You can just make out the words. It is something like, "We can show you a quilt. Show you fabric by fabric. Just find us two pretty friends...".

And there it is. A fully formed image in your mind. A quilt you can make in your sleep. And you don't even have to calculate yardage. Except it is Friday. Afternoon. And you have obligations all day and evening on Saturday.

Yeah. Sucks to be me. I present to you the Unfinished, unironed, untrimmed, uninspired 'Umbre' quilt. 44*64. Made from absolutely nothing in my stash in hours squeezed out of a rock, turnip and a hard place.

But it is at least a flimsy so I can't call it a UFO by my standards.

 

By the way... look at those corners!  And I wasn't really trying that hard.  Guess measuring carefully and practicing your seam allowances is a good thing.  

Oh, and I know, one of those two friends turned out to be a mean girl. But Hobby Lobby closes at 8 so whatcha gonna do?

 

PQ 15.6 A Busy Bee Week

I knew when I saw the challenge that there was no way I was going to actually finish my project this time.  I love Irish Chain quilts.  I have made several.  They are probably pretty close to my favorite block.  I really wanted to try making a double or a triple Irish chain. I pulled the fabric for one.  But good sense got in the way of a grand plan.  

So I grabbed this busy bee fabric that the Mr made me buy a whole bolt of.  And I grabbed my favorite white solid that I buy by the bolt and I used my handy strip ruler to cut it all out.  I discovered... OK... I finally completely convinced myself that my ruler with attached cutter is finally crap and must be replaced.  So I used the strip ruler for cutting the whole thing.  Even with the nerve-wracking make the folds perfectly parallel or it with smile... and not in a good way...  it worked great.  

I know from my long experience as a bench scientist that if you use a different instrument you introduce a variable and can get a different result.  Imagine... that works in quilting too.  Use the same ruler in all directions.  Use the same thread.  Use the same sewing machine.  AND your corners actually will meet mostly.  This is the squarest neatest quilt I've managed to make.

 

I DID completely finish piecing the entire top.  It is 70 x 98.  However, there is a LOT of white space and very little time.  The quilting is really going to stand out on this one.  So I decided to wait until I have the time to do it right.  

 

Thus I present you the pillow coozie of last resort.  One of the leftover blocks with an envelope back and a machine stitched binding  

It is 14 x 14 inches.  Imagine it with a pillow form. 

And that is the end of the first season I have finished all 6 projects in a very long time.  Thank you Kim and Trish for a wonderful, motivating season. 

PQ 15.5 Very Shy Wearables

I seem to go out of my way to find a way to break the RULZ or at least interpret them as uniquely as possible.  That means that over the years, in addition to coozies of last resort, I have also made wearables.  Typically shirts that I upcycle into something I actually want to wear.  

So when I saw the prompt for this week's challenge, I said "Trish.  Seriously!?!"  Literally.  I said that.  To her.  She said the best way to break the rulz was to follow them since the rulz said to break them.  

 

Meet the Very Shy Monsters Who Live Under the Bed.  They are one of the many types of denizens of the WaggonsWestTraveling Chicken and Monster Show.  They are very shy.  But the part of their story that I do know is that they collect glimmers of happiness and save it for a gloomy day.  (I will write their story as soon as they tell me the rest of it.  In the meantime, if you are interested, you can read about some of the other denizens in books 1,2 and 4 of the Traveling Chicken and Monster Show Adventure Series.)

Visitors to the TCMS often ask if the monsters are backpacks, bags, pajama pillows or tooth fairy pillows.  They do have small pockets, they have to have somewhere to hold all that happiness, but they are not really suitable for bags.  I've been meaning to try and prototype a Very Shy Monster bag so I took this week as an opportunity to do so.  

For a first draft this one isn't too bad.  I did a simple bookbag style just to see how it was going to be to work with the fleece and a lining.  The lining in this is an old tablecloth.  Unfortunately, I only had a satin ribbon of a suitable color for the strap so that isn't too sturdy on this one.  And I didn't add a zipper or any sort of closure.  The next version will have bigger eyes, snaps and a real strap.  But I am happy with it for now.  

 

PQ 15.4 Time Enough 2

This little quilt is reprise of a swap quilt I made a bajillion years ago.  I was so excited that the original ended up in the collection of one of the big name quilters in the group.  But I have also been kind of sad that I had give it away.  So I tried again.  It isn't the same.  They never are.

I had to work quickly because I don't have much time this week.  So this quilt does break the prime directive.... Make it structurally sound.  This one is even on the edge for the art quilt exemption.  The background is scraps randomly stuck to embroidery stabilizer.  I intended to tear it away but there were some pretty thin seams and a few tiny holes.  So rather than try an patch or beef it up, I decided to leave the stabilizer attached.  

 

It is echo quilted.  I added fast finish triangles to the corners to hang it.  The lace is scraps from other projects... many ones done for or as a result of Project Quilting.  

PQ 15.3 Inside Out: Showing What Should Be Hidden

 

This week's project doesn't count because I technically started it ahead of time.  It is a pair of jeans whose distress was moving far enough north to start causing me distress.  So I ripped out the side seam.  Did some structural repairs and then left them on my mending pile.  For a bit.

I used the darning stitch on my machine to put reinforced stitches at the apex of the worst tears.  Basically any spot the looked like it was going to continue tearing got a hefty patch of stitches.

 Then I pinned some fancy cotton scraps behind the distressed bits.  I probably should have used scrap denim but getting it to lay flat and and be stable took forever and I didn't want to do it all over again.  So it is what it is.

Then I used a zigzag stitch to secure the fabric to the back of the jeans.  Well, actually I had to wait a week while my machine went off to visit Mike at the machine spa.  I think it got cranky about stitching in weird directions on heavy denim.  But Mike was able to save her.  (Although he did happen to say that a 15 year old machine with TWENTY FOUR MILLION embroidery stitches that he couldn't get parts for was probably getting a bit past her prime.  When I mentioned I had a second one I was hoping he could keep alive for me he said it was good I had one for parts.  I wanted to cry.)

Then I forgot to take a bunch of pictures but I basically used all the pretty scraps I have been saving and patched it.  Randomly.  Poorly.  No rhyme or reason.  Well, we can get fancy and call it raw edge applique but that is probably giving it more credit than I deserve.  

No matter.  I stitched the side seam back up.  Inartfully draped it on the door and took a picture.  Voila!  Patched pants.  

And it qualifies for theme because if you knew my mother, you would certainly know that this is the part of patching a pair jeans that should be kept hidden from view with tiny small stitches. 

Project Quilting 15.2 Kansas Sky

So, I've been known to complain about the challenges that dear Trish comes up with each week during Project Quilting.  This week, was no exception.  The headline on the challenge was colors of the sky.  Immediately, I was thrilled.  I have a pent up desire to make a blue and white quilt.  I was going to do it.  YAY!  It would even be a traditional quilt.  No stretching the rules at all.  

But then, I read the fine print.  No blue.  Harumph!!!  I openly declared that I was going to make a quilt that was puke green Kansas tornado sky.  That seemed to strike a chord.  Down in the comments, Robyn Wimmer said "Don't forget the flying monkeys."

Oooooooo......  I got it! I'm going to make a monkey quilt!  You might think that the background color is a pretty jungle green.  However, it includes that puke green Kansas tornado sky.

 

I didn't have any puke green, or the appropriate shades of brown in my stash.  So I ended up getting the proper colors of grunge fabric.  It has a frankenbatting stitched together from scraps.  Remarkably the backing is a VERY old piece of flannel from my stash.  I mean very old.  It is at least 10 years old and probably a whole lot more than that.  

Because it is basically a baby quilt, I decided to tie it with embroidery floss rather than FMQ.  I rounded the corners (it has been a while since I've done that).  It finished at 40 x 40".P

PQ 15.1 Saving Bird Houses

Birdhouse ... nest ... tree ... forest fire ... smokey the bear ... saves trees ... saves bird nests ... saves bird houses

I bring to you my Project Quilting Season 15 challenge 1 'quilt' project.  It contains applique and it contains quilt blocks in the form of yoyos! 

This shirt has meaning for me on several levels.  I was a huge fan of Smokey the Bear as a kid and I still have my stuffed doll and ranger badge.  I also still have my turquoise Tonka jeep.  In fact I use it on my table as a napkin/salt/pepper holder.  All through high school and college I drove a 1953 CJ3B F-head Willys Jeep.  It was beige.  I worked as a research assistant on a project studying high altitude forest fire recovery.  Even though I have since learned the preventing all forest fires was a tragic ecological and environmental mistake, I still do like my smokey the bear. 

Back of the shirt with applique and yoyos.  The yoyos came from an antique store.  I kept looking at the bag thinking I should sew them into a pillow top but I never found the patience to do it.  When I pulled the bag out of my stash while looking for the lace trim, I decided this was a much better way to use them. 

 

An upcycled flanned shirt.  Front with machine embroidery.  Yoyo trim and hem.

 

Back applique.  Image printed on fabric.  Framed in embroidered sisal.

 

Collar trimmed with cotton lace... tiny pompoms on lace mimic yoyos on hem.

Pocket machine embroidered with modified club logo.  Trimmed with more antique yoyos.

Side panels have map fabric inserted into them.

Antique yoyos stitched to hem.  I learned it was easier to do this with a zipper foot.

Close up of yoyos on side panel.

PQ 14.2 An Effort Was Made

 I should have known when I was pulling fabrics a noon on Saturday that I would probably not finish.  However, I was determined not to make a cozy of last resort. Yep.  Week 2 of Project Quilting.  

 

I didn't finish, but I did get the top finished, the back pieced and the binding cut.  The hold up was the unfortunate reminder that one of the spuds stole  asked for the soundproofing boards in the basement.  One of which, I was using to make my quilt sandwiches.  It was about the size of a 4x8 sheet of plywood, but made of something much lighter.  It was upholstered in a gray woven furniture grade fabric.  That fabric grabbed onto the quilt backing and held it tight.  I didn't even need to pins or tape or anything.  And I could put it on a table so I didn't have to crawl around on the floor.  I completely stalled out on finishing when I realized I would have to go back to plan A.  I couldn't even.... By the time I got over my snit, I no longer had the time or energy to make the sandwich.

But then I remembered that the way I easily did my free motion quilting on my last several quilts was by renting time on the sit down long arm at the LQS.  And, would you believe it, they don't stay open all hours on Saturday night for my convenience.  So...  Another project gets added to my WIP pile.  The only benefit is that this one doesn't require any special skill or problem solving to move to the done pile.  It just requires a little less whining and little more enthusiasm.  

On the plus side, I was able to make this entirely out of my stash AND I was able to use up a couple different fabrics without generating a pile of scraps.  So far (OK, I've made it to week 2) I haven't purchased fabric for PQ.  I think that will be my personal challenge this year.  Well, that and at least attempting to get something made each time.