WIP Wednesday: Chaos Management

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cats, quilting, sewing, Shelby, WIP Wednesday

WIP = Work in Progress

There has been progress in various areas this week, largely due to me being irritated by the chaos of unfinished projects all around my sewing room.  Black and white quilt pieces over here, Maybe Quilt pieces over there, towering pile of mending in the corner, unfinished Xmas presents next to them–YIKES.  I needed to feel like I was getting a little closer to having some of these things actually DONE, so I channeled my crabbiness into a little productivity.

As you can see above, the green blocks for my Splash of Color quilt are done, though not trimmed.  Purple, red, yellow, and turquoise blocks still to do, then the mountain of trimming.

I’ve also started working on the oversized Pusheen sweatshirt that my sister passed on to me because it didn’t fit her.

Here’s the über-fabulous before picture:

Great, huh?

I’m honestly not actually that short–5’4″, last time I checked.  But some clothing manufacturers seem to think that if you’re big around, you’re also tall; I regularly cut 6″ of fabric off ready-to-wear pants, while thin, slightly taller friends of mine can’t find pants that are long enough.  HEY CLOTHING MANUFACTURING PEOPLE, SHORT AND FAT IS TOTALLY A THING.

So I cut the bands off the bottom, sleeves, and neck, and marked what I need to do on this to hopefully make it a little less sad.

Better!

I’ve got some coordinating scrap fabric (because of course I do), and the plan is to cut off the excess on the hem and sleeves and use the fabric to bind the raw edges.  I’m also going to add a slit to the neckline and bind that as well.  Oh, and there will be hem vents, too, because I never have enough room for my hips in RTW.  Seriously, this is why I tend to make my shirts too big at the hips–I’ve got a thing about fabric grabbing me there.

And the Maybe Quilt top is almost done!

I’ve got it in two pieces at the moment, as the plan is to do Quilt as You Go on it.  So this is half of it on my dining room table.

I laid out both halves on the bed because I’m just having a terrible time getting a sense of it as a whole, and I hoped that would help.

The colors are awfully washed out in the pictures, but they are plenty bold in person.   I hope the quilt police aren’t watching, ’cause this thing has not only cotton, but also rayon, a wool blend, and whatever “linen look” fabric is made of.

Cripes, how did this get so big?  You can’t see it, but it extends over both sides and the bottom of the mattress, too.

I need to find a wall somewhere, somehow stick this top to it, and step back 20 feet, I think.  I still can’t figure out if the whole thing works or is too busy.  I love all the fabrics in it, though, so I suspect I’ll love the whole when it’s finished.

I’m setting the top aside for the moment so that I can work on Xmas presents.  I’d love your input on how you think I should quilt it, though.  My inclination right now–and this changes several times a day–is to do several large spirals.  I’m leaning toward something to break up the linearity of it rather than emphasize it, and spirals sort of bring out the over-the-topness of it, you know?

Anyway, the goal for next week is to focus on Xmas presents.  I should probably also prioritize that fall sweatshirt, considering how we’re rapidly running out of fall.  (I have this thought running through my head now about WHY DON’T I HAVE A WACKY XMAS SWEATSHIRT, but I am diligently ignoring it, as that’s the kind of nonsense that gets me in trouble.)

Have a wonderful week, and I hope all your colors are working well together.

STH

 

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WIP Wednesday: Too Much and Too Little

Tags

cats, cross stitch, quilting, sewing, Shelby, WIP Wednesday

My assistant put in some time this week.

(WIP = Work in Progress)

Happy Thursday!

We’re having a chilly, gray day here, so let’s all ignore that nasty business and look at some pretty fabric!

I made some progress on my Maybe Quilt this week.

I wound up with 40 strips, each 42 to 45 inches long, of my colored fabrics, the most I could get without having a lot of repeats.  I sewed the short ends of each strip to a strip of black fabric, making a tube.  Then I laid my tubes out on my dining room table to put them in order.

Needless to say, there’s a LOT happening here!  I think all this lively color will be balanced out by the black border in the finished quilt, though.

Then it was time to cut the black strips more or less randomly so that the colored sections would be staggered.

This whole process was a bit nerve-wracking because it was impossible to get a good sense of how it all would eventually look.  I finally told myself firmly to STOP FRETTING and trust the process!  The whole quilt is an experiment after all, and if I don’t like it, I can take the damn thing apart and have a bunch of strips all ready for another project.

I’m now working (slowly) on sewing the strips together and spending the time thinking about ways to quilt this.  The question is whether I want to do something that continues all the straight lines or something that breaks them up.  Hmmm . . . .

While I mull that over, I’ve also gotten started on Christmas presents.  I recently joined a new Facebook crafting group and it has inspired me to go back to counted cross-stitch.  I’ve decided that this will be the Christmas of rude cross-stitch.  😉

Amazing work so far, I know!

And I have learned two things doing this.

1.  WOW, has my eyesight ever gone downhill since 2009, the last time I cross-stitched.
2.   I really, really need some new glasses, ’cause this stitching with white floss on cream fabric is about to kill me.  That cross-stitch I made for my mother years ago on linen with all those subtle shades of cream and pale pink would totally do me in now.

 

Have a fabulous week and I hope all your projects are just humming along and you’re not wondering where that damn hole in the fabric got to.

STH

 

 

WIP Wednesday: What Plans?

Tags

clothing, quilting, refashioning, sewing, splashofcolorQAL, WIP Wednesday

Lovely, lovely fall is still hanging on here . . . .

(WIP = Work in Progress)

Happy Thursday!  Let the record show I did try to post last night, but our internet went down and didn’t come back until it was (past) time for me to go to bed.

Things are moving along here, though not always in the direction I had planned.

For example, when you’ve got the pieces cut for two quilts, and you’re sewing away on them, and you’ve also got in the back of your mind that you really want to make that forest green vest before it gets too cold to wear it, what should happen next?

STARTING ANOTHER QUILT!

Makes perfect sense, right?

Well, if you’re me, I guess it does.

Here’s how it happened.  I bookmarked this post a while ago because I liked the simple, modern look of it and who doesn’t need a quick quilt technique?

I’ve been recommending it to people and admiring it and thinking about it since then.  And, somehow, last week, the fact that I’m itching to use up some multicolored scraps and that my black scrap bin is overflowing came together with my love for this design and I HAD TO MAKE IT.

The idea was to use multicolored scraps that had a black background to make the strips.  It’s also something of an experiment–can I actually get these scraps to work together and not look like a random mess with so little in common?

These kinds of fabrics are great for quilt backs, but I find them difficult to use in quilt tops, so this will be a learning experience.

And I have all these random pieces of black fabric–I honestly have no idea where many of them came from or why I have them–so the background strips will be an interesting mix of black flannel, chintz, corduroy, linen blends, and who knows what.

I’ve also made my pink blocks for the Splash of Color QAL over here and, boy, are they ever pink.

They still need trimming, but there they are in all their pinkness.

They’ll be great with the black and white, but by themselves–WOW–they are pink.

And this project just popped up.

My sister just started up with one of those subscription box things, this one of Pusheen-themed stuff.  Yes, another Japanese cartoon cat, and, yes, we are both big kids.  She received this sweatshirt in one of her boxes and passed it on to me, as it didn’t fit her.  It’s a 3X and obviously designed for an Amazon–the body and sleeves will have to be shortened, and I’m pondering what to do with the neckline.  The fabric is thin and not of the greatest quality, but it’ll be fun to wear.

Seriously, how could you resist this?

So many fun things to work on!

I hope you’re enjoying the fall and making something happy.  🙂

STH