Project Planning & Goals

Hello again,

I realized the other day that I am working on projects as I remember I'm doing them and I think that means I need to do a little goal setting.  It may be that some of these don't happen, but these are my somewhat ambitious goals for this blog for the next few months.

#1) Finish E's Space Invaders quilt (and, of course, show you the whole process)

#2) Finish the clothes quilt for my bed (this one is the one that might get bumped)

#3) Buy my first pattern and make myself something I can actually wear.  I'm short on work clothes, so I think this will probably be something totally boring and practical. (Though super exciting for me if I succeed!)

#4) Find a pattern I like and make my first pencil skirt.  Then make a whole bunch more. (Remember that thing about needing work clothes?)

#5) Do something about the masses of too-big T-shirts in my life.  I have a whole drawer of these that I want to try to fix or alter or turn into something else.

#6) Make Casey a dog bed as pretty as he is.  It's going to be in my living room.  I would like it not to be ugly!  My puppy is so pretty - he should have a dog bed that does him justice.

I think those are pretty adequate goals for the next 3 months.  I suspect that quilting those two quilts will be the thing that breaks me. 

We'll see how that goes!  I have ideas and I'm scheming at least.  I'm always happy when I'm scheming! :)

Till next time,
A

Old Clothes Quilt #1

Hello Again,

Since my first quilt square, I have decided I need more practice at this before I take on the Space Invaders Quilt. Since that one is a gift, I need it to come out right!  Practice seemed like a good idea.  Since the dogs have been slowly destroying the pretty quilt on my bed, I thought I would make something for myself first.  At least then it doesn't matter if it's a little off.  Like with people, a few imperfections make quilts interesting, right?

Since I've lost a ton of weight, I have many, many clothes that no longer fit.  Some of them are good for donation, but others have stains or tears that would make me feel bad sending them to Good Will.  I decided to pull those out and see if any of them were fabric that would work for a quilt and, happily, some of them are!

I pulled apart a shirt and two pairs of pants that had tears at the hem and ended up with these:

That one in the middle is a dark blue, not black as it looks.  Again, this would work better if I ever took these pictures when the sun was up!

I cut several quilt squares of each and got my pinning, sewing, and seam pressing process on.  I wanted to do some experimenting before I went all-out making millions of squares! 

I ended up with some very pretty quilt squares, including the first one I made a few days ago:

From a distance, these look awesome. I think the quilt is going to end up being really pretty!  It's the right colors for my bedroom right now too - I have a thing for blue clearly.

While I love these and will use them in the quilt, there are some...um...issues to work out in my quilt square-making skills. 

I had some trouble getting the squares to line up right, which I think is mostly due to not perfectly cut squares.  I think? Having the seams not perfect on the first batch led to problems later on and some of the squares look like this if you look closely:

In some ways, I think it kinda looks cool, since all 4 corners were off by about the same amount on that one, but I need to figure out what I did wrong so I don't do it on the Space Invaders Quilt!

It looks fine overall:

OK, yes, that one seam is off still, but I honestly don't think I will notice it once it's in a big quilt.  Probably other people are not crazy perfectionists like me.  And I would be a little creeped out if someone spent enough time staring at my bed to notice a few off corners on the quilt, come to think of it.

In the end, I think I will end up doing a 60" x 80" quilt with these.  I think I can just do 5 across with 6" strips in between (makes each square a good) and it will look pretty.  It will need to be white or blue to go with the blue/grey/white theme I have going at the moment, but that shouldn't be hard to find.

I already have 4 squares, so it's almost a row!  I have begun cutting individual squares with my template instead of strips, since it seems to work better.  (There must be a trick to cutting perfect strips, but I haven't figured it out yet. Gotta work on that!)  So look for more quilt squares to come in future.  I think this is going to be awesome when it's done.

Till next time,

A