new etsy store

Yesterday, I launched my very own Etsy store at:
 etsy.com/shop/craftthepainaway
Right now, I am only selling custom-designed and custom-made baby quilts, but I hope to expand to sell pre-made quilts and other crafts. We'll see! Tell your friends!

sneak peek of a new project

pretty pretty scraps

You know me, I just can't be without a work-in-progress. So last night, I cut all the fabric for a new quilt. I already have four blocks done, but I am going to hold off posting about this quilt until at least the top is done. It's my design, so I am a little anxious about how it is going to turn out. We'll see!

off in the mail

blue boats

little messages to the recipients

bright bugs

blue boats baby quilt description

completed shot

I am in love with this 38 x 48 quilt, which I just finished today (after starting it only three days ago!). The focal boat and whale printed squares are flannel, as it the whale print backing. The backing has a pieced section of the same printed fabric as the sashing, which is also the same fabric used for the binding. (And I still have about 6 x 44 inches left - isn't that crazy?).
The focal squares are off-set in all but four of the blocks. This gives it a fun wonky look, and gives the quilt a little more visual interest.
I quilted waves all over the quilt, except for in the focal squares. I love the fun nautical theme of the quilt, all inspired by the first fabric I decided to work with - the boat and whale printed flannel. I bought the blue cotton to match the squares, and got the whale printed flannel for the backing. The other printed fabric, used for the sashing, I bought as a remnant long long ago. 
I am tempted to keep this quilt rather than donating it, I love it that much. But Adam would say that is "packratty" of me, and I don't know how long it would be before I found someone to give it to. So it will get mailed off tomorrow!

completed: blue boats baby quilt!

38 x 48

closeup

front and back

pieced backing

closeup of the quilting

quilting waves

see the waves

Yesterday I finished the quilt top, made the backing for my blue boats baby quilt, basted the whole sandwich (with Adam's help, of course) and quilted about a third of the quilt in a continuous wave pattern. It's a lot more difficult than I had anticipated, and not all my waves are perfect. But I think the effect looks nice, and it fits the theme of the quilt - so it's worth the trouble!
I am not quilting in the flannel focal squares. I'm not sure the light blue thread I am using would even show up in the squares, so I don't know that it makes any difference, but I didn't want to distract from the printed fabric.

sneak peek of the blue boats baby quilt

not many scraps!

fabrics

Last night, I did the math out (again! this is what I get for losing important quilt planning papers) for the blue boats baby quilt.
From left to right, we have a a half-yard of blue and white print (from a remnant I've had forever), a yard of blue cotton and a quarter yard of a boat print (from a remnant I've had forever and a half), and that's all the fabric for the top of this baby quilt! Not bad, not bad. I like using up remnants!
Now to assemble all my little cut pieces into something cute and cuddly...

silliness

the consequences of having thread everywhere

completed: grandmother's lap quilt

front and back

front and back

front and back

label

Almost finished with quilt for grandma

so pretty

I am in the process of making the binding now. By tomorrow it should be done done done. Huzzah!
I did a large meander pattern in each block, but left the two-inch sashing untouched.
The back of the quilt is that same beautiful floral print featured on the front, which totally swallows up all the quilting and hides it. Which is just as well, since I had some of that evil eyelashing effect happening in the beginning. I jacked up my tension setting to 7 1/2 and that seemed to solve the problem. I was able to go a lot faster after that adjustment. The quilting didn't take as long or use as much thread as usual because the pattern was so much bigger. I am super happy so far. Hopefully the binding goes smoothly, and then the quilt will be finished in plenty of time for the birthday deadline in April.

close-up of the quilting

Yay!

frustration

so awful

Why oh why does this happen?? The internet says it's me, and apparently it is, since I've tried everything to fix it, without luck. Why did my free motion quilting skills suddenly desert me?

grandmother's lap quilt top complete

quilt top complete!

Remember this quilt from back in February? Well, I finally finished the quilt top. It had been sitting in my WIP pile for a month just waiting for me to rip apart and resew a seam. Since ripping apart seams is awfully boring and tedious, it got left undone until I had a little TV time to sit and finally do it. Stitching it back up again was quick - and way easier with my new shiny 1/4 inch presser foot (a worthwhile $8 investment).
This quilt is my own design, and I love it. The fabrics are gorgeous and the simple design really shows them off. I am going to be a little sad when I finally finish and ship this one off, but it will be going to a good home.

floral pinwheels quilt top done

please notice my awesome scrappy border

the quilt top measures 58 x 59 inches

Sassafras likes it too

desire

the object of my desire

So my sewing machine has been making awful noises lately. I had my mother listen to the soul-crushing noise the machine makes when starting up, and she agreed that it doesn't sound good, and may die one of these days. So we started looking at replacement machines, just so that I would have an idea of what I wanted if my machine does die. She found - so she is totally to blame for this - the Singer 9960. Sigh. It's a beautiful thing. It has every feature I could want on a sewing machine, including alphabetic fonts! I could stitch poems into my quilting.
Swoon.
Maybe one day.

scrap buster

my mass of triangle scraps

So as I am working on my floral pinwheel quilt, I have amassed a collection of little triangles - the scraps left-over from making the pinwheel blocks. Not one to waste things, I wondered what I could do with these triangles. I googled triangle quilt patterns to no avail.
 

finished block

Today, as I sat at my sewing machine
procrastinating, I started playing with the triangles. Turns out they fit together quite nicely. So I made a little 5.75 x 5.75 block out of four scrap triangles. Looks like the beginning of a beautiful quilt!

8/9

progress

Almost done making the pinwheel blocks...

first pinwheel block completed!

pinwheel

A small victory, I know, but I'm pretty pleased with my work. It only took ripping apart a few seams to accomplish. Now to make eight more!

finished cutting for the floral pinwheels

all cut up

This is a quilt. Do you see it?

better photo of the floral pinwheels quilt fabrics

pretty pretty

I have just completed cutting all the fabric for the pinwheels themselves. I still have to cut massive numbers of squares and rectangles for the background of the pinwheels, but progress is progress!
I had so much fun ironing and cutting these fabrics - and I hate cutting. But each fabric was basically new to me, and that was exciting. I haven't spent hours obsessing over them in a fabric store, so they are fresh and interesting to me. And there was a different amount of each fabric, which kept the cutting process interesting as well.
Now to finish cutting so that I get to sew!

new and old

new

 This evening, after much deliberation and several trials, I learned out to make a Flying Geese block (above). There is an oversized pinwheel quilt I want to make in the current issue of Quilts & More, and Adam is really encouraging me to go outside my comfort zone and try new things. So tonight he helped me figure out this block. I ultimately figured it out on my own, but having his support was invaluable.

So then we went through my fabrics to see if I could scrounge up enough material to make this quilt. I have a lot of novelty fabrics, but not a lot of basics or solids, so it's tough to build a quilt solely out of my stash. Luckily I remembered I have a giant black trash bag of fabrics my fabulous mother-in-law gave me before I moved out here. I pulled the bag (and some other stuff by accident) down, and Adam and I started looking through the fabrics. Let me tell you, there is a lot in there, and I had forgotten about a lot of the specifics. Adam came up with the idea of doing a floral pinwheel, with another light floral as the 'background' that the pinwheels will be floating on. It's going to be a bit of a busy quilt, but sweet and whimsical. I'm super excited about it.

I really did not need another quilt on my to-do list, but that's okay. It's good to get excited and try new things.

old

completed: bright bugs boy baby quilt

front and back

I'm done! This 40 x 48 baby quilt was quilted with diagonal lines and bound in homemade green binding. Once again, the binding is not as neat as I would have liked, but oh well. It looks cute, and the diagonal lines are awesome.

rolled up

all done quilting the bright bugs boy baby quilt

the pieced back of the quilt

Although I've been calling this quilt the "bright bugs boy baby quilt" all along, it is actually a unisex design. Which actually leads me to the unfairness of baby colors - a "boy's" quilt of blue and green is perfectly appropriate for a girl as well, but a "girl's" quilt with pink and purple would never do for a boy.
Anyway. I finished quilting the umpteen million straight(ish) lines, and I am so pleased! I will definitely be doing diagonal lines again in the future. It looks really good.

quilting progress on bright bugs boy baby quilt

Quilting away... I'm a little more than half-way through the diagonal straight-line quilting on the bright bugs boy baby quilt (isn't that a mouthful?). It is turning out really well so far. I haven't had any puckering so far, and the lines are fairly straight. A little wonkiness just adds character, right?
I will definitely be using painter's tape again!

springtime or summer?

flowers in my pathetic excuse for a garden

Hard to believe that it is only March, and it has been 80+ degrees out for days. We had an exceedingly mild winter here in Missouri, and it seems that we may have skipped over springtime and dove right into summer. I love it. The flowers, the sun, the birds chirping, the trees budding...
I haven't been crafting much because I've been trying to get outside and soak up the sunshine!

all taped up

see where I started quilting?

Adam is such a trooper. Not only did he help me baste and pin the bright bugs boy baby quilt, like he does with all my quilt projects, but he helped me lay down about a million strips of tape. I'm quilting this one on the diagonal, just for fun, and I'm using painter's tape to keep my lines straight. My walking foot broke (darn it!), so I can't use the guide on that. Painter's tape it is! It's working out pretty well so far, and I haven't had any problems straight-line quilting with my normal presser foot yet. Cross your fingers for me!

inspiration

photo from katiecupcake.blogspot.com

I frequently find quilt inspiration on other blogs, or by google searching such phrases as "modern baby quilt". I recently found this picture of a planned quilt on Katie Cupcake, and am now dying to make a quilt like this. I love the plus signs in the quilt, and the way the edges remind me of a Tetris game. I don't need another quilt added to my to-do list (see how long it is already? and how painfully slowly I check things off of it?), but I'm definitely keeping this idea in the back of my mind for the future!
Where do you find inspiration?

two steps forward, one step backward...

here's what looks like

So... I definitely made my bright bugs boy baby quilt (pattern from Moda Bake Shop) wrong. Oops. I didn't realize it until I had almost the whole quilt top assembled, and now it's too late. (I mean, I could take it all apart... or I could not...)
But who says it's wrong, anyway? It's just different.

here's what it should look like

progress on the brightly colored bugs baby boy quilt

See? All I have to do now is stitch it all together... the colored fabrics are stitched together, but none of the sashing is attached yet. I love baby quilts, they come together so quickly!

brightly colored bugs all cut up

That sounds gross, doesn't it? Anyway, I decided to do the Moda Bake Shop baby quilt (found here). I'm actually going to do two, one for a boy, and one for a girl. The fabrics above are for the boy quilt, which I'll be doing first. (Simply because the pink and purple fabrics were at the bottom of my pile, and I'm tired of cutting!). I'm a little indecisive on that light green print - you can't tell in the photo, but it's actually got a floral pattern. Not sure that's appropriate for a little boy's quilt. I'm going to lay out my homemade charm squares and see how it looks.
And then... I get to start sewing!

brightly colored bugs

The time has come to start a new quilt. I picked up these brightly colored fat quarters awhile back, inspired by that bug print fabric on top. I can't decide what pattern I want to use, though. I had intended to do a disappearing nine-patch, but this would be my third version of that quilt, and I'm tired of that pattern.
I really want to cut the fat quarters into charm squares (5x5 inch squares) and do this quilt at the Moda Bake Shop. It's just so cute! Or I could cut three of the fat quarters out of the stack and do this quilt from Two Little Banshees. I can't decide!
I would need to buy more fabric for the sashing if I want to do the MBS quilt... but I would be stuck with three left-over fat quarters if I do the TLB quilt. Quandary!
But... if my math is right, I can get more than one quilt out of the fabric stack if I do the MBS quilt. And I could exclude the pink and purple in one and make it for a boy, and include them in another and make it for a girl. That would be nice.
What do you all think I should do?

owl quilt completed!

Once again, the binding (which was made up of the yellow polka dot fabric and white muslin, and turned out super cute) was a bit of a problem for me to attach, but I persevered and now this quilt is officially off my to-do list and on my completed list! Huzzah!
It is another disappearing nine-patch (so easy!), based off the instructions found at Obsessively Stitching.