Another week, another post. It's been a bit stressful this week - work is exhausting. As a friendly reminder to everyone, please back up all your important documents on a regular basis! My heart goes out this week to a woman whose harddrive crashed...
Anyhow, my Paint Chip quilt is going rather well... mostly.
Okay so some days are better than others. The major problem at this point is that I find myself repeatedly and unintentionally sewing wrinkles into the back of the quilt. When they are bad, I rip it out and do it again. Lately, though, I am just letting it be. It's killing me, but it is going to happen. I'm realizing that choosing to back the quilt in a solid light color will point out every wrinkle, over sewn square, and crooked line. I am working on being okay with it- sewing as an outlet cannot be about perfection for me.
So here's how the back is looking so far:
I have 8 multicolored squares quilted, and four to go. I'm doing roughly one square per "paint chip" (set of three vertical colors).It does look pretty cool, although in this picture you can clearly see what I mean about sewing in the wrinkles. Here's a close up of the red square (top right of above pic).
Kind of cool, right? And it looks cool on the front too - little pillows of color. I'm starting to get really excited about finishing it and washing it.
So now that we've got the ugly (unfinished) stuff out of the way, lets talk about what else I've been working on! In the process of sewing all these different colored squares in my paint chip quilt, my lack of bobbins is becoming a problem. I now have a bad habit of "stacking" the thread on the same bobbin - anyone else do this?
This bobbin has 3 colors - black, salmon (eww) and blue - on it. Later, I used it again for green. So I started thinking about projects that would get rid of unwanted bobbin thread that I may not have a matching color (such as the salmon - this bobbin was one my mom had used and came "pre-filled" by her when I inherited it). Last week, when I made my first pouch, I realized that much of it was constructed without the obvious bobbin thread showing. Perfect! Now all I needed was a reason to make a pouch.
Enter my best friend Dana, who is moving to New York in two weeks and thought my pouch was super cute! She told me she wanted one, only bigger. I hope this delivers:
Dana is an avid knitter so I made sure it was big enough to hold a skein
(or two) of yarn. On the outside is Stitch Organic by Betz White, and the interior is Apple of My Eye by The Quilted Fish. Some of those polka dots are white apples! It's adorable. Also attached is a selvage zipper pull; Apple of My Eye seems perfect, since Dana is my best friend and moving to the Big Apple!
I also made a pencil case/DPN (double pointed needle) holder to go with it (and to empty my bobbins). Made from some leftover Good Fortune by Kate Spain.
And then I got to thinking - I like making things for friends. Maybe this will be her going away present, but once she arrives in New York I will start sending her care packages of various fun stuff and crafts. She loved the idea, and I fully expect to receive knit goods and NYC souvenirs in return!
And the last update (which you may have noticed by the slight change in scenery in these pictures) is that I have moved my sewing machine to my sweety's place. So far, he is coping with me being over a little more often (I think he likes it - he keeps making me brownies! a good sign).
Linking to Fabric Tuesday and WIP Wednesday.
Have a great week!
