Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Paint Chips, Bobbin Busting, and Care Package 1

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!

7 comments:

  1. My last quilt had a bunch of wrinkles sewn in the back, but after I washed it you couldn't even tell! The pouch and needle case turned out so cute, what a thoughtful gift! A new sewing area and a constant flow of brownies sounds awesome :D. Thanks for linking up to WIP Wednesday!

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    1. I hope it looks okay in the end -.- thanks for stopping by!

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  2. Keep going with the quilting. Is this obvious but do you use a walking foot for the quilting?
    Lovely gifts for your friend.

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    1. Yep! I am using a walking foot although I'm sure there is a better foot to use. It works fairly well though it doesnt "corner" very well; there's a lot of painfully funny shaped stitches where I have lowered the needle, turned the quilt, and proceeded. Thanks for stopping by!

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  3. Hey, brownies! I'd sew there, too. :D Love the pouch and case.

    About the wrinkles - how are you sandwiching the quilt? I can't use it, but lots of folks swear by the basting sprays. If you're using pins, you'll want them nice and close. I make diamonds that are maybe 5 inches tall and 3 1/2 fat, and then "frame" the portion I'm quilting on firmly with both of my spread-open hands. You're absolutely right, though, that when we're sewing for the outlet function, worrying about perfection needs to fly right out the window. :D

    About the stacking on the bobbins - yep, I sure used to do that. But just to let you know, it ended bad one day a couple years ago - as the color I was using ended the loose front-tail of the next color got caught underneath and broke a spring-arm thingy in the undercarriage area of the machine. Cost over $100 to get it fixed. :( Much cheaper to just order more bobbins. I have like 50 now! lolol

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    1. I started by spray basting which works great for me on small projects - oven mits and the like - but just doesnt hold for this bigger guy. Seeing this, I went over it with pins as well but I think I should more densely populate the quilt.
      Thanks for the warning about the bobbins! Gah! I'm running into difficulty finding replacement bobbins for my machine since the size that is sold at my neighborhood sewing store (all "standard size" bobbins) just don't work. But the quest continues - more urgently now that I've heard your story (yikes!)

      Thanks for stopping by!

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  4. the pouch looks lovely. I have the same problem when I'm quilting, the back is always full of puckers. My mum taught me to add thread to the same bobbin, I think she own a grand total of about 3 bobbins, but I can't do it. I have a separate bobbin for each colour thread and I'm forever buying bobbins!

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