Design Wall Monday - Curlicue Crush

I am currently cutting out fabric for the Curlicue Crush quilt by Bec of Chasing Cottons.  I've wanted to make this for quite some time.  But first I wanted just the right fabric. Of course!  These are all by Patricia Bravo of Art Gallery Fabrics.  Love her work.
The pattern calls for you to make your own templates for the curved block.  Oooo...that was a stumbling block for me.  I really didn't want to cut that many curves with a plastic template.  TabSlot to the rescue.  Have you heard of this Etsy shop?   I was so excited to find it.  Jill will custom make templates for you.  All I had to do was ask and voila! I had acrylic templates.    I would be done cutting by now but I've been sick and doing nothing but napping these past several day.

I wanted to try sewing this curve so played with some scraps.  Since this is a corner to corner curve I knew I wouldn't have much room to mess up or I'd have no seam allowance.   No problems though.  The little blocks sewed up nicely.

This is as "off" as I got:

That would be a sixteenth of an inch and is close enough for me!  I feel pretty confident to start the sewing.  Sew sew excited!!!

Linking up with other Design Wall Monday folks over at Patchwork Times.

Beach Projects

I've written many times about my best friends. My Yaya's.  Every year we head to the Washington coast for a winter get-away of fun.   Our vacation always starts with a stop at Starbucks:

This year 3 of us turned 50 (M turned 50 two years ago) and were presented with our Tiara's.  We wore them all day on our way to the coast.  :)

This New Wave quilt was my main project.  We had such beautiful weather this year that I was able to get a picture outside.   I used Valori Wells fabric...most from her Nest collection.  I LOVE these fabrics. 

I also made my first journal cover. There are tons of free tutorials online and I read a bunch to see how they were made.   I chose to make a pretty plain one so I could see how it went.  I'm always a bit nervous about non-quilt sewing.   I love these Echino prints.   

I added a pocket for my pen.  I think I made it too skinny cuz it pulls.  Next time I'll allow more.

Remember this Mini Stacked Strips wall hanging I made.  Well I took the itty bitty scraps and made a Mini Mini one!   The strips are 1/2 inch and the whole thing is only 9 inches by 18 inches.  Some colors are missing because I didn't have enough.  But its still so cute.  That makes 3 of these Stacked Strips quilts from one Kona solids jelly roll.   :)

We had some amazing sunrises and sunsets.  

Nighty night!   :)

Free Motion Practice Again

First off let me say I really chose the wrong fabric to use for my free motion practice when I needed to be able to film it for the link ups!   Next time I'll be better.  :)    

Besides doing the weekly challenges of Leah's, I am also doing the monthly Free Motion Challenge over at SewCalGal.   Frances Moore is our teacher for January and she gave us this leaf design to work on.  Here is my first attempt at the leaves....if you can see it!

                                         They are fun to do but I struggle with consistency.  Oi!  


For my second try I did the leaves as a border to see if I could do that.  I had trouble flipping them so they wouldn't always look like a straight line.   Then in the middle I did week two of Leah's challenge -- which was to try to do stippling in rows.   Oh did that not work to well for me.  I learned to stipple years and years ago and was taught to randomly work so my brain just doesn't want to work in rows.  I may need to let it go with stippling and work on that idea with future designs.

Here's a close-up:

You're probably gonna be sick of my posts on free motion practice.  I'm linking up each week/month in order to get input from others and also for prizes with SewCalGal.    I'm even considering adding in the free motion quilt along over at Quokka Quilts to get even more practice.   We shall see.   Being house bound due to snow  for several days has sure helped with getting work done.   :)

Free Motion Quilting

2012 is the year for me to get free motion quilting (fmq) from just being head knowledge to being actual experience.  I've taken several classes and done a few quilts...some on my home machine and some on a long arm I rented.  But I've never practiced consistently...which means I'm constantly a beginner having to re-learn everything!

Leah Day from The Free Motion Quilting Project blog is hosting Quilt Along every Wednesday where she is guiding readers in learning fmq'ing.  She is starting us out with basic stippling.  I've stippled a little before so I just dove in an did it all over style.   I was trying to keep it big but found myself getting tighter...then I'd try to go big again.  Being consistent is definitely my issue!  No wonder Leah (and every fmq teacher I've ever had) tells you the key is PRACTICE!   :)
I'm quilting on a Juki TL-2010Q and using Aurifil 50wt. thread (cuz that's all I own).

Here's my first little practice piece:

And here's a close-up of some of my trouble spots:

Big stitches and pointy spots.  

I am easily distracted and it really affects my quilting.  A few minutes of the same old same old and I drift off mentally to something else.  Not quite sure what to do about that!  Maybe an actual quilt would help.   I also had trouble when I'd stop to relax (my shoulders get hunched up to my ears in no time flat) and would start again....my starts would be pointy or end up with those long stitches.   

Time for lunch and then back to PRACTICING.    

Pouches

I'm finally getting around to showing the other gifts I made this year -- Pouches!   I had so much fun with these.  I actually made another one but didn't get a picture of it. I actually didn't get any pictures!  I'm using these images that were taken at work for a blog post they did (we all made pouches).    We used Elizabeth Hartman's' "Perfect Zip Bag" pattern.  Her patterns are excellent.  I liked her method for putting in the zipper.  I created my own patchwork and added personal touches inspired by each of my friends.   

This is the back of  the air stream one.  So cute. 

I got those zipper pulls and the zippers from Zipit Etsy shop.  

And this is the back of the one with the glasses.  Those are one inch squares.

Such a fun project with so many uses.

Push for the New Year

No regular type of New Years resolutions for me this year.  Like so many of you, I never keep 'em.   

This time I decided to choose a word to focus on for the year.  I've been pondering which word........a task that normally would take weeks and weeks......until I realized that what I had to do to pick a word was my word! Push....push through the over-thinking and choose.   Nike's "Just Do It" is my self-nag but its already chosen and I wouldn't want to get into copyright infringement!   Hee, hee.  

So PUSH it is.  Push myself to: love more, get in shape (sigh), learn the auto harp, write a few letters, connect with people more, grow creatively, let go...and so much more.