{WiP} Wednesday ~ 16/52

So this is still in progress. :)  I have most of the rows sashed together -- just a couple more to go, then I have to sash the sides. Then prepare the backing (Spot On Wide in Chartreuse by Robert Kaufman) and the binding, and I'll be ready to quilt it!

I'm pretty excited about the way I am going to quilt it, but I'm going to keep you in the dark in case it goes bad and I have to default to loops. :)  Loops will still be fabulous, I love loops, but this new way? Pretty cool.

I'm also waiting on one more set of blocks for this little gem for the Faith Circle of the of the do.Good Stitches bee. I think this is my ideal layout - I'm calling it Wonky Zigs. :)  (I'll use the Spot On in Aqua for the back of this)

And I finished my April blocks for Anita in the Faith Circle. Simple, yet stunning.

I have to say that my circle seems to really embrace the idea that simple CAN BE better when it comes to making quilts. We haven't made any complicated quilts and complicated blocks in a while (8 hours for a Swoon block, anyone???)  And I really, really appreciate that.  We all know that these quilts are going to be an amazing blessing for the girls that receive them (they are donated to Restore Innocence, an organization that partners with the FBI and helps girls rescued from human/sex trafficking).  Those girls don't know an Ohio Star from a Wonky Star from a WhirlyGig. They just know that these quilts represent unconditional love...something most of them have never felt. (I could go on talking about Restore Innocence for days...)

And I am REALLY excited to have these books! C&T Publishing had a sale a week, or so, ago, and I chose these. I wanna drop everything and just eat these books up! Just flipping through One Line at a Time got me all fired up to try some new quilting techniques.

So, that's me! What I'm working on! How about you? Did you link up with Lee of Freshly Pieced?

My Madrona Road Challenge Pillow

The Front Range Modern Quilt Guild chose to do a secret pillow swap for the Modern Quilt Guild's first challenge of 2013. The MQG partnered with Michael Miller to send guilds a fat eighth bundle of the lovelier than lovely Madrona Road by Violet Craft for each member who wanted to participate. We were allowed to add more Madrona Road, and solids, and we were highly encouraged to highly encourage participation among recipients of the fabric.

We were given our fabric and our partner's questionnaire at the December sew, and had PLENTY of time to finish it in time to swap at our February anniversary party this past Saturday.

We had 23 people participate, which is AWESOME, and there wasn't a single lemon in the bunch! Every single one of them was just gorgeous! 

(photo by Marti of 52 Quilts)

The pillow that Anne made for Marta was the first thing she's sewn in 10 years! Wow!  Well done, Anne!

(photo by Marti of 52 Quilts)

The pillow Angela made for Marti is more meaningful and more creative and more amazing than any other pillow in the bunch, quite frankly.

(photo by Marti of 52 Quilts)

I wish Angela had finished it in time for Michael Miller to see it for their booth at QuiltCon. I think they would have picked it because it's awesome even if you don't know the story behind it.

And then there's mine.

(photo by Marti of 52 Quilts)

Honestly, I am more than a bit ashamed that I had the fabric longer than anyone, and yet I was the only one who didn't finish it in time. I mean, I have some really great excuses (had to make a second quilt for QuiltCon, had to catch up on my January blocks now that it's February, had 3 sick kids this last week so I got about 3 hours of sleep a night...on and on my excuses go!).  But the reality is, I didn't finish. 

About 15 minutes before the meeting started, I had about 15 minutes of work left to do on it, so I went to the back room of our guild meeting space and tried to finish it. I couldn't do it. :(  It was really stressful, and I ended up trimming the top of the pillow wrong. :(  So I just decided to finish it later in the quiet of my own home.

I made my pillow for Randi of I Have to Say and the owner of FreshSqueezedFabrics on Etsy. You know her. :)  She is wonderful and generous and friendly and such a blessing that I wanted to make her something she would love and that would bless her back for all the blessing she does for everyone else.  But sometime on Friday, I learned that she wasn't going to be at the meeting, and though I knew I still wanted to complete it, I knew it would be okay if I didn't. And long about 2 am on SAturday morning, when I still wasn't finished, I decided to just finish it when I could.

Here it is finished.

I made her a Dresden Plate pillow with a mini Dresden ruler I have. The teeny ruler was a little challenging to use, but I like the teeny 5" Dresden it made! :)

I added some hand stitching because Randi said she likes that:

And here's a picture of all the stitching. Hand stitching, straight-line stitching, FMQ loops, and FMQ stipples:

Here's the back -- all Morning Glory. 

I'm going to be sending it to Randi tomorrow, so she'll have it by the end of the week.

And here are some pictures of my little man this last week. He has been sick, and was diagnosed with RSV yesterday.

More heart-warming than heart-breaking...

This was him Sunday morning. Poor guy just wasn't acting like himself AT ALL!!

So I took him to Urgent Care. He didn't like the poking and prodding, and eventually fell asleep.

When the doc came back with a positive RSV result, they gave him a nebulizer treatment and sent me home with a nebulizer to keep up the treatmentsalong with some steroids. He slept through this one, but the one I gave him at home last night was TORTURE!!!!



He's a bit better today, but still not himself. Thankfully he's a really healthy little guy, so I'm not worried that this will get worse, but it's just so tough for him right now! Poor little Buzz!

I hope you have a great week! Maybe I'll see you at QuiltCon!

{WiP} Wednesday ~ 4/52

My first WiP Wednesday post for 2013 -- even though we've already had 3 others! Whoops! I really enjoyed trying to post every week last year, and hate that I've already missed the first three. It's just that I'm...

BUSY!

You are too, I know that. And I appreciate you reading about my life and how I spend my time! I want to blog more often, but I just can't bring myself to sit down at the computer and tap out anything that seems valuable and worth your time! So, I guess I'll do what I can, when I can, and maybe come up with a bit more.

Plus, when I have quiet time, I don't necessarily want to be typing! I want to be sleeping. Or sewing. Or folding laundry. Okay. Haha. Not really. I don't want to be folding laundry. I want it folded and put away, I just don't want to be the one to do it! :)

But anyway, this is about works in progress. All I've been working on is this:

 

And this: 

And when I can, we do some of this:

 

And this:

(In case you can't tell, Buzz loved his first time on the swings. He laughed and laughed and laughed some more.)

I'm almost done with the top of the Hope Takes Flight (take 2) quilt. I just have to put on the borders, then sew 2 pieces of the backing together, and then it's ready for quilting! And, no. I'm not doing it (all) at home. I can't. I won't!!

My plan is to quilt the swirls in the butterflies on the long arm and do some long basting stitches in the white, then bring it home and quilt the straight lines in the white on my home machine. That part didn't take long, once I got it all figured out. :) 

My other WiP is going to be on-going. I've jumped on the Project Life bandwagon. Have you heard of it? It's a simplified method of memory keeping. I don't call it scrapbooking, because it isn't what we usually think of when we say "scrapbooking". While it is a book of memories, it's not a book of carefully designed and cropped and embellished pages. If you're on Pinterest or Instagram or Flickr, search under Project Life, and you'll find a TON of images of people's pages. And the blog post that pushed me over the edge was written by my friend, Traci. You can see her ADORABLE family over here.

While I have purchased some things, I scored all of this off of CraigsList today:

The binder isn't a Project Life product, but since I don't know what I want my overall book to look like, I thought a practically free binder would be a good thing to have. :)  For $30, I got a new box of assorted page protectors, a pack of 6x12 sleeves, and the binder.

I can already tell that being a Lifer is going to be a good thing. Just going back and logging what we have done for the past 23 days of 2013 has been great! There are SO many things I would have forgotten!!

And I really hope to record the REAL elements of life. And include ME!! You know how we mamas are. All the pictures have the kids, but none of the mama. All the stories are about the kids, but not the mama. In 3 years - or 30 - I want us to be able to look at this and see that I was doing things, too. That I was having fun, or that I wore the same sweatshirt for 3 days in a row, or whatever. I want my children to know what life was REALLY like for us. I have no memories like this of, or from, my mother, and I wish I did. And I know my kids wish I did!! Mookie, my 4 year old, asks about my mom a lot (calls her my "first mom"), and I have very little to show her. And as the years go on, I won't be able to show her much about my life as a child, either.

And I want that to end. Now.

I want pictures of windy days at the park:

Love the hair, Sprout!

And silly faces:

Buzz. Loves to make noise. Guess it's a fitting name, then, eh?

And the backyard picnic in 68 degree weather, 2 feet from unmelted snow (Colorado weather is so confusing!)

 

So. My WiPs. One I'm almost finished with, and one I'm just beginning.

Hope you have a great, and crafty, week!  I'm linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for her regularly scheduled WiP Wednesday linky party.

Hope Takes Flight (and a giveaway)

(alternative title: Quilting Insanity)

This is a long post, but it's a good story, so I do hope you'll read it. It's not about me -- it's about a quilt and a young girl.

As a quilter in the {Faith} circle of very popular do.Good Stitches bee, I have the opportunity, 2-3 times a year, to ask for blocks from my bee mates, and make the quilt I have designed. So back in August, I asked the associate pastor at our church if he knew of any needs within the church. He said "No, but Restore Innocence is doing a blanket drive for Christmas. Maybe you could make one for them?"  I'd heard of Restore Innocence, but didn't know much, so I went to their website. And commenced to having my heart broken, over and over again.

I want to just paste every word from their website here so you'll really see for yourselves!! I won't do that, but I will post a few tidbits:

There's this one:

“In the United States, children are subjected to human trafficking in many different sectors. Examples include prostitution on the streets or in a private residence, club, hotel, spa, or massage parlor; online commercial sexual exploitation; exotic dancing/stripping; agricultural, factory, or meatpacking work; construction; domestic labor in a home; restaurant/bar work; illegal drug trade; door-to-door sales, street peddling, or begging; or hair, nail, and beauty salons. Family members, acquaintances, pimps, employers, smugglers, and strangers traffic children
.”  -U.S. Department of Health and Human Services  {emphasis by Melissa}

 Or this:

An estimated 2.5 million children worldwide, the majority of them girls, are sexually exploited in the multibillion dollar commercial sex industry – UNICEF

 Or this:

Investigators and researchers estimate the average predator in the U.S. can make more than $200,000 a year off one young girl. – NBC Report by Teri William

It. Is. Disgusting.

I honestly can't believe this is happening right under our noses. I mean, we think sex trafficking, and sex slavery happens in places like Thailand. Or Amsterdam. Not here in America! But, it is. And actually, I can believe it. There are some seriously sick people out there. And those are just the ones using the girls...the ones doing the abusing? I hope there's a special hot place in Hell for them.

I copied this from someone on Instagram, but the details were provided by the National Human Trafficking Resource Center 2011.

(I'm gonna let those figures sink in for a sec)

These poor, poor, innocent little girls and young women.

So back to Restore Innocence. They are based in Colorado Springs because human trafficking happens here, but they work with Police and FBI Victims Assistance teams all around the US. So when there is a sting, and a young girl is rescued from the sex trade (read: slavery), they often have very little more than the clothes on their backs. And their clothes are often confiscated as evidence against the sicko pimp. Restore Innocence send Restoration Bags to the VA teams, who are then equipped to offer something to these girls. Something of their own.

Often, the girls that are taken into human trafficking didn't have much of a home to run away from, so it's not like they've got anywhere to go back to...and I highly doubt it would be a supportive and encouraging environment committed to helping the girl heal, physically and emotionally! (Can you imagine?)

So Restore Innocence has been working towards opening The Cinderella House - a place where rescued girls can come and live for a while, and get them the counseling and the assistance they need until they are able to move into a stable environment...whatever that may be. They have the house, and are in the final stages of opening it. :)

Anywho...

Back to do.Good Stitches. :)

When it was my turn, I decided to have the bee make butterfly blocks like we did last March, using Mrs Schmenkman's tutorial.  I asked for 8 blocks, one of each "rainbow" color, with white background and a black "body". My plan was to make one quilt, with all the butterflies pieced together. Like this:

To me, the butterflies represent being made into a new creation, a second chance, a chance these girls need. The rainbow represents God's covenant with Man after The Flood that He will never leave us. The black body represents the the black ribbon that Restore Innocence uses as their logo. The binding is black satin ribbon, for that same reason. They use the black ribbon because a ribbon represents innocence and youth, something these girls have been robbed of. And the color of the ribbon, black, represents what a dark, dark world human trafficking is.  All along, my plan was to quilt with swirls, to symbolize wind currents of the butterflies taking flight.

So when the blocks started coming in, and I threw them up on my design wall, a new plan emerged. Not only did I have a new, fun, modern design, I also would have enough butterflies for 2 quilts!  Because, really, why make one when you can make 2? (Or 5?) Right? :)

Even though I've rearranged some blocks, this design stuck. All the way to the bitter, bitter end.

While I can now say that I am finished, I can not say that this has been easy. This quilt has been fraught with challenges. Oy.

For those of you who follow me on Instagram and Facebook, thank you for walking this journey with me. I am sooooooo glad I had that support when things were difficult, and the next difficult thing happened, and the next difficult thing happened, and the next difficult thing happened. Hah!

The piecing went along fine. (the craft room is still a wreck, so I moved Sewing Ops to the dining room...and the entry to the living room became my design wall...) :)

t was once I started quilting that things got ugly. I always spray baste, but I used Dritz spray baste for the first time, and I'm pretty sure it will be the last. I know some people LOVE Dritz, and that's all they use, and maybe I got a bad can, but it literally took me 2 weeks to quilt this simple quilt.

I immediately had problems with the thread shredding. I changed thread. 3 (expensive) brands. I changed needles. 3 brands. I changed the bobbin 4 times. I moved my sewing machine. I flipped the quilt around.

 

I don't know if you can see it up there, but somehow, the thread shredded and half of it came out of the eye of the needle. Only half...the other half was still threaded and still making stitches. Very weak stitches.

And then I thought I had it all sorted, but MAN was I tired (this was Day 2 of what became a never-ending saga!)

 

Then, on Day 3 (and by "day" I really mean "night), not only was the thread shredding, but it started skipping stitches, too!! Grrrr!  So I took it into the shop. They tried EVERYthing. And they couldn't get it to happen again on anything other than my quilt.  So I determined to simply sew till it shredded or skipped, stop, and start over again. There wasn't anything else I could do!

 

LOOK at that shredding! Ugh.

 

And then my needle bent and broke. I've broken needles before, but never bent it like that! It's like I was trying to sew through Teflon, or something!

But eventually I finished the free-motion quilted swirls in the middle, and it was time to quilt the white. I had originally planned to swirl the whole thing, but since it took me a full week to quilt 1/3 of the quilt, I figured I needed to put away the free motion foot, and just get it finished!!

Wow. Straight-line quilting is deceptively time-consuming! And very physically challenging!  So, that took me another 3 nights.  And when I was finally done with the quilting...

 

I had over 100 thread tails to bury. Yes, I know there are easier ways to stop and start than to pull out the threads and tie a knot, but because of the skipping and shredding, I had to be able to rip out the stitches, and you can't do that if you stitch a bunch in one place before you start quilting.

That took me another tiring evening. But the hard part was DONE!! Now to bind it with the black satin blanket binding, and call it DONE! :)

This is a close-up of the quilting.

 And here is the finished quilt!! Hallelujah!!  I named it Hope Takes Flight.

This is, of course, my sweet little Rocket Man, photobombing the picture in his slow, I'm-gonna-roll-till-I-get-there way. :)

Honestly. Two WEEKS!!! To quilt this thing!! Working on it for 3-4 hours a day/night!  Thankfully, I have very tame children and I could sew some during the day, too, but most of it was done at night.

I had more than a few people ask why I kept at it. Why I didn't just put it aside, buy some fleece and tie a quilt for Restore Innocence's blanket drive.  But I couldn't.

I couldn't give up on a quilt that we were making specifically for a young, precious, girl whose innocence has been stolen from her. I couldn't give up on a quilt that will bring her warmth. I couldn't give up on a quilt that will comfort her. I couldn't give up on a quilt that we have prayed over. I couldn't give up on a quilt that will remind her that God has not forgotten her. A quilt that will remind her that she has been rescued and has been given a second chance. A quilt that will scream to her heart that God loves her. A quilt that will whisper in her ear that God is with her. A quilt that will sing in her soul that she matters.

I couldn't give up making a quilt for someone who everyone else has given up on.

And now...for those of you who waded through all of that... :)  I'm linking up with Sew, Mama, Sew for their biannual Giveaway Day, and one lucky person will win a charm pack of Mama Said Sew from Sweetwater, a lovely Colorado family,

AND one generously donated membership to Amy Gibson's Sugar Block Club! Another Colorado beauty. 

Heck, I might even throw in some Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory scrumptiousness.

I'm sticking with the natives over here! :)

The giveaway is now closed. I will announce the winner on the blog on Sunday (or sooner) December 9th. Thanks to everyone for the comments! :)

So about the giveaway...Please leave me one comment telling me what kinds of things you like to sew. And if you don't sew, tell me what your favorite creative outlet is. I will close the contest on Friday, December 7th at 5pm PST, and will do a random drawing. Then I will email the winner and announce it on my blog on Sunday the 9th. (By the way, I'm definitely willing to send internationally!)

If you want to win, you better be sure your blogger profile is not a "no-reply blogger"!! I can't find you otherwise. :) 

Good luck...and please visit Restore Innocence's page...I think our eyes need to be opened to this. Seriously -- thank you for reading this. Seriously. :)

{WiP} Wednesday ~ 39/52

Oh, Tuesday. Why must you be so chaotic? And Wednesday? And Thursday, too? This explains why Fridays are Jammie Days around my house.

I haven't been up to much this week, just trying to finish my Fruit Stripe quilt. Last week, I told you I'd finished the top and chosen the backing, but not the quilting.

Well, I decided on the quilting. I really wanted an all-over design that wasn't straight-line or waves, so I figured out what I wanted to do. Practiced a bit on my little sample quilt sandwich and got it all right, squared up my shoulders and commenced to...not getting anywhere.

Wha?

Yup. This has been such a stressful quilting week for me. I just can't seem to get the tension right, I had multiple incidences of the thread breaking, of skipped stitches, rough language, head pounding...

I tried and tried and tried and tried. I asked my Facebook friends, and acted on their advice. I went out and bought some (overpriced) AURIfil thread (it's $4 cheaper online!). I came home, and it broke as much as my Gutermann! I put in a new needle. I bought a spool stand thingy that goes at the back of my machine. I fiddled with the tension. And fiddled some more. I've gone slow, I've gone fast. I've used my automatic speed button on my machine so I couldn't blame it on a foot twitch. I've used my foot so I couldn't blame it on a non-stopping stop button. I've unpicked and unpicked some more. In fact, here's a picture of the thread I've pulled off the back over the course of the last week:

Overall, I would say I've got between 15 and 20 starts. That's 15-20 thread knots to bury. That's 15-20 times of starting over and going slow enough to get the pattern right, but fast enough to get the stitches right.

And I just can't get the tension right.

Here's a picture of what is very random on the back, 3 stitches here, 2 stitches there...not enough to pick them out and sew over it again, but enough to worry and pray they kinda get sucked up in the crinkles and grooves of the washed quilt.

This is just so frustrating.

While I haven't taken my machine to be serviced this week (had it done less than a year ago), I hesitate to do that because my little sample quilt came out perfect. Every time. Slow around the corners? Fast around the corner? Smooth like buttah. Put in the actual quilt, though, and my machine just doesn't behave the same way.

Other than that, this week has been about getting family pictures taken (waiting on the disc), cleaning house (my FIL will be arriving momentarily for a week), not getting enough sleep (this dern quilt!), and chillin with my homies (Buzz can sit up now) (and roll over both directions, but doesn't know he can get places, yet!)

For WiP Wednesday's sake, here's my active WiP list:

• I've still got to make Natalie's wonky star block.
• I LOVE receiving butterfly blocks for my Faith Circle do.Good Stitches quilt! I've got 4 sets on the wall right now, and I am SO tempted to redesign it so that I can make 2 or 3 quilts instead of just one! :) You know me and do.Good Stitches...why make one when I can make five, right? :)
• I need to start the Grayson quilt. And I'm pretty sure I'll be taking it to the long arm and doing it there. This...whatever I've been doing this week...I can't take much more of it!

I hope y'all have a great week, and get some of your WiPs done! :) Hopefully next week I can show you pictures of this thing I've been working on! :)

I'm linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for her regular {WiP} Wednesday post -- with Guest Host Debbie from A Quilter's Table.