mellicious | Entries tagged with friday five

Quilt five (on Saturday)

Dec 16, 2006

1. Did you buy any fabric this week? I bought some stuff from Hancock's of Paducah to give to my mother for Christmas.

2. Did you finish a project this week? Heck no. I haven't had a chance to sew in weeks.

3. How many pairs of scissors do you own - for sewing purposes? No idea. At least four - I've got a couple of good pairs that I only cut fabric with, and a couple of good small pairs that I use for handwork.

4. What's your favorite color? It depends on when you ask me. Today I'll go with purple.

5. What is your local quilting store's name? Quilts by the Bay

Friday five

Jan 12, 2007

1. Do you belong to a quilting guild?
Yes, although I haven't been going since my mother's been sick. I have always belonged to the guild near my mother's house (about 30 miles away) rather than the guild in my town. I don't want to give up my membership in that guild because I like it, but I need to join the guild here, too.

2. What is something you have sewn that is non-quilty?
In recent years I have not really sewn anything non-quilty. I used to make some of my own clothes when I was in high school (in the 70s, this was!) but I didn't always like the way they came out so I decided it was a waste of effort. I did make my own wedding dress, though. I really need to scan a picture.

3. Share a quilty link.
Cia's Palette - really lovely fabric

4. Civil war prints or 30's Repro prints?
Civil war (or 19th century repros in general, really). I made this quilt from a swap of repro blocks (although we weren't really obsessive about it so some of them may just be vaguely-repro-looking things!) I will use individual 30s fabrics mixed in with other things but I have never made anything exclusively out of 30s fabric. (On ther other hand, I am big on the scrappy look in general, so usually very few things I make use just one kind of fabric.)

5. Any weekend quilt plans?
Probably not - my husband is running the marathon in Houston so that will take up most of the weekend. Maybe quilt guild on Monday, if I get in the mood. (I was just looking at the speaker's website and I almost wish I had signed up for the workshop. She does some nice stuff!)

Friday five

Jan 19, 2007

1. How many sewing machines do you own - what is your favorite?
I own two - an old Kenmore and a Janome Jem, but I have mostly been quilting on my mother's electronic Janome in recent years.

2. Did your mom/sister/family member teach you how to sew/quilt? My mother mostly did. I did take some sewing lessons in junior high.

3. How many finished quilts have you made?
Gosh, I have a spreadsheet someplace with the list on it. I think somewhere between 30 and 40, but that counts little bitty wallhangings and whole-cloth baby quilts and everything. I've only made two bed-size quilts (because I live in the south, and how many do you really need?) but I've made a lot of lap-size ones.

4. What is your favorite block?
Log cabin, I guess. Because it's so easy and versatile.

5. What inspires you to quilt?
Color. It's color-schemes that I usually start with, rather than patterns.

Friday five, garden edition

Jan 26, 2007

1. What quilting book would you recommend? I usually say "Quilts! Quilts! Quilts!" because it's a good basic book. I am really partial to Kaffe Fassett's books, too, just for eye candy.

2. What does your quilting calendar say for today? Do you own one? I only have a monthly one. (And I haven't hung that one up yet. Next year I'm just not buying a calendar at all!)

3. Do you have a specific lj/blog/wordpress journal just for your quilting adventures? If so, please share. Yes - Quilts Galore. (Not that I'm actually having any quilting adventures at the moment. My quilting is sort of on hiatus for now. But there are pictures!!)

4. What is your favorite flower? I don't know that I have a favorite. I love them all. (If pressed, however, I might say peonies.)

5. Do you have a garden? Yes (sort of), although it's very sad this time of year. I say "sort of" because I live in an apartment and so it's necessarily a container garden.

Gratuitous garden picture:

I said when I started copying these over here that I had done a lot of them, but there were more than I realized!

Friday quilt five

Feb 2, 2007

1. What's your favorite music to quilt by? A baseball game on the radio :)

2. Do you have a favorite type/style/line of fabric? If so, what? I guess I'd go with batiks

3. Have you ever purchased a kit (with pre-cut fabric & pattern)? I don't think I have. I own one that my mother gave me; I'll get around to doing it one of these days. It would make a good baby quilt.

4. What is your least favorite color to work with? Plain muslin beige.

5. What is the weather like today where you are at? Good enough for quilting? Well, it is cold and rainy, so it would be a really good day to stay home and quilt, if I wasn't at work!

Late Friday Five

Feb 10, 2007

1. What is your favorite night to watch tv? I don't know if I have one - there isn't anything I am all that crazy about these days.
2. Show off your favorite quilt picture. Well, since we're talking about crazy quilts, here's a block:

3. Do you own any wearable quilts? Nope. I'm chunky enough without any help.
4. Do/have you crazy quilted? I've done a few blocks. It's fun but I don't know if I'll ever finish anything. (also it gets very expensive if you get into silks and vintage buttons and so forth)
5. In December's Edition of the Quilter's Home it mentions quilting tattoos. Do you tattoo? No. Fear of needles.

Saturday five (again)

Feb 17, 2007

1. What color is your mood today? Let's go with blue. Possibly a more cheerful blue than it would've been yesterday.

2. List your quilting/sewing purchases for this week. Purchases? I don't need purchases, I have aninheritance. (A freaking huge one, where quilting is concerned, too.)

3. What new project (UFO) did you start? None. But I did work on the organizing some more.

4. Did you accomplish extra quilting time this week due to the weather where you are? No, didn't even (quite) freeze here.

5. Are you a member of calicocats or did you get this Friday Five from a friend? If you got it from a friend head over to calicocats and post your answers there as well! :D</lj></lj> Oh, I'm a member. I think I've been one since day one. :)

Friday five, back to the grind edition

Feb 23, 2007

(The title is because I'm back at work this week - sigh.)

1. Do you stay up late to finish quilting --- late, like 1-2am? Not often - if I try to quilt when I'm tired I make mistakes. Like, really bad and/or stupid ones. It's not worth it.

2. What was/is your favorite quilting class? Hmm, I've enjoyed most of them. I seem to especially enjoy ones that aren't just about piecing - like Libbie Lehman's, and Melody Crust's, which is about coming up with your own quilting designs.

3. How many rotary cutting rules do you own? I can't possibly count because they're scattered all over the place, but at a guess I would say half a dozen. Possibly more.

4. Will you be watching the grammies Oscars this weekend? Always. Like somebody else said, my husband usually has control of the remote, but he loves movies and wouldn't dream of missing it.

5. What are your weekend plans? Buying a new (used) car! 'Cause my old one has gone to the great highway in the sky, or something like that. We have a loan pre-approved at the credit union and we are going shopping tomorrow. And Sunday I am taking a two-hour beading class. (And I also will have to make a trip over to my mother's house to oversee the extended family members who are going to be "cleaning up" over there. I don't trust them not to get carried away and throw away something that I want to keep!) I'm gonna be busy.

Friday again

Mar 2, 2007

1. What is your favorite day of the week? Friday, I guess - for the usual reasons. Weekend coming up and all that.

2. What's your favorite kind of fabric? Batiks. We'll go with batiks. I like a lot of kinds of fabric, actually.

3. Can you believe it's March already? Definitely not. I suspect that February 2007 is going to be the Lost Month in my memory.

4. What do you collect (besides fabric)? Junk.

5. Quickest project time (and picture please)? I tend not to do very fast projects. However, I guess this one qualifies: I decided to make crazy-quilted stockings for my co-workers a few years ago, and the seams are machine-embroidered. They were fast and they came out really cute.

Friday five

Mar 9, 2007

1. What is the longest you have gone without checking your email/lj? I get behind sometimes, when RL interferes... possibly as much as a couple of weeks - but not often for that long.
2. Have you made a quilt out of clothing? No, I've always sort of meant to, but I haven't gotten around to it so far.
3. What quilty things did you do this week? Bought a little fabric and a couple of notions, worked on sorting through my mother's quilting stuff and brought home two big underbed boxes of fabric. And a couple of books! But still no actual quilting.
4. If you were on vacation, what would you bring back for your quilty friends? Fabric, of course.
5. Lemon or Lime? Um, I like them both, for their respective purposes. :) (Lemonade and margaritas, say.)

Friday five, again

Mar 16, 2007

1. What quilt/sewing project are you working on this week? I'm still in organizing mode. Also, I have a while to work on this, but I'm going to a retreat in late April and I need to start thinking about what I'm going to work on while there.

2. Show us a non-quilty picture (family, pet, house, garden)? Hmm, well, I think I used a garden picture a few weeks ago, so here's my husband instead. (I know a few of you have already seen this picture, but presumably a lot of people haven't!)

3. Do you believe in leprechauns? Um, no. I am generally something of a grinch about St. Patrick's Day, anyway. Particularly when people try to pinch me.

4. Have you been sick this winter? Yes. An awful lot. I had had a flu shot so instead I just had colds, one after the other.

5. Favorite quilting quote/saying. There's a quote about quilters being crazy because they cut fabric apart and then just sew it back together, which I like, but I can't remember how it goes exactly. (While attempting to google that, I came up with this page of general needlework & sewing quotes, which has some good ones.)

The Friday (Feet) Five

Mar 23, 2007

1. How many feet do you have for your "main" sewing machine? You know what? I have no idea. I don't switch around very much.

2. Have you used them all? No. I use the darning foot for quilting, and usually the quarter-inch foot for normal sewing. I have never learned to like the walking foot.

3. Are there any feet you wish to still get? Not really.

4. Socks or Barefoot? I only wear socks in cold weather, and where I live there's not that much of it

5. Do you enjoy pedicures? Never had one. I'm not sure how I feel about somebody else handling my feet. Plus I saw that thing on 60 Minutes about pedicures gone wrong. (Shudder.)

Patterny friday five

Mar 30, 2007

1. How many pattern books do you own? I had a good many to begin with, and I just inherited more. The funny thing is that I rarely make anything out of them, I just use them for inspiration.

2. Do you make up your own patterns? To some extent, yeah. Nothing fancy, though.

3. Did you know most fabric companies offer free patterns? Yes. I've never done one of them myself, but the patterns for this quilt of my mother's came with the fabric, I believe. (Robyn Pandolph's "Moondance" line, from a few years ago.)

4. Do you use the internet to get patterns? Yes. Paper-piecing patterns, especially.

5. Do you prefer traditional (think churn dash, nine patch, 30's) patterns verses modern, more contemporary patterns? I think just about any pattern can look modern and it's more a matter of fabric choices than which pattern you use. The quilt in my icon is a "modern" one but I like tradtional patterns a lot, too.

(Since you may not see that icon, here's the modern quilt in question)
zipper-wbinding

Notional Friday Five

Apr 6, 2007

1. What is your favorite quilting notion? Are rotary cutters a notion? If so, I would say my pink rotary cutters, I am inordinately fond of them.

2. What was the last notion you purchased? a pincushion, of all things - also one of those round things that bobbins go in

3. What notion have you purchased and don't or rarely use? I think there's a lot of these - a chalk marker comes to mind right off the bat. I like to buy notions, but I don't always use them as much as I think.

4. Do you have a wearable notion? I have a couple of those things that attach your scissors to your clothing, does that count? Oh, and my aunt made me a chatelaine for Christmas.

5. What do you consider a notion? hmm... just about anything for sewing that's not the fabric or the sewing machine, I guess!

Friday five, mechanical edition

April 13, 2007

1. What is your sewing machine? (please go online and find a picture to show) A Janome Jem Gold (probably a little older than the model in the picture!)

2. How long have you had your machine? a couple of years, I guess

3. Are you planning to purchase a new machine soon? no, because I just inherited my mother's bigger Janome - I don't know what model it is but it sews really well

4. What is your dream machine? one with a stitch regulator

5. Have you taken classes for your sewing machine? no

Classy Friday five

Apr 20, 2007

1. Have you ever taken a quilt/sewing class? I took a bunch of them a few years back, but I stopped when I realized that I came out of every one with a project I wasn't finishing. :)

2. What do you enjoy the most out of classes? (oops, I missed one) I always come out of them withsomething I didn't know before. Plus, the company is always fun.

3. What is one technique you would like to learn in a class? I said a couple of weeks ago that I would like to take a class from the woman who did this quilt, but as far as I have been able to tell, she doesn't teach. (Anyway, I thought at the time I said that that those were pieced blocks, but it turns out they're not. They're raw-edge machine appliqued.) There are a lot of things I am interested in, when it comes right down to it. Way more things than I will ever have time to actually do!

4. Do you teach classes? No. I've thought about it, but once again, I don't have time.

5. Do you know where you can find classes? Around here, they're alll over. My guild has classes more-or-less monthly, usually at a reduced rate from what you would find at the many local quilt shops that offer them. And since I live in the Houston area, there is always quilt festival (which tends to be very expensive, which is the main reason I have never taken classes there).

Retreat!

May 4, 2007

1. Have you ever done a quilting retreat? yup, just went to one last weekend

2. Would you ever go on one? so, um, yes

3. What would you like to do on a retreat (besides not worry about laundry and kid's homework)? get a lot done. And a little shopping is always good.

4. Where would you like to go on a quilting retreat? somewhere scenic - but on the other hand places where there's TOO much to see are not good. Too many temptations to do other things than quilt.

5. How many people do you think would make a nice size group for a retreat? One of the ones I go to is about 50 people, and the other one has been a good bit larger than that in the past. Between those two options, I think the smaller size is better. At the larger one, everybody can't be in the same room and so you don't really talk to everybody anyway.

High-calorie Friday five

May 18, 2007

1. What do you tend to munch on while quilting? I'm a bit of a messy eater, so I don't generally eat while quilting. I don't want grease on my fabric, thanks.

2. What do you enjoy drinking while quilting? Iced tea. (I can usually manage not to spill this.)

3. Do you notice that if you are quilting, you tend to skip meals - including dinner? I am bad about skipping meals anyway. I don't know that I do it while quilting any more than any other activity I tend to get highly involved in!

4. White, Milk, Dark Chocolate? Milk.

5. What is your favorite comfort food? Depends on my mood. M&Ms, maybe. And if I really want comfort I have been known to hit the cookie dough. :)

Memorial Friday Five

May 25, 2007

1. Have you seen a memorial quilt? Sure - since I am lucky enough to live close by, I go to IQF every year, and they usually have several, at the very least. (Often dozens, if they have a special exhibit.) Here's an example - this one is a memorial to murder victims in Juarez, by Sabrina Zarco.
Women of Juarez

2. Have you ever made a memorial quilt? No.

3. Do you think memorial quilts are important? Absolutely.

4. If you made/make one what would it be for? I have (somewhat vague) plans to make one for my grandparents.

5. What are your quilting related plans/goals for this 3-day Memorial Day weekend? Not to order too much fabric, because I've been bad that way lately. To organize some of my quilting stuff. Actual quilting will probably be impossible, I'm afraid.

Semi-organized Friday five

June 1, 2007

1. How do you organize your fabric stash? In plastic boxes, sorted by color. If I have a specific project I'm planning and I'm collecting up fabrics for that, those usually get their own box.

2. How do you organize your UFO's/projects? Well, first of all, I seem to define UFOs differently than some people around here - I assume if you haven't started something you can't really call it unfinished. So I don't count things that I haven't started yet as UFOs. Anyway, as I said above, I have usually have boxes for future projects. And since I have always done the majority of my quilting at my mother's house, I usually keep my in-progress projects in some portable form - this may just be a shopping bag. (They're lighter than the plastic boxes.)

3. What is your most creative organizing feat? Um... being organized at all is a feat for me, I am not a naturally organized person!

4. Do you regularly go through your items to reorganize? From time to time, yes. Lately I went through and pulled out all the fabric I really hated and didn't want to have to look at any more - I figured if I feel that strongly about it, why keep it?

5. Do you spring clean your items in aiding you to organize? Spring cleaning is not something I've ever gotten into. :)

Phat Friday five

June 8, 2007

1. Do you collect Fat Quarters? Not really "collect" per se - I buy them a good bit, though. What I mean is, I don't buy FQs just for the sake of buying FQs. I just buy them if I see something I like. I don't keep them segregated from the rest of my fabric or anything.

2. How many Fat Quarters do you have? Oh, lots, I'm sure. I bought a big set of indigo batik FQs and I won an eBay auction for 50 taupe FQs, so I am awash in them right now. I'm sure I've bought many hundreds over the years, but I have no real count to give.

3. Have you ever made a quilt just out of fat quarters? No.

4. What color do you have the most fat quarters in? Well, at the moment it'd have to be those taupes!

5. How often do you purchase fat quarters? I think they have gotten awfully expensive, at $2.50 at most stores around here, so I don't buy as many as I used to unless I see a deal.

Friday five, paper-pieced edition

June 15, 2007

1. Have you ever tried to paper piece a quilt block before? Many times.

2. If not, why? If yes, what did you make? I think the first one I ever made was a bird for a block exchange. (I think I have a picture somewhere but I can't find it!) And in an extended fit of insanity, I paper-pieced 200 autumn leaf blocks. (see below) But I also paper-piece "normal" things like log cabins and flying geese sometimes. It's a little more time-consuming but it's really good if you're having trouble getting something to come out perfectly accurate.

3. Is there a paper piecing pattern you are dying to test out (post a picture or a link)? Not that I can think of.

4. Have you ever designed your own paper piecing patterns? I've drafted my own a few times - I wouldn't really say designed. I only would do it for very simple things like maybe flying geese or something like that.

5. Would you be willing to learn or teach someone about paper piecing? I could show somebody, sure.

Bound Friday five

June 22, 2007

1. Do you make your own binding or purchase it? You can purchase binding? -- No, I guess I knew that but I've never done it. I like to pick my own fabric.

2. Do you sew on your own binding or let the longarm machiner do it? Nobody else touches my quilts. :) (Not til they're finished, anyway!)

3. What method do you use to put binding on? I just cut straight strips, and I haven't done one lately so I can't remember how wide I cut them - 2-1/4"?? I cut the ends at a 45-degree angle, and usually it takes a couple of tries to get them all together correctly - I'm very bad at that for some reason. Then fold in half, iron and sew onto the front of the quilt. I like to sew the back side down by hand, I've seen some machine-sewn ones that look good but I don't do it that way myself.

4. Have you ever done strips/plaids on a bias binding? I don't do bias. Stripes running across on a straight binding look great, I've done that a number of times. Plaids would probably look better cut on the bias, although I've used them from time to time.

5. Have you ever made binding on a scallop edge? I've never made a quilt with a scallop edge. It's not really my style, although that's not to say I'd never do it. I might, someday!

Friday five - quilt shop edition

June 29, 2007

1. How many quilt shops are within 2 hours of your home? A lot. Well over a dozen, since the entire Houston metropolitan area is within that distance.

2. Have you been to them all? No. I've been to all the ones that were on the old Houston-area shop hop, but I know there are some more that never got included. Now they have another shop hop, and I've only been to one on that list.

3. Have you visited other shops while on traveling in different states? Some, but not as much as I would like to.

4. What is your favorite quilt shop? Gosh, I don't know. They're all different. Plus it also varies by how well their buyer's taste is lining up with mine in any particular season. But the Quilt Store in Austin has always been a favorite. And Painted Pony and Sew Contempo, both on the south side of Houston.

5. Do you plan your trips around visiting quilt shops? No, but I should. I worry about dragging my husband too far out of the way and him being bored and so forth, but he drags me 1000 miles away once a year to see his parents, so it's really not too much to ask! It's my fault, I need to be more assertive about it.

Friday five, blocked out

July 6, 2007

1. Have you ever participated in a quilt block swap - online or with a guild? Yes, several.

2. Would you be interested in doing one? Not right now, no - maybe sometime in the future!

3. What reservations would you have to not participating in a swap? My problem with swaps is that I still have the blocks from the last couple of ones I did sitting around unfinished. I have sworn not to do any more until I put those together!

4. Ever hosted a swap before? Nope.

5. Where do you find online swaps? I've never actually done a block swap online - all mine have been through the quilt guild.

Brightly-colored Friday five

July 13, 2007

1. Do you notice yourself choosing light, medium, or darker tones the most? Medium to dark, I guess. I love jewel tones.

2. Which specific color group do you tend to gravitate towards? Blues and greens.

3. What colors/themes/genres fabrics do you consider "outside your comfort zone"? Nothing, really. I don't normally buy solids but that's because I don't like the feel of them - and they ravel too much - not because I don't like the colors.

4. Do you notice, over time, your color choices change? Oh heck yeah. I used to be much more conservative and - somebody wrote about this lately, was that here? - only buy the colors that I usually buy for clothes - which means no earth tones to speak of. Gradually I've expanded my taste, though.

5. Do you ever purchase fabric out side your comfort zone? See above. I learned to, yeah.

Completely batty friday five

Aug 3, 2007

1. What batting do you prefer to use? The original Warm & Natural, or other brands with a similar texture.

2. Do you purchase batting by the yard (off a bolt) or in a bag? I prefer bags.

3. Do you purchase batting for more than one project at a time? If I find a really good sale, yeah.

4. When do you purchase your backing (after a project is completed or while you are picking out all the fabric in the beginning of a project)? I am not a methodical person. I don't buy the whole project at one time. I do it whenever I think about it.

5. What do you do with all the leftover strips of batting? I hate to throw away anything useable, so if it's a big enough piece that I think it might be good for something, I keep it.

(I was really faithful about doing these for a pretty long time, by my standards!) (Some good pictures in this installment, though - one of

karen_d 's quilts, and an IQF Best in Show.)

Friday five, appliqued

Aug 10, 2007

1. Do you appliqué? Not often.

2. What method do you prefer - machine or hand? Definitely machine - although I have to admit that there's a certain... something... to doing it by hand.

3. Are you self-taught or have you been to a class? I did a machine-applique class once, several years ago. Whatever hand-applique I have learned is from watching my mother, or guesswork.

4. What kind of thread do you prefer using while appliquéing? Haven't done it enough to have a preference.

5. If you do hand work, what needles sizes/brand do you prefer? Ditto.

random Friday five

Aug 17, 2007

1. Have you ever done any redwork (machine or by hand)? A little bit. I used to embroider a good bit, back in the day, though.
2. Do you measure your finished rows to be sure they are the proper length? Not usually. It depends on the project. Usually I make sure the blocks are the same size, and if they are I just assume that the rows are going to fit.
3. What did you sew/quilt this week? Not a damn thing, darnit. Some day I look forward to being able to quilt again! (I did buy some fabric, though!)
4. Share a random quilting picture.

5. Why did you share that random picture? I was trying to really be random - I actually closed my eyes and pointed - but this is a quilt I like a lot, just the same. It was made by my friend

karen_d, who also has a journal called Hat on Top. She makes some really great quilts.

Theoretical Friday five

Aug 31, 2007

1. What is your less favorite color to work with? White. It's blinding, you can't see what you're doing, and it gets dirty way too easy.

2. Are you starting to feel the "quilting bug" now that summer is about to come to an end? Yes, and I really can't do anything about it right now, either. We are getting ready to move in a month or two (depending on when a 1st-floor apartment comes open) and meanwhile we are crammed into a one-bedroom apartment with all of our own stuff and a good bit of my mother's stuff too. It's complete chaos and I have finally had to accept that there is just no place to quilt unless I sneak over to my mother's to do it. (And there I feel guilty because I ought to be packing up the rest of her stuff.) (And sorry, I know y'all have probably heard this song-and-dance before from me, but I have to vent about it occasionally!)

3. What technique would you like to take a class to learn or improve on? I don't really need classes, I just need to be able to quilt. That will help me improve as much as anything else will.

4. Hand quilting - yes or no? For me personally? No.

5. Do you have a quilty holiday wish list started? I have bought so much stuff lately, and as I said, there is no actual quilting going on at my house at the moment, so it seems silly right now to ask for more. After the move, I may decide I NEED a new sewing machine or EQ6 or something, but not now.

Discounted Friday five

Sept 7, 2007

1. How often do you use coupons for quilting related items? Not very. The JoAnn's nearest me closed, and the local quilt shops usually have sales rather than doing anything with coupons.

2. Do you find coupons for local quilt shops? I don't, particularly. See above.

3. Do you shop online with coupons? Sometimes, if I have a good one.

4. What was the best coupon/sale you took advantage of? On quilting things? 50% off, I guess. On non-quilting things... there's an online bead shop that used to do a $5 off coupon with no minimum purchase, but I think they finally went to requiring a $10 minimum (which is still a pretty good deal!)

5. What would you like to see your local quilt shop often in a coupon or sale? Realistically... either something like 40-50% off one item, or 20% off your entire purchase, or so forth. 10% is not enough to drag me into the store, usually. 15% is borderline. For a 20 or 25% off one, I will often make a special trip.

Moody Friday five

Sept 21, 2007

1. Do you find times where you just don't feel "into quilting"? Oh yes. Unfortunately now (when I haven't been able to work on quilts) is not one of those times.
2. Is there a season that you tend to be more quilty? Winter, maybe. Usually I quilt all year round though.
3. How do you pull yourself out of a funk? Just keep going - but on the other hand, if I'm working on something that I really hate working on, maybe it's time to put it down and work on something else.
4. Do you find that quilting is good therapy when you are down? It can be, yeah. I've quilted my way through some of the worst years of my life.
5. Are there times when quilting is a wee bit consuming in your life? Oh, sure. Especially when I'm trying to get something finished. I want to just not stop til it's done.

Bonus photo: this was made during the years when I was very depressed. Doesn't really show, does it?

Friday five, quilt show edition

Sept 28, 2007

1. Who's going to IQS? Me, me, me!

(Editing to add that I rearranged my move date so that I could go. I just could not miss it!)

2. What is the one thing you would like to see there? Lots of great quilts. And, I dunno, some must-have notion that we've never even thought of! And fabric to die for! (It's hard to cut it down to just one thing...)

3. Have you been to IQS before? I am lucky, I live close by, so yes, many times.

4. What other shows have you been to this year? None, sadly.

5. Are you considering a future trip to IQS? I (almost) always do - what I am considering for next year is a trip somewhere else!

Bonus picture, last year's Best of Show:

(this is only a detail, this thing was huge)
"Mother Earth and Her Children" - Made by Sieglinde Schoen Smith of Carlisle, Pennsylvania; winner of Best of Show (and a $10,000 prize) at the 2006 Houston International Quilt Festival. (Entered in the category Art-Whimsical.)

Oct 5, 2007

Background, for those of you who haven't heard about this ad nauseum already: we are about to move, and I will finally have a sewing room. The contents of my late mother's sewing room are mostly coming with me.

1. What do you use do your cutting on (do you have a table specifically for cutting)? I'm about to have one, but I'm not sure how much I will use it. My mother had one of those big waist-high folding tables, and I used to use it sometimes. Sometimes I think I would prefer to cut sitting down. This is one of those things I will have to see about as I go.

2. Does your sewing machine has its own table/cabinet? Yes, although at the moment it's sitting right beside me in a Tutto bag.

3. Do you use wall space for hanging things? Um, what kind of things are we talking about? I will probably do some sort of design wall - probably a flannel-backed tablecloth hung flannel-out, that's the simplest way I know of. After that, we'll see.

4. How do you come up with ideas for better use of your storage/space? I just go by what I see at other people's houses, mostly, and in pictures. Or what feels comfortable to me.

5. Can you please show us a picture of some of your storage techniques? I will do more pictures when I have my space, never fear! But here's the way things look now:

All stacked up and ready to go (mostly)! The pile is now even higher than this, though.

1. When picking fabrics/colors for a project do you rely on the shop's employees or bring a friend along to help in decision making? Neither, really. Well, my mom used to put her two cents in, god knows, and sometimes I even listened to her! - but mostly I pick what *I* want and don't let anybody influence me too much. I have very definite opinions about color.

2. What excites you when walking the first time into a new quilt store? Colors

3. Do you make seasonal quilts? Yup. I'll put a picture of the last one I did below. I have also made Christmas ones once or twice.

4. How many projects do you have going on right now? I'm in the middle of packing up to move, so real quilting projects are on the back burner til that's done.

5. What is this weekend's project? Packing, mostly. I might sort out fabric, some. Also I have an awful lot of fabric that needs to be washed, I could start on that!

Long-term project list (updated)
1. unfinished community service quilt (just needs the quilting finished, and it's ready to go)
2. green triangle quilt - needs pinning and quilting
3. Ohio star sampler - 8 of 12 blocks done
4. t-shirt quilt - start cutting the t-shirts apart and putting stabilizer on them, and then see where it stands
5. Tutti Frutti quilt (from a kit that was given to me - good baby quilt)
6. Two, count 'em, two sets of swap blocks - need to be assembled and quilted (here's one of them - the other is fall colors)
7. Poetry wallhanging (the setting in that picture is probably not what I'm going to do in the end, I was just sticking them up on the wall as I went!) - I think the blocks are finished
8. Indigo log cabin
9. The fabled pink quilt, which is only a pile of fabric right now - enough fabric for several quilts, actually. I think I may start out with triangles again on this one, and go from there. This pile of fabric probably has some Quilt Pink blocks in its future, too, although that's not what started it!

Also, decide what to do with...
- Mom's few UFOs - she only had a couple (she was big on finishing things)
- quilt top from my grandmother's house (I bet my grandmother didn't make it, but I have no idea who did!)
- Cuppaz blocks - I think I still have 20 or so, and I need to make something with the remaining ones
- crazy quilt blocks - I have 3, maybe make a 4th and then finish? or make a table runner with the 3?
- leftover green squares from triangle quilt - I have lots of these! And also some HSTs.

Note that this is not intended in any way to be an October to-do list! It'll be a miracle if I even get the sewing room decently unpacked in October. Maybe in November I might possibly get a reasonable amount of quilting done!

Pictorial Friday five

Oct 26, 2007

1. Favorite color.
Hmm, I think I have to go with the green:
Ireland

(This is somebody else's quilt, not mine!)
(NOTE: the picture wasn't showing up and I don't know what quilt picture I posted. But I picked out an example from my stash of Flickr pictures to substitute for whichever one was originally there!) (You can tell the pictures that I've added later because they're GIGANTIC and I don't think I would have used them back when!)

2. Current working project. I started to post the quilt I am going to work on when I get around to actual quilting, but instead I'll show you the current state of the sewing-room-to-be, which is my real project right now:

(The sewing machine is actually there and installed in its table, but I somehow managed not to take a picture of it.)

3. Your sewing machine. Well, here's one that it's visible in:

(That quilt is my mom's.)

4. A very old UFO (unfinished object). I don't think I have a picture of my fragment that's done, but here's what it's supposed to look like:

I have the chevron piece done, which is the hard part, but I bogged down after that. (Mine is green.)

5. Show a project you would love to do. Hmm... well, I've always wanted to do something really massively embellished, like this one:

Celebrity-edition Friday five

Nov 2, 2007

1. Who is your favorite Quilt Celebrity? Well, I started to say either Alex Anderson or Ricky Tims, but I think I will go with Paula Nadelstern instead.

2. Have you ever met a Quilt Celebrity? Yes. I belong to a big guild that has had many of these people - Quilt Celebrities, that is - as speakers at one time or another, and when I was an officer a few years back we would go out to dinner with the speaker before the meetings. So I have had dinner with both Alex and Ricky (not at the same time), and with Becky Goldsmith of Piece O'Cake Designs, and a few other people like that. (They were all extremely nice, by the way.) And I have taken a class from Ricky, also, as well as from Roberta Horton and Libbie Lehman and a couple of other people who I guess would qualify as celebrities!

3. Why are they your favorite Quilt Celebrity? I like her quilts a lot and she has interesting hair! (See below.)

4. Would you consider yourself a groupie? No, I'm not really the groupie type.

5. Share a picture of your favorite celebrity. Well, this is not a great picture but you can kind of get the idea.
P.Nadelstern

(Her hair was sort of a weird variation on a Princess Leia thing - piled up on both sides.)

"Saturday five" just doesn't have the same ring

Nov 10, 2007

But oh well.

1. What are you doing this weekend (quilty related)? Working on getting the sewing room in order, I hope.

2. What was the last notion you used? Probably a ruler.

3. What was the last quilt block you made? A log cabin, I think, and that was months ago.
That would be this one:

Gawd, I hope that one fabric doesn't really read as brown as it looks here!

4. Coffee or tea? I like both. I like my tea iced, though - I do live in Texas, after all! I mostly drink coffee earlier in the day and tea later.

5. What is your dream sewing machine (please share a picture)? I'm not putting a picture, because it's not the machine I care about, but the stitch regulator. I really want a stitch regulator someday. That said, I don't really have the sewing machine jones as bad as a lot of people. I inherited my mother's Janome, which is maybe 7 years old, and unless it starts breaking down I'm fine with using it for a good while.

Cluttered Friday five

Nov 16, 2007

1. If you could pack all your sewing stuff (stash, notions, machines, etc) into boxes - how much space do you think it would take? I just moved, so I know almost exactly. It was a lot. I would say that if you put it into one of those small storage units (what are those, 9x12 feet or something?) it would pretty much be packed solid from floor to ceiling. But I think it would fit, barely.

2. Do you know where all your sewing stuff will go, if (heaven forbid) something happened to you?Knowing my husband, he would pack it all up and send it to Goodwill if nobody stopped him. I don't have a problem with that, really, then some quilter would get a really good bargain! I think he'd know better than to just throw it away, at least.

3. How often do you clear out your stuff? Not often enough, I'm sure. I cleared out a lot before the move, though, and I'm still working on it.

4. Have you used your stuff for gifts? (meaning you shared fabric, gave an extra notion, etc.) Straight out of stuff I already had? Not that I can remember offhand. I have swapped stuff out of my stash but I don't think that's quite the same thing.

5. Could you today, clear out one box of your stuff? I'm sure I could, given the time to sort through it. Fabric, especially - plus I merged my sewing stuff with my mom's and I haven't cleared out all the duplicate notions and things yet. (Boy, do I have a lot of rulers!)

As you go back in time with these, I talk more and more about my mom, and "my mom's stuff" comes up a lot. If you don't know the history, she had died early in 2007, and I spent most of that year, off and on, cleaning out her townhouse. So that's why that looms so large here - "mom's stuff" has its own tag, isn't that sad?

Literary Friday five

Feb 1, 2008

1. Do you subscribe to quilt magazines (get them in your mail box monthly)? Definitely - they're much cheaper that way!

2. What is your favorite and why? It used to be QNM but they went downhill for a while. (And I haven't read one lately so I don't know if they've recovered.) I like Quilting Arts a lot for the artsy end of things. I'm not sure which one on the traditional side is my favorite these days - I like several of them.

3. Do you save all your magazines? No, I used to but they took up too much space. Nowadays I scan the stuff I'm interested in keeping.

4. Would you be interested in a magazine swap? I never thought about it, but maybe! How much does it cost to mail a magazine?

5. How many magazines to you purchase during a month (not including subscriptions)? Lately I've been buying a couple a month.

Oh, I haven't thought to pass this along: if you have a Sam's Club in your area, they have had quilting magazines mixed in with the rest of their magazines lately, and they're discounted quite a bit. So if you're too cheap to buy many at full price, like me, that's a way to get more of them without subscribing. And also, Amazon's 4-for-3 deal (basically, buy 3, get one free) is on single issues of magazines as well as paperbacks, and they also have quilt and craft magazines in their selection.

Embellished Friday five

(this one was already here on my LJ, which was what got me looking for the rest of them in the first place, so I won't copy-and-paste. The link should work.)

Chilly Friday five

Jan 18, 2008

1. What colors do you think of when I say "winter"? blue and white and silver, and combinations thereof (the icon notwithstanding)

2. What is your favorite winter bird? Um, I would say cardinals but we don't actually get them around here that I've seen. I live in a weird place. Sometimes in the winter I see white pelicans!

3. Have you ever done a "winter" specific quilt/project? No, but one of these days I want to. Something with a snowflake theme - although I really have no idea what!

4. Do you get snow where you live? Not usually. There was a legendary snowfall here on Christmas Eve 2004, but I was in Austin at the time and it didn't snow there!

5. Do you sew/quilt more during this time of year? Well, I've been sewing the last few days and I hadn't been before that, so I guess this year the answer is yes. Typically, I don't think so, though.

Friday five, miscellaneous edition

Jan 11, 2008

1. What quilty web site will you hit today? I'm trying not to buy stuff unless I really need it, so I guess the one I'm most likely to hit is my own: Quilts Galore

2. Have you done the FabShop Hop recently? I start it but I never seem to finish - however, as it happens, I was just griping about it yesterday - that's over here too (at the bottom of that entry). (I should, however, add that the not-finishing is a recent development and I have finished several times before and won things a couple of times!)

3. Do you have current project on your design wall (can you show us a picture)? This picture was taken maybe a year ago, at my mom's house - however, those same 9 blocks are up on the new design wall, with some space between them because my intention is to start cutting sashing. (The sashing is going to be cranberry-colored.)

4. Have you signed up for any swaps for 2008? No, I have sworn not to do any more swaps until I do something with the swap blocks I already have! (Like the ones above.)

5. Are your December decorations still up? Part of them, yes, but I'm working on that. I had two (small) trees up - one is down and one is still up but I've started taking the decorations off. By my standards that's doing pretty well!

Slightly-belated Friday five

Dec 8, 2007

1. Do you decorate you home with quilts? Theoretically, yes. Actually, so far, no. We haven't put anything on the walls since we moved. We intend to eventually, though. I had one quilt on the wall in the old apartment, and I also brought several home that my mother had on her walls, especially this one:

I'm thinking it goes over the dining table. I have some blue & white plates that might look good with it, too.

2. Do you make wall quilts for holidays decorations? I haven't so far, in 10 years of quilting. I have some more Christmas quilts in the planning stages, but up to now I've made exactly one Christmas quilt, and it was a lap quilt.

3. Eggnog or Hot Cocoa I don't like eggnog, so I guess cocoa wins by default. I'd rather have wassail, though!

4. Do you own any green/red notions? Except for pincushions, I don't think so.

5. Picture time - share an image of how you celebrate December (it can be anything)
How about nutcrackers?

(These were also my mom's, but are now on my china cabinet.)

Holiday Friday five

Nov 30, 2007

1. Do you have a holiday stash? Yes, a rather large one.

2. Do you use quilty related holiday items (cards, gifts, etc.)? Sometimes, if I think they're particularly cute. I don't use quilt stuff just for the sake of using it, though. (That said, my aunt is probably going to get something Jim Shore for Christmas!)

3. Do you have a wish list that you share with family and friends? Not usually on paper, but I do let my husband know what I have in mind.

4. Are you done with your holiday sewing/quilting? All I have is one thing to do (a binding), and no, I haven't done it yet.

5. Red/Green/Gold or Blue/White/Silver? I guess I'd go with blue/white/silver, but I like both.

Friday five, technique edition

Feb 29, 2008

1. What is your favourite pattern? I'd probably go with Log Cabin because you can do so many different things with it.

2. What is your favourite technique? Um. Just plain ol' machine piecing, I guess!

3. What technique would you most like to learn? I'm not really at a place with the quilting where I'm worried about learning to do new things right now. I'd just like to have time to practice the old ones!

4. Is there a well known quilter you would like to have teach you? Who and why? Dunno, if I was going to take a class, maybe this lady. Or Nancy Crow or something like that. (I also have a secret wish to learn how to dye fabric.)

5. What is your least favourite technique? I'll go with applique.

Friday five on Saturday - prickly edition

Feb 23, 2008

1. Do you have a favorite type/brand of pins you use for quilting? If so, what? I don't really use pins any more than I have to. I'm bad about dropping them and since I never wear shoes in the house, I am very opposed to stepping on them. However, when I have to use them I prefer the flower-head ones.

2. How many pincushions do you own? Show us a picture of your favorite one if you want. I think I threw at least one old one away when we moved - maybe more than one. I still have at least two. I've got the flower-head pins in this one, which was my mother's but she never used it:

3. Do you own any specialty/vintage/otherwise special quilting pins? Those bent safety pins for quilting, which I much prefer for pin-basting. I have a whole bunch of those. And I think I inherited some very expensive extra-skinny applique pins from my mother.

4. What do you use to pick up pins that fall when you work? Well, as I said, I don't use them more than I have to and I try not to drop them in the first place. But I do have one of those magnetic things (also my mom's) to pick them up with. She left a trail of pins all over her house, you had to be very careful there!

5. About how many pins do you think you have? Good lord, no idea. Of my own, probably a couple of hundred, easily, and then I inherited more of my mother's. Probably thousands, easily.

Friday five, social edition

Feb 15, 2008

1. Are you part of group that meets to sew? Not right now. I need a new group. I quit going to my old one because it was too far away.

2. Have you invited friends over to quilt/sew? No - for a long time I didn't have enough room for me to sew, much less anybody else. Now that I do, I need to do some inviting, clearly!

3. Would you be interested in an "online sewing day"? Yeah, I guess I would - I have been having trouble being productive, maybe that would help!

4. Insert random picture here (it's been a while since we did pictures).... Well, here's one I don't think I've used here before:

karen_d and I made this a couple of years ago for the wedding of two of our online friends. Karen lives in Michigan and I live in Texas, but we still quilt together occasionally! We both made subunits - I made the centers, which were sampler-type blocks, and she made the other Ohio Star subunits - and I spent one weekend at her house, which was when we assembled it. Then she did part of the quilting and mailed it to me and I did some more. So it was truly a joint effort.

5. What are you weekend sewing plans? Finish the sashing on the damn swap blocks :)

A couple more - I will probably add more later.

Colorful Friday Five - Apr 18, 2008

1. What is your favorite color? I like practically all colors, and the answer to this tends to vary according to when you ask me, but I have been very drawn to green lately. So let's go with green.
2. What is your less favorite color? Beige.
3. What is you favorite color combo? I love blue and green.
4. What is your less favorite color combo? I'm sorry to have to say this, but I loathe red, white and blue unless you vary the colors somewhat.
5. Show us a picture of your favorite colorful quilt (yours or someone's else):
Well, this has to be one of them:
Dreaming in Color - Living in Stone Cold Black and White

Dreaming in Color - Living in Stone Cold Black and White

Made by Sonia Brown, who I think may have a book out with this in it.
(Made by Sonia Brown, quilted by Cathy Franks; from the exhibit "In the American Tradition IV" at the 2005 International Quilt Festival.)

Friday Five, Mar 9, 2008

1. Have you ever made a garment that incorporated quilting techniques? I don't really make garments any more. For one thing, I am a 'big' girl, and quilted clothing just adds more bulk. I don't think quilted clothing is very flattering to most people unless they're really skinny or the clothing is really, really well cut.

2. Have you ever cut yourself with your rotary cutter? Or sewn yourself? Or other quilting related injury? I am pretty paranoid about my rotary cutter because I could totally see myself doing one of those things. I have cut myself but only very slightly. And amazingly, I have never sewn through my finger.

3. Have you ever 'called in sick' in order to stay home and quilt? Not that I can recall. But for years I never quilted at home much anyway, I always did most of my quilting at my mom's house. (And she would've yelled at me if I did that!)

4. What color would you never use in a quilt? I will use absolutely any color. (I probably would not make a whole quilt out of, oh, say, puke green. But small amounts of it? definitely.)

5. Have you ever put in a 'joke' in one of your projects? Like putting a meat-shaped piece of fabric in a quilt intended for a vegan? Well, I made a quilt that ended up being called "The Kitchen Sink Quilt" because I put all sorts of bits and pieces of different things into it.

Also, a friend and I made a quilt for another friend whose nickname was "guppy" and we put a fish fabric on the back and I quilted a tiny fish on the front.

This is the Kitchen Sink Quilt:

(I may have posted it here before, I can't remember!)

(NOTE; I think this will become pretty clear, but this is nothing to do with the entries I've been doing for Holidailies. I got to poking around, and there are a lot of "Friday five" quizzes about quilting that I did in a quilting community that is inactive and that I thought at first might have been deleted. So I thought I would gather these here, where they'll be archived with the rest of my stuff. There's a lot of information gathered in them that I'm tending to forget, now.)

Here's where the original is.

1. Have you ever participated in a Mystery Quilt project? I started to say "no" - but actually I took a class from Charlotte Angotti once, and that was essentially what it was.

2. What concerns do you have with doing a Mystery Quilt? That I won't like the quilt when it's done!

3. Have you ever finished a mystery project (share picture, pretty please?)? I sure did. The one time I did one, I did finish it. I'll put the picture at the end. (Although I'm sure I've posted this one before - it's kinda my pride and joy.)

4. Do you enjoy reading mystery genre books? Yup. I've been reading Anne Perry's two Victorian-era mystery series for the last several years - I'm finally about to run out of them. I like the Sue Grafton alphabet mysteries quite a lot, too.

5. Do you like surprises? Y'know, I am kinda iffy about them, really. If the person trying to surprise me really knows me well enough to know what I like, then yes. Otherwise, it's a big waste of time and money.

This is available as a commercial pattern called "Faceted Jewels" so I called my purple version "Faceted Amethysts". (That links to the uncropped Flickr version of this picture, in case anybody wants to see more. This pattern is much easier than it looks.)

(ADDED: that last link doesn't work, but the picture is still there, somewhere.)

( But I'll leave it for y'all to read anyway! )

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Quilt Friday Fives (the last of them, it turns out)
More Friday Fives, Feb/Mar 2007
Spring 2007 Friday Fives
Summer 2007 quilt FFs
Still more Friday fives
Friday five, and a list (Oct 12, 2007)
Fall (2007) Friday Fives
From the Friday Five archives (again)
More quilting quizzes from 2008
More quilting Friday Fives
Mysterious Friday Five - Apr 25, 2008
Oh, heck, wrong place for the Friday five!

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Entries tagged with friday five

5. What do you consider a notion? hmm... just about anything for sewing that's not the fabric or the sewing machine, I guess! Friday five, mechanical edition

5. Would you be willing to learn or teach someone about paper piecing? I could show somebody, sure. Bound Friday five

5. Have you ever made binding on a scallop edge? I've never made a quilt with a scallop edge. It's not really my style, although that's not to say I'd never do it. I might, someday! Friday five - quilt shop edition

5. Show a project you would love to do. Hmm... well, I've always wanted to do something really massively embellished, like this one: Celebrity-edition Friday five

(Her hair was sort of a weird variation on a Princess Leia thing - piled up on both sides.)"Saturday five" just doesn't have the same ring

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5. What do you consider a notion? hmm... just about anything for sewing that's not the fabric or the sewing machine, I guess!

Friday five, mechanical edition

5. Would you be willing to learn or teach someone about paper piecing? I could show somebody, sure.

Bound Friday five

5. Have you ever made binding on a scallop edge? I've never made a quilt with a scallop edge. It's not really my style, although that's not to say I'd never do it. I might, someday!

Friday five - quilt shop edition

5. Show a project you would love to do. Hmm... well, I've always wanted to do something really massively embellished, like this one:

Celebrity-edition Friday five

(Her hair was sort of a weird variation on a Princess Leia thing - piled up on both sides.)

"Saturday five" just doesn't have the same ring