Category: crafty

my first quilt FINISHED

Slow and steady wins the race. The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Better late than never.

All the cliches apply to the making of this quilt, but my favorite is:

Better done than perfect.

In 2013 I decided I would make a quilt. For Christmas I received this rotary cutting set and this pattern book. I had a hand-me-down sewing machine from David’s grandmother. I got it serviced and practiced a little (very little).

I made a plan. I gave myself a year to do it, and broke it down month by month with manageable steps. Choose the size and design. Obtain fabric. Cut blue triangles. Cut cream triangles. Lay it out and stack the rows. Sew something.

That last step there – sew something – is where I got stuck. First, I got pregnant with Liam and lost all ability to do anything other than survive for a few months. Then when I finally did try to sew something, it came out in a bunched up mess. I Googled. I texted my quilting friend for help. I got lots of tips but none of them fixed it. So I put it aside.

I went ahead and gave birth to Liam, and had a productive maternity leave. Then in early March, my best friend Becca visited me and she tackled the problem. If you’re curious, the tension had to be WAY loosened. Like, way looser than “normal” or I expected – maybe because it’s an older, quirky machine. But finally, finally, I started sewing the rows together.

I loved it.

Eventually I had all the rows sewn together and pressed. It was at that point that I realized I had completely forgotten to account for the seam allowance with the triangles. I had consulted the pattern, but obviously not carefully enough. I knew then that when I sewed the rows together, the tips of the triangles would be cut off.

I made peace with it.

Once I finally had the quilt top done, I realized I didn’t have enough fabric for a solid back. So I cut and pieced together a few rows without planning ahead, basted it all together with the batting, and jumped right in to actually quilting it.

I thought about hand-quilting for two seconds before deciding against it. This thing was already taking forever to make. I have an old machine, I don’t have a walking foot, and my triangles didn’t come to points like they were supposed to, so I had to do a lot of starting and stopping – but I was still set on machine quilting this sucka all by myself. And I did.

It’s completely messy and there are too many puckers to count because I wasn’t that precise with my seams. I was learning to sew at the same time I was learning to quilt, after all. By this time I was embracing the imperfection anyway, and I just wanted it to hold together.

When the quilting was finally finished I was so excited – I could actually use it at this point! But it took me another month to finish the binding because the process was so new to me. I thoroughly read several different tutorials and pieced them together. I found out how important it is to accurately square up your quilt. I did a lot of trimming and seam ripping and I even shed a few tears at a point when I thought one of the corners was beyond repair.

But I pushed through, and on October 4, 2014 at 8:15 p.m., I finished that quilt. My first one. And now I am a quilter.

The end, or, the story continues. Because I’ve already got the fabric for my next one. :)

p.s. – here is the first thing I ever sewed.

October 14, 2014
30 days of lists : days 21 – 30 (and what I thought of it)

Well 30 days of lists is over! Here are my last set of lists, followed by my thoughts on joining the challenge officially for the first time.

So! This was a fun and easy journaling challenge. They run it every March and September with a different set of prompts. I’ve followed it in the past but never joined officially until now, because I didn’t want to pay for something I could just come up with by myself. And of course, you can always see the prompts once they are released, or go through the old ones.

However, joining “officially” gave me access to the private blog and Facebook group. I checked this once a day. I didn’t get super involved, but I did discover several new people to follow through it. It is a pretty neat community.

Paying to join also got you an exclusive digital kit to use. It wasn’t my style in the least, but lots of people loved it and used it for their lists. It got you the list topics ahead of time (which were pretty great ones) so you could be prepared.

Also, because I paid to be part of the project, I was more committed. I set aside time before it began to title my pages, and I completed them faithfully every single day. It didn’t take long, but it was fun.

And now, I’m glad it’s over with! All in all, I think it was worth the <$10 to join. I don’t think I’ll be doing it twice per year, but I can see myself doing it again.

p.s. – another book of lists I made

October 7, 2014
project life 2014 : weeks 37 – 38

With this Project Life spread I feel like I’m back in the groove and inspired again. I love the way it turned out.

As mentioned in my last update, I haven’t been happy with my spreads lately, and I realized the reason was because I was trying to cram too many photos in. It ended up feeling busy and chaotic with very little room for journaling or white space.

I thought about going to weekly spreads, but decided against it for this year. The answer for me right now is to simply include less photos. I had been putting in almost every single cute pic of my kids just because it was hard not to. But I realized that I only need one or two of them to tell our story. If I ever really need to see more cute pics of my kids I can look at the digital photos.

So I love this spread because it has more photos of things that aren’t my kids – because my life is so much more than just them. Hmm does that sound bad? Well it’s true!

I also love that this page seems to be able to “breathe” more than the others lately, and that I got to write down a little bit more of the story.

So! This was from September 8 – 21. It’s actually kind of ironic how calm the spread turned out considering it was kind of a stressful time for me. David sick, Meredith acting out, stressed with work stuff.

I’m glad I got to include my fall goals list. I like to be able to look back and see what I was thinking and striving for at that time. By the way, I got my handwriting on that photo using an iPad, a stylus, and the Skitch app. Super fun and I’ll be doing more of it.

Have you noticed that some of my corners are rounded and some aren’t? I thought it would bother me, but it really doesn’t. I still like using the core kit cards when they fit the spread, and those come rounded. I like the square corners in general though, and I like not spending the time to round them.

I love this picture of all the kids from our church life group crowded around our little kitchen table. Meredith is by far the youngest here but she wanted to be right there with them.

This little journaling card gives a pretty good overview of the whole two weeks. Even though I include each week’s events on a day-to-day basis, sometimes you miss the overall feeling without room to tie it all together.

I’m so happy to be back on target with this project! I even converted another woman at my church to give it a go. Sometimes I feel like an unofficial ambassador for it. :)

p.s. – my project life process and some tips

October 1, 2014
30 days of lists : days 11 – 20

So this is kind of a crazy week. David has had pneumonia going on two weeks now, and I am also commuting to the medical center (over an hour drive) for meetings, which has really thrown off our morning and evening routine.

I’m behind on many things, but somehow I’ve kept up with 30 days of lists! I haven’t been posting them every single day to Instagram, but here is the second ten days in full. I’m still having fun with this. When I post the last set of lists I’ll write a little more about the project as a whole.

Have a fantastic day! The weekend is almost here!

September 25, 2014
project life 2014 : weeks 35 – 36

Kind of a funny story about this spread. I thought it would be fun to make a video of me putting the entire thing together from start to finish. Problem: my only camera is my iPhone. But I get these ideas in my head and I can’t relax until I figure out a way to execute them.

Picture me on Saturday afternoon during precious naptime rigging up an elaborate harness using yarn and thumb tacks in order to hang my iPhone from the ceiling. I was climbing on the table and moving furniture. Positioning my supplies just so. I finally got it figured out and went to work.

I didn’t give any thought to the spread beforehand, so there was a lot of downtime on the video where I was just staring and thinking. The next day I was halfway through editing the video and thinking it was going to work, when I realized it cut off when I was about 75% through with the spread.

I was tempted to be upset by the wasted time, but instead I just had to laugh at myself. The whole thing was ridiculous. I still want to make a video one day, but I don’t think I’ll attempt it until I have a real camera with a tripod.

So anyway, this is from August 25 – September 7. It’s not one of my favorites, actually. I think I was rushing for the video. Lately I’ve been a little unhappy with my spreads in general. I love how sustainable it is for me to complete one every two weeks, but then the spreads themselves are full of photos and there is very little white space or room for journaling. So I’m trying to find a balance of simplicity.

The photos I turn black and white are usually either grainy or have colors that stand out in a bad way. My dad always takes pictures of our family when we get together (see below) but they are just simple snapshots, usually in bad lighting. But turn them black and white and brighten them up a bit and they are a great addition to the album.

I’m also so glad I captured a photo of David and Meredith going through their bedtime play routine. They have several little games they’ve made up and I think it’s both of their favorite things they do together.

Half of the right hand side was devoted to the room switch we did. It took a lot of time and energy.

I’m not done decorating their room yet, and I’m also not set on the final furniture placement. But I do hope to share it with you one day.

I love combining two or more photos on one 4×6 card when there is a similar theme going on.

So that’s another spread in the books. I’m going to continue doing two weeks per spread for the remainder of this year, but I’m feeling the itch to reassess my method going forward.

September 17, 2014