Monday 20 June 2011

No pictures, just words

As the title suggests, I'm just waffling on about projects today. My dance card is filling pretty swiftly in terms of new and on-going projects. So far we have:

1. Finishing a red dreadlock headband-thing (shush, it's too early in the morning for real words.)
2. Knitting myself a black woolly beanie. I walked to the post office to pick up a parcel - a box full of lego - today, and realised that my current trausty hat actually falls off my head now I have a bunch of long hair under it. And since a black beanie with just a smidge of hair peeking out the front is the headwear du jour for a Wellington winter I guess I have another project.
3. Making a wrap dress for a friend who's having surgery in three weeks. She just had the date set and she's asked if I can make a dress for her, as she'll be limited in terms of movement for the first week or so.
4. Patching holes in the crotch of all my jeans. Because my thighs rub together when I walk and eventually destroy all my pants. Woe.
5. Building a lego fort. Not crafty, really, but still awesome.
6. Making a black and white quilt in a herringbone pattern.
7 Working out what kind of pattern I'm going to use for my little brother's Christmas quilt.

Wednesday 15 June 2011

Knit what?

Not much sewing going on this week - I'm planning and staking out auctions on Trade Me (New Zealand's answer to eBay - with better web design, it must be said.) Instead I'm doing a bit of knitting - picked up some loooovely felted lambswool in a nice bright red at the local store and I'm knitting a surprise while tucked up in bed. You get to see the finished product after it's been sent off to the new owner, but until she's got her surprise gift you get a grainy webcam picture of me knitting in front of my laptop. Aren't you lucky?


No, but really I'll put up real photos once I have something to show for my labours. In the mean time I'm collecting black and white fabrics for a herringbone idea I have and I've just bought a copy of a book called The Quilt Room on abebook.com.

Sunday 12 June 2011

Finished quilt!

I spent this afternoon looking for somewhere which was still open and selling thread at 4pm on a Sunday. More difficult than anticipated. I also curled up in a secondhand bookstore and flicked through a quilting book, then found instructions on how to make a single-patch cathederal window variation (they called it 'secret garden').

I had a go at it this evening, and this is the result:


It's got batting inside too, and so it'll be a pretty functional potholder as well as being pretty. I put it up on Etsy too, the first thing I've listed. Woo!

I also finished off the baby quilt.








I'm happy with it, actually. So much so that I almost don't want to surrender it to the intended recipient, haha. I've also go big plans for my next couple of projects. It's a toss up between a cathederal window quilt for my brother, a quilt with some curved seams which I'd like to try my hand at and a block which almost certainly has a name that I'm too lazy to try and chase down. We'll see which one wins out.

(Unrelated but does anyone else find that Blogger's photo upload tool is outrageously finicky and unhelpful?)

Saturday 11 June 2011

Baby Quilt Part II

I worked a bit more on the baby quilt tonight. It's almost finished, in fact. I finished off the quilting and started the binding then ran out of thread. Best laid plans and that, you know how it is. I also managed to pre-wash a bunch more fabric, which I'm stoked about because it means I can start more projects tomorrow.

I'm awfully good at beginning new endeavours with a burst of energy and then totally failing to follow through though, so we'll see how this progresses. I admit it was a bit of a thrill seeing the whole quilt come together with the binding though, so hopefully I'll keep this up. I've got plans for at least four more quilts already, so obviously I've got the bug.

I figured I'd give a bit of a pictorial update too, but none of the whole quilt till it's finished.

Here's how my machine is set up in the middle of my lounge:


Yep, that's a side table and a drum stool. Drum kit not pictured.


After my grandma died I inherited two necklaces, her collection of stuffed animal patterns and her pin tin. She died of lung cancer and her pin tin is a cigerette tin (The Cigarette for Connoisseurs: the Boardroom Cigarette, in case you're curious.) Joan was an amazing lady and I'm pretty sure she'd appreciate the irony of the tin.

While I was sewing the binding by hand I was listening to this:


It's by a local band called Entrails. I've been enjoying it since it landed in my mailbox about a week ago, but your mileage may vary depending on how you feel about bands with song titles like 'Pustulating Lesions'.

But yeah, in the interest of adding some bullet points to this meandering post, here are some things I've learned while sewing this quilt:

-I am in fact most productive between the hours of midnight and 2am.
-Hand sewing is more relaxing than I recalled.
-It fucks up my back and neck something wicked though.
-This is ok because I made a wheat heat bag out of some of the leftover green cotton in the quilt.

Friday 10 June 2011

First post, second quilt

First a quick intro. I'm Megan, I'm 21 and I've been sewing since I was small. I fell out of the habit of it after my 7th form year culminated with me sewing three ball dresses and a wedding dress pro bono. I like sewing and making people happy, but things got a little out of hand.

Recently though I've been getting back into the swing of things, and enjoying creating a bit more. I'm working on my second ever quilt right now which is incredibly enjoyable. My first quilt is best forgotten - a bit untidy and made when I was 14 and was muddling along with much idea what I was doing. Not that this attempt is markedly better, though my technical skills with a sewing machine and my patience have increased a bit. It's for a work collegue whose wife is pregnant with their first kid. Some in progress shots for you here:




This is George, who has been helping by playing with my thread and keeping all my fabric warm. Thanks George.


As you can see the quilting still needs to be finished and I need to complete the binding. I'm not sure yet if I want to add more lines of quilting in between those I've already done, to make it a bit denser. We'll see. I'm looking forward to starting on new projects already though: I found lots of beautiful saturated-colour fabrics which I love, but that are probably the wrong colour for a baby quilt.