Mystery Quilt

I'm a planner. That's why I like to look at patterns and spend hours choosing every fabric for each block. It's why I don't like mystery quilts. Yet, somehow, I've committed to doing on.

Was it a good choice to start this author's first mystery quilt? I'm not entirely sure yet, seeing as I've already found a mistake in the fabric requirements that has me running to Joann's first thing tomorrow. But she seems really nice- I've actually spoken to her on the phone a few times now- and everyone has a first mystery pattern. Or at least every mystery pattern writer has a first :)

Here are my fabric choices. It's tough because I have to rely on her description of how to select which fabrics will be used for each clue. But I keep telling myself no matter what the quilt looks like, I love these colors so it should be okay :)

Get Well Soon!

When I heard a member of my husband's extended family had broken his leg and, being an older gentleman, would have to spend time at a residential rehab, I knew right away I needed to make him a quilt. To my knowledge, nobody else in his family quilts, so I'm not sure how it's going to be received, but I put this together in 4 days.

I found it hard to pick fabric for an old guy, so I hope the ducks were a good choice. They looked very manly to me. This was also my first time using Free Motion Quilting on an actual quilt, rather than at a class or on a practice piece :)

Tetris Quilt Finished!

On Saturday, I finished the Tetris Quilt and entered it into the JoAnns Quilt Your Colors Contest. It was actually the deadline, so I pushed through and quickly finished in the last few days.

Here are some pictures. This has been the most challenging quilt for me yet! If the blocks weren't pretty much perfect, you didn't get the 3D effect.

Sneak Peek of the Next Quilt

Who can tell what it will be?

Me and My Machine

I freaking love my sewing machine. I can't even explain it. It's been so good to me and in return, I've tried to be good to it. I clean it thoroughly between every project and change the needle often. Newer machines don't need frequent oiling, so I don't have to worry about that. I even made a cover for it and it was the first project I finished on the machine.

I own a Janome Magnolia 7330 and call it Maggie. Actually, it's Maggie II, but I'll get to that whole story in a moment.

I bought her in January (2010) but for at least 2 years before that, I knew I wanted to try quilting. I was knitting for hours every night and it was giving me problems with my hands and wrists. I was even sleeping with braces on them. Eventually, I stopped knitting so seriously in 2008 because of the pain and I didn't want to wind up with a long-term injury.

I remember first wanting to take a quilting class when I was laid off in February 2008. I went over to Eddie's Quilting Bee to look into it and the cost seemed crazy to me. Even if you use a loaner machine, you're spending $75 for the class, around $100 for supplies, and I didn't even consider the cost of fabric. Who knew the average price for a yard of fabric in a quilt shop was around $10? Not me!

So with a heavy heart and and empty wallet, I decided not to take the class. At that point, I was happy knitting and we didn't have any room in our apartment for another hobby, let alone one that pretty much needed a dedicated space for a machine.

In 2009, we decided we were going to move and I knew that the moment I had a space for a sewing machine, I was taking a quilting class. I had been wanting to well over a year. I went back to Eddie's and signed up in December for their March class. I was working and going to school at that point so it was the next class I could somehow work into my schedule. I was originally planning to use a loaner machine for the class before making a decision about whether I was going to continue quilting and needed to buy my own machine.

Somehow between December and January, I decided I needed my own machine. I read a ton of reviews and went to a few shops. I was going to try to spend $150, then changed it to $250 after reading about the quality of machines. Everyone seems to agree that if you're machine is cheap, it will give you problems and cause you to never want to sew. Finally I increased my budget to $400 after speaking with many people and then narrowed it down to Maggie or the Janome DC2010, both of which were priced at $399. I finally decided on Maggie because she has a start/stop button. I negotiated at Eddies and got them to include my walking foot and 1/4" foot and paid $399 + tax.

My first project was a cover for it. It took me sewing 2 straight lines and a hem. I started noticing a weird noise. It was a buzzing sound but I couldn't track it down. I cleaned it like crazy and finally decided to bring it back. The replaced it with a new one, saying the noise sounded electrical, which is why my current machine is named Maggie II. (RIP Maggie I.)

My machine has never given me one problem since. It sews like a dream. When it has the smallest issues, like thread breaking or nesting, I just rethread it and the problem goes away. In February, I'm going away for a week and will take it in for a tune up then. One of the reasons I bought my machine at Eddies is that the tune ups are free for the first 2 years. You also get free classes, discounts on pretty much everything in the store, and can trade up in the first year for the full value of the machine, so it's pretty sweet deal.

So that's pretty much the story of my machine so far. It's been to classes, and conferences. I originally thought it would stay in the office, but I much prefer sewing in the living room, so it usually stays there.

Me and My Quilts

So I guess my first entry should be a little about me and my quilts.

I've been quilting for almost a year now. I bought my sewing machine in January and started a Beginner Quilting class in March. We learned strip piecing, sandwiching, quilting, and binding in the most simple ways. Actually, I was the only on in the class to want to learn bias binding, so I guess that wasn't the simplest, but it's a must for any quilt that is going to get a lot of love. At the end of the class, the teacher told me privately she could tell the I would thrive in quilting and go on to make many quilts. The other 3 women in the class seemed to be more like sewers who wanted to make a quilt.

In that class I made this quilt for my mom:

And at the same time, I was taking the same steps at home- I wanted to be using what I was learning in class- to create another quilt. When I started it, I thought I would give it as a gift, but I loved it so much, I kept it. Right now it's on my sister's bed, but she lives with us, so that's ok :)

I then made 2 Quilts for Kids quilts to keep working on my basic quilting skills. The 2nd one was my first time working with half square triangles:

 

I then worked on a quilt for a friend's son's 4th birthday:

I then began to work on my biggest quilt yet, a twin extra long, for my brother's first year at college. He is going to Cornell and the school's colors are red and white and he loves music.

And during the construction of my brother's quilt, I started and finished this baby quilt for a friend's baby shower: 

So that's pretty much it for now. I'm working on a quilt now for my sister that will probably be able twin size when it's done. I'm working on the blocks now and when they're done, I'll choose the borders and backing.