Using What You Have

Let's be honest here, while quilting at its roots is a craft of using up what you have lying around, these days it can be an extremely expensive hobby and sometimes you just can't afford to buy new stuff for a project so you return to the original idea of making do, and use up what you have.
This baby change mat was one such project.

'Black, Blue, Shark!'

 Last week I sent 'Black, Blue,Shark!' off to its home and it arrived safely so now I can show more details. Prepare for an avalanche of pictures!

Mashaa Monday: Y's, Bees, and Quiltspam

Mashaa Monday time! I should probably just rename it Mashaa Tuesday at this point, though. I'm finding it more and difficult to get around to doing it on Mondays. It might just be because I'm stubborn and don't like to do what I'm told, even if I'm just telling myself. :P

This week I conquered the 'Y' seam!

Project Snap And Quilt: Down The Drain

This morning was the first time I've walked my son to school since I began #projectsnapandquilt. The walk home was also the first real alone time I've had for two and a half weeks. It felt awesome to wander along, listening to some Opera Magna and looking out for interesting shapes to snap. I'm already finding my eyes being drawn to things they've never noticed before, finding beauty in mundane things. Like this drain cover.

Mashaa Monday: Tuesday

I mentioned before that yesterday was a public holiday here, so today feels like a Monday. Good enough, right? :P

So it was a pretty busy week. Even though I started #projectsnapandquilt I still managed to finalise my colours and layout of my partner's mini for the Little Quilts Swap. 

Project Snap And Quilt: Vampire Batman

I decided that #projectsnapandquilt would be a weekday only thing so I could basically leave my weekends free for family stuff. And then yesterday was a public holiday, so I took that off as well. I guess I'm making up the rules as I go along. :P
Like today. My son is home from what was to be the first day back at school after the holidays. He spent all morning yesterday throwing up (and then describing it to us! D:) and still isn't up to the school walk yet. So to help entertain him, I asked him to draw me my quilting design for today.

I love that he pokes out his tongue when he's concentrating! 

Project Snap And Quilt: Overgrown

Today is a busy day so I made sure I did #projectsnapandquilt first so I didn't do it later when I was tired, and grump and quilt like the other day. :D
The snap I took was of a bunch of overgrown things in our yard. I'm looking forward to school going back next week so I can have more interesting things to snap, while I'm walking my son to school.

Project Snap And Quilt: Aztec Disasters and Rainbow Grass

Yesterday was really busy for me so by the time I had a chance to do my #projectsnapandquilt I was exhausted and grumpy. Which obviously reflected in my work.
I mentioned before that this was a "warts and all" kind of project so I guess that was a "warts" day. :P

Project Snap And Quilt: Clover Petal

Yesterday my kids brought me breakfast in bed, and while I was contentedly munching away, reading a book I had an interesting idea. What if I took a photo every day and then turned it into a free motion quilting design?

I liked the idea because it would make the daily chore of walking the kids to school more fun, as I looked out for something to snap a picture of. I also liked that doing the #scrappypostagestampQAL on Monday morning made me feel like my week was off to a productive good start so I was looking for a way to turn that feeling into a daily thing, and after the #dailyFMQ experiment I thought that practicing my free motion quilting every day would be a handy habit to get into.

So here it is: my first ever #projectsnapandquilt post. I'll run this here and on Instagram (I'm @strange_stitches over there) and would love it if people joined in. 

Today I snapped a picture of a clover flower.

Mashaa Monday: "She will Be Mine"

It's been a very busy first week of the September school holidays here, but I somehow managed to get even more sewing done than usual!

My Little Quilts book arrived and I immediately was drawn to the little bee quilt so I grabbed some of my fabrics (did I mention I love having a little "stash" now? :D) and began planning.

Pretty Practice Pieces

I've been making up a lot of smallish quilt sandwiches lately for free-motion quilting practice, and just general play. I'm even using the "dailyfmq" hashtag over on Instagram, further stepping out of my comfort zone and confronting my fear of joining in. Scary!
So today I thought I'd make good on my promise and show how I baste those cute little quilt sandwiches so they can become pretty practice pieces.

'Star Of Sedona' Test

A few weeks ago I saw my very first double nine patch quilt and instantly wanted to make one. Then of course I forgot I even wanted to do that and started a hundred and one other different things. :P
Until I was looking through the Block Tool app I'd purchased last week and noticed they were sorted by grid. I looked at all the three, six, and nine grid blocks and when I saw their 'Star Of Sedona' block it kind of leapt out at me as one that would work amazingly in a double nine patch setting.

Reveal ALL the half-done things!

Incoming picspam of what I've been doing lately, kind of like a Mega-Mashaa-Monday. :P

Starting with handpieced 60° triangles cut from Organic Cotton Jersey with my new Sidekick Ruler from Jaybird Quilts. (This will eventually be the front of a t-shirt when I decide what style to make it.)

Mashaa Monday: Feathers and Beasts

Mashaa Monday!
Well, this last week didn't exactly go according to plan. (When does it ever, though? :P) My son very generously shared his germs with me so I was mostly too sick to do anything much, and just sat around getting very bored and occasionally pretending to be a pirate in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag.
But at the end of the week I was tired of being bored and decided to just make up some practice quilt sandwiches and have a play.

(Mashaa Mondays are where I mash all the little bits and pieces too small to warrant their own posts into one post. You can find out more about the name here.)

Mashaa Monday: Stash, Strips, and Sith Lords

Mashaa Monday already?! (Wait, I feel like I say that every time. :P)
(Mashaa Mondays are where I mash all the little bits and pieces too small to warrant their own posts into one post. You can find out more about the name here.)

I finally have a stash! Around the time of my birthday last month I made an order at Pink Castle Fabrics as a birthday present to myself. I really wanted to get something special like the Indelible bundle, but decided I should go with what I need, rather than what I want. So I now have fabrics in every colour of the rainbow and I'm so excited!

Shark Week: The Totally Awesome Shark

My original plan was to just raw edge applique a regular shark or two onto the quilt-top, possibly inserting a fin between one of the seams, but then I remembered Bob Shea's book 'I'm A Shark!'. So I set out to make the Totally Awesome Shark. And then I started thinking that if my son had this little guy on a quilt, he might think it would be really fun to be able to take him off the quilt and play with him, and I imagine the little boy I'm making it for would think similarly. I just had to figure out how I was going to do that!

Shark Week: Applique

Late one night while working on 'Black, Blue, Shark!' I decided I'd like to finish the top piece with needle-turned applique. Which I'd never done before. I've seen a few videos of how to do it but in order to refresh my memory I'd have had to go out into the loungeroom where my laptop lives and that would have led to lounging around instead of getting stuff done. So I just went for it.

Shark Week: Curvy Seams

Shark Week continues! (Shark Week is all about the 'Black, Blue, Shark!' quilt I'm currently making.)

My initial (super-technical! :P) design.

When I planned out this quilt I wanted to use entirely curvy (wavy) seams to put it together. I wanted it to look a little like ocean waves or currents. I also wanted to use a whole bunch of blues gradating from dark at the bottom of the quilt, to very pale at the top. This didn't end up happening, due to my lack of fabric choices, but the wavy seams did.

Mashaa Monday

This week is Shark Week!
I was trying to do a post about 'Black, Blue, Shark!' but realised I'd tried too many new things for it to all fit into one post so I'm breaking the post up into more manageable pieces.
I'm also hoping this will increase my motivation to baste and quilt it. It's been laying out for many days begging to be prepared for quilting, but not having a deadline for it anymore has made me lazy. :P

(Mashaa Mondays are where I mash all the little bits and pieces too small to warrant their own posts into one post. You can find out more about the name here.)

Parsley Pants

I've had the Parsley Pants from Made By Rae pattern for months but I've been in a quilting zone instead of a garment one until recently. While I was looking through my sewing stash to help me decide what to sew, I rediscovered this skull fabric in my stash and knew the Parsley Pants were the next project for me.

Mashaa Monday

Yes, I know it's Tuesday. But I'm sure it's still Monday somewhere, right? :P

So, I didn't make it into Sewvivor. I'm happy I pushed myself out of my comfort zone enough to enter, though. You guys have no idea how that scary that was for me!
But I'll still be following along, and cheering for my fellow Australians who did make it in, Two Little Aussie Birds and Gnome Angel.

(Mashaa Mondays are where I mash all the little bits and pieces too small to warrant their own posts into one post. You can find out more about the name here.)

'Dinosaur Backs'

I can't show what I've been working on this week (in case by some miracle I happen to be given a space in 'Sew-Vivor'), so instead I thought I'd finally take some finished pictures of a quilt I made some time ago for my son, which we named 'Dinosaur Backs'.

Audition: Sewvivor - Strange Stitches - (Strange)

A Quilting Sampler and Sew-Vivor: Quilter's Edition.

So I'm doing something scary and auditioning for an online competition called "Sewvivor" run by Rach from Family Ever After. Eek!
I thought it might be fun, though and definitely a way to challenge myself, pushing me to do things I've never done before.
I did start the quilt with the Anita's Arrowhead blocks with the intentions of using that as my audition piece, but things weren't going so well so I shelved that and instead took Mr. Strange's camera (and our son :D) off to the park to take some pictures of a quilt I made for my daughter.

My son found it fun to twirl with the quilt.

'Dogception'

Sometimes after you have a disappointment you just need to hop straight back into something new to get the fun back.
A few nights ago I had a very silly idea for a quilt, and on Friday I made that little quilt a reality. From start to finish in just one afternoon!

Dogs within a dog in a dog-sized quilt.

Knowing When To Quit

Sometimes the project you envision in your head is not the project you and your equipment end up being capable of doing at that point in time. Sadly, my current project is one of those. I finally had to admit it to myself today.

Mashaa Monday

It's Mashaa Monday again already?!

This week's gone by so quickly because I've been working hard on a project featuring the fabrics I showed you last Monday. 

My first two Arrowhead blocks.

(Mashaa Mondays are where I mash all the little bits and pieces too small to warrant their own posts into one post. You can find out more about the name here.)

Half Square Triangles

With at least a thousand half-square-triangles (HSTs) to make for my Nesting quilt, the thought of cutting all those squares, drawing a line down the centre and sewing a quarter inch to either side of the line before cutting open on the line made me exhausted before I even began.
So I started looking around in books, and online to see if I could find a way that worked better for me.

Mashaa Monday

It's Mashaa Monday again. I'm slowly starting to get my wrist back to regular use, too. Phew!

(Mashaa Mondays are where I mash all the little bits and pieces too small to warrant their own posts into one post.)

$12 for two metres of gorgeousness? Yoink!

Strip Therapy

My heroes!

Scrap Vomit

Hmm. What to do when I feel the need to sew but my right wrist is injured and I'm not really supposed to use it?

After some thought I set myself some rules. Only sewing straight lines so I wasn't rotating my wrist, and no pinning, cutting or pressing so I wasn't putting any pressure on my wrist. Then I sat down at my sewing machine to play a little.

My Favourite Quilt

Over at Sew Mama Sew they're doing a series curated by Jessica Skultety from Quilty Habit where people are talking about their favourite quilts, so I decided it might be fun to join in.

My favourite quilt is usually either the one I'm currently working on, or the one I've most recently finished. So I think because I'm really happy with the way it turned out, my favourite quilt right now is the quilt I just completed, that I made for my Grandmother.

Mashaa Monday

It's Mashaa Monday, on a real Monday!

(Mashaa Mondays are where I mash all the little bits and pieces too small to warrant their own posts into one post.)

Power And Glory: Part Two

Right, so where were we? Ah, the quilting and the big reveal.
So I was all impatient to see what was inside(like unwrapping a present) but before I could cut out the top layer and see if my Hammer Of Glory had worked I needed to stabilise the quilt to make sure everything would stay where it was supposed to. So I stitched in the ditch between each block, and over the outline of the Hammer a couple more times to be sure until finally I was ready to cut it open and see what was inside.

Mashaa Mondays

I'm very excited because this is my very first Mashaa Monday.
And I'm already breaking the rules by doing it on a Wednesday!
 I actually had intended this for yesterday, because the public holiday on the real Monday confused me and I thought yesterday was Monday for a while. I'm a doofus. :P

Power And Glory: Part One

This is the story of one of my quilts.

Nesting

No, I'm not pregnant (phew!), just playing around with ideas based on my fat quarter of fabric from Tula Pink's 'Nest' collection.

Tula Pink

(From February, 2014)
Mr. Strange did Valentine's Day right. He bought me a Baker's Dozen pack of fat quarters from I <3 Tula Pink. It's thirteen fat quarters of focal prints from some of her collections. A lot of them are really hard to find these days which makes it all the more special. It even came with a little swatch pack of her upcoming Fox Field line which is completely adorable.

Shopping.

(From February, 2014)

I visited a sewing and patchwork store for the first time in weeks. I had a particular project in mind so I gave myself a goal of only buying charcoal fabric in varying textures as well as some fabrics reminiscent of a cloudy sky. It's way too easy to be carried away by all the pretties and spend more than expected so a clear goal is always useful to me.

During my search I fell in love with this fabric:

Michael Miller's 'DINOSAURS!'

Welcome!

Introductions are awkward so let's get it over and done with, shall we?

Here's a little bit about me.

I'm Strange, and welcome to my world.