delight in life

quilt for margaret, number...10?

I really need to ditch the numbering thing; it's not a very effective system. ANYWAY. I mailed off a new quilt last week! Our friends back in Texas just welcomed their first baby into their lives, Margaret June. Isn't that such a sweet name? She needed a sweet quilt to match.

I used nearly every pink print I had in my stash and paired it with the same linen blend I used on Tessa's quilt. The squares are 2" finished, and while there are ways to make sewing hundreds of tiny squares together easier, I didn't do any of them. (Only because I didn't think of them until it was too late.) So yeah. This quilt had many, many challenges in store for me, most of them my own fault. But. There are more corners that line up than there are mismatched corners, and I consider that a win.

It's backed and bound in a soft, cozy flannel, and I hand-quilted it in a pattern of interlocking squares. Mostly with plain white quilting thread, but I did a handful of the squares in various shades of pink perle cotton thread. So pretty! The final size is about 40x60. I'm not sure what I have against baby-sized quilts for baby-sized people, but I'm thinking I need to revisit that because I sure wouldn't mind making something smaller.

I didn't pay any attention to placement of the fabrics as I pieced it, so the layout is truly arbitrary, which kind of goes against my nature, but I really like the scrappy vibe it adds.

 

new things, good things

Well, dear Internet, I am really happy to tell you that I started a new job yesterday. Remember in December, on my last day at American Airlines, when I felt a lot of things, including anxious and sad and scared? Well, six days after I wrote that, I received a job offer. Amazing, right? Really, really, really amazing. A few days after that, on a flight to see family for Christmas, I read an article about how the middle class in Ohio is struggling, and came across this passage:

According to Robek, there used to be a general rule in job searching: For every $10,000 in annual salary earned, it took one month of looking. I schedule an advising session with him, and he explains that nobody has fingered the standard for the new economic order yet, but anecdotally, what used to take 3 to 6 months often now takes 6 to 12. “Or even longer sometimes!” he says.

And I can't even describe the immense wave of gratitude that rushed over me when I read that. Six days. All I really have to say about that is God is good.

After six months of working in my pj's and another six weeks of not working at all, it might take me a week or so to get back in the groove of a non-pajamas-wearing, early-rising adult, but other than that, so far so good.

 

modern block of the month

This is a pretty cool block pattern, right? The tutorial is here, it's for Sew Mama Sew's modern block of the month series. I've never made a block before without intending to have it be part of a quilt, but it was fun! When I saw the picture, I was intrigued, but I thought it would be really complicated. I read the pattern and realized it was quite simple, so I gave it a try. Like I said, super simple, and it could make some really interesting quilt designs. I think a scrappy version would look awesome, too! I might try that version next.

new toy: walking foot

 What is this monstrosity on my sewing machine? It's my new walking foot! Whenever I attach bindings to my quilts, I have a lot of trouble with tucks and puckers. I've tried it with and without pins, but I'm never able to get it all even. I did some research and learned that this little doohickey may solve my problems! It's supposed to help thick materials or layers of materials feed more evenly through the sewing machine.

It worked great on my six inch sample quilt. Obviously the real test is on a real quilt, but we will have to wait a while for that. In addition to attaching binding, I can also use it to quilt straight lines on large-ish quilts! I am very, very fond of hand-quilting, but I don't deny that it will be nice to have a faster option for certain projects.

pinky-purple

Yesterday was a really lovely day: mid-fifties and sunny. After a week of freezing rain and grey skies, it was so nice to leave the house without gloves and an umbrella. Chris and I even ate lunch outside!

I was walking through Capitol Hill this afternoon, and though I've made this same walk six or seven times in the last two weeks, I am always in a hurry to get where I'm going and out of the cold, and I haven't paid much attention to the walk itself. Today, I took my time, I smiled at strangers, and I admired all the pretty-colored houses. The best thing I saw, though:

This beautiful pinky-purple law firm with a beautiful pinky-purple plant (cabbage?) in a beautiful glossy black planter with a beautiful gold plaque as the perfect accent. I wasn't even embarrassed to stop and take pictures on the street with people walking by me. I couldn't get over the colors, or how I'd walked past this building seven other times and never even saw it. It's the little things, man, and I resolve to pay more attention to them.

quilt #9: purple, pink and green

This was a very exciting quilt for me because it was the first quilt somebody paid me to make! Charles wanted a quilt to give his baby girl, Alyssa. He picked the colors (mostly purple, with green, pink, and white accents) and left the rest up to me. I never would have picked this color combination, but I absolutely love it. I think it's beautiful. Well done, Charles!

The pattern is based off of Denyse Schmidt's "What a bunch of squares" quilt pattern in her book. But I was kind of proud of myself for not actually following the pattern at all. She provides templates and measurements and I ignored all of them! I just made blocks in that style, adjusting them as I needed in order to get the look I wanted.

Good purple fabric is hard to find, so I kept it simple by just using one great Joel Dewberry print on the front (and a coordinating one on the back/binding). I mixed up the pinks and greens, but I like the simplicity of one dominant print in the quilt.

I actually didn't order enough of this print to cover the back, but I ordered twice as much as I needed for another quilt I was working on. As long as I make stupid math mistakes in complementary fashion, I'm fine with it. I used a strip of the other quilt's extra backing to fill out this one. Lucky for me the colors worked! The pink strip is flannel so it adds a nice soft texture.

I quilted it simply, outlining the squares. (As a side note, I wash all of my quilts before sending them away, mostly because my cats think an unfinished quilt is a perfect bed, but also because they way they crinkle after washing is divine.)

Tied up with a ribbon and ready to go.

project life: week three

Yay, week 3! I am having trouble taking pictures of my pages, for sure. There's not a lot of good light inside our apartment, and outside I am fighting the glare. We'll see--I'll keep searching for a good place to take the pictures!

The first two weeks I printed the pictures and pulled everything together on Saturday, but this week I printed photos as I went and tucked things into the pockets throughout the week. I liked this approach better; it helped me to see where I had holes and needed to think of something to stick in there.

Chris's birthday was definitely the focus of this week. I was glad to have that to fill up the pages with, as it could have been a pretty empty week otherwise! I'm sure before too long I will have a genuinely empty week. That will be a fun challenge.

I had fun thinking of each pocket as miniature scrapbook page and adding lots of embellishments (more than I usually do, at least).

Can't say it enough: I love this project. (See the rest of my pages here.)

christmas cards

I realize it is a month out of season, but I didn't get around to sharing our cards before Christmas and I love them too much not to share at all. So. Merry January!

These came about when I lamented to my sister that I could not afford the gorgeous custom holiday cards from Rifle Paper Co. Cara is a talented artist and offered to make cards for us in that style as a Christmas gift. PERFECT.

I'm completely obsessed with the result and kind of wish it weren't Christmas-themed so I could frame it and have it on our wall year-round. I love our little faces and psycho Battlecat's Santa hat.

Cara sent me the image and I had them printed on flat postcards at moo.com. I used pretty green envelopes from Paper Source and lined them with this lovely paper, which matched the greenery on the card very well.

happy (belated) birthday, chris!

Yesterday was Chris's birthday! We were so busy celebrating that I didn't even tell the internet.

In a lame bit of scheduling, he ended up having a rehearsal Monday night, so we went out to dinner Sunday night instead! We've heard nothing but glowing reviews of Ray's the Steaks since we moved here, so Chris's birthday seemed a perfect excuse to give it a try.

And man, did it live up to the hype. I am not normally a big steak person, but I was on Sunday! It was a really wonderful night with great food, delicious wine, and great friends. If you're in the DC area and you even sort of like steak, you should definitely give it a try. (If your wallet's not up to steak, try his burger place Ray's Hell Burger instead. Best burger I've ever had. And the man likes a pun, which I can appreciate.)

On Monday, his actual birthday, we slept in till almost noon, which was amazing. Then we went to another local restaurant that he'd been wanting to try since we moved here, and which I kept vetoing. I thought it would make a nice surprise, and it sort of did, but unfortunately my initial instincts were right--the place was not very good. Do not recommend, will not dine again.

All was not lost, since there was cake at home. More specifically, cheesecake, his favorite food. I had never made a cheesecake before, and really was nervous about it since I don't even really like cheesecake, so I didn't even know how to tell if it was good! Luckily, Chris loves it. I used this recipe, though mine didn't look quite as nice as the picture.)

Happy birthday Chris. I love you!

project life, weeks 1 and 2

Two weeks in and I totally love this just as much as I thought I would. I like having a place for the scraps and labels that I save because I think they're pretty, and I like having something to do with my Instagram photos. This is week 1:

And then a semi-close-up of the left and right sides of week one:

I used ticket stubs, the labels off some fabric I ordered online, packaging from a few different things, and Chris's "take a number" slip from the pharmacy. The rest is mostly photos, which honestly surprised me. I didn't think I'd have very many pictures each week, but I was pleased to have more than enough. (The orange arrow in the photo below is pointing to the Capitol building. It didn't show up well in the photo but I wanted to draw attention to it!

And this is week two. (The top left card on each week's spread is the "title" card with the dates of each week stamped on.)

This week I didn't have as many photos, but I still didn't have much trouble filling all the pockets. I used a Chipotle receipt, a fabric scrap that I practiced stitching on, a shopping list, a screenshot from my phone, packaging, the text of a tweet that really made me laugh, and a postcard I found at the movie theater where we saw Beauty and the Beast. (!!)

I think my favorite pocket of week 2 is my Amaryllis Watch 2012 collage. (Update: the plant has 4 flowers, one bud, and a whole other stalk that will have 4-5 more flowers in a week or two. So awesome!) I also really like the map screenshot, which shows the route between two friends' houses.

I've been putting the spreads together on Saturday, and I really look forward to it all week. It actually takes me quite a while to do the whole thing, but so far I've enjoyed the process. Yay for having fun with paper again!