Mid-Month WIP

Usually the month of January drags for me, but not this year.  I can't believe it's half way gone.  That's probably because things have been busy around here.  Quilting has been no exception - I'm so happy with the progress I made this week (and yet there's still so much more to do - why is that always the case?)

Alrighty then- here's the low down:

1- Skill Builder: I got Block #22 done, but I still have this week's block to do.

2- Lady Bug quilt: I FINALLY top stitched this quilt.  Phew! (blogged about here) So nice to not have that hanging over my head anymore.  I need to get fabric for the border, so binding it is on hold for now.

3- Nathan Quilt: I finished up the quilt back last night.  I'm happy with how it turned out..... (it's a little skeewompus in the picture, but you get the idea)

The quilt is now layered and pinned in place for quilting.

4- Scrappy Baby Quilt:  I've "made" 3  window blocks so far.  Here are two of them-

(This block is actually smaller than the one above it - you'll see it when I actually get them all together)

Other projects:
BOM - up to date
Christmas Blocks - no progress
Halloweer Wall Hanging - no progress

Stats for the Week:
New projects - 0
Completed projects - 0 (but I'm making progress, right?!)
WIP- 7


I'm participating in Sew-In Friday this Friday, so I'm hoping to knock out a lot of projects this weekend - fingers crossed.

Check out what everyone is up to this week over at Freshly Pieced.

One Week: One Thing.....eh, Two Things

I participated in the One Thing: One Week Challenge over at Amy's Creative Side, and I'm happy to report that I accomplished what I said I would and even snuck in a second thing.

My big goal was to finally get around to top stitching the lady bug quilt.  The quilt top is already bright and busy, so I wanted the quilting to be pretty minimalistic. 

I kept the thread red, so that it would blend in, and I did half of the diagonal lines stitch in the ditch and half of them as a quilted zig-zag.  I alternated every other line just to amuse myself. 

Here's a view of the quilting from the back and then the top of the quilt:

 It's hard to see on the front (which is what I wanted).  The stitch in the ditch goes straight through the center of the pinwheels.

 Besides top stitching the quilt I also completed Skill Builder Block #22- Flowering Snowball:  It's my first go at curves, and I can tell they're going to take a lot of practice to get exactly right, but I think they're kind of fun.

Cello Love

Have you heard of The Piano Guys?  I have recently fallen in love with their music.  Jon Schmidt was a pretty popular piano soloist about 10 years ago.   I remember during my student teaching all the kids in choir just loving him and wanting to learn how to play the piano because of him.  Well, he teamed up with an amazing cellist and I can't get enough of their music. 

I also happen to love Alex Boye (former British boy band singer- tee hee), so this song made my day:

Have I mentioned that cello is one of my absolute favorite instruments?  I'm wondering how much bribing I'm going to have to do to get one of my kids to play it?  Ya- listen to this:

This one is for my husband- it's from our favorite musical of all time - Les Miserables  (just beautiful)

This is for the Star Wars junkie or those of you that love a good, nerdy parody.  All I'm going to say is that Darth Vader with an accordion is just awesome!

I could seriously post all 30 of their videos, but the last one I'll show you is a 9 cello version of the hymn Nearer My God to Thee.  This is one of my favorite hymns and is on the short list of songs I would like to arrange for a cappella voices.  I love the harmonies he uses.

 

Poisonwood Bible

source

This month's book for the book club  was The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.  For those of you not familiar with the book, here's a summary taken straight from Kingsolver's official website.

"The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it—from garden seeds to Scripture—is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.
The novel is set against one of the most dramatic political chronicles of the twentieth century: the Congo's fight for independence from Belgium, the murder of its first elected prime minister, the CIA coup to install his replacement, and the insidious progress of a world economic order that robs the fledgling African nation of its autonomy. Against this backdrop, Orleanna Price reconstructs the story of her evangelist husband's part in the Western assault on Africa, a tale indelibly darkened by her own losses and unanswerable questions about her own culpability. Also narrating the story, by turns, are her four daughters—the self-centered, teenaged Rachel; shrewd adolescent twins Leah and Adah; and Ruth May, a prescient five-year-old. These sharply observant girls, who arrive in the Congo with racial preconceptions forged in 1950s Georgia, will be marked in surprisingly different ways by their father's intractable mission, and by Africa itself. Ultimately each must strike her own separate path to salvation. Their passionately intertwined stories become a compelling exploration of moral risk and personal responsibility."

source

It took a little bit to get into the book and get a feel for where it was going, but about a quarter of the way through this book I got sucked in.  I loved seeing present Congo through the eyes of each of the daughters while getting a past perspective from the mother.  The imagery was amazing.  I felt like I was in Africa while reading this book.  Even though the characters are fictional I really felt like they were real.  There was a lot of fun foreshadowing that still somehow managed to take me by surprise.  

The story of the family was fascinating, but I was very interested in the "historical" aspects of the book.  I was disturbed by how much of a role the United States had in furthering the misery of Congo and later, Angola's people, and I've been thinking a lot about our foreign policy because of it. 

I started to get a little impatient at the end, because each section would skip ahead a decade at a time, so it was a little hard getting your bearings for how old all of the characters were at any given section.  I felt as though the section after the family's departure from the village should have been its own book. 

Over all, if you have any interest in Africa you will probably really love this book.  It was a very good book, and I'm glad that I took the time to read it.

Almost there.....

I got another block done for Skill Builder, so that's three done this week and only one more until I'm completely caught up (until another one comes out on Friday).  I confess the applique was not as bad as I thought it would be.  I think a block here or there wouldn't be bad, but I would never do an entire quilt this way.

 I was a little nervous at first about trying to transfer the pattern onto my fabric since it was black, but it ended up being just fine. It's been bright and sunny around here lately.

Using a chalk pencil was perfect for tracing this block.  I first used the chalk for the circles block and thought it was a little messy, but it has grown on me now that I have a hang on how it works, and I love that it wipes off without having to wash it.

 I used the "cheating-turn" method using dryer sheets for the applique.  My only complaint is that the dryer sheet stretches a little easier than using other material, and when you iron it down, the dryer sheet pokes out a little on the edges.  This wouldn't be a big deal if your background is white, but it's a little more noticeable with the black background. (You can see a lot of it on the stems and the lower right flower). 

I will say though that this is definitely the best smelling block I've ever made. :)



Meanwhile, I couldn't help myself - I started another quilt this week.  I got the glare from my husband when he got home from work.  He wants me to finish my UFOs before I start more, but well, sorry! Tee hee.

I've been following both Scrap-Alongs and really wanted to take advantage of these to use my scraps.  I have a friend that's having a baby boy in March, so I thought I would tackle my baby boy scraps first.  I didn't realize I had so many!

I decided to "make" my own fabric using scraps for the inner blocks to this quilt.   This is what I have so far for the first block.  I need it to be a 9.5" square, so I have a couple of more inches to add to it, but so far I'm happy with it.  I'm having a lot of fun randomly putting fabrics together.  I don't know why but it feels a little liberating that it doesn't have to be exact.

I also got the quilt top of my son's quilt done this week, so I have been a productive little lady (blogged about here).

Other projects:
Blogger's BOM- up to date
Ladybug quilt - no progress, but my goal is to top stitch it this weekend!  Si se puede! (Yes, I can!)

Stats for the Week:
New projects - 1
Completed projects - 0 (Sorry, honey!)
WIP- 6

Check out what everyone is up to this week over at Freshly Pieced. 

Applique Pergatory

December's blocks for Skill Builder were all about Applique, and boy have they put me through the ringer.  I'm so glad I'm doing this quilt along, because it has given me a lot of confidence to break away from my safety net and try so many new things.  I've always wanted to know how to applique and now I do and I realized that for the most part it's just not my thing. 

Block #19- Orange Windows:

The only applique I had done before was raw edge applique, but I didn't use the Heat n' Bond with it, so this was new to me.  I don't mind this kind of applique, but it's time consuming. 

Block #20- Circles:

 This block just about did me in - each circle is done by a different technique:  Needle-turn (I confess the only turning going on was with my fingers, but I suppose practice would make that better), using freezer paper (both left in and taken out), Cheater Turn Needle Applique, and Gathered Circles.

I was having all kinds of issues - you'll notice here that I accidentally hand-stitched the corner of the block on to the back of the circle - bleh.  Luckily, it was on the edge of the fabric, so I could cut it out without much issue.  I did a bunch of other silly things (my husband says he can tell how frustrated I am by the amount of talking back to the fabric I do), and yes, I was very verbal.  

I'm grateful for this experiment, because it taught me that I DO NOT like hand applique at all.  I have to say though that it gives me a whole new level of appreciation and respect for those of you that hand stitch things - wow!  I don't have the patience for it.  Of all the methods I enjoyed the Cheater Turn Needle Applique the most, because it was the easiest and the quickest.  I don't want to know what that says about me.  :)

So, 2 applique blocks down and 1 more to go.  Sigh.  This last one looks like the hardest one, so there's a little amount of dread going on in my heart right now- I'm not going to lie.  I can do it though - right?!  I promised myself I would do every block no matter what, so wish me luck!

Winnings

This was my first time participating in the Giveaway at Sew Mama Sew in December.  I was lucky enough to win two things!!  I'm still waiting for one of them (it was mailed from Serbia - how cool is that?!), but here's the fabric that I won from Between Quilts.  Yea!  Now I just have to figure out what project I want to use it on.

During the Christmas Block Sew Along I also won some buttons for this block that I made:

I knew I had won some buttons, but I had no idea until they got here that they came from South Africa!  That makes them even cooler in my book!  I love the texture of the ridges on each of the flowered buttons.  I'm going to save these for something special.

Reading Benefits

If you knew my husband growing up you would know that he avoided reading like the plague when he was young.  It didn't interest him, because it wasn't entertaining enough for him.  He wasn't formally diagnosed with ADD until he was 21.  It took so long to diagnose him, because the doctor's thought he was fine, because he had such good grades.  He was so irritatingly smart that he could compensate for his lack of attention and still do really well in school.

Anyway, he's recently been on a reading kick - it's like he's trying to make up for all of those years that I was reading books, so that he can say he's caught up. ;)  Anyway, since he really wants to read in the evenings he's been encouraging me to quilt.  Sweet!  I don't need to be asked twice.  I'm not usually this quick to wip up a huge quilt top, but I finished up Nathan's quilt top for his bed today.

It's yucky outside, so my poor husband had to play Vanna for pictures of the quilt- we just couldn't get it to lay flat, but you get the idea.  I'm happy with how it turned out.  I've got some ideas for the back, but we'll see.  I want to get some of my Skill Builder Blocks done before I work on the back.

A little reading side note:  One of Joel's goals this year is to read more scholarly articles.  Two days ago he was reading an article about Scabies (gross, I know), and today he came home saying he was grateful that he had read that article, because he had to diagnose someone with Scabies today at clinic.  Crazy!  Good thing he likes reading now. :)