Moments that Warm Me

When a two-year old begs you to sew with him, with cookie breath and a wide-eyed please, are you going to disappoint?

Having nothing loaded on the machine, we took scraps from the top of the pile and laid them down, willy-nilly, pell-mell, and just sewed. Nephew was in charge of needle-up/needle-down and scissor buttons. "[Nephew] do it! All by 'mself."

I didn't bother with an iron; an attentive nephew will quickly turn to a crazy beast if you keep removing him from his perch on your lap to press seams. I used fingers instead as we admire our work and plotted the next scrap.

Decent improv piecer, that Nephew. I figure he'll be entering shows by six. :)

Progress. Or not.

The trouble with doing a tutorial on random piecing is that you end up with random pieced blocks and not necessarily an end game... 

Th opportunity with doing a tutorial on random piecing is that you end up with a healthy start on an improvised quilt top.

I sewed all my chip and chunks into blocks and started to play with a layout.

Hmmm. Not quite.

Nope.

Interesting...

That's better.

Added some Kona ash.

It's grown a little bit since I took this photo (into a completed top) but my lighting isn't great and I didn't have room to lay down an entire top. :-(  But you get the gist.

Using up my leftover pieces in the centre improv block meant that 8 fat quarters ultimately boiled down to this pretty tiny pile of scraps.  The pile of ash scraps is a little larger but I used the better part of 3 yards on background and binding strips.  I'm thinking I'll quilt it with orange lines... We'll see.

So that's progress.

Weather-wise, not so much.  I woke up to this.

But that's okay...

Brilliant ad campaign, eh?

Yes, on Saturday, the Leafs finally made the playoffs.  First time in 9 years.  I haven't stopped doing the happy dance since. I don't even care if they make it out of the first round.... (I daren't use exclamation points; THAT'S how excited I am.)

I started a pair of socks.  I have a history of knitting something simple during playoffs (hands busy, mouth quieter) and finished a long-running project last year so I need a new one.  This will not be it.

I was reminded after missing a goal, and having to take back every other repeat, that lace and hockey don't mix. Back to the drawing board...

Dash.

1998-2013

Sleep tight, bud.


***

PS.  My prayers are with you, Boston.

Tutorial: Random Piecing

Hello!

I'm over at the Saskatoon Modern Quilt Guild site today with a tutorial on random piecing.  It's more of a guide to a technique that falls between patten-based and improv-based piecing.  I've used it in a number of projects and think it's a great way to ensure your work is unique.  I'd love to know what you think and if you try it out, please let me know!

For the tutorial, just click here and you'll be taken to the SMQG site!  Enjoy!

Still kickin'

Well, it's been real... lol.  I find that in the spring, I need a little more downtime than the rest of the year due to the season-shift and the migraine-related consequences that come with it.  This year, with its whack-tastic weather has proved to be a little more difficult than usual and results in the frequent disappearing act.  It's not that I don't miss reading blogs and keeping up on the haps but this last little while, I kinda skipped the glare of the internet - my laptop sat abandoned - and my sewing machine gathered more dust from disuse than lint from overuse.  It's Easter break so I've had the week off but while I had big plans, I crashed hard instead. My productivity was more of the passive kind - I cleared tons off the PVR and watched almost the entirety of Game of Thrones. (I was also holding my breath approaching the NHL trade deadline... Phew! Dodged an unneeded goalie-sized bullet there!)

This was the first day of Spring 'round these parts.... Chest height snow. After the first two melts.  Yeah.

So, I'm a week behind on everyone's blogs if you've been missing my comments or hits on your site. Sorry, I'll get there. :-) (Oh, so very Canadian....)

I am working on a tutorial for the random piecing demo I did at the Saskatoon Modern Quilt Guild at our last meeting and I'm hoping to get it up before the end of the weekend.

The guild has a couple of challenges going at all times.  The one we just finished was the Ugly Fat Quarter Challenge.  We all brought an ugly FQ, dropped it into a pillowcase and took turns pulling one out. What did I get? A green/brown floral monstrosity.  I went pouch because I was mentally blocked and after experimenting unsuccessfully with some FMQ and mock-trapunto, I was running out of fabric.  I did manage to quickly design my own gnome-y accent for it though and it makes me happy.  My sister thought the pouch was cute and it now lives with her.

'Scuze the shaky photos - took them months ago.

Our current challenge is a Two-Colour Crayon Challenge.  You pull two crayons from a magical toque and those are the colours you're stuck with.  You can use only those colours, and neutrals if you really feel you need them.  I pulled yellow and white.  And as much as I'm happy with how it's going, it will also be living at Seester's.

I managed to get my Simply Solids Bee block finished.  Karen @ BungalowBayQuilts asked for Scrap Jar Stars and I was thrilled that I had tons of scraps so I could make it really colourful for her. Hopefully, colour was what she wanted because, boy, there's a ton in there!

The major project I had planned for the break was the quilting on a quilt that's sat waiting, basted and ready, since the middle of January. Well, folks, it's already the end of Thursday and this is how far I got.

10 minutes in...

But when HotWheels interrupt your projects, it's really hard to be annoyed at a lack of progress.  Nephew's learning about why we don't keep pushing the button with the scissors on it...

And since you may have noticed this, I'm not on Crackbook, I don't pin anything, I don't use Twitter or Instagram, and am kinda lame and inept at using Flickr.  Therefore, please understand how very difficult it was for me to do the following.   I am resentfully claiming my blog on Bloglovin'. (I am a curmudgeon, yes, I get that.)

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Yeah.  I have no plans to use it - I'm happy with Reeder - but I know that I keep a pretty low profile and thought it might make it easier to find me, if you're looking.

Now - I'm going to send some overdue emails and get back to reading.... Have a lovely one!