Proud papa...

Okay, so it's been awhile.  I could offer up all the usual excuses and reasons, you know, work's busy, out of town, etc. But, I don't wanna.  It is what it is and I want to keep work off of here as much as possible. So, on to the fun stuff...

Last weekend, my daughter's school district had their district/county wide art fair.  Man, some really wonderful things out there by kids at every age group! It was a blast.  It is great to see an entire district, and a big one too, that has such strong art programs.  Right on Prince William County!  

Anyway, now for the bragging dad part....  Not only was my daughter's work (below) one of the several from her elementary school to be shown at the exhibit, but it was the one chosen to represent her school in the exhibit that will live in the district offices! 

My daughter's work. Mixed media, paint, chalk and something else. Really, the technique was
beyond me, but it turned out awesome.

Some work from one of the middle schools.  I really dug these trees...might be a quilt in here....

And another thing...

Another proud papa moment was on Sunday when my girl comes up to me with some pieces of fabric (hers) and wants to make a little doll sized pillow.  Well, heck, let's go to the basement.  So, we went on down to the sewing room and I talked her through the basics about cutting the fabric, seam allowances, and a refresher on the sewing machine.  Before I knew it, her two best friends showed up and I had all three of in the sewing room going to town.   They did great!  All I did for them was use the rotary cutter and talk them through everything else.  They all used the machine themselves, slip stitched, everything else.  What a kick!  

Two of the three pillows the girls made.
(I forgot to get a picture until the next day and one of the girls wasn't around...oops.)

I'll post again in a couple days with something neat.  Angela Michaud-Mourer who's blog, Idomitable Angela , I follow, has named this blog one of her Liebster Blogs.  I am flattered and will post the details about that soon as well as start "flying" the badge.  Thank you Angela, sorry it'll take me a bit to get that posted, but I'm taking your nomination seriously and want to put some thought into it.

Until next time...

Testing, testing....

Ok, so I'm just playing with a new toy. I got a little tablet computer last week and wanted to try uploading pics taken with it directly to the blog. It works. Too easy.

Oh. and the pic is some of my wife's knitting stuff I've laid out while I design a needle roll.  Yes, I know there are plenty of tutorials, at this point you should know I like to figure it out for myself. And besides, Ang has a specific idea of what she needs in a roll.

Ok, enough for now.

Wait, two posts in two days. Lame posts, but hey work with me, I'm on a roll here. :)

Wanted to share this...

Well,
Clearly I'm not doing too well at keeping up with the blog yet, but I did want to share something.
Below is a link to the International Quilt Study Center & Museum at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
They've got a wonderful site all about quilts with many images of some great works.  If you're not familiar with it, check it out and sign up for the Quilt of the Month email. (I've link to February's entry)

http://www.quiltstudy.org/collections/quilt_of_the_month/

Been pretty busy, and I've not had too much time work on stuff, but getting their email and seeing these historical quilts is always inspiring.  I would love to see this collection in person and ironically will be traveling to Nebraska for work in about a week, but will be nowhere near Lincoln. Bummer.

Anyway, check it out if you can.

So, it's 2012...hmmm

Well, I'm not really sure how that relates to this blog, but I'll work it in somehow.  I never know just how to start these posts and it just seemed like I should say something about the new year and all.

Ah, wait a minute, too easy...

This January marks one year of this cheesy little blog.
It also marks 1 1/2 years I've been trying to quilt.

Ok, guess that is about it...

But, really, I've never been one for "New Year's Resolutions" or any of that nonsense.  I'm just way too cynical.  I look at January as more of a reset after all the nonsense of the November and December holidays.  (Hell, anymore the holiday nonsense starts before Halloween, ugh.)  January is back to "normal," whatever that is.  Back to a more set routine, less extra stuff to do because that is what society tells us we're supposed to do, etc.  (See, my cynicism is showing through.)  What does this have to do with the blog, not a whole lot except I'm going to try to "reset" the way I approach this.

I've been doing this, admittedly a bit haphazardly, for a year now.  I had no real plan, or goals with it, just something to mess around with.  I still don't have a plan, but I do have some ideas.  One, I want to get Ang to post a bit. She's only posted once and I'd really like to have her input and thoughts on stuff too.  I'll work on that.  I think I'll be posting more often, hopefully showing some WIPS and talking about the process more.  I know I'm bad about showing all that, but like I've written before, sometimes it comes down to spend the time writing about it or doing it.  Easy call, do it.

Something I have been thinking a lot about is why I have this blog (still don't know for sure yet) and what I want it to be.  After looking at so many blogs, most about quilting, I do know I don't want it to be like most of what I see.  In general there's nothing wrong with what I see, but it is not me.  And often, I'm not sure it is really represents the people running the blog.  It seems that a lot of people want their blog to be just like so & so's or something.  You know, they have all the perfectly staged photos with the immaculate sewing rooms and occasional amazing recipes.  Blah.  Now, if you're using your blog as part of a business, I get it, you have to present a certain image.  But, really, some of these blogs seem like they're trying to convince the world they live inside a quilting/sewing book and everything is always perfect there.  Wow, this got real cynical didn't it?

Oh well, this is the You Quilt? blog version 2012.  Not new, and not necessarily improved.

If I keep this up I'll have to change the blog title to "Darth Quilter."  (Inside joke for my work friends.)

How about a quilt, let say a WIP....

So this is what I've been messing with.  On the right is a flower my daughter did this summer.  Her medium; poster board, Sharpie and duct tape. Yep, bright green duct tape.  Kids are great.  Their art is so cool, so real.  They don't over think it, they just do it.  As soon as I saw it, I wanted to make a wall hanging based on it.  So, I did what I do just dove in.  That's what she does and it works great for her.  We can learn a lot from kids, but that's for another post I guess.  

I'm trying some things that are new to me on this one.  To try and capture the duct tape, I made the flower out of strips, just like she did, and raw edge appliqued them on the background.  Not fusing them left them a bit "loose" and wrinkly and to me helps recreate the duct tape feel.  For her squiggles, she used black Sharpie, I'm trying my hand a couching black yarn on.  Only one so far, but I think it'll work well.  It is a simple piece, raw and spontaneous (well her original was, obviously mine isn't) but a good chance for me to try some stuff and learn a bit from my kid!

Tree of Life

Well, I'm finally back again.  Yep, the same old stuff keeping me away from updating the blog, you know, life.  But, I've got a fun one to post today.

Some really good friends of mine got married in November and Ang and I wanted to do something special for them.  We decided to work on a quilt together, make something from one couple to another.  But, what the hell kind of quilt would the two of us come up with together?  I like modern, solids, bright, off-kilter things and Ang is much more traditional and folk arty in her tastes.  

Ang had a great idea revolving around a tree of life idea with two birds representing the couple.  Her various ideas and doodles led to our starting point below:

The drawing led to the appliqued tree on the right.  I still can't believe the tree is one piece.  It is hard enough for me to imagine cutting it out, let alone sewing it on.  There could be a good tutorial in here about enlarging the 5x6" drawing on the left to a 30x30" panel.  But, since I didn't really take notes at the time, let's just say it took a bit of trial and error with my printers enlarge/poster function.  Eventually it worked and we ended up with a full size template for Ang to use.

Okay, great, we've got the central part of this quilt figured out an in progress, what about the rest?  Well, that was my part, and for all the doodles and ideas I came up with none were any good. (Well, that's a bit judgmental, none felt right for this.)  Of course, Ang saves the day, or at least my butt.  When walking the dog one day she notices a neighbor's front door has a nice Frank Lloyd Wright inspired window panel.  She sends me over to check it out and see if I like the design too.  I find the house and yes, that panel is cool, so I draw a picture of it real quick and head on home.  Now we have our basic design elements.  That window panel we saw inspired the top and bottom panels on our quilt.

If I had been smart, and had some extra time, I'd have written down a lot of notes during this project.  There could have been half a dozen posts related to this quilt along the way.  Working the way I do, "just diving in" like I've written before, we ran into numerous headaches and "learning experiences."  

Overall, I think it worked out well.  

Ang's Tree of Life design

(Hand applique, leaves and flowers wool felt)

Oh, and another thing!  My daughter and I were in the wedding party for our friends' ceremony.  Our daughter Madelynne was so excited to be in the ceremony and have a dress like the bridesmaids, Ang wanted to make something special for her as well.  Ang knitted this really cute scarf/shawl to compliment her dress.  It looked great and Madelynne never took it off the whole day.

(Here's my obligatory super cute kid picture. Look out maybe next month I'll post some pics of our super perfect meals too, hahaha...no.)

Sunday afternoon play time...

I'm between projects and waiting for Ang to finish her part of one so I can finish it so I had some time this afternoon to play around and experiment.

Nothing too exciting, just playing with scraps again and trying out some ideas.  These little experiments are helping me sort out some visual ideas and work on some basic techniques without being worried about messing up on a serious project.

I did manage to get a pouch done for her bag.  This one came out much better than the first attempt.

...still not thrilled with zippers though...

New Toy, Old Project...

First, thanks to everyone who stopped by during Amy's Creative Side's Blogger's Quilt Festival.  I've been amazed at how many people have come by my little blog over the last week.  With over 600 quilters involved, it was very cool to see other's work and flattering that people were interested in mine.

So, we got a new toy the other day.  Ever since I started infringing on, if not commandeering Ang's sewing room, she's wanted to get another sewing machine.  We've been looking around for an affordable second machine, but one that would be at least one step up from our old machine.  Considering our old one is a cheapy Brother that we bought at the PX years ago, it was not hard to find machines that were a step (or more) up, but keeping it on the affordable side was our challenge.  It turns out that Costco was running a special on another Brother model (XR7700), still one that would be probably be considered entry level, but with more options, computerized and a dozen attachments included.  Boy, this is starting to sound like a commercial, sorry.  But hey, if any Brother reps do see this, I'd love to talk about an endorsement deal:)

Anyway, Ang had started on this little bag a while back and since she's in the middle of two other projects with deadlines, she asked me to see if I could finish it for her.  Great chance to play with the new toy! 

Below is the simple pouch she had started made from old jeans and a Moda print.  My job was to finish it some how. 

                 

Ang's beginning...

My finish...

It turned out okay, especially for not having done this before.  It is a cute, simple functional messenger bag/purse kinda thing that'll do well for holding her wallet and stuff, as well as her knitting.  Now what's going to happen is a couple weeks from now, she'll say "This is cute and all and I really like it, but I can't..... and I need......can you make me one that has X and Y too this time?"  So, I'm sure I'll be posting about another bag at some point:) Meanwhile, she's asked for me to make a couple small zippered pouch for inside.  I tried my first zipper the other night and man, that sucked.  I get it now, but you should see how lame that little pouch looks, well no, you shouldn't, I'm not going to post it.  It went together okay and works, but, oh man, it's all lopsided and looks like something out of a Dali painting!

The new toy...