Wonk Around the Block in Indigo!

 This morning I finished up the last workshop session with the Great Lakes Modern Quilt Guild. We've been doing my Wonk Around the Block pattern as a virtual sew along since May, and it's been a lot of fun, and a great way to still be able to sew together even when we're apart. For my demo version for the sew along, I used the gorgeous Indigo Batiks from Anthology Fabrics.

Here's a progression of my quilt through the months: 

Month 1: The wonky center star that starts it all: 

Month 2: Flying geese border + additional borders

Month 3: Wonky Log Cabin blocks

Months 4 : More borders

Month 6: Half Shoo Fly and Wonky Flying Geese for the finish! 

Next up, of course, is quilting! 

I'll share a gallery of everyone's Wonk Around the Block quilts soon--there's so much variety! 

The Wonk Around the Block pattern is available in my Etsy shop.

You can also purchase access to a set of videos that walk you through each section's steps.

If you like what you've seen here, you can also find me:

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Finished! Wonky Log Cabin

I'm proud to say that I finished machine quilting my wonky log cabin quilt last weekend, just in time to bind it and show it in the Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side.

I'm pretty happy with how this quilt turned out. I really like how the (semi) straight line quilting looks. It did make me realize that I definitely need more practice machine quilting. That just means I'll need to stitch some more quilt tops--no problem!

Here's a flat shot of the quilt as well.

My original plan had been to take the "beauty shot" of the quilt in front of a beautiful blue lake/sky combo. Unfortunately, Mother Nature did not cooperate, and I had a gray-ish backdrop instead. I'll show the photo anyway!

I also took some close-ups. You can see my photo shoot helper in one of the pictures. I couldn't keep him off the quilt! 

If you're visiting from the Blogger's Quilt Festival (or any other site), thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you'll consider joining as a follower. 

And definitely stop by Amy's Creative Side to check out all of the gorgeous quilts in the online show. There are some truly fantastic quilts, and in just a few minutes of looking, I've found so many patterns and ideas I want to try!

 

Fabric Friday, sneak peek, and sad rulers

shhh...I know it's actually Saturday, but I'm posting like it's still Friday. I spent most of Friday trying to finish quilting the wonky log cabin quilt. And it's done! Here's a sneak peek.

I did simple straight line quilting on it, which in some places could be called wonky straight line quilting. I definitely need to practice my technique to improve! But hey...that's what the next (and the next, and the next) quilt top is for! I'm thrilled to have this done because I'm going to show it off in the Blogger's Quilt Festival at amyscreativeside.com next week.

My plan is to share some fabric every Friday, whether it's something I'm getting ready to sew with or just some fabrics that I am coveting. I've got great plans for these prints, from Gudrun Erla's Reflections line for Red Rooster fabrics, plus that dark and rich gray solid.

And finally, the only thing more sad than this:

Is this:

Yep, I did the same thing to both of my 6" x 24" rulers. Argh! I cut fabric on the ground, so they've been cracked for a while, but a well-placed knee/foot took both of these to the next level in the last few weeks. I think I'm going to invest in a new ruler, a ruler holder, and maybe even a new cutting technique!

Have a great weekend!

Behind the scenes, or quilting with effort

Here's an update on my wonky log cabin blocks, which I've been sacrificing sleep, neglecting my husband and kids, and skipping showers to work on because I'm so obsessed. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that my sewing machine and I were living in different zip codes for six months. This is the second half of the post, How to Make Everything Seem Effortless...or not.

12 blocks done, complete with sashing strips. Yay!

Only 11 are pictured because I'd already taken lucky #12 off to be cropped.

And they're on the floor because I haven't had time to put the design wall up yet. 

It's time to make a 15-1/2" square of clear plastic template material and give the blocks one last twist. Except that in my quick run to Hobby Lobby, I could only find 12" x 18" clear plastic template material. No problem--I'll buy two and make my own large square. Not effortless.

So I'm busy working on this when I should be doing something else, because it'll only take 10 minutes. Twenty minutes later, I'm still.cutting.through.the.#&$(#$.plastic. Not effortless.

Taping the pieces together--accidentally taped it to create a 15" square first. Second try, the tape I'm using wrinkles and puckers. Not effortless.

I finally get to cutting. Here's a mental picture: I like to cut on the floor. Putting my knee on the ruler/template. And then I rotate around the board so I'm always cutting at the most comfortable angle. 

Not effortless.

And, even though I had so much trouble cutting through the template material, I am positioning my ruler on top before each cut, because it would be just my luck to have the rotary cutter suddenly cut through the plastic like butter if I didn't use the ruler. Lining up two transparent pieces of plastic to cut a straight line? So fun. And, all together now: Not effortless.

An hour after I start, I have one block cropped to template size and two pictures taken to share the process with you. I left the wrinkles in on the cropped block just to keep it real. Don't want to set too high of expectations!

11 more to crop, and then it's assembly time! Note the pieced template square. 

I'll get better at this semi-professional blog show and tell. But in the meantime, hope you enjoyed this little behind-the-scenes peek at reality, while I sit here with my feet up, eating bon-bons.

How to make everything appear effortless...or not

There's a link going around Facebook right now to an article called "Your Children Want YOU!" by April Perry of powerofmoms.com (read the article here). It begins by pointing out the pressure that Pinterest, blogs, Twitter, parenting magazines, etc. put on parents by showing images and telling stories of uber-put-together moms who keep toys alphabetized, create specially shaped sandwiches and pancakes every morning, and so on.

Star Wars pancake and cookie cutters from William-Sonoma.
Very cool, but not on my agenda at the moment.

The gist of the article is that your kids would rather have plain old time with you rather than less time with super mom and her fancy pancakes. I get this--as a mom of young kids, it resonates with me. I'd love to do all that cool stuff and focus my creativity on my kids. And sometimes I do. But between the kids, a full-time job, dealing with the house, spending time with my husband and friends, and, oh yeah, quilting, more often than not, it's just not gonna happen. But there's always that illusion that it could, isn't there?

As I was working on my wonky log cabin blocks this week, I had that same feeling of pressure settle down on me. I'm so eager to see where these blocks are headed that I'm giving up sleep at night, and I definitely want to share the process with you. But. A big but. How do I balance between quality, quantity and sanity? That is, quality of photos, quantity of blog entries (gotta keep you interested!) and my sanity ('cause my husband sure isn't staying up making sure I sew those seams straight!).

I LOVE looking at other quilting and sewing blogs. In fact, that's part of why I started this one, so I could join the fun. But I'm often blown away by how much sewing time these other bloggers find, and how seamless (pun not intended) everything they create looks. Are they all professional photographers? The step photos they post are well-lit, fabrics are pressed, no excess clutter crowds in. My photos so far have been only a little dark and  wrinkled, and that's with maximum effort and way too many attempts to count. How do they have time to sew AND take photos of what they're sewing as they go every day?

So I present to you my wonky block update and my template plastic experience, here.