Happy Birthday!

Today is my sweetheart's birthday!  I love you hubby.  Another incredible year has passed and I'm so lucky to have you at my side.  Together we can get through anything!

So, the Zig Zag quilt is complete!  I really, really love it.  Is that terrible to say about your own work?  I just keep looking at it and congratulating myself on my first officially completed quilt. (I still haven't quilted the one I did through Care's blog. But now I have the courage to do it.)  It's about 45" x 45"...perfect for someone's sweet little one.  Here are the photos.

Hubby's first woodworking project

Gotta brag on my hubby.  Over the past year he's been putting together a woodworking shop. Craigslist has been a great source for secondhand tools and after scoring a lathe over Christmas he was able to try making a bowl.  One of our neighbors at the cabin has a never-ending supply of wood that he cuts from his property.  He had some cherry and oak pieces that hubby thought would be perfect for the shop.  After several tries, here is his first bowl.  I left it on my cutting mat to give you an idea of how small it is.  So cute.  I'm so proud of him.  Love the woodgrain lines.

A few new pottery pieces

While J was here over Christmas break, she had clay playtime with me.  At first she couldn't just relax and let the pottery take shape, but after a couple hours she made a few cool pieces that are drying right now.  I only took photos of 2 pieces, but here they are...a small tray (about 3" x 5") and what she thought would be a pencil holder, but it's probably too tall to work as that.

Pretty good for the first time, huh?  I have a few new pieces also.  This vase was made from two textured slabs:

I also made 2 more birds.  Can't figure out what colors to glaze these:

And, lastly, I made 2 small bird "dishes".  Don't really know if they are dishes or bowls,  I curved the edges, so it should hold small pieces of jewelry:

Also have some other pieces in the works....stay tuned
Joy and Peace,
Kelly

I still question

J left to go back to school yesterday. It's a long 12 hour drive and I feel like I hold my breath until I know she's safely there.  Less than an hour after she got there she received an Auburn weather alert.  Due to an ice storm that's expected to hit the area tonight, classes have been canceled for Monday.  So, I guess everyone will be able to get an early start on the preparations for the Auburn-Oregon game.  War Eagle!

I finished reading Unbroken, a remarkable story about a man's survival in a Japanese POW camp during WWII.  I highly recommend this book, but I had to put it down at times because the horror of what he lived through was almost overwhelming.  In the last part of the book, Louie is heavily drinking as he tries to escape the reality of what he experienced.  After reluctantly attending a Billy Graham revival, he remembers how he promised God that he would dedicate his life to Him if he would save him from dying on a raft in the Pacific Ocean.  Thus begins his life's turnaround.

After reading this book, I think it would be easy for Louie to dispel of the idea of God.  How could a kind and loving God allow anyone to suffer as Louie did?  I am still struggling with regaining my faith in God.  After B died, I was convinced that there could not be a God.  It didn't make sense to me.  B was only 19 and just beginning his adult life.  He truly was one of the best people I know....so kind, so smart, so loving, so funny.  And he suffered through so much with leukemia.  Why did Jesus save people who were sick, raise people from the dead when asked by their loved ones.....but our fervent prayers of B's healing were unanswered?  I am still, still struggling with these questions. And I still, still miss my son so much that it physically hurts.

Zig zag Quilt continued

I've finally had a chance to work on the zigzag quilt again.  I just realized that I didn't list the supplies I used for this project:
7 one quarter yard cuts of print fabrics
1 1/4 yds white fabric
1/2 yd binding fabric
1 1/3 yd backing fabric
warm and natural batting

As I said in the previous post, I worked diagonally down this quilt, first sewing the squares together into strips and then sewing the strips together.  Sounds easy (and it is), but I learned a lot doing this.  Especially that I need to work on my 1/4 inch seams!  How can something so simple torment me so?  The seam ripper and I became fast friends.  Stitching the first 4 strips together was going ok, but then all the sudden my seams weren't lining up and I could see it getting worse as I progressed.  I started using a straight edge to make sure that the lines were staying (relatively) straight.  So, the quilt top isn't exactly the way I would like, but as long as I learned something I am good with it.

The other thing I highly, highly recommend is keeping the iron at your side.  Press, press, press all the seams as you sew them, but being careful not to distort the shape of the project.  Press the seams in alternating directions (square to square AND strip to strip).  Misting the fabric lightly seemed to really help with the pressing.

Here is the quilt top after sewing all the strips together.

The next thing I did was trim all the sides of the quilt top.  The final size of the quilt top is about 46"x46".  I'm not sure if this is a good crib quilt size.  I need to look that up sometime.

For the backing, I cut a 50", WOF piece of the pink fabric. Because it is only 44" wide, I needed to add a strip of about 3" wide pieced fabrics.  (This is where I used the leftover strips from when I cut the 5.5" squares.)   I cut the backing width-wise (it doesn't really matter where) and attached the strip.  Here is the finished backing.

So, now I'm ready to assemble the quilt...too bad I didn't realize that I was out of batting.  Guess I'm due another trip to JoAnn's.  :)

Zig Zag Quilt, Day 2

So today I sewed a white strip to each of the patterned strips and then laid them out to find a nice order to them.
I wasn't completely sold on the order, but I knew I wanted the bright pink print in the middle,

 

The next step is to cut each of these strips into squares.  The strips are 5 1/2" wide....so I'm cutting 5 1/2" squares.  And, darn, if I didn't start daydreaming and cut a couple of strips only 5".  Oops, well, thank goodness I had some extra fabric.  I ended up with 14 squares of each print.

Then I got to put my new design wall to use!  My parents gave me this for Christmas and it came in so handy!  I started at the upper left, made a zigzag pattern with the first fabric, and then continued with each of the other squares.  You turn each square 90 degrees to make the zigzag pattern.  Another thing I like about laying out the squares on the design wall is that I could easily move them around to match sizes....since apparently my 1/4" seams aren't very consistent.  (I think I may need to invest in a 1/4 inch piecing foot.)  Oops, notice the 5" square on the far right, second row.  I didn't realize that one was cut wrong until I put it up on the wall.  It's been replaced now.

Time to sew this quilt top together.  You sew diagonally rows, so starting on the upper right, I sewed the last two pink plaid squares together.  Then I sewed the four squares together that are to left of it diagonally. I tried to separate the sections in this photo to give you an idea of how I went through the process.  I left the squares on the design board until I was ready to sew them so I wouldn't get the order and arrangement messed up.

By the fourth diagonal, I was piecing 8 squares together.  I thought it may be better to sew the upper 4 together, then the lower 4 squares, and finally sewing these two strips together.  I only got as far as the fourth diagonal today, but things are looking good.  Will continue tomorrow.

First quilting project of 2011

We returned from Christmas in Texas and I could hardly contain my excitement about going to JoAnn's Fabrics to pick up fabrics for my first project of 2011.  I love to see what colors seem to call out to me and today it was pink and green. I bought several 1/4 yard cuts of  fabrics and headed back home to decide what I should make with them.

 

The pinks seem to scream little girl, so I think I'll make a zig-zag baby quilt in pink and green with white sashing between the zigs (or the zags). I hand-wrote the instructions for a zig-zag quilt many, many moons ago.  This was before I had planned to do this blog, so I am unable to give proper credit for this tutorial...but I am gonna write it all here.  I've decided to only use only 7 of the printed fabrics, so 3 of them get to be saved for another day. :)   Today, I cut two 3" wide, WOF strips from each fabric and 14 similar strips of the white fabric. 

I'm going to use the solid pink for binding and the pink fabric that is second from the right as the backing.  That's all for today on this project....will continue tomorrow.