100 Quilts for Kids

Do you know about 100 Quilts for Kids?

Each year the DC Modern Quilt Guild hosts this charity sewing event, and donates quilts to kids in need. This year our quilts were donated to DC General. 119 quilts were linked up this year (some donated to the charity of the maker's choosing)!

Last year was my first year contributing. I made a baby quilt on my own and contributed blocks to a group quilt. This year I've done the same.

Photo by DCMQG President Melinda, Quirky Granola Girl.

I found these orphaned, scrappy log cabin blocks while cleaning up my supply bins. I made them at least a year ago. They didn't speak to me then, but when I found them I thought they'd be perfect for a baby quilt--and I had just enough!

This taupe-ish-gray border is the same solid I originally used to sash my scrappy Anna Maria Horner coin quilt strips. I still don't love it, but I wanted to use what I have. Besides, white sashing really isn't practical for a baby quilt... right?

A few people asked me about the quilting: it is the squiggle stitch programmed on my machine. It's nice to switch it up sometimes. :)

You can see some of the fabulous quilts on Instagram, #100quilts4kids.

Summer Recap -- and Finishes!

Cotton + Steel Plus Quilt

I finally have some finishes, including three on my Finish Along list!

A couple weekends ago I attended my first ever retreat, hosted by the DC Modern Quilt Guild. It was spectacular. A beautiful location near Harpers Ferry, WV. Fun and inspiring women. Lots of sewing time.

Pieced backing for C+S Plus Quilt

I quilted and bound the baby-sized Cotton + Steel plus quilt. I pieced a back for the throw-sized Cotton + Steel plus quilt -- and then basted it. I finally basted my Priory Square "Boxed In" quilt (pattern by Jaybird Quilts).

I also cut and started piecing a quilt using the Doe line by Carolyn Friedlander. This one is another pattern by Jaybird Quilts from the book, Skip the Borders: Easy Patterns for Modern Quilts. The quilt in the book is made up in black, white and greens. I have to admit, I didn't love Doe when I first saw it, and I didn't love this quilt pattern, either. But I had a hunch that they were meant for each other. What do you think?

Doe quilt

Originally I took out the orange print but I'm really glad I added it back in. It really pops, doesn't it? I've been won over by both Doe and this pattern. In fact, I love this quilt so much I'm giving it to my husband. I'm calling this one the "husband of the year" quilt. He earned it.

Since the retreat I have managed to finish both the Cotton + Steel and the Priory Square quilts! I've also finished the Doe top. So yeah, I've been doing a fair amount of sewing!

Priory Square "Boxed In" Quilt

Earlier this summer I visited a dear friend in beautiful Minneapolis, and then spent a week with my family at Lake Ontario in upstate New York. We go every summer but this year was especially fun. The good weather probably had something to do with it, and the boys are at "easier" ages... But I also went into vacation determined to have a good time and I swear it helped. Usually I get so stressed out that my husband doesn't want to do the things I want to do, or that the way we live is different from how my parents live. I'm a people pleaser and I live by "when in Rome," you know? This summer I just let everyone be. If we used up the paper towels? Who cares! If I wanted to swim and no one else did? I swam alone. And it was glorious. There was no sewing time on either trip, but there were trips to fabric stores. If you're ever in Minneapolis, I highly recommend Crafty Planet!

Lake Ontario

And that, friends, is a wrap. Happy summer, lovelies!

Linking to Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts and TGIFF at My Quilt Infatuation.

Back to Square One

Uuuuuuuuugh. I have been making a lot of mistakes lately.

First there's the non-progress on my Anna Maria Horner Greatest Hits scrap quilt. Back in February I picked up some gray-ish/taupe-ish fabric for sashing. I cut it up and sashed the quilt. And then it sat. For months. (It is still sitting.) I never got around to adding the top and bottom sashing and finally realized why: because it is UGLY. Not only is the gray/taupe solid a bad color choice, the width of the sashing is all wrong -- way too wide. So now I need to rip it out and start over. This time I'm tempted to just sew the scrap columns together without sashing... Or, sash it with Kona Snow, 2 1/2 inches wide? Another color? I'm open to ideas; what do you think?

Before I ruined it with ugly sashing. 

OK, so then I managed to finish the Priory Square quilt top using the Boxed In pattern from the book Beyond Borders by Julie Herman of Jaybird Quilts. It looks fantastic. However... there were a lot of piecing errors, and most of them due to my laziness with regards to a 1/4 inch seam. Amateur hour, I know. Fortunately, I was able to square the quilt up and the solid sashing throughout hides my mistakes.

All the pretty boxes!

I wish I could say I learned my lesson with that quilt. Nope. I moved on to expand the Cotton + Steel plus quilt I started many moons ago. I took the perfect square and added columns. And when I tried sewing the new columns to the old square, the seams didn't line up. Not even close. Yep. Now, I do use a guide and while my seams may not always be perfect scant 1/4 inches, usually things DO line up. However, in this case, I used my new machine (Kim Gordon) to piece the new columns... and I had used my old machine (Kitty) to piece the original square. Different machines, different guides. I just wasn't thinking.

The original baby-sized square with pretty seams.

I got verrrrrry familiar with my seam ripper this past week. I wanted to forge ahead with the project and disregard the mistakes. I tried to get comfortable with that path. But--and I think this is a sign of growth--I couldn't do it. So I ripped out the entire new section, but I kept the original square and will finish it off into a baby quilt. Which is what it was originally going to be anyway. And, because I can't get this color story out of my head and I don't want all of those squares to go to waste, I not only retrimmed the new section, I cut out the squares to remake the old section. Once I get it all stitched up I'll still only be halfway done with the new, larger quilt, but I think it'll be worth it in the end.

Whew. I wish I could say those were the only mistakes I've made, but there have been others. "Learning opportunities." Uh huh. I'm learning a lot. Hey, I'm happy to report that in between making errors learning opportunities I finally took the time to figure out the needle positions for a perfect 1/4 seam on Kim Gordon. (Side bar: isn't it annoying that a 1/4 inch foot doesn't make a 1/4 seam without some adjusting?!) SUCCESS!

On that note, here's my Quarter 3 Finish List. I've got the DCMQG sewing retreat in August and hope to get some quality stitching, so here's hoping there are a few finishes!

Priory Square quilt (above) -- piecing done; needs to be basted and quilted
Cotton + Steel (baby) plus quilt -- time to baste and quilt that baby!
Cotton + Steel plus quilt (the re-do) -- piecing in progress
AMH greatest hits scrap quilt -- let's not talk about it.

Project Piles:
Natural History twin quilt for M -- pattern picked
AMH mixed up king quilt
Doe strip quilt

Linking up to On the Windy Side for the 2015 Finish Along Q3!

For the love of quilters and unicorns

This.

This quilt is a gift to me from the DC Modern Quilt Guild. It is like a big, quilted hug from new friends. Guild members contributed blocks and Carissa, Vice President of the Guild, coordinated, pieced and quilted it. Every time I look at this quilt, I see something new. I am so thankful to have found this quilty home in the DCMQG.

Isn't this bag amazing? Do you see the tiny square of green? LOVE.

Before my diagnosis (breast cancer -- read more from here) I had participated only sparingly in the Guild. I didn't know more than a few of our members. One of the unexpected gifts of my treatment is that by standing out (hello, bald head), I was able to connect with people. I let down my guard, told my story, and let people in. I made friends! It has been so fun getting to know other people who love quilting. The DCMQG has been a not insignificant part of my recovery -- connecting offline, having the meetings to look forward, and finally attending a meeting before my final treatment, and again after it.

My first mom -- a quilter and a beautiful life lost to breast cancer -- loved unicorns. One of my last memories of her is that she had a stuffed unicorn beside her bed. I don't know what meaning unicorns had for her, but they will always remind me of her and our connection. Seeing the unicorn in this quilt was, well, pretty awesome.

In my twenties I sang in a band (don't get too excited -- we weren't very good; but thank you Sister and Sister's Friends for actually paying to hear us!). My favorite song of ours--our best song, if I dare say so--was "Unicorn Cat." I wrote it after a vivid dream in which my cat, yep, had a unicorn horn. It inspired a song about dreams, memories, and connecting with lost loved ones through the subconscious.

It began, "I had a dream that I had a unicorn cat..."

But the best verse was this one:
"Elusive memories I trap inside when I close my eyes,
You appear to me in signs.
These glimpses of past and future fading into one,
No consciousness of time."

No, you can't download the song on iTunes. Ha! That's a funny thought. But the guitarist and I are plotting to record it. So we'll see. Crazier things have happened.

Thank you, Carissa and DCMQG, for creating this beautiful quilt for me! It is magical. XOXO

Linking up to Quilty Thankful Thursday with so. much. gratitude.

Fabric Frenzy

A favorite pile.

Quilt Market was last week. I've never been, will probably not go (being an amateur quilter and all -- level one forever, baby). Still, it's hard to ignore: for days all of my feeds were full of Quilt Market photos, fabric launches, fabric purchases, fabric designers, fabric giveaways, fabric, fabric, fabric. It was too much, really. Don't get me wrong, I love fabric! I love print and color and seeing what people are making. Yet I am increasingly feeling overwhelmed by all of it, and no longer sure what my likes and dislikes are. 

My Guild, DCMQG, is in the middle of a zipper pouch swap. Swaps are nerve-wracking, in my opinion (what if they don't like what I make?! What if they request something beyond my skills?! What if...?!), but I'm challenging myself to be a participator because I love this Guild. Anyway, swaps always get me thinking about my favorite designers and fabrics and whether I could name one print as being my absolute favorite.

Could you? Do you have a favorite fabric?

When I started sewing I fell madly in love with Anna Maria Horner and her Field Study and Loulouthi lines. The throw quilt that sits on my bed remains my favorite quilt. I've started re-stashing many of the prints because the quilt brings me so much joy. Along the way, though, I've realized there are a few prints I can do without. And while I love all of them together, I'm not sure I could single out one print as my favorite.  

Pilar on her (our) favorite quilt.

I used to get so much joy out of fantasy fabric shopping. I'd visit my favorite online shops and fill up my cart with all of the prints. Echino, Anna Maria Horner, Lizzy House, Michael Miller novelty prints (I am a sucker for a good novelty print)... I still do this, usually lured in by a good sale, but it's more stressful and less fun. I am hyper-aware of how much fabric I've accumulated (still a fairly small stash, I think/hope), and I'm self-conscious about my choices. Do I love it, or is it just a fad? I'm often not sure.

At the last DCMQG meeting I sat next to Mary Fons (Mary Fons!). She was working on a beautiful baby quilt of tiny nine-patches, sashed in black. Her fabrics were small-scale prints, the sort of prints I don't usually buy. Her quilting style is so unequivocally hers, it got me thinking about my own style and taste. And there I was, blazing through the quilting on a self-described rush job -- a baby quilt I had whipped up quickly without much consideration for design. And the quilt I showed to the group? My Cotton + Steel plus quilt, still in progress. I was a little embarrassed by how faddish it seemed.

So I've realized: I've been coasting through my quilting. Making without a lot of intention, rushing to the finish (I love the finish). Don't get my wrong, I've made a lot of beautiful things and I am proud of them. I've chosen some really lovely fabrics. And my sewing has improved with the practice I've gotten from all of this making. But I think it's time to find my quilting voice.

I've started cutting the fabric for a quilt that will be a gift to a dear family member. I took a lot of time deciding on the pattern ("Boxed In" by Julie Herman of Jaybird Quilts, included in her book Skip the Borders), and I love the fabric I've chosen (Priory Square by Katy Jones) and I know she will, too.

Getting things squared away. Ha! 

But once I finish this project, I'm going to take a break from projects with self-imposed deadlines. I'm going to try to take some time to experiment and make what I love, and sew what I have. Which probably means a lot of simple patchwork with squares. For starters, I'm imagining a very large, king-sized quilt of 10-inch squares of my favorite Anna Maria Horner prints... OK, I admit it, I pulled that pile pictured at the top of this post expressly for the King quilt project. Seeing all the colors together makes me so happy. I should also finish my Greatest Hits scrap quilt. Greatest Hits = many favorites. And I'd like to finish the aforementioned Cotton + Steel plus quilt. It's not ALL Anna Maria Horner around here, after all. Heck, I've got a really pretty pile of Natural History by Lizzy House that is destined for M's bed, you know, when I get to it. And one thing I'm sure about? HE will love it.

So, OK, I have some favorite designers, and maybe some favorite fabric combinations. I even have a favorite quilt. But I haven't found my one favorite fabric yet. Let me know if you find yours. I might try applying Marie Kondo's rules and ask myself of each print in my stash: Does this fabric spark my joy? It just might work.

Digging a little deeper -- on community

I joined the BRCA Sisterhood, a private Facebook group for women who have a BRCA mutation or other hereditary breast or ovarian cancer(s). 

I know, I just said the other day that I wasn't looking to connect with other survivors. 

But the conversation I had with my colleague has stayed with me. Why have I resisted connecting with other women going through similar experiences?

I was afraid to admit this, but I think in part I fear being surrounded by cancer. I don't want cancer to define me, and yes--I am afraid of cancer. I want to run as far away from it, as fast as I can. 

A few weekends ago I attended my first DC Modern Quilt Guild meeting of the year. I joined the Guild almost two years ago but hadn't mentally committed to participate until recently. Earlier this year I started engaging with other members on Instagram. They embraced me, even though only a few could probably remember ever meeting me! And when I started documenting my cancer journey, they supported me. The Guild President sent me coffee and fabric for a head scarf. The Vice President reached out by email to check on me. And members cheered me on as I moved from surgery to chemo to recovery.

Attending the meeting in April felt like a homecoming. I nearly burst into tears, walking into the room, hugging friends I hadn't met in person before. Community is amazing. 

That's the thing I do need: community. And I am grateful to have found it in different places--work, home, with friends, online, at DCMQG. Within these communities are, of course, other survivors. But the nature of our community is different. Our relationships aren't defined by cancer. That feels significant. 

I don't know what my participation will be like in the BRCA Sisterhood... but I am going to give it a try. Already it is clear that the group provides tremendous support to each other, to women at all stages of the journey. They are there if I need them and heck, I may have something to offer as well.

I haven't figured it all out, but I'm getting there. It's a process, right?

Sparking Joy in Recovery with a little sewing

Recovery is hard, but not for the reasons I expected. I have been feeling SO GOOD and I want to do All the Things. So I do a lot of the things, and then I feel crummy. So I am working on finding balance. I'm getting there.

It has been nice spending quiet time at home. I haven't watched nearly as much television as I thought I would, and while I have been reading, it hasn't been the book festival I expected, either. Right now I am reading The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. It is smug, hilarious, and hard to put down. I think some of the smugness (and hilarity) may be the translation from Japanese. I didn't know my socks needed a holiday, but now they are peacefully at rest. I'm only halfway through but the book has already prompted a massive re-organizing effort and purge of clothes and objects that do not "spark joy." I know, I'm doing too much. I seriously need to stop.

I've also managed to do some sewing which, thankfully, is relaxing and not hard on my body. I finished up a baby-sized quilt top (36" square) with some of my favorite Cotton + Steel prints, and it is so cute and so sweet that I'm not sure I can bear to part with it. The minty colors match my kitchen perfectly, so it may just have to be a wall-hanging. Or, I might just have to keep going and make it bigger. It definitely sparks my joy. I used the Arithmetic Quilt Pattern tutorial by Jeni Baker @In Color Order as my guide.

See that Melody Miller floral print? That there may be my most favorite print ever. It's a border print and, while the border is super pretty, I sure wish it was an all-over floral...

Since I'm getting my sewing mojo back, I decided to take on a couple of DCMQG opportunities. First, I signed up for my very first swap ever! I'm a little nervous to make something for someone else. What if they don't like it? What if my sewing isn't up to snuff? It's one thing to make gifts for family and friends who don't sew. My swap partner SEWS.

And then, I signed up to make a quilt block for a quilt that the DC Modern Quilt Guild (DCMQG) will gift to one of our members who is going through her own challenging time. This is big, people. This is only the second time I've contributed to a group quilt. I'm working on getting over my fear of "not good enough" (not everyone appreciates approximate). This seemed fun and easy enough so I dove right in; here it is!

This was my first "improv slab" block and I really enjoyed the process. We were asked to make blocks in one of four colors. I had to be a little generous with my definition of cobalt, but I think it came out well. I had a blast sorting through my scraps to find enough different prints to throw together. The robot head cracks me up. Robots and giraffes in the same quilt? Err...

So that's it for now. I'm taking it easy -- well, easy enough -- and finding my joy in recovery. Quilting definitely sparks my joy.