bored bored?

No, not really.  Only for a few minutes here and there.  And yet, that is apparently sufficient.  For what?  Well, for designing more quilts.  Sheesh.  I am up to 12 now, putting me at 1 finished, 1 in process, and ten more to go.  Always assuming I don't come up with more, which is highly unlikely at this point.  As my roommate says: "Eh, give it a day.  You'll have another."  Too true, it seems.  Now, I am not going to say they are all winners - I have no idea on that score.  But so far they seem to be rolling.

So in between packing and working and prepping for other stuffus, I have quilt ideas.  Wheeee!  (Actually, this is a good thing, and I am not complaining).  It feels weird to be this... productive, at least on an idea scale, when there's so much else going on!

Halloween is over (well, in a few hours, anyway).  Day of the Dead is tomorrow.  After that, the stretch to Thanksgiving and beyond.  I have no small crafts going.  But I AM still being creative, and that somehow eases the lack of projects.  I may not be MAKING with fabric, but I am MAKING.  I am making designs and plans.  So long as I carry through with those plans and designs, it's not wasted time.

And tomorrow at work I'll take down the Halloween decorations and put up some autumn-themed ones until we're closer to Thanksgiving.  The turkey has to stay tucked away just a little while longer.  :)

Sarlaac Pit Rug

J. Random Thought for the moment - I found a lovely quilt pattern.  It's a Pine Burr Quilt pattern, and it's the state quilt of Alabama.  http://www.archives.state.al.us/emblems/st_quilt.html  I wonder if Texas has a state quilt?  I'll have to look.

However, the point of this post is this: the Pine Burr quilt is lovely.  Beautiful.  And I looked at it and thought to myself "Hmm... do that in browns, ivories and pink and you have the Sarlaac Pit from Return of the Jedi!"  So now I want to make one - not as a quilt, but as a rug.  Out of felt.  I think it's do-able.

The Sarlaac Pit rug would have one major advantage/disadvantage: it would catch all the dust and random pieces of stuff on the floor.  All those layers.  So I may make one, for a dust catcher and cat toy, if nothing else!

Random Thought of the Moment over.

P.S.  I didn't immediately find a State Quilt for Texas.  Wouldn't surprise me if there is one. 

The newest news

Pack pack pack pack.... shifting close dates... I feel like a ping pong ball!  Yeah, looks like we're moving.  The date is still up for grabs, which makes planning a little weird.  (Try impossible).  Also makes crafting a little difficult.  There's still so much to be done, and so little time to do it in with packing and stuff.  Not to mention the craft stuff is getting harder to get to!  (It will all improve, I know it will.  But right now I live in frustration land!).  My boredom craft got buried somewhere - no clue where, so I guess I will try to finish it in time for Thanksgiving! 

However.  The next quilt is long past the stage of planning and fabric gathering and is almost out of the cutting fabric stage.  Only about 80 more pieces to cut and then I can (in theory) start putting them back together!  That may be after the move, but we shall see. 

In the meantime, here's the test piece for Boston Molasses Flood.  I read a book about the Boston Molasses Flood earlier this year, and it made a fairly impressive impact on me.  It sounds silly, especially when people find out it happened in January.  However, when it's a flood up to 15 ft tall moving at 35mph, that's no laughing matter.  The shape of the tesselation is taken from a map of the disaster.  The darker area is the warehouse area of the company which owned the tank that gave way.  The lighter area is the area where the tank was.

On the real deal, the darks and lights will (if all goes as planned) not only be shaded by small and large, but shading from dark to light from top to bottom of the quilt, as a mark of how the molasses spread and the damage lightened as it went.  (If that sentence makes sense).

There is another colorway in my head, with different prints, that could accurately be called Isaac's Storm - after the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, which killed somewhere in the region of 10,000 people.  When I am done with Boston Molasses Flood, I may farm out Isaac's Storm to someone else to be done.  We shall see. 

I look forward to being moved and the crafting area - no, really it's going to be a crafting studio - we will have.  A two car detached garage that was used for car care - plenty of shelves, work space, and all nice and tidy.  He kept a clean work area!  AND it's heated/cooled.  Even better.  :)  But until then, it's pack and pack and make lists and organize and stuff.  And try to stay calm.

Ack! Almost the end of the month?!

Really?  Where has October gone?  (Yes, I know it's 'only' the 21st, but um... I have stuff still to do!)  It's been a busy month, not really full of time in which to be bored, as I believe I've mentioned before.  There's any number of things going on in life, from work to house-hunting to those projects which I suppose I should consider scheduled.  And a little socialization, too.



Isn't Baby cute?  (Well, I think so!)



At any rate.  I have now finished my first self-designed quilt.  I've also made the pattern for it, with yardage and everything.  :)  I feel... productive!  So, I introduce to you: Baby's First Steps!

Here is Baby in all his glory: taking his first steps into the big world of humanity - and stomping it flat!  Bright nuclear green footprints mark Baby's path through the city, as do overturned cars and flames.  You never know what kids can get up to once they start walking, that's for certain!  The world will never be the same!

Baby's First Steps is a simple pattern, pieced and appliqued.  The entire quilt is 30"x40", so perfect for a small child or a wall-hanging. 

And just because I could, and because it added to the cute Baby factor, here's a close-up of Baby himself:



Isn't his eye just the brightest?



He's got a bead eye.  I had the right kind of bead just hanging out, so of course I used it!

I think if I ever redo Baby, his skin fabric will be a little less busy, let some more of his details show through.  Maybe a gentler batik... but this is the one I found and liked.  :)  So I ran with it.  And on the whole, I am pleased with how Baby's First Steps came out.

This weekend it's off to a couple of quilt stores with Baby's First Steps to see if any of them would be interested in selling the pattern (if they think there's a market for this style). 

And I start working on the next quilt, which is considerably more "serious" - no wandering giant monsters.  It's a little more tricky - fewer squares and more odd shapes, but tesselated, so there's really only two shapes.  It's got color variants already, but the first one, and the one I am truly looking forward to, is the Boston Molasses Flood quilt.

So, between the Boston Molasses Flood quilt, and house hunting, and all that other stuff, there's not much time to be bored.  I am almost done with the only "I'm bored" project - just one seam left to do and I can post my pics.  It's a stuffed pumpkin from a pattern from... well, it looks like the 1970's, really.  I got the pattern at an estate sale, so there's no telling. 

October project and bored time

In keeping with the "No, really.  I'm going to work through my patterns and make one piece of clothing a month.  Really.  I am."  I am posting the pattern picture for October's project.  I don't have the fabric yet - well, I haven't gone through our fabric stash to see what I've got to use.  I don't feel like buying more fabric when we've got SO much already, so this will be a stash buster project to boot.  Makes me feel positively virtuous, it does!

Here it is.  I am already making modifications in my head.  I don't like the sheer on the shoulders, so I'll use a lightweight something - a really thin cotton, maybe.  We shall see what's available.  Maybe silk dupioni... lord knows we have enough of that roaming around!  Pair it with velvet, maybe.  Depends on how much of each I've got, really.  That's tonight's project - finding the fabric.

Of course, I am also getting to the quilting on my next quilt (yay!) and making a "I'm bored" project: a stuffed pumpkin.  It should be cute when I get it done, which shouldn't take too too long.  I'd like to have it for Halloween and beyond.  :)  If I get it cut out today, I should be able to stitch it tonight and finish it tomorrow.  And then find another "I'm bored" project!

I've got too many projects in my head - a steampunk navigator (who needs an outfit comprised of pieces from around the world - got fabric for some of that already), my next Ren Faire character, and so many more.  I want another sewing machine - so I can have one in my room to work when it gets really late and I don't want to disturb the roommate.  Maybe I'll take another look at a basic machine. 

We're finally getting more rain.  Yay for rain!  I don't have pics, because things are in upheaval right now and the camera is... somewhere.... But there is rain, and the plants are happy.  Temperatures are cooler for the time being, and it's almost like having fall!

More finished (and almost finshed) items

It was a relatively quiet weekend - rain, which was nice, and quilting and sewing and such.  Oh, and a visit to Screams Haunted Theme Park.  Very cool! 

On the crafting front - finished my September sewing project (yeah, yeah, a little late.  I have good reasons, really I do).  Now I need to pick October's sewing project.  Should be able to do that tonight, and will post picture of finished project and the envelope for the next one.  As a refresher, here's the Burda envelope:

And here is my finished product, still on the dressmaker's mannequin (Beatriz is her name, and she's been most helpful since I've had her). 

As you can see, I added lace and did not cuff the sleeves.  Yes, it's a little wrinkled; it's linen, so it's going to do that!  I'll steam it well before I wear it and get those pesky wrinkles out.  On the main, I am pleased with September's monthly sewing project. 

And in my defense, this one is late because I lost the fabric for two weeks.  And then when I found the fabric, I lost the directions.  *sigh*  This is why we need a dedicated sewing area!  And will hopefully have one soon.

        Since the Massive Quilt-o'-Doom is done and on the bed, I have been working on my next quilt.  I won't post the picture until it's done - complete and total - but I do have a pic of the test applique I did this weekend.  The colors are wrong (I'm just using scrap fabric for the test appliques, so I don't waste my good stuff) but you can kind of see what it will be like.   Yup.  It's a baby Godzilla!  He'll be rampaging through a city with radioactive trail and overturned cars and everything.  If it comes out right, maybe I'll do some of the other monsters - Gamera, Ghidorah, Rodan... maybe even Mothra. 

Maybe.

At any rate, there's the completed stuff and almost completed stuff and plans for the future.  There's so much going on right now that boredom isn't really an issue.  And I admit that some of my "bored" time has been spent reading.  I enjoy it, and last night read an entire book because I couldn't put it down.  And because it was creepy and I wanted to get to the end and a happy ending (that I suspected would be there) so I could go to sleep on a good note!  The book was Ghost Trackers - written by the guys from Ghost Hunters with assistance from a professional novelist.  Good book!

...she finishes things! (finally!)

The Massive Quilt-o'-Doom is done!  Completed!  Finished, even!  Not the best picture ever, but here it is!  A nice, flame-y looking bargello quilt.

I quilted in the ditch, because it was just easier, really.  It's been a while since I quilted, so I thought for once I would do something easy.  It didn't turn out too bad! 

The cat HAD to make a guest appearance.  She's been sitting on the quilt since I got to the point of binding it.  She particularly seems to like the yellow area - brings out her eyes, I suppose.  :)

Anyway, I hope to have a better pic of it on my bed this evening, but I had to take it to work to show my co-workers.  (And then I ran off and forgot it and had to go back for it... good thing we don't live far from work!).

I've started cutting the pieces out for the next quilt - Baby's Day Out, aka the Baby Godzilla quilt.  More pictures as they happen.  It's smaller, so hopefully it won't take as long to do.

And I finally got my Halloween pennants up at work.  The ribbon is hard to see here, but it's a fancy ruched-looking textured ribbon that does add to the look.  I'll get a better picture up here after I get one. 

And I failed to get my Burda pattern made.  Got everything cut out and ready - and then lost the instructions, so I couldn't put it all together!  I am going to get another copy tonight (grrrr) so I can make it.  *sigh*  Already behind.  But I will catch up and get back on track!