Day 3 Sort of... Sashiko Shells

Third time's the charm? You decide...

This is called Sashiko Shells. It is basically an overlapping arch inspired by Japanese quilting. I decided to change thread, but I can see that while the yellow looks nice in person, it doesn't show up as well on camera. I'll have to rethink my color choice a bit I guess, but as promised here is also a picture of the back, green flannel with green thread. Not an exact match, but closer than the front for sure.

This one seemed easier for some reason. I have some sort of weird fine motor control, even in handwriting, I can do small things pretty well, like this design, and large things well, like writing on a white/chalkboard in a classroom, but that middle ground of quilting normal things and writing on paper is somehow not quite right... Oh well, I guess I just need more practice.
I also quilted this one at a higher stitch speed, and that seemed to help with the jerkiness of my machine. The smaller stitches that were made gave it a more gradual line which was easier to hide mistakes in.

Well, for a couple days I am going to take a break from following Leah Day's Free Motion Quilting Project, where I am getting these quilting patterns, to quilt a blanket for my husband. It's not anything too fancy, he's rather a minimalist, but it's nice to make something that he will like. After quilting almost the first quarter of it all I can say is that queen sized quilts are BIG. Wish me luck and straight lines.

Day 2- Free Motion "Cursive F's"

Here is my 2nd attempt at The Free Motion Quilting Project.

It's not super even, and I did change scale alot, but I think it's better than my Shadow Waves. Though, to be fair, this is a design I have been doodling since sometime in middle school, so I have a bit more muscle memory for it.

After looking at more of Leah's videos, I am seriously thinking about getting a Supreme Slider. It is just constant work to move my square around, though I think part of that is because I have such a small boarder...

I've decided to go in order of difficulty for the quilting patterns instead of chronological. I figure this should work out better since when Leah started this project she knew 2 free motion fillers and I know (knew, can I say I know these others now even though I'm not very good at them?) one, stippling, although that was just me looking at a stippled blanket a friend made my daughter for her first birthday and trying to recreate it.

Of course using the blue thread on the gray surface is going to make the stitches stand out more, and you will be able to see my slip ups. Next time, I will take a picture of the back with is green with green thread and we can discuss how much better it looks when thread blends.

Confession, I broke thread between each row, but since Leah says this would be good for a thin edging or boarder, I figure it's ok. 

Well, that's all for now. Hopefully the next one will get better too!

Day 1 Free Motion Quilting- Shadow Waves

Here is my first attempt. 

Not at bad on the computer as it looks in person. I need to work on having more consistent stitches. Some are very long, and others are very short, plus I'm not very good and smooth lines yet. Everything feels very jagged and jarring. Maybe it's because of the size, it was getting a bit stuck in the various levels of my machine.  Hopefully the next one will be better, but overall I'm not too upset with the end result.

New Projects

Working on a couple of things:

   One, as any woman always does, trying to loose about 15 lbs. Let's say I am currently 81 lbs and am trying to get to 68-65 lbs.. Don't freak out, I'm a full grown adult and don't have any type of eating disorder, I'm just not too keen on the idea of posting my weight online for all to see, so I already subtracted several dozen pounds.
   I started last week at 83 and am down to 81 after just my intake and monitoring what I ate on www.fitday.com. Clearly it worked pretty well, but all week I have felt tired, crabby, irritated, and lacked motivation to do anything. So that is not going to work again. This week, I am going to try to allow myself to eat, but change the types of foods I eat. The plan is to eat fruits from when I wake up until noon, vegetables from noon until dinner, dinner is fair game (my family is not on a diet, just me), and then work on protein after dinner. I might need to inject some things like oatmeal or protein in earlier in the day, but that is the general plan.

Two, I found this great Youtube Channel and corresponding website, www.daystyledesign.com. Here Leah Day has a collection of over 365 free motion quilting filler designs. So I went to Joann, got some solid fabric and am going to try to work a few each week. I think I will just follow her order and start here.

Wish me luck, here we go.

Birthday Time

Tiny turned 4 today. My goodness, she is big. We had her party yesterday so as not to interfere with church. She has a princess party, with a few friends over. Here are some shots of decorations.

 These are the tutus I made for Tiny and her friends. I just hung them on a coat rack so they wouldn't be all over the floor or our very limited seating. 

 No princess party is complete without a castle cake!

 Eighty-seven balloons strung on thread reached from our front door, through our kitchen. I liked the effect the streamers gave when taped to the wall. I did this to make sure our cats wouldn't pull them down. The different levels were made to accommodate the bathroom door.

 

 Very happy Birthday Girl!

I was working on a quilt for her. She knew all about it and ever picked out the fabric, thread, and stitch designs, but she was still pretty happy that it is done.

I worked on this over many months, but I did sort of keep track of how long this took be measured in the books I listed to and movies I watched while making this. Yes, I watched movies on my laptop while making it, that could be why my blocks aren't quite the same size...

1. Harry Potter 1-6
2. You've Got Mail
3. Moulin Rouge
4. Paper Towns
5. Exodus
6. The Great Gatsby
7. Heart of Darkness
8. A multitude of articles for grad school and bits of other books

Experiment

So Tiny is going to be 4 in two weeks. In the mean time, between finishing her quilt, planning her birthday party, working on my dissertation for graduate school, and babysitting, I am going to be gathering materials for an experiment with her "school".

I have at least 5 months before I might be getting ready for a new school year teaching full time. So my plan is to make letter concept boards. We'll do a letter a week and cover the board with pictures of animals, objects, jobs, artists, countries, states, and other things that pertain to that letter, and then do some appropriate "research" on those things together. Here is my Pinterest Board for the letter A.

We're also going to be getting back into this book. We started the book in October or November and she just didn't have much interest. Hopefully, she's matured a bit and will be ready. She has a much greater interest in books now, so that's good. We'll see how it all goes. Wish us luck!

Book Reviews

Hello, It's been a while, but we are here and doing well. We had a great Thanksgiving at my parents and are now gearing up to go to the in-laws for Christmas. I will put up Holiday pictures after Christmas.

I have been very busy quilting, but we'll save that for another day as well. Right now I'd like to go over a few of the books Tiny and I have been reading.

Of course with winter here, we hit the ever popular The Mitten and Trouble with Trolls by Jan Brett. These are great for sequencing and Trouble with Trolls has a great, clever girl as the main character, but I'd like to point out some lesser known books, at least they were lesser known to me.


Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett is a fun book in general, but being a knitter, I really enjoyed it. There is a girl, Annabelle, who lives in a small town where everything is either white from the snow or black from chimney smoke and soot. She finds a box of yarn one day and discovers that it is magic and will never run out of yarn. Of course the box contains rainbow yarn, and she proceeds to knit sweaters for the entire town, including the animals, trees, and houses. When a greedy Archduke finds out about her box, he offers to buy it. Annabelle rejects his offer, so he steals the box. When he returns to his castle, he opens the box and finds it empty. He throws the box out the window, where it lands on a piece of ice, and floats across the sea, back to Annabelle.

Again, a good strong female character for my daughter to mix in with the Cinderella's, but also a look at what other people do with knitting, how we can be kind and generous with our talents, and how things don't tend to work out for you when you are greedy.

Pirate Princess by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen and Jill McElmurry is another fun books for girls. Princess Bea decides she doesn't want to be a princess, so she runs away and joins a pirate crew. She tries one job after another, but fails pretty badly, and is forced to walk the plank. Then, at the last minute, she smells the treasure. The pirate crew follows her directions and finds more gold and jewels than ever before. She gets to stay and becomes a valued member of the crew. 

This is a good book that shows that what you imagine might not always work out. Things might not be as easy as you think. But, being a children's book, it still ends happily.

Ok, now for some seasonal books. 

The Adventures of Snowwoman by Katya Arnold is fun for Christmas. Snowwoman is made so that she can deliver a letter to Santa because none of the children in town have a Christmas tree. A little dog is supposed to be her guide, but when the dog runs off after a fox, Snowwoman gets lost and the wind tears her apart. All the forest animals help to put her back together once the dog explains their journey, and they get the letter to Santa just in time. 

Another fun story was The Snowflake Sisters by J. Patrick Lewis. Two snowflakes travel through the country through Thanksgiving, Christmas, and even end up in Time Square for New Year's. From their they join a snowman in Central Park and stay until winter is over.

This one sparked a few crafts for Tiny. We made coffee filter snowflakes for days after this book. She loved it. 

We are also going to be doing some salt painting soon. I'll let you know how that turns out.

Happy Reading!