The fabled sewing room

So, there is a room with a sewing machine in it, and a whole lot of fabric and other related items in it. Unfortunately, it also has boxes and boxes of other stuff in it, too. Sorting it all out is going to take a while.

Here it is on Tuesday, the day after the move.


Here's the sewing machine (although I have to admit that it's not actually plugged in yet):

It was my mom's - I think it's a Janome MemoryCraft 4800.

What you can't see in that picture is the rest of the mess on the table:

It could be worse, I guess - but I still haven't figured out what I'm going to do with all those big flat boxes. The movers did a really good job with all this stuff - what they did was wrap the particleboard furniture in big pieces of plastic - you can see some of it around the little cabinet at the bottom. (It was full of thread and things, too, so it's good that they wrapped it up tight!)

Autumn Reflections

Quilt above made by Bonnie Borer of Thompson, Ohio, and shown in the judged show (category: Art-Naturescapes) at the 2006 Houston International Quilt Festival.


Fall is my favorite time of year - and it finally feels like fall, even down here on the Gulf. So hooray for that! (And hooray for my sewing room! I will have to post pictures, even if it is still a big mess!)

IQF ribbon winner: Hoffman Challenge

The quilt above is "Happiness-Peace-Love" made by Janet Henshaw; winner of 1st prize in the Hoffman Challenge at the 2006 Houston International Quilt Festival.

I am moving this weekend, so don't expect to hear much from me for the next few days. But hey, after that, it's almost time for Quilt Festival!!

New pictures, and another version of the list

I scanned a few more pictures. The one below is by Moira Farah.



Quilt Pink quilts (although they may be from before they started using that term) from IQF, year unknown:




I forgot to mention another thing that I bought, except I ordered it online and it hasn't come yet that I know of: the Sidewinder Bobbin Winder. I noticed when I was in the store the other day that they seemed to be mailing them out, so it may be sitting in my apartment office waiting for me. I will have to try it out when I get it, and report back.

Updated project list

I took the project list I had made before and broke it down by where the quilts are in the process. It's less depressing than just having one tremendously long list!

(A lot of the comments on the different projects have changed, while I was thinking this out. And see the entry below for pictures of some of this stuff, if you didn't look before.)

Just need quilting/binding:
- community service quilt (almost done, even the binding is done)
- green triangle quilt (I'm thinking this may grandly be called "Monochromatic #1", and the beginnings of #2 are down below.)
-- Added (I remembered more stuff, I knew I would): bindings for two of Mom's quilts, otherwise finished. One was intended for me and one for my sister. I probably ought to try to do the one for my sister right away, so I can give it to her at Christmas.

Blocks done, just needs assembling/finishing
- Quiltmaker's puzzle (swap blocks in fall colors)
- Christmas swap lap quilt - 9 blocks
- Christmas swap table runner

Blocks done, but I don't know quite what I'm doing with them!
- Poetry wallhanging - I have a lot of triangle blocks and fabric for sashing; now I just have to figure out how I'm arranging them!
- Cuppaz wallhanging- I have 20-odd blocks, I think
- Crazy quilt wallhanging - 3 blocks (I seem to have played out on making these, so I'm thinking of just setting the three blocks I have vertically, otherwise it may never get done)

Still in the piecing stage:
- Ohio star sampler - 8 of 12 blocks done
- Indigo log cabin - number of blocks still undetermined!
- Frank Lloyd Wright quilt - my oldest UFO - I need to figure out if I even have enough stuff to finish it as is, or if I need to buy more

Projects that haven't been started (but have materials):
- Tutti Frutti quilt (from a kit that was given to me)
- t-shirt quilt for my husband - I have a pile of his old running t-shirts, and there are many, many of them - I need to start putting stabilizer behind the designs and cutting them up, and then see where this stands
- "the pink quilt" - currently just a LARGE pile of pink fabric, but I'm thinking this may be end up being "Monochromatic #2" since I seem to be drawn to the one-color idea
- Dia de los Muertos quilt - a lot of embellishments, some fabric and some ideas, still rather vague

Also, decide what to do with...
- Mom's few UFOs - (1) grandmother's flower garden, (2) bright Friendship Bee blocks - that's all I can think of, at least (and I will have to take pictures of these and get some ideas from you guys!)
- mystery quilt top from my grandmother's house
- leftover green squares from triangle quilt - I have lots of these! And also some HSTs. I feel like I ought to do something useful with them. Maybe community service quilts. I suppose I could do a Monochromatic #3!

Actually I have way too much fabric, period. I need to be making many, many community service quilts.


(Re: the Day of the Dead quilt - I think where I need to start is with the pictures. My mother had put a couple of pictures of my grandparents on fabric, I need to get more pictures and figure out from there where I'm going with it.)

Purchases and projects

I went to Quilts by the Bay yesterday to get quilt show tickets and I escaped with only one piece of fabric - which is pretty amazing, really! - but I did get two books, since they had a bunch of That Patchwork Place books on a buy one, get one free sale. I only spent $40 altogether, which is cheap just for the two books, don't you think? Much less with a piece of fabric and a quilt show ticket, besides. The books I got were these: The Border Workbook: Easy Speed-Pieced & Foundation-Pieced Borders and Spellbinding Quilts: Wizards, Witches And Magical Characters. We'll see if I ever get around to using them; it's not like I really need any more projects. But I am always saying I am going to start putting more elaborate borders on some of my quilts - mine tend to be very basic - and heck, who knows when you're going to need a paper-pieced dragon? (That book in particular, I have been admiring for some time now.)

(More entry after the pictures!)






Speaking of projects... Now that I'm going to be able to quilt again in the foreseeable future, I've been assembling a list of the projects I already have going. I posted it over at Livejournal, and I don't mind sharing it with you guys too. (Although it's gotten kinda scarily long - and in fact has grown longer just since this morning!)

In no particular order:
1. unfinished community service quilt (just needs the quilting finished, and it's ready to go)
2. green triangle quilt - needs pinning and quilting
3. Ohio star sampler - 8 of 12 blocks done
4. Tutti Frutti quilt (from a kit that was given to me - good baby quilt)
5. and 6. Two, count 'em, two sets of swap blocks - need to be assembled and quilted (here's one of them - the other is fall colors) (and hmm, I suppose this really ought to be 5, 6 AND 7, since as you can see in the picture, I am intending to make two projects out of that one - but I'm not renumbering again, anyway!)
7. Poetry wallhanging I think the blocks are finished. The setting in that picture is probably not what I'm going to use, that was just how I was sticking them up on the wall as I went.
8. Indigo log cabin
9. The fabled pink quilt, which is only a pile of fabric right now - enough fabric for several quilts, actually. I think I may start out with triangles again on this one, and go from there. This pile of fabric probably has some Quilt Pink blocks in its future, too, although that's not what started it!
10. t-shirt quilt - also just a pile right now, so I need to start cutting the shirts apart and putting stabilizer on them, and then see where it stands
11. Frank Lloyd Wright wallhanging - my very oldest UFO

Also, decide what to do with...
- Mom's few UFOs - she only had a couple (she was big on finishing things)
- quilt top from my grandmother's house (I bet my grandmother didn't make it, but I have no idea who did!)
- Cuppaz blocks - I think I still have 20 or so, and I need to make something with the remaining ones
- crazy quilt blocks - I have 3, maybe make a 4th and then finish? or make a table runner or wallhanging with the 3?
- leftover green squares from triangle quilt - I have lots of these! And also some HSTs.

Quilting space

So I have been seeing this book around, but it looked like it was intended for people who could afford all those expensive built-in fixtures.



(In case the fancy link-with-picture up there doesn't work for you, what I'm talking about is this: Creating Your Perfect Quilting Space: Sewing-Room Makeovers for Any Space And Any Budget)

But then again, it says right there on the cover that it's for all budgets. So which is it? Has somebody looked at this book? Is it any good to someone who's not about to go spend a lot more on the sewing room? My husband was none too happy with me about buying 2 $100 bookcases, so clearly the budget is pretty seriously limited for my sewing room. I do have a couple of good pieces of furniture that I'm starting out with, anyway. I don't actually need to be buying a lot of expensive stuff.


I mentioned this on a Livejournal list earlier today, but just in case: there are - or were - apparently at least a few rooms available at the convention center Hilton (the Hilton Americas, it's called) in Houston for at least some of the dates of the Quilt Festival. If you're in the market for such a thing, it might be worth checking out. I had booked a room at the Four Seasons and I switched over - much as I love the Four Seasons, the Hilton is slightly cheaper, much closer and very nearly as nice.

Past IQF award winners: Unknown 2003 blue ribbon

Didn't Matisse do some drawings that looked like this? I seriously doubt that Matisse made the quilt, though, and unfortunately I don't know who did. And Quilts Inc does not seem to have their past award-winners lists where they're easy to come by. This one does conveniently have a date on it, so we can be relatively sure it was from 2003.

Past IQF ribbon winners: Unknown

Maker unknown. Although since it won a blue ribbon it shouldn't be too hard to find out, should it? I will have to poke around and see if I can find the past lists. From IQF 2003. (Seems to have been done using some interesting photo-manipulation techniques. See the big version.)

Past ribbon winners: Polar Prowler

Polar Prowler, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Quilt above made by Patricia Goffette of Washington. From the 2004 International Quilt Festival.