When I just did quilting, I didn’t really need to organize my bobbins. Since I mostly use off-white thread for piecing quilts, I mostly just kept one bobbin, refilling it as needed.

Now that I’m also sewing bags, home-dec and random projects, I’m realizing that I need many different colors of bobbins. I also find that I frequently go back to the same colors again, but it might be a month between uses. All these bobbins creates a mess, since they’re prone to unwinding, making a birds-nest of thread.

So, this is what I’ve done to organize them:

• Use a slide-out pencil case (anything that’s relatively small and seals shut would work, but I’ve found the pencil case is perfect since it’s about the same thickness as a bobbin).
• Use some baby-size fuzzy hair bands (purchased in the $1 section of my local Jo-Ann’s) to wrap around the bobbins to hold loose ends.
• Sort the bobbins by color. You’ll notice I have a lot of black & blue pre-filled bobbins (I used all the white from that order already).
• Fold up a scrap of fabric to fill the empty space. Good thing about this is that it can easily be folded to be larger or smaller when I have fewer or more bobbins to store.

Because the case seals, I don’t have to worry about knocking it over or keeping it flat. And, with the pencil-case being a gift (which likely didn’t cost much) and the hair-bands costing just $1, my solution was a lot cheaper than the commercial bobbin holders out there.

In addition to a whole lot of work around the house (plus my regular job… alas, I do still have to go to work!) I did some sewing this week. I mostly made small gifts for friends (or technically, for their kids).

The above collage shows the projects from today:

• Buzz Lightyear marker wallet. Filled with mini markers and coloring pages, found on clearance at Target. Pattern is entirely custom, to fit the mini-markers (same thickness as crayons) and coloring pages. This will likely go to a coworker’s preschool-aged son who I think likes Buzz a lot.
• Red & Black marker tote. This was made from a failed quiting charm-square project plus some fabrics in the leftover bin — so entirely out of scraps. This will go to one of my coworker’s daughters (which one, I’m not sure!)

Thinking of Buzz Lightyear, we finally saw Toy Story 3 last weekend. Beautiful. I’m not ashamed to admit I cried at the end.

These are the other projects I finished this week. Top shows a crayon roll-up (holding 24 crayons). Bottom shows another marker tote (holding a set of skinny markers). These were given to another friend for her to share with two kids expected to come to stay with them soon — as these friends venture into the world of foster parenting. It was fun to make something to help welcome these kids, who have certainly had a rough time of it lately.

Finally – I didn’t finish this project today, but I will be giving it to it’s new owner very soon. This is a tote bag (with a few small gifts inside) and matching 12-crayon wallet. It’s going to a friend’s preschool-aged boy, to celebrate him becoming a big brother! I know this boy likes orange, so I pulled all the orange from the scrap pile, along with these other leftover coordinates.

Our front flower beds have made it to August!

With 100-degree temps the past few days, I’m not sure how much longer things will last, so here’s a photo!

The Lily Tuft wasn’t as deer-resistant as I hoped. Where it rubbed up against the rosemary or was tucked under the drip hose (and inaccessible), it was fine. But, in the open, the deer nibbled it early. They haven’t been back, so perhaps they didn’t enjoy their snack very much.

The deer haven’t taken any other plants. And, thus far at least, the heat hasn’t either.

The Sage is doing remarkably well in a pot (planted in a pot so I can take it indoors around Thanksgiving). The epazote & marjoram aren’t doing as well in their pots, but not too bad. I used the marjoram, rosemary, and thyme in some recipes lately. Yummy.

The purple flowers (lower left) went crazy during April & May, but aren’t flowering right now.

I also planted some wave petunias (from seed) and snapdragons (also from seed) in hanging baskets. They looked a little worse from the wear after our trip to New Mexico, but seem to be doing just fine now. I’m especially amazed they’re still living, since the hanging pots don’t hold much reserved moisture.

The veggies in back didn’t fare nearly as well. They grew, but didn’t produce much in terms of flowers/fruit. Likely need to update the soil nutrients back there.

(and I still need to buy more mulch… as this photo sorely shows… oh well! soon!)

…flowers too!

Yes, I know I’ve mostly been blogging here about quilts lately, but I have other interests as well. I’m not exactly an avid gardener, but I have managed to keep my front flower beds AND hanging baskets alive – and it is July in Texas! And, even a bigger accomplishment: my balloon flowers have started to bloom!

I planted these from seed earlier this year. If all goes well, I will have both white & blue, but only 2 white ones have opened so far. They are perennials, but apparently need to “harden” a year inside before being thrust into the great outdoors. So, they’ve growing in pots under a grow-light. After they bloom, I hope to wean them off the grow-light. I need to read-up on how to care for them long-term. They haven’t needed a lot of special care so far, but I’d love for these to keep growing so I can continue to enjoy them.

The flowers aren’t too big (look at the lower right photo where you can see my hand) and are delicate, yet not paper-thin either. Beautiful double star-shape to the petals.

• 7 or 8 years.
• 3 different sewing machines.
• At least 6 different colors of thread.
• Countless hours spent cutting, sewing, pressing, ripping, re-sewing, squaring-up, and the rest.

And, the top might be done. Or maybe not.

Most of this fabric came to me as a matched set (as a gift). The set came with a border-print (with house/farm shapes in neat rows). Back in 2002 or 2003 when I started this, I didn’t mind the border print. So, I designed the inside to perfectly fit the border. Now, I’m not a fan of it.  So, this quilt is not getting the outer border as planned. So, perhaps it’s finished. Or perhaps not… I may have enough of one of the other fabrics to tack on another 3-4″ border (and use the farm house border print on the back).

Why did it take so long to finish? Well, lack of interest mainly. But, besides that — the sashing strips (between the blocks) were downright annoying – trying to get all the sections to be precisely lined up at 1/4″ increments. I finally gave up making them fit precisely and just cut them however they were. (That’s the joy when you designed the pattern yourself; you can easily edit!) The other main issue is the diagonal-with-sashes layout. It just takes longer to put this kind of design together because you have to carefully cut & sew in the outside triangles, being careful to not stretch them (so you can’t just lay it out on the ironing board… have to clear off a table for a project like this!. But, mostly lack of interest…

In the end, I like this well enough, though I doubt it will ever be my favorite quilt! I’m mostly just happy to be getting it out of my huge “in progress” pile!

Here’s yet another completed appliqué block waiting to be made into something!

This one is loosely inspired by the Bird of Paradise flower. I designed this block myself, inspired by flowers we saw on our first trip to Maui (though apparently these plants are native to South Africa). If you look at the blueish-purple shapes in each flower you may notice a slight indentation; that’s designed to match the curl commonly seen on these flowers.

This block is not “traditional” Hawaiian-style appliqué because it uses more than 2 fabrics. It is also not traditional in that it has a partially mirrored repeat and partially radial repeat instead of all radial (which was mostly a mistake… but I bet you can’t really tell…). Though it is not entirely traditional, it still carries on the themes of Hawaiian-style appliqué: repeated pattern, botanical design, limited colors.

The floral pieces were done with the pattern-on-the-back approach – drawing the design on the back, basting along the lines, then doing needle-turn appliqué using the basting stitch as a guide. These pieces are absolutely tiny! Each flower has 4 orange/red/purple sections, 1 blueish purple middle section, and 2 green parts that connect to the main green leaf sections.

The green leaf sections were done in the traditional Hawaiian way: cutting the rough shapes (like you would cut out a paper snowflake) then needle-turning the edges under. I didn’t turn under quite enough, so the leaves are a little bigger than I planned.

(This is the best picture of a bird of paradise that we’ve taken, though this plant is definitely past-peak and the lighting is not perfect.)

Inspired by a few photos on flickr (which I bookmarked to consider making later), I thought it would be fun to try a simple color-block quilt. I started this yesterday and finished today before a bike ride to Rudy’s for breakfast tacos!

It looks a little wonky in the photo (due to perspective), but is a straight-line mini-quilt featuring fabrics from each of the 24 colors on my color wheel. It starts with yellow in the upper left corner and snakes around to golden yellow in the lower right corner. This is a mini-quilt: just about 14X25″. The colored pieces are 2″ wide by either 1″, 2″ or 3″ tall.

By the way, I highly recommend my color wheel. I’ve had it for many years and use it all the time. It has 24 color sections (each divided into shades, tones, etc.). You can easily fan the color wheel open and use it to compare fabrics. And, it’s small enough to fit in your purse when shopping for new fabric.

Other than batiks & hand-dyeds (which have their own section) and some fabrics already set aside as matched sets, my entire stash of fabric is sorted into these same color-ways. I have a series of open bins from the Containers Store to hold my stash. Some bins hold  just one color (as in the case of blue-violet and yellow, which I tend to choose a lot) or some hold multiple colors in one bin (as in the case of colors like magenta, orange, and turquoise, which I don’t seem to use much). Each bin is labelled with the color name and number, to match the color wheel.

If you want to make a quilt similar to this, here are simple directions:

• You will need about 10″ (by width of fabric) of white fabric. Cut 4 strips at 2.5″. Strips 1 & 2 will become the verticals (just set aside for now). Strip 3 will become the top border (cut 2 about 15″ for now). Strip 4 (and the leftovers of strip 3) should be cut into 21 1.5X2.5″ pieces.
• Choose a scrap of fabric from each of the 24 color ways. Sort into 3 sections of 8 fabrics each.
• Cut all of your scraps 2.5″ wide by either 1.5, 2.5, or 3.5″ high. Chances are good that some of your scraps will be small and others will be larger. So, you’ll have to adjust how big you cut your pieces. (For instance, my yellow scrap was 2X3″, so I had to cut it into a 1.5X3″ piece – couldn’t make anything bigger.) Think of a 1.5″ piece taking up 1 unit in the finished quilt, a 2.5″ piece taking up 2 units, and a 3.5″ piece taking up 3 units. For each set of 8 fabrics, you need to cut pieces to make up 14 units. So, you might have: 4 @1.5, 2 @2.5 and 2@3.5. Or you might have 3@1.5, 4@2.5 and 1@3.5. Vary the placement of the different sizes in each column.
• Piece the vertical columns carefully watching your 1/4″ seam allowance. Press carefully.
• Check the completed columns against a ruler and make any adjustments.
• Cut the white verticals and stitch. Press carefully.
• Cut the upper & lower borders and stitch.

I finally bound this quilt. It’s been waiting for me to finish it for at least a year. *sigh* I even cheated and sewed the binding down by machine. But, it’s done! I’m sad I waited so long to finish it – I really like how it turned out!

The design is custom, started probably 3 to 5 years ago (I don’t recall when). My mom did the quilting for me, as always. It doesn’t have a name. For size-reference: it is laying on our dining room table.

I started these blocks around September of 2008, from fabric purchased in New Mexico, and finally finished them last week at Cornerstone Festival. I haven’t worked very hard on these – they were just my take-along project for far too long!

They are all custom-designed, by me, and are entirely hand-stitched with needle-turn appliqué. They are simple, of purpose, with whimsical floral designs featuring pointy flowers (good to practice appliqué techniques). The stems were made with a bias-tape maker (some of them are 1/4″ wide and some are just 1/8″ wide).

I hope to put the four blocks together into a small table or wall accent quilt, along with some other autumn-colored fabrics.

(click on photos below for larger versions – all photos were taken just moments after I finished them, while sitting in what’s normally a pasture… so, they are not nicely pressed yet!)

I completed my most complicated Hawaiian appliqué to date during a set at Cornerstone Festival. Yes, if you happen to attend Cornerstone and see somebody sewing, it’s probably me. I enjoy watching bands I don’t know as well from my comfy chair, with my appliqué bag at the ready.

It is a torch ginger motif, which I designed myself after flowers we saw on the Road to Hana in Maui. (see photo picture below). Hawaiian appliqué has a  repeating pattern (in this case a 4-way repeat), with simplified natural shapes, traditionally done in just 2 fabrics. Traditionally, those 2 fabrics are solids, but I used commercially-available cotton batik fabrics here (the pink is a very slightly colored batik).

Hawaiian appliqué is very complicated: bed or wall-size quilts can take experts years to finish. This will just be made into a pillow, but even so, it took me about 30 hours of work. Every edge of the fabric has to be turned under (to hide the raw edges) and stitched down with tiny stitches, all by hand. My stitches aren’t perfect (they show in places) and my design, likewise, isn’t perfect (the repeat isn’t as precise as it could be)  but I’m still very happy with the results.

(Click on photos below for larger versions.)

Torch Ginger, along the Road to Hana in Maui

Close-up, in bad lighting

Me, with the completed block, waiting for Eisely to start their set at Cornerstone