UFOs

It seems that many quilters have things stuck away they call UFOs, otherwise known as unfinished objects. Piecing is fun, but the next step of putting the backing, filling and top together and quilting and binding it is a challenge, and often is a roadblock deciding which a method to use to do this.

This one is unfinished because I've just have not had time to finish it. I call this one "WILD THING". I never thought it would turn out this bright! I said, I didn't know if you could sleep in the same room with it, because it might glow in the dark! The batik collection was called Tonga Treats, Lollipops. Whew, it's BRIGHT! But I do like it.


This one is unfinished because it has a ripply border. I need to rip it off and try again. If it doesn't lay flat, it is a challenge to quilt it. Some time!


My hangup with finishing my quilts has been how to do the quilting. So many quilts that are exquisitely quilted take months to complete, I don't want to spend that kind of time on them. So, I've taken to either "stitching in the ditch" technique, "stitching across the ditch" by using a decorative stitch on the lines where the pieces are joined, or a simple bar tack at strategic places. They have all worked out. I tried "stippling", which is a technique of free motion quilting. My lovely quilting machine was very picky and stubborn on this and wouldn't cooperate with me on doing it with the thread I was using. So I gave up and need to explore using different thread and see if that makes the picky machine happier.

Hope I can finish these at some time this year.

More quilts

The month of December was very busy in the sewing room! I costumed the play "A Christmas Carol" and made these quilts. Busy, busy, busy!

I made this one for our director of "A Christmas Carol". I had the entire cast and crew sign the backing, embroidered the title and date of the play on the back, and gave it to her for a remembrance of the play, which she adapted, wrote, directed and designed the set. She is also one of my dearest friends. We hope our love for her keeps her warm, as well as her lap quilt.
My other dear theatre friend got this quilt. She loves the color blue, and she decided to make it a wall hanging instead of a place for her doggie to shed on. I think the batiks in this were so pretty!
My 6 year old granddaughter loves peace signs. I've been trying to get a quilt made for her for over 2 years, so this finally came together for her. She gave her seal of approval on it--this is one picky little diva! Glad she liked it!
I couldn't wait to try this pattern. It was from a tutorial from Missouri Star Quilt Company called Double Slice Layer Cake. Layer cakes are fabric collections that are precut into 10" squares. You slice the squares into offset pieces, sew them together randomly, and then cut them in half, and sew them together again randomly. I made this one for my guest bedroom for my son and his wife.

It has been fun trying different quilt patterns and different fabrics. Luckily, the fabric store nearest to me has had some fabulous bargains on fabrics. I sort of overbought on Christmas fabrics, so I'll get a head start on next year. It is so much fun to piece these beautiful fabrics to create the different designs.

Monthly quilts

I've made baby quilts in the past, but never regular bed size quilts. These are my first attempts at making them for my bed.
October started it, I swore I would never make a Halloween quilt. However, I saw this sample in my local fabric store and fell in love with it. They had some handwritten directions, I took them home and purchased the fabric and had the quilt top finished by 10:30 that night! Wow, I was excited! The pattern is called "lightning", and it is all half square triangles. Very easy to sew and put together. I call this "The Wicked Witch's Bed"!
So after Halloween, why not Thanksgiving? Again used the lightning pattern.
I diverted from my favorite overnight "lightning" quilt top for this one. This pattern came from a book called "24 Hour Baby Quilts". Since this is bigger than a baby quilt, it took longer than 24 hours to make, plus about 4 trips to the fabric store to make it big enough for my daybed. However, I did make one red and green lightning quilt for Christmas, plus this one, plus one more. Lots of Christmas Quilts around my house this year! I'll post the pictures of the other two when I find the pics.
Snowflakes for January, I purchased these fabrics in November, and it's a good thing I did, because in January, there were no more snowflakes to be had anywhere! I am making another one right now from the leftovers for a friend who loved this one.
Still using half-square triangles, but in a different arrangement. I used a book called "Big Block Quilts". It has simple patterns using half-square triangles, fence rails and 4 patch blocks--you choose the size. One pattern was this big heart. The book has about 150 different patterns using these simple blocks. The small hearts came from a tutorial on a website, which I've learned so much from.

This is a wonderful website, Missouri Star Quilt Company in Hamilton MO. They have wonderful deals on fabric, great tutorials and they have become like family to me. When I have a question to ask or a sample to share, I send it their way. Great company! The heart pattern came from inspiration from one of their tutorials plus a design in the Big Block Quilt book.

As you can see, Al the cat loves this quilt, he was up on it in about 2 minutes after I made up the bed! He has embellished all of the quilts with some lovely blonde cat fur!

On to March, rainbow theme, then I have to think up more stuff--because my goal is to make a theme quilt for every month of this year. Think I can do it? I'm going to give it the old college try!

Back to blogging

Well, I'm still sewing, this time I'm into making quilts. I've made 6 queen size quilts, 3 twins and 4 lap quilts since October. Can you say "obsessed" when reading this? I'm trying to post pictures, will do soon. Hope to keep at this with more regularly than last year!

Helllloooooo out there!

Oh that darn Facebook! Stole my time and communicating time away from blogging! I refuse to tweet, can't say it all in 140 characters. But blogging must start again.

Since this blog is about sewing, I am sewing. After sewing orphans and bums and billionaire's servants costumes for Annie last summer, I took some time off from costuming. I did rerun my nun's costumes with new veils for a very successful run of Nunsense. Now I'm making quilts. I made my first Queen size quilt, a Halloween lightning pattern quilt. It was such a success, Ii followed that with a Thanksgiving one. Then Christmas, plus I'm making some more of those cute pillowcases like I made last year. I have more quilts cut, need to sew them. But, I will be costuming Christmas Carol again. Hopefully, our costume collection will fullfil most of our needs for that. Then Christmas, and all that entails.

Glad to be back, if anyone has waited this long to read this. Hi, hope to see you again soon.

Hi Fellow Bloggers

It's been a long time since I've posted. Life has been crazy. I finished costuming Doubt, then went into a costume project where I made 24+ vests for a ladies' barbershop chorus for their event in April. Finished in time to rest for a week or so, but I still need to make a couple more and two costumes for other things.

One of the big events in my life is coming up on June 5. The play I costumed last summer, "The Producers" got 13 nominations from our local Arts For Life Best Performance Awards for 2010. I was nominated for best Costumer. I'm up against 2 Beauty and the Beast productions, The Drowsy Chaperone, and one other. There is a reader's poll going on, and in that poll, I am ahead. Wonder if it really will be happening, that I would actually be named best costumer for 2010? I know this show was the biggest thing I'll probably ever do in my life, so if I do win, it will be a lifetime achievement award for me. I'm trying to lose 20 pounds by then so a fancy frock will look a little better on this body.

In our city, during April, we suffered many storms. I am scheduled to work on costuming Annie this summer. Our production team had a lot of plans made, and it is a good thing, because during the worst storm in our area, our esteemed director's house went to Oz in a tornado, and he has all of those issues with replacing it to deal with. I just hope he can still direct the show, because he is a very good person to work with. Things aren't going so well for him right now.

I'm finishing up on some small costuming projects, plus trying to get finished with the grading for the last of the semester. Then I head out for Florida next Sunday, first and last trip in a while!

So, I hope to get back to blogging soon. Hope everyone is OK.

Doubt, the second time around

This is the second time I've costumed "Doubt: A Parable". This one is at St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley, Feb. 18-26, 2011.
Sister James--can you believe I costumed this young lady in 2007 in "The Music Man", now she is all grown up and is in college!
Mrs. Muller and Donald Muller. Mrs. Muller turned into a sophisticated "Jackie O" look alike when she put on this costume! Quite a change from her carefree casual college look! Donald gets to look good, but doesn't get to say anything!

Doubt: A Parable by John Patrick Shanley is quite a dramatic story set in the early 60's. Sister Aloysius, a crusty old nun with old fashioned ways and ideas, is afraid that the only black child in her school is being groomed by the parish priest for future "relationships". Her naive, inexperienced fellow educator, Sister James, has quite a difficult time with the possibilities that might be revealed. The show was done as a movie in 2008, with Meryl Streep playing Sr. Aloysius, Amy Adams as Sister James, and Philip Seymour Hoffman playing Fr. Flynn.

So far, I think this is the third time in 2 years that this show has been done here in St. Louis. I originally costumed Clayton Community Theatre's production of it in 2009. When I found out my college was doing it, I offered my costumes to them, and they were very happy to get them!

I know I've written about these costumes in the past, and the challenge was making the bonnets that this order of sisters wore at that time. They were not soft veils, but bonnets, somewhat like sun bonnets, but stiff. I remember trying to figure out how to make them, and the first attempt took days to do. Once I did one, the second one and third one took 20 minutes each! Thank heaven I saved them, because now they are being used again!

The director of this show added several characters to the play, mainly, the character of Donald Muller. He also added several other boys as altar boys, and they make a nice addition to the Mass scenes. Marie McCool, the theatre manager, who is really in charge of every technical element in the shows at this theatre, including costumes, made the server's surplices, with some beautiful lace decorating them. She also helped with Mrs. Muller's suit blouse, while I made the jacket and skirt.

The show starts this weekend, I can hardly wait to see the finished product. They did a fabulous set, with some beautiful stained glass set pieces, which turned out very nice. Hope I get access to some good pictures to share with you later!