Quilting outside the box.
It's September, and that means my mother's birthday is quickly approaching. Each year I struggle to come up with the "perfect" gift for her. Sometimes I manage to succeed, but my failures certainly outnumber my successes. This year my gift-planning process has been hampered by a severe lack of funds brought on by a number of different things which I will not go into here. :PIt's not life-threatening, it just means I have to be extra thrifty and creative when figuring out mum's gift. After a few weeks of stressing myself out and coming up with and then discarding a number of different possibilities, I finally came upon a solid idea: A quilt!
I'm not talking about one of those cute decorative quilts that some people make. I'm talking about a heavy-duty queen/king sized monster meant to be used like a comforter. Last year I made a beast of a quilt for Adam & I, and when my mother saw it she asked if I could make her one. At that point, I was totally over the whole quilt-making thing and I told her in no uncertain terms that if I ever did make her one, it wouldn't be any time soon.
Fast-forward to this July. In the process of cleaning/re-organizing my sewing area, I found that I needed to purge a lot of my stashed fabric. I didn't want to get rid of any of it so I decided I'd make us another quilt, because honestly, is there anything on earth that will use up more fabric than a large patchwork quilt? ;)
I did things a little differently than with the beast-quilt I made the year before, which helped to simplify things and allowed me to finish in record time. I didn't work on anything else during that time period and somehow managed to stay very focused as well.
Anyway, after realizing that quilt-making did not have to be so torturous, I figured it was time to give my mum something she had actually asked me for. :)
But by that time, it was already the end of August. Mum's birthday is the 28th of September, so I knew I wouldn't have much time if I didn't want to rush. By using a plastic square template and planning a simple checkerboard patchwork pattern (every other square is from a blue flowered print, and the rest are cut from a few different, random fabrics) I saved a lot of time in the cutting squares/planning rows stage. I know that I probably do not make quilts the way that real quilters do, but I don't care. I do whatever works best for me, and the quilts that I have made in my own little way have turned out pretty well and held up to a lot of wear and tear. I can't say that I enjoy making quilts, because I typically start despising the entire concept by the time I am ready to start sewing squares into strips, but oh well. :P
I definitely reached that point with this quilt as soon as I had finished cutting, sorting, pressing, and stacking all of the squares into row piles. For some reason I felt like I had plenty of time, so I took a break before beginning the sewing process. I was only going to "break" for a day or two, but before I knew what hit me it had been at least a week. I started to panic, because I knew I had less than a month to finish everything, and I knew that it would be very time-consuming (and I am atrocious at managing my time!). So I've plotted out a schedule for myself that, if adhered to, should allow me to complete the entire project with plenty of time to spare--even if I am slower than expected or just plain undisciplined. I've got a decent start on the sewing, and just need to keep chugging along now. Hopefully I will be done well before my planned finish date. Expect pictures when everything is said and done. :)
Labels: gift, mum, quilt, sewing
Thrift Haul: 08-02-08

I love thrifting. ^_^
I usually end up going at least once a week, sometimes twice if I'm lucky. Mondays and Saturdays are my usual thrifting days, but I missed Monday this week so I wanted to make sure I had time to go Saturday. I was feeling a little sick when I got up on Saturday, so we didn't get out of the house as early as I would have liked, and the thrift store was about to close by the time I arrived. Still, I managed to turn up some good items even in that short amount of time.
The picture above is kind of an overview of all the small items I found. It's hard to see thanks to my crummy cell phone picture, but basically there's a ton of vintage rick-rack, lots of lace trim and seam binding, a lot of blanket binding and quilt binding (some vintage, some newer), and a couple packs of bias tape. Also, there are two size Q crochet hooks and plastic size 12 knitting needles. In addition to all of that, there are several never-opened packages of vintage snap kits in a couple different styles, and some vintage brass buttons on a card. That big spool on the upper left is a 50 yd. roll of industrial strength iron-on mending tape, which I was beyond thrilled to find for a thrifty price. I've already found a fantastic use for it: repairing the holes in my dog's stuffed lizard toy, which becomes shredded instead of splitting along a seam, making it pretty much impossible to sew shut.

I love the wrapper from this old pack of rick-rack. I already took the rick-rack out and put it in my storage box, but I had to save this because I thought it was so pretty. ^^
I really have way too much rick-rack, but I can never say no to more when I see it, especially if it's old. In fact, I can't seem to resist any type of old sewing notions. ^^;
Anyway, I also got several bundles of lovely vintage fabric, including approximately 5 yards of bright, grass green pleather. I was thrilled about the pleather...usually when I find vinyl or pleather, it's just scrap remnants, and often the colours are not exactly ideal (taupe, anyone? Yeah, I didn't think so...). The pleather had its original purchase tag still attached: 1.75$ a yard. That must have been quite a few years back, because I've never seen pleather that cheap, even on sale.

Besides the green vinyl, there was a pretty "patchwork" pattern fabric with a border print. I might make a dress from that if there is enough of it for what I have in mind. I also got some pin-wale baby blue corduroy, royal blue fleece, green silky-type material, a light green and blue printed polyester, some stretchy blue fabric with abstract lions printed on it (yes, this fabric is a little strange...), and...I think that's it!
But no, I'm still not done. ^_^;
I have to spazz about the really cool old knitting row counter I found!

It's hard to see well in the photo, but it's made by Susan Bates, and it has 10 red pegs that you move around to keep track of your rows, pattern rows, and increases and decreases. Each kind of thing you count has its own little area on the raised plastic peg board. This was a lucky find as it still has all of its pegs and came with the original instructions. :)
This thing will definitely come in handy when knitting season rolls around again. I do have several of the counters that you slide onto your needle, but I hate those because they always either fall off, or the little counter wheels are too loose, and they turn on their own when my knitting is stored in my bag. I also have one of those Clover brand clicker-counters, which I love (mostly because of the clicking action ^^;), but of course it only counts one thing at a time.

Finally, this is my last item: a vintage blue plastic sewing "tackle box". This baby is in perfect condition, nice and deep, and came with a cool top tray that has labeled, shaped compartments for your gear (ie: "scissors", "bobbins", "spools", etc). About a month ago I purchased a new sewing box thingy on sale at Michael's. It's padded and covered in this unbelievably ugly fabric, but it was cheap and I needed something to keep my "second set" of sewing gear in near the sofa, for use when I am watching TV. It isn't nearly as deep or big as this blue one, which I like much better. So, yeah. The new box will probably be exiled to the closet in favour of this old box. :D
Labels: fabric, gear, knitting, notions, purchases, sewing, supplies, thrift, vintage