Category Archives: UFOs

This is another #31dayblogchallenge post.

Edited to add: Blocks due January 20th, 2016. After that I’ll make do with what I have and get this project finished. Thanks!

I’ve got three more #getyourquiltywishesgranted envelopes ready to mail and four that are waiting for me to buy stamps. In light of all the giving going on I thought I’d take this opportunity to ask for more help finishing a quilt.

This quilt is for my childhood summer camp and has been a community project from the very beginning. Many artists have helped make the center turtle blocks as well as the tree blocks already.

What I’d love to have is more tree blocks for the final border of the turtles’ quilt. I still need 75 more to make it all the way. Will you help? There’s a block tutorial here for the easy 8″ x 11.5″ pieced blocks. If you’re sending some my way please email me for the address mrs.megan.null at gmail dot com.

Chopping Up the Table-Runner

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I cut up an incomplete table runner this week. I gave myself permission to wreck a project that wasn’t working and turn it into something new! Here’s what it used to look like.

What inspired such a bold move? It was last week’s Project Quilting Challenge on unfinished works. Several people took meh pieces and turned them into something amazing like this and this. Click on those links. You’ll be glad you did.

So here’s my work in progress. I started by cutting the four-patches out of the table-runner. I only seam-rip when it’s absolutely necessary. The blocks were framed in green fabric I was going to trim off anyway.

They’re all beautiful Asian prints. Why are fabrics like these called that? Asia’s a continent with a wide variety of cultures, styles, and looks. It’s a little weird that this category is so broad. There are Japanese prints out there, which is a little better, but these aren’t them.

Anyway, I cut each four-patch block in diagonal twice and sewed ’em back together.

Now they’re much cuter pinwheels.

I joined the pinwheel blocks for the center and added some borders.

I like the skinny grey border near the edge and think there needs to be something similar between the pinwheels and first border. I’m not willing to rip three borders off to make it look right. Instead I’ll applique a skinny blue there. I’ll be sure to show you guys how it turns out in the end.

Project Quilting’s Voting is open through February 13th. My tiny heart is #44. Check out all of the awesome entries and choose your favorite six! The next challenge begins on Sunday the 15th.

I Tiny Heart You Too Paula

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My friend Paula, who likes working in tiny pieces like me, made me this paper-pieced heart before she moved. The heart measures one inch square and has 12 pieces. So cool, right?!

I made it into an ornament for this week’s Project Quilting Challenge which had the theme of finishing an incomplete project. So I made this cutie into a little ornament that will go on my idea board once my new studio (formerly a storage room/bedroom) is complete. That way I can look at it every day!

Like the many fabrics in this heart, my friend has encouraged me to reveal all the parts of myself not just to her but in my art as well. We weathered joint events and separate ones and always found something to smile about. She made me feel important and seen… and let me see her as well.

Do you have a friend like that? It’s such a special relationship that I’m not mourning her moving across country like I thought I might. Instead I’m delighting in hearing about her adventures in snowy Boston and looking forward to seeing her again. Nope, I don’t know when that’ll happen. But with a bond like this I’ll be making it a priority.

Plus, I can’t find a single photograph of the two of us. How crazy is that?!?! Something to be remedied for sure. 🙂

I’m linking this post up to Show Off Saturday, Slow Sunday Stitching and Tuesday Archives.

Sometimes I Need a Bit of Quiet

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Sometimes I need a bit of quiet. Do you ever get that way? Life’s just so go-go-go noisy and it’s good to take a break to breathe. So that’s what I’m doing today on my 31st birthday. Hubby and I went grocery shopping and that’s really the only thing I’ve checked off my to-do list…. which is totally okay. We’ll cook together tonight and watch a RedBox movie. I’ll quilt a bit and fold a load of laundry. Maybe have a nice long soak in the tub. I’ll return those phone calls and emails later.

I’m getting real quiet and listening and learning about myself and my business. I’ve noticed that I don’t have a real clear direction and want to remedy that. One thing I have planned is to participate in a group read and discussion of The Power of Unpopular by Erika Napoletano, a business book that many people have recommended to me.

This week’s Project Quilting Challenge is to finish a UFO (unfinished object) so I’ve been working on the Turtles Quilt for my childhood summer camp. I’m up to the final border on the top. I’ll post some updated photos of that in a few days. It almost definitely won’t be finished by Sunday so I may work on a smaller project to submit. There are some great prizes that are randomly drawn this year and it always feels good to have a finish. If I don’t this week, well, I’m not going to stress about it.

We’ve been doing some gardening this past week. Living in Southern California does have benefits! We loved the potatoes so much last year that we’re planting three times as many. So far we’ve weeded, pulled up some stumps, laid a brick path, transplanted the bird of paradise plants, painted some pots, and planted seeds that’ll be flowers.

I’ve linked an older post up to the Tuesday Archives link party. This week’s theme is nine-patch quilts. The last nine-patch that I made is in my etsy shop. It’s a disappearing nine-patch baby quilt with kids’ prints on a pink and orange background.

You Are Not a Yellow Starburst

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This week has given me a lot of practice in standing up for myself. Hopefully some of that will pay off soon. I am not a yellow Starburst! You don’t get to put me on the bottom of the list or stash me away for later in the junk drawer. Oy.

Anyhoo… I did finish this bag for myself a few days ago. I’d been meaning to make a replacement for the one I made while testing the pattern for Sam Hunter over three years ago. Here’s the new one! Isn’t it cute? I used a fabric I bought just because I liked it for the flap and a warm brown for the rest of it. There’s a button and loop closure because I couldn’t find my velcro…. until after the purse was done.

I also completed the January block for the 2015 Stash Bee I’m a part of. This month’s blocks are navys and white and will go to Audrey of Hot Pink Quilts. Click on the block above to go to her tutorial.
Hubby and I are still working on the house. Here’s a before pic of the wood above the garage door. It was soft and squishy from rot; not so great structurally. We replaced the wood and flashing (the metal stuff on the top corner) and the silicone sealant is drying.

Painting is another large project we’re in the middle of. We’re repainting all of the trim its original brown and painting the house a little yellow-er of an off-white. So far the front off-white and the trim around the front windows and doors is completed. There’s lots more to do.

This week’s Project Quilting challenge is sunrise and sunset. I’ll keep you posted on what I decide to make. There’s 6 days left. Ready, set, go!

I’m linking this post to Show off Saturday and Handmade Tuesdays.

15 Quilting-ish Goals for 2015

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It’s almost New Year Resolutions Time. I quilt for myself, for pay, and for charity. In order to get more organized I’m joining Jetgirl and a few others in making 15 quilting-related resolutions for 2015.

Get organized. Keep detailed financial records for my business. Rearrange my fabric stash so I can tell quickly what I have and don’t.
Market my business. Do what I know and learn what I don’t. Make it a priority to really learn some new tricks. Try them out and see what works for me.
Work on one charity project at a time. I have at least 3 charity unfinished projects and find great causes that need quilts or blocks all the time. Thing is, if my emotions are in charge none of these things will get done. One at a time and they’ll get finished and to the people that need them. First up is the turtles quilt for Crystal Lake Camps.
Teach some classes! I already have one class ready to go, teaching crumb piecing. I’ll work on getting that one booked at guilds and shops as well as having more classes to offer.
Try new things. You know, stuff I haven’t done before.
Finish a quilt for my own bed. We have store-bought blankets on there now, along with a gorgeous hand-quilted Amish quilt. Still, it needs one of mine. My husband has been bugging me about this for a while and this year I’ll turn one of the bed-sized tops into our snuggle covers.
Give myself a raise! As a skilled worker, I will charge for my services like, well, a skilled worker. This year it goes up from $16.50 to $18 an hour.
Learn how to better communicate with my customers. For example, I recently discovered that a good question to ask with custom work is if there’s a preference for the backing fabric.
Make another large crumbs quilt. I love my crumbs piecing! I have a LOT of 6″ squares and they’re ready to go into a large quilt. Maybe it’ll end up being a show quilt like this other one I made a few years ago.
Go to at least three quilt shows. Meet the vendors, be inspired by the quilts, refill my creative cup.
Meet some of my online friends. I have some that I know only through blogging and Facebook. I’d love to give them in-person hugs in 2015!
Be silly. Laugh. Allow myself to make things just because it’s fun. Inject beauty into my artistic life.
Say no. No to writer’s block. No to continuing with a project that needs to go into the donation bin. No to going to a guild meeting that’s designed to be exclusive. Trust my intuition and highest sense of self and say no when that’s the right answer for me.
Quilt with friends! I’ve joined the Stash Bee and am looking forward to meeting some new online friends through that monthly activity. I’m also going to make an effort to sew in-person with mini-groups, sew-ins, at retreats, or just when my local friends have a minute to spare.
Stop quilting. Know when to put the needle down. Watch a movie on the couch with my husband without my handwork. Stop the sewing machine when on the phone with a family member who’s letting me hear their secret thoughts. “One more block,” won’t do when I could be running errands before rush hour.

How about you? Do you have any resolutions for 2015?

It’s Tree Skirt Season!

Restoring My Learning to Read Quilt

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In the summer of 1991, my mom used my love of art to encourage me to practice reading. I got to draw a picture of my favorite part of the book as I finished each one. I drew these pictures with fabric crayons on muslin fabric. By the end of that summer, I was begging to go to the library and check out more books.
Here’s the thing. This quilt that I treasure so so much was made before Mom learned to quilt. It’s made with the cheapest fabrics available, lumpy polyester batting (which has only degraded with age) and is held together with… tied yarn in four places. Obviously her craft improved greatly with her later quilts. This one is literally coming apart at the seams.

This one is such a treasure to me that I’m going to restore it. The photo above is the “before” picture. I will carefully cut out each square, add some stabilizer to the flimsy muslin, and border each block in a similar manner as the original quilt, with higher quality cottons. I plan to use calicoes, which were the choice of quilters at that time. It’ll get new batting and backing, and be quilted lovingly in her memory.

Of course, my drawings are cute… but one of the things I love most about this quilt, now that my Mom has passed, is that the titles of every book are written on the blocks… in her handwriting. It’s interesting what’s comforting when a loved one has died. Handwriting is one of those things for me, and the love that’s obvious in this project.

I’ll share with you guys the progress I make on this as I make it. This quilt has been folded up in a box for too long.

QUILTArtbymegan

For lovers of quilts, art, and Megan.