sometimes i sew stuff: encore

I have always had an odd relationship with complicated, pieced quilt blocks. I love the look of them, and have an Evernote tag full of tutorials on how to make them, but they’ve always seemed like more work than I’m willing to take on. One of the issues, I think, is that:

a) I almost never have a couple of uninterrupted hours at home to sit down at my sewing machine and sort out how to make a block;

b) I do not have enough space to have my sewing equipment and my cutting equipment out at the same time.

But a couple of different bloggers on my reading list have been talking about hand piecing lately, and over the weekend, something clicked for me – there is not actually a rule that says I can’t make elaborate, fussy blocks by hand.

This was made using the Japanese X and + block tutorial. It’s definitely fussy, and hand sewing definitely made the process slower – I worked on this in small chunks of time over two days – but I actually made it, and I’m really proud of the results.

It’s also a nice opportunity for me to use scraps, which I have been saving pretty religiously for the past few years. The very largest piece of fabric in this block is 3.5″ by 3.5″, and most of the rest is 2″ strips or squares – those are little pieces, so I can play around with small amounts of precious (where “precious” means “the print with sleepy cats on it that always makes me smile”) or almost-used-up fabric.

The sweater also continues, much more quickly than my sewing. I’m up to eight stripes on the body, and after trying it on a few times, I am almost 80% sure my math was right and I’m not making a sweater in the wrong size. This is a pretty big deal.

things i did with my week: a list

1. A lot – a lot – of traveling and Real Life.

2. Some sweater.

I’m at the body now, which means the rows go faster, and also that I get to motivate myself with stripes. (There is something very pleasing and a little addictive about stripes.) I really love the navy and yellow together – the yellow cheers up the dark blue a bit, I think.

3. Some sewing.

Knowing myself, and how I have at least four craft projects in progress at any given time, I figured I’d get bored of working on the same sweater all week. So I brought along my hexagon pillowcase, which has been basically-almost-done-except-for-finishing-the-applique-and-sewing-the-front-and-back-together for months, now.

Each of the hexagons were made using this English paper piecing template. The ones in the big strip were hand-pieced together, then I hand-stitched it to the grey background fabric. I also added a few extra single hexagons in the same way.

Let me tell you, you get some looks when you pull out a hand sewing project on a train.

sewing?

So, one of the things on my Crafty To-Do List has always been to make myself a quilt. A proper, double-bed sized one, that I can use to sleep under in the spring and fall, when my big duvet is too warm.

But I’ve always been intimidated by the idea of making one – I have grown used to knitting, where mistakes can be ripped out with virtually no consequences (except more knitting), and the idea of cutting fabric and then sewing it and not being able to start over entirely if something goes wrong is a bit scary.

So I came up with a plan: last Christmas, (as in, 2010) I bought some ridiculous, deeply-discounted, oh-god-this-fabric-is-vomiting-Christmas fat quarters, with the idea of using them to make a practice quilt. The sort of quilt where, if something went horribly wrong, it would not be a big deal.

I put the top for this together in, quite literally, an evening. It’s little – 36″ by 36″ – made from six fat quarters. I sat down with my square ruler and cut the fabric into squares that were the size of the ruler, then arranged them in a pleasing fashion and seamed everything. And things turned out okay! (Also: sewing is so fast you guys, I always forget.

I brought it with me over the holidays, with the goal of finding a shop that sold backing fabric and batting, and learning to quilt by hand.

Turns out, hand quilting is kind of really, really fun.

I’m not so much in love with the process of sewing the quilt top – I don’t like having to sit at the sewing machine, and I’m still at a skill level where I find cutting fabric and working to patterns kind of intimidating.

But hand-quilting, like tiny hexagons, is something I can get behind. It’s repetitive and straightforward, and the basic technique of it isn’t very challenging. I love the look of it, and I can do it while I sit on the couch with the TV on. There is nothing not awesome there.

Anyway.

All of this is a very long way of explaining that I’ve worked through my issues with sewing for quilts, and made a much bigger quilt top.

I also figured out how to lay it out to sandwich the backing and batting together with the top (in my apartment, finding that much space is a big deal, and involves moving furniture) and that’s why my couch is covered in a half-finished quilt.

I’m very sorry.

It won’t happen again.