An even better hiades

So I still haven't been crafting much. This time for an even warmer reason ....



This is our view from our back door- not too shabby huh!?! Can't exactly tell in the pic, but that is the Gulf of Mexico just beyond the sea wall.

Back to reality, fabric, and sewing machines in a couple days.

Sew Sane Jane

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Pieced "trunks"

I saw a post that linked to a post about fancy pieced backs of quilts (I immediately thought of junk in the trunk when I heard "back" because I am nerdy and apparently immature - hence the post name.

I realized that I haven't really shown off many of the backs of my quilts - maybe a small shot here and there, but not full shots.

Here they are. Some I like, one I HATE!!! But was tired enough of dealing with it that I didn't take it apart and redo it.

Back of the "learn my shapes" playmat


Yucky picture of the back of the zigzag quilt



Below is the one I just regret. Didn't turn out how I thought it would when I thought of it. It looks too inconsistent and chopped up. The quilting pattern though makes it look decent if you don't focus on the entire back at once.


Back of the Hunky Dory quilt that I am trying to finish up the binding on this week.


Apparently I don't always take picture of the backs of my quilts - oops. I love the idea of a pieced back. It is the same sort of smile that I get when you see an adorable baby outfit only to turn it around to see it has something cute on the tush!


-Sew Sane Jane
(Posted using BlogPress from my iPad)

Sew time

SOOOO, I am not at home. Every year (for the past 5), I head out of town to grade AP exams. - you know, those exams the the smarty-pants kids who are in high school but trying to take a high school class for college credit have to take to get the credits to count at college take - yea, the Psychology ones of those. About 400 of us get hired by the testing company to sit in a room and grade 8 hours a day for 7 days straight. We are half-way through!! Well with the days at least. We had 199,000 test to grade this year and have about 48% done last I heard.

So since I was going to be gone, my machine went in for it's yearly physical exam - and I am stuck in a hotel room without a machine. Not wanting to waste time, I sewed a binding to the front of a quilt right before I left and brought it with me to work on hand sewing it to the back.

My night stand adornments for the week...




It has been going fairly well, after staring at some of the most atrocious handwriting during the day, it is nice to work on something that gives my eyes a break. (yes, that is how awful the handwriting is, staring at tiny stitches makes my eyes feel BETTER!!)



Making progress, but only about half done. My goal was to be finished by today - I guess I will give myself an extension.



Sew Sane Jane

It's done, it's done!

So I started this "sparkling gemstones" quilt from a book I borrowed from the library last Summer! Eee, I would work on it a little, get bored, unmotivated, or frustrated and put it away - repeat. In November I thought I would force the motivation by making this a Christmas gift for my mother-in-law. That motivation lasted about 3 weeks - we decided NOT to do presents (which was great as we always felt bad as our family was in a better position to do so and they always felt guilty for not buying as much - problem solved - celebrate family and religion instead of material goods!)

So I pushed back finishing it as I figured I had till March for her Birthday (no longer motivated right around Christmas, but I did work on it a bit more then and again in January). I had it all pieced together by March, and had Two lines doneStarted quilting it. Ooops, this was right as we were getting more work done on our basement and I just could not get motivated to try to get that darn thing through my little machine (hence my NEED, not Want for a LAQ) :)



Needless to say, March came and went without a finished quilt. I did show it to her and tell her, "Happy Birthday, I'm not done yet!"

Last week I sent another quilt I had pieced back in November to a lady who has a long arm Quilter, which got me more motivated to just get my Mother-in-law's done!
Side note: this is the quilt i had quilted - Isn't the design cute - she called the pattern "cotton candy." More on this quilt once I get the binding on.





I shoved that thing through my little machine with only a little groaning from the machine. I had pieced the binding back in December, so I quick sewed that to the front and have spent the last 3 days hand sewing the rest on. FINALLY, VOILA, it's done!!!












I ended up straight line quilting it around each of the "picture frames.". I wasn't really liking that until I got done and saw all of those little frames inter-connected on the back - I actually think that was a better choice than a random all-over pattern for this quilt. (but would have been easier to make this same shape using a machine with a larger throat capacity!)

And my favorite - I laugh every time I hide it when workers come to work on the basement - I don't want them to take it thinking it is their construction tool....



I use a huge T - square that I got from Lowe's to help me square up my quilts.

-Sew Sane Jane
(Posted using BlogPress from my iPad)