Kimberly Einmo, the Craftsy Giveaway, and a little progress

I just posted my interview with Kimberly Einmo (episode 124). Woo! I really enjoyed the opportunity to meet and talk with Kimberly--very fun. I just wanted to make sure I posted on my blog as well so all-y'all who subscribe to the blog but may not subscribe to the podcast would know that Craftsy is sponsoring a giveaway on the episode--the winner will get a free Kimberly Einmo Craftsy class of their choice!

Check out the podcast!

Meanwhile, I got the center done of the Disappearing 9-Patch I'm making as a donation quilt. It's wheelchair size (or will be, once I slap some borders on this puppy), and I chose masculine colors for this one. Do you know how hard it is to find charm packs that aren't girly? Fortunately I had enough scraps to beef up the two charm packs I was able to lay my hands on. ​(Terrible, awful picture--that's what I get for doing it at 10:30 at night on my cell phone. Stinky lighting. I'll do better on the next progress shot.)

And I made more progress tonight on my House on a Hill Project for Laura Wasilowsky's class on Craftsy, "Hand-stitched Collage Quilts." ​The grass is done. Woot for grass.

See those two wonderful variegated threads? The pink in the flower (not the French knots) and the green in the grass? Those are both Laura's hand-dyed perle cottons, available through www.artfabrik.com. Tasty.​

I promise, better pictures next time. Pinky swear.​

Clearing the Decks, Starting Anew...

I had a sort of "clearing of the decks" this weekend. I had both my mystery quilt tops and backings ready to go to the longarmer for awhile, but I was waiting to get the backing put together for another quilt so I could run all three down at once. I realized Saturday morning after I got home from the grocery store that if I worked quick-like-a-bunny I had a shot at getting that backing complete, and the rest of the paper pulled off the pp'd blocks on the quilt, in time to run it 45 mins south to the LQS before they closed. I just barely made it!

So I treated myself to some new fabric as a reward, of course.

​Yum.

It's better for me than buying chocolate. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.​

I posted last week about my progress on the house on the hill project (yet to have it's own name). I'm doing the hand-stitching on that now, which is giving me the chance to do some embroidery. ​

​Here's a fairly bad picture of my first attempt at french knots, which, as opposed to the picture, weren't too bad.

The thread I was using was a bit too thick for this particular project, and is very rough to the touch, which means tons of friction trying to pull it through fusible and batting. My fingers ached after the first three, and I believe I did 39 altogether. For the next stitches, I switched to a different thread (an actual perle cotton) and it's been going much more smoothly ever since. More pictures later.​

Once my quilts were at the longarmer, that freed me up to work on other projects. Something I've been wanting to do for awhile, inspired by yet another Craftsy class, Magical Jelly Roll Quilts with Kimberly Einmo, is a scrap quilt using the Jacob's Ladder block. It's a traditional block that I've always liked because you can lay it out in a hundred different ways. Okay, I've never actually counted. A lot of different ways, in any case. Kimberly's directions are all based on a 2 1/2" strip so she's done the math by looking in my stash. Very convenient and kind of her, I thought.

I'm doing the larger half square triangles all out of a single red paired with a single white; that will (I hope) create the path for the eye through the quilt. The white looks solid here, but it's tone-on-tone.

I'm trying to once again push myself to make the rest of it as scrappy as possible. I need 390 @ 2 1/2" squares. ​I have a collection of 2 1/2" squares I've been cutting off project scraps for awhile, so I started there.  However, I have a few fabrics that have dozens of squares, and others with only one or two. In order to avoid having blocks dominated by a particular fabric, I separated out my squares by fabric and then started by pulling a consistent number from each pile so the scraps would at least be fairly evenly distributed. Once I got to the point where I had a lot of the same fabrics left, I put those aside and dug into my strip collection.

Now I'm going to start cutting more squares from my strips to get even more distribution of fabrics. Strips? I got me plenty o'.

I intentionally chose some strips from my collection that I particularly dislike, under the theory that no fabric is ugly if you cut it small enough.​

I'm pushing my comfort envelope here. I don't do random well. Must. Control. Must. Control. Someone pat me on the back and tell me it's all going to be okay.​

(Not familiar with the Jacob's Ladder block? Check it out here on About.com.​)

Goals for this week:​

• Keep stitching House on the Hill (not sure when I'll decide it's done)​
• Get squares cut from strips for Jacob's Ladder
• Fuse more fabrics in preparation for next fused art quilt. Maybe my design, maybe the second one in Laura Wasilowski's class--haven't decided.​
• Make two pillowcases from sets of scrap fabric I've had sitting on the edge of my cutting table for awhile now and they're just starting to bug me.​

Work in Progress Wednesday--House on a Hill

I've decided to try to join in the fun with Work in Progress Wednesday at freshlypieced.

As I talked about in my most recent podcast episode, I'm taking Laura Wasilowki's "Hand-Stitched Collage Quilts" class in Craftsy. Although I often go haring off into the wild and do my own design, I decided to go easy on myself this time and pretty much stick with hers, although I've made some tweaks here and there as suited my mood.

All of the fabrics less one are my own hand-dyed fabrics. The lime green fabric (grass) is commercial. ​

Verily, in the ages of yore, there was a hill.

​And on that hill, a house was built.

As time passed, as the earth turned and daylight and moonlight did pass, trees and grass flourished.

And as the rains did come followed by the brightness of sun, flowers verily bloomed.

And the world was securely fused to batting.​

And there was much rejoicing.

(Stay tuned. I just hit the embellishing stage.​)

Be sure to check out all the other Work in Progress Wednesday posts at freshlypieced!​