What I'm Working On...and 2014 Quilty Resolution Spreadsheet

As I announced on this past weekend's podcast episode, I'll be doing a 2014 Quilty Resolutions First Quarter Check-in at the end of March. A few weeks from now I'll ask you to let everyone know how you're doing so far at keeping your 2014 resolutions and I'll choose a giveaway winner from those who play along. Even if you didn't participate in my resolution challenge, you can report in on your own quilty-related resolutions and how you're doing, and you'll still be eligible for the giveaway drawing.

A few of you, ahem, you know who you are, have admitted to me that you can't remember what you resolved. Perhaps next year's resolution should be, "Improve my memory." So here's a link to a public version of the 2014 Quilty Resolutions spreadsheet. I've removed everyone's email addresses and last names for Internet safety.

I'm looking forward to hearing how you're doing at our first check-in!

How am I doing with my resolutions?

Well, as we all know, one of them had to do with Craftsy classes. I've been keeping you updated on that. I'm currently in the finishing stages of Stupendous Stitching with Carol Ann Waugh, and then I really want to get cracking on Thread Art with Lola Jenkins. I already know what artwork I'm going to use and am seriously jazzed!

I'm also going to start working on another machine quilting class (which double-dips in my resolutions) but I'm waffling a bit on which one. I own several, and they've all got benefits. I'm watching all the lessons in two of them now to see which one calls to me more at the moment. Eventually I'll do all of them in my queue, so I could really flip a coin. I honestly don't know why I'm waffling.

I'll do another update when I post the giveaway blog in another few weeks.

What else do I have in progress?

• I have to do the cutting for my Ami Simms class at Lancaster, and gather all the supplies for my Frieda Anderson class. The first will take a whole lot longer than the second! For the dye class, I already own all the supplies--I just have to pull it together and figure out the simplest way to pack them so they're easy to carry into class.
• Scrapitude still needs borders (already have the fabric), then I'm taking it to my LQS for longarming--I'll buy backing there. They have a nice selection of wide backing fabrics.
• My Disappearing Pinwheel quilt still needs borders, and I'm piecing backing for that one (have fabric for both), then I'm also taking it to the same LQS for longarming.
• My postcard for Sandi's Spring Postcard swap is in progress but I really need to get working on it as technically it's supposed to be in the mail before March 20 and I'm in Lancaster for a chunk of that time!
• I've got the binding pieces cut for Daisy's Twitter Giveaway quilt top that I won; I just need to get that top bound.

I have no idea how this happened. I rarely, if ever, have so many things going at once. I usually shoot for no more than three projects--one in planning or cutting, one at the sewing machine, and one at handwork (binding) stage. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with all of this so I'm just staying organized and focused and reminding myself to just enjoy the process. If it doesn't feel like fun to work on something on a given day, I choose one of the other projects to work on. It's all about having fun, not stressing out!

Craftsy Class Review: Complete Knife Skills with Brendan McDermott

Another cooking class instead of a quilting class. Hey, a girl's gotta eat.

I've been wanting to do a knife skills class for years. I've picked up plenty from watching cooking shows, checking out YouTube videos, and iPad apps. But it seems that everyone has different techniques and often the demos were poorly done. I do decently well at slicing and dicing, but knew I could use some improvement.

When I saw that Craftsy was offering a class named Complete Knife Skills--and offering it for free, no less!--I spent only a millisecond thinking, "But I already have so many dang classes I need to get through," before I clicked the button and sent it flying into my account.

I probably chose a somewhat awkward time to start watching it--I was waiting at my gate in the airport heading home from vacation. I likely gave a few wandering TSA agents pause. "Keep an eye on that woman--she's watching something about knives." They'd have worried even more if they'd seen the grin on my face.

Brendan McDermott, the course instructor, is an absolute hoot. He's a younger guy with tattoos up and down his arms, shaved head, and a very dry sense of humor that just never ceased to entertain me. I texted the link to my 23-year-old son and 27-year-old nephew and told them they both had to take this class--not only because actually learning how to use a knife is one of the best things a beginning cook can do, but because I thought they'd seriously dig the instructor. I confess to getting the giggles when McDermott would pepper his instruction with comments like, "Die, carrot!" and "You can even get into a good-sized watermelon without having to come at it like a Spartan warrior."

As fair warning to those who may be more sensitive to this kind of thing: Once in a great while his language can get ever-so-slightly off-color (he referred to a partially-sliced butternut squash as a "big-a** carrot" which cracked me up, and uses the "d" word once or twice), but it's infrequent and, in my opinion, pretty mild. But we all have different words that push our buttons so you'd need to make your own judgments on that.

Okay, so it was entertaining. But is it informative? Abso-positively! I learned more from this class than I have from years of cooking shows and YouTube. He's very thorough. First and foremost, he's a huge proponent of knife safety, so throughout his demonstrations he's focused on safety as well as efficiency. Although many of the knife skills demos I've seen before have said things like "This is a safer way to do this," Brendan actually explains why it's safer, what the risks are of other methods (interestingly, often other methods I've seen on the cooking shows themselves!), and has just a few guidelines that, if you keep them in mind, will help you figure out how to keep your fingers on every time even if you forget everything else he's demonstrated.

He talks about which knives are essential and what you can do without, tips about cutting boards, and always explains why certain cutting techniques are better than others. The lessons include various types of cuts, and techniques for a variety of foods. He even talks throughout about what remnants left on the cutting board when you're done with your prep work well for stocks and which don't. Each lesson also ends with a "Helpful Hint" (after the close of the lesson, so pay attention--there's more!).

I can't recommend this class highly enough. Unless you're a trained, professional chef, you'll likely learn something. And even if you're a trained, professional chef, the entertainment value is worth it. What do you have to lose? It's free!

The Basics:

• 5 lessons total, though two of those lessons have a ton of segments so the length of each lesson (not counting the Craftsy promo lesson 1) varies from 8 to 43 minutes.
• The first lesson is just a brief introduction to Craftsy since this is a free class--it's a promotional tool for them. If you know Craftsy, you can skip lesson 1.
• Lesson 2 is the introduction--Brendan tells you about himself, and then goes right into choosing knives, the four basic knives you should have in your kitchen, and a few other useful tips.
• Lesson 3 gets into specifics: how to hold the knife, a variety of cuts, each demonstrated on a particular item and tips about those items as well (what he says about onions was a highlight of the course for me!).
• Lesson 4 goes into "short cuts" for cutting particular items that can often give people trouble or just ways to go about things more efficiently and effectively (citrus, bell peppers, jalapenos, etc.)
• Lesson 5 is a shorter lesson on how to sharpen and hone your blade.

I really do encourage you to check it out. This is one of my fave Craftsy classes ever, and you know that's saying a lot! Again, that's Complete Knife Skills with Brendan McDermott. Two thumbs up. Two thumbs that I now feel like I run a far lower risk of slicing off at some point in my future!

(Transparency statement if you haven't seen it before: using the Craftsy links on this blog help support this blog and podcast. Thanks!)

Craftsy Class Review--Shoot It! A Product Photography Primer

Yet another Craftsy class finish! This time, we're talking about Shoot It! A Product Photography Primer with Caro Sheridan. I watched this class in its entirety while I was on vacation in Savannah last week (and, in fact, blew out my data plan allotment for the month by doing so on my iPad but it was well worth it!).

If you've got a blog or an Etsy shop, you really ought to get this class. I took photography in high school and have done a fair amount of self-study in it, but have gotten--admittedly--lazy in recent years. I used to be a much better photographer than I am now. I still have a decent eye for composition, but when it comes to taking the time to make sure I've got really well composed, nice looking photos on my blog, I only manage that about a quarter of the time. The rest of the time, I have a "Lookie! I'm finished! Let me quick snap something on my cell phone, upload it, and call it a day!" attitude.

Frankly, I really want to get over myself on that one. I would like to have much better photos on my blog, so I need to make a bit of a mental commitment to that. I can't guarantee that'll happen consistently, but it's something I'm going to...(wait for it)...shoot for more often in 2014.

Back to the class. I enjoyed Caro Sheridan as a teacher. She clearly knows her stuff, and in the class she illustrates her points with a lot of examples so you get the visual of how the background can really add or detract to the subject of your photo, and so forth. And she goes more in-depth than just "get rid of the clutter around it," which I do generally remember to do, even if it's just a quick sweep of my arm across the top of my cutting table to clear it off. She talks about the use of color in the background to highlight your product/subject, lighting and shadows, tools to use that make lighting issues a little easier, composition, and how to tell a story with your shot. She addresses using a point-and-shoot or your phone camera as well as more sophisticated cameras--so you don't have to have a whizz-bang camera to take this class! Probably better than 85% of the information in the class is applicable regardless of what you're using.

If I ever do have an Etsy shop for my hand-dyes, I'm definitely going back and reviewing this class again. For now, though, I've been inspired to drag out the manual on my good digital camera to refresh my memory on some of the settings (said laziness has led me to rely on auto settings far more than is good for me)--which also means, seeing if I can learn to love this camera. I still miss my old one and just haven't bonded with this one even after owning it a couple of years, so I'm giving it another few months before I decide if it's really just a learning curve thing, or if I really need to go back to my original line of camera. I've also been inspired to see if I can set up some sort of studio space in my basement to get better photos of my hand-dyes and small projects. I only need a table (hmmm...a retired cutting table, perhaps?), a few different colored back-drops (solid colored sheets to hang on the wall and drape over the table), and probably a couple of lights and light reflectors on stands--all things I can jury-rig together using hints from this class and stuff I find at Goodwill.

One of the other things I've been inspired to do based on this class is a Self-Portrait Project--the topic of her last lesson. She offers several very helpful tips in how to get a good self-portrait and suggests taking one a day for several days, playing with poses, lighting, camera settings, and so forth. Not only will you get a really good self-portrait out of it eventually but, as she says, you'll also likely deal with some of your own self-image issues. And that's something worth working on!

So I highly recommend this class. I really enjoyed it and, even with a pretty solid foundation of photography experience under my belt, got a lot of very helpful tips and ideas--and plenty of inspiration!

The basics:

• 10 lessons, ranging from 6 minutes to nearly 30 minutes. The average is around 15 minutes.
• Lessons begin with an introduction, in which Caro Sheridan talks about her own background and experience.
• The next lesson is "motivations and style," which talks about why you'd want decent photos in the first place, as well as tips for developing your own style of photography. She offers some very helpful suggestions about how to discover what your style might be that believe I'm going to be trying out.
• She then goes through color theory and composition in the next couple of lessons, spends a lesson on prepping for a shoot, another lesson on the shoot itself, then she talks about camera settings, editing, post processing, and the self-portrait project in the remaining lessons.
• The lessons also have sprinkled through good information on working with a model (i.e., if you want someone wearing the sweater you just knit, or wrapped in a quilt, or whatever), including permissions and helpful tips about getting them more comfortable in front of a camera; they also include information about getting permissions for location shots and other considerations.

Again, I highly recommend this class. Here's the link again: Shoot It! A Product Photography Primer with Caro Sheridan. (Usual transparency statement applies: Using that link to purchase the class helps support this blog and podcast.)

I haven't had anything quilty to practice photography on since I got home, really, and it's still too dang cold to go outside for nice nature shots. Therefore, my dogs are getting plenty of attention. Here's a photo gallery from me playing with some nifty flash settings I didn't know I had on my camera the other night.

Sam the Ham was game. He posed, he smiled, he brought me a toy just in case I wanted a prop.

Spencer wouldn't look at me, kept creeping away, and finally started diving under the couch every time I got the camera out. Princess Doggie and I need to come to some sort of arrangement.

(If you're getting this blog by email, you might not see the gallery. Sorry--you'll just need to go to the blog for it.)

January Update on Craftsy Class Progress

If you're new to this blog, one of my 2014 Quilty Resolutions is to focus on completing a significant proportion of the Craftsy classes I've managed to amass over the last two years since I first discovered Craftsy. And that's not a fly-by-night resolution. I've got a lot of them. I have learned so much from the classes I've taken so far, and enjoy the opportunity it gives me to continue to expand my skills even when my work and travel schedule don't let me take classes at my LQS.

Mind you, I also want you to be supporting classes at your LQS! Look at your LQS listing first. Nothing can replace that in-person class experience with a teacher that can stand over your shoulder and actually see what you're doing, to offer suggestions for improvement. But if you can't make a class in person, Craftsy is (IMHO) the next best thing.

So, to hold myself accountable and focused on working my way through the classes, I'm posting a monthly update here of what I've accomplished. This is my first official update--here's what I've gotten done in January.

Wendy Butler Berns' Machine Quilting class--done! (See this blog post and this podcast episode for reviews.)

Peter Reinhart's Artisan Bread Making class--done! (See this blog post for the review and photos.)

Molly Stevens' Secrets of Slow Cooking: Mastering the Braise--done! (See this blog post for the review and photo.)

Stupendous Stitching with Carol Ann Waugh: I've made great progress! I imagine you'll be seeing a full report with finished project pretty soon.

Spindling from Fluff to Stuff with Drucilla Pettibone: I've made progress--I'll really have to make a judgment call soon as to when I'll decide I'm done with this one.

So...drum roll please. Here's the updated list. (For the original blog post with more detail on how I define "completed," and notes about individual classes, click here.)

Completed Classes (all topics)

Current count: 17 (+3 from last month--yippee!)

• Machine Quilting with Wendy Butler Berns
• Artisan Bread Making with Peter Reinhart
• Secrets of Slow Cooking: Mastering the Braise with Molly Stephens
• Art Quilting 101 with Wendy Butler Berns
• Chain of Stars Mystery Quilt with Kimberly Einmo
• Color Play for Quilters with Joen Wolfrom
• Craftsy Block of the Month 2013 with Laura Nownes
• Creative Quilt Backs with Elizabeth Hartman
• Hand-Stitched Collage Quilts with Laura Wasilowski
• Magical Jelly Roll Quilts with Kimberly Einmo
• Pattern Free Quilt-making with Joe Cunningham
• Piece, Patch, Quilt: Basic Quiltmaking Skills with Gail Kessler
• QuiltCon Lecture Series 2013
• Scrap Quilting with Pepper Cory
• Stitch & Slash with Carol Ann Waugh
• The Art of Cloth Dyeing with Jane Dunnewold
• Know Your Wool with Deborah Robson

Classes in Progress

Current count: 3

• Spindling from Fluff to Stuff with Drucilla Pettibone
• Stupendous Stitching with Carol Ann Waugh
• Thread Art with Lola Jenkins

(As I finish classes, I roll new ones into the line-up. So the above are the classes I'm working on as of this writing but will change as I continue to progress.)

Classes To Be Completed

Current count: 18 (-3 since last month)

• Art Quilt Backgrounds: Beyond Log Cabin with Judith Trager
• Beyond Basic Machine Quilting with Ann Petersen
• Designing Modern Quilts with Weeks Ringle
• Fabric Patterning with Wax Resist with Malka Dubrawsky
• Finishing School: Edges and Bindings with Mimi Dietrich
• Free Motion Fillers Vol 1 with Leah Day
• Free Motion Fillers Vol 2 with Leah Day
• Free Motion Quilting a Sampler with Leah Day
• Machine Quilting Negative Space with Angela Walters
• Machine Quilting the Home Sweet Home Quilt with Frieda Anderson
• Painted Pictorial Quilts with Annette Kennedy
• Pictorial Quilting Techniques with Wendy Butler Berns
• Pictures to Pixel Quilts with Carol Sheridan
• Shoot It! A Product Photography Primer with Carol Sheridan
• Strip Your Stash with Nancy Smith
• A Modern Take on the Mother Sauces with James Peterson
• Homestyle Pan Sauces with Martha Holmberg
• Perfect Pizza at Home with Peter Reinhart

Classes added this month*

Count: 2

• Complete Knife Skills with Brendan McDermott. It was free, it's something I've been working on w/ YouTube videos and in-person classes at a local cooking school, and it plays into all the other cooking classes I'm taking. I also figured it wouldn't take me long to go through the class and pick up whatever techniques I'm missing.
• Free-Motion Quilting with Feathers with Angela Walters. This was my choice for a free class as a thank-you gift for being a Craftsy affiliate. (Small print that I can't make small on my blog, sorry: Interested in being an affiliate yourself? Use this link to check it out. If you become an affiliate through this link, you help support this podcast and blog. End of small print and back to real life.)

*I'm not restricting myself by saying, "I can't get another class until I finish every one I already have!" Heck, if a class on my wishlist comes up for a 50% off sale, I'll quite possibly take advantage of that. And I know myself--as soon as I tell myself I can't do something, that's all I want to do. So I'm better off saying, "Sure, I can if I really want to. No big deal." Then it takes the pressure off and I'm likely to make a more reasonable decision in any given moment. That being said, consistently working on a couple of classes at once keeps me distracted and much less likely to be reading those sale emails. ;-)

(Transparency statement: Using any of the Craftsy links on this post help support this podcast and blog. But I'd be doing these posts regardless for my own accountability, and I wouldn't be talking about Craftsy if I didn't really like it!)

Craftsy Class Review--Molly Stevens' Mastering the Braise

Chicken Thighs with Peppers and Onions

I decided, in the midst of sub-zero temperatures and whistling winds outside my door, that a class on braising was just the ticket. And so, after I'd completed the previous couple of classes in my Craftsy line-up, Molly Steven's The Secret of Slow Cooking: Mastering the Braise was a great excuse for me to cook up some comfort food.

I've braised for years, although for most of that time I didn't know that what I was doing was called "braising." I thought it was just "making pot roast." Silly me. It was only a few years ago that I started seeing the term "braising" turning up regularly in cooking magazines and websites and realized that hey, I knew what that was; hey, I'd done it before; and hey, I could learn to do it a whole lot better. My pot roast could sometimes be a bit hit and miss. It was always decent, but I never made it the same way twice and some versions were quite a bit better than others. I didn't make it often enough to really track what I was doing in different parts of the process that made the most difference to the end result.

Enter Molly Stevens. Her class lessons are set up according to the phases of the braising process. She begins by talking about the elements of a braise: pots and pans, what cuts of meat and what vegetables work best, braising liquids, and finishing touches. Then she uses three recipes--one pork, one beef, and one chicken--to walk through each phase of the braise, from browning to finishing. At the end, she has a lesson on braising vegetables in which she uses three additional recipes to show some more techniques and things to consider.

Note, however, that this isn't a recipe class--it's a technique class. Throughout each phase, she's only using those three recipes as examples of variations that can occur in that part of the process. She talks frequently about other ingredients you could be using, and the class materials have an extremely helpful list of options so you can mix-and-match your own braised dinners or side dishes.

I decided to use one of her recipes as it's written first, to be sure I had the technique down, before doing a mix-and-match of my own. I chose her recipe for Chicken Thighs with Peppers and Onions because, well, frankly, that was the recipe with the shortest braising time and I really wanted to also get some sewing done that afternoon!

I thought it turned out lovely. My husband even liked it and he's not a fan of dark meat. (Yes, you can substitute a chicken breast but white meat doesn't work as well in a braise situation.) And I liked it despite the fact that it calls for crushed red pepper flakes and I'm not a fan of heat. I could've left them out, of course, but since my husband likes heat, I decided to leave them in and just use a light hand to see how the recipe worked as written. It was just enough heat to make it interesting and balance out the sweetness of the peppers and onions, without making it difficult for me to eat my dinner. Perfect.

And while the recipe itself is a keeper, that wasn't even the point of the class for me. I have now figured out where I needed to improve my technique, and I've been given the tools to do so. Rather than turning out "decent" braises, I have all confidence that I'll now be able to consistently turn out something far better and have a lot more fun in the process. I find myself wanting to invite people over for dinner just so I can try out new and different braising combinations.

As usual, here are the basics:

• 8 lessons in all, ranging from 12-30 minutes.
• The first lesson talks about talks about the science of braising, pots and pans and other tools. In lesson 2, she talks about why certain cuts of meat braise better than others, plus how to prepare them for braising for the best results.
• In each lesson following, Molly then uses the three main recipes as illustrations while she goes through each phase of the braising process--browning, adding aromatics, choosing and adding braising liquids, the braising itself, and how to finish.  For example, in lesson 3, she browns the pork, then browns the short ribs, then browns the chicken thighs, and talks about the similarities and differences for each given meat--as well as mentioning others you might use. The last lesson is about braising vegetables.
• My only slight quibble with the class: She addresses briefly in one of the early lessons how to adjust braising recipes for use in a slow-cooker. However, she doesn't spend a lot of time on it. This is one area that most people (myself included) might not mind having had a full lesson devoted to. For us workin' folk, sometimes a slow cooker is the best option we have for eating a braised-style meal on a week-night. But between what she did say about it, and what I can find on the Internet on my own anyway, I'm not overly bothered by this in the grand scheme of things.

By the way, I also really enjoyed Molly herself. She's a very straight-forward, no-nonsense teacher. She only rarely cracked a smile but still, you could feel her enjoyment and passion for food coming through. Perhaps it was a sense of the smile being in her eyes. She's not a "banter" person--filling up space with words just to entertain. But she felt like someone that I could hang out in a kitchen with for hours and have a great time. Very authentic.

I'm going to consider this class complete even though I plan on keeping the PDF print-out in my kitchen for the next time I go grocery shopping so I can have fun creating my own braise combination. From here on out, it's just a matter of continuing to play with different combinations of ingredients and allowing my Creative Braising Maven to shine through! (Well, until our seasons change and I put away the braising pan in favor of the grill. At the moment, that feels like forever-from-now.)

If you think you'd like to check out Molly Stevens' Mastering the Braise class on Craftsy, here's a link. (Transparency statement: Using that link helps support this blog and podcast.)

Don't worry: If you're not a foodie, I'll be getting back to the textile-related class reviews next time around!

Machine Quilting with Wendy Butler Berns (Craftsy class done!)

I've already reviewed this class in my podcast, but just to make it official for my 2014 Quilty Resolutions, I now consider myself to have completed Machine Quilting with Wendy Butler Berns.

I really enjoyed this class. Well, to be fair, I enjoy Wendy Butler Berns in general, which is a good thing because I own every one of her Craftsy classes. In any case, her style is very laid back, and she gives great tips and demonstrations. The class includes several designs, starting with simpler ones and building up to slightly more complex (although none of them are overly challenging); it also has lessons devoted to information about needles and threads, ideas for whole-cloth quilting, and troubleshooting. You won't get formal designs needing stencils or measuring or math here--it's very free-flowing and organic, the kind of thing you can (once you get the hang of it) just start rockin'-n-rollin' and having a ball.

I'm not new to free motion quilting (FMQ). I've been poking away at it for years--including having watched all the lessons in Wendy's class when I first bought it maybe 18 months ago. The difference is, this time I actually practiced what she was teaching!

I watched every lesson with a sketchbook in my hand. As she was describing each design, I'd sketch it out several times in pencil, and sometimes play around with different sizes, variations on the design, and how to tweak the designs into smaller filler designs.

When the lesson was complete (or as soon as I could manage to get to my sewing machine), I'd set my phone timer for 15 minutes and spend 15 minutes--or more, if I was really getting into it and had the time--to practice the designs from that lesson. Some designs came relatively easily as they were similar to things I'd done in the past. Some were trickier. Depending on the design, as is common, I often do better going in one direction than the other, and it's never the same direction from one design to the next! I've learned that half the battle is figuring out what direction you most naturally move in order to make the design work best. Sketching it out first does help, although in a limited way--it's a very different motion to move fabric under the needle. Still, every little bit of practice helps, be it with a pencil or fabric.

I'm very pleased to see that the back of my FMQ has improved tremendously over the years--nary an eyelash in sight! On the front, my stitches are generally pretty even*. I seem to have the rhythm between needle speed and hand speed mostly down now. I still have some work to do on hand-eye coordination and actually ending up where I'm aiming, but that's something only practice will help. If I were doing these designs right now on a real-live quilt with blending thread, most of them would actually look pretty decent from a galloping horse.

This consistent practice also gave me the chance to compare my open-toed FMQ foot with my closed, specialty FMQ foot and FMQ bobbin case made for my machine (Janome 6600) and sold as a set, I believe. I've owned that bobbin case and foot for a couple of years, purchased based on a recommendation on someone's blog or something along the way. I've discovered I really don't like it. The bobbin was spinning too fast or something and I kept ending up with thread knots on the top--you can sort of see them in the feathers at the bottom of the sample. Once I switched back to my normal bobbin case and open-toed foot, no more thread knots. So that's good knowledge, too.

Just for kicks n' giggles, I was also practicing the designs with colored pencil while watching TV at night. Those bubbles are now completely filled in and I'm playing with other filler designs in other parts.

I'm going to consider this class complete although it's a hard class to determine when you've actually "finished," as it has no project involved. But I will continue to practice the designs during my 15-minutes a day, and they're in my toolkit for future reference. I've got a couple of projects in the works in which I could easily imagine doing one of the designs from this class.

I highly recommend this class, especially if you are brand-spanking-new to machine quilting or free motion quilting. It's a great way to introduce yourself to a variety of designs and ideas.

Full disclosure: If you use this link to purchase the class, you will help support this podcast and blog. Still n' all, my review is honest-n-true; I'm not saying good things just to encourage people to use the link. If you're a podcast listener, you'll have heard past reviews of other things about which I'm not quite so positive!

Another "To-Do" Marked "To-Done"

Of a sort, anyway.

My mom passed away in the spring of 2009. Every Christmas since then, I've intended to put together a photo book of all the photos I have of Mom's quilts and send one to each of my sibs (four in all) as a Christmas gift. And every Christmas it hasn't gotten done. This has been something hanging over me for several years now. I didn't list it as one of my "Quilted Monkeys on My Back" for 2014, but it was definitely there.

As I've been playing around with LifeTopix and setting up my projects for the year, I created one project labeled "Quilt Documentation." One of the tasks in that project was to, once and for all, get that photo book put together. Regardless of it now being mid-January, since I had Monday off as a comp day (to balance being out of town for work last weekend), I sat down to organize those photos of Mom's quilts, put them into a photo book, and send them out to my siblings as a belated Christmas gift.

After monkeying around with it for about an hour and a half, I came to the conclusion that it wouldn't work. Set aside that none of us has a complete collection of photos of Mom's quilts to work with; set aside that Mom herself was really bad at documenting her own quilts (so even those we do have photos of in her albums are often unlabeled so I'm guessing at dates based on color schemes and fabrics)....  The main problem is the quality of the photos is often so poor that if I put them in print in a book, they'd be pretty useless. It just doesn't make sense to spend money having a photo book printed when half the photos would be blurry, pixellated, or discolored.

I finally sent my sibs a link to an online photo album of the photos with an explanation, my apologies, and hopes that they'd enjoy the photos anyway. And I made myself check that task as "done," a quilted monkey off my back, even if it wasn't completed the way I'd have liked it to be.

To be honest, by the time I'd decided it was unlikely to work but still kept poking away at it anyway, I began to get the feeling Mom was standing behind me, tut-tutting and tapping her foot with impatience, saying, "Get over it already, and get back to your own quilting. I can't wait to see how your Rapid Fire Hunter's Star turns out! You know I'd have bought that ruler the minute I saw it, so finish it already, for both of us!"

Lesson learned. The other two tasks on that Quilt Documentation project list are to organize the photos of my own quilts in my digital files, which I've been poking away at regularly over the last couple of weeks, and to create photo books documenting my quilts now, so my kids will already have them in hand when that day comes. Not that I'll tell them that. They get creeped out when I talk about doing things in preparation for when I'm no longer with them. I'll just leave them on a shelf to be found....

Done. Check. Moving on...

What @KnittyAJ can talk me into...

I was caught in a weak moment, apparently.

Listener Kitty had sent me the link to a recent Missouri Star Quilt Company video on the Disappearing Pinwheel. I subscribe to their feed so I'm not sure how I missed this one, but miss it I did. Thanks, Kitty, for pointing it out...I think!

The video shows a twist on the concept of the Disappearing 9-Patch that involves a very simple process for making a pinwheel, and then making that pinwheel "disappear," enabling you to make two different blocks. I thought it was a cute idea so I posted it to Twitter.

And that's when all the trouble started.

Dang, that @KnittyAJ and her enthusiasm! Now, after a series of tweets extending over a couple of hours, several of us are joining in on a Disappearing Pinwheel Quilt-Along. Sort of, anyway. Some of us have Monday, January 20th, off for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so we're (as we like to do) spending it sewing and tweeting and tweeting and sewing. So those of us who feel like playing along will be spending at least a portion of our day making a Disappearing Pinwheel. It seems like most of us are leaning towards block version #1, but if you'd like to join in, you can do either variation or any variation you come up with yourself.

For me, this fits in with one of my 2014 Quilty Resolutions to be conscientious about using my stash. This is a fantastic stash project. The project is geared towards layer cakes (packs of 10" squares). I don't have any layer cakes in my stash, but I do have a stack of 10" squares I've cut from scraps over the last couple of years so I'll start there. I may cut some additional squares from my stash as well--I've just got to do some math to figure out how many squares I'll need in the long run, and what kind of variety I've got in my current collection.

So yes, an unexpected new project is now getting shoe-horned into the mix. But I'm looking forward to it--and I'm still making good progress on my other goals so I'm good to go. Isn't that the fun of quilting, after all?

So, check out the videos below and see if maybe you'd like to play along. (If the videos don't appear in your feed, just go to YouTube and search for "Disappearing Pinwheel" and it'll turn up.) There isn't actually a time limit on this quilt-along. My personal deadline is that I'd like to have a top pieced within the next three weeks. Depending on how big a quilt I decide to make, I might send it out for quilting. Could be a donation quilt, could be another dorm/apartment quilt for an offspring, could be something for a guest room bed, or could be something I put on a shelf until I need a gift somewhere down the road....

By the way, @knittyAJ is another podcaster, if you're not familiar with her. You can find her over at The Quilting Pot. Go give her some love--even if I'm gnashing my teeth in her general direction for getting me involved in something new! :-)

http://missouriquiltco.com -- Jenny Doan shows us how to make the stunning Disappearing Pinwheel using Layer Cakes To get the materials needed to make this project, follow the links below. Floral Gatherings Collection (precuts and yardage) - featured in this tutorial http://www.missouriquiltco.com/shop/browse/2840 Bella Solids Natural Layer Cake http://www.missouriquiltco.com/shop/detail/2111/moda-fabrics/moda-fabrics/bella-solids-natural-layer-cake-for-moda-fabrics-sku-9900lc-12 Layer Cakes - Best Selection on the web!

http://missouriquiltco.com -- Jenny Doan shows us how to make another stunning variation of the Disappearing Pinwheel using layer cakes. To get the materials needed to make this project, follow the links below. Muslin Mates Layer Cake by Moda (featured in this video) - While quantities last http://www.missouriquiltco.com/shop/detail/15220/moda-fabrics/-/muslin-mates-layer-cake Layer Cakes - The Best Selection Both East and West of the Mississippi!

Vacation Accomplishments and Ready for 2014

(Caution: Long post ahead!) I talked about this on my podcast, but here are the pictures.

Recall my blog post on spending Friday at my church sewing "Little Dresses"?

I didn't get any made that day, but I'd gotten some pieces cut out and brought them home to finish. And had to re-do it three times because I couldn't figure out how they were supposed to go together. I'd gotten a less-than-five-minute tutorial in the midst of chaos that Friday; now a few days later I was trying to recall what had seemed like a simple process at the time, but I just couldn't get it to make sense in my head. After ripping seams out for the second time (yay for my Havel's seam ripper!), I walked away in frustration and did something else for awhile. Then it came to me: Was it possible I was missing a piece?

After thinking it through, I decided to make a fourth piece from scrap in my stash. Sure enough, once I made that piece and sewed everything together in a way that seemed to make sense, I had a completed dress that, while not elegantly sewed by any means, is at least wearable and from a distance on a galloping horse, kind of cute.

I stuffed some scrap fabric in the pocket so you could see that feature better. Basic pockets I've done before, so no seam-ripping required there. The fabric is a Hawaiian "bark cloth" that I got in Hawaii a few years back. It makes a nice sun dress as it's a little lighter weight than traditional quilting cotton, but it frays like nobody's business. Ripping out those seams got harder and harder every time!

I was thrilled to hand that off following our Christmas Eve service at church to the woman in charge of the project. Done and done!

I then moved on to things I feel much more confident in, LOL.

I completed Scrapitude Step 1, Step 2, and Step 3. Caught up! Well, okay, still need to trim some dog-ears and square up some units, but I'm considering it done. I'll trim here and there as I'm working on other things.

To set myself up for making serious progress on my 2014 Quilty Resolutions, I bought muslin for and made a boatload of quilt sandwiches for practicing my machine quilting. I think I now have 16 or so, all somewhere around 12-16" square. That should supply me for some time to come, anyway. (No pics since they're just boring white squares!)

Also towards my resolutions, I prepped several new pages so I can finish my Stitch Bible for the Carol Ann Waugh Craftsy class "Stupendous Stitching." I got about halfway through my Stitch Bible last January/February and ran out of pages; that became a stopper. I think I've now got enough pages to finish up the Stitch Bible so that's a priority for the rest of my vacation. (Also no pics yet--I'll wait 'till there's stitching on there.)

I finished the center of the Hunter's Star quilt I'm making using the Deb Tucker Rapid Fire Hunter's Star (petite) ruler I won from AJ at the Quilting Pot podcast.

Ain't it pretty? Points all met perfectly! The fabric is leftover from my grand-niece's baby quilt. I decided on my border fabric yesterday so now that I'm caught up on Scrapitude, this project is back on deck!

For the last couple of days I've been spending most of my time on this: After my husband surprised me by deciding to move his computer to another room (thereby also removing his computer desk), I moved the furniture around in my sewing studio/home office. And then moved some of it again. And a third time. And vacuumed a whole bunch. I think I'm now at an arrangement I really like; I'm going to live with it for a few weeks and then probably build myself that solid-surface cutting table like Tanesha's--boy, have I wanted something like that for a l-o-n-g time!

And then there were all those other extraneous cleaning and organizing things: the spice cupboard, the pantry (yikes!), my Dropbox folders, my photo files on my external hard drive (still in progress), and learning a new calendarizing/organizing mobile app that I believe is the app of my dreams, but with a big learning curve.

Apparently my sunlight lamp is really working--it's unusual for me to have this much energy at this time of year!

One more day off tomorrow, and then it's back to work. I hope everything I've put in place will make it easier to continue to make progress on my goals.

My word for the year in 2013 was "play." I really do feel like I achieved that. In 2014, I'm going to do my best to live out the word "balance." Everything I tackled this week was with both of those words in mind--what I could do that would be fun, and what I could get done that would help me maintain better balance in the coming year.

Have you done yourself any favors towards the future? If not, what's one thing you could do in the next couple of days that might make life a little easier for yourself in the months to come?

2013 Quilty Resolutions Review

Did you participate in my 2013 Quilty Resolutions Challenge? If so, report in on how you did! Here's a link to the spreadsheet to remind y'all of what you said you wanted to do. Fair warning--the first handful don't have names on them, so hopefully you'll be able to identify yourselves! I think I took out any email addresses but there's a lot of copy to wade through on that spreadsheet so give me a quick heads-up if you see something you shouldn't. :-)

Remember, leave a comment to let me know what you accomplished and what you didn't!

I'll be announcing the 2014 Quilty Resolutions Challenge in my next episode--maybe even recording tonight, but more likely tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I'll leave you with something wonderful. We had the opportunity to have the Burmese Fellowship from our church visit our home tonight and sing us some Christmas carols. I'm truly in the Christmas spirit now.