May Craftsy Class Update

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I had a pretty good month in my Life with Craftsy. I finished four, but I did pick up a couple of new ones as well. Still, I finished more than I added, so I'm ahead!

New Completions

(+4)

Classes in Progress

(4)

Classes added this month

(+2)

  • Bead Embroidery with Myra Wood. Don't say I didn't warn ya. Since I finished two embroidery classes I figured I could allow myself to pick this one up while it was on sale over memorial Day weekend. And then I finished a third embroidery class, so this one moved to the top of the rotation after only a few days of owning it!
  • The Essential Guide to Lightroom with Skott Chandler. I now have Lightroom on my computer and since I've already learned so much doing Chandler's Photoshop class (see In Progress, above), I decided it was worth picking this one up as well. I'm not going to start it until I've completed the Photoshop class.

Classes To Be Completed

Current count: (13, down 2 from last month) 

Completed Classes

Current count: 59 (+4)

Craftsy Class Review: Design It, Stitch It: Hand Embroidery with Jessica Marquez

Surprise, another embroidery class! This time I'm reviewing Design It, Stitch It: Hand Embroidery with Jessica Marquez. Yet another very good, very enjoyable class on embroidery! And yes, even though this is the third embroidery class I've taken in a row from Craftsy, I did still learn a few things.

Of the three, this is the most straight-up embroidery class. Jessica teaches traditional embroidery using traditional methods and traditional types of design. She's working on linen with "normal" embroidery floss; therefore, she doesn't spend a ton of time on talking about supplies: No information about types of needles or types of threads. She just mentions the type of needle she likes (not by name, but by description), and shows the one type of floss (read: DMC embroidery floss). She talks about using different quantities of strands of floss, and demonstrates the best way to separate those strands and then thread your needle. She talks a little bit about hoops, (although not as much information as I got from other classes, but different types of embroidery have slightly different needs), and how to load your fabric into the hoop. 

Based on this class, I picked up a handful of new supplies--some linen for testing and a few different types of image transfer pens/pencils.

Based on this class, I picked up a handful of new supplies--some linen for testing and a few different types of image transfer pens/pencils.

I think, having now done a couple of other classes, the portion of her introductory lesson that was most useful to me was her talking about transferring designs. I picked up information about iron-on transfer pens and water-soluble pens from this lesson. 

The next several lessons go through the different families of stitches, much the same way the other classes did. However, as I said in my review of the crewel embroidery class, every one of these classes had slightly different variations or even a couple of new stitches altogether--so I continually increased my repertoire of stitches with each class. 

My test of Sulky's iron-on transfer pen for my next embroidery project--worked beautifully, though a bit of a thick line.

My test of Sulky's iron-on transfer pen for my next embroidery project--worked beautifully, though a bit of a thick line.

There is a class project if you want something that gives you an easy opportunity to practice all the stitches. It would be extremely easy to put together. However, as per my usual...butterflies on this end. Someday I'll be done with butterflies, and I'll never want to see another one again.

At the end of most of the lessons, she shows examples of how she's used many of the stitches in her own projects. It was good inspiration, thought her style is more traditional than mine. I enjoyed seeing stitches at work in various ways and was generating ideas for where I may use some stitches in my own work.

Caution: the iron-on transfer ink did bleed through my embroidery background fabric onto my ironing board. Oops--didn't see that warning in the instructions until too late. Apparently I was supposed to have protective layer underneath. Unfortun…

Caution: the iron-on transfer ink did bleed through my embroidery background fabric onto my ironing board. Oops--didn't see that warning in the instructions until too late. Apparently I was supposed to have protective layer underneath. Unfortunately, the instructions offer no guidance as to whether this can be fixed!

The final lesson gives some great information about how to create your own patterns from photos or children's artwork or, really, anywhere else you get inspiration. I would have liked to have seen a finished project based on a pattern she did from a photo, though. She does show a finished product based on children's artwork that was pretty cute. That would make a great gift for a mom or grandmom!

Jessica is very easy to listen to. The first lesson felt a bit stiff until she got into the stitching, and then you could almost visibly see her relax and get into a groove. The rest of the lessons were very easy to watch. She clearly loves her embroidery--it's her happy place. I found myself enjoying watching her be so relaxed and happy with it. 

The Basics

  • 8 lessons ranging from 11 to 30 minutes long; most are in the 20-ish minute range.
  • The first lesson talks about supplies, hooping your fabric, fixing mistakes, and doing an iron-on transfer.
  • The second lesson is flat stitches, such as running, back stitch, split stitch, and so forth.
  • The third lesson is looped stitches (chain, fly, lazy daisy, etc.), plus a bit about using a lightbox. 
  • Lesson 4 is knotted stitches, such as the French Knot, coral stitch, boullion stitches, and so forth.
  • Lesson 5 is crossed stitches--here's where I ran into the most new ones compared to other classes: St. George cross stitch, star, herringbone, and leaf stitches all fall into this category.
  • Lesson 6 is fill stitches (satin stitch, long & short, fishbone, Cretan stitch), plus a bit about caring for embroidery.
  • Lesson 7 is all about embroidering on knits (t-shirts, baby clothes, etc.)--how to stabilize the knit, transfer the pattern, use a repeat pattern, using the hoop, and so forth.
  • Lesson 8 is about creating your own patterns.

So, here's the thing: Now that I've taken three of the four classes on hand embroidery in Craftsy (the fourth I'm working on now is on bead embroidery so that's a slightly different category), if I did it again, would I do them in a different order? That all depends on your goal, I guess. If you think you want to do traditional embroidery and want to learn the basics, I think this class, Design It, Stitch It with Jessica Marquez, would be the best place to start. However, me being me, I'm not entirely sure I'd have been as grabbed by embroidery if I'd started here. My design preferences are definitely closer to Sue Spargo's Embroidering Texture & Dimension by Hand than the more traditional style of this class. I think I needed to see the possibilities of Spargo's designs in order for the excitement of embroidery to take hold. I also think I'm more jazzed by the styles depicted in Stitch it with Wool: Crewel Embroidery with Kristin Nicholas. So, for me personally, I think I did the classes in the order I needed to do them in: Be grabbed by design possibilities, then backtrack to build up the technique. If you're more of a technique person, you may want to do the classes in the reverse.

I will admit, however, had I started with  Design It, Stitch It with Jessica Marquez, I might have sped up the pace of becoming confident in embroidery in general, only because I would have seriously reduced the variables. Learning stitches with a single type of thread and needle makes it much easier to focus on the stitch technique. In Sue Spargo's Embroidering Texture & Dimension by Hand, with every new stitch I tried, I was using a different type of thread and needle--so I had a whole lot to get used to and figure out all at once. Nothing like diving into the deep end. Again, just know yourself and what jazzes you and/or makes you most comfortable.

By the way, I did make a run to the needle arts store across town yesterday and picked up a bunch of crewel wool thread, so that class lives on as well. I've got ideas...

(Using Craftsy links in this post and on this site helps support my podcast and blog. Thank you!)

Craftsy Class Review: Love Your Vegetables with Anna Bullett

Time for another food class review: Love Your Vegetables with Anna Bullett. It's been awhile since I've done a foodie post. However, for this one, I don't have any photos of dishes I've made from the class since I'm holding off trying the recipes until my CSA begins in another couple of weeks. So you'll be hearing more about the recipes themselves later.

I decided to do this class because of the aforementioned CSA, or Community Supported Agriculture. If you're new to my blog, just a short backstory: I've subscribed this summer to a CSA, and deliveries start the second week of June. I've done CSAs two other years but skipped last year because I travel a lot during the summer and was having problems juggling the schedule. This year, I found a CSA much closer to me so doing the weekly pick-up will be a lot easier, and I think I'm getting a smaller share, so it should be easier to keep up with the produce. I don't have time for canning and I have limited freezer space so I really do need to be able to use the produce up the week I get it, as much as possible. That means collecting a ton of vegetable-focused recipes. This class seemed just the ticket.

One of my 2013 CSA pick-ups

One of my 2013 CSA pick-ups

Anna Bullett reminds me a bit of Rachel Ray in terms of perkiness. If you love Rachel Ray, you'll probably really enjoy Anna Bullett. 

As a learning experience, it was a good one. Each lesson focused on a particular family of vegetables and, through the recipe or recipes covered in the lesson, Anna gives rationale behind different types of preparations for the vegetable in question. She also gives all sorts of good tips for washing, slicing, and storage. There are several recipes that I'm looking forward to trying when my produce starts rolling in.

Another ghost of CSAs past

Another ghost of CSAs past

Additionally, every lesson except the last includes a "Chef's Tip," or a brief tidbit of additional information about something else you can do with that family of vegetables. These were nice little additions--one of them helped me understand why my attempt at Kale chips a couple of years ago failed miserably. I think I'll be better prepared for the inevitable influx of Kale from the CSA this year. 

If you're looking to expand your repertoire for vegetable dishes--either as a side or a main--I do recommend this class. Just be prepared for the perky.

The Basics

  • 8 lessons, ranging from 15 to about 30 minutes; most are in the 15-20 minute range.
  • The first lesson starts right out with one of my all-time faves: butternut squash. Generally I want to rush my CSA through to get to fall so I can get my hands on the various forms of winter squash. I'm a fan of pretty much all of them.
  • Lesson 2 is root vegetables, lesson 3 "hearty greens" (aka Kale and the like), lesson 4 is Cabbage & Friends (including the very Dr. Seussian Romanesco broccoli)--and included a very helpful tip on keeping your cole slaw from going watery; lesson 5 may convince me to give eggplant another try; lesson 6--the beautiful tomato (yum); lesson 7 is about fava beans which I will likely never buy raw because I don't see myself putting that much work into a bean; and lesson 8 ends with a couple of ways to make easy, quick refrigerator pickles that will definitely be happening in my kitchen at some point this summer.
  • The class materials are extensive: 26 pages including 30 recipes. You're basically buying a cookbook with this class. The recipes are all quite do-able, too--only a couple have ingredients you may not already have in your pantry (depending on your fave styles of cooking).
  • The recipes are mostly side dishes but there are quite a few that either are, or could easily be, main dishes if you're going meat-free. In my case, there were a couple that I thought we could make vegetarian so my daughter could eat it, and then I could just throw in some diced cooked chicken in my portion to meet my more carnivorous needs. 

Two thumbs up. Basically, Love Your Vegetables with Anna Bullett is just increasing my yearning for Tuesday, June 9, when I get to do my first CSA pick-up of the season. I can't wait to dig in!

(Using Craftsy links on this website helps support my podcast and blog. Thank you!)

Craftsy Class Review: Stitch It with Wool with Kristin Nicholas

Once again, I loved doing an embroidery class! After doing Sue Spargo's class and still having a boatload of butterflies to finish, I figured the next best bet was Kristin Nicholas' Stitch It with Wool: Crewel Embroidery. I assumed it would be pretty easy to incorporate any new stitches I might encounter into the butterflies.

I wasn't positive what "crewel embroidery" was and how it differed from regular embroidery before I took this class. As I've now learned, the only real difference is the thread. With crewel embroidery, you're embroidering with yarn. There is actual crewel embroidery yarn, but you can also use regular yarn as long as it's a smooth yarn that will glide easily through your fabric. I have a couple of thicker perle cottons that I decided fit the ticket, so I was able to practice one or two of the stitches even though I don't have actual crewel yarn. It's now on my shopping list, though. 

Most people likely associate crewel embroidery with Jacobean design, as crewel was hugely popular in that era. Click here for a great Pinterest collection of Jacobean design in fabrics. However, it doesn't have to be Jacobean to be crewel (which sounds like a song title): You can do any ol' embroidery you want with yarn. Mary Corbet has a nice description of crewel on her website. The thickness of the yarn may dictate a bit what stitches you're able to do, but for the most part, it's the same thing. 

I dig Jacobean design, so that was part of what attracted me to this class--if you do the actual class project, it's got a bit of a Jacobean flair to it. Or maybe it just reads that way to me because they're done in wool. Whatever: they are cute projects, but I chose not to do any of them at this stage: I just wanted to focus on finishing those dang butterflies. I have a couple of books on Jacobean applique that I inherited from my Mom and have never used--I'm now imagining them as embroidery patterns instead of applique patterns. I suspect I may be using those books any time now!

Satin stitch worked in perle cotton

Satin stitch worked in perle cotton

Many of the stitches were the same in this class as in Sue Spargo's, which one would expect; there are certain foundational stitches to embroidery that will show up in any class. It's how those stitches get built upon and layered that can make the difference. That means, of course, that Kirstin Nicholas has few new variations and stitches in this class, even if they were the same stitch "families." Plus, every teacher will have slight variations on technique which are helpful to learn--it gives me more options when trying to figure out which technique I wear most comfortably. Additionally, she gives some tricks to making stitches work as well with wool as with floss, or in terms of helping you learn how to choose the best stitches for success with wool, and so forth.

I enjoyed Kristin Nicholas' teaching style. She's very straightforward and clearly demonstrates each stitch. She also has an excellent lesson at the end about how to keep your skeins of stitching yarn from becoming a tangled mess (something I had to learn the hard way, unfortunately), as well as how to block and steam an embroidery project when it's completed. This wasn't covered at all in Sue Spargo's class, but the difference in materials makes it less necessary for a Spargo-style embroidery project than the Nicholas-style. 

I've only got the one project picture above for this class as now I'm in sort of a free-style mode on the butterflies--just picking and choosing what stitches I want to use from all of the Craftsy classes I've done (another review coming today!), plus a couple of books I've picked up. But the next embroidery project I'm designing in my head is heavily influenced by this class, and I may well end up picking up some crewel wool so I can get a feel for how it works. Unfortunately, most of the yarn scraps I've collected from friends are "weird yarns," or the type that need to be couched rather than used in embroidery.

So, in summary, I did enjoy this class and I feel like it added to my general repertoire and comfort level with embroidery. I don't recommend either Sue Spargo's class or this one higher than another--they have both been great for me!

The Basics

  • 7 classes, ranging from 24 to 34 minutes in length. 
  • The first class discusses supplies, how to begin and end a stitch, how to deal with a mistake (helpful to start right out with that!), some ideas for finishing, and how to transfer a design onto fabric.
  • Lesson 2 is basic stitches and lesson 3 is how to embellish those same stitches to add layers of interest. 
  • Lesson 4 addresses what she calls "fancy stitches," which are largely stitches that involve knots of some kind, such as pistils and bullions.
  • Lesson 5 are fill stitches--I got some good ideas here, although on my butterfly project I don't need much in the way of fill stitches. But they'll likely play into whatever my next project is.
  • Lesson 6 is sculpted stitches, such as Turkey Work and the Spiderweb stitch.
  • Lesson 7 is finishing and inspiration--she has a nice gallery of work, although her examples are all pillows and relatively simple designs. She discusses her focus on beginners which is why I think she only had those examples--they're an "easy bite" of embroidery, so to speak. However, I always like to see what we could aim for as our expertise grows: I'd have enjoyed seeing more complex pieces as well. 

So, my review of Kristin Nicholas' Stitch it with Wool: Crewel Embroidery is definitely two thumbs up. I may actually make a trip this weekend to one of the two places near-ish me that sell crewel wool so I can really go to town!

(Using Craftsy links in this post and on this site help support my podcast and blog: Thank you!)

 

 

Fight the Funk Friday

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I'm just barely getting this post done while it's still Friday. It's not like I was waiting to see if I actually got any activity in this week before writing it, exactly, but... well, I did just get back from the canal. So I do have something to write about. Nice how that worked out.

PT is still going well. Since she sounds like she's about to "graduate" me from the work on my knee (we're still going to be addressing the vertigo later), I talked with my PT during my appointment yesterday about whether I could start doing a 5K training program again. She suggested I bring my running sneakers to my appointment next week and we'd jog around the parking lot a bit to see how it went. Well, it was a gorgeous day out today and I decided, true to form, why wait? So I packed up Sammy and my running sneakers, and off we went. 

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I'm using the Zombies Run 5K training program; got Week 1, Day 1 done. Oh, I've missed my zombies. It was fun to be hearing the actors' voices that had been such a part of my life (on and off) over the last few years. I was a bit surprised by my playlist, however. I'd forgotten that I'd had to reset my iPhone a few weeks ago and thereby lost my playlists. I haven't taken the time to get them all set back up again, so the only songs on my workout playlist were 8 or 9 new ones that I'd added by phone over the last few weeks. It was a nice surprise in that all the music was new to the playlist, so I wasn't listening to the same old tunes that have kept me company on the elliptical the last several years. I periodically add a couple of new tunes here and there, but a lot of that music has gotten pretty tired. It's time to give the list an overhaul. In any case, tonight's playlist was an eclectic bunch: A little ELO, a little Mark Ronson, a little Tina Turner, a little Iggy Azalea...fun group to keep me and the Sam-ster going. I admit to a little audible singing along and a few jiggy steps when I was in a deserted section of the canal path. (Can you listen to "Son of a Preacher Man" and not do a little bopping?)

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My knee did great during the canal extravaganza. However, I could feel it started to stiffen up a bit afterwards (and while I was doing some of my PT exercises when I got home) so I popped some Advil and I'm writing this on my iPad, ensconced on my couch with my leg up and and ice pack applied. That's more of a precautionary thing--it doesn't actually hurt, but I can feel it reacting. We'll see how it is in the morning. 

No 5k training tomorrow--you're supposed to do one day on, one day off, anyway; If my knee is normal tomorrow, I'll just do a regular canal walk.  

Sam would've danced along to Uptown Funk if he had any sense of rhythm whatsoever. 

Sam would've danced along to Uptown Funk if he had any sense of rhythm whatsoever. 

I'd be doing fine on the eating front if my daughter hadn't moved home and brought Oreos with her. Dang it all. I'm powerless in the face of an Oreo.  

Progress and Goals--Week of May 24

I can't ever resist, can I? This may be the birth of a #swanbutt series of quilts...

I can't ever resist, can I? This may be the birth of a #swanbutt series of quilts...

I wasn't able to get this written before I skipped town with my husband for Memorial Day weekend, so it's coming out a day late. We had a beautiful, very relaxing weekend away at the Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario, so I was ready to spend a couple of hours in my sewing room this afternoon (Monday, Memorial Day and therefore a day off work for many of us here in the States). Therefore, the only thing listed below that wouldn't have been listed had I actually written this post to go live on Sunday is the progress on the bag--that was this afternoon. Everything else was legit last week, though. 

My goals for the week of May 17 were to:

  • Accessory category: Get back to the Annie Unrein bag
  • Embroidery category: three more butterflies.
  • Art Quilt Project: FMQ my "fire" project. 
  • UFO category: Assess my UFO list and make sure all of them are listed with all the steps required to complete them.

Progress:

  • Accessory category: Annie Unrein Bag. I got the zippers put on the vinyl pockets this afternoon. All I have to say is, Holy cr*p. I really am disliking this process. Not only was my thread breaking all over the place, but I really don't like the end result. Some of it was my own inexperience, of course--I do own up to that. It's possible that I would have an easier time of it next time--if I ever allow there to be a next time, and that I could get it to look better. But, to be honest, I find myself questioning why she has us do one step the way she has us do it. I'm not sure that, even if I did it perfectly, I'd be happy with the way it looks. But I also didn't want to try to do it differently when I've never done this before. Unfortunately, I just have to work this project all the way through before I can really understand why certain decisions in the design have been made, I think, which means living with results I'm not overly keen on. Unfortunately, the next step is really the "moment of truth" step, when I find out if everything has finished to correct sizes. I'm holding off until this coming weekend to tackle that one--I actually have nothing on the schedule for the weekend and I'm going to obstinately keep it that way so I can finally spend tons of time in my sewing room.
My painted fabric from several weeks ago, now washed and ready to use. It's the background for my May journal quilt.

My painted fabric from several weeks ago, now washed and ready to use. It's the background for my May journal quilt.

  • Embroidery category: Three butterflies. I got about a butterfly-and-a-half done, but then I ended up switching gears to do embroidery on my May journal quilt. Plus I'm just running out of ideas for stitches, so I decided to spend a little time getting more inspiration. I also bought a book I've had my eye on for awhile--more about that when I get it.
  • Art Quilt: Fire tapestry. Nope. Instead, for this category, I started work on my May journal quilt. So I was doing an art quilt project--just not the one I had planned on!
  • UFO: Double-check UFO list.  I thought about my UFO list but haven't looked at it again. This week ended up being busier than I thought. Still n' all, since that was just my blog post from yesterday, I've bought myself another week's grace period, so this will stay my goal for this week.

Goals for This Week:

  • Accessories: EIIP Bag. As I mentioned above, I've got an open weekend coming up. I may decide I just need to blast through this bag and get it done. I think it would take me all weekend to do, though, and I'm not sure I want to give over my one big free weekend entirely to a project I'm so thoroughly not enjoying. But I can say, I will at least get the next step done.
  • Embroidery: Three butterflies. 'Nuff said.
  • Art Quilt: May journal quilt--because it really should get done in May. 
  • UFO: UFO list (carry-over from last week)
  • Hand-Dyeing/Surface Design: Since I have a free weekend, it's possible I may decide to throw something in a dye bath. This will be my "if I go mad from the bag" plan B.

Monday Musings: UFO Sightings Part 2--Make a List and Check it Twice

Last week you came up with your definition of what constitutes a UFO. This week is the reality check. 

How many UFOs do you actually have, given your definition? 

 

If you haven't gone through your piles of UFOs and made a list of what's in there, might I recommend that you do it now? It's a necessary step towards next week's blog post. :-)

Step 1: Find every single project that fits your personal definition of UFO, and write it down on a piece of paper or a digital note file, or however you keep lists.

Maybe you've already got a list. Take a few minutes to rummage through your sewing room and double-check that list: Did you really capture every UFO or are there a couple hiding underneath piles of fabric or in that bin in your closet that you haven't opened in a year?

(By the way, no fair defining "UFO" as Utterly Finished Object and making a list of all the quilts you've ever finished in your life. That's just cheating. )

Step two: For each UFO, make a list of exactly what steps are required to finish it. To whit: "decide quilting design, mark quilt, make backing, buy batting, sandwich and baste quilt, do quilting, cut binding strips, make label, attach label, attach binding, wash." Or whatever steps you need, and the order (roughly) you would do them in. 

Sometimes a UFO is a UFO because we don't have the knowledge of how to do the next step. Well, learning how to do something is a task--so write it down! Rather than adding a task that says, "Learn how to do a mitered border," write down specifically what you'd need to do in order to learn that technique: i.e., "Search for YouTube videos on mitered borders," or "review notes from class on mitered borders." Every task should be phrased as an achievable, easy-to-understand, simple step to take. (In Getting Things Done terminology, every task should be a "next action." What's the next action you need to take?)

This means you will want to have one piece of paper, or one digital list, for each UFO. Remember this photo (at left) from a previous post that shows one of my LifeTopix checklists for a UFO? I'm actually going to be going in to this particular check list and break it down even further, so instead of one list item that's "backing and batting," I'll have "piece backing." (If I'm sending it out for longarming, I won't need the batting--I just purchase it directly from the longarmer as then they can use their preferred brands.) 

If making a list of all the steps needed on every project is too much for you, just focus on the very next step. What is the very next thing that needs to be done to move that UFO along in the process? What is that one next action? Write that one next action down for every single UFO. 

Why are we doing this? The purpose to this exercise is not to overwhelm yourself, but actually to make it feel less overwhelming. Now, instead of looking at a pile of unfinished projects that are all screaming out in an unfocused way for your attention, you've broken it down instead into a list of discrete tasks. It's ever so much less stressful for me, for example, to focus on deciding on a quilting design for a quilt, than to focus on the fact I still have to finish the whole darn thing.

Additionally, once you get an idea of the individual tasks involved, you may feel more inclined to say, "Hey, I can knock out a couple of tasks on UFOs this weekend," whereas before you may have been less inclined to say, "Hey, I think I'll finish all my UFOs this weekend." If you know what tasks need to be done, you can even more easily juggle tasks on a couple of UFOs at once. Cutting strips for one binding? Why not cut strips for another while you're at it? Looking through books for quilt design ideas? Have two quilts in your mind's eye at the same time while you're doing it. Get the picture? 

Finally, sitting down and spending time with each and every UFO will set you up for next week's blog focus: making some ultimate decisions. But 'nuff said about that for the moment. Right now, just make your lists. Really. It'll feel overwhelming at first, but in the long run, it'll set you up for greater success and peace of mind.

Thinkin' about It Thursday

This week, I'm thinking...

  • How good it feels to have the "kids in college" thing behind us.
  • That moving another person's four years' worth of stuff back into the house is a challenge.
  • That I've now built enough shelves over the last few years that I no longer have to refer to directions.
  • how much bruises hurt.
  • that I bruise way too easily.
    • From carrying cartons...really?
    • But the one I got when I pinched my arm between two metal poles while building said shelves is pretty legit.
    • and it's a good thing no one was around to hear me immediately following the incident.
  • That it's nice to know PT is working.
  • How the downside to being more organized and capturing more tasks I need to do is that I've been spending so much time taking care of tasks I haven't spent much of any time in my sewing room.
    • How that sorta stinks.
    • But it's my own fault.
    • You can only put off household stuff for so long before it comes back to haunt you.
    • And it'll feel good getting it all done.
Photoedited with "smart splash" effect to remove color from all but the embroidery thread. 

Photoedited with "smart splash" effect to remove color from all but the embroidery thread. 

  • How, on the flip side, that means I've been doing a lot of embroidery.
  • That I'm once again going to be away for a weekend.
  • How this one will be very nice too, but for different reasons.
    • Vacay with my husband.
    • Relaxing.
    • Seeing plays.
    • Reading.
    • And probably more embroidery.

Craftsy Class Review: Painted Pictorial Quilts with Annette Kennedy

Craftsy

I've been working on Painted Pictorial Quilts with Annette Kennedy for awhile. Let me clarify that: I've been watching Painted Pictorial Quilts with Annette Kennedy for awhile. I've owned this class almost since I first joined Craftsy a couple of years ago. I'd started watching it back then but decided that I needed to have the time and space to commit to the project, so I set it aside. This time around, when I pulled it back into rotation again, I decided not to do the class project but, instead, to watch the lessons and apply techniques to my own projects.

Therefore, there are no pretty pictures of projects-in-progress on this review. That's not to say that the two class projects aren't really wonderful projects--I seriously debated one of them because it's of a calla lily that is gorgeous (and calla lilies are a personal fave). But ultimately, I determined that I didn't need one more project on my list that would distract me from other things already in my head, so I focused instead on watching the lessons and absorbing her techniques.

I had to debate how I was going to approach this review a little bit--I'm not able to be as completely enthusiastic about this class as I have been about most others, but the primary cause of my lesser-enthusiasm has to do with how Craftsy approached the class, not anything to do with the subject or teacher. So let's get that out of the way first...

You can tell this is a very early Craftsy class. They've definitely fine-tuned their methods over the years. To whit: There are some difficult patches in the earlier lessons where the camera was zoomed so close in on Annette's hands doing the painting that it was actually difficult to follow. She encourages you to move the fabric around so you can always be painting from a comfortable angle--great tip, but with a close-in-zoom it actually triggered my motion sickness a bit as the project was constantly flipping back and forth and often moving off-camera, so the camera had to zoom out quickly and then zoom back in to catch up with where she was positioned again. There were several periods in which I just had to close my eyes and wait until things settled down. You don't see that in more recent classes--they've gotten much more professional and polished in their video.

The other thing that Craftsy does much better now is fades/cuts during longer processes. In this class, you are watching every single stroke she makes with the paint brush. Annette does a great job "vamping," or talking while she's painting and occasionally giving additional tips or information, but this class could have been a whole lot tighter without losing any of the content if they'd shown her doing a particular technique for a couple of minutes, then either sped up or cut back in after she'd finished that section. There are a ton of lessons and they're all pretty long--I had to keep sort of gearing myself up to take on another lesson, and I watched most of them at double speed. I think the class could easily have been cut by about a third and we wouldn't have lost any value whatsoever.

It struck me that there are times in this class you are quite literally watching paint dry.

Now, those are my only knocks on this class and, again, it has everything to do with Craftsy getting better at what it does than anything having to do with the content or teacher. So let me get back to the more positive aspects.

Annette Kennedy is an excellent teacher. Earlier lessons talk about how to design a painted project, as well as all the supplies you'll need. She spends one lesson each on how to assemble the two class projects before starting in on the painting, so you pick up some good information about creating applique from photos and how to turn photos/drawings into pattern pieces, and so forth. She explains why different types of strokes are most appropriate for different parts of the painting; she spends a lot of time talking about blending colors and getting different values of a single color. There's a whole lesson devoted to color blending and another devoted to depth and dimension. Even with all the work I've done on color over the last few years, I still picked up some very useful information from these lessons as things work differently in paint than in fabric or other media. 

The class projects really are very cool. If you're looking for some guided projects to help you really have these techniques sink in, I would highly recommend doing the class projects. The class materials include all the patterns and painting guides you need to follow her techniques. As I was watching her paint (and watching, and watching), I did mentally design about five different painted quilts based on what she did. 

Even though I didn't do either of the projects, I did pick up a couple of additional supplies after I had the opportunity to watch how she used them. I've only just recently started playing with fabric paints and hadn't understood what a floating medium was for until I watched this class; I also realized that mixing colors with the brush was far less useful than using a palette knife as she does--so I now own a few inexpensive plastic palette knives, thanks to Joanns. This whole fabric painting thing will go much more smoothly in the future, I think, thanks to Annette Kennedy.

I'm very much looking forward to being able to put Annette's techniques into use in future projects. At the moment, I'm just debating whether my next journal quilt will involve textile paints (and her techniques) or colored pencils (and Lola Jenkins' techniques). Or it may, instead, be straight embroidery based on the crewel wool embroidery class I'm about to finish. So many options, so little time...

The Basics

  • 15 lessons, ranging from 12 1/2 minutes to 1 hour and 8 minutes. Several lessons are around an hour; several others are between 30-45 minutes. Only a small handful are about 15 minutes. You really get a huge volume of material, here.
  • The class materials (9 documents) are several pages long, mostly because of the patterns. There are some helpful reference pages among them.
  • The first lesson spends time on an introduction of Annette Kennedy and of the Craftsy platform, and then she talks a bit about the two class projects.
  • Lessons 2-4 give a nice foundation to what's to come: how to create visual depth, turning photos into designs (you don't need to know how to draw, BTW), and various brush strokes.
  • Lessons 5-7 focus on the calla lily project, which gives you a lot of experience in blending, shading, and creating dimension.
  • Lessons 8 and 9 are on color and depth and dimension, including selecting color schemes, how to achieve different color effects with paint, how to create distance and scale, and so forth.
  • Lessons 10-13 focus on the canyon project; this gives you the opportunity to take what you've learned on the calla lily even further.
  • Lesson 14 is on quilting and finishing, with useful tips about how to emphasize the focus of your project through quilting, and a little bit about painting after quilting as well.
  • Lesson 15 is a "bonus" lesson that describes how to do a sun print collage with fabric paints. If you've never seen how to do this, the lesson will introduce you to a very cool way to create fabric. 

I have sort of a one-thumb-up, one-thumb in the middle on Painted Pictorial Quilts with Annette Kennedy. I want to emphasize, though, that the thumb in the middle would be very much up if Craftsy had done this class using the parameters it has now worked it's way into: in other words, if it had been a bit tightened up and had better camera angles in the earlier lessons. If I only look at content and teacher, it's two thumbs up. 

Monday Musings: UFO Sightings, Part 1--Just What Is a UFO?

So it would seem that some of you appreciated the 5 Ss posts that I've done the last few weeks--maybe some of us are feeling the pinch of being a little less organized than we'd like. So I'm thinking I'd like to keep with that theme for a bit, but explore different facets of it. As usual, stuff I talk about on my podcast and blog are things I'm addressing (or feeling the need to address, anyway) in my own life, so I'm talking to myself as much as to anyone else.  

I've mentioned that I had a sudden alien invasion in my sewing room. What to my wondering eyes did appear but something like 17 UFOs. Really? When did that happen? Leave fabric alone for long enough and it gets up to shenanigans, apparently. 

So, based on that, and on comments some of you have made when I've been talking about my UFOs, I'm going to do a few posts on what I've learned about addressing those alien invasions in your own life. 

Week 1: Define for yourself, "UFO" 

We all know what a UFO is, right? "Unfinished Object," or so they say. But what, exactly, is an unfinished object? Turns out there's as many definitions for what warrants the definition "unfinished" as there are quilters not finishing things. I once read an article or a blog awhile back--don't remember specifics anymore--written by someone who defined her UFOs to include quilts she'd even just  thought about doing. In other words, she may not have even bought fabric or designed it on EQ or sketched it in a notebook, but it was in her head as a quilt, therefore the fact she hadn't made it yet rendered that quilt as unfinished.

Technically, I suppose that would be true. But if I were to be held accountable for every quilty thought that passed through my mind, well...I'd just throw in the towel and call it a day right now.  

Some people include PIGS (or Projects in Grocery Sacks, an acronym which really geolocates it's users to those who live in parts of the country who call grocery bags "grocery sacks," as here in Western NY it would be PIGBs, which is virtually unpronounceable); these projects are those for which you have a pattern or design and you've collected all the fabrics for it--it's all sitting neatly in a bag or a bin awaiting your attention. And waiting. And waiting.

A very old photo of my storage for UFOs. I'm pleased to report all of these UFOs did get completed. They're now replaced with a new stack...

A very old photo of my storage for UFOs. I'm pleased to report all of these UFOs did get completed. They're now replaced with a new stack...

Some quilters include WIPS (or Works in Progress); these are projects you're currently working on. They've not yet started collecting dust on the shelf, but are still at least more or less in current rotation. 

For me, I made some judgment calls a few years back and came up with this working definition for myself: A UFO is any project in which I've already made the first cut, and which has dropped off my mental radar for any number of reasons.

In other words, I don't choose to count PIGS.  My rationale for that is that I can always repurpose the fabric if I lose interest, so just because I've thought about doing a particular design and put together a particular collection of fabric for it, doesn't make it a UFO. I haven't actually cut into that fabric yet, so I've never officially "worked on" the project to make it now be something I haven't worked on in awhile.

I also don't count WIPs because, by definition, those are still "in progress." It has to have been languishing on my shelf for some period of time.

I've never strictly defined how long a period of time it needs to have been out of rotation; it generally has more to do with whether it's fallen off my mental radar or not. If I look at something and think, "Oh, yeah, I really need to finish that," it means it's dropped off my radar, even if it was only waiting for me for about three weeks. That makes it a UFO. 

I don't count quilts I've dreamed up. That's just crazy talk. 

So this week, if you want to play along, work on your personal definition of what you actually, personally, consider a UFO, if you haven't already done it at some point in your quilting career. Don't just take someone else's definition for it--use a definition that works for you. You might even want to write it down, maybe hang it over your cutting table or something, live with it for a bit. Does it feel right to you? When you're ready, share your definition here!

Progress and Goals--Week of May 17

Baby girl. She's cleaned up her act a fraction since then.

Baby girl. She's cleaned up her act a fraction since then.

I'm writing this post ahead of time as I'll be spending Sunday morning watching my baby girl graduate from college. She's turned into an adult, but I haven't aged a bit.

I missed last week's progress and goals post as it was Mother's Day and my son came for breakfast (before having to scoot out for work), and my ILs came for an early dinner. I wasn't particularly busy on Sunday but enjoyed relaxing during the times I had between company. 

My goals for the week of May 3 were to:

  • Get my friend's block done.
  • Make progress on the mug rug. 
  • Complete two butterflies on butterfly project. 
  • Complete two Craftsy classes. 

Progress:

So you'd expect more given it's two weeks' worth of progress, but it was a catch-as-catch-can kind of two weeks.

Threaded chain stitch, if I recall the name properly.

Threaded chain stitch, if I recall the name properly.

  • Get my friend's block done. Done and mailed. More about this once the quilt is complete, I think.
  • Make progress on the mug rug. Done and mailed! Woo! Yes, upon my question on the topic, Sandi did confirm that I was probably the last one to get mine in the mail. Oops. But better late than never. And in a few previous swaps I was way ahead of the game so it all comes out in the wash. Fortunately Kerry, my swap partner, was extremely patient and understanding. Once again, I was teaching myself new techniques on this one, which is part of why it took longer to get done. I enjoyed the process and I like the result--I hope Kerry does too! I'll do a "reveal" on this one once I've got confirmation that Kerry has received it. 
  • Complete two butterflies on butterfly project. For once, I beat one of my own goals! I got three whole butterflies done! (Hey, I'll take celebrations where I can get them at this stage.) I'm finding myself repeating a lot of stitches now as the Crewel Wool embroidery class I'm doing on Craftsy is a lot of the same stitches I'd already done in Sue Spargo's class, although she has some different variations. I will have brought this one with me on my trip for graduation weekend so hopefully even by the time you're reading this I'll have made more progress.
  • Complete two Craftsy classes. One done, anyway. I still have to post the review to my blog but I did finish watching all the lessons; I even picked up one or two new supplies for fabric painting based on the class, and I'm now in the process of debating whether my May journal quilt will use paints, including techniques from this class, or colored pencils (recall the Thread Art class I did awhile back). I've moved a new class into rotation and am still plugging away at others.

Goals for This Week:

Okay, let's start putting into place the Short List concept I've borrowed from listener Donna at quiltpaintcreate. I debated the number of categories I want to have--I know fewer categories is better in terms of achievability. But I've decided that so many of my categories will actually have overlap projects--things I'll be working on that would fit into more than one category at a time--that I'm okay with the current number. Plus, I'm looking at my categories from a monthly perspective even if I'm doing weekly goals--so every one of these categories may not appear in every week's post, as long as I cover all of them in some way each month. Does that make sense? Anyway, here are my categories:

Everything In It's Place (aka EIIP) bag in process

Everything In It's Place (aka EIIP) bag in process

  • Accessories (read: Annie Unrein!)--I actually have several "accessories" I would like to try to make, even beyond the Annie Unrein Craftsy class. I have a tool holder thingie pattern I bought off Craftsy that would be handy, a halfway completed duffle bag that, as a UFO, would knock out two short list categories, and tons of totes and purse patterns that really are appealing to me as finished products, for as little as I like the process of actually making them. I am testing out the theory that part of why I hate doing these is that I'm not particularly experienced at fiddly things so, maybe, with practice will come less anger and frustration. This may be a short-lived category, though, if I decide I really do hate this process as much as I currently think I do. I may end up off-loading a whole lotta patterns.
  • Embroidery--Contrary to my experience with bag-making, I'm really seriously into the whole embroidery thing now, a la Sue Spargo style and the crewel embroidery look. I do want to keep having it in the rotation. There will be a lot of overlap between this short list category and the next one.
  • Art Quilt--this is what makes my soul sing. This category will most certainly include my monthly journal quilts, but will also periodically overlap with embroidery projects and UFOs. Mostly, though, I'm going to try to keep this category new, fluid, and open to whim.
  • UFO--it's just gotta happen. I think I'll start with "easy win" UFOs--those that I think I could finish more easily than others. My assessment process will also include strong consideration of UFOs I may just choose to ditch or give away. There will be a fair amount of overlap between this category and a lot of the other ones.
  • BOM--I do, after all, still have that Jinny Beyer Craftsy BOM that I'm now 3 1/2 months behind on. I need a week's vacation just to catch up! If it doesn't stay on my radar, it'll never get done and I'll just be kinda ticked at myself for the expenditure by the end of the year. So....It. Will. Get. Done.
  • Hand-Dyeing/Surface Design--I want to keep this on my radar. As often as not, this category will overlap with the art quilt category. This is unlikely to be a weekly goal but I want to make sure I do something about once a month.

Therefore--this week's goals are:

  • Accessory category: Get back to the Annie Unrein bag. At this stage, I'll be happy to just get one more step in the process completed.
  • Embroidery category: three more butterflies. I can do it--I know I can!
  • Art Quilt Project: FMQ my "fire" project. I have a hand-dyed tapestry piece--one of my half-yard pieces that really needs to be used as a single piece--that I fused to some batting maybe a year ago, with the intent of doing some free-form FMQ on it. I need to find backing and then just go to town. It's unlikely to ever be more than a practice piece; I'm not expecting it to be a gorgeous finished product as it's still sort of an experimental piece for me, but it'll be fun to do and give me the chance to test out some techniques, as well as use gorgeous variegated threads. (Getting this done would actually also would be a "win" in the next category.)
  • UFO category: (in addition to the above goal) Assess my UFO list and make sure all of them are listed with all the steps required to complete them. I'm pretty sure I'm covered on this one but I feel the need to review my lists so I can make informed decisions about what to move into rotation at any given time.
  • BOM--not sure I'll get to this this week, although I do have Monday off to help my daughter get all her stuff organized in our basement, now that she's moved home from school. I'm not planning on spending the entire day in the basement, however, so I will get some sewing room time in. I'd probably feel world's better if I even just got the second February block done so I wouldn't be quite so far behind. I'm waffling on whether this one will surface this week or not.
  • No goals on the hand-dyeing this week, as I'm also out of town next weekend, and weekends are best for this process.

Ahem. Wish me luck.

Fight the Funk Friday

Still nothing stellar to report here. As you may have been able to deduce from my absence in the blogosphere of late, I've been a bit crammed up schedule-wise, and those times I have been home and had downtime, I pretty much just crashed. So not many goings-on going on. 

I've been keeping up with the physical therapy. Clearly there really was a problem given how much my knee aches every time my PT pokes around at it, but there has been improvement so that's a good thing. And the PT exercises are as good as going to the gym from a strength-training perspective, although only focused on certain areas. I did one of my Daily Burn videos this week, and I had to do a few modifications for the knee issue but mostly it went well so, again, I did see improvement in my knee from the PT--nice to have that confirmation. I've been trying to occasionally get out for walks with the Doofus, something both he and I appreciate. (He has his fan base on the canal trail--Goldens always make people smile.)

Love my little stretch of the canal...

Love my little stretch of the canal...

Today we leave for my daughter's college for her Graduation Weekend Extravaganza. Most of that extravaganza involves helping her move out of her dorm room on Saturday so I'm sure I'll be building up some steps that day! 

Eating-wise I haven't done too badly, although I'm really working hard to re-focus this week; a tricky proposition given that I'll be eating out all weekend. Still n' all, it's easier to eat light when it's warm out, and it's supposed to be a pretty warm weekend.  And I've only got a couple more weeks before my CSA kicks in--I can't wait!

 

Monday Musings: The 5 Ss--Stay the Course

It's the last of our Monday Musings in the 5S series, with thanks to Wegmans for the fodder. This one is sort of a wrap-up "S," to be sure: "Stay the Course." In other words, keep doing everything you've been doing for the last several weeks. 

I remember once hearing someone talking about weight loss efforts--they made the comment that we all mistakenly behave as if we have to cut calories rigorously and exercise the heck out of ourselves until we've reached our weight goals, and then somehow magically we'll be able to resume our old habits again while staying at the same weight. Well, of course, we know it doesn't work that way. To be successful at losing weight, one needs to embrace new habits that will last a life-time.

The same is true with keeping our quilt studio ready for us to run in with a sudden burst of inspiration and be able to actually accomplish something because we don't have to waste 20 minutes clearing off a surface or trying to find our rotary cutter.

It's a habit that needs to be developed, and it will always require a certain amount of effort and intention. Some of us are more naturally inclined towards organization than others (I remember watching my two-year-old son line up his Matchbox cars in neat little rows, although now that he's 24 I'm not convinced his apartment benefits from the same attention). However, even those of us who have a natural bent for it have lazy days, or get busy, or have the one room or set of drawers or closet that seems to capture all the chaos and disorder we've driven from the rest of the house.

Don't look in my bedroom closet right now. 

I know I have problems, like most people, getting into different habits. If something hasn't been in my consciousness for the last several years, it's unlikely to keep naturally appearing in my consciousness just because I want it to, or I know it would be good for me. I have to send myself constant reminders of this new habit I'm trying to develop. Lately, as you may recall, I've been working on upgrading my ability to track the myriad tasks I'm juggling between work and personal life, so that when I add school into the mix in a few months it doesn't all come crashing down like a house of cards. I'm working on developing some new task-tracking habits recommended in David Allen's Getting Things Done, such as doing a weekly review of all my projects, looking over my "waiting for someone" file every couple of days, and filing newsletters and such into a "read and review" file for those times I'm mentally fried but have a few minutes to kill. However, rather than trusting myself to remember I even have a "read and review" file or "waiting on someone" file, I added recurring tasks to my list: "Check Read and Review file," and "Review Waiting on Someone File." Usually I think about how much I've turned into my Mom, but in this instance, I've definitely become my Dad. We used to joke that if he didn't have us written down in his notebook, he'd forget he even had kids. He wrote everything down and checked his notebook several times a day. I've become the same way, although I rely on my digital version of Dad's notebook, my smartphone. If I don't write something down, I can nearly guarantee it won't get done. Once it's in my task list, I know I'll do it--even if I move it around a few times before it finally gets done.

And yes, I even have a recurring task: "Check your task list." Ahem. There's a reason for that one that we needn't get into just now.

My stash when I first set up this shelving system. It doesn't look all that different now 10 years later. In fact, I even still have a lot of those same fabrics!

My stash when I first set up this shelving system. It doesn't look all that different now 10 years later. In fact, I even still have a lot of those same fabrics!

Consequently, in terms of my quilt life, I've worked hard over the years to set myself up for organizational success in my quilt studio. I'm at probably 95% on the "everything has a place"-o-meter. IOW, things have a place where they belong, where it's easy to locate them, use them, and then put them away again to be easily found again next time. That being said, I can only stay at that 95% if I keep paying attention, if I stay the course. 

I still have some work to do on my bookshelves--they tend to get overrun and need their own little purging ceremony about once a year. But that's for another blog post.

This ends our 5S series. Anything in particular that's been useful or meaningful to you? Any new habit you've decided you need to develop? Anything else you'd like me to muse about? I've enjoyed reading your "talk-back"--your own thinking on this topic. In fact, the response to these posts has made me decide I'm going to keep going with Monday Musings for awhile, although not always focused on organization. I haven't really thought that far ahead. The task "plan Monday Musings" doesn't show up on my task list for another couple of days yet. 

 

 

Monday Musings: The 5 Ss--Systematize

Have you been following along? Have any of these posts spurred your thinking about the state of your quilting area (or other areas of your life) and what you may want to do differently?

This week, our "S" stands for systematize.

This one is tough for me only because of what I want my quilt life to be. I find myself resisting it a bit. So this post is longer than others as it's something I'm still working through myself.

You see, I keep my work life as highly systematized as possible. I live and breathe by my Outlook calendar, task list, Sharepoint task lists (with other staff), email organizational system, and synchronization with OneNote. My experience has been that the more systematized and organized I can keep everything I know I'll have to take care of, the better able I am to address those things that suddenly appear out of nowhere and demand immediate attention regardless of what else lurks on my task list. 

But as a reaction to that, I really, really want my quilt life to be as free-form as possible. Therapy, you might say. 

Still n' all, I believe it was that free-form approach in high gear these last couple of years that landed me where I am now: with a list of about 17 incomplete projects. If one wants to be free-form and still get stuff done, one probably needs to be more disciplined about it than I've been lately. There are people who aren't particularly bothered by UFOs. I'm someone, on the other hand, who really dislikes loose ends. I like to close my open loops, as David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, puts it. All those UFOs? They're open loops and therefore (again, paraphrased from Allen's book) dragging my mental energy away from being able to start and enjoy new projects. Somewhere, my mind is still working on all those UFOs, because they haven't been completed and knocked off my cognitive list. So, in order for me to feel more mentally free to be creative and experimental, I'm now refocusing on closing those open loops in as systematic a way as possible. I know myself, though--I'll also chafe under restrictions such as "Complete all my UFOs before starting any new projects," or whatever. I get ornery.

So, instead, I'm going to borrow a page from the book of Donna of quiltpaintcreate.wordpress.com. She does monthly goals based on what she calls her "Short List." She has a handful of categories in which she chooses one project for each category to focus on that month--those categories reflect her goals for her own development as a quilt artist as well as what she wants to accomplish. So, for example, she may have categories such as, "Something Old," "Something New," "Painting," "Handwork," and "Abstract." However, she feels free to change her categories as needed to reflect changing goals; her only "rule" to herself is to keep the number of categories limited, so she's only looking at a small handful of achievable goals rather than a laundry list that she could never hope to accomplish.

For me, having "Something Old" and "Something New" standing side-by-side is very appealing. In other words, I could focus on moving one UFO through the finishing process at the same time as I'm having fun with a new project; the "feel-good" energy of knowing I'm completing a UFO would release me to more happily focus on the new project. My categories may end up also including something like "Craftsy class," "Hand-dyeing," or "Embroidery." I'm still pondering what categories would both help me knock some of these 17 incomplete projects off the list as well as move forward in my goals as a quilt artist, but not over-burdening myself with a list of to-dos I could never possibly get to-done.

In a word, I'm systematizing.

Different people will be successful with different types of systems.

My LifeTopix check-list for a UFO I need to complete; I'm planning to send that one out for quilting to get it off my list faster!

My LifeTopix check-list for a UFO I need to complete; I'm planning to send that one out for quilting to get it off my list faster!

  • Some people do very well with the "10 minutes a day" system--making sure they spend a few minutes every day making progress on projects, even if it's only 10 minutes. That feels doable to them; after all, can't you almost always find 10 minutes in your day? To be clear, that system doesn't seem to work well for me--it starts feeling like another obligation and I don't want my quilt-making to feel obligatory. However, that's me. You may want to try it out to see how it fits you. (Obviously, this is more a method than a system--you can use this method to achieve goals you've systematized in another way.)
  • Some people create check-lists for every project as they're starting it, with each step in the project noted clearly. Extend this into putting target dates for every check list and putting those dates on your task list or calendar, and you've created an extremely organized system. I have done some of this--I have a check list for every project in my LifeTopix app on my smart phone/ipad (see photo at left; my check list could be broken down even future and probably will be once that particular UFO does surface on my current list). I don't, however, have every step keyed to a particular day on my calendar. I may add that to my system when I start setting weekly goals in categories. Obviously, I may not always be able to get something done on the day I say I want to do it as schedules are often fungible, but having one step in front of me at a time would at least keep it on my radar. 
  • Some people do work from the beginning of a project straight through to the end, one project at a time, no variance. This is clearly the best way to make sure you finish projects, for obvious reasons. However, I personally prefer to have projects at different stages, or different types of projects, so I've got something I can work on regardless of how much time I have, or that use different types of mental energy--something I can work on when I'm feeling "in the zone" versus something I can work on when I can't formulate a concrete sentence. It's just unusual for me to have so many projects going at once!
  • Generally, everyone sets goals. You may just not do it consciously or in writing. But every thought of "I really want/need/should get this done," well, that's a goal. It does really, really help to write it down, and to be specific. Rather than, "Get Annie Unrein bag done" (sigh), I have on my list, "Complete step from lesson...X" in the Craftsy class, or "sew zippers on pockets," or whatever the next very concrete action item is. It's far less mentally overwhelming to look at a single action step rather than the whole project.
  • And, for me, posting it on my blog is my system for holding myself accountable. Y'all may not care a whit if I don't get something done that I said I was going to do, but having to publicly admit, "Nope--didn't get it done," makes me really want to get it done instead. More importantly, it just keeps it on my radar. Part of setting goals is figuring out the consequences of not attaining those goals, and how you can hold yourself accountable to your plan.

There are lots of people willing to tell you their system--and several who will even tell you their system will work best for everyone. But the reality is, it all depends on your own personality and what works best for you. Are there areas of your life in which you really feel on top of things? What do you do to stay that way? Take those habits and adapt them to your sewing room.

Do you already have systems in place? Are they working well for you? Do they need tweaking? Do you feel the need to set up some sort of system from scratch? What have you found works well for you, or what hasn't worked well for you, in the past? 

 

 

Progress and Goals--Week of May 3

My goals for this week were to:

  • Make progress on the Annie Unrein bag
  • Complete mug rug for swap
  • Complete three butterflies on Sue Spargo project
  • Make block for friend's quilt

Progress:

Satin stitch with heavier thread--based on new Craftsy embroidery class I'll write about later

Satin stitch with heavier thread--based on new Craftsy embroidery class I'll write about later

  • Annie Unrein bag: This got completely back-burnered this week as I have two time-constrained projects on the docket so I focused completely on those.  
  • Complete mug rug for swap: I haven't completed it yet (sorry, Kerry!) but I've made progress! Unfortunately, what I chose to do is somewhat time-intensive. But I think it'll be fun when it's finished.
  • Complete three butterflies on Sue Spargo project: I'm now using stitches from a different Craftsy class (more on that in a future post), but haven't completed three butterflies yet. Again, those time-constrained projects made everything else take a back seat this week. I'll be bringing this with me on my work trip.
  • Make block for friend's quilt: I'm doing some embroidery on it so it's a long process. I'm writing this post on Saturday and scheduling it to post on Sunday, as I'll be driving most of the day Sunday (see afore-mentioned reference to a work trip). I'm actually hoping to get this block done before I leave; if not, it'll be coming on my trip with me.

Goals for This Week:

This is tricky this week as, when I get back into town from my trip, I'm immediately out two nights in a row, then having family over for dinner the following night. So I really only have next Saturday for any sort of quilting projects, I think. Therefore, my goals for this week revolve primarily around portable projects that I can easily poke away at with 10 minutes here and there. (Read: No Annie Unrein bags on this week's plan!)

  • Get my friend's block done.
  • Make progress on the mug rug. This will be my primary focus on Saturday if I haven't managed to get to it before that. I really want to get it done, Kerry!
  • Complete two butterflies on butterfly project. I knocked it down a butterfly due to my lack of time this week. Still, I think this could be within reach.
  • Complete two Craftsy classes. One is the second embroidery class I mentioned above--a few more stitches and I'll have completed the class, if not the butterfly project; the other class is one I'm just watching to get a feel for techniques, no class project involved. I've only got a couple of lessons left to watch and I'm planning on doing that while I'm in my hotel. I can be embroidering at the same time--way to do the two-birds-one-stone thing!

Fight the Funk Friday and Food Friday--on Saturday (oops)

I couldn't quite get it together enough yesterday to get my usual Friday post out. Oops. So I'm catching up today.

I'm still a bit of a slacker in terms of exercise--or, rather, I'm focusing on my physical therapy exercise and not so much getting to the gym. The PT exercises are increasing each session and lots to do at home so there is that. I guess it's a good sign when your PT exercises leave you a bit sore afterwards--yep, those muscles were pretty underdeveloped, clearly! So there's good progress being made there.

On the other hand, I did show a loss at my Weight Watchers meeting this week--yippee! First loss in a while, but then, it's also been awhile since I was consistently attending my meetings and really paying attention to what I was doing. Gee, funny how those things go hand-in-hand, isn't it? 

We were encouraged to share favorite healthy recipes at this week's WW meeting. One of the other members shared her recipe for Southwest Chicken Chili. I'm not generally a big fan of Southwest flavors but when I read through the ingredients to this one, it sounded pretty good. Even better? It's a "dump it all in the crockpot and walk away" recipe. It was simple enough that, when I discovered the recipe had fallen out of my purse somewhere in the grocery store, I could remember everything and recreate it easily in my kitchen. My son and his BFF were coming over for dinner and I'd heard rumor a few others may be joining us, but no actual count or ETA (life with young adults), so a simple crockpot recipe was the way to go. It was really, really good. My son, his friend, my nephew, and his girlfriend all came and, basically, licked the crockpot clean. 

So, here's the recipe (again, from memory, but I'm pretty sure it's very darn close. If not, it was good anyway!)

Southwest Chicken Chili

Southwest Chicken Chili

Southwest Chicken Chili 

  • 1 1/2 lbs of chicken breast (she suggested, and I used, frozen grilled chicken strips for simplicity--worked fine)
  • 2 cups medium salsa 
  • 3 @ 14.5 oz cans petite diced tomatoes
  • 2 @ 15.5 oz cans black beans
  • 1 @ 15.25 oz can corn (could also easily use frozen or fresh, of course)
  • 1 package taco seasoning (I didn't have any on hand, so I used chili seasoning instead)
  • 1 package Ranch dressing mix

Put all ingredients in slow cooker on low for 4-6 hours. Serve with shredded cheese, sour cream, tortilla chips, etc.

Clearly, it's a chili so all the amounts are fungible. Chilis are pretty flexible. I would say you probably don't want to go any more on the tomato products as it would quickly get too soupy.

When I put this into my Recipe Builder in WW etools it comes out to something like 5 points per serving (not including toppings), assuming you're getting about 12 servings out of the total. I didn't measure but I went by the number of people eating and the number of times they refilled their bowls.

It's finally really spring! And that really does help me fight the funk.

It's finally really spring! And that really does help me fight the funk.

I have another tricky week coming up, although in a different way, as I have a work trip for the early part of the week. However, in the grand scheme of work travel this is one of the easiest for me to continue healthy habits: I have a fairly normal schedule, time to use the work-out room in the hotel, and the ability to choose what I'm eating. (Most trips aren't quite that straight-forward!) So I'm not overly worried.

Meanwhile, Sammy and I are warming up our fetch muscles again, now that it's far more consistently warm and dry out. My pitching arm was a bit rusty last week, but I'm giving him more of a run for his money now--and boy, does he need the run! 

April 2015 Craftsy Class Update

Craftsy Logo

Oopsie. Missed April by a day. The week sort of got away from me.

It was a good month for Craftsy class completions, but not a great month. I'd have liked to get one more done. (Don't even say the words "travel organizer" to me!) But still, poking away. 

New Completions

(+2)

Classes in Progress

(6)

Note: I removed Fabric Patterning with Wax Resist at the moment as it's not going anywhere until I have a bit more time available. It'll reappear on "in progress" again soon, I hope.

Classes added this month

(+1)

Classes To Be Completed

Current count: (15, -1 from last month due to completing two but adding one)  

Completed Classes

Current count: 55 (+2)

Craftsy Class Review: Embroidering Texture and Dimension by Hand--with Sue Spargo

Oops. I wanted to get this review done in April. When did it suddenly become May? I think when part of April suddenly became winter again it threw my whole sense of the calendar off. 

If you've been listening to my podcast or following my blog at all in the last few weeks, you'll know that I've just completed a Craftsy class that probably had just as much impact upon me as Jane Dunnewold's The Art of Cloth Dyeing did a couple of years ago. This time it was Embroidering Texture and Dimension by Hand with Sue Spargo. I am off and running with this embroidering thing now! Woo--just watch me go!

I have been a fan of Sue Spargo's designs for years, starting back when I went through my first felted wool stage probably a decade ago or so. I enjoy Spargo's slightly more bright and fun primitive style. She can do the Americana/country thing (popular in the felted wool world), but she also does straight-up funky, which I love. I had bought her Creative Stitching book a year or two ago; it's pricey, but especially after doing this class* it's also become my go-to. Love that book. I'd tried teaching myself some embroidery from books before but there's absolutely no substitute for watching someone do it, so when I saw she had a class on Craftsy, I bit.

I decided to, for once, do the class project. It's been awhile since I've done that, as I usually use techniques on things I've already got going or had already planned to do. But as I looked at her design, I realized it would be a great way to use some of my stash of felted wool that was languishing. Plus, her "project" is more a lot of design suggestions that you can put together any way you want--which suits my "independent cuss" nature. When I started working with her suggestions for building a layered background, I ended up with something I really kind of dig. I went an entirely different colorway than she has (she used brights), based on the wool I already had in my collection. It took me so long to pull fabrics for this that I took some short-cuts on building the background--I fused, rather than needle-turn applique like she does, and later I learned why a standard applique technique would've been far preferable. But that's why we take classes, isn't it? Now I know.

She suggests 15 butterflies for the project, so 15 butterflies I did. I ended up ordering just a little more felted wool for the butterflies because I didn't have quite enough in a color range that really worked together. As a point of interest here, I bought my wool fabrics from Erin Rissberger of Quilting Acres on Etsy. She'd sent me some samples years ago when I interviewed her for the podcast (Episode 45)  and I just love her colors, so I was thrilled to be able to use them in this project.

The butterflies took a long time to put together too, as you layer those as well. I'd approach how I did all that layering very differently next time, so I really should've payed better attention to Sue's advice in the class (and in class discussion). Here's a tip: watch and read before doing! Another note--I also ended up buying her book Creative Texturing to help me make some decisions here. This book walks through the process of fabric selection and layering to create more visual interest on your projects. I'll be referencing that book a lot more in the future too.

Finally, I got to the embroidery. This class walks through several stitches, generally in order of complexity, which often means in order of difficulty. However, I did find stitches in later episodes that were actually easier for me to manage than ones in earlier episodes, so it's not entirely a progressive thing. 

Some stitches I took to like a duck to water. Others took a little more trial-and-error. One was my Waterloo--just couldn't quite get that Rosette Chain stitch down. I'll go back to it again after I've got more experience to see if I can't conquer that darn thing. (She does say it's the hardest one she teaches in the class, so there is that.)

 
And this ain't the half of it...

And this ain't the half of it...

Mostly, I had a ball taking Spargo's advice to heart--play with as many threads as possible! There is so much more to the world of embroidery than DMC embroidery floss and a #8 perle cotton, for as much as both of those are quite nice. Still a fan of the perle cotton, especially hand-dyed types. Yums.

I've used a huge variety of threads in this project so far, and still have more to try. Fair warning: It easily becomes a new addiction. It does also make learning embroidery slightly more complex because threads behave differently and require different needles, so every new stitch I tried was a test of trial-and-error before I finally found the right combination for what I wanted to do. But that's also just practice and experience--after just a few weeks of this I already have a better eye for what types of threads are likely going to give me more immediate (read: stress-free) success for certain stitches. 

 

I also got into adding beads to my embroidery based on one of her lessons. Another dangerous addiction.

So, can you tell I loved this class? It's definitely two thumbs up! If you're brand new to embroidery (like I was, for the most part), I advise making liberal use of the "30-second repeat" button and changing the speed of the video to go more slowly for certain stitches. (I had to watch the cast-on stitch technique a few times since I'm not a knitter.)

Sue Spargo is an excellent teacher, by the way. I really feel like this class gave me a very firm foundation in embroidery, even if I never took another class again. That being said, I'm now working on my second Craftsy embroidery class, already bought a third, and the fourth is sitting in my wishlist for later. I haven't finished the butterflies yet, so I'm currently using it as the project for these additional embroidery classes--meanwhile, I'm already mentally designing my next embroidery project.

The Basics

  • 7 lessons ranging from about 17 minutes to 30 minutes.
  • The first lesson is about creating the project you'll later be embroidering. I could've done with a little more information here, I think. I suspect the issue is that she's not giving directions for a specific pattern but, rather, making suggestions for things you may want to do; I think, since it was a new technique for me, I'd have preferred seeing her walk through a specific project first, and then talking about how to launch off from that to whatever you wanted to do yourself. In any case, I did figure it out and, of course, you don't have to do a specific class project at all, if you don't want to.
  • The second lesson talks about tools--needles and threads. I found this very helpful the first time, but even more helpful when I went back later after I'd done a lot of embroidery and watched it again. That time I had a better frame of reference for what she was talking about. The second lesson also gives the first couple of stitches--the Pekinese stitch (one of my faves!), and couching.
  • Lesson three is decorative edging stitches, including the fly stitch--which quickly became one of my go-to stitches, crested chain--another great one, and the aforementioned Waterloo stitch, the Rosette chain.
  • Lesson four is dimensional stitches and I had great fun here--bullion knots, drizzle stitches, bullion cast-on stitch, and double cast-on stitch (which I skipped because by then it had taken me so long to circumnavigate a butterfly with bullion knots I wasn't inclined to take on the even-longer-term double cast-on).
  • Lesson five is woven stitches--loved doing the circle with a gorgeous thread on this one.
  • Lesson six is beaded stitches. "Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!" I now have a storage container specifically for the beads that somehow magically appeared in my house after doing this lesson.
  • Lesson 7 is finishing touches, with another couple of slight more extensive stitches, plus a lot of really cool ideas for using embroidery in bindings. Can't wait to get my butterfly project finished so I can revisit this lesson.
  • The class materials are so-so; 6 pages, three of which are templates for the suggested project. There's an extensive supply list that felt overwhelming at first--and you don't actually need all of it to do the project, but you're likely to want all of it and more if you really get into this! The second page gives some hints and tips, which were partially useful.

A long review, I know. But I. Loved. This. Class. Remember, embroidery doesn't need to just be for embroidery projects and crazy quilts. It's easily done as an accent on any quilt or quilted project. I'll definitely be using a lot more of it in my art quilts. If you think you may even vaguely be thinking about adding embroidery to your quilting repertoire, you really need Embroidering Texture and Dimension by Hand with Sue Spargo.

*You don't need the book to do the class, but it was quite helpful to have on hand when I was practicing the stitches she demonstrated.

(Using Craftsy links and banners on this page helps support my podcast and blog. Thank you!)

Thinkin' about It Thursday

This week, I'm thinking... 

  • That I really am loving me some embroidery. 
  • That all those wonderful, funky threads are like candy. 
    • I can't resist. 
    • Give me more. 
  • That adding some beads is a dangerous thing. 
    • Addictive. 
    • Another collection. 
  • How getting fiber art books out of the library can seem like a penny-wise move. 
    • Until I realize I really want to own the book. 
    • Ahem.
  • How nice it was to be able to start playing fetch with Doofus in the backyard this week. 
  • That he and I both need to get into better fetch shape.  
    • Winter was rough on both of us.
  • How I'm sorta looking forward to my work trip next week because I know I can take my embroidery with me. 
    • It's a sickness. 

2015 Quilty Resolutions: April Journal Quilt

Okay, Sandy here, once again cutting myself some slack.

I realized that the prayer flag I've been working on is all one big experiment, so I'm now counting it as April's journal quilt, even though it's not 8"x10" or even, arguably, a quilt. It has two layers, not three, and it's embroidered but not quilted.

Work with me, here.

I present to you my April Journal Quilt project: a prayer flag.

The front is a piece of cotton batting I had experimented on in my dye studio--it was originally a normal cotton batting-cream color; I dyed it black. You can see how mottled it came out. Kinda cool.

I then did some needle felting on it with some dyed wool rovings I'd had in my stash for about a year (not dyed by me). I had fun blending the colors. I've done a little needle-felting here and there but nothing really terribly extensive, so I'm still getting the knack of it. Not hard at all, of course, but now I probably should start actually reading up on it and really figure out what I'm doing.

I also wanted to play around with beading, and I'd picked up some really wonderful beads at a bead shop recently. Dropped a bundle in that bead shop, so you'll be seeing a lot of beads on future projects. That bird (which is likely a swallow given the tail feathers but I'm choosing to call it a peace dove) is one of my faves.

I started working on this prayer flag shortly after I'd received word that I'd been accepted into the D.Min. program (listen to episode 180 if you'd like to hear more about that). At the time I started working on this project, I hadn't really decided what my prayer flag would be about--but then I ran across this great quote from William Shakespeare and it just seemed to completely fit where I am in my life right now: "To unpathed waters, undreamed shores...." Now, to be clear, the quotation is from A Winter's Tale which is one of the few Shakespeare plays I haven't seen or read so I don't know the storyline; it's actually taken from a speech in which the speaker is advising others NOT to go off in unpathed waters but to stay on a more known course. But I choose to rip it heartlessly out of context and cast it in a much more positive light. I'm rather enjoying, for the moment, being in unpathed waters and heading towards undreamed shores.

So there, nyah. It's my prayer flag. I'll do what I want.

I finished it off with a little embroidery accent in the swirls (yummy variegated Razzle thread from Sue Spargo's website), and then put a black felt backing on it and did a blanket stitch around the outside. The stitching isn't nearly as visible in person as it is in this picture; it's largely buried in the felted sections--you really almost can't see it. This picture does demonstrate the great lighting I have in my sewing room, I guess. 

My April Journal Quilt/Prayer Flag is now hanging near my office desk to help me remember this positive attitude when the blood, sweat, and tears start.