a new home

Well, Button and her quilt are settled down in their new dorm room. The 'rents and I traveled with her to NY and helped get her moved in this weekend. She's such a people person that I know Button won't have room in her life to be lonely -- she was already fast friends with a couple of her suitemates hours after they met -- but it still makes me feel good to know she has a quilt to keep her company.

It looks like a nice place to live, doesn't it?
~Phosphorelated

"binding off"

Well, Button's quilt is finally assembled and quilted! There are a few wrinkles in the back, but I'm hoping that once the quilt is washed and crinkled they won't be quite so apparent. Actually, I'm really crossing my fingers, as I've found that, for the moment at least, I'm liking the back even better than the front:
I bought fabric for the quilt top with no plan for a quilt back, and then remembered that one of the half-dozen pieces of fabric I owned before I got into quilting was a piece of robin's egg blue cotton. I probably bought it in high school to make a skirt or something, but this is a much better use.

Now that the quilt is assembled, it's ready for the binding! I trimmed it up this weekend, machine stitched the binding to the front and have been working on hand stitching to the back. Since I'm a knitter, and that's the fiber craft with which my boyfriend is most familiar, he has taken to calling this process "binding off."
It's more like binding on, really, but I think his term is sweet. I'm really enjoying the fabric that I'm using, and it goes very well with the solid fabric in the back, too.I just can't wait to give it to Button when we take her to college this weekend. Yay!
~Phosphorelated

a bounty of tomatoes

My "tomato trees" (they're just tomatoes in pots that have grown completely out of control and are more than six feet tall) are fruiting with a vengeance, and we have more tomatoes than I can figure out how to use. I love fresh tomatoes, but I can't quite figure out how a two-person household can eat the 1-2 dozen tomatoes that ripen every day. So, we're giving plenty away, but they're still all over the kitchen:

Yum!
~Phosphorelated

Recently, Thousands of Bolts had an end-of-bolt sale, and among the blue fabrics I found these sweet little owls:
I'm not normally big on cutesie, but I'm simply enamored with them. I don't know quite what it is about them, but I just love these owls. So, I dug through the stash and came up with this stack of fabrics:
I'm going for mostly the greens and brown plus a little of the yellow from the owl print plus some purple. I've been wanting to try some wonky log cabin blocks, and this seems like the perfect opportunity to try some out!
~Phosphorelated

a completed quilt

I have now completed an entire quilt! Very cool.
It's just a small one, but it has binding and everything.
The boyfriend laughed at me the first time I felt it and exclaimed, "it feels like a real quilt!" And now it's a real, completed quilt!Is it wrong to be so ridiculously pleased? It's done, and I love it!
~Phosphorelated

it's actually a quilt!

My little lap quilt is actually quilted! It is no longer just patchwork. Isn't she beautiful?

I used the same green thread for the quilting as I had the piecing. I know many people piece with white thread, but the colors make me happy and green thread is the same price as white, so I might as well get that extra little bit of enjoyment, no?
I know a solid-colored backing was probably not the best choice for my first foray into quilting, but I really liked how it felt, I thought the color went well with the top, and (most importantly) I had it on hand. I have my sister's quilt all pinned together; the living room floor was just large enough to lay out the twin-sized pieces, so I have no idea what I'll do if I ever make anything larger, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there. The quilting on that quilt will probably have to wait until this weekend, but in the meantime the lap quilt needs to be trimmed and I need to figure out that binding thing. I love learning as I go!
~Phosphorelated

the view from campus

No quilting today (yet, anyhow), but I still think about it all the time, and see lovely patterns wherever I go.

Next to a parking lot...



(Please disregard the background; it's the railing that I find beautiful, and it can't help where it lives.)



And on the floor of the cold room...


Wouldn't those big squares made up of the smaller shapes make an interesting quilt pattern?

(Sorry about the water; condensation!)





~Phosphorelated

adventures in quilting

I officially love the curved quilting safety pins. I laid out a nice piece of lavender flannel on the carpet in the office (just the right amount of friction to hold everything in place!), then a crib-sized Warm & Natural batting, and finally my little quilt top!

I decided to try stitch in the ditch, but did one strip down the middle and decided I didn't like it much. The solid back showed the flaws too well, and my aim sucks. Also, my square lap quilt was wider than either the quilt back or the batting, so I took off a strip of big squares, re-pinned, and bravely decided to try stippling!

I was so enchanted with the results that I sat under my new lap quilt (minus binding) all evening and totally forgot to take pictures. So, a little more random inspiration.

On the way home from the farmer's market:
The view from my favorite lunch perch:

A rusty grate may not be everyone's idea of beauty, but I just love the browns:
Some interesting glass panes on a parking structure:
May you find inspiration wherever you go!
~Phosphorelated

laying out the pieces

Time to play with last weekend's disappearing nine patch squares:

I think I like them!
Now to put them all back together again!
~Phosphorelated