TMNT baby quilt - for baby p

for years and years and years now, much like the plans for the lion king quilt, lisa and i had always talked about someday making a ninja turtles baby quilt for our cousin brian.  he was an avid turtle fan throughout his childhood, and our dear aunt donna had kept his turtle candles and even reused them in recent years prior to her passing.  just under two years ago, brian married the girl of his dreams and this year it was announced they were due with a baby boy in october.  lisa and i revisited the idea of making the turtle quilt together, divvying up the turtles and their weapons and made plans for it to be finished in time for the baby to be here mid october.  life got crazy, so it was pushed back to being planned to be a christmas gift.  and then life got real crazy...
our grandma myrna passed away at the end of september, just about week shy of her 91st birthday and baby p was born just a few days after.  once the funeral date was secured (last friday) lisa and i knew we needed to get this done and ready to give it to brian, brandy and baby in person so we kicked things in to super high gear.
our game plan shifted a bit even more with the time crunch.  originally, there were talks of a pizza block in the middle, paper pieced to match the turtles, but as the funeral inched closer, there just wasn't time to do it.  lisa and i still had our blocks split, her taking the red & orange while i had the blue and purple.  right now i should also include the disclaimer that it was much easier for us to refer to them by color... and will probably remain that way throughout the rest of the post :)
the evolution of quilting also changed a bit.  at first, i wasn't going to quilt in the blocks.  after thinking it through, i know that was one regret i had with the two quilts i made for amy's kiddos, but i couldn't make up my mind.  i had thought to just free motion quilt, but then i realized i had more practice with that on the long arm than a domestic machine.  lisa and i talked about echoing the head/weapons, but i felt like that would get boring with a lot of starts and stops... then i remembered this jagged type of idea that i'm pretty sure i remember learning when i took the "walk this way" class at meissner's, and in my head it felt perfect.
lisa finished her blocks on friday, dropped them in the mail and got them to me on monday.  i was booted from my apartment due to a stairwell replacement, so i was jamming each night at my parent's to get this done before the funeral on friday.  instead of the pizza block, we opted for this quarter square triangle block to tie in to each of the turtles, and i am OBSESSED with how perfect my points got on this... so sue me with being excited.  i also remembered this stitch from "walk this way" to echo the triangles in a wonky sort of way, and as i got it going, i was so happy with the decision.  monday night, i made the center block, trimmed and interfaced the back of the pieced blocks, and got the top entirely together.  tuesday, i quilted the middle block between jobs and stitched two turtle blocks... while crossing all my fingers and toes that pg&e didn't cut off the power.  wednesday, i finished up EVERYTHING like a crazy person.  i thought i would be able to go back to my own bed that night, but since it was after 11 by the time i finished sewing on the binding... it didn't happen.  and thursday led me to my next crazy idea...
initially i had thought to reach out to my guild members to see if someone could machine embroider a basic quilt tag for us, but as you can see, my brain was a little on overdrive with everything going on.  so after a lot of thinking while driving, i thought making a tag shaped like pizza would be perfect, since it was ninja turtles and we didn't get the pizza block on the front.  i had lisa send me a photo of her name in her handwriting, traced it on to the yellow once i got my pizza template and started stitching away while watching the masked singer & the goldbergs.  the black olive heart is a little nod towards our family joke that you aren't a true member of the family if you don't like black olives... and brian doesn't ;)
after all things funeral wrapped up last friday and after we spent time at grandma's looking through old things to see what any of us may want, we all went to do what we do, which is eat ice cream at leatherby's family creamery.  while brandy and the baby didn't make the 4 hour trek for the funeral, we still made brian open it so we could see the reaction we were hoping for... and it was there.
lisa and i have worked on so many projects side by side over the years, or even the same project together with our own interpretations to it (remember the twin sweater dogs?) but this was a lot of fun to put our brains together to create this project for another member of our family.  while we've had 3 major losses in a year and a half (all three especially affecting brian, as he lived with our grandparents for years and lost his own mom last november) our family has remained close even throughout it all.  we are so lucky to have had these grandparents show us the importance of family and while we all went through our angsty teen years in one way or another, any time we gather together we can talk, laugh, and celebrate like a day hasn't passed since the last visit.
lisa and i both talked about how we remember brian and my little brother being buddies together during our childhood and how one day he was going to be a great dad.  now that he has a little buddy of his own, i know we can't wait to see how he officially turns in to a dad.  just watching him gush over photos of his little one last weekend was a side of brian i was so excited to see.
what will lisa and i sew together next?
well, actually 2 prior project i did with her (both virtually and in person) are up next to be blogged.  kind of hopped around to get this quilt up sooner than later :)
pattern: fandom in stitches ninja turtle patterns with our own center quarter square triangle block
quilt count: 124

month of me project one kick off - alaskan batik quilt

hey there!
i said i would be back soon with a little bit more about what i have in store for the month of me, so here we are with the kick off post.  and, to try something new i've been thinking about, here's a little video post about it as well!  of course, i'll have more photos down below because i couldn't leave it empty.  so without further adieu, here's we're rad, let's quilt episode 1!
a lot shorter than my last video with lisa, am i right?  haha.
how did you like that peek at my pumpkins so far?  halloween quilt turned fall turned trying to get done!
so this first project's fabric was collected over my two trips to alaska thus far, and i am going to start things off by making the quilt i have planned!  i purchased the fat quarters on my first trip last year and then got the backing, border & sashing/binding when i was there in june.  i'm super lucky to have friends that understand my way of exploring and remembering my adventures is through fabric shopping and i cannot wait to have this quilt finished so i can take it up there and show it off!  of course, i'll photograph it here in california when it is done, but photos of it in alaska would be just so much more epic!
here's some still photos of the fabric as well, taken on my new apartment balcony.
and come on... those otters!! :)
and i don't want to give too much away just yet, so here's a peek at the book i'll be using a pattern from!  it's called quilt batik! by cheryl brown.  go figure, it is another on loan from the grammy quilt book library.
stay tuned to see where the progress goes from here!  pumpkins?  alaska?  to be determined!  either way, they're both for me :)

do you wanna quilt a snow man? - first time long arm practice

finally, the first result from long arm quilting practice!
clearly, i won't have much to say about the block piecing on this, since it is literally one giant panel i bought at beverley's to use as practice.  this was the first of three pieces i had quilted that day, since i was quite nervous about the venture.
here's the panel in all it's glory!
despite a few thread breaks and restarts, i feel it was all in all quite successful.
some of the stitching was a little wobbly again, but i MUCH preferred this pantograph (african samba) to the one initially stitched at the certification class.  as angelina (long arm instructor) said, this motif lacks any sharp curves or perfect circles which made it great to begin with.  i mostly noticed that i never got my stitching starts and stops completely off the edge, so often you can see where it ends and such.  but that's learning, right?
now that i feel more solid on this one, i'm trying to not pick it again the next time i go in.
it was just so fun!
for a back that i just threw together of semi coordinating pieces, i quite like it!
 oh right. we're not here to talk about piecing.
 carry on.
and there you have it! my first update on the long arm quilting fun. i keep peeking at the calendar to plan and book another date, but not only do i not have things cut out yet, everything is booked up since they only have 2 machine at the moment. oy!  fingers crossed i can get in on april 17th.  plenty of time to get stitching :)

free motion quilting - days 14-21

the end is here!
after last week's slump and being able to laugh at my flowers, it was much easier to convince myself to knock out the last week of stitching practice.  i tried a few new things that i saw lisa attempt once she started her own free motion challenge at the start of feburary, and while they look mostly like what they were supposed to, they totally weren't my jam.  aka the bows.  but anyways.  i have officially completed the 21 days of free motioning, and this upcoming saturday is my next class on the subject matter.  here's this final week of blocks:
2/1
2/2
2/3
2/4
2/5
2/6
2/7
2/8
so in the end,
i've come to find i like the wandering all over styles, such as pebbling & the double drip.
if i was continue this even longer, i'd probably try and figure out how to make my loops and flowers look a little more randomly wandery.  if that is even a thing.  throwing some extra loops in between totally helped out, but i am still hoping to one day feel confident in my all over "doodling" if you will.  or maybe i'll just keep my training wheels on with pantographs for a little bit longer.
stipple.  yeah, it threw off my groove for sure.  it put me in a mindset of aiming for perfection instead of just going with the groove.
can't remember if i've said it before, but i don't feel that i will be quilting anything major on my machine with these skills, but as always, being able to have a skill and not use it is better than not at all.
but there you have it, the conclusion of my 21 days of free motion quilting fun!
i'll be sure to update you on whatever adventures happen from this weekend's class with jenny lyon!

free motion quilting - days 7-13

well here we are again, with another update in the world of free motion quilting.
days 1-6 seemed to be pretty okay... but it wasn't easy to make it to day 13.
to be honest, this week i wasn't really feeling it.  at all.  you'll noticed i didn't get it done on friday.  or on sunday.  and i almost let it not happen a few more times.
i was ready to be a quitter.  it wasn't really fun anymore, and it started to feel more like a chore than anything else.  which is exactly how i get when it comes to going to the gym sometimes (hence why i haven't done that in a week or so.  oops.)
on monday of this week, i decided to get it together, make all my quilt sandwiches for the remainder of the time and just do it so i didn't feel any regrets.
back to fmq talk.
so i made my sandwiches, and then on monday just decided to try something new.  i decided to meander and stitch some flowers, and i got a good laugh out of myself.  i could at least feel myself being entertained by the flowers (or lack thereof in some cases) and i was starting to enjoy it again.  no more frustrating stipple practice nonsense. no more doing just what i had seen done in class.  just doodling and stitching.  and entertaining myself with some very squashed flowers.
1/23
1/24
1/25
1/26
1/28
1/30
1/31
so this week i learned:
looping each flower petal instead of doing a figure 8 is easier (at least for me)
don't do something if you're not in the mood (see 1/25... i only stitched that day just because i felt like it had to be done.  not because i wanted to fmq)
aaaaaand... i'm over halfway done!
if i keep to a daily pace from here on out, you'll see another post next thursday or friday just days before my next fmq class on the 11th.
here's to another hopeful week of fmq-ing.
but also one more week until i feel like i can get back to block piecing :)