It was a very busy but nice weekend around here. Actually, the whole month of October is going to be busy. I am just realizing that this week is the only week of October that I am going to be at home the entire week. Some of it will be fun travel, and some of it for work, and some to see family. I’m going to try to keep posting, but you may be seeing a lot of homework assignments here, just so you know. It may be the only thing I have time to do when I’m not working or traveling!
Here are a few things that I’ve been doing over the last few days.
Mastering Machine Quilting class. I took a two-part series on free motion quilting, and now I’m taking this four-part series (3 down, 1 to go). A bit out of order, but that’s how I could squeeze them in. For this we practiced quilting grids, and then we went back later and practiced doing free motion to make the flower/circle pattern. Kinda fun.
Here’s some practice free motion using the flower on this awesome Heather Bailey fabric as the guide. Loving this look!
I picked up this wickedly cool Urban Chicks fabric that I really want to make a skirt out of, but I haven’t had time to figure out what or how yet. And it’s pretty thin, so I think it may need to be lined. Anyone have a favorite pattern to suggest? I have never made clothes without a pattern, and would HATE to cut into this fabric without a pattern and ruin it (gasp!). For those of you unfamiliar with this print, I’ve included the lens cap for scale. It’s really bold fabric!
Oh — and I washed it but haven’t gotten around to ironing it yet, so excuse all those wrinkles!
Just so you know, I’m still working out the kinks in my Artisan bread recipe. I mostly am making the loaf of crusty sandwich bread in the pan. I added 10 minutes to the baking time (now at 45 minutes instead of the stated 35 minutes). It’s better, but still gummy. I made up a new batch of dough yesterday and put another 1/4 cup of flour in it. Hopefully that helps!
Adobe Illustrator class. Okay, I know the instructor said this first lesson was really intense and to stick with it and we’d be glad we did, because it gets better after this. But it had better get a lot better. I estimate I spent 8-10 hours over the weekend on this one homework assignment. I had to draw a radio or a coffee pot using basic shapes, like rectangles and ellipses. My inspiration was this art deco radio I found on flickr.
And here is my final product:
It will be a lot easier when we’re allowed to just do the live trace on images!
Lastly, not to be too political, but I might have to find some time to make myself one of these shirts. I love it!
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First of all that fabric is great! WOW! I would love to take a quilters class, but I haven’t really found one in the area. And to be quite honest…I haven’t looked very hard since I’m in school. That shirt is great. I may have to look into one of those as well.
That Obama shirt is so cool. If I didn’t have to stay in the political closet around family, I would definitely be making one of those:)
I am so impressed with your machine quilting. I was just looking at a quilt the other day on design*sponge that used that same pattern and wishing that I had the skill/patience to quilt like that…and here you are already attempting it!
Your clock looks great! It does get a lot easier after you work out the initial kinks. There’s a steep learning curve with all of the CS3 programs.
Did you use a pattern for the first quilting or did you just mark out squares?
I’m taking a sewing class for clothes, now and love how it’s going. I think a quilting class would be great for me to bump up my skills, too!