Well, I ordered the Project Life kit, plastics, book and card stock from Amazon and the project containers from Joann’s on the same afternoon. The Amazon order was processed the very next day (a Saturday) but the Joann’s order wasn’t processed until a few days later (Tuesday). Not surprising then that the Amazon order arrived on Friday, only a week after I ordered it, and the Joann’s order didn’t arrive until yesterday (Monday). I’m thinking I’ll be sticking with Amazon unless I have a very good reason not to.

Anyway, here’s my Cobalt Project life order

I have been making it a point to photograph every day life. So yesterday I took a look at the photos I took last week. I picked my favorites, tweaked them in Gimp (my favorite, FREE photo editing software), and uploaded them to my local Walmart Photo center. I’ll be picking up my prints later today (although they were ready less than 10 minutes after I placed my order). In the mean time, I was up late last night, so I decided to do the journaling portion of my week’s pages. I used a favorite pen and wrote out everything by hand. I like the way it turned out and I can’t wait to see it with the photos in place.

These are the project boxes I got in the mail yesterday

I have plans for these boxes, but there aren’t enough of them. Each will get a label. I haven’t decided if the label will be a simple code, a description of the contents, or a combination of both. The idea is to get a handle on UFOs by putting each one in a project box. And since the boxes are all the same, they will easily stack and store. I’ll order more soon – after I fill these.

The studio is still in complete disarray. I haven’t been to E’s house to work on the quilt since Wednesday. I haven’t touched my own quilting in over a month. Progress on the new studio has stalled.

The good news is that I’ll have help with the new studio coming up this week – my mom is coming over.

Also on the horizon is a You Tube video starring yours truly. We have a script and a stage, just have to do the recording.

And tomorrow I have bee with the gals from the guild, so I’ll get the chance to work on something of my own.

But the big news for the weekend is that I did shopping!

Ok, so I didn’t get out and go shopping, but I did some online shopping.

First, I got a dozen of these:

I ordered them from joann.com. They were on sale for 40% off  making them $4.19 each. Each is 12×12 and just about 2.75 inches tall. I’m going to use them to store individual projects – stealing the idea from my friend E. She puts each project in a numbered clamshell. I figure I can number the boxes to correspond to a spreadsheet list of all my running projects. Then I can note where I am on each project and what I need to do next. Another effort to clear out the UFOs. (Photo from the joann.com website)

I also put in my first Project Life order. If you haven’t found project life yet, let me apologize now for introducing you to it. It is a scrapbooking system, but it is not all sorts of crafty. It is actually meant to be so simple that you can document a week in a matter of minutes. The idea is to document life through pictures and short journal entries. It involves photos, a 3 ring binder, some divided plastic pages (divided to hold 4×6 photos and smaller journaling cards), and the “core kit” that has title cards and journaling cards along with a few labels (numbers, dates, etc.).  I can’t really do it justice, describing it here in just a few sentences. Check it out yourself here.

The big deal about Project Life lately is that all the plastics had been out of stock for some time now. I discovered Project Life the end of last year and had to wait nearly 2 months for the new plastics to come in. Becky Higgins (the creator of Project Life) was good enough to keep us fully informed about when the new stock was going to arrive. She went so far as to tweet and post on facebook as each item became available on Amazon.

I picked up my core kit, binder and cardstock early in the day and then grabbed plastics and extra journaling cards that evening.

I also put in my first Project Life order. If you haven’t found project life yet, let me apologize now for introducing you to it. It is a scrapbooking system, but it is not all sorts of crafty. It is actually meant to be so simple that you can

document a week in a matter of minutes. The idea is to document life through pictures and short journal entries. It involves photos, a 3 ring binder, some divided plastic pages (divided to hold 4×6 photos and smaller journaling cards), and the “core kit” that has title cards

and journaling cards along with a few labels (numbers, dates, etc.).  I can’t really do it justice, describing it here in just a few sentences. Check it out yourself here.

The big deal about Project Life lately is that all the plastics had been out of stock for some time now. I discovered Project Life the end of last year and had to wait nearly 2 months for the new plastics to come in. Becky Higgins (the creator of Project Life) was good

enough to keep us fully informed about when the new stock was going to arrive. She went so far as to tweet and post on facebook as each item became available on Amazon.

I picked up my core kit, binder and cardstock early in the day and then grabbed plastics and extra journaling cards that evening. (Photos from beckyhiggins.com)

E’s house once again today. This time to plan the back of the quilt. We set up her design wall with some measuring tape mapped out to the size the back will need to be. Then I started layout out the pieces for the backing. It is mostly signature blocks and photos filled in with plain blocks. The original plan was a grid but we realized that a grid back would mean seams from the top piling up on top of seams from the back and that could be a nightmare to quilt and bind.

So we took advantage of the asymmetry that the photos provided and let the back get wonky. The plan is to fill in with a light colored solid in all the places where the design wall peeks through. And I’ll be making design decisions as I piece the back so as to make sure that pieced seams don’t land near the edge of the top. That would make binding more difficult that it would have to be.

I was back at E’s house today working on that wedding quilt.

No wedges or slices or rings today though. Today we printed the photos that will go in the centers of the ring and on the back of the quilt. I also fused down the applique pieces. Unfortunately I ran out of time and didn’t get the chance to blind stitch down the letters. Not so much looking forward to that job, but someone has to do it.

Photo courtesy of and copyright of E. Love . Used with permission.

Yeah, that’s me, stooping over the quilt top on the ironing board, moving around letters with a pair of tweezers.

I’ll be back at E’s house on Wednesday when I’ll be planning the back of the quilt. Originally designed to be made up of one hundred signature squares, only 47 were signed. So the bride requested that we include photos on the back – none of which were 6″ square. We also decided that an exactly sized and perfectly proportioned back would be a nightmare to load onto the long arm machine. So the back is going to be redesigned. We will take advantage of the unusually sized photos to make the back of the quilt a bit more randomly pieced. A combination of photos, signature blocks, blank signatures blocks, and some strips of Kona Snow should make for a nicely unsymmetrical yet elegant quilt back.

I have a friend who used to make quilts on commission. However, she has recently moved her work in other, very exciting, directions. But she has one last commissioned quilt to complete. And it just wasn’t getting done – for a lot of reasons.

So we got together, talked about the design, made some improvements, and I’m helping to finish the project.

Today I ripped and repieced portions of the wedding ring wedges.

I don’t know if quagmire is the right word. The design is a bit tricky. Some of the issues are sticky. And a bit of the piecing is icky. The final result, however, will be beautiful.

At the end of last year I put forth that I wanted to accomplish just a few things this year…

-Become a proponent of 21st century quilting through the use and production of electronic media
-Create a recognizable personal art style
-Enjoy sewing and quilting more by eliminating completion anxiety (read “finish the darn UFOs so that I can move on to other things that interest me without feeling guilty”)

I covered the first two in earlier blog posts. Today I want to address the third.

When it comes to UFOs (Unfinished Objects) there are really two schools of thought. There are those who can freely move from one project to another, finished or not, without guilt or pressure. Then there are those who either simply do not have UFOs (yes, I know of a quilter that finishes every project before she begins another – but she is the only one I have ever met), or hide their UFOs, feeling as if they are badges of shame – a quilter’s scarlet letter. I belong in the latter camp. Unfortunately.

So I have this guilt that I carry with every one of my unfinished projects. I have tried calling them WIPs (works in progress), but I know they are UFOs so it doesn’t help. The problem is that this guilt keeps me from freely beginning new projects. Every now and then I get the gumption to start something new, get a little into it, and then the guilt catches up with me. So the new project goes to the bottom of the pile and I feel as though I have to finish all the older projects first. It is silly, I know. It is crippling, I know. It is self-imposed, I know. The quilt police aren’t going to come arrest me for 20 outstanding UFOs.

So this year, I am going to get out of this loop by finally finishing all those projects that I have begun but never finished. How about a look at what I need to get done?

1. Mother-in-law’s quilt. She asked me to make this for her at Thanksgiving out of her mother’s small stash of fabrics. It will be a nine patch trip around the world quilt. The top is halfway finished.
2. My first hand applique quilt. From an Alex Anderson pattern. The top is finished and all but the border is quilted.
3. My first hand applique block of the month. Thirties reproduction fabrics on a black background. The top is finished. It needs to be quilted and bound.
4. My first fused applique block of the month. Also known as the Tropical Flowers quilt. I think 9 of 12 blocks are finished. The remaining blocks need to be traced, fused and stitched before the quilt top can be assembled, quilted, and bound.
5. The big blue pillow cover. It was a terrible idea – blue fur. I have the pieces cut and I even have one pillow cover finished and on the pillow. I just need to put the second cover together and stuff the pillow into it. I might need to buy a zipper.
6. The Ohio Star blocks. Yep, I have a bunch of Ohio Star blocks from a block swap from when I was living in Ohio. I moved to Illinois in 2006. The blocks were made to celebrate the Ohio bicentennial in 2003. I have a panel with a silk screened Ohio Bicentennial logo on it that I intended to incorporate into the quilt. And yet, the blocks and panel sit together in a pile.
7. The German Flower blocks. A guild I was in two guilds (and two moves) ago did a block swap with a group in Germany. We made red, white and blue star blocks and they made flower blocks. So I have twelve flower blocks that need to go into a quilt top. Again, they just sit there in a pile.
8. My mother’s jacket. I started this for her in fall 2008 but it got delayed when I moved in early 2009. I have never finished it. I is a knit jacket that will look great on her if I ever get it finished. It really shouldn’t take much to do. I think I have to cut out another pattern piece, stitch a few seams, do a hem and it will be finished. Wish I had a coverlock machine.
9. The cross stitch angels. I started this in May while on vacation. I have one angel stitched (but not sewn into the ornament that is is supposed to be) and one angel started. There are a total of six angels in the kit.
10. The scrappy log cabin. This was a bee challenge and strip exchange from the last guild I was in. I’m not thrilled with the project and I should never have followed the rules of the challenge. The strips were to be divided by the person who cut them into two piles – light and dark. The problem is that everyone in the exchange had very different ideas of what a light and what a dark is. To compound the problem, we were supposed to put the strips into paper bags and blindly choose them at random to construct our quilt – using only “light” and “dark” as design elements. The result is that my quilt is a big muddy “medium” all over. Yuck. I have about 40 blocks finished. No idea how many more I will make before I run out of strips.
11. The frog quilt. Just a little baby quilt I threw together to prove that scrap quilts don’t have to look scrappy. I made the quilt entirely from scraps I had cut from what was left over from other projects. The top is finished, it just needs to be quilted.
12. The veggie quilt. This was a request of my mother for her kitchen – years ago. I’m not even sure she is still interested in it. But I’m going to finish it anyway. It is paper pieced and I have about a third of the blocks finished.
13. The Amish quilt. I only have two blocks of this one done. I’m thinking I am going to gift these two blocks to someone and be done with it. Now, who to pawn it off on…
14. Large art quilt project. Can’t tell you any more.
15. Grandmother’s Flower Garden. English paper piecing. Will I ever finish it?
16. Pumpkin penny rug. A kit I started on a whim one day.
17. Small art quilt project. Again, no more details here for you.
18. Wacky bird applique block. A class I took. Not sure what I’ll do with it when I have finished the block.
19. Cocker Spaniel Quilt. This is a memorial quilt for mom and dad’s dear Fluffy. I started it when I was a novice quilter and quickly realized it was too advanced for me. It might be too late to be as meaningful as it once was.
20. Hubby’s Wedding Quilt. I gave it to him to use, but he wants it to hang on the wall. So it was a finished object, but now it is unfinished because it needs a sleeve 

And to be perfectly honest, this only covers the UFOs that are already mostly started. I also have a list of kits and panels that I bought but never got to.

And then there are the  block sets that I got from exchanges but never did anything with them

And the orphan blocks

And a bunch of preprinted panels which I think will be used for free motion quilt practice.

And that rounds out all that I’d have to do to remove all sense of guilt.

Sigh.

Isn’t it exciting? I love saying it. We (hubby and I) have an app in the iTunes store. And it is a quilting app.

It is called Quilter’s Calculator and it is, in my opinion, awesome. It does all kinds of things. It keeps track of your projects, materials and stash. It helps you create shopping lists. But best of all, and most importantly, it does a lot of the nasty math that many quilters loathe.

Have you ever shied away from setting your blocks on point for fear of the math you’d need for the setting triangles? Worry no more. Quilter’s Calculator will calculate those triangles for you. All you need to do is enter the size of your blocks.

Ever wondered how many pieces of sashing you’d need to cut? or cornerstones? Quilter’s Calculator has you covered. Just enter the number of rows and columns your quilt has.

And borders. Multiple borders. Add as many as you like. Make them as wide or as narrow as you choose.

And binding. Straight of grain or bias. Single fold or double. You choose, the Quilter’s Calculator will tell you what to cut.

Are you as excited as I am yet? Want to know more? Check out our development website (that’s the site where we have information about our current software projects), www.needleandforge.com. I’m the needle, hubby is the forge.

How about a chance to get a free copy of the app? Just leave a comment below telling me what kind of quilt math you’d rather not have to do anymore. I will pick a winner at random at 9 pm on February 15th.

More on my very resolution looking non-resolutions…

This is the year that I want to work hard at creating a recognizable personal art style. What do I want my style to be? I have no idea. That’s the point of this non-resolution. I need to get in there and, as Ms. Frizzle says, “take chances, make mistakes, and get messy,” (it’s a grade school, Magic School Bus thing).

With that in mind, I have several more goals to add to this year’s list:

-Choose a theme word for the year. I guess this should be sooner rather than later, so let’s choose one now… how about, um, “fresh”. I have a whole year to explore what that means (and I reserve the right to change it before January is out).
-Follow the sketchbook challenge (just follow it this year – watch, look, maybe I will be compelled to try it, but with everything else in this list I don’t want to feel obligated)
-Participate in the free motion quilt project
-Create a free motion stitch diary (see above)
-Keep a sketchbook
-Create art, and to this end:
-Create and complete 2 small, 1 medium or 0.5 large works each month
-Try six different techniques – one every two months

It doesn’t look like much, but the more I think about it, the more I feel like it will be a lot of work. Just what I need to get my tush in gear.

And since we are talking about getting into gear, how about a few studio goals? To be honest, I’ve struggled with setting these goals because I have to depend on others, namely DH, to help meet them. But here goes
-Move the sewing machine and table, cutting table and accessories, and rolling storage carts from the old studio to the new by Feb. 15.
-Have TV in the new studio by April 1 (my TV has some nifty gadgets that let me listen to pandora and search our photo archive)
-Have the design wall up in the new studio by June 1
-Have the new quilting frame set up by April 1

I’m a little worried about completing the new studio goals because there hasn’t been much progress on the basement in the last week. Actually there’s been zero progress in the basement in the last week. There has been talk of what to do next. The plan is to use up the two bundles of fiberglass insulation we have floating around, taking up space, and making us itch every time we move it.

Since we already have some wall framing up, it shouldn’t be too difficult to shove the insulation in there and be done with it. There was also talk of putting up the second door to the other room. We have the prehung door, we just have to get it into place. And if that isn’t enough to do, we have more than a few 2x4s – if there are enough, we may begin the wall that will exist between the furnace and water heater and the sewing room (no, the furnace won’t be enclosed, just a wall down two sides with a bifold door in one wall for changing the furnace filter – the other two sides will be open to the storage room).

‘Tis the season for empty promises, otherwise known as New Year Resolutions. Who really sticks with it and manages to do what they set out to do? I don’t know very many. Which is why I don’t make resolutions.

But I want to make big changes. And big changes aren’t so easy to make. They often come about by making many smaller changes. And seeing the big picture when mired in the details can be difficult. So instead of a set of resolutions, I am going to Agile program my life.

What? Huh? What on earth does that mean? Where did I come up with that? It is a term that computer software developers use (I got it from DH who is a software architect). Agile is an approach to software development that achieves a large goal by breaking it down into many small tasks that can be finished in a short period of time, or a cycle. The idea is to be able to see and measure progress toward a mountainous goal by counting the steps it took to get there – and to actually get there. The beauty in the process, though, is that it can be changed when needed. So if at the beginning you determine that completing XYZ will take 5 hours, but it took 9, you can change the estimate for all the things related to XYZ. It is learning from experience and adjusting accordingly. So, if your goal is to hike 2 miles a day, and then you break your leg, you’ll need to be agile and adjust your goal. It also helps in managing multiple projects at a time, so instead of climbing one mountain at a time, you can determine how quickly you want to reach the top of each mountain and then carefully plan how much time to spend on each one to achieve that goal.

In reflecting on where I am and where I want to be, I can say that this year I want to climb three mountains:

-Become a proponent of 21st century quilting through the use and production of electronic media
-Create a recognizable personal art style
-Enjoy sewing and quilting more by eliminating completion anxiety (read “finish the darn UFOs so that I can move on to other things that interest me without feeling guilty”)

Now the trick is to figure out how to achieve these goals – determine what the baby steps are.

Become a proponent of 21st century quilting through the use and production of electronic media
This goal encompasses a few different projects that I have already begun and a few more that I have not. It will partially be a collaborative effort between DH and myself and the rest is all up to me. It can be broken up into two parts, blogging and software development. Let’s look at these…

Software Development
Now, I am no computer expert nor am I a programmer, but I married one. This gives me an advantage, and the ability to ask a lot of “what if” questions. As a result, we have already begun a software project that is due out soon, and I have already learned a few programming basics and a lot about software project management. So the software development goals are:
-release the current software project to the public by January 31
-author the documents necessary to describe the scope and implementation of the next project by February 29th (hooray for leap year giving me one extra day to get this done)
-write a website to showcase these efforts by January 31. Maintain it and add new material at least once a month.
-use social media to update progress and get the word out about these projects. Post at least one update per week on facebook, google plus, and twitter.
Obviously this set of goals will need to be updated by the end of February, when we will have a better idea what the next project will involve.

Blogging
I’ve spent some time reflecting on why I blog and what purpose it serves both you, the reader, and myself. I kept this in mind while determining these goals:
-Photograph every quilt and art project I endeavor as well as other significant daily activities
-Categorize every blog post
-Tag every blog post
-Use at least two photos for every post
-Post at least 3 times per month but as frequently as project progress dictates. That is, if I’m quilting daily, I should be posting daily.
-Use trackbacks when appropriate – but look for them, don’t just wait for them to happen
-Get out of the habit of leaving two spaces after every sentence when typing
-Get and set up a customized style for the blog – something that reflects my personal style and flair
-Use pinterest daily (I know, not a true blog, but a type of blogging) and beyond just the “color inspiration” board

Wow, I never realized how much work would go into doing these two things right. And what’s more, this is only one of my three main goals. The other two will have to wait for another post.

In preparation for the year ahead, we have begun working on our basement. The basement is partially finished. My studio is in one of the finished rooms.

But I have outgrown it, so we are cleaning up and reorganizing the largest room of the basement. I’ll be moving in there soon and bit by bit. The room is unfinished and I can’t wait to move, so it will have to be finished in pieces. So far, my computer and desk have been moved to their new location.

The November meeting of the Northern Lake County Quilters (Illinois) was this past Wednesday. Aside from the regular business meeting (which was all about reflecting on our recent show), we had a spectacular presentation from Jan Krueger and Linda Marcou from the Hearthside Quilters Nook of Hales Corners, WI.

Linda and Jan brought a trunk show called Restitching Tradition. The idea was to present non-traditional looking quilts based on the traditional nine patch, four patch, curved piecing and rail fence blocks. They showed us over thirty quilts in only an hour. And they provided a notes packet for each of us that included layout instructions for many of the quilts. And then they had other patterns and nifty tools for us to buy if we chose. Really, the only drawback was that Jan and Linda are obviously Packer fans, but seeing as we can’t all be perfect…

They called this one “Pineapple Nine Patch”.

Looks like it is made with paper piecing or foundation piecing, right? It is from the book Geometric Gems by Cathy Wierzbicki and is made using a Tri-recs ruler

This one is called “Funky Four Patch” and is from a pattern by Karla Alexander of Saginaw Street Quilts (Sorry, I don’t know which book).

The idea is to make two square in a square blocks (different colored centers, same colored borders), each the same unfinished size, but with different sizes of inner squares and borders. Then stack, slice off center in two directions, reorganize and sew to get a wonky block.

How about this great guy quilt called “Fire Escape” by Terry Atkinson of Atkinson Designs? I may have to make this one for DH.

I’ve already started making a bunch of scrappy off center log cabin blocks, so I was happy to see one that was all finished. They called this “Circle of Friends” and used the pattern “Once in a Blue Moon” by Bigsby’s Designs, but I think I got my pattern from a Carol Doak book (sorry, don’t remember which one).

But my favorite quilt of the night was “Ivy Twist” from a pattern by Annette Ornelas. Unfortunately this was a free pattern from Timeless Treasures that they have since removed from their website. It looks like it is made with curved piecing, but it is really a cheat – there’s a lot of fabric folding involved to make four different units. Once the units are sewn together, you peel back the folded pieces and top stitch them down to make the curves.

Basically, the show was full of eye candy and if anyone left there not wanting to rush home and start a new quilt, they could not have been listening to the same lecture I attended.