Tuesday Tip! Scheduling Projects

August 11, 2015life, quilting, random, sewing, Tuesday Tiporganizing, post-its, tipsormondbeach

It’s time for another Tuesday Tip!

It seems that we quilters/crafters/makers have a lot going on. We’ve usually got several projects going at once & many times are working under deadlines, even if this isn’t our “work.”

I think I’ve used almost every kind of planning system out there & I’ve recently discovered one that works best for me (so far!)

The post-it note on a whiteboard system (like my super fancy name?) finally gave me everything I needed in one place.

I simply write each individual project on a post it note & the note on the upper left hand corner has 1st priority.

On each note I quickly jot down the big bullets of the project & any pertinent notes I need to be aware of. For example, let’s say I was working on a quilt where I making the entire quilt- from choosing fabric to binding. These would be my bullets:

Choose fabric/quilting pattern
Piece quilt
Longarm quilt- XXXX design
Bind quilt
Invoice quilt

Whenever I come down to the studio I can quickly assess what needs to be done that day & I can shuffle projects as needed. I love how this gives me the flexibility to move projects around as deadlines change (which let’s face it, happens everyday).

It’s also very visual for me, a key piece I’ve learned in helping me stay organized.

I’ll add that I got inspiration for this from Pinterest but that I really simplified what I saw. They made this very complex with different colored post-its, & categories & I have no idea what else b/c at that point my eyes glazed over. I can see how it would be very easy to make this a “super duper organizing board,” but I noticed that when systems get involved like that, I can’t keep up. And if my organizing system creates too much for me, well that’s not very helpful is it? So simple & boring it is. And it works for me. Hopefully it might work for you too!

Amy’s Gift

August 5, 2015edge-to-edge, longarm quiltingchoosing quilting designs, customer quilts, longarm quilting designs, quilting for othersormondbeach

July was full of quilts & new customers & I had the opportunity to meet Amy. Amy made this beautiful quilt for a dear friend!

Amy's Gift longarmed by Ormond Beach Quilts

Made from pre-cut fabrics, this quilt came together quickly for her & my goodness it’s striking in person!

She decided to use the Ambrosia quilting design based more on the style of her friend’s home than the quilt itself, which is a brilliant idea!

Sometimes we make quilts & the quilt itself does not “scream” to have a particular quilting design, but when we think about the quilt’s recipient, we are immediately led to the perfect design.

I hope we’ve given you another tool to use when choosing your quilting design!

Betty’s Quilt of Valor

August 3, 2015edge-to-edge, longarm quilting, machine quilting, quilting for goodquilts of valor, rail fenceormondbeach

I received a request through Quilts of Valor to longarm in July where I volunteer to longarm 1 a month through the official website. For July I was paired with Betty, a piecer from Pennsylvania.

She sent me a beautiful rail fence quilt. I love how the stripes make the border pop!

Quilt of Valor longarmed by Ormond Beach Quilts

I chose the Ambrosia quilting design as I was inspired by the pattern in the cream fabric.

It’s been a wonderful pleasure to be able to support such a worthy cause!

Kay’s Cross Stitch Quilt

July 30, 2015custom quilting, longarm quiltingcross stitch, customer quilts, feathers, free motion quiltingormondbeach

Last Spring I had the privilege of custom quilting another of Kay’s cross stitch quilts.

Kay is actually a neighbor from our former neighborhood in Omaha, but we actually met during a Sit & Knit I hosted for a time. While knitting I learned that Kay had cross stitched two queen size quilts back in the 80s & 90s, but never got around to having them quilted. Lucky for her she met me 😉

I finished her beautiful gold quilt a few years ago & shortly after we moved here I got an email from her saying she found her purple quilt! She shipped it out East & last spring I got to work.

Kay's Cross Stitch quilt, custom quilted by Ormond Beach Quilts

She wanted the quilting that was pre-printed on the fabric, which was mostly gorgeous feathers.

It was so much fun to work on & came out beautifully! I love how the custom quilting really accented her hand work!

So, kudos to Kay for finishing this quilt! It will surely be loved!

Quilts from the Bluffs Fundraiser

July 27, 2015quilting for goodbaby quilts, fundraiser, quilts from the bluffsormondbeach

People always ask me if I’ll make them a baby quilt for them to buy & 90% of the time my answer is no. This is for many reasons, but since I’m not making quilts to sell, I wanted to share that Quilts from the Bluffs currently has four 36″ baby quilts for sale!

These are the cutest Dinosaur quilts with an adorable flannel backing!

They are a STEAL at $50/piece & on top of that it’s a 100% tax deduction!

If you want one of these I highly recommend emailing Jeanine at qftbluffs@gmail.com right now!

Quilts from the Bluffs is a wonderful, volunteer run ministry. They have given away over 300 quilts to date in 2015 & focus their quilts for those in need in the Omaha/Council Bluffs area. They are completely funded by donations & the sweat of their quilters. Can we help them out folks?

Tuesday Tip: Coffee Filters for Thread Bits

July 21, 2015homekeeping, Tuesday Tipcleaning, threads, tipsormondbeach

Hey! It’s a Tuesday Tip! It’s only been about 2 years since I posted one of these, but I recently discovered a great way to keep your thread bits contained.

Tuesday Tip: Use a coffee filter to keep your threads contained as you work

I used to use one of those pin cushion/thread catcher things, but you know what- those dangling thread catcher bags are at the perfect height for toddlers to pull down. Ask me know I know 😉 So now I’m terrible about just throwing threads on the ground. And since the studio is carpeted, it’s difficult to vacuum & just a mess to deal with really (but that hasn’t kept me from changing my habits any!)

I was recently given a bag of trims, etc for my classes & in there where some coffee filters. My original thought was to use them for my collage classes, but I saw them as I was about to clip a bunch of threads from a quilt that was on the longarm. Bingo! I can put all the threads in a filter & just throw the filter away!

I’ve even started using them for those tiny fabric bits that happen when you trim a bazillion half square triangles for a Bear’s Paw block 🙂

So now I wonder what else I can put in coffee filters to contain small messes.

July Do.Good Stitches Block

July 17, 2015piecing, quilting, quilting for goodbear's paw, BELIEVE do.good stitches, half square triangles, tipsormondbeach

Another month for the do.good stitches project!

July do.good stitches for the Believe Circle

This month we were asked to make Bear Paw blocks from a free pattern through the Fat Quarter Shop.

The colorway was a beautiful palette from design seeds I think? I love the programs where you can upload a photo & they give you the color scheme- it’s a great way to put together ideas for a quilt & it helps give specific guidelines when working in a group project like this one- much better than saying “yellow & gray.”

For as traditional as the Bear’s Paw block is, I think it was the first time I’ve made one! It went well & I was able to use scraps. The only thing I changed was the pattern called for you to cut 2 7/8″ squares for the Half Square Triangle “Claws” & I cut 3″ squares, then trimmed them down to a finished 2 1/2″. This is actually a huge pet peeve of mine- HST’s cut exactly at the 7/8″ line need to be sewn with a very precise scant 1/4″ seam allowance to come out perfectly- there’s no room for any error. However, if you just cut your squares 1/8″ larger to the next “whole number,” you can trim down your HSTs & pretty much ensure the HST will come out exact. Basically, cut it a little larger & give yourself space rather than stress.

Aside from that it was fun to make, but sheesh there are lots of HST’s in one block! Very glad I only had to make one!

A Quilt for Maribeth (or Lessons in Giving)

July 15, 2015custom quilting, life, longarm quilting, machine quilting, piecing, quiltinggifts, jelly rolls, Moda Bake Shop, precuts, quilting for othersormondbeach

Sometimes you start a quilt & are unaware of what it will become.

Random Reflections by Ormond Beach Quilts

I began this quilt back in 2009? 2010? I can’t remember, but it was a class sample for a class that never came to be. I used the Moda Bake Shop pattern “Random Reflections.” I pieced this at a quilting retreat in Kansas & wow, there were a lot of issues with this quilt.

For starters, I used a precut batik collection from somewhere (can’t remember exactly where, but it wasn’t a name brand.) I went ahead & just cut the white from yardage & cut 2.5″ strips. Come to find out, the precut strips where slightly larger than 2.5″ & instead of cutting new white fabric, I steamrolled through forcing the fabric to fit. (Side note here, this is bad quilting. Don’t do what I did.)

After piecing the top, I wasn’t thrilled with how it came out. It didn’t look “bad,” but it also didn’t speak to me. So it sat in the “to be quilted pile.” (which really has grown to almost hilarious levels.)

Fast forward to the summer of 2013 & I wanted to practice some custom quilting, so I dragged it out & got started. Immediately I cursed my bad piecing & honestly, I wasn’t thrilled with the quilting choices I chose. Then I found out I was pregnant & we were moving & it sat in a box. I did work on it some after we moved, but not enough to really say I made any progress on the quilt. Finally after we moved into this house & I was face to face with all my quilting projects, so I loaded it on the longarm & finished it in less than two hours one Sunday night.

I couldn’t believe it. All that procrastination & it could have been done in 2 hours! After finishing the quilting, I was in love with the quilt! It was beautiful! The binding was already prepped, so it was finished quickly. But there was a reason for the wait. At the same time, a very good friend from college mentioned that her sister was moving into her first apartment. I was down in the studio when I read this online & I turned around & saw the quilt & immediately knew this was for Maribeth. It was her colors, style, everything!

So the quilt that I was ho-hum about in the beginning turned out beautiful & has found it’s home in California. It just took six years for me to learn that wasn’t meant to be a class or a piece to show off my custom quilting- see, it wasn’t about me at all. It was meant to be loved by a 20-something in the first place she can call her own.

I wonder what more lessons I’ll learn in the pile of unfinished quilts.

Piece of Cake Dress

July 13, 2015life, random, sewinganna maria horner, clothes making, dressmaking, teapotormondbeach

Occasionally I get the urge to sew clothes. It seems to come & go in waves, so I try to pounce on it when it comes around. For me it’s about being a maker & aware of what you have & appreciating a few well made items instead of having 100 poorly made ones.

Anyways, I saw Anna Maria Horner’s “Piece of Cake” dress pattern back in the spring & fell in love with it!

Piece of Cake dress by Ormond Beach Quilts

(Confession, when I have to get some work done I’ve been known to give her a box of fabric to play in. Fabric goes everyone. It’s chaotic. We both have a great time!)

I used some cotton fabric from a big box store (honestly, Teapot grows too quickly to justify using expensive fabric) & had a great time making the dress. It’s a free downloadable pattern that came with excellent directions & required few skills/tools.

(I was trying to get a picture of the bias casing, but someone was having too much fun taking selfies!)

It was the first time for me to make a bias casing for the elastic around the neck & it came together well. I did use my serger to finish the edges, which I’m glad I did since this dress has gotten a lot of use.

The only step I didn’t follow was to make a blind hem. For some reason it wasn’t working so I just made a folded hem about 1″ from the edge. Again, it’s a dress for a baby/toddler so who really cares about the hem- as long as it’s durable, it’s fine.

(Why yes, that’s an ice pack to the side & some advertisements above her head that she was playing with while eating a cheese straw on the kitchen floor. Some days are like that around here.)

The only downside was that the pattern only goes up to 12 months! I love this dress & want to make this for Teapot again & again! (I guess I could draft a larger size, but really, that’s not going to happen. Anyone have a recommendation for a larger size pattern I can buy?)

Afternoon adventure in the sand box!

Foster Teen Quilts, Part 2

July 9, 2015edge-to-edge, life, longarm quilting, machine quilting, piecing, quilting, quilting for goodfoster teens, moms group, string blocks, string quiltsormondbeach

As promised, here’s part 2 of the Foster Teen Quilt Project! If you missed Part 1- here you go!

I wanted to take this time to share some facts about kids in the foster system while I share the four feminine quilts we made.

On any given day, there are approximately 402,000 children in the foster system in the United States.

Foster Teen quilts by Ormond Beach Quilts

The City of Alexandria on average has about 100 children in foster care. About half of the children are a part of large sibling groups, almost half are middle –school age or older.

The amount of time a child stays in foster care can vary from as little as a few days to a number of years.

The average time and Alexandria child spends in foster care is one year.

Youth who age out of the foster care system are more likely than their non–foster care peers to be involved with the criminal justice system, have low educational attainment, become pregnant, and experience homelessness.

Foster children attend an average of seven to nine different schools by age 18—80% are held back in school by the third grade. Less than half of foster youth in the nation will graduate from high school and only 2% graduate from college or higher.

Thank you for sharing in this journey. It was a wonderful experience for our moms group & an incredible joy for us to give quilts so freely to these teens.

Lastly, I want to invite you to think about how you can help foster children in your town. Get in touch with a local social worker & chat about how your skills, whatever they are, can help foster kids.

Many thanks to Kathryn Coneway for helping me photograph the quilts & Krystal Fenwick, social worker for the City of Alexandria who provided these facts. And of course, to my mom’s group for coming along on this crazy adventure with me!