Late post

School has been busy these last few weeks an has let me with little time to post anything. I am current working on a keep sake quilting walhangiing, so far the kit is better than I expected for the price.

This week I am just showing a simple tee shirt quilt. If my tee-shirts don't give you the hint I will admit to being slightly geeky. The quilt it self was very easy, I bel live the pattern I used is called turning 20 but I will double check. Around some nice mesh stabilizer that worked great with out adding to much weight.

Really fun to do and fits my bed wonderfully. 

Pillow fun and broken 1/4" foot

While sewing a last night my very loved plastic 1/4" foot cracked down the side. Causing the removal of one of tongs. I have since then ordered a metal foot in the hopes it will hold up better than the plastic on that comes machines.

As for a project this week I have been on pillow fun, I love seasonal bed spreads. Quilts, shams, pillows, and whatnot.
So I began, with some 13" pillow cases for my center pieces.

The hobbit one is for a friend in the hospital. She goin the sewing on deviant art and I digitized it. I will post the name of the artist once I find it.

New Nancy and the First Week of School

So I have official finished my first week back at school. An damn those night classes get me, I guess thanks for high caffeine drinks.

Well this week I am posting some pictures on the re-done Nancy. The story behind Nancy is no a strange tell. My father in my youth frequently moved due to his work, our first move was when I had just recently turned two as well as my first memory. My grandmother was very distort about my fathers and me leaving. She believed that we would not come back, that he would remain over seas. An to a point he did, but on our last outing before I left I cam across a simple plush rabbit in a pilgrim dress. Of course like a good grandmother, she quickly bought it, and I had her named before she received her change.

Nancy was my traveling companion for year, this doll has been more places than most people have. From the islands of Hawaii, Guam, Japan, to the cold climates of China, Russia, even the regal country houses of Europe.
Well a few days ago I notice that poor old Nancy was smelling, with further inspection I notice that there was mold growing on her dress. Deciding to make a new dress I removed the mold dress only to notice that it wasn't just the dress. After some time it turned out that old Nancy was more mold than doll now. As sad as it was, I needed to fix her up. Although most of Nancy went in the trash, but some small bits of the original remain, eyes, and few of the trimmings, after a bid in some bleach.

Pop Art

So I have a membership for a year in a embroidery club, thanks to a loving family member. All I can say is I was super excited when I opened last month packet to find Anita Goodesign Pop Art. For those who don't know Anita Goodesign and have an embroidery machine I would recommend checking her out. I have found quite a few odd-ball designs for fun out-of the box quilts.

Tu es l'amour de ma vie

This quilt over all was not as bad as other embroidery quilts I have done. It has a very nice stain stitch, that is very flexible to size changes. You can easily break the 10% with out having stretched stitches, or wholes in your stitches. This allowed quilt to fall more evenly with out to many stiff areas. Although through my experience I have yet to find a project of this serious of embroidery that doesn't have stiff spots. I have heard that using metallic thread helps but I have yet to try it.

There were a few down sides. I found was that the pattern even at the largest size was still on the small end for what I wanted to do. With her set sizes and suggest lay out will leave you at about a twin to a full in size. I had to go in a altered all the patterns I used. I also found has a bit of an off stitch out. The programing was made in mind that the only people making this are doing it backing, batting all in one. It took a bit of jumping between sections to do a straight stitch out.

Other than those few hiccups it was a pretty easy quilt. Just get ready for a long stitch time. The out line on average took about an hour to hour and a half. The entire blocks took about 3 hours. An this is not one of the patterns you can leave and come back to, it has quite a bit a involvement for the embroider.

    While quilting this I used all variegated threads. Although you can't really see it that well. It was also my first time working with an all cotton thread. It didn't seem to lint as much as the treads I have used. Which was wonderful when cleaning out the bobbin, and was nice when going over the black areas.

I ended it about 4" greater that a full

I would like to say that this would be my last big quilt project till school brakes. But that isn't happening as I look at my to-do list:
Civil War
Cowboy
Fairies
Etc...

Till next week.

Spare time computer case

With school starting soon I decide to throw together a real quick computer case.

On this note I rounded up some left o we quilt backing an started. It's nothing more than 13.5 inch pieces of fabric sewn wrong side to wrong side. But still pretty cute.

I am still thinking about what I want to use as a closing. 

First Quilt Hell

Although my sewing experience comes from a young age, I have never really made what most would call a quilt. I have of course done fleece tie quilts and simple cuddle on cuddle quilts but nothing with real piecing. 

So my bright idea for my first ever piecing quilt was why not super hero honey comb. The great evil of y-seams seemed like an over statement from the ladies at the quilting store. So I garbed my fabric and started off. In hind sight I do have to ask why the hell was I thinking back in 2010. Should have just done a block one an moved up. But no I am too stubborn for even my own mind.

 For those of you who are new and are thinking about y-seams. A y-seams is where you insert another piece of fabric between two other pieces that are already sewing together. An eight pointed star, texas start, and of course the honey comb are your standard y-seam quilts.
I would recommend checking out this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLkHfcuNzCA It should give you a good place to start if you are not sure how to start out.

The y-seam before sewing

Or you can just run a out to your nearest Joanns or quilt store and get the fusible template. It is some much easier.
If you decide to follow in my footsteps, I will let you know this it is a error and error process you just keep screwing with it till it is how you like it. I don't think I have ever heard a beginner that was super happy with their y-seams. I did find through my unpicking and resewing leaving about 1/4 inch at the end of your y-seams keeps from puckering with piecing. You can fix these holes after you get your top done and before you place in on you longarm or frames.

Although I did still have a little puckering, I fixed this by using extra batting and some cheat ways for hiding my mistakes. The batting added a little extra poof to pull the

 fabric a little tighter, then I used in the some fun comic sans lettering to hide the issues.

For those who do their own quilting on a sewing machine or a longarm. Keep in mind your stretch will increase, not but much, just watch yourself.

To finish this I added some fun rusty orange colored cuddle to the back. I love cuddle if your making any kind of lazy around the house quilt, you need to try cuddle.
Don't listen to the people, it is not hard to quilt, sewing, or even tie with. Just make sure you double check your stretch. Put your stretch on the outside.

As just a fun add on it was not till after I finished binding did I notice that all the characters were avengers.

I hope you enjoyed my first post and will be updating weekly.

Introduction Junction

Introduction junction whats your function. Okay silly and most likely horribly over used, but I had to. It makes my inner child who vaguely listened to singing bills and large train conductors while the teacher tried to make english interesting happy.

As one who just skimmed over the blog title you can guess I am Lauren and this is my blog.  I hope to use this to post design and crafts that I do with my time. Please understand that any of the comments I make on the projects are mine andI so far I have never really been right. So if you have other ways or ways you used that work better please comment.

I quick little note on me:
Till the age 12, I was a frequent traveler and a ex-pat. Thanks to my fathers job and unwillingness to sit still for longer than 3 seconds. Till he forcefully settled down in the great happy valley of Utah. As a note I do really love Utah and living here, but there is a defiant bubble effect here.
I am a graduate from Souther Utah University with a Biology/Zoology degree. Although I love the subjects, I don't really love the majority of the jobs that come with it. This has lead me to return for a second degree in Entrainment Arts and Engineering. Here hoping I can find something that I can enjoy and make decent money at.
I have been sewing, knitting, crochet, candies, and various other projects since I was 10. This is all thanks to my great grandmother and my grandmother.

I love comics, causal gaming, sewing, and cooking as long as it is not rice crispy.

I thank all the accidental clickers, interested parties, and random family members who will pull my leg about this.