WIP wednesday

Imagine that.  I'm here on a Wednesday AND I've got WIPs to post.  Shocking, right?

Wait, you probably can't see that for the cat, right?

First, we'll start out with what I found when we cleaned the garage to move.  I found these:

An old stack and slash from a class I took years ago.  I'm not sure I'm fond of the colours now, but I'll still finish it.  Funny story, I though the quilt top was long lost, so I used the backing I'd bought for it as well as the varigated thread I picked up for the quilting.  Oh well, more shopping for me, right?

A yellow brick road quilt.  I apologize for the quality of this picture.  Ideally it would've been taken in much better light and not on my living room carpet.  However, we were having ridiculous winds that day (ahhhh Chinooks) and outdoors was not a feasible option.  I'll be finishing this up as a baby quilt for a friend.

This is a lap quilt I made at the quilt retreat in the spring.  It was much quicker than I thought it would be - once I got it laid out.  It was random fat quarters from my stash and I bought yardage for the border and the background bits.

And finally, some Christmas stars.  I also finished this up at the quilt retreat in the spring. 

So as you can see, I have a lot of quilt sandwiches to make and quilting to complete.  Can you tell that's my not favorite part of the process?  But at least they're all smaller and therefore easier to work with on my home sewing machine.

Finally - my FINISHED postage stamp quilt

I started this as part of P.S. I Quilt's postage stamp quilt-along.  If you followed that link, you'll see that it started in January.  Granted, January 2011 so I'm finishing it within a year but still.

I had it quilted by a long arm quilter.  The pattern is made up of dragonflies and loops. She did a fantastic job!

An explanation and some geese

I started posting again in early October.  Then we moved.  I'm just now kind of getting settled.  I say settled because neither my husband nor I have our computers set up.  In fact, I took pictures of some of my quilts last week, but I was unable to upload the pictures because the cable for the camera was in this this pile:

Turns out, it wasn't exactly in That pile.  It was off to the left of the picture, under the paper?  There was another similar pile of cables.  Yup, we're organized like that.  There are all nicely wound up though, aren't they?

My computer is actually set up.  The problem?  The room it's set up in doesn't have any connection to the internet.  So I'm using my laptop which isn't a problem at all - I'm using it for work anyway.  I'm just a creature of habit and my habit is to blog from my desktop.  I wish I had a better explanation for that. 

I have taken some pictures with my phone that I'll share with you.  On the labour day weekend, I had a mini quilt retreat with my Mom.

I made geese.

A lot of geese.  And this is only a small portion of what I'll need for the entire quilt.  I think I need 12 strips?  43 geese per strip...



This project all started with a ridiculous piece of fabric from my grandmother's stash.  Mom inherited it and we looked at it and couldn't even figure out what the pattern was supposed to be. 

That fabric at the bottom of the picture?  That's what started it all.  Is that pineapples?  Airplanes?  Trees?  WHAT???

Regardless, it started a search in an effort to save it.  All of the fabric for this quilt is from my stash and Mom's stash, with the majority of it (I believe) coming from Grandma's stash.  It's going to be a twin size when it's done and it will use almost all of the ugly ugly fabric.  woo hoo.

So. Friday is my day off.  What should I do on my day off?  Work on the geese?  Move the computers to their ultimate destination and get them all set up?  Go thrift store shopping for fabric or stuff for the house?  Finally hit the quilt store in town?

Up tomorrow?  Some quilts I finally found in the move, and I finally finished my postage stamp quilt.  Yay me.  There WILL be pictures (finally!)

Stop tasting the rainbow already!

As you've probably seen by my past quilt projects, I'm a bit colourful.  I mean, take this for example:

That's what I usually do.  Which is why since I first saw In Color Order's monochrome project it got me thinking.

And thinking.

And thinking some more.  At some point it even morphed into my own idea.  I was all, "hey, that'd be a great challenge!"  This, my friends, is what happens when I skim stuff at work.  It blends into the background noise in my head only to pop out later as MY IDEA.

Then, surfing google reader again at a later date, I see the button and the blog and think - oh  right.  Not my idea.  But a fantastic idea nonetheless.  And certainly a challenge I need to undertake.

Because a house can only handle so much of this

Which looks much better in small doses:

I think the chair also highlights my problem quite well.  As well as the multicoloured cat...

So.  Project Monochrome.

For inspiration, I started at design seeds.  Particularly since I can't sew anything right now.  Which reminds me, I need to call my mother and ask her to bring me my quilting stuff.  Enough is enough. And it's not that she's stolen it or hijacked it or anything.  She's simply storing it while my husband and I make the move from Edmonton where we currently live to Calgary.  It was just easier to not have that additional "clutter" in the house while trying to sell it.

So, back to design seeds.  Do you know how hard it is to settle on a monochrome palette?  I like these for now, but must definitely spend more time with Design Seeds

And I know, that last one isn't exactly monochrome.  Baby steps, people.  BABY STEPS.

Ahhhh Christmas

It's that time of year again and I'm getting itchy to create stuff.  Unfortunately my sewing machine is in Saskatchewan and my fabric is all in boxes.  That said, I'm not opposed to a little Christmas shopping.

And Lily's Quilts is helping out with that.

Go, check it out and register for her giveaway!

What is a Domestic Moose?

Today over at Sweet as Cinnamon, she wants to know about your (and my) blog names and you could win a moda charm pack for answering.  (Also, HI!  I'm back after a really busy summer and will soon have pictures and an update from the quilt retreat way back in May.  Once I find my camera - we're moving and everything is kind of in boxes.)

Anyway, back to the current blog post - what is my blog name and why. 

A few years ago, I signed up for a wedding website.  My usual online names were taken so I had to find something new.  I tried again and again for something that wouldn't force me to remember a series of numbers - because I just won't.  Finally, I stopped and stared at my wall - which conveniently had a calendar on it.

The picture was a moose.  Wading.  Voila - wadingmoose was born.  I got to be known by that in a couple of online locations and made some pretty good friendships.  When I started my quilt blog, I wanted to keep the moose and just replaced Wading with Domestic because that's what the blog would be about - my domestic side.

Strangely enough, it's still a name that was available.  I can't imagine why!

Packed for quilt retreat

Packed for quilt retreat, a photo by wading moose on Flickr.

Off for the weekend to a quilt retreat. Here's my IKEA box packed up with three projects, a fat quarter for the giveaway and just a bit of thread.

I do realize that three projects is a bit ambitious. To be honest, I've got three and I haven't a clue what I want to work on so there ya go.

I wanted to pack my scrap basket as well, but I've convinced myself not to.

Here's what I'll be working on.

12+2=Q from Oh Fransson!

A Christmas Hunter's Star

I need to move some of the gold around a bit, there will be a 2" red border and a 4" green border added to this.  Just need to sew up the blocks and add the borders.

And finally Two of a Kind

Everything is cut out.  This is going to be the bulk of my sewing for the weekend, I'm sure.

All of that is folded up into a box from IKEA in that first picture.  Each project has it's own bag and the pattern or the magazine is underneath.  I feel so organized which means I'm going to forget SOMETHING important.

First stop tomorrow is a quilt shop to pick up a chocolate solid to finish off the Oh Fransson pattern.  Then off I go.