Celebrate and let it go

Sometimes things sneak up on you and you've reached a milestone that you hadn't even thought to notice. For me, it's not just sometimes, it's most times that I don't recognize a milestone.

My DH and I are both blessed with weak memories, so we never fight about forgotten anniversaries. Almost. A couple of years ago, we agreed to exchange birthday gifts, which we don't normally bother with anymore. I planned a nice gift for him, and had it ready to go. My birthday comes first, and I was really looking forward to a nice present, something thoughtful. Do you know what I got?

Nothing. I was quite disappointed, but still had a gift for him, so a few days later, I gave him his gift and we let it go. Some things you just have to choose to let go and move on with life.

Other things you should try to remember. I keep a design book because I want to remember what I've been working on with my sewing. It also helps me to organize my thoughts when I'm writing a pattern.

My Tokyo Subway suburb quilt is in a teeny-tiny, eensy-weensy quilt show (display?) at a local shop. It hadn't occurred to me to acknowledge that it's the first quilt I ever showed, but during some chitchat with Birgit and Tina, it occurred to me to say, "Yeah! my quilt will be on display for that whole teeny-tiny, eensy-weensy audience to see."

So, Yay for me!

Now let it go, Karen, and get on with life.

There will be no TV watching tonight, only quilt admiration

Done, done, done, done, done, done, DONE!!!!!

Now I'm in that manic-depressive state of

YAY!! It's done and I'm so proud of it!!! 

 and

OMG, how could I have made so many mistakes? How will I ever show it to anyone?

 
I'm constantly pushing my thoughts to the Yay side, but the dark side keeps coming up. How do you all deal with that?
My choice for today is to love my quilt, be proud of my finished product, and give myself some consolation by going to my sewing room and sewing some small squares to prove to myself that I can actually sew straight.
For my label, I took some really old Tshirt transfer paper, created a label in PowerPoint, and ironed it to a piece of muslin. Don't like the feel of the transfer on the muslin, but I have yet to try printing directly to fabric. Don't even know what I should apply to the printed fabric to make the ink permanent. Lots to learn and try.
But mostly, it's love love love my new quilt. It will hang on a wall, either in the foyer (German: Windfang - love that word), or on the staircase. I love the quilting pattern - I put three lines through each square, and none on the seams. It reminds me of the real subway, with the two normal rails, and that dangerous electrified "third rail."

Tokyo Subway Basted and Quilted

One step after the other. Now the quilt is basted and quilted. I followed Oh Fransson's plan and put 3 rows of quilting through every column. Nice and straightforward, even though I notice I'm not particularly interested in perfectly parallel rows. Na ja. Done is better than perfect. Still to come are label and sleeve and binding.

Tokyo Subway Suburb top, ironed

'Nuff said. Looks much better ironed. This weekend I hope to start quilting, with the same channels Oh Fransson! used.

Tokyo Subway Top FINISHED!!!

After a week of doing other things, I got back to my Tokyo subway suburb quilt today. And I finished the top!!!! Yay!!! A finished top - it's about time, as I'd hoped to finish it last weekend.
But it's done done done, and now it's time to iron and quilt it.
I am very happy to have finished it.
Here is a picture - I just tossed the top onto the sofa and made a quick snapshot. Tomorrow it will look better.

Tokyo Subway Suburb progress

Fantastic progress made this weekend!! I finished 15 out of 16 blocks, and would have finished the the last one, if it hadn't been for that silly need for sleep and a broken needle while my husband was standing there, ready to leave.
There are still some corrections to make (a couple of squares are disturbingly misaligned), and I've got to sew the blocks together, but I am still very proud of progress so far.
Here are photos of the first 8 blocks and I'll post all 16 as soon as the last one is done.

Tokyo Subway - Block B1 done

Now there are two blocks done. I laid out the whole top row, in order to see how well my scraps came out color-wise. So far, I'm quite happy with the purple, but not so much with the orange. Working on this quilt has shown me some places in which my stash is weak, namely in the orange.
But when I put both of these blocks side by side, it looks nice - I am very satisfied with Oh Franssons! design. And it's easy to put together. The technique I'm using to align the small squares is a non-locking technique, in which the seams are pressed open. Before sewing strips together, I only finger-press, and don't use an iron until a block is done.
I've had lots of success in the past using the locking technique, but I decided to try opening the seams instead and pinning the seams exactly together.
When I do the pinned open seams technique, it shows me immediately where one seam is slightly too wide or too narrow. When I trusted the locking technique I found it easier to ignore slight misadjustments. In engineering, we have a technique of manufacturing called Poke-a-Yoke, in which the assembly method prevents errors. The open pinned seams technique is my quilting Poke-a-Yoke, since it makes it harder for me to make an error.
What's that I heard you say? That the problem is not in the locking or open-seam technique? That the real problem is that I used to ignore little mislignments rather than fix them immediately? Sorry, I choose to be in denial about that (puts hands over ears and sings LALALALALA in a loud voice.)

Tokyo Subway Quilt: My Suburb

All the pieces have been cut, and I laid out the first blocks. Then I decided to stay up a bit late last night and put together the first block. It went very well, especially when I used a technique I read about recently that said to NOT iron the rows before sewing rows together, but just to align the seams. Out of a 5x5 grid, I only went back and tweaked one seam, yet I am quite pleased with the results.
On the pattern, I've laid out numbers for each block. A1 is the block I finished last night.

Here is my finished block and B1, C1 and D1 laid out. I'm struggling a little with the orange colors, but I decided that it's a scrap quilt, so they can stay whatever they currently are.

Block A1

Blocks B1 and C1

Block D1

My Tokyo Subway design

Here's my design, as compared to Oh Fransson's full quilt. As mentioned earlier, I'm only going to make a quarter of the quilt, because that's more manageable for me. I used Excel as my grid, then filled in the color corresponding to the colors in the original quilt. I may still make some color changes, based on what is in my stash.
I chose which quarter to make (lower right quadrant) and started cutting fabric.
This picture compares my design to the quadrant of Oh Franssons! quilt that I wanted to make.

Then I started cutting fabric. I've got around half of the colored fabric cut, but none of the white. It wasn't easy to start cutting into some of my whole pieces, but I took a deep breath and cut away. I'm also not sure how much I like the ratio of patterned squares to solid squares, so I might use more solid. We'll see.
At first I was cutting the exact number of squares, but now I'm just cutting a 2 1/2 inch strip and making squares out of all of it. The rest will go into my Bonnie Hunter Scrappy Irish Chain project.

My LQS and Oh Fransson! seduce me into changing my plans

I keep a handful of projects in the pipeline at all times. Short term, I have/am working on:

• GFG handquilting
• quilting table tote bag
• scraps for a Bonnie Hunter Triple Irish Chain
• BOM for the guild and flying geese
• Coins quilt ready to be sandwiched and machine quilted
• piecing my mystery from 2010
• all of the requests for clothing from my daughter

There are also several other projects waiting their turn. I'm fairly consistent about pushing new ideas to the back of the queue, because I prefer to follow the rule of FIFO (First In, First Out).
But yesterday, my evilly wonderful LQS owner sent me a link to Oh Fransson! and her new Tokyo Subway quilt-along. I was immediately taken, and even hours later was still scheming how I could fit that quilt into my list, even moving it to the top of the queue.
After many hours of contemplation, I decided to give in, especially when, at the advice of my LQS, I shopped my stash and found that I have enough fabrics to get started immediately.
40 by 40 2 inch squares is too big to fit into my schedule, so I'm starting with just a quarter. The lower right quadrant has almost all the colors, so that's where I am starting.
Then I noticed that I did not care for the long strip of bright color at the top edge, so I adjusted the size. Instead of choosing the lower right 20 squares by 20 squares, I'm choosing 21 squares tall by 19 squares wide. That is more pleasing to me. Fine, it doesn't follow the golden proportion, but that's life.
Next I have to lay out what I'll need to cut and get my squares lined up. Look for pictures to come, and keep your eyes on Oh Fransson! Flickr stream for photos of other people's projects.