No, I'm not talking about free motion (thanks for all the compliments by the way!). I'm talking about judging ourselves. Earlier last week before that serious head first dive into my first free motion project, I was expressing to Adrienne how nervous I was about it. Of course the nerves were worse because this was a gift to B's mom. I was nervous that she'd see all the flaws in my free motion. She'd notice that right *there*, my hands weren't quick enough to keep up with the machine because the stitches were so tight and close together. And then she'd spot the part where the stitches were too long because my hands were moving to slow. And THEN, she'd flip it over seeing that, oh hell, the bobbin tension became looser right here. And my WORST fear, she wouldn't be able to tell the right side (the good side -- the top thread) from the wrong side (the bobbin thread), and put it the wrong side up.. so that whenever company came over and happened to even start to compliment her on her nice place mats and table runner, they'd instantly freeze and think, "Never mind, the quilting job on this actually is really quite sloppy."

And Adrienne said to me,"Girl, we are too hard on ourselves." At the time, all I could respond with was, "Yeah, I guess so." And really didn't think anything of it until I sat down at the machine later that evening. I kicked myself and grabbed a placemat and started going at it. I was on a bit of a roll and before I knew it, I finished all 6 in one evening and then started working the table runner. And that's when my neck started screaming. We are too hard on ourselves mentally and physically.

When all was said and done, when the binding was put on and pressed, even I couldn't tell which side was the right side and which was the wrong side. It took me a few flip flops back and forth from each side to figure it out. We are too hard on ourselves.

And then I started worrying about whether she'd start to see in the inconsistencies in my quilting... how at one side of the runner, the quilting was dense, to the opposite side, the quilting became more open.

Dense

Open

And you know what, she loved it. We are too hard on ourselves.

So the down and dirty details... It was all self-drafted. The runner measured 14" x 65" and the placemats were 12" x 16". Everything was made with a half inch seam allowance. The green borders on the placemats and runner were 2 inches wide. I birthed the placemats instead of sandwiching and binding them, but I sandwiched and bound the runner. That may or may not have been the reason why I didn't have enough main fabric to make a full set of 8 placemats. Because I sandwiched and bound the runner, I had 2 extra inches of main fabric all around that eventually got covered by the binding. But this was the cleanest way I could think of to make the runner. And is the handstitching for the binding really necessary? To me, yes. It's the best, most invisible way to finish the binding. And and the end of the week, it turned out fantastic.

And just so I don't take ALL the credit for how fabulous this gift was, B picked out the fabric! He designed it, I just executed it.

So after last week's free motion experiment, I took many of your ideas and ran with it. Of course I had to up the ante and made the next free motion project a gift! There's no pressure to be perfect, really..

Give myself another reason to just why I don't need a cutting table... or do i?

Before

After

Have your body rebel against you for sitting at the sewing machine in total concentration for too long

Get your act together to finish quilting and make some big @ss bias tape

Admire your almost finished work and mentally prepare yourself for a lot of handstitching, about 160 inches worth..

Happy Friday, everyone!

doesn't mean you shouldn't make one. I got inspired today by this discussion on the flickr quilts and quilting group, especially the video in the first response. So guess what? I finally broke down and seriously did some free motion quilting practice today. mamaFasu is a proponent of not wasting anything so I had her in mind when I decided I should use my free motion practice scraps to make something. I initially started with coasters and realized that 4x4" squares aren't good to practice on. I needed something bigger to grip and control. So lo and behold...

Yes, a hot water bottle cozy. This is going straight to mamaFasu since she uses one everyday. So what did I learn? Practice definitely makes perfect. I originally started to try to do stipple stitch, but oh my lord my hands couldn't keep up. So I decided to stick with loops and figure 8s. Muuuuuuch easier and I feel like I have more control. Another tip, going a little faster helps sometimes too.

You can see here where I started getting the hang of it. The curves become smoother and the stitches are more even.

And here we've got all figure 8s all the time.

And of course, the inside.. Yes, I missed part of the bias tape. I'll fix it.

Free motion is really fun. My loops are rather tight so I think I need to practice bigger loops and figure 8s and then hopefully I can move onto stippling. But mamaFasu doesn't need another hot water bottle cozy. Any ideas for other things I can make with my free motion practice sessions?

Two things can happen when you invite friends over for a crafty day, 1.) You gossip and chit chat and realize that at the end of the day you've either severely messed up your WIP or have barely touched it all, or 2.) You get some gossip and chit chat in between furrow-browed concentration.

Today was a case of #2. (Actually, now that I think about it, #1 only happens when I invite or get invited to a crafty day OUT, like at a coffee shop or something. Every time I've had friends over, it's always been pretty darn productive.) Steph and two other friends came over today for some all day crafting. Not only did I sketch out a quilt, I cut and pieced, too. Boy am I pooped! Sad news is, I ran short of fabric and need more to make two more squares and to finish up the back. I guess this means another trip to the fabric store. That would make it three times in one month.

I've been a little smitten with quilting lately. I blame it all on flickr. I mean I could point the finger at someone, but that wouldn't be completely nice, would it (It's her. Click over. Trust me, you won't be sorry.)? I mean, she inspired this.

Hi, I'm not a Steelers fan. This was purely coincidence.

Cathedral windows, tutorial here. It's rather addicting. It's kind of a cross between origami and sewing. Anyways, this is just a swatch that I'll eventually just turn in to a pillowcase. But you can bet I've already got an idea for the real thing.

That's all for now. Apologies for lagging on the FO fashion show. Steph was supposed to help me take photos today and we got all caught up in crafting. Note to self, photo shoots precede craft time.

Have a look at this scrumptious pie as I continue to distract you with all things non-crafty. I went on a weekday baking spree last week spurred by an intensive work meeting I helped plan. We figured we could liven it up with home baked treats so obviously I volunteered. And of course it's always a bonus when you can expense your grocery bill (of course I only expensed the ingredients).

Yes, that's a super fancy, hi-tech Bounty paper towel backdrop.

Recipe: Blueberry pie with cornmeal crust

I have only three words to describe this. MAKE. THIS. PIE.

My coworker made this for the 4th and got resounding compliments all around. She made it without the lemon cream so I followed suit. Besides, I was planning on baking TWO things for the meeting, I didn't want to bother with lemon cream. So really, the crust was amazing. The cornmeal and the turbinado sugar really helps add another dimension to the flavor. And the filling, perfectly sweetened. It could very well be the blueberries, but I didn't bother tasting them beforehand so I can't really say. But really, when you're watching the darn thing burst and bubble from the other side of the oven.. the only other place you wanna be is eating it all up.. with ice cream. Yuuuum. Really, do you need make lemon cream if all that it trully begs for is the simplest of pleasures? Some really good vanilla ice cream? Doubt it.

I realize I say this a lot, especially given that I say this a lot about food I've never made or even ate, but I think this is going to be my blueberry pie recipe of choice. And the coworkers, yes I think they enjoyed it, a lot. I'm hoping that this very last piece of pie that was left at the end of the meeting was because people were shy and didn't want to be that person.. you know, the one that ate the very last piece of pie. But a latecomer snatched it up. She said it was calling her name.. but really, I think it might have been calling mine.

Eat me!

And and for the grand finale, chocolate cupcakes with swiss meringue buttercream. I was finally able to conquer the Martha Stewart Swiss Buttercream recipe. I had attempted her swiss meringue buttercream recipe a few months ago and failed miserably! This time around I had already executed one successful buttercream recipe from the King Arthur's Whole Grain cookbook (unblogged) and was convinced I could do it again.

Recipe: One bowl chocolate cupcakes with swiss meringue buttercream, Marthat Stewart's Baking Handbook

The chocolate cupcakes were pretty good. What I've noticed to date is that chocolate cupcakes made with oil rather than a butter are a lot moister but lack a lot of structure. The cake pulls apart easily which isn't a bad thing, but for certain recipes, it's also not a good thing (hi-hats for example -- what's a hi-hat you ask, good question. You will find out soon).

Now the buttercream.. OH, the buttercream. It was creamy, milky and sweet, reminiscent of the frosting that accompanies the Magnolia Red Velvet cake (another one of my favorite frostings). The first buttercream recipe I made tasted like the buttercream of my childhood that I really didn't like. The kind that came on birthday cakes that really didn't taste like anything. Really, now that I think about it, it tastes like butter. This one does not taste like butter. Is it a far stretch for me to say it tastes like heaven? It tastes like heaven.. in a frosting.

So where did my first attempt at this recipe breakdown? Impatience and also naivete. I didn't allow the sugar and egg white mixture too cool down enough before adding the butter. The mixer bowl needs to be almost room temperature, mine was a little warmer, but it definitely can't be hot. Thanks to an episode of Good Eats, I was properly schooled on this (you gotta love Alton Brown). Even with one successful recipe under my belt, I was a bit skeptical as I was making this, you know, with all the Martha recipe failures I've been having as of late. But you really do have to be patient. I added the butter in one tablespoon at a time and waited until each was fully incorporated til I added the next. The buttercream really didn't start coming together until I had only a few tablespoons left. Then you hear the magic. The sound of the mixture all of a suddent starts to change and before you know it.. you've got silky smooth buttercream.

Great, now I'm craving a cupcake.