Time for a teaching post...

I've been blogging so much about quilting lately, and it is my main way of recording my craft, but I had to share some great photos of our class field trip.

We're using FWS land to study salamanders, so the kids are working on elevation and vegetation studies in the pools while they're dry.  Basically, we have a surveying scope (transit?) and a 23x28 meter field.  Most of the kids end up holding a pole with centimeters marked on it so that we can measure the depth of about 200 square meters.  If you've done field studies (or really any research) before, you know there are some boring, repetitive elements.  They figured that out today!  Some of them really loved it, and I saw some great leaders emerge!

On the orientation day we saw some great wildlife and learned how to identify trees with a dichotomous key.  Here's a few highlights...I apologize for blurry pictures, I was competing with around 70 excited teenagers...and there's no winning that fight...I gave them their space and let them be excited.

A few native species clipped off by the bus...Persimmon and Paw paw

Well...at least his habitat is in focus...

Saved from underneath our tires!

 Well, I've got to go rest up...it's day 4 of field trip time tomorrow!  I can't wait for spring when the ponds fill up and we get the kids in hip waders to search for egg masses!

It's time to account for my WIPs...

It's been awhile since I've made myself a list of things in progress *deep breath* so here goes...

Quilty things in *active* progress:
1.) The bunny quilt!  It's coming along fabulously...but I've come to a standstill at the trimming and binding.  I want to practice on a few others first.

2.) The colorful baby quilt.  I could say this is one of my first quilts ever.  It's definitely the first quilt I tried to quilt on machine.  I hit some serious snags (see here), but thanks to the encouragement of UFO Sunday at The Free Motion Quilting Project, it's up and going again.  It just needs quilting around the purple squares.  THEN, I'll use it to practice binding.

Flowing lines quilting...I'm in LOVE!

3.) A charity quilt with an upcoming deadline.  Link up for 100 Quilts for Kids is looming on October 15!  I guess I should finish this one up quick!  Machine binding for this one!

Quilty things waiting in the wings: (fabric is in some stage of prep or the top is in progress)
1.) Another charity quilt...teen wonky log cabin. Love this one, but I guess it's waiting for next year.

2.) Giant Granny Panties quilt in pinks.  Fabric is washed, starched, and cut.  Ready to sew the top as soon as I cut the off-white for the border.

3.) Square root of nine quilt.  It will make a great baby quilt, but the cutting is so precise that I burned out part way through.

Lots of tiny pieces

Needs to look like the above, only that was 4 fat quarters and there's 8 to go!

4.) A fun scrappy colorful quilt (I really should come up with better names for my quilts).  Needs strips to be sewn together and the top is finished!

5.) The owl quilt.  A few more squares need machine applique then it's ready to be pieced together.  So cute, but I keep getting bored with the applique.

6.) A t-shirt quilt.  The shirts are prepped with interfacing and I bought fabric for sashing this past weekend!

7.) Quilt-as-you-go squares from the FMQ Project...lots of time to accumulate more of these.

8.) Quilted squares with animals and echo quilting.  Three done and hanging in class; three to go! (and yes, two that I'm not planning to finish any time soon...I admit it...no room to hang them)

***Oh my, I'm good at starting projects!  And I've only been doing this for a year!***

Quilts for the future (Fabric is purchased and waiting)
1.) A Christmas Sampler quilt
2.) Pink and yellow baby quilt
3.) Modern quilt in teals and oranges

Other ideas:
I'd love to make a purple and green quilt with City Block by Kitty Yoshida for Benartex.
A traditional green and red applique quilt in four blocks.

*****

Now that the list is out there in the world, I feel a bit ashamed.  Anyone else successfully winnow down a list like this?  How do you stay true to projects with no deadline?

Also...suggestions to name the poor quilts with really sad uncreative names?

*****

I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday and the Free Motion Quilt Along!  Love these two groups!  Their participants give me so much inspiration (I'd blame them for the deluge of unfinished quilts that they helped inspire...but I know it's not their fault.)

Long awaited progress on a UFO

Last September when I got seriously hooked on quilting I first finished a quilt top that I'd had in progress for over two years.  Then, because the first quilt top was large and difficult for me to imagine quilting as a first-timer, I made a baby quilt with some bright, beautiful fabrics I'd fallen in love with during a class on "Making a Quilt Sandwich."  (This class by the way was when I realized I'd need a new machine to be able to effectively machine quilt at all.)

Well, a series of problems led to this being tucked away as a UFO...
1.) The borders were attached in a stretched manner...still not sure what I did, but the borders flare so I must have cut them bigger than I needed to.
2.) I layered the batting and backing unevenly, so as I quilted outwards, some of the quilt top was no longer centered over the batting.
3.) Before I could free motion quilt, I chose a straight line pattern that required LOTS of turning...and that was just really annoying and exhausting to struggle with the quilt on the machine.  I lost lots of enthusiasm there.
4.) When I finally got started free motion quilting, I started to get thread breaks about every inch.  This led to discovering that the Inspira brand needles work great in my Janome.

5.) And then, frustrated with FMQ, and unsure of how to quilt the borders, I tried a parallel line pattern.  That was the final straw...I created all sorts of puckers.

And so it sat...until yesterday.

I completed a small patch of swirl stippling that still needed finishing. (No thread breaks!)

But that did include a frustrating mistake...seen here:

 The backing fabric folded back on itself!

Lots of ripping to fix that.  I seriously considered setting the project down again.  It seemed destined to fail. :/

Then, this morning, I spent HOURS ripping out the ten lines of quilting on the borders.

All the threads I collected as I ripped.

And finally, I started to use the Flowing Lines pattern from the FMQA #34 to quilt the edges!

Yay progress!!!  I seriously doubted it for a minute there!  Again...many thanks to Leah Day.  I'm linking up to UFO Sunday, and my question for Leah is "How do you attach borders / sashing in the most successful, least painful way possible?"  I've improved, but I still freeze up on projects that require lots of long strips sewn together.

To all my readers, I'm also curious, what color binding would YOU use for a quilt that's this colorful?

Keep on keepin' on...

Hooray for the Free Motion Quilting Project.  It's keeping me motivated to get on the machine at least once during the weekdays, even if the week's been crazy.

The chemistry unit is up and rolling, parent night is over, and so tonight, I enjoyed quilting the pointy paisley pattern!

I really struggle keeping my straight lines from curving, but I feel like it lets me practice the consistency of my stitch length a bit more than the curved line designs do.

Such a great geometric texture!

I also got some fabric in the mail.  I was going for something soft, old-timey, and neutral.  How'd I do?  Is it too boring?

Coming up for air

Oh my goodness, my exuberant confidence that my first year at this new school would be an easy transition has worn off.  Don't get me wrong, with each new day I love my students and coworkers more and more, but I'm leaving the comfortable realm of Ecology and entering Biochemistry.  It's not that I feel unable to learn, lecture, and design activities for biochem...it's keeping up with the kiddos questions.  These kids ask things like "exactly how much pressure does it take to create a fossil fuel?"  They don't accept answers like "lots of pressure, time, and heat."  So, I'm a bit worried about the level of question they'll come up with as we start chemistry.  I know a few things for sure...I'll learn (or rather, relearn) TONS of chemistry in preparation and during class, it will take lots of work to prepare, it will feel SO good once I have a plan for the unit that gels together, and I may will have to sacrifice quilting time to get my act together!

In conclusion, I'm going to celebrate every little quilting achievement and enjoy all the little bits of quilting time I glean during my breaks.

Most exciting for the week...I did manage to keep up with the Free Motion Quilting Project.  I'm so thankful for Leah's answer to my question last week.  It was about time management and inspired me to keep looking for a way to balance work, excercise, and craft in a way that works for me.  Since then, I've gotten in two nice brisk walks and a few Zumba classes...and...I have some pep in my step again!

 Here's my snake paisley.  I really like Pat's version that looks more like a flame...I'll try less wiggle next time.

Also, the bunny quilt is SLOWLY being quilted one or two blocks at a time...I'm thinking I'll do the outer border in...PAISLEY!

Happy quilting everyone!  I'm going to go quilt some sashing before grading a few papers!

My quizzes must be tough when an 80% gets this much celebration ;)

A charity quilt and lots of papers to grade...

Those are my newest things this week.  Since we're getting into the meat of things now at school, the papers are beginning to flow in, and I'm having to adjust to an A/B block system over a 4x4 block system.  I have more time to grade assignments, but I get a lot of them at once!!!  The kids continue to be great; they're tired just like me, but we're all trying really hard (and trying not to get sick!...anyone else seeing the flu pop up early this year???)

This week I'm really wondering when people do most of their sewing if they work.  Do you mainly quilt on the weekends?  Do you make sure to do a bit each night?  Anyone successfully integrating work, quilting, kids, cooking, etc...and still managing to exercise?

I've been trying to get a bit done each night, but then that turns from "a bit" into "a lot," and I'm up too late still sewing.

Anyway, the mental health break each night is wonderful...it serves me much better than watching TV.

I've started yet ANOTHER work-in-progress.  A second charity quilt for DC Modern's 100 Quilts for Kids. (Now I'm hoping I get them finished!  They may turn into Christmas donations.)

I used the wonky block tutorial links from Sewn by Leila.  That took me to Quilt Dad and I'm doing his basic wonky log cabin and a large bento block for the center.

 I think they'll really pop once they all have white borders...

I've also spent time quilting the bunny quilt.

And working on lava flow for this week's Free Motion Quilt Along.

   

I felt like I had a hard time making lava paisley look like something more than paisley done sloppily.  I think I need to make the first inner loop more wiggly somehow...

So that leaves all the other unfinished projects...
1.) the first charity quilt - needs a little more FMQ and binding
2.) the classroom echo quilting - more FMQ and binding
3.) the Hooterville quilt - a little more applique, then sewing the top...

I'd consider the hexie quilt hibernating :( along with any other quilts I was thinking of starting for myself.  But there's more time to come, and I know I'll be wanting to sew myself through stress and difficult times or just because I'm relaxing after a good day.

Hope everyone has a good day today!  I'm linking up with WIP Wednesday--check out Lee's blog at Freshly Pieced--and QED at Color Me Quilty by Pat.