Round and Round

Remember this piano stool?

I got it so I could have an adjustable seat when I'm sewing. Well, now it looks like this:

My husband, aka Eldin the painter (more about that here), painted it to match some other things in the sewing room, and I set out to make a new cover for the cushion. Awhile back I saw one of those videos that was making the rounds on the internet of a person drawing a design with repeated straight lines that turned into curves. What do you call that design? I was thinking of Spirograph or Magic Designer (remember those old drawing toys?) but it's not really made like those, and it's not really like Zentangle either, although it could be used as part of one. Anyway, I decided I wanted to do it in quilting with my walking foot. 

Here's my work near the beginning of the quilting:

First, I drew a hexagon with a protractor on a piece of fabric, layered the piece with batting and a backing, and sewed one line of stitching along the hexagon. Then I "drew" a few lines at a time with a ruler and followed them with my walking foot. If you look closely, you can see one of the lines on the left side of the hexagon in the middle. I was going to use my hera marker to draw, but it's kind of wearing out and doesn't make a sharp line anymore, so I used a bamboo skewer instead. It worked great!

Here's the order of stitching (please excuse really bad drawing): 

And I just kept going round and round until I reached the middle. My hexagon turned into a pentagon at the end, but I don't mind. Then, to fill out the rest of the space I quilted some scallops around the hexagon, and because I couldn't leave well enough alone, I added a wonky FMQ flower in the middle and some better FMQ flowers around the scallop. I trimmed the piece into a big circle, stitched the edges into a casing, and threaded a scrap piece of elastic through. Voila! Slipcover all done!

And it's even reversible to a kind of yellowish green on the back, although the bobbin thread is thinner and not as nice.

This whole project cost nothing (except for the old stool). All the materials were in my stash. I love that. I sat on the stool while I was treadling, and it was so comfortable having my elbows up to the right height. Fun to spin the stool round and round, too!

Speaking of before and after, remember this "before?"

Now my closet looks like this!!

I'm not quite done, but what a difference. And--true confession--I haven't sorted and tossed out/donated any fabrics yet. Maybe I won't need to. There's plenty of room in those bins. I'll show more pictures when I'm all done so you can see the left and right sides of the closet, too. Those bins were quite a find. They are a little smaller than the ones you usually find for cube storage so they fit just right on the bookcases. They came in lots of bright colors, but these golden yellow ones were cheaper than some of the other colors. They look great with my green carpet and with the decor of the bedroom (with some sunflower themed stuff from years gone by). The paint on the shorter bookcase and a little chest that you can't see here is leftover from our living room in our old house. It was still in good condition (after probably 25 years!) and a yummy "country cream" color that I'm thinking I'll need to match in new paint for the walls in the bedroom sometime. (Eldin hears me calling him for another paint project!) It's the kind of color that makes me think of butter mints that used to come in nut cups at weddings years ago. Yum!

Well, time to get back to work. I have a quilt top to finish. But I just have to leave you with a couple of spring pictures. Our ancient tulips are still coming up--and blooming!

I'm linking up today with Freemotion by the River for Linky Tuesday (yeah, I know I'm a day late) and with Sew Fresh Quilts for Let's Bee Social. Click the links to their websites or click on their buttons on the right.

Have a good week and enjoy your befores and afters.

Mid-week Randoms

First of all, I have a finish. But I can't show you yet. Okay, I'll just show the corners. 

The flowers and wider binding (more on that later) are on the back.

I want to get some good pictures outside, but the weather has been abominable here--wind, rain, sleet, snow. Typical Midwest spring. Maybe by Friday--otherwise next week. Anyway, the Big Quilt is finished. I didn't even jump up and down when I put the last stitch in the binding last night. I seem to have tweaked something in my back, maybe from all the repetitive sewing motion and sitting in too soft a chair. So I mostly just sighed, smiled and adjusted the heating pad. 

Now my mind is full of Nexts. I know I'll get back to the Lake Michigan quilt, but I need something else to work on. I have these charm square bundles set aside for a donation quilt (or maybe two). The fabrics are not my current style, but I think they would appeal to someone who likes antique-looking fabrics.

How I got them is a fun little story. I'll share it when I get going on a quilt. I have a plan for the quilt already. 

I also planned a little quilt for that bundle of fabric I won a few weeks ago. 

Hexagons! Yes, me, even though I said I was kind of tired of seeing them. I've never made a hexagon quilt, and I certainly don't plan to do EPP--that's just not for me. I'm going to make the biggest hexagons I can to maximize what I can cut from fat quarters (I'm thinking four per quarter?) and then I'm going to machine piece them. I bought a few coordinating fat quarters and I might also supplement with some solids. 

Speaking of antiques, we did a little antiquing last week, and I found this piano stool: 

Really, I had my pick of four in the antique mall.Two were totally refinished wood and super expensive. One was off white and a little wobbly. This one had some chipped paint on it, but it was sturdy and just right for my wallet.  I had been looking for one for a few weeks to replace a desk chair I use when I'm sewing. The desk chair, even with a pillow on it, is just a little too low. I knew that a piano stool could be adjusted to just the right height. (Yes, I'm Goldilocks.) I had thought of changing the color from black to dark brown, but then I decided to have a little more fun. I noticed that I have a few pops of chartreuse in my living room (where I do a lot of sewing) and my guest room (where I machine quilt). So chartreuse it will be. Those claw feet on the glass balls still freak me out a bit, but I'll get used to them. And they'll be friendlier in green. My husband has already sanded the stool, and when the weather warms up a bit, he'll spray it with paint we already have on hand. The little toile seat cover is cute (and comfy), but it doesn't really fit my style, so I will make a slipcover. I already have a plan. (Can you tell I had a lot of time for making plans while I put that binding on?)

Finally, you might be wondering how the great clean-up is going. (Or maybe not, but I'll tell you anyway.) I am pleased to say that I have over 286 magazines (yes, I counted them, and there are a few others lying around that I plan to toss) and at least 19 binders ready to recycle or donate. What magazines are left easily fit into just three binders. It was hard to do, but I set myself some rules and stuck to them. I paged through each magazine and only kept it if it had a pattern I had used, a picture of a quilt that directly influenced a quilt I made or had an article about my favorite quilt artist or a few other specific quilters. As I suspected, it was easiest to go backwards through time. I'm less emotionally attached to the newest magazines--plus, I can find much of that material online. Most of the magazines I kept were the oldest. There were lots of articles with methods, calculations, and tutorials or styles of quilts, but I just kept telling myself that I could find that information online if I looked a little. It was at times a rather somber task. There were so many quilters that I admired when I first started quilting that are no longer with us. And there were others I didn't know of, but I wonder what became of them and their quilts. It was interesting to get a quick history of quilting over the last 30-some years. I particularly noticed the cycles of quilting, and the connections between what we think of as vintage and modern. I had a lot of emotions which I really should try to sort out and write about someday. But the task is done now, and I have about 50 inches of "new" shelf space in my closet. I'm still sorting things out, but I have to admit that my fabric stash is still the elephant in the room. That will probably be the last thing I work on. Meanwhile, I'm thinking about how I might want to store what's left. I think there will be two more painting projects in my husband's future so I can at least streamline the look of the storage units. 

I'm linking up today with Sew Fresh Quilts for Let's Bee Social. And tomorrow, look for my Throwback Thursday post. Until then, I hope you are happy planning something.