November UFO

It's DONE!  This poor little feathered star has been in my sewing room since 2006, I think.  It was a summer challenge at quilt guild - create a star (any star) using 2 provided fabrics and any others you wanted.  For some odd reason, I wanted to make a feathered star - it seemed like a fun challenge  Silly me, being new to the whole quilting scene still, did not realize that feathered stars are generally made quite large.  The challenge was a 12" block.  So when I couldn't dig up a pattern on-line for a 12" feathered star, I drafted my own.

Those feathers are really tiny! This block was made as a practice block. I thought it best to try out the pattern, before cutting into the challenge fabrics.  So I pulled some fabric from my (small at the time) collection, and got to work.  Once it was done, I had the courage to make the real block, and this poor little fella was stuffed onto the shelves, and long ignored.  Thanks to Judy's UFO challenge, it is now a completed quiltie, ready for donation to the local children's hospital.

The quilting is a combination of feathers, meander, and straight line quilting (in the border).  I'm getting braver with my quilting these days.

Cari is showing off the backing fabric.  I picked up a lovely bright yellow print on my last stash building trip, and it seemed just right for this colourful star.

This is the actual challenge block I made, way back then.  It won the challenge and then became the center of the quilt made from all of the challenge blocks.

November BOM

November's block of the month came out on Friday. I was away for the weekend, so I didn't get a chance to work on it until yesterday.  Fortunately, these blocks are pretty quick assembly, and I have my 3rd BOM done and up on my wall.

I wasn't sure about this block at first, but seeing it up with the others, I think this quilt is coming together nicely.

Check out more blocks over at Canton Village Quilt Works.

Design Wall Monday - Nov 28

I don't have anything new on my design wall.  Still the same three projects on the go.

The black and white - I finished it Thursday except the binding.  I'll get that done over the next couple of days.

The Monday Mystery - all caught up, and waiting to see what's next.  I think I know where it's going, and I'm already planning some extra blocks so I can turn this into a quiltie for donation.

Orca Bay - finished 180 blocks.  44 to go, and I still haven't looked up this week's clue.  It came out on Friday, but I was away all weekend, and haven't gone blog hopping over there yet.  That'll happen this week for sure, but I really want to finish both my November projects first.

And as for why I wasn't quilting this weekend - I spent the weekend at a dance competition.  I started taking ballroom dance lessons three years ago.  I had been to a social dance, and every partner I danced with accused me of leading.  One went so far as to say "Ok, you lead, I'll follow".  I was quite embarrassed, and decided it was time to take some lessons.  I told them that I had a simple desire - to learn how to follow. A few lessons in, and I was completely hooked.  I'm well past the point where people accuse me of leading :) but I discovered that I love dancing, and I've continued lessons ever since.  This year I drummed up the courage to attend the annual competition in Niagara Falls.  It was a fabulous weekend that involved a lot of dancing and very little sleeping :)

This is a picture of me and my instructor, from the practice party at the studio last week.  I'm waiting to see what pictures came back from the competition.

Stash Report - Nov 27

1 3/4 yards - 224 QST for Bonnie's Mystery, step 1
1 yard - backing & binding for black & white quilt
1 1/2 yards - Monday Mystery
Total: 4 1/4 yards out

Hey, that looks great!  I'm back in the black, since all I needed was one yard.  However, on Wednesday I went shopping.  4 3/4 yards in (oops).  I was having a bad day, so I dropped by the quilt shop.  Big mistake.  So much for the black.   I'm an additional 1/2 yard in the red instead.

Stash Totals for this year:
Overall, 104.5 yards in, 103.0 yards out
Net for the year:  1.5 yards in

The good news is that I broke the 100 yards used mark for the year.  And I'm still confident I can pull the net used back into the black.  Bonnie's mystery should help with that.  If I can just stay out of the quilt shop...

Almost Done!

I finished quilting the black and white quilt Thursday night.  I chose an overall meander for the quilting, because I thought all the angles in the quilt blocks needed curves to soften it a bit.  You can't really see the quilting in this picture - hopefully I can get some better pics once the binding is on. 

In the red patches, I did some detailed quilting with red thread, to add interest and highlight those blocks.

Binding will have to wait until Monday, when I'm back from my trip. I was planning black binding, but looking at the quilt I'm having second thoughts.  So, what do you think - black, or one (or several) of the black & white prints, for a scrappy binding?

A Quilter's Journey - Irish Chain

I liked the Irish Chain pattern and as I grew in my quilting, I decided to make my son a quilt using it.  Never one to take the easy road, I drafted my own pattern, rather than pull one from a book.  I carefully layed out and drafted the size so that I could “complete” the chain on each edge, to give a floating chain effect.  Looking at it now, as a more experienced quilter, I would have shifted the design so that a row of 3  was on top, rather than the 2 I ended up with.  The corners look a bit bare to me now.

At the time, I was still new to this.  I laid out my design (by hand - no EQ for me at the time.  I'd never even heard of it). The quilt went together quickly with strip piecing, and was assembled in no time.   

Around the same time, Richmond Quilt Guild had a “how to” seminar on seminole piecing.  I decided that would make the perfect border for this quilt. It was a challenge to size correctly with cleanly mitred corners, but I stuck it out, determined to make this work..  

Just before I attached the border, I decided to try the quilt on the bed.  Despite all my careful measurements,  it was 1 row too long.  So I carefully removed the extra row and resized the seminole border to fit the new length.  The final end result was a perfect fit for a twin bed, and my son loved it.  The “extra row” finally found a use as the hanging sleeve for “Kaleidoscope Stars” in October 2006.

This quilt was machine quilted.  A simple cross-hatch follows the lines of the Irish chain.   Five-pointed stars are quilted in the empty spaces, reflecting the stars found on one of the brown fabrics.

This was my first attempt at many different quilting techniques, and was a great learning experience in addition to a lovely gift for my son.  I worked on this from Nov 2004 to Nov 2005.

Black and white and red all over

Happy Thanksgiving, to all those celebrating today!  On days like today, the advantages of working for a Canadian office of an American company become clear.  It's not a holiday for us here, but with the entire US on holiday for 2 days (or more) this week, it's like a vacation ;)  This year, I'm taking advantage of the low activity and taking 2 vacation days myself this week.

I have put the first day of vacation to good use.  The top of my black and white and red quilt is now complete! (It really is a rectangle - just a bad photo below)

I think I can now honestly say that I am done with hexagons.  Way too many little tiny Y-seams in this quilt, so I am quite happy to see the end of them.  Next step - find the backing fabric I bought on my earlier trip to the quilt store, and start the quilting.  I hope I can get that started today, but time will tell.  Tomorrow morning, I leave for a 3 day trip and I'm not quite finished packing yet.  I need to finish that first, then head out for a couple of hours this afternoon   Time permitting, I'll start the quilting tonight.

More Progress

I got all caught up on one of my mysteries this week.  The Monday Mystery  is now up to date, and waiting for (I think) one more clue to finish up.

On Orca Bay, I'm now done 140 quarter square triangles.  82 to go - should be finished those by Friday.  I won't be able to look at part 2 until Monday, unfortunately.  I don't know if I'll be able to handle the suspense :)

My goals for this week - finish my two November projects. That means finish putting together (and hopefully quilt, but that's probably a stretch) the black and white quilt for November's monochromatic challenge.  And quilt the feathered star, to complete my November UFO.

I've also added one more project to the list, but fortunately it doesn't start until February.  I signed up today for the Dancing with the Stars BOM, with my local quilt store.  Lots of places seem to be doing this by mail too, but this way I save the shipping and have the option of hands-on classes each month.  You can see the quilt here (my local store) or here (sew-sisters, mail-order option).  I was in the local quilt shop today and saw the quilt on the wall - it is gorgeous!  And given that I'm off to my first ballroom dance competition this weekend, where I will do "the Viennese Waltz, the Foxtrot, and even the Cha Cha", I couldn't resist.  (That quote is from the quilt description - blocks are named for the dances.)

Design Wall Monday - Nov 21

My design wall has changed  bit since last week, but not too noticeably.  I put together some more of the black/white/red quilt.  The biggest qustion here is whether I will be able to finish this by the end of the month.  I have plans next weekend, so if it's going to happen, I'll need to get busy this week.

Of course, competing for my time are 2 mysteries.  #1 - Bonnie's Orca Bay mystery.  I thought this would be a nice break from the black and white.  On the lower left of my design wall you can see a few of the blocks from step 1.  224 black and white quarter-square triangles.  Sigh - more black and white.  There are such pretty colours in this quilt - I hope we get to play with them in step 2 on Friday. 

I am almost half-way there on step one - 100 done, 124 to go.  All the fabric is cut, just waiting for me to have the patience to sit down and do it.

Mystery #2 is the Monday Mystery from Little Bits of This and That.  I've pondered this for 3 weeks now, but finally took the plunge and cut 20 5" charms tonight.  Of course, the first step is quarter square triangles.  At least it's not black and white, but can't someone give me a break?  :)

Check out Judy's blog for more design walls today.  And don't forget to pop over to Bonnie's blog for more info on Orca Bay.

Stash Report - Nov 20

I had an up and down week this time around.  Didn't feel like quilting most of the week, but I managed to kick the funk by Friday and got a bit done in the last couple of days.  More progress made on my black and white quilt, but that fabric is already counted.  I did bind one quilt, and pulled the backing for another, so a little bit of fabric made its way out.  I also started a new quilt - the Orca Bay mystery.  But I haven't done enough yet to count any fabric.

So for this week, here's what went out:
1/2 yard - binding for baby quilt
3/4 yard - backing for feathered star

 Nothing came in, so I'm still moving in the right direction.

Stash Totals for this year:
Overall, 99.75 yards in, 98.75 yards out
Net for the year:  1.0 yards in


Getting close to breaking even!  I should be there next week, if I keep working on the new Quiltville mystery.  Check out Judy's blog to see who else is near their stash goal for the year.

A New Project

I think I'm going to take the plunge into Orca Bay! This is Bonnie's new mystery. Check it out over on her blog - just follow Shamu here :)

I wasn't going to play along - I have company coming for Christmas, and it looks like this mystery will run right through her visit. And I don't "do" strings (Bonnie loves strings, I understand). And my scrap bins are pretty lame right now, especially in the red zone (Bonnie is using blue and red for her quilt).

But, today I was finishing up the quilting on another one of my recent projects, and pondering my next move. And I thought - Why Not?  The mystery started last Friday and I've been drawn back to the page several times over the past 2 days.  So I did a little bit of digging.  Bonnie says the quilt was inspired by a sunset over Orca Bay - and to me sunsets are orange & purple.  Two colours which I do have a reasonable amount of in my scrap bins.  Blacks & neutrals are a bit more difficult, but Bonnie's pretty loose with the definition of neutral so I should be able to scrounge enough.  And for black - I think I'll pass on the scrap idea and use a couple yards of solid black I have on hand and would love to see gone from my stash closet.  Hopefully that won't throw the whole quilt out of whack, if the rest is scrappy and the black is just black.

So here we have it.  Black,  neutral, orange and purple.  I think I'll use purple as the primary, which may mean I need to find some more.  Bonnie says 3 yards, and I doubt there's 3 yards of anything in that bin.  So maybe I'll go back through my scraps and wander into the blue range with the purples.

First step - 224 2" quarter square triangles in black and neutral.  Oh boy.  I guess I need to get started :)

A Quilter's Journey - Patches

A good friend of mine had given me quilts for each of my children when they were born.  When her 3rd was born, I wanted to return the favour. I found a cute bear quilt on-line, but unfortunately there was no pattern included.  It didn't look too difficult, so I took the photo and drafted a pattern for myself with a few adjustments.

Each of the strips in the rail blocks is 1"x3" finished, and the bear and background were built from 6" finished blocks.  This was the first quilt I made with fabric entirely purchased specifically for the project. It was started in April 2004, and finished in Nov 2004. 

I think it marks the turning point in my quilting career - from "do I like this?" to "addicted quilter".

Design Wall Monday - Nov 14

This is what's on my design wall today.  Still my black and white quilt, but about 1/3 of it has been sewn together.  When I started putting this quilt on the wall, I thought the baby blocks were going to be about the same size as my earlier "Tumbling Down" quilt.  I was amazed how much smaller the pieces became after I sewed them together.  I suppose I should have known, but I never stopped to measure each block.

So, this quilt is going to have much smaller bits than I originally planned. But that's OK - assuming I can get through the assembly without going crazy with all the itty bitty seams.

Other achievements this week - I finished the mystery quilt that I was working on earlier.  This came from the first Mystery Monday at "Little bits of this and that".  I squared it up (original design was a hexagon table topper), and enlarged it a bit to make it a 24" quiltie.

Also finished is one of my 4-patch posy baby quilts.  I have one other quilt ready for quilting, so I should have a few quilts to take to guild this week, for donation to the local children's hospital.

I'm on a roll, and hoping to finish a few more quilts and get my stash numbers into the black and over the 100 yards used mark for the end of the year.

You can check out more design walls over at Patchwork Times.

Stash Report - Nov 13

Lots going on in my sewing room this week.  Overall progress is quite encouraging.  The mystery quiltie is quilted, and ready to hand-stitch the binding.  Both pink & green quilts are done and one is sandwiched and ready for it's turn at quilting.  And I made progress on my black and white quilt.  That one is slow going with all the little triangles, but I think it might even make the deadline. 
What did all that work mean for my stash?  Good news.  2 1/2 yards used for borders and extra blocks for the pink and green baby quilts, and 2 yards backing for one of them.  1 yard used for border and backing for mystery quilt.

So that's 5-1/2 yards out, nothing in this week.

Stash Totals for this year:
Overall, 99.75 yards in, 97.5 yards out.
Net for the year:  2.25 yards in.

Check out more stash reports over at Patchwork Times.

A Quilter's Journey - I-Spy quilt

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I'm posting a completed quilt - about one a week - to follow my journey as a quilter from its beginning.  Today's quilt is an I-spy quilt.  I saw the concept on-line, and thought this would be a great way to use up some of my novelty fabrics.  So I pulled out all the different items I had, and started cutting.

One thing I learned very quickly - fussy cutting fabric can be tedious.  I cut 48 different 3" squares of fabric before I ran out of variety.  The size was picked based on the general size of the fussy pictures, rather than a real plan for the finished quilt.  Then I cut 160 little 1" squares of blue interlock to create all the snowballs.

When I started to consider the layout, I thought sashing with cornerstones would work best - and I carefully fussy cut 1" squares for all the cornerstones - 63 of them.  I sashed and bordered this quilt with interlock fabric, and used one of the novelty prints on the backing to provide stability. The interlock has a lot of stretch, so that was necessary.  The binding is the same fabric as the back.  At this point, I still hadn't worked out the details of 1/4" binding, so this quilt has a large binding.  The quilt was finished in April 2004 and donated to the local children's hospital.

How Cute!

A few days ago, I ordered a carry bag for my backup sewing machine.  After checking the site, and carefully measuring the machine, I determined that the smallest bag would fit.  With the added bonus that I could then carry it on the plane, and it was a couple of inches under the max size so I shouldn't have any issues with any of the airlines.  This is good, because I'm heading to Texas for a quilting retreat in Feb, and wanted an easy way to take my machine on the flight.

This arrived on my doorstep today.  The package, not the chair :)  That looks pretty small, for a sewing machine to fit into.

Oh, right - it's collapsible.  Cool. And what a lovely colour.

Getting the machine in, however, did not prove as simple as expected.  The case claims the interior is 16x12x9.  My machine is 16x11x7, according to my measurements.  So that should work fine.  A little snug end to end, but other than that there should be plenty of room.

Not so!  On measuring the opening of the case, it's more like 15x11.  Hmmmmmmm. 

But, I'm stubborn.  So let's see what we can do here.  I twisted, and turned, and stretched.  Then twisted some more to extract the half-stuffed machine, and restarted the process. 

Eventually I opened the top zipper, stuffed the top of the machine in through the front and up through the second opening, wiggled the base around to sqeeze it through, and breathed a sigh of relief.  It fits!

Getting it out was almost as difficult, as I tried to remember which part went in last.  But out it came - and the second stuffing went much more smoothly.  So, the machine is now carefully stowed away in it's little carry bag, and I'm hoping it will stretch just a smidgen before I have to load it up for the plane.

Design Wall Monday - Nov 7

No, I'm not pairing the pink and green with the black and white :) There are two projects on my design wall today.  First, my black and white (and red) quilt - the monochromatic challenge for November, and a quilt that I've had in mind for a while now.  I think I have the layout done, so I will start assembling the blocks shortly.  Lots of short, inset seams, so it's going to take a while.  I don't know if it will make November, but I'm going to try.

The other is a baby quilt I'm working on, from the pinks and green I showed last week.  I decided on a layout and started sewing blocks.  But now I've decided that was going to be too big, so I'm make it a bit smaller. I'll have some leftover blocks that will need to find a home after that.  I'm not sure where I'll layout out this quilt as I assemble it, since there isn't much room on my design wall right now, but I'll figure something out.

For more design walls, head over to Judy's blog at Patchwork Times.

Stash report - Nov 6

I was busy this week!  Lots of stash busted.  this would be great news, except a couple of purchases snuck in too.  First, I picked up some reds & yellows at Sew Sisters, since my stash replenishment in town left me lacking in those colours.  A few 1 and 1/2 yard cuts, for a total of 7 new yards of fabric.  I also discovered that the reds I had on hand for my black & white & red did not work.  So I picked up 2 new FQ yesterday to fix that problem.  I should be able to move ahead on that project now.

In - 7 yards (reds and yellows), 1/2 yard red FQ
Total in: 7.5 yards

I did finish one project a couple of weeks ago, which I can now show you.  It was a Mystery Monday from Sherri at Little Bits of This and That.  I also made progress on a few other projects, for a reasonable stash-busting week.

Out -
1 yard - binding for pink quilt & mystery quiltie
3 yards - black and white quilt
1 yard - feathered star
2 1/2 yards - baby quilt
Total out: 7.5 yards

Look at that - net zero for the week.  I didn't make any progress on getting back into the black, but at least I held firm at my current number :)

Stash Totals for this year:
Overall, 99.75 yards in, 92 yards out.
Net for the year:  7.75 yards in.

Check out more stash reports over at Patchwork Times.

November's here!

November has arrived, and with it weather that feels a bit more like winter's on the way.  Put the snow tires on my car today, so I'm ready now for whatever Mother Nature decides to throw at us.  Fortunately, last weekend's storms all passed to the south and east, so we were spared the early arrival of snow this year.

I have a goal for November and early December.  I want to get my stash report back into the black by the end of the year.  That means I need to use about 17 yards of fabric, I think.  So that plan may be a bit optimistic.  However, I'm going to do my best.  To that end, I've been a busy little beaver for the past few days.  I pulled out my November UFO, and hunted through the stash for appropriate bits to finish it.  The original fabric set is shown here.  I apparently used the pink and green for other projects, however.

After raiding my stash, I managed to come up with some other options that worked.  I was planning to take photos of this process, but the quilt went together so quickly, that all I have is the end result.  The small yellow border was not originally planned, but I cut the pink the wrong size (or measured the seminole border incorrectly).  So I needed an extra 1/4" on each side.  I'm kind of glad that happened, because I really like the way it came out.

Turtle Garden

Having decided that I loved to quilt, and having learned that you can't make a quilt entirely from children's novelty fabrics, I set out to find another way to enjoy this new hobby.  Still hoping to use some of my existing stash, and avoid spending too much money on quilting fabric.  I made a trip to Fabricland (not yet having discovered the joys of our local quilt shops), and picked out some fabrics that complimented some of the novelties I had on hand.

I found this pattern in a quilt book that my mother-in-law gave me when she heard I had started quilting.  It looked like fun, and a good way to use some of the fabric I already had.  The pattern went together pretty easily, even for a novice quilter.  Then I got nervous.  I was determine to use interlock for the backing, and as I said, I practiced on a smaller quilt first, so I knew it could be done.  Not one to back down from a challenge, I also looked for a creative way to quilt this.  I decided continuous line quilting was the way to go, and I designed a turtle, based on one of the turtles in the fabric.  I quilted in the ditch along all the diagonal pieces, and then quilted a single turtle in each of the large spaces.  Then, I continued that theme and did a continuous line of turtles around the outside border.

The original quilt was called "flower garden" or something like that.  Because I replaced the flowers with turtles, I named this one Turtle Garden.  

I loved the end result, and decided that before I sent it off I should wash the quilt.  That is when disaster struck!  The dark blue I used on the back bled through the quilt along all of the stitching lines.  I was horrified!  I washed it 2 more times, trying to get that out, and finally caved and put a little bleach in the wash with it.  That removed the majority of the bleed-through.  But also some of the colour, of course.  The quilt was a bit more muted when it was done, because of this.  However, it was still a nice design, and I hoped my nephew would like it. I started this quilt in March 2004, and finished it in November of that year, just in time for Christmas.

I was told (since I was not there for Christmas that year) that when he was handed the gift, my 5.5 year old nephew said (sadly) "It's clothes, isn't it?"  However, when he climbed into bed that night with his new quilt, he said to his grandmother "Look, it's *blue* on the back!"

28 feet?

I think I have figured out why quilters measure in inches, not feet.  340" of binding sounds much shorter than 28 feet, for some reason.  I was happily attaching the binding to my pink quilt tonight, having finished all the quilting on it.  My son stopped by to say hello, and we chatted a bit about the quilt.  It is *very* heavy - mostly because it's quite a bit bigger than the quilts I usually work on.  So I told him how big it is (80" square), and we did a few quick calculations - that's almost 7 feet long, which is 49 square feet of quilt.  And the binding, he pointed out is 28 feet in length.  I looked at the pile of binding on the floor behind me, and said that I sure hoped I had measured correctly, because I didn't have any more of the white fabric left.

20 minutes later, I am able to say that Yes! I measured it correctly, and had about 29 feet of binding in hand.  It joined up nicely, and the quilt is now all trimmed up and waiting for the final step - tacking the binding down in back by hand.  I'll do that over the next couple of months while watching TV.  This stage can wait, because I do the handwork while my mother is visiting this Christmas.  I won't be able to sew during that time - at least not much - because my sewing room is also the guest room.  So, I'll try to put aside a few hand projects so I don't go into quilt withdrawl :)

I'm really happy with the way this quilt turned out.  It is a more intricate free-motion quilting design than I usually tackle.  To date, I've generally stuck with straight line or an all-over pattern, but this one I decided deserved attention to each block as a separate entity.  It has flowers in all the white spaces, and vines with leaves in the pink areas.  And it has hundreds of little threads for me to deal with now.

Oddly, my son declined my offer when I asked if he wanted this quilt.   In fact, he declined quite vehemently.  Could it have anything to do with the colour, do you think?  :)  Personally I like the colour much more than I expected to.  I'm not a big fan of pink, and in fact this quilt was an attempt to use up my pink scraps and get them out.  But I really like the end result, and I think this quilt is staying here.  It will make a nice cover the for the spare bed - in those few times between quilting when the room converts to a bedroom, anyway.  It's a bit too small for my bed so should fit the double bed just right.

This quilt may have convinced me to make a new quilt for my bed, in a different colour (the current one is blue), because when I put it on my bed for this picture, it changed the whole feel of the room.

UFO Challenge update

October's UFO Challenge was #5.   For me, that meant my Christmas napkins.  I really liked this design when I started, a year ago.  But after a few, it became a bit tedious and the rest of the napkins were filed away for "later" work.  Without Judy, I think they'd still be waiting for "later" to arrive.  But here we are - 6 more napkins finished. All they had needed was the top-stitching around the edge, so not a lot of work. So why did I leave them until the very last minute?  I finished these around 10pm last night, but they are done! And now I have one more UFO off my list for this year.

Next up, November's UFO.  Judy is being really nice to me.  2 UFOs left, and she did not pick the one I am dreading. Next up is #3 - my feathered star.  The poor little block has been sitting in my UFO drawer for years, ever since I made it as a practice block for a guild challenge one summer.  But now, its time has come.  Sometime over the next month I will pull this out and put some borders on it.  It is destined to be a quiltie, so doesn't need a lot to stretch from its current 12" size.

Here's a picture of the feathered star, with the fabric I bought 2 years ago to finish it.  It looks pretty much the same today, except I used most of that fabric in other projects.  This might require some stash growth, but I'm hoping to find most of what I need in the fabric I bought recently.