October colour challenge

Last month's colour challenge used this palette.  I wasn't keen on it at first, but when I looked closer I realized that it was almost a rainbow of colours.  I started hunting around in my fabric stash, and I found a few options for this.

One thing I discovered was a fat quarter bundle I bought at a quilt show in the summer. It was a set of rainbow-coloured fabrics - and they all matched various colours in this palette (except the purple - that one doesn't appear in this palette).

So, I kept looking, and found a few more bundles from that same quilt show, and pulled a mix of fabrics to match the palette.  I decided to put together a quilt block from one of my books - I took a block, enlarged it to 24", and made a quiltie for donation at my guild.  I did run into one issue - I was short on one colour when I started putting it together.  So I pulled an additional quarter from the stack.  It was purple, which is not in the palettel, but hopefully I can be forgiven for that :)

After making this quilt, and especially after pulling in purple, I still had rainbows on the brain.  So, I took my rainbow fat quarter bundle, designed a bargello rainbow, and made a second quiltie.  When it was done, it needed a bit more, so I added some clouds and a blue bird flying over the rainbow.

And now it's Nov 1, and Judy has posted the next colour palette.  Off I go to see what I have on hand for the pretty colours in the palette this month.

September Colour Challenge

I think this might be a first for me this year.  I not only finished the top for this month's colour challenge, I pieced the back, quilted the sandwich, and attached the border.  The September colour challenge is 100% complete, on the 30th of September!

This is the first hexagon quilt I've made that used pieced hexies.  Much easier to assemble than all those Y-seams in my last hexie quilt.

I love this colour palette.  It was a lot of fun to work with, and I can't wait to see what Vicki comes up with for October.  I wonder if it will be fall colours (I'd love to do something with those).

The pattern is from Modern Patchwork, although I modified the pieced back a little bit, to use up some extra bits of fabric I had.

Drop by Patchwork Times for a look at more colour challenge quilts.

Design Wall Monday - Sept 24

My design wall is clean, and waiting for a new project.  I finished the September colour challenge top this week.  All the hexies are put together now.  I haven't decided whether to make it a true PacMan quilt or not, yet.  This one has a pieced back, so that may be my next project. It would be really nice to have this finished and quilted by the end of the month, but somehow I doubt that's going to happen.

In addition, I made some blocks for the Dancing with the Stars block of the month.  This was July.  So now I'm just 2 months behind.  Unfortunately, that means 5 blocks, so I need to keep working on these.

Now I have to decide what's next. The backing for the September colour challenge, a new (batik) project, or just buckle down and catch up on Dancing with the Stars.  Or maybe something completely different.  I have an urge to make a transparency quilt, so I need to dig through my stash and see if I have any suitable fabrics for that.

Drop by Judy's blog to see what others have on their design walls today.

What's on your Needles

Once again it's Friday, and Judy is asking "What's on your needles today?"  I have one and two-half socks.  Seems an odd number, doesn't it?  I finally decided that my yarn was not going to even out before I finished my second sock.  And I was going to have almost a full sock worth of yarn left over.  So, I abandoned the dark one, and started a new second sock. 

The match is closer, although as I look at my ball of yarn I suspect it will still end darker than I wanted.  I did consider knitting this one top down, to match the first bottom up sock.  But I haven't knit enough socks to know if the end result would really be symmetrical, so I decided to take a chance on bottom up and I hope I finish before I hit the really dark section of yarn.  I am really tired of this yarn now, so I think regardless of the result, we are going to call it a match and be done.

And in quilting news, I cut more triangles and plastered them up on my wall.  One more row to go. I think I've decided to stick with the light triangles.  But I do see some areas I don't like, so I will probably be rearranged the layout a bit before it's done.

Design Wall Monday

Here's what's on my design wall today. During Judy's quiltathon this weekend, I finally started my newest quilt.  After putting some of it up on the wall, I took a picture and wasn't sure I liked what I saw.  I didn't see it in person, but the photo immediately shouted "Pac Man" to me (and others, apparently).  Not exactly what I was intending.

So now I'm having second thoughts about colour choice, and I cut out some darker fabric for the insets.  What do you think?  Dark nibbles or light?

In the meantime, I'm plugging along cutting more coloured triangles.  Drop by Judy's blog to see what other quilters have on their design walls today.

September colour challenge

It's September 1st, and that means it's time for another colour challenge.  This month is really interesting, and I can't wait to see what I can come up with for this.

Last month, the palette was a little more muted.  And here is the quilt that I created from this palette.  All done and ready for quilting - as soon as I figure out how I'm going to quilt it.  It needs something custom I think, so I'll have to ponder this for a while.

Check out more August finishes over at Judy's blog.

Tuesday finish needs a name

This quilt just came off the long arm. Still needs binding, but even more than that, it needs a name.  I've done much denser quilting on this than on any previous quilt.  I think "long arm fever" took over me for a while :)  With the really dense quilting, it's not exactly a cuddly quilt right now.  A trip through the washer should fix that right up, though.

I knew when I was loading it that this quilt needed a design in each block that would help accentuate the layers in the quilt design.  I ended up with a sunburst pattern, I think driven by the yellow center of the blocks.  Each sun is cropped where it intersects with the block that sits on "top" of it.

Yesterday, I had decided on a name - "Easy as Pie" - in deference to the original inspiration for this quilt:  Judy's moldy pie and the colour palette challenge back in April.  However, as I took the quilt off the frame today, this block caught my eye, and it said "House of the Rising Sun".  So, help me choose.   Which name do you like best - or suggest a new one.

Check out more work in progress over at Freshly Pieced and The Needle and Thread Network.

Design Wall Monday - Aug 13

Thanks to Judy's quilt-a-thon, I got lotst of quilting done this weekend.  My design wall has my August colour challenge quilt.  The center is done; just needs to be stitched into rows, and then all the borders made.  One pieced border, and 3 plain ones.  If I stay focused, this might get done this week.  Which would be good - I have a pile of BOM  blocks to catch up on.

Also in progress today is an earlier colour challenge quilt.  I pieced the backing today, and loaded it on my long arm.  The quilting is much denser than I usually do, but this just seemed like the right pattern for this quilt.  And it is certainly a good workout for the machine :) 

I'm finding one of the biggest problems is picking a thread for each quilt top.  I got a bonus pack of 50 cones of thread with the machine - so logically, I should use this thread for my quilts.  So far, I'm running about 0% on matching my plan.  But I have managed to find something "close enough" for each quilt I've attempted so far.  One day I'll have to bite the bullet and try a different brand of thread, so that I know if I have the freedom to expand.  Actually, I have 5 spools of thread for my  Building Blocks quilt, which I am determined to use.  So I guess I'll have to test the waters before I am ready to load that one.

Check out Judy's blog for more design walls today.

Colour Challenge

This month's colour challenge - the one I wasn't going to do - is complete!  So much for making a small quilt though - I think this one ended at 60x80".  I went to the LQS this past weekend to buy some fabric for the background, since I didn't have enough of anything in my stash (and some extra pink & yellow because I'd run out).

My plan was to get something in cream for the background, but when I showed it to someone there, she immediately said "Black.  Or something dark".  Being stubborn :) I headed over the creams anyway, but when I tried some out it looked insipid.  Just blah.  I should know better - the quilt ladies are always right :)

It took me a while, but I got my head turned around and into the "dark" zone, and came home with this purple fabric.  Which, of course, the lady at the quilt shop had picked out immediately (once I unburied myself from the cream fabrics).

And the bonus feature is, the dark purple was the one colour I was missing from the palette - I really should have known what colour I needed, shouldn't I?

Check out more challenge quilts on Judy's blog

Saturday musings

Another quilt done on my long arm.  I still have a ways to go, but I'm really enjoying this.  2 hours, loaded to off the machine.  No more crawling around on the floor for an hour, pinning the heck out of a quilt.  And no more stuffing oodles of fabric and batting through a little 7" throat on my Husqvarna.  I can see what I'm doing, things don't shift, and the machine (mostly) plays nice with me :)

I tried a couple different things this time.  I did a border design.  I thought I'd try taking the quilt off and turning it, to complete the side borders rather than stopping and starting my way down the length.  Neat idea, but I quilted a small crease into the backing by doing this - I didn't stretch it quite enough when attaching back to the frame.  At least I know what to be careful of for next time.

In the main area, I did a small stipple in the focus blocks, around the animals to make them stand out.   Then a  simple meander in the brown background, and a wave along the striped border sections.

And then, because I needed a break, I did some work on my colour challenge quilt for this month.  I had not planned to do one - the palette did not really speak to me, and I had so much to do with the new long arm.  But I pulled some fabric a week ago, and decided to do a quick small quilt.  Quick I still agree with, even if the ladies at the LQS laughed when I showed them my definition of quick :) 

However, I did not manage the "small" part.  This star is 50" square (once I add the background blocks it will be square, anyway). So, since it is so big already, I'm going to add a top/bottom border about 10" each, and then another border all around, to make it about 60x80 - which should be about right for a twin bed.

...and still waiting

Another day, still a big empty space in my basement.  I am starting to get frustrated with the delivery guys.  The package is in the city.  But seems to have sat in the warehouse, or on a truck, all day yesterday and was never delivered.  I'm sure the distributor is getting tired of hearing from me (is it there yet?  Any update?)  And my friend, who nicely agreed to help me pick it up is probably really tired of being on standby all week.

Ah well, in the meantime, no progress on my knitting.  It still looks much the same as yesterday.  I really do want to finish this - I have yarn for some socks sitting in my drawer, but I refuse to start those until this project is finished. And then, Project 3 for Camp Loopy will probably have started, so the socks are going to end up waiting again.  And (I hope) I'll be far too busy with my long arm to do much knitting :)

My quilting has made some good progress during these delays however.  Quilt on the right is complete, and the one of the left needs 2 more seams and it is done too.  Then what?  Another reason to hope things arrive today. 

Although I have completely ignored the colour challenge this month, so I could see if I can whip up something for that in the next few days. I'm not overly motivated for this one - I guess it's just not my style - neither the pictures nor the colours.  But that's the whole point of this challenge, so if I can find fabric in my stash, I'll see if I can make a small quilt this week.

I'm linking up with Judy today. Drop by to see what every has on their needles.

June Finishes

Yesterday was graduation day for my eldest.  He is now officially done with high school, and will be moving on to university in the fall.  He's not going too far, but he is headed into residence.  This quilt will, I hope, head there with him.  When I first started this quilt - the May colour challenge - Colin saw the center star and immediately asked for it.  So, I modified the design a little, to
stretch it to fit his bed better.

The quilting is freehand feathers, from Judy's feather lessons this month.  Her lessons were great! and I am happy with the way mine turned out.  The back of the quilt is pieced - again on request.  My youngest has a 2-sided quilt on his bed, while my eldest's current quilt has a plain back.  So, when this one was in progress he asked what the back would look like, and strongly suggested he'd like a design on it.   So how could I not oblige?  Besides, I didn't have a good backing choice anyway, so it needed to be pieced :)
 
And now the quilting is done and as soon as I have 5 minutes in the same room as him, I'll give him the quilt.

In other news, my placemats/table runner are finished. This is the June colour challenge, so I am thrilled to have completed them before the end of the month.  I stretched a bit with the quilting (I figured I could handle that, on something so small).  Found a design I liked (a center rose with vines/leaves on each side) and fit it to the french braid on the placemats.  My pounce worked GREAT for marking!  This is notable because if you remember I went through a lot of pain with a couple earlier quilts trying to figure out how to create a template, and what to use for marking.

On the table runner, I started with the same basic design, but drew it freehand so that I could enlarge it without just scaling the whole design up. I wanted the density of the quilting to be close to the same on all the pieces.  The lower half of the placemats are quilted with a freehand vine & leaf design.  For variety, I used 3 different binding colours between the 5 pieces.

Check out more June projects on Judy's blog.

Measure Twice?

Measure twice, cut once.  This should be my mantra.  Actually, more like calculate twice.  I know why I had so much trouble getting started on my french braid - I was not too comfortable with my plans. As I now know, my dimensions are not ideal on the table runner - the braids are narrower than I think they should be.  But it's what I needed, to get the overall dimensions I wanted.  I should have sketched it to scale - I might have rethought the whole thing.

But now I'm committed.  And there are placemats planned to go with the runner.  So I cut those out yesterday, after a quick calculation to scale my runner down to the right size for an insert in the placements.  Except, as I sewed them together today I realized that I calculated them COMPLETELY wrong.  7"x12", rather than 3"x12".  Wow.  That is NOT going to work.

So, recalculate (when using a "square in a square" calculator, it is useful to know the difference between inside square length and outside square length).  Then I eyed my (very small) pile of fabric. I bought just what I needed this time, rather than over-indulging in the pretty stuff.  But fortunately since I'm working with 1.25" strips, it didn't need a lot to re-cut the placemats.  I cut new strips (wider and shorter) and hopefully I can get these assembled soon.

Unfortunately, I think this leaves me without any yardage for binding, so I guess a quilt shop visit is in my future this week.

Drop by the Needle and Thread Network to see what other (Canadian) bloggers are up to.

Feather Lessons

I've been waiting (sort of) patiently for Judy to finish posting her feather lessons.  She's using a long arm, and I'm working on my domestic machine, so I needed to wait for her to get to the diamond sections before I could start.  Fortunately, she posted that today!  So my quilt went under the needle right away, and the first section is now complete. 

I'm pretty happy with my feathers. I wasn't comfortable with the path Judy took - she quilted up the spine, down one side and up the other (and then back down the spine to move on to the next feather.  My feathers look pretty rough when I quilt down, so I decided to all the feathers quilting up the spine. This meant marking the spine, so that I could quilt up one side, down the middle, up the other, and back down the middle again.  I think it worked out really well, and maybe next time I'll be ready to try quilting the feathers downwards.

I think I'm going to do a meander in the background sections, rather than the feather wreaths Judy showed. I think my son, who already requested this quilt, would prefer that.  So, after dinner I'll be back upstairs doing some meandering and hopefully even starting on the green feathers.  I'm quilting each section in matching thread, so there will be lots of thread changes in this quilt.

Now that the center is done, I can see that I did not align the backing quite perfectly.  The center of the backing star is a couple of inches out of alignment from the front.  Shhh.  Don't tell Colin - he probably won't notice :)

June colour challenge

My May colour challenge top has been finished for a while.  I even made a pieced back for it, but a picture will have to wait for a couple of days on that.  The quilt is folded up somewhere waiting to be basted.  Judy's feather lessons started today, so I need to get this out soon. But I want to finish quilting the 2 current ones before I leap into a third.  So I'll be a bit behind in my lessons.

In the meantime, this wonderful palette is June.  I am in love!  What a wonder palette.  June is my birthday month, so I'm thinking that the quilt I make from this palette is going to be mine!  So much for my earlier plan to scale back and start making small quilties for donation from these challenges.  Now, to design something that does justice to this palette.

Check out more colour challenge projects over at Patchwork Times.

May Colour Challenge

April is done, and it's time for the May colour challenge.  But first - another quick look at my April project.  I finished this top about a week ago, and now if just needs to find an appropriate backing fabric.

The May colour palette looks fun and cheery!  And ymmy!  A far cry from last month :)

I had a plan for this month's palette, but I may have to reconsider because I'm not sure it will work with this colour set.  I'll pull the pattern out later today and decide if I need to find something different for this month.  Trouble is, the pattern I have needs to be made this month in some fabric - so I do hope I can figure out how to make this palette work.  That way, I can kill two birds with one stone, and have one fewer top waiting to be quilted :)

Design Wall Monday - April 16

I suddenly realized that it's the middle of April, and I hadn't started on my April colour challenge yet.  So, bypassing Orca Bay, which is waiting so patiently on my design wall, I cut into my April fabrics.  After a day of sewing, here is what I have.  One more black round will complete that block on the left.

To refresh your memory, here's the colour palette for this month.  Interesting. The photo against my colours in person look almost perfect.  But it sure doesn't look like it matches in this photo.  Oh well.  That's what I get for not taking a picture of my fabric earlier.  In any case, I like the way the colours look in my quilt, and it doesn't remind me of moldy pie at all.

In other activity, Pink Posies is quilted, and the binding is attached to the front.  Just need to remove some of my tracing paper, hide the threads, and stitch down the binding.  After a lot of struggle, I found a method for making a stencil (overhead transparencies cut with an exacto knife), and transfered the design with a pounce.  Not perfect - I did some guessing about where some of the lines went - but it did the job with somewhat less frustration than I had been facing.

Check out more design walls over at Judy's

April Colour Palette

Oh my goodness.  I don't know if I can bear the colour palette this month.  The colours themselves are interesting, and I think will make a lovely quilt.  But I almost wish I didn't know where the inspiration came from.  Can I make a quilt using colours drawn from moldy pie?  Yes, that's what I said.  The story is over here.  What do you think?  Could you ever look at a quilt made from these colours without seeing that pie, if you knew the source of the inspiration?

While I'm pondering that decision, here's another look at my March colour palette quilt.  After reading the comments, and taking the quilt to my local quilt shop, I've decided that the borders can stay just as they are.

Check out the other colour palette quilts on Judy's blog today (but watch out for that pie).

Design Wall Monday

My design wall is in fact empty today.  Earlier this weekend, it looked like this.  But I took the quilt down to see if I could find more of the bright red, to re-do the borders. 

I like the quilt, but the pieced border seems a bit out of place to me.  No success on finding fabric, but the ladies at the quilt shop all loved it as is.  So, maybe it will stay.  It has some time to stew - the current project is quilting the indigo quilt.  All done but the borders, so it's moving right along. 

I want to finish quilting 2 quilts before I pull out my next piecing project.  Think I'll stand firm? 

Check out more design walls over at Patchwork Times.

Pieced borders are ...

... kicking my butt!  On Saturday, I had my own little sew-in, and got all the blocks for the center of my March colour palette challenge top done.  In one day!  So on Sunday, I figured I could whip off the borders, and be done with this top in no time at all.  Hah!  I spent half the morning and all afternoon fighting with this.  I know the theory.  I know math.  I know what I have to do.  But for some reason, I could not get the math to play nice with these borders.

I calculated them 4 times, and got a different answer every time.  Finally I put some together. And none of the borders were long enough.  I'd used one of my intermediate (and incorrect) calculations for the lengths :(  So I unstitched, and added a couple of segments to most of the border strips (8 strips, and only 2 were correct - the last 2 I made).

Now I think I have all the sizes working for me.  But notice I have not yet had the nerve to cut into the 2 transition borders that come before the pieced one. I think I'll measure everything 2 more times, and sew the blocks together and measure a third, before I cut any more strips :)

This is all that's on my design wall today.  The votes yesterday were heavily in favour of this layout, so I've gone back to it, and I think this is going to be the one.

I had planned to do the next bock of Dancing with the Stars this weekend, but after fighting with these borders I didn't think paper piecing was likely to go well.  The happy news is that I rearranged my sewing room, so now I have easy access to the full length of my design wall.  See that box beside the design wall?  That's a new blind I bought last summer to replace the horrid drapes in this room.  Maybe I'll get that installed one day soon.

Check out Judy's blog for more design walls.