March Mid-Month Check In

It's March 15th already, so I thought I would give an update on my goals for this month.

• I'll quilt 2 of my tops (specific quilts to be determined).  

• This may have been a bit optimistic - but I think I can swing it.  I quilted my ugly fabric quilt, and the wall warmer.  Those weren't ones I had in mind (I was hoping to get 2 large quilts done this month), but I may take credit for them anyway.  I can change the rules, right? 
  
  In addition to this, I loaded up Dancing with the Stars on the long arm.  And this is why I think I'm going to have to adjust this goal - this quilt is going to take me at least 20 hours, at the rate I'm going. So unless I get really productive this weekend, it won't be done soon enough to load up another quilt on the long arm.
  
  Dancing with the Stars is also my March UFO for the UFO challenge - A Lovely Year of Finishes.  So I really want to complete it this month.
  
• I'll make 2 quilties for guild 
• Done, and more. Four quilties made (here and here) - quilted and bound - and ready to donate on Wednesday. 

• finish the Hunter's Star quilt
• Top done.  Backing purchased.  If Dancing with the Stars gets done, this will be next.
  
• 2 more Gardener's Alphabet blocks
• Block H done, I started.  There's hope :)

It looks like it could be a quilty weekend for me.  I'm on vacation today, and took a run down to a nearby town to check out some quilt shops I've never been to.  Tomorrow is Worldwide Quilting Day (and my LQS is all set with a fabulous sale).  Plus it's the day for my monthly Block Party at the LQS. There's a virtual quilt-a-thon going on this weekend.  And Sunday is Virtual Quilting Day over at the Quilting Board.  If I was being good, I'd spend all this lovely quilting time working on Dancing With the Stars.  But I anticipate many breaks in that project, so there should be some piecing activity this weekend, too.

Design Wall Monday - Aug 20

Here is what my design wall looks like today.  Only 3 of the blocks are new - I pulled out the companion blocks to see how things are coming along.  It seems that the Bloggers BOM (the dark backgroun) must be finished next month.

My sew-in Sunday was a rousing success.  I completed the binding on 2 quilts.  Attached the binding to 2 more.  Made 3 blocks from my 2 BOM projects.  And made a backing for my log cabin star and loaded the quilt on the long arm.  Almost completely finishing my To-Do list for the weekend.

I was overly optimistic about how much paper piecing I could do in a weekend, but hopefully I can plug away at the next 3 blocks and be caught up by the time September rolls around.

These 2 quilts will be donated to the local children's hospital, when I (hopefully) manage to attend a guild meeting in September.  I bought 3 coordinated fabrics from a sale bin, added in the brown and a blue on the warm wishes quilt, and made the quilts to practice my long arm skills.  The first is custom quilted in each block & border, and the second one is a pantograph.

Hop over to Judy's blog to see what everyone else has on their design walls today.

And check out more finishes at the August Finishing party.

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.

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.

Success!

Guess what this is.  It is my very first quilt completed on my Handi Quilter Avante!!  The machine arrived on Friday, and after I set it up I've spent a few days doing some practice quilts.  And finally I couldn't stand the suspense any longer (I've never claimed to be a patient person :) ), so I loaded one of my recent charity quilts to have a go at it.  I decided to use a pantograph for this one - it seemed a bit easier, and would give me a good view of my driving skills.

Overall, not too bad in my opinion.  A bit wobbly in places, but I hope that will improve with more practice. The machine performed wonderfully.  And I have now figured out where/how to oil it, so hopefully I didn't do any damage running it for 3 days without basic maintenance.

Here are some of my practice sections, for posterity :)  Some more sad feathers.  Although they do seem a bit improved over the last set, so maybe there is still hope for me.

A random selection of filler options.  I really like the way the flames came out.  And how easy they were.  With a bit of practice, the one beside that (clamshells?) may turn into a reasonable option too.  I'm thinking I will save this sampler, and run the same patterns again in about a month.  Hopefully there will be some marked improvement at that point :)

 And just for fun, my name again. This time with a dot over the i, and a much better job of tracing the lines where I needed to backtrack.

Design Wall Monday - July 23

There's lots going on today. Even some actually sewing on my design wall (well, table, since my wall is still full of quilts).  This is my colour challenge quilt. for July.  I needed a break from long arming, so I put this together last night.

I got my long arm running yesterday, so that occupied most of my day.  I had a great time playing with it, and finsihed my first "quilt".  Just a practice piece, to see how bad I am at this :)

I wrote my name.

Made some really bad feathers.

And some leaves.  I'm pretty happy with how these came out, but I do seem to have a problem.  The machine *really* likes to go left/right, so a lot of my stems are straight horizontal.  I'm not sure if that's typical and I just need practice, if I'm doing something wrong, or if there's an issue with my setup.  I should be able to find out this week from the distributor (I'm betting on #1 or 2).

Finally!!

It's here!  UPS finally delivered today, a friend nicely took the time to drive me to the store to pick it up, and I have my new long arm machine! Oh my goodness, all the boxes!  Eight boxes in total, stacked in my basement.  I couldn't wait to open them. Right after dinner, I got started.

Three and a half hours, and this is how far I've gotten in the setup.  I could probably finish tonight (I told the owner of the LQS that I would have it fully assembled by midnight - that's still 2 hours away :) ).  But the next steps look complicated, and the last thing I want to do is make a mistake in the middle of this. So I think I'm going to rest my poor back, and finish another day (which means Sunday, since tomorrow is fully booked already).  The machine makes me nervous, sitting up there with no protection, however.  I may find myself back down there again sooner than I think.

I forgot to buy a surge protector, so that purchase needs to be done before I can turn the machine on, anyway.

...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.

...and waiting...

Sigh.  Despite being scheduled for delivery yesterday, UPS never showed up.  So no new toy yet :(

I did manage to make good use of the evening, since I didn't have to setup my long arm.  Two quilts almost done - just a bit of borders left.  I have a blue border for the one on the right.  And the one on the left will get top/bottom borders like what is in the picture (but just one row of the blue squares).  And I think I'll probably add one final brown border.

And, a knitting project about 1/2 done, while I wait for my next Camp Loopy project to start.  I started this one in June, to test out the pattern I was going to use for the second project.  It was going well, but I decided to do something different for that project, and this one has been sitting for 3 weeks waiting for me to get back to it.

This is my actual camp loopy project #2, all done.

Waiting....

and waiting, and waiting.  UPS is supposed to deliver "today".  It's 4:00 and they haven't come yet.  I guess they still have an hour or two to get there.  And in the meantime, I was working today, so it wasn't entirely waiting time.  But now I'm ready to have my new toy.


I did manage to get productive. Last night, I headed back up to my sewing room, and just got to it (put on a DVD this time, which helped a lot).  It was 12:30am when I looked up and realized how long I'd been in there.  Quilt 1 still needs a border.  Quilt 2 just needs assembly, and I think I'll probably add a top/bottom border to make it a bit longer than it is wide.

Today, I cleared out the space in the basement.  So, anytime please, UPS!

linking up today at Freshly Pieced and The Needle and Thread Network.