Quilting and other Things

Well, not much quilting again.  I've gotten as far as ironing the community outreach quilt and sorting the colours into an order.  I've measured to see how long the first strip needs to be.  The sewing area is a mess again and I haven't spent much time there.  This month though I have a very tiny goal.  Each July, there is a quilt show at Black Creek Pioneer Village called Quilts at the Creek .  This year, for the first time, I've entered a quilt.  Its my Rainbow 365 quilt made using Kathryn Kerr's 365 Challenge.  It needs a sleeve and the show label stitched to the back.  That has to be done before I can drop it off for the show. I also want to tidy up the sewing area so I'll be more inclined to go do some stitching.  The big think is to get this quilt ready for the show though.  Linking up with Patty's One Monthly Goal

January has been a very productive month.  Earlier last year, I took a bag of 6" fabric squares from the Community Outreach table at guild to make into a quilt.  At retreat last year, I was using these as enders and leaders to stitch into  9 patches.  Late last year, I finally dug them out from the bottom of the table, finished piecing the 9 patches (while piece 6" blocks for the 365 quilt!) and then did a disappearing 9-patch with them.  The top is now ready to take to the guild meeting this week. The 365 quilt got quilted and bound.  It still wants a label and hanging sleeve which I should finish shortly.  There were some bonus blocks that I want to make to use in the label.  For the binding, I wanted the colours to change as it went around including some changes in corners.  A google search  lead me to Cheryl Arkinson's wonderful tutorial on how to do this.  I actually found the corners much easier to deal with than the u...

At the end of 2015, I posted a list of goals for my quilting and photography for 2016 .  The list for 2017 is here . Quilting: I started 5 new projects last year and finished one of them completely.  Six of my quilts (5 old ones) got completed as well so the Spreadsheet ended up with 52 items to complete. 1.  Use the prepurchased hours and finish tops.      I quilted 5 of my tops and 3 of Mom's at the quilt studio.  There was also one of Mom's tops that I finished hand quilting.  With the small quilt I started and finished at home, there were 10 quilts completed last year which I think is a record for me. 2.  The 365 Challenge quilt    This went really well.  For the most part I stayed up to date although by December I was getting tired and fell behind.  Still by New Years Eve, all the blocks except one corner block were made.  The top was assembled except the last border.  About 10...

The goal for this month was to stitch all the dark blocks for the outer border together. They are all now joined and the two at the side are joined to the main body. I need light squares to join the other two as there are some large blocks to go in the corners. This is the 365 quilt Linking up with one monthly goal at Elm Street Quilts

Last month I quilted a guild mystery quilt from 2005/6.  I have material to make the binding but want a bias binding as its a stripe and I like the look of a bias binding for stripes.  The quilt is very bright and the round dots are all clock faces. I think the mystery was designed by Billie Lauder.  The printouts I have don't have the designer name but they are labelled as clue #1,2,3 etc and the components are called Suspects which I think is how Billie's instructions are written.  This year I've been doing the 365 Challenge quilt. The current lot of dark blocks should be finishing shortly. Then there are a number of lighter blocks. The other choice for a goal this month is to take the dark blocks and start assembling the dark pieces. They cannot be joined to the center of the quilt yet as I'll need the light blocks to make the row tall enough to match with the large corner blocks but getting the 3.5 blocks turned into 6.5 inch blocks and then jo...

Last month I signed up to do a Gravity Quilt workshop at Hobby Horse .  Yesterday was the second class.  I decided that I should take some of the 365 blocks with me to use as enders and leaders while I was stitching the blocks for the gravity quilt.  The gravity quilt blocks I was making used 6.5" components.  The 365 block had me make half square triangles that I trimmed to 7/8" the joined with some 7/8" squares to make a four patch before joining with some slightly larger pieces to make a 3.5" square. Its a study in contrasts :) two gravity blocks and Tulip Lady Fingers for the 365 quilt I really enjoyed sewing the larger seams.  I had a second block with me but didn't get to it.  That's the block from Oct 21st so I have three more blocks to make from this week to be up to date.  (since the designer is in Australia, I always get tomorrows block today.  Rather fun).  Soon I'll start stitching these small dark blocks into four pat...

I'm still working on the 365 Quilt Challenge blocks. For the current round of dark blocks I had marked that I wanted the 4 baskets for the corner flower blocks to each be one of the colour combinations. It makes the math work out if I add them in.  I put all the blocks from the 2nd dark border on the design wall on the weekend.  I also looked at how many I had made of some of the colours and thought I'd better figure out which ones I need to save a block for baskets. Without double checking the layout on the website I started to sketch out where the colours from the last round are and where the current round should go.  The sketch got messy so I found my graph paper and did it more neatly.  Some how in doing this I changed it from one row of 6" blocks that the pattern shows to two rows of 6" blocks for both the dark and light round. That messed up the math that I had done earlier but I persevered and figure out how many of each colour I should...

In December, I wrote about some goals for this year in this post . I wrote about some progress in February here . Yvonne at Quilting JetGirl, who organized the 2016 Planning Party, has a mid year check-in which was a reminder to write a new post. Quilting: 1. Finishing Quilts. In March, I quilted Mom's Patchwork Sampler quilt then went back in April and quilted the black, white, red and grey quilt and a photo transfer quilt. The Patchwork sampler quilt is the from the same class with Elaine that mine quilted in January was from. The Black, White, Red and Grey was a mystery quilt Chip of the old block. I'm still stitching the binding down on this one. The photo transfer quilt was a top I'd done years ago at the old Streetsville store about 1996. This was a small quilt but I wanted to play with some free motion quilting on the long arm. I've now completed finished 3 of my quilts, almost finished a fourth one and finished two of Mom's. The second one o...

I came downstairs to find lots of blocks had fallen down. I eventually took some pins to them and put them back up. Still need make sure each colour section is arranged well then I can start assembling this border. There are two light red blocks to finish -- they are on the ironing board waiting to be pressed, trimmed and assembled and then the last few yellow blocks and six yellow/green blocks to finish this light border. I've been counting blocks in the photos and think I now have a plan for how to proceed with the final two rounds and the four corner blocks. So far so good :)

So far I've been keeping up with the 365 Challenge. I was away on vacation for 12 days and had a plan for that time but it did work. Some of those blocks did get done but there were still a bunch left. I spent the weekend at my sisters and decided I'd spend a bit of time getting everything cut and marked. Last night the blocks for this week were done and I got most of one of the backlog done. Missed cutting one piece. The baggies are the backlog waiting to be stitched. I want to get these done soon so I can start putting that light border together. Should only be two more weeks until we have them all

I posted my todo list for the the weekend and am pleased with what I got accomplished.  Some of it was done this week but I made really good progress. I quilted Mom's version of the Patchwork Sampler the other weekend and spent a large part of Saturday watching recorded tv programs and stitching down the binding, label and sleeve.  Moms Version My Version  Same quilt pattern Dad has a quilt display rack with a fixed display rod. It works well for quilts that drape nicely but for some you lose part of the design doing that. I took the fall wall hanging mom made and add a sleeve with a zipper. I used a zipper that has been stored in the supplies for a long time. The sleeve has been made for a bit on on Saturday it also got added to its quilt. I'll find out in a week or so if it works the way I think it will. Mom had been quilting a lap quilt with two strands of embroidery floss. There wasn't a lot of quilting left to do -- just the borders. I ended...

I'm still stitching and still keeping up with the 365 Challenge Quilt The last photos I showed were the blue ones for week 2.  I finished week 3 last Wednesday which was 1 blue and 6 purple.  Last night I worked on the week 4 blocks and was up to date until this morning's email came.  Week for will be 2 purple and 5 red.   On the weekend I went back to Whirls n' Swirls and quilted the Red and White Chunk of the Month quilt that was the guild BOM in 2013/4.  Its still sitting folded up on the end of the ironing board waiting for me to trim and bind it.  The delay is deciding what to use as a binding.  When I got home on Saturday, I pulled a red, a white and then some white with red and red with white prints and laid them along the edge.  Took a photo of the possibilities and am debating. The prints wouldn't be the ones I use because I don't have enough of those but it gives a general idea of what the possibilities are. I'm stil...