Quilting and other Things

Last year both sped by in the blink of an eye and crawled by slower than molasses in January.  It was a year of change and grief so my priorities changed and I'm thankful for the time I had and for the space I took.  Much of Q4 ended up being about rest.  I'm slowly starting to pick things back up again but am still taking the time and space I need to rest and grieve.  But I know Dad liked to see what we were doing so its time to start progressing again. Looking back at last year Quilting:   1. Butterfly quilt - This hasn't changed since my post in October.  I still haven't looked at it to figure out the missing pieces and how much is done. 2. Labyrinth - This top was completed in Q1.  I did buy backing fabric for it at the beginning of November with the intention to wash it, piece it and make an appointment to go quilt the top but sadly it still sits on the dryer waiting to be washed.   3. Rainbow Quilt - This is now a completed to...

  Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl is a hosting an annual planning party again.  2022 There haven't been a lot of changes since my mid-year update.  My focus changed a bit in the second half of the year.  I started the butterfly quilt and have continued making some triple four patch blocks for the rainbow scrap challenge.   I have an opportunity each month to get feedback on some of my digital art work.  The consistent feedback is the extractions (Selections) and some lighting.  In one piece, I done some lighting but the critique showed much more dramatic lighting which I really liked so I'm working on not being quite so timid with some of the lighting. I made good progress this year sorting out Lightroom.  During the Lightroom virtual summit this fall, I watched a session on cleaning up Lightroom.  Something he said triggered an idea and I was able to cleanup all the duplicate photos from my phone that had imported with different names ...

 Well, I did get the Cherrywood Challenge quilt done and submitted yesterday so I am really pleased with what I accomplished in April.  I won't post the whole piece until after the challenge closes and probably not until after the judging. The Abstraction quilt didn't get any attention. Love Entwined did get some work.  I've started to stitch the stems down for vase 3.  I do have more bias prepared.  I need to pin the next level of stems in place.  There are also some of the other little pieces partially prepared. The little scrappy blocks also got finished today.  There are 10 pink blocks.   linking up with Patty's One Monthly Goal Windup  and the Soscrappy Rainbow Challenge

 The big goal this month is to make my Cherrywood Challenge quilt.  I have sketches of some of the components.  Need to start stitching and figure out how they go together.  The end result and the sketch rarely turn out the same.  No pictures of that one for a bit but hopefully it goes smoothly. For Love Entwined, I want to get the little pieces at the base of vase 3 stitched as well as the vines and possibly the vase.  If all of vase 3 is stitched, that would be perfect, but If I can get the foundation finished that would be good.  I don't think the challenge quilt will need hand applique so if I can prep the pieces for Love Entwined, it can continue to be my zoom meeting project.  I've marked some placement guides for vase 3 and made some more bias for the vines.  So I can start that stitching The Abstraction quilt needs have its threads tied in and the binding added.  That's good tv work.  I had an appointment to go quilt another...

 What a productive month quiltwise! My Winterlace quilt tops are done and the bindings are made!  The pattern is from Quiltmaker Nov/Dec 1995.  I received the magazine just before the Creative Sewing Festival that October and purchase the material then.  Its a two colour quilt and I planned two quilts in opposite colours.  For many reasons, but mainly that I forgot to resize the blocks to make the quilts more appropriate for twin beds, the quilts have languished in a box, partially cut out.  It took about 6 weeks to complete both of them.  I've left off a couple of borders to make them fit the twin beds a bit better but they will have very generous overhangs and a pillow tuck. So here they are.  I've prepared the blue print binding for the first one and white binding for the second to match the outer edge of the quilt.  Now to find backing and add them to the line of things to quilt! It turned out I had more yellow and gold scraps than I thou...

 March Already?!?!  Going fast.   After sitting and languishing for more than 20 years in a box, my Winter Lace quilt leaped forward tremendously in February.  All the blocks and the components for the pieced border are made.  So my goal this month is to assemble both quilts and make their bindings.  Then I will be able to release all the fabric to the stash.  There is a lot of left over fabric I think 16 of 20 blocks for one quilt All the blocks for second quilt and the remaining ones for the first Border components I am really looking forward to seeing these two tops completed.   I have another appointment to quilt at the longarm studio so I'll finish the abstraction quilt then.  I don't think it will take my whole time, so I'll look to see what smaller project I might be able to do as well.   Love Entwined needs more applique pieces prepared.  I have two little circles to stitch then I need more prepped pieces....

Its been a very productive month in my quilting world.  I did get out to the long arm studio and got the first half of my quilt done.  Decided to do match stick quilting in the background and circles in the design part.  The match stick quilting is done but it was getting on and I was getting very tired so I'll take the quilt back next month to finish.  Should be faster (I hope).  The threads are all buried for the background.  I do need to clear the cutting table, trim the excess batting and mark the general outline of what I want to quilt in the middle.   I joined an Out of the Box class.  Our first month was to play with any form of log cabin blocks in our favourite colour.  These are my left over half log cabin blocks from Longtime Gone.  I replaced them with different variations.  These got sewn together, cut like a disappearing 4 patch and the middle sections switched around and re-sewn.  Some of the seams were inter...

 My goal for the month was to complete the Guild 2015/6 BOM quilt.  It is now a completed top.  :)  I replaced the original north wind blocks with the darker blue background as the original row stuck out too much.  One of the Inuksuk blocks does have a mask to represent the current conditions when the block was made.  Once things start to open again, I'll go to the long arm studio to quilt it. The long time gone quilt (pattern by Jen Kingwell) is progressing really well.  For our April homework we are to make the triangle blocks and the UK cross blocks and assemble the top.  The May class will be a border discussion and the June class a reveal.  I'm enjoying putting this together.  The first picture is all the blocks up on the design wall.  I did move one or two blocks around to try and balance it a bit more colourwise.  I think I'm going to end up remaking the quarter log cabin blocks as they are too dark in comparison to the ...

 Lots of good intentions for March but not a lot of progress.  I was side tracked by other things. The blocks for the Longtime Gone quilt did get completed I'm having fun with this quilt.   When I traced the shapes and cut them for the applique on Love Entwined, I made a fundamental applique error.  I neglected to number the pattern and the tracings.  So I spent all of one Monday Sewing Session sorting the pieces out and numbering.  In the end I couldn't find a couple of pieces or figure out were a couple went so I tossed them and traced the missing ones.  Everything is numbered now and I did get a few pieces prepped and pinned in place but I still have a bunch more to prep.  Baby Steps.   I can get a long way with baby steps. The guild BOM went back on the design wall in the layout for the smaller of the two options.  The more I look at it, the more I don't like the row of northwind blocks down the left side.  They are no...

 This months goals are going to be similar to last months goals.  I have three blocks to complete for the Long Time Gone quilt.  That class is March 18th so I need to get going.  There are two churn dash block collections and the large plus block with start block.  Hoping that more blue and white scraps will get used up although I do have some fat quarters and yardage to use if I need more than what is in the boxes. I also want to finish the last block for the guild block of the month and start the assemble of the top.  Ideally I'll complete the top this month.  I believe that I'll go with the smaller size.   And finally I want to prepare some additional pieces for the Love Entwined top.  I think I'll work on blossoms for one of the completed vases.  I'd like to prepare all the pieces for one vase.  If I could stitch half of them down that would be really good.   I'm looking forward to having the guild BOM made into a...

 2 out 3 got completed and I'm close to being finished the 3rd one. The Long time gone blocks were finished about a week before the class.  I also took the time to put all the completed blocks up on the design wall.  I'm loving how its coming together.  Someone from the class contacted me to let me know one of the blocks in the Jacobs ladder block is rotated the wrong way.  It wasn't deliberate.  My initial reaction was to get out the ripper and repair it.  The consensus in the class was I should leave it alone.  At this point, I'm reserving judgement.  I think the quilt will be busy enough that it won't bother me but I'll see what happens when we get to the layout. Love Entwined makes a really good project for working on during zoom calls.  Two vases are now ready for flowers. I got all of the satin stitching and applique done on the blocks for the guild BOM.  I still need to finish piecing the house blocks.  A bit of blue for...

I'm still working on three projects this month.   The first is the guilds 2015/6 BOM.  I have 4 blocks here to stitch.  The lighthouse needs to be appliqued.  The coyote (or wolf) and the bear need stitching and the end blocks will make three houses for a Newfoundland colourful row house.  Once these are done, I need to figure out how to layout the quilt and if I need any additional blocks.  I think I'll need a tree or something to go with this row but I'm waiting until I do the layout to before making anything else.  There are a few additional options from our handouts that I haven't done yet. Longtime Gone is a monthly project.  Elaine assigned the Jacobs ladder block and the 9 courthouse steps for this months work.  Jacobs ladder is cut out here and ready to stitch together.  This is the most important one to get finished as I don't want to get to the summer and find this has become a UFO. I started Love Entwined the year that Es...

How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.  That's a pretty good description of how this quilt is going.  Its been a long time since I started the Love Entwined quilt.  I thought it was two years ago but when I look back it was 2013.  I found the pattern when Esther was first releasing it as a free BOM.  I've changed my mind several times about how much I will do but at the moment I'm just doing the centre block. The quilt has had long periods of idle time. Back in 2013, one of the first steps was the tiny circles around the compass.  They seemed very intimidating at the time and I tried several ways of prepping them before going back to my favorite trace the shape and needle turn.  As documented here , they weren't so scary after all.  More little circles appeared on another shape in the centre and I took this photo during the preparation to show the size of them.   One of the next things that looked really intimidating wa...

Participating in Heidi's OMG worked well last month so I'll try again this month .  This month I'd like to get the zig zag border stitched down.  I wasn't sure if that was practical but last night I made really good progress stitching the first border at the guild meeting so I think its quite doable.  Once the zigzag is done, I'll be able to start planning the 4 vases of flowers that go in each corner.   Other things to be worked on this month are the wedges for the Gravity Class, the 365 blocks and place mats for the guild to donate to the Meals on Wheels. 

At the beginning of the month, I joined Heidi's OMG . My goal for September was to get the zig zag border prepared for my Love Entwined quilt. Despite having to make some new pieces because I had the wrong number of each colour, the border pieces are joined together and its pinned in place ready to be stitched. It's nice to have that bit done. I'll probably machine baste it in place so it's easier to take in my purse and work at when I'm out. The stretch goal was to get the applique done as well.  That didn't happen but I'm pleased to have the pieces ready to stitch.