Go Four It Quilt Top Finish

Go Four It progress! Some quality time in the sewing room has resulted in a finished top.  First there was a lot of MATH to see if the yardage I wanted to use for the border was big enough. 

Kansas Troubles fabric--I do love Moda fabrics. There was a lot of measuring and figuring and refiguring but the fabric was big enough to cut the border size I wanted, 5" wide.  I cut the strips  lengthwise so there was a lot of time with the cutting mat on the floor, as the cutting table was covered with the Bookshelf quilt pieces--I'll show progress on that project tomorrow.

Although I didn't plan this, the border fabrics from stash are very traditional in color.  I think that complements the center--they are "everything" blocks: pastels, batiks, prints, solids, traditional and modern. All the four patch blocks were assembled over several years as leader-enders, from 1.5" squares with 2.5" squares cut diagonally to put them on point.

I did have to seam together the borders strips for length, but I am not too fussed about that.  So glad this is a finished quilt top.  Stash fabrics will be assembled for the backing, and I will send this out for quilting. 

Go Four It Quilt

Nearly three years ago I finished a quilt top based on the Go Four It challenge in APQ magazine, inspired by another APQ magazine quilt by Edyta Sitar, with a final setting based on a Bonnie Hunter quilt, Daybreak. How's that for a winding road :)  

Goals this year being more finished quilts, I pulled out some magazines to look for border ideas.  The top is 51 x 66 or so.  The setting fabric is a Jan Patek fabric I chose as it was fairly non-directional.  I made the side setting triangles large so that the pieced blocks would float.  While perusing magazines, I saw a quilt that used a border design that extended the floating look even more, and sketched it out.  I cut  2.5" border strips with my GO cutter, and 4.5" corner squares. 

Liking it! I set the color blocks and light blocks to make chains in the quilt.  Can you see them?

All four sides attached.  I liked the way the corner square extended into the floating center. 

Closeup of the corner square fabric, a remnant left over from another scrappy quilt.  One of the grandsons toybox cars appeared when I moved the recliner to lay out the quilt :)

Considering this yardage from stash for a final border but will have to do MATH to determine if I have enough of it. 

Some of the first border fabric is in one of the pieced blocks.  I  love all the scrappiness!

November Downs and Ups

Well, I didn't mean to take so many days off blogging--things were just getting me down.  This year has just had so many stressful events and changes both at home and the nation--on top of COVID-19 rising--that it has been hard to keep up with positive thinking.  The time change isn't helping at all either.  Combine that with another twist in my work schedule and my mood just crashed.  I haven't touched my sewing machine in a week, can't get motivated to get out of bed until the last minute before work, and have been staying up much too late staring at the TV.

There have been some light moments, though, seeing our grandsons, having much needed rain, and yesterday I was decorating for Fall, including the new Gobble turkey pillow. I did finish the pumpkin pillow cover shown in my last post for daughter Erica, and delivered it to her at work. 

The red chair in her office made a great backdrop.  The pillow cover is about 13-14" and has a split back with a bound edge--Erica picked the caramel print scrap for binding. 

It looked good on the gold couch in the office space too!  I looked back on my blog and this block was designed by Sherri McConnell, for the Fall Dash Quilt featured in APQ magazine's October 2019 issue--it was on the cover. I haven't finished off the other pumpkin pillow cover I quilted as yet. 

A guild member had an open spot on her her longarm quilting calendar, and I spent far too much time constructing a Frankenback for a Christmas quilt top. 

It took me two days to remeasure and recut and remeasure and add more stash fabric, but finally it was large enough for the 75x90+ top and I handed it off with batting.  Although I told her to just do an allover pattern, she emailed me that she "couldn't resist" doing some Poinsettias in the open white squares and the four patches.  She brought it back today and it looks gorgeous. 

The pattern is Barefoot in the Park, though I left off the appliqued circles in the white patches from Stephanie's (Loft Quilting) pattern, and changed the borders to use up all the 5" charm squares.

Georganna quilted with red thread in the colored four patches and borders, and white thread in the white background squares. I love it! I am going to bind the quilt in red, possibly the same stripe as the border, if there is enough leftover fabric.  My poinsettia plant is just turning red at the tips of the branches.  My mom called me yesterday to say that the gardeners who "mow and blow" at their house had CUT DOWN her poinsettia plant without checking with them--just when it is about to change color with the colder weather!  

I'll finish off with a little baby spam of Dane...now 11 weeks old.  He was honed in on Papa's shirt pattern but did look up once in a while!  Proud Mama looks on.

He's very active, pushing up on his elbows during tummy time and even rolling to his back.  Dada is very pleased.

He looks pretty cute in the beanie he wore during our walk in the neighborhood before it started to rain again.  Ashley and Nick are doing a wonderful job as new parents--so happy for them, and glad we are able to visit with our masks on.  Looking forward to the day kisses are allowed again!

Other Stitches--What I'm Working on Wednesday

There has been some other stitching going on besides Winding Ways.  Two of the projects I can't show, but am having an interesting time with. As noted in this post here, I joined a Round Robin in my  Modern Quilt Guild.  So far I have worked on two member's projects, both very different, and last night we swapped again.  The quilts will have four rounds only and there are no specific steps for each round, though a border of about 5" at most is suggested.  Being modern, it is all about improv and design, using either fabrics provided or adding your own.  It is really challenging me!  We will have the big reveal in June. Can't wait to see what mine ends up looking like, from this:

Design Wall Monday--3/16/2015

Finally off my design wall is the Scout quilt top, which I finished last week.  This is a larger crib size quilt and looks pretty big here!  I'm pleased with how all the colors play together and the combinations that came together. I shared this at my MQG meeting and it was a hit.

Sunday I went to Superbuzzy and picked up some more of the black with gray dot to use as backing, and some of the cream tree print for binding.  Things are moving along to the sandwich stage.  Sometime this month, I will have a finish for 2015!

Also off my design surface as of yesterday is the Winding Ways quilt top--finally (but no photo yet).  I sewed the remaining blocks into rows, then into the bottom half of the quilt top, and finally created the whole top late Saturday night about 10:00 pm.  I've washed the Minky backing and am ready to enlist my sister to help spray baste the batting to the Minky.  We found that worked really well in keeping the Minky tamed while pinning the quilt top and quilting, without shifting, curling or inducing cursing.   It's been nearly a year since I made THIS quilt with Minky backing using that method. .

While piecing the tops, I've been adding to my pile of four patches for the Go Four It APQ Quilt Along (quilt patterns in the April 2015 issue).  I'm going to make a version of Edyta Sitar's Scraptacular quilt.  However, my four patches are finishing at 2" since I'm using 1.5" strips, whereas Editya's are even smaller.  It's been great to get all these lingering scraps into blocks.  So far I have about 70 four patches completed and about 30 more matched pairs of twosies sitting by my machine waiting to be four patches as leader-enders.  I won't be making any deadline but will continue to add to the piles as I work on other projects.

See more design walls on Judy's Patchwork Times. 

Winding A-Way

 First three rows are pieced and ready to be sewn into a section!

The commissioner of the quilt ordered the Minky backing and dropped it off yesterday along with batting. Getting closer to a real quilt. 

I'm clipping the seam allowances of the blocks to eliminate some bulk as I assemble the rows, and making 4 patches as leader-enders.  I'm just about out of thread so am off to Joann's for supplies and sale finds. Here's some baby spam to close the post:

Winter in SoCal is over, apparently!

Busy

My sewing room has been busy! 

• A week ago Monday I cleaned it up in time for the housekeeper's monthly visit.  
• I sewed together two of the Winding Ways block rows while using leader-ender pieces to make four patches.
• Thursday night saw me packing up and dismantling much of the room to prepare for the carpet cleaners on Friday
• Saturday I put the room back together, slowly, and at my husband's suggestion, altered the layout to leave more open space--putting the cutting table against the wall. Seems he wants to use the fireplace sometime!
• Sunday I sewed nearly all day on these two projects:

Rescue of the late '80's quilt.  Previously I had trimmed off excess fabric to make a center square. I started the two color pieced insert (pattern from an APQ calendar) some time ago but put it aside when I ran into problems and needed more sections figured and cut for the correct fit.  I worked that all out and got the two inserts sewn.  Now I need help.  I want a spacer strip bracketing the pieced inserts and have two choices from stash:

A medium blue solid and a darker blue dot.   The darker blue dot kind of matches the star point you see in the bottom of the photo, and I am leaning towards that.  Opinions?

The other project was a guild opportunity to join a Round Robin--my first ever.  I pinned a star block recently that I liked a lot, and decided to use some new fabrics bought at Road to California for the modern aesthetic required.

The solids I already had but pulled to go with them.

  

I drew out the block and all cutting instructions and started choosing fabrics, cutting and sewing.   Here's what I ended up with.

My star is a little lost, unfortunately.  It was too late to redo before the deadline of Monday so when I get it back, I will likely applique over with the orange print to define the points a bit more.  Overall I like how bright and summery it is. 

Per written instructions, I packed up lots of options for the members to choose from.  Each month a border will be added, for four months, and then we get our quilt top back in June, having not seen it since the turn in day. Preferences were listed, if desired.  We had 14 people join in on the Round Robin and that is very exciting.  Last night at the Guild meeting we handed off our boxes and bags in a randomly chosen order.  I'm looking forward to working on some great blocks for the next few months and look forward to seeing what the others add to mine.

The four patches I have been using as leader-enders are for the Go Four It quiltalong in progress from American Patchwork & Quilting.  I really like Edyta Sitar's quilt but the pieces were too small for the size scraps I save.

I'm going to use my 1.5" strips and squares that have been piling up for years, seldom leaving their bin.

So glad these will all find a home, finally!  The Quiltalong is for about a year so I will be making four patches for some time.  I don't know if I'll make a quilt as big as Edyta's.  It tickled me that her finished quilt has vertical strips of fabric separating the pieced rows--and I have used the same fabric in at least two quilts.  There are scraps of it somewhere I'll definitely want to put in.  I'm planning to keep up the busy-ness of my sewing room.  Clearing it all out was eye opening in a slightly overwhelming way, I must say!