What I'm Working On Wednesday--Busy Days Til Deadline

The looming deadline for the Double the Plus quilt resulted in more cutting and sewing.  I am this close to being short of white fabric for the outer border, but until the top is completed, it isn't a certainty.  What is a certainty is that rushing causes mistakes.  Can anyone identify the one in this pic?

Give yourself a gold star if you spotted the white sashing right side up instead of right side down.  I was able to simply open the short seam of the solid sashing and just enough of the long join to resew and bring the seam to back where it belonged--the benefit of solid fabric!  There was a second fail while stitching what I thought was a completed cross block row, but I was short one cross block.  Luckily scraps were quickly cut and sewed and the last block attached. Batting will need to be purchased before final sandwich assembly and quilting.  I have already made the binding. 

Mini watched from the top of the project boxes and under the other half of the quilt top. 

I spent some time this week with this almost one year old while Mama was working in her home office. Dane is now running and very very busy. 

Son Nick came home from work while we were playing so I got to visit with him too.  We'll see the other grandsons soon and hear all about their recent vacation and fishing. 

A quick trip to the local fabric store for embroidery thread for the Poinsettia and Pomegranate project shown in the last post resulted in another purchase.

These DMC kits were so cute and reasonably priced, I couldn't resist. 

Hoop, fabric, pattern with thread already separated--so helpful to jump in and start stitching with the provided needle...just add scissors :)   

What I'm Working on Wednesday--Multiple Projects

I seem to be unable to settle in to one project for very long currently.  Stalling on a major one usually produces this condition.  In this case, the Dreamweaver quilt and all its applique has been hogging the cutting table.  I've pulled out the table on the Hoosier cabinet for an additional cutting and auditioning area. 

My DIL was happy with the progress and agreed with adding more applique.  We decided some smaller circles over the larger solid ones would help them stand out less. I had already cut a lot of leaves from the Steam a Seam fusible but needed more sheets.  Also I wanted to pick up some floss for another embroidery project.  Happily, although limiting customer volume and requiring masks, the larger local fabric store in town is open. 

I was able to find all of the floss colors for this thrift store scored Blackbird Designs pattern, and then wandered about the rest of the store.  There were 20% off tags on many of the bolt tables.  I found a good option for the backing of the Dreamweaver quilt, then perused the fat quarters while waiting for the cutting table traffic to clear. 

Well I HAD to buy these $2.00 fat quarters, didn't I?  I always need neutrals and picked up the fun stripes and a couple of blues as I seldom buy blue fabric.  I could have bought a lot more FQ but had to consider how stuffed the FQ storage drawers are...and put some back, lol. I want to make some cloth napkins and fat quarters work well for that. 

While avoiding the applique, I worked on the Perkiomen Valley blocks from last post.  Trying to figure out how to nest seams when the blocks were going to be twisted and turned was impossible, so I pressed all the seams open after chain piecing the block pieces.  I got annoyed by trying to stick my scissors between the pieces to snip the chain thread while holding them in my hand, so did this instead:

I laid the joined rows  on the table, pulling down the just  added row to the limit of the chain thread, and snipped through the now visible chain. 

When laying out the first few sets of squares and HSTs before piecing, I noticed I was choosing a blue for the center, and went with that for the remainder. Above the blocks are looking good in a straight set layout....

...and here more dynamic in "The Stacey" layout, after a fellow guild member.  This is just a small corner of her layout, which I showed last time. The top is now complete. 

Another "squirrel" project jumped out when I was pulling charm squares for the Perkiomen Valley blocks.  I have acquired mini charm packs over the years, usually as freebies, but seldom use them.  A well aged Bubble Pop charm pack by Sandy Klop along with a sweet green and white background fabric pull from stash and I was on my way....

The Moda Love Quilt I have made in layer cake and charm pack size, but this is the first mini charm pack one I attempted.  These squares and HSTs are little!  This is a free pattern from Moda. 

Pen for size reference.  Since I used my Bloc-Loc trimmer for all of the HSTs, the rows went together pretty smoothly.  I did have to restitch a few seam allowances that got skewed, but it wasn't too painful.  This will likely become a pillow cover with the addition of more of the background print and leftover mini charms. 

...now back to applique pieces for Dreamweaver....

More Pieces and Parts to Ponder

Oh, the trouble that follows when I attempt to clean up the cutting table and put things away!  I came across a baggie of Churn Dash blocks from Barb's swap and remembered an idea I saved for an alternate block.  I have another grandnephew due later this year and thought it would make a good baby quilt.  

The curves that appear with the alternate nine patch block really attracted me.  I pulled a modern white and gray print and solid black and cut the needed squares. 

Lots of different blues with low volume backgrounds.

Not the greatest layout attempt on the nine patches--but enough to show the goal.  These blocks will make good leader-enders as I sew together  some of the 520 3.5" squares the newlyweds helped me layout last weekend.  I failed to get a photo of the layout before we stacked up and labeled the rows.

The Churn Dash theme continued when I got the last three seams sewn for my dad's Chunky Churn Dash quilt--the pic is the before shot...it went together easily and I'm very happy with it.

 Dad was too!  Here's a pic of us working on a jigsaw puzzle last week of a harbor scene painting by Claude Monet.

Very serious work!  My engineer dad sorts all the pieces into groups by type, "one pin", "four pin", "no pin", etc.  Once he shared his secret with me, it made picking out the right piece a lot quicker!  Mom's art studio always has a table set up for puzzles.

Pondering if I want to add borders to Chunky Churndash  or not--a mockup will be necessary for final options. Again, this is a free pattern by Bonnie Hunter on her Quiltville website...which leads to another free Bonnie pattern, My Blue Heaven.  I took Bonnie's class last year with the Camarillo Quilt Guild and called my version My Lupine Heaven, using two colors instead of one. In class I only completed one star block and one puss in the corner block, but cut many pieces.  Here and there I've cut and sewn pieces and parts to use as leader-enders, and finally got to a point where I had enough to construct a bunch of blocks.  The star blocks have 24 pieces each, which makes for a lot of sewing!

Oh my, that is a busy bunch of blocks.  I'm not exactly happy with these, some seem very muddy and the star doesn't really stand out.  Sigh.   My plan calls for a 6x8 layout so there is still a lot of sewing to do.  Perhaps choosing more light backgrounds with fewer prints will help the star blocks.  The neverending scraps will feed the kitty forever, it seems :)

What I'm Working on Wednesday--July Ends

Well this has been a busy month, it seemed to last a good long time because of that.  We have been lucky out here in SoCalif that the summer weather has been typical for us, morning low clouds and fog burning off by late morning or early afternoon, mid-upper 70's at the beach with a nice breeze, just a bit warmer inland.  We'll try to remember these good times when the heat and humidity are likely to show up in August and September!   

I  haven't spent much time in the sewing room yet this week, but there was some slow stitching accomplished this Wednesday.

I finished the Blackwork Slave Quarters panel I was working on--finally.  I have one of the two remaining panels already traced out and will commence with that immediately.  

Caught this checkmark in the sky over the weekend, it was an appropriate symbol for another accomplished task, sanding down the doors to our bathroom vanity in preparation for paint.  It did take almost 20 minutes to find the palm sander, however, as it was buried under my husband's workbench.  It took another two days before we got to Lowe's to get more paint, the can used to do the other bathroom vanity having been purchased in 2013!  The people-watching at home improvement stores is pretty good, though, so we didn't mind.  

Further consultation with the newlyweds on the Dreamweaver quilt settled some of the fabric choices and the background. The Jen Kingwell pattern has disappearing 9 patches as the background, but that is a lot of cutting, sewing, rearranging and sewing back together to do for the expanded size I'm making for them.  I showed them another version with simple squares as the background to the appliqued Dreamweaver, and we settled on 3.5"squares.  For the 60x80" throw I plan to make, that means cutting a whole lotta squares--520, in fact!  I looked at a chart for fat quarters and it appears I can get 30 from each--and if I stack and cut them several at a time, the squares will add up even quicker.  Good thing I have plenty of fresh rotary cutter blades :)

In the meantime, the County  Fair started today, my sister Kathy went and told me she saw ribbons on my entries--all of them--but didn't tell me what they were.  She reported mostly 2nds and 3rds on her entries, and Honorable Mention.  Kathy said our older brother told her that "Honorable Mention is just the First Loser ribbon".  What a brat!   Hopefully I'll get down there tomorrow to see for myself how my entries did.  I'll take a First Loser over nothing :)

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:

What I'm Working On Wednesday

It took until Sunday, thanks to a bout of what has been diagnosed as probable diverticulitis, before I got a chance to go to the fabric store and get a couple of additional copper prints for the Winding Ways custom quilt.  This being Fall, I didn't think it would be difficult to find such colors, but it has been!

These are two Hoffman prints.  The one on the right was from a Christmas collection, but seems to blend well with ones already cut.  I've washed and ironed the new prints and just need to cut them to width for the GO! die cutter.

Due to my MATH error, there also was not enough of the neutral fabric for all the blocks.  I added these from my stash.  Now to get a long cutting session done... 

Among the projects languishing  ripening for years in boxes in the Hoosier cabinet is a quilt top I didn't make. 

My former boss's wife made this, sometime in the 80s, perhaps.  I already cut off an additional 20" piece from each end of what I'm calling a Medallion Star.  My plan is to take away the 80s by breaking up all that blue print with something lively.

 Like this border idea from an APQ Calendar pattern.  I like the two colors woven in and out and am using a brighter white for the neutral to add some cheer.

When my former boss gave me the bag with the quilt top some years ago, there were lots of pieces of the fabrics his wife used in the quilt.  I still have plenty of the berry colored print, but none of these blues or creams--I've used them up in other scrap quilts already.

This is the pattern book that came with the calendar.  It was surprisingly hard to find berry/wine colored prints right now.  I always seem to be looking for fabric colors and prints that aren't easily available!  I'm hoping I can squeeze out all the sections needed.  As for the rest of the languishing ripening projects in the Hoosier cabinet, I have plans for most of those too :)

What I'm Working On Wednesday

Yesterday my sole errand was taking my mom to LAX airport.  Afterwards I was free to do as I pleased, and that included a trip to Homegoods and a large Joann's store in a nearby city.  Wow, those big stores have way more to look at.  I spent a pleasant near hour wandering around Homegoods, a decor store with everything you never knew you wanted to put in your home :)  There was no "have to have it now" item so I left with my wallet no lighter.  However, it was a bit of a different story at Joann's.

 Cute button knobs to replace the plain Jane brass ones on my sewing desk.  These were on sale.

Rack for my GO! cutter dies and mats, on clearance for under $10.  I also got another length of flannel for a quilt back, a couple of remnants, some adorable little embroidery kits I neglected to take a photo of, and some much needed machine needles. 

 Later I stitched together all the remaining leader-ender four patch pairs by my machine and played with a layout.

 I thought this was a bit more interesting than single square chains.  Above is a rectangular layout. 

But I think I prefer this symmetrical one.  I am short one four patch but that will easily be remedied.  This would end up about 32" square before borders, which seems a good size to start with for a square table topper.  Opinions?

What I'm Working On Wednesday

There's a lot going on in my sewing world and I'm getting distracted easily.  But here are a few things needle and thread are changing:

The quilting is complete on the first of the witches quilts.  Lots of stitch in the ditch around all the faces, lips, hats, bands, background, and the borders, whew!  I timed myself on the white background sections and each only took 6-10 minutes to quilt--in a very herky-jerky zig-zaggy filler style.  Happy about that!  Only the binding left to do and I already have the strips cut.  I really want this one to be finished today.

2.5" scrap strips are being turned into small tablerunners for sale at the senior craft shoppe.  This will be bordered with some cream and will end up probably 12 x 26".  I hope purple and pink are popular since another, smaller runner will join this one.

Next, piecing of batting scraps for a larger tablerunner.  The backing is cut and binding choice already figured out.  Simple quilting will be key to getting this out on the sales floor.

More Picnic blocks have been completed while piecing the strips.  Soon the leader-ender box will be empty and I'll need to lay them all out to see what color I need more of.  I'm guessing green, my favorite color :).  What are you working on?

What I'm Working On Wednesday

My foray into the retail world with the senior's craft shop began last week with a training session shift.  I had made four small cuddle quilts to start with, received instruction in how to label them for sale, and they were put out on the shelf right away.  All the other rules and guidelines were detailed and I was put to vacuuming, opening the security door and turning on the door alarm, and learning all the other ins and outs of the biz.  The shop has been in existence for over 30 years in the same location, a true success!  Though we only sold one item during the 3.5 hour shift, I was responsible for writing it up and taking the money.  Meanwhile, I got to know the two older ladies training me, and as is often the case among people who live in a town for a long time, it is a small world.  Both ladies were former teachers, and one worked at the elementary school I attended, though a few years after I had passed through.   We reminisced about all the teachers there, good and bad, and enjoyed telling stories. 

Though my main pieces for sale will be quilted items, the ladies worked on embroidery and crochet projects while we talked and encouraged me to bring some handwork next time--especially for slow periods!  I thought that since the shop is downtown where all the tourists are, some souvenir type item might be a good choice.  I remembered I had a few small embroidery kits around. 

Ventura is known as The Poinsettia City so this small decoration seemed appropriate, with some revision.  I got out my collection of alphabet books but in the end went with the same style as the kit, making up my own "V".  The black backstitch detail on the flower I did not think necessary, especially for how much I am likely to price this in order to sell.  I also graphed out a cross-stitched, three color stylized poinsettia which will be faster to stitch.  This 99 cent embroidery kit included a length of wire and instructions for making the little hanger and I'll be copying that idea for my souvenirs.  Cross-stitch was my first love and I really enjoy working with needle and thread that way.  I have a duplicate kit to this one so will bring it with me for the second of my three training sessions this afternoon.  I'm curious to see if any of my items sold and in the meantime will get to know a different set of ladies.  Wish me luck!

What I'm Working On Wednesday

I'm having a lot of fun playing with leftovers, scraps, and ideas from the pages of magazines.

When I made Kitchen Sink last year (Kim Brackett's Scrap Basket Surprises), I cut a lot of extra pieces since I was considering making it larger than the pattern required.  In the end, I simply added a wider border.  With the leftovers, a 9 paddle wheel layout was my choice and, serendipitously, I had just the right amount of leftover cut print pieces and exactly enough triangles to fit the setting I had decided on.  Gotta love that! 

This is about 24 inches square--no borders on this one.  I've got the backing there and already picked out prints from the 2.5" strip bin for a scrappy binding. 

Leftover orange and blue squares from a Quilts for Kids project, a few bright Aussie prints from a 6" precut pack I bought on my trip to Queensland, some leftover flannel, and a small cuddle quilt is born.  I will sell this at the crafter's shoppe. 

These prints are from a jelly roll I bought at Tuesday Morning for a song--I'll get at least three more cuddle quilts out of it.  This setting idea was from a Quilts and More magazine from a few years ago.  Quick and easy.  Enjoying myself immensely, and ideas are teeming for more scrappy fun with leftovers! 

What are you working on?

What I'm Working on Wednesday

Witches...that goes with the W theme :)

The outer border has been attached.  Dimples fabrics are textured solids and I think that goes just fine with my "lighter" black inner border and the hats.

Piecing was necessary for the backing, but I like a pieced back!

Here is the beginning of quilting on the X's and O's wall hanging/tablerunner.  It should be quick to finish once the jigsaw puzzle quilting is complete; I've already made the binding.  I have a deadline for this quilt and those are always good for me! 

What are you working on?



What I'm Working on Wednesday

I've been absent a bit from blogland, but have been playing with fabric.  DD Erica leaves for college in AZ today so I got busy last night sewing her a tote bag for her laptop.  This pretty purple scroll print was from JoAnn's.  Glad we bought a yard and a half last month.

Her laptop is 17.5 inches wide so the bag is pretty big. I did the MATH for the bag and cut all the bag pieces, but miscut the width, fortunately LARGER than necessary.  Of course I didn't have any batting the right size so had to piece some together, which took extra time, and when you start projects at 9:30 pm it gets late fast.  I managed by midnight to get the quilting done, the bag front/back assembled, and one pocket sewn on the liner.  Another pocket, straps, liner completed and some topstitching and it will hopefully be finished this morning. 

In the meantime I wanted to have a leader-ender project to use when I sew the 9 Patch Zig Zag top so have been cutting into fat quarters and scraps for that.  These will turn into Picnic, the quilt featured on the cover of Kim Brackett's Scrap-Basket Sensations book.  I've been collecting strips and scraps in a box for months and have a length of a background cream print ironed and ready to cut.  I want to make my quilt larger than the pattern so have a lot more strips to cut, but this is a good start.

The cutting scraps have been going in this pretty "garbage bowl".  I borrowed this idea from Little Lady Patchwork.  It looks a bit yellowy in the photo, but is really a lovely chartreuse shade.  I have no recollection of how I obtained this vessel but adore the ruffled edge.  It has been living in the Hoosier cabinet with vintage rick rack and buttons resting in it, but is really too pretty to stay out of sight, don't you think?