Slow Sunday Stitching-Jan 17

 It's Slow Sunday Stitching--see more posts on Kathy's Quilts blog.

I'm cross stitching on an inexpensive wooden craft kit I picked up at Joann's some time ago. 

I finished a similar wooden ornament deer scene before  Christmas and gave it to my sister.  These are fun little projects.  The needle-nose pliers provide good help to pull the needle after running through stitches on the back. Since this photo I've finished the ground, stars and tree ornaments.

We've been rearranging furniture in the guest room since we gave away the bedroom set of my MIL's to a friend in need.  The quilt is from Judy's Mystery quiltalong some years ago on Patchwork Times, when she used to quilt a lot.  I've since switched it out with the Jewels in the Curio quilt which has been gracing the stair railing since I finished the binding some months ago.

I sent this to David's Quilting and love the Alex pattern with open curvy quilting. It is just big enough for the Full size guest bed, here it is laid out on our CalKing.

I caught the sliver moonset at sunset the other night.  It has been very hot with little humidity, which makes for spectacular sunsets but is always worrying in dry, dry, and windy southern California.  Fire danger is HUGE, there was a fire a couple of days ago in the County, but far from us. Fingers crossed they won't shut off our power in the middle of telemedicine work next week! Today we also remember the Northridge Earthquake of 1994 that knocked out power for millions in SoCal for days and caused much damage ( we lost power in our county for most of the day). Our kids were small then and our older daughter in the top bunk was so used to the bed being jostled by her little sister below, that she never even woke up :)

Design Wall Monday--New Blogger and Binding

Design Wall Monday comes around again.  See more design wall's on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog. 

Amid all the world's problems, small frustrations seem to get amplified while "hunkering down".  Blogger now forcing all of us to move to the new platform by the end of June is one of them.  I previously had tried the new platform but did not care for Google Photos.  Their editing choices were far less broad and did not allow me to do what I wanted.  I am continuing to use Picasa but don't know if that will be permitted.   Here's my first try:

Usually when I upload photos, they are small but I can click to make them larger before saving the blogpost; I was able to drag the image to a larger size in New Blogger.  These little blocks were made from cutoffs of the Summer Breeze quilt last shown on 5/18/2020.  I decided to make a doll quilt for guild donation--do you like my heart block?  The plain strips are 1-3/4 inch so these are little blocks. 

Yesterday was an all binding day.  I took this pic after I had attached the binding on the tablerunner on the left.  Quilting the tablerunner was a late night exercise.  I originally started quilting with a three-step stitch that I frequently use, but after several diagonal passes felt it was too small and busy and ripped it out.

New Blogger won't let me adjust the size of this photo, but you can see the ghost of the stitches.

Another quilt that got binding was the Jewel Box quilt I got back from David's Quilting early last month.   I am going to hand stitch this binding down, but the others were machine done.  New Blogger is not allowing this one to enlarge either.  Sigh.

Going to hit post!

Three for March--Jewels in the Curio Update

I had a productive couple of afternoons this weekend in the sewing room, finishing off the borders for the Jewels in the Curio quilt.  Our son came over and collected his dad Saturday afternoon for a long drive to look at a car, so I had plenty of room to lay out the quilt in the living/dining room.  Well, after I shoved over the table and chairs. 

The pieced borders fit nicely and I was happy with the color/print mix.  Then the final 2.5" plain border got measured and cut wrong. 

 My mistake was turning the quilt when I laid it down the second time--but no matter, I just added leftover border pieces and measured again. The edge really is not wavy--the quilt is just a little wrinkled in the middle.  I looked through my fabric bins today and decided against piecing a back--this top is just under 80" square so will need a lot of fabric.  I'll order or locally buy an extra wide backing, and will also need to purchase batting.  I got the binding all made today too.

My sister Kathy came over in the middle of this process Saturday night and after I made us a tri-tip and cheese quesadilla for dinner, we spent time in the sewing room.  She was making blocks for the pizza box guild challenge, and I laid out another quilt top on the floor to cut borders.  

I had sewn the lengths of border together weeks ago and just needed to measure and cut. This quilt is not on my Three for March list but is one I'd like to get done by next month to give as a gift.

A closeup of the prints, a mix of stash and charm packs from Connecting Threads.  I sewed  the borders on today and made a backing.  However, while I was pressing the backing seam I noticed a big flaw and a tiny hole in one of the backing fabrics.  Sigh.  Repairs will be necessary.  The final task in the sewing room today was repairing some pillow covers for daughter Elaine.  The tassels were drifting away from the corners :)  

There is one more day allotted to the Jewels in the Curio pick, but since I don't have any more sewing to do for it right now, I'll work more on the Aussie Feedsacks or the Sanctuary panel. 

Three for March--Pick #6

I picked the next project number to work on for three days, this is #1, Jewels in the Curio.  The last time this quilt appeared on the blog was during my Three for September challenge, when these blocks became a top. 

These Jewel Box blocks made it to the first border stage by October.  I am not a big fan of borders but they do make quilts larger faster :)

I have since sewn together three of the pieced border side sections and have one more to complete. The second of the plain borders has already been cut and sewn, ready to measure and trim to size after the pieced borders are on.  This is a Moda Bakeshop pattern by Jo of Jo's Country Junction.  I may have some yardage large enough for this twin size quilt, will have to see. Off to sew!

Works in Progress, Visitors, and New Toy

I'm continuing to work on some of the Three for September projects (my WIP busting effort working on one project every three days).  I spent a few hours quilting the Medallion Rescue quilt.  Lots of boring stippling around the star center, and then some custom work on the borders, all done on my Husqvarna sewing machine.  

The ribbon effect in the blue borders was done with a scallop stitch on my machine.  I like the way it turned out, however imperfect it is :)  Then I tried to come up with a way to quilt through the white sections of the chain blocks but somehow ended up with a more complex quilting design, simply by trying not to have to bury a ton of threads.  I used my Hera marker for all the lines.  I think the chains still stand out enough against the quilting.  Binding is ready to cut and sew, in the same blue dot fabric. I'd like to get that done this weekend and call this rescue complete. 

Another project on the Three for September list, Jewels in the Curio, still needed fabrics cut for the three borders.  I pulled out the GO! cutter and 2.5" strip die to make quick work of the rest of the necessary pieces.  It was very satisfying to have them all lined up, labeled, and ready to go when I want to piece.

Daughter Elaine texted last weekend hoping I had pumpkin carving tools.  The family stopped by on their walk and I was surprised by grandson Cove while I was digging around in boxes in the garage.  We had a short, fun visit, even though I didn't locate any tools.  

 Cove the Wizard grabbed some driftwood as a broom..

 ...Hunter the Thirsty rejected Mimi's first choice of a sippy cup with handles: "That's for Babies!"  He's rapidly turning into a little boy but his hands are still toddler chubby--love that.

And finally, the New Toy.  At our last guild meeting there was a raffle for a very special prize.  Many, many tickets were sold for this prize; I bought a few.  My sister bought quite a number of chances and ended up winning the prize!  At the end of the meeting she picked up her prize---and gave it to me as an early birthday present.  I was flabbergasted.  Here's a crappy photo of an impressive gift:

This is the Cricut Maker, with a rotary cutting tool specifically for fabric.  The prize package also included two of the large sticky fabric cutting mats, some other accessories and a fabric bundle.  I have watched a bunch of videos and seen some great projects on Instagram, but have not yet cut anything out. It's so hard to decide what to try first!  My sister and I are going to Sewtopia in a few weeks, and I'd like to use the Cricut Maker to do something fabulous with the Michael Miller Challenge fabric.  Wish me luck!

Three for September Wrap Up

The September challenge I set for myself, working on a different WIP for three days at a time all month, has been a great motivator and I have gotten some finishes that were long desired. I chose 10 projects and either moved along or finished 8 of the projects.  

#1 was the placemats for my nephew and his bride.  Goal was met of finishing the four placemats and mailing them to the happy couple.  

This photo shows the colors truer than the final shot with the aqua floral binding.  Nice to check off that fast finish for the first project, as I was already working on it, lol!

#2 was Garden Pinwheel, a quilt made from bonus triangles from the Rick Rack Road quilt here.  

I was stuck on the applique border.  Using the GO cutter after applying Steam a Seam2 fusible to the leaf fabrics was a big help in moving this quilt top along. 

Since I already had completed the back and binding, it will be next in the quilting queue. 

#3 was Jewels in the Curio.  I started this last year on National Sew a Jelly Roll Day, from a  Civil War Homefront Jelly Roll my mom and dad bought me years ago.  It is a Moda Bakeshop pattern. Goal was to assemble the finished Jewel Box Blocks into a top and work on the three borders. 

I finished the top and reassessed the border pieces that I needed were cut.  I also chose a neutral from stash to use for two of the borders instead of trying to cobble together scrappy ones, a decision that had stalled the quilt. 

#4 was Sunbonnet Sue Goes to the Orient.  Sue had stalled a number of times, having been started about 4 years ago with bonus triangles from this quilt I made in 2006.

After a cutting error when trimming Sue's linen background meant I had to add coping strips that looked like a doorway to me, I added the oriental lantern embroidery.  She is all finished now, with a facing on the back made from Japanese fabric my sister in law brought me from a trip to Japan. 

Simple quilting was all that was needed.

This sideways pic shows how the top facing covers the shorter side facing, eliminating bulk in the corners.  I made skinny channel to hold a bamboo skewer or knitting needle for a hanging sleeve.  So happy to have Sue finished at last, so many years after the original idea struck.

#5 was Zig Zag 9 patch, a quilt started from a block swap with an online Yahoo Group.  I assembled the top a couple of years ago...2012! (cough) a la Bonnie Hunter's quilt Rick Rack Nines, and it went to the quilter in 2017; the binding was machine sewn on in June this year and it has been waiting since then to have some missed stitching repairs and get a bath. I took it to the laundromat today and it is a finished quilt at last. 

Our CalKing bed is too wide for the zig zags to run vertically, but I still think it looks good.  The Baptist Fan quilting was my choice, and I love the texture.  So pleased to have made a bed sized quilt for US at last. 

#6 was Go Four It, a Leader-Ender I've been working on for a few years, based on Edyta Sitar's quilt in APQ magazine, with a twist.  Quilt MATH finally being worked out meant I needed to find a setting fabric for my layout.  Luckily I have found one.

The Jan Patek fabric I found at the Santa Barbara Quilt Guild show a few weeks ago is now washed and ready to cut.  I can finally turn this Leader Ender into a real quilt.  

#7 was two unplanned "squirrel" project tablerunners from a Kim Brackett book.  Inspiration struck to use charm squares instead of yardage and I assembled two tops before running out of steam.  Both are now finished. 

I chopped off the corner in this pic, but you get the idea.  This is from her Cross My Heart quilt in Scrap-Basket Surprises.  I had fun with the specialty stitches on my machine to add detail to walking foot quilting.

Above is the larger tablerunner, and below is the mini, from the same Prayer Flag charm pack that had languished in a drawer for years. 

#8  was the Medallion Star rescue quilt.  I inherited this early 90's top from my former boss, whose now ex-wife was clearing out her old craft projects.   I had chopped off some of the dated background fabric and made a new pieced border of my own 3 years ago.  

It became a sandwich and stalled during the quilting stage in 2017.  It has been stuffed under my cutting table waiting for more quilting for over a year.  I had spray basted the quilt and needed to iron it flat again before adding more quilting today.  While still not finished, it is very close to becoming a real quilt at last. 

 Walking foot quilting in the border chains...

...and surrounding the star points.  I have the four corner squares left to do in the burgundy, and a plan for the remainder of the borders.  Now September is over and I feel great about all the time I've spent in my sewing room this month. 

The two projects that didn't get touched were Barefoot in the Park, a Christmas quilt which is a layout, switcheroo and assemble the top job, and the other is framing the Mason Jar embroidery I recently finished.  I'll get to them :)  

I plan to revisit this "Three For a Month" idea in the future whenever I get overwhelmed again.  It was fun to touch each of these quilts and finish a few. 

Design Wall Monday: Twofer Threefer and Longarm Quilting

Design Wall Monday, see the Linkup on Small Quilts and Doll Quilts.  

Three for September: I am pulling out a different WIP to work on every three days this month.

#3 The Jewels in the Curio quilt now has a finished center.

I am not going to claim all my seams are perfectly lined up but they are only a smidge off in some places, not enough to worry about.  I am  happy with the colors and just love these repro prints in the Jewel Box blocks.  The other task for this project was to form a plan for the three borders.  I have examined all the precut pieces and leftover light fabrics I have.  Jo from Jo's Country Junction designed this quilt for Moda Bakeshop with a 4" finished light inner border, a scrappy squares second border, and a third 2"light  border, but used only one background print for her design, where I went scrappy.  So there will be some creative cutting and likely additions from the stash to make up the difference.  I also got a bunch of square in squares done for GO Four It as a Twofer :)

The #4 selection for Three for September is Sunbonnet Sue Goes to the Orient (applique from Quick Quilts magazine 2005).  Poor, poor Sue has been a WIP for soo long.  Here's how she looks today:

Goal is to finish up the lantern embroidery, make a quilt sandwich and do some simple quilting.  I may add a facing rather than binding as I want to keep the focus on the center.  Sue will be a wallhanging at last.  

My sister sent me a message that her longarm Pfaff was finally operational and she had quilted 5 Thomas Fire quilts in the last few days, without the thread breaking every four inches as it had been.  Yesterday I took over the quilt I'm making for our Uncle Fred and we loaded it onto the machine.  This is my version of Bonnie Hunter's Narragansett Blues pattern. 

She purchased this Grand Quilter at a quilt show, it was their demo model so was sold at a discount but still not inexpensive!  Her landlady kindly let her set it up in the craft room of their house.  Here it is with the 10' rails, she has 12'. Kathy guided me through all the steps of loading the quilt and readying the machine.  

We ran into some problems with the bobbin thread that took some time to resolve, there was a dull needle to change, and part of the batting folded inside the quilt, but otherwise it was great fun to do.

The quilting is neither the prettiest or perfect on this scrappy quilt, but it is done! I'll use  the excess cut off backing for a scrappy binding.  This quilt has been more than a  year in the making, starting with the four patches as leader-enders for a good long while last year :)   I started assembling the quilt in March 2018 and finished the top and backing in June.  Hoping to get a photo of Uncle with his quilt in the near future.  I've got several other finished tops that will see some longarm action soon!

Three for September Twofer

Three for September: I am choosing a to work on a different WIP every three days this month. 

 

I was out of the house most of the day yesterday, errands included going to the pharmacy, fabric store, and I snuck in a lunch out with DD Erica.  I had intended to get in the sewing room in the late afternoon but succumbed to a nap and missed dinner.  Not being tired, I got stuck into sewing Jewel Box blocks into rows, with the Twofer part the leader-ender square in squares.  

 All the rows are completed and I have the first pair at the sewing machine for assembly.

These square in squares were sewn and trimmed before the night was over. Lots more  bright triangles are cut and ready to sew on.

I picked up a Thomas Fire quilt to bind, and did a little shopping at Superbuzzy for more neutrals.  

The length of Kona Snow I hope will be sufficient for another new project.  A couple of jelly rolls are on their way from Etsy to be sewn into Happy Tiers quilts for my cousin's granddaughters for Christmas.  I'm aiming for National Jelly Roll Day sewing (9/15).  This will interrupt my Three for September, but I will find a way to fit in a less work intensive WIP.  According to my schedule, the 15th will be the third day of whichever project chosen. 

Now, off to sew!

Three for September: Garden Pinwheel Top Finish

Three for September:  a WIP is chosen and worked on for three days, all month.  

Late last night I carefully toted the Garden Pinwheel quilt top to the ironing board to fuse down the leaves on the border.  I only lost one leaf, which was a thin fabric that didn't want to stick, but fused just fine once I found it under the ironing board!

If you can tell, I decided to graduate down to the smaller leaves from the corners.  The applique really adds a lot to the simple patchwork, I think. 

Lots of green scrappy leaves in all shades. Oh, I am so happy I didn't abandon this idea in favor of a finish years ago!  The top was placed back on the hanger with the backing and binding and hopefully it will come out to play again before the end of the year.   I have plenty of green threads to chose from when it comes time to stitch down the edges with a fancy stitch. 

The next Three for September WIP is going to be a two-fer.  I've been making square-in-square blocks for several years, and after an hour of playing layout on the floor, am nearing the total I need for my self-drafted quilt plan, originally inspired by Edyta Sitar's Go Four It project from APQ magazine in 2015. My blocks are 3.5" unfinished; hers were much tinier as she started with 1.25" squares for her four patches. 

I am going to keep sewing the triangles to my four patches as leader-enders while I finish assembling the rows and top for the Jewels in the Curio quilt (a Moda Bakeshop pattern).  I have another five rows to assemble for the 8x8 setting.  Cutting and assembling the borders may follow before the three days are up.

Now I've got to get out of the house for a few errands, there are more Thomas Fire Quilts to give away and they need binding. A VERY generous long arm quilter has just returned 12 quilts she did for our guild project.  They are tagged for recipients so need to be finished right away.  I'm off to Superbuzzy!

Design Wall Monday--May 14, 2018

On my design surface is the baby quilt I showed the fabric pulled for on my last post.  Over the week I stitched all the sections and then got the final borders cut and assembled.

This pic is before final assembly of the top. I'm happy with the Grunge and modern fabrics.  It will finish about 35".  The backing and binding are cut, I have spray baste, and will need to get this sandwiched ASAP as it will be gifted next Sunday at a shower and this is a busy week. 

I hope every Mom had a lovely Mother's Day.  We had our annual brunch here with lots of family and food and enjoyed it all.  My kids and husband bought me a FitBit to help me get my steps in :)   Later in the afternoon I took a nice nap, we had a light dinner, and then I wanted to sew.  I have been working on a bin of Jewel Box blocks and matched up all the assembled component pairs the last time I had it out, making it easy to sit and sew them into blocks. 

 I just love playing with all  the colors and prints.

There was an Oops block too!

See more Design Walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts.

I have a few more vacation photos, from our trip to Marble Canyon, fishing on the Colorado River.

 Here's the guide, Mike, powering us up the river to a new fishing spot.  He knows them all.

Here's one of the two fish I caught.  I was concentrating on holding the still live fish so was photographed without a grin.  Very pretty fish, and tasty too.  The water is cold and the canyon deep, so jackets were required early in the morning, especially when we were powering up river.  I was later glad I hadn't worn a heavy shirt under it, though.

I believe this pic was much later in the day.  My Dad and brother noted this was the smallest number of fish they ever caught, but we sure snagged a lot of moss off the river bottom.  The guide noted that the river used to be flushed every spring to get rid of the moss, but they stopped that practice.  We could see a lot of fish as we drifted, but they weren't biting that much.

Our boat trip took us all the way to the bottom of the Glen Canyon Dam; Lake Powell is on the other side of the dam.  Though hard to believe, there were big semi-trucks crossing the top of the expansion bridge, seen as just tiny specks from below.

The rock cliffs were so interesting and different around every bend.  Here the rocks were  shifted to vertical position.  Here and there you could see a green bush that managed to cling to a small amount of dirt in the rocks.  Those bushes in the upper half of the picture were probably 5-10 feet in diameter, but look tiny against the massive cliff face. 

Off the boat, we hiked in a short distance and visited a site with Petroglyphs scratched into the rock face.  I'd say these deer were probably about 10-12" long and high.  There were a number of other figures and symbols on this section of the cliff.

My final picture on the river was of these wild horses.  They totally ignored as they grazed in the setting sun.  We had seen them high above the river earlier in the day.  It was so special to see them closer up.  I'd recommend spending a day on the Colorado River to anyone--there were lots of rafting companies giving tours from Marble Canyon.  It was really spectacular, serene and interesting all at once.  A definite 10 of a day!