Monday, November 18, 2019
CHILD'S QUILT, COLOR BLOCKS, AND THANKSGIVING
Busy this past week working on a new quilt for a little boy. It is always fun to find fabric in my stash to quickly make a quilt.
So I cut the panel prints apart and started putting them back together with some borders.
And in no time at all it is ready to quilt and add the red binding.
Do you remember these color blocks. Well I made 9 different color ways with 9 blocks each in them and finished the quilt top off this week.
And the top is finished at 60 by 60 inches. It will go to the charity division of my quilt guild in December with its prepped binding.
Time to pull out my Thanksgiving wall hanging. This one is my favorite wall hanging for this time of year. I made it several years ago and we enjoy it so much during the fall holiday.
Monday, November 11, 2019
FINISH AND STARTS
I actually finished a piece and in relatively very quick time. Considering some takes years this was an accomplishment.
This was my first attempt at a completely done hand appliqué project. My husband had knee joint placement and I knew I would be spending a good part of a couple days at the hospital so I decided to prepare this project to do while idling away hours and hours at the hospital.
I also finished 36 of these 10.5 inch blocks to put together in a quilt for my guild's Warm Wrappings charity division. I have had the Alison Glass fabric for a couple years now and have just not ever been crazy about them. They are similar to Batiks. I still had tons left over after I finished these blocks and have tucked them into a bag to give to my friend Michelle. Now it is her turn to do something with them. She makes quilts for Hospice so they will also go to a good cause.
After starting my Flower Pot wall hanging and finding not only did I purchase a great deal of Kaffe Fassett fabrics I discovered I actually have some pretty wild fabrics in my stash as well. So I got busy starting a new project with them.
This was just an experiment with these wild colored fabrics so I tried a couple blocks that end up 6.5 by 9.5 and I think they will be fun to fool around with.
Oh, these are fun. So I should have a good time mixing and matching these over the next few months and see how that goes.
For my chicken fans out there when talking about wild colors here my daughter's chicken Patrick.
My daughter rescued him off the highway on the way home one day. He wasn't very old and sense he was so pretty she named him Patricia thinking he was a hen. Well Patricia turned out to be Patrick. Here he is with some of his hens that he has adopted from the FFA project chicks that were part of my oldest grandson school project. There are actually 9 hens for him to keep herd on. That keeps him pretty busy.
Monday, November 4, 2019
FlOWER POT AND LITTLE MISS SAWTOOTH FINISH
I have been busy this past week. I purchased this pattern last week and have started working on it with my Kaffe Fassett fabrics.
I gathered up all my fabric. I discovered I actually had a good deal of fabrics in my stash as well to work with what I had purchased at PIQF.
I organized them by color and pulled out the pattern and started the process.
Ready to start. This panel is 18 by 42. I am starting with just this as a wall handing for my entry. I may later make the full quilt, but not right now.
So far here is where I am. I am using a fusible method. So these blooms and leaves are ready to go once I get them all finished and I already have some 1/4 inch bias vines ready to go. Just need to select a background once the rest of the blooms and leaves are done.
I did manage to complete my Little Miss Sawtooth quilt top. It will go to my guild's charity division.
My daughter lives out in the country, with very few neighbors and most far apart. However, she did get one Trick or Treater at her door on Halloween. His name is Fred, and he got his treat too. One slice of bread.
Monday, October 28, 2019
QUILTING BIRDS OF A FEATHER
I finished the quilt top of my Birds of a Feather a few weeks ago. I talked with several friends in my small group and all agreed I would have to quilt it myself. Let's face it to take this to a quilter would drive them insane along with me and cost me a fortune as well. If and when I quilt something myself I usually spray baste. However, in this case I decided to take it to my quilter and have her baste it on her long arm six inches apart in a grid side to side and top to bottom.
I spent a good deal of time trying to figure out what thread to use. My original idea was 28wt Aurifil. Well, not all their colors come in the small spools and there will be tons of thread color changes. So I decided on using Mettler cotton 50wt and ran into the same problem. At last I just decided to go with the Mettler that I had in my thread stash and use Coats and Clark poly along with it, as they have such a wide range of color choices.
So the quilting begins. I am finding since the appliqués fill their backgrounds so heavily that in many of the blocks I will only have to quilt the leaves and other appliqués and not have to do much outside quilting on the background.
I am using some pretty heavy stitching in the leaves. I thought I liked this stitch as it stands out well and has little nubs of texture.
However, I ran into a bit of a problem with it and ended up picking them out. I found the stitch on the brown leaf actually showed up better and was easier to control the stitch starts and stops.
This is going to take a while. I am quilting one block at a time. I am pretty sure with all the appliqués if I don't I will miss something.
For those of you that are fans of my daughters chickens. Here are two of the last ten hatched by mother hen. Look at that fancy hairdo on the black one. They are standing in a new coop that my 13 years old grandson made for them.
Since the population explosion of just 4 chickens to 27 there now is a new chicken yard. Here are some of the new chicks enjoying a larger yard. My daughter's husband loves her very much, he hired their contractor to build the new yard. There was a deal struck though, they no longer free roam. He said 4 chickens pooping on the patio was one thing, but 27 was a way too much.
However, I ran into a bit of a problem with it and ended up picking them out. I found the stitch on the brown leaf actually showed up better and was easier to control the stitch starts and stops.
Monday, October 21, 2019
SHOPPING SPREES AT PIQF
Once a year in October my guild offers a bus trip to Santa Clara, California for the Pacific International Quilt Festival. A full day 10am till 6pm of quilts and shopping.
So many wonderful ideas. This piece was really lovely.
This close up of a lily pond reminds me that I have a UFO in my closet that needs attention. I love the thread work on this.
And wonderful ideas for trees.
Now shopping is a close runner up to a perfect day. I have ideas for these Kaffe Fassett fabrics.
Now I know these don't necessarily make one drool over them. However, these top stitch sewing machine needles by Superior are a must for me, especially for machine appliqué.
And last but not least are some white Batiks for my Dogwood project and my favorite white backgrounds. I do like white backgrounds but not solids, so these last three finds were a perfect addition to my white fabrics stash.
Monday, October 14, 2019
VINE AND BERRIES PLUS
Another project that has sat too long in the UFO pile. Time to get busy with this stuff.
Lot of appliqué in all sorts of color of rayon thread. Glad I stocked up when they had it on sale at JoAnn's a while back.
Lots of progress on the Hidden Treasure appliqués.
Now only two sides to go. It has been interesting without the original pattern to figure out a layout of the appliqué pieces, but so far things are going pretty well.
I have added another tree to my hand appliqué project.
And another house.
I got a bit tired of green trees and decided on a flowering tree.
And as I am feeling much more accomplished with appliqués I have decided to go back to this pattern from a class I took last year.
Not much of a start. I found that somewhere along the line I used my white Batiks for another project. As I am off to Pacific International Quilts Festival next week, I"ll do some shopping there for them and get this pieces going.
Monday, October 7, 2019
PROJECTS AND MORE PROJECTS
I am finding myself with UFO projects all over the place. But, it does seem that I am making some headway. It is slow though!
I posted my original blog for this project here.
I have half my Tilda quilt rows now sewn together. Putting the rows together has not been much fun. Way to many seams that must join together properly, which has involved re-pressing seams differently than I did the first time.
Drummer Boy is coming along nicely. The project has taken a lot of work to get this for.
I now have 70 blocks of the 100 I will need to start putting the top together.
House number two for my hand appliqué project is almost ready, just needs the window.
And the first row of my wall hanging is done and just waiting for rows two and three.
I did take out a bit of time to purchase this rotating cutting board. I have both a 12 inch and a 17 inch square rotating cutting boards. I have pretty much worn a groove into the 17 inch one and the lines and numbers on the 12 inch are nearly worn off. I find the rotating cutting boards really handy especially for the hand appliqué projects and the Drummer Boy blocks.
And for all the fans of my daughters' chicken pets. It seems that there has been a great deal of new members added to the family. These two chicks were the first of mother hen hatching the rest of the eggs she is sitting on. She is now the proud mother of 10 baby chicks.
I posted my original blog for this project here.
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