WiP - February

February 27, 2017

Ah, finally February - no one was sick! There was a few more snow days than I would have liked, but we mostly survived them. And I got back into the routine of sewing, which led to lots actually getting done for once.

Like my brother-in-law's Army uniform quilt - a Christmas present finally received!

And my pink flying geese swap mini!

And my own table runner, finished before Valentine's Day! {Give or take five years.}

I also finished another t-shirt quilt - I'm waiting for my friend to receive it before I post about it.

Made three sets of BOMs Away - two Tic Tac Toe blocks for an Instagram friend and four Jack's Chain blocks.

And the second Eternal Bloom block, which was...not the easiest. But done!

I pulled out a mini-project, which turned out to not be quite that mini. It's the leftover pieces from Shivaun Place - the pattern contained a mini pattern for the half- and quarter-square triangle cutoffs. I changed it a bit to echo the design of the quilt, and it ended up about 30" square. It was supposed to be a pillow for my sister-in-law...I suppose everyone needs a giant pillow? Anyway, finishing it is my OMG goal for March.

In addition to the other t-shirt quilt, I made three more t-shirt quilt tops, and I'm working on piecing the back for one of them. She asked for her Half Fanatics number as the backing - those letters are 20" high! Should be an awesome back.

And I pieced a random little top! I dragged the Little Man around the quilt show last October, so he got a reward at the end - these pilot bears panel and a fat quarter. I was going to fold them up and put them in a box while cleaning, but...I had some time, so I threw the top together. So it's a little closer to being an actual quilt!

And for my leader/ender, I worked hard on getting this QOV nearer to being an actual quilt. I'm down to the last four patches to get it all together - whew! I feel like I've been making four patches foreeeeeeever.

So that's February! I've got a good bit of stuff to quilt in March, so hopefully the snow tapers off so I can get to the rental place more often. Seriously, now - it's currently snowing and I'm scheduled for Wednesday...

Always I Fought On - a Finished Memory Quilt

February 24, 2017

A finish that's a nice reminder that not all memory quilts need to be t-shirt quilts - my sister sent me a few of my brother-in-law's military uniforms and asked me to make a medallion quilt from them. Since a medallion quilt has been on my bucket list for a while, I jumped at the opportunity.

A wee bit of a slow jump, though - it was supposed to be a Christmas present. A friend of hers was supposed to send the green BDUs to me, but by the time we decided that wasn't going to happen in time, a Christmas finish wasn't going to happen. And then I was sick for most of January, and had trouble tracking down a set of green BDUs locally, and...well, it's there now. Only two months late.

It contains his blue wool Virginia Military Institute uniform {same college my husband went to!}, his current Army uniform, and the old one. Plus some random bits of Army fabric in that border.

The centerpiece is an Army Star, which I searched foreeeeeeever for a pattern with no luck, then someone posted a comment on this blog post and boosted it back into Google's notice. Thank goodness! Pat very generously shared the pattern with me, I blew it up about 300%, and voila!

Each section is quilted individually - stipple in the star, loops in the white borders, orange peel in the uniform blocks, wiggly through the flying geese - but my favorite is the outermost border. I spent the entire time saying, "oval, oval oval, out" - I'm sure driving everyone else nuts at the rental longarm place! But it turned out perfectly, and the corners {which I forgot to take a picture of} flow so nicely, and I'm very happy with the whole thing.

A detail so small I had to circle it - at my sister's request, I added the initials of a friend of his who was killed in Afghanistan.

The back is the same Army fabric that's in the blocks. And yes, it was snowing when I took the pictures. I was already late, I couldn't wait for a sunny day! We don't seem to have lots of those!

And proof that I do actually fill out the labels before mailing them! Oh, and I did remove all the uniform buttons before quilting it, then sewed them all back on. That was a lot of fun. //sarcasm font//

One reason I'm glad I still go to the longarm rental - I wasn't sure where to start quilting {I guessed the outer borders}. But the experienced quilters showed me how to baste across several parts of the top {the black lines to the left and right of CC} to hold it in place as I rolled, and told me to always start in the middle. So now I know! And also, I can't put it on the floor to remove basting stitches without CC being a photogenic brat.

76" square

BOMs Away! - Eternal Bloom #2

February 20, 2017

Whew. Guys, if I had started with this block last month, I'm not sure I would have kept going with this BOM. There was a lot of seam ripping, and it pretty much took me all of Saturday and Sunday to get it together.

I need to start counting total pieces and record this in my quilting bullet journal, just to see if it beats Ripples and Reflections. The centers of these pansies - including those HSTs - measure 3/4" finished!

It still needs green bias strips added {as does block 1...and pretty much all blocks till the end when I figure out how to do that...} But boy am I glad to have this one done for a month. As I was cleaning up, I noticed that the first block was #2, and this block was #8. Perhaps I should put them in order...

{Pam Bono's Patriotism's Eternal Bloom}

How about you? Work on any BOMs recently? Stab fabric with a seam ripper?

Pink Flying Geese - a Finished Mini

February 17, 2017

Well, I've had quite the week. Shortly after I posted my finish last week, my website was hacked {along with about 1.5 million others!} and I spent the weekend desperately trying to recover from that {with the help of a very patient friend, because I know nothing about coding.} Even now, I'm removing backdoor scripts and cautiously deciding which plug-ins to enable again. {Spam check is back on, because spammers know exactly when you've let your guard down.} So I apologize if I tried to sell you some Canadian drugs last week. I certainly hope it won't happen again. And it really cut into my sewing time! I had sat down to bind two quilts last Friday afternoon when my mom told me I was hacked, and only one is nearly finished now. So instead of mini-Monday last Monday, I'm playing catch-up.

And so, the finish! It's for the pink mini swap on Instagram - my first swap in a very long time. My partner said she likes flying geese, ombre, and non-traditional colored backgrounds. Check, check, and check! I've had this design pinned for a long time, and jumped at the chance to use it. I have a huge amount of pink scraps, and I think I sorted through about thirty different ones to get the proper ombre effect - and even then, I had to borrow one from my neighbor.

A quick non-tutorial on doing one like mine, with four blocks containing one geese in each fabric.

Mine is made with traditional flying geese, cut the traditional way {I normally do them like "speed piecing method B," but in this case, the backgrounds wouldn't end up on the correct sides.}

You need six 3-3/4" squares, cut twice on the diagonal, and twenty-four 2-1/8" background blocks, cut once on the diagonal. If you're using two different backgrounds, it's twelve of each. You'll end up with 1-3/4x3" geese {1-1/4x2-1/2" finished}. Eight background pieces of 8x3" unfinished - or four of each.

It makes a 15.5" unfinished block, which is the perfect size for a mini!

I used Hawthorne Threads' in-house arrows collection for the grey background, and an unknown aqua. {I ordered a scrap pack from HT, so the aqua was just shy of the amount needed to have a readable selvage. And the clever scrap-pack-packers made sure to get several of the in-house designs in there, which was great because I wanted to feel their base fabric.}

The pinks were: Lizzy House butterflies, Sandy Gervais leftover charm, unknown polka dots, Lizzy House pearl bracelets, Heather Ross Mendocino, unknown chevron