Design Wall Monday--Catching Up

Design Wall Monday--see more great design walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog. 

Well, didn't mean to disappear for so many days!  I've been busy working on projects to enter into our County Fair. Only a couple more days before all entries need to be finalized online. 

I got all the quilting done on this large throw made from long-ago leftovers from another quilt. I abandoned something fancy for the purple/green blocks and kept it simple with a crosshatch. 

Our Nieces crocheted some adorable chickens--and stuffed them, embroidered the mouth and eyes, all while traveling from Riverside County in busy summer weekend traffic while their Dad drove.  I named mine Thimble and she is my new sewing room mascot.  I posed her on the doll quilt just quilted. 

I pulled several repro options before settling on the medium green print--the scale felt right.  I'll hand stitch the binding--it is too tiny to try to machine sew.  Another Fair entry project is nearly done. 

I did simple crosshatching every 2 inches for the quilting.  Sunday I made bias binding and had a heck of a time getting the last join done!  About five tries and ripping later, but finally ready to stitch down by machine, most likely. 

The simple lapped backing has recipes.  I'll end up with "okies and ingerbread" by the time the binding is on, haha. 

On my mind is the end of Picasa, which I have used all these years for the blog.  Google lets you make a copy of your album archive and save it to "Takeout", whatever that is!  Our computer is very old and I don't even know I can save the copy there or if I will have to store it somewhere else.  I only have three days left to solve this issue!  Google Photos is not like Picasa and there will be a learning curve.  If anyone has any helpful hints on this issue, I would be most happy to hear them!

Getting Things Done

We had a lovely Thanksgiving gathering--we were 22 for dinner  and got to catch up with my brother Tyler's kids,  whom we had not seen in some time. There was a lot of furniture moving and cooking for the big meal.   I took zero photos but we did have two baby announcements! One was of our nephew and his wife who were not able to make it, they live a 12 hour drive away.  It is their first baby and my brother and sister-in-law's first grandchild.  So exciting for them  The other announcement we can now share is of our own son and daughter-in-law's pregnancy!  Dane will have a baby brother or sister next year.  Very excited about another grandchild!  It was great to have a big family gathering again.  Plenty of leftovers to enjoy too. I gave the Windham Challenge pillow cover to my sister-in-law.  

I did kind of "squircle" quilting, which is not perfect!  Though I like the colors and prints, it does not go with anything in my house. 

Extra parts landed on the back.  I had the text print in stash to use--only Windham fabrics were allowed.  The stripe navy print made a nice accented binding. 

My sewing room became a sitting room for the big Thanksgiving event--the annual furniture resetting was accomplished pretty easily.  I first worked on the quilt top of the moment, Beachside Bungalow. 

I had the bright blue solid and the purple print in stash.  This long and slender quilt will be great for naps. I will look through stash fabrics for backing options first.  

My sister's longarm machine may get fixed soon, but until then I decided to quilt some smaller projects on my own to ease the crowding in the "to be quilted" closet. 

Curved organic crosshatch with the walking foot for this small quilt/baby quilt.  I used pink thread for three of the corners, and black thread for the last one, just for fun. 

During the burying of thread tails in one section, I lost my grip on the needle.  My husband and I were searching my sewing area for about 25 minutes with flashlights without success.  Finally, I went to pick up the quilt from my sewing desk and the magnetized needle was sitting on a pair of scissors on the quilt!!  So glad the search ended well. 

Backing made from leftovers from other quilts.  I love the monkey print that came from grandson Hunter's baby quilt.  I'll use black for the binding.  Tomorrow I plan to get another smaller top quilted to end the nice long weekend.  

Sewtopia Orlando--Part 1

I'm back from Orlando, Florida, where Sewtopia retreat again was a great event and getaway.  Attendance was cut in half due to social distancing requirements, but the fun and camaraderie was full as always. My sister Kathy and I spent the night at an airport hotel the night before our flight, which included free parking and a shuttle to the LAX airport.  We got to the airport way early and breezed through security, but nearly missed our boarding as we were hanging out in the wrong terminal!  We were running through the airport and were the last on, I think. The flight was very bumpy and this delayed drink/snack service.  There were a lot of folks getting up and moving around even after being told not to by the staff/Captain due to the turbulence.  Our window seatmate slept almost the entire time, unbothered!  

On the plane, I worked on stitching down binding on the Copy Cat pillow I made with the Windham Challenge fabric--also not easy due to turbulence! At the hotel, I finished closing and attaching the stuffed toy balls to the pillow before bedtime, as we had to turn them in first thing. 

Sewing on the ball toys was the hardest part of this pillow cover!  It turned out really cute with the plaid binding.  I did not win the challenge, as there were many other fantastic entries, but did get to pick out a lovely prize for participating. 

There were shoppers before the sewing room was fully powered--man on the left was part of the crew taping down outlets and cords!  Having an in-event shop is a good thing.  Amy and her team are always so responsive to issues or questions. 

My first task was laying out my precut rectangles for the Cosmic Crush pattern (Modernly Morgan) I had cut all these months ago from stash when there was a stitchalong that I ended up not doing.  I tried to balance out all the colors/prints in the blocks. The background pieces were mostly cut with my Accuquilt die.  

                               

Thank goodness for cell phone cameras to provide reference for placement, as I shuffled the pieces while sewing on the corner triangles. 

First block came out pretty well.  I wished the provided Juki sewing machines had a 1/4" stitch setting, as I struggled at first with scoring with a Hera tool after laying on the corner square.  Eventually I trimmed off the corner triangles prior to sewing with the 1/4" foot, as it had a guide piece. I was SO glad I had included my small round Omnigrid cutting mat for this job!

                  

I am absolutely a fan of the Folded Corner Clipper tool by Creative Grids, as well. Very clever tool that is easy to use.  I got a bit ahead of myself in the order of events, though!  We had a small shop hop trip and lunch out before the sewing room opened.  I'll make a separate post for that--and our continuing adventures and the loot I brought home :)

Slow Sunday Stitching--Copy Cat Pillow

Slow Sunday Stitching--the Copy Cat pillow I am making for Sewtopia's Windham Fabric Challenge is nearing a finish. The fabric line is Five + Ten by Denyse Schmidt.  I got all the machine quilting finished and attached the binding and backing. 

I used the recommended quilting design from the Copy Cats book pattern (By Dawn Navarro). 

Some stitch in the ditch around the legs and a couple rows of quilting in the border finished that job. 

Years ago I used a wool batting for a quilt and could not bear to throw away the cuttoffs.  I'm slicing the leftovers into bits and pulling them into fluffy pieces to use for the decorative balls--that will give the kitties the look of two front paws.  I should have done attaching job before I added the pillow back and binding, but that's a minor issue.  Only two more days to get ready to fly out to Florida! 

See more Slow Sunday Stitching on Kathy's Quilts blog. 

Design Wall Monday--Moda Love Pillow

 It's Design Wall Monday--see more Design Walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog. 

I actually sewed something for the first time in weeks!  My mood being what it was, the untouched big projects on the cutting table remained where they were.  I dug into a box of smaller unfinished projects for something more attractive, and found a Moda Love pillow top I made last July from a mini charm pack. I pulled some choices for a backing and pawed through the leftover binding drawer for something suitable.

After sewing on some 2.5" borders to make the pillow to 16.5" square, I decided not to quilt the pillow front but ironed on some thin interfacing and stitched a few straight quilting lines by machine, just to hold the interfacing on, as the fusible wasn't very sticky. 

The mini charms, Bubble Pop by Sandy Klop, have a '30's-40's vibe, and I found this floral leftover binding that seemed to go well.  However, there was not enough to go all around the pillow top.  I pulled many different choices from stash but nothing really felt right until I tried this Pezzy Print, another Sandy Klop fabric, in black and white.  I wanted to use as much of the floral as I could, and positioned equal sections of the Pezzy Print in the corners only, trimming them to extend 3" from the corners. 

I attached the flower print sections one at a time as I made my way around the pillow sandwich with the walking foot...

...Stitched in the ditch by machine from the front to finish. I think it turned out well!  It needs a pillow form and then will be ready to brighten up a couch or chair.  I'll share another finish next post. 

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!

Design Wall Monday--9/14/2020

 It's Design Wall Monday--see more design walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog for more inspiring projects using needle, fabric, and thread.

Off my design wall is the #gobblesewalong pillow from Center Street Quilts.  I finished mine very late on Saturday night, in time to show for the final day Sunday.  Pattern available in her Etsy shop.

Walking foot channel stitching in groups of three finished off the front of the pillow.  Backing and binding from stash completed the 18" pillow cover.  My sister wants me to add "crazy eyes", which I don't want to do, but I'm considering button eyes as the designer, Kristina Brinkerhoff, used.  I didn't win the prize she was offering participants, but enjoyed very much creating Mr. Gobble from scraps and stash.  Instagram users can check the #gobblesewalong hashtag for some really fun turkeys. 

Meanwhile in Southern California, there is a lot of smoke and bad air quality.  This pic was taken Thursday morning and the sky stayed this color all day into the next.  Over the weekend the sky almost returned to normal low clouds/fog/overcast, but no blue skies or sunshine in our area.  We are far from the fires and safe, but mourn the loss and  heartbreak so many are facing in California and Oregon.  Fingers crossed the fires will not last weeks longer.  We are thinking of all the firefighters and citizens saving lives and property amid the devastation seen from the air.  Stay safe!

Design Wall Monday, 1/20/20

Several things on/off my design wall to share.  See more design walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog.  

In the interest of keeping quilts moving along in the process, I worked on quite a few different projects in the last week.  

Make the Connection baby/lap quilt got borders added.  This is destined for guild donation. I'll cobble a back together and probably quilt this myself.  The pattern is free on APQ website, designed by Jo Kramer and her daughter for charity makes.

Binding was attached to the Sliced Cake quilt (Canoe Ridge Creations blog).   I did finish the binding but don't have pic of that.  No one specific that this one is destined for as yet. 

I finally decided on borders for the Chunky Churndash for my dad (free pattern on Quiltville.com).  Bonnie's design had three borders and corner stones and I just didn't want to do that, so added only a 3" cut border.  The top is now 72x84, which is pretty big for a couch quilt!  I'll be ordering a wide backing for it, undecided if I want to quilt it myself on my home machine or not...will likely send this out as my sister's longarm is not working.

Here you can see the gray is not a solid but a small brown print on the slate gray; this is a print from Betsy Chutchian's line called Eliza's  Indigo.  Darn those stray threads.  I had such fun making all the chunky churndash blocks.  I'm sure I'll make more in the future. 

I made a bunch of 3" HSTs from the leftovers of the hourglass blocks and decided to make a companion pillow for the quilt.  I have always liked the Oklahoma Twister pattern and quickly cut some light squares and laid it out.

I'm going to add some borders and additional HSTs to fashion another sort of Churn Dash.  Hope it works like my sketched idea.

Also finished were the last four green star blocks for my version of Bonnie Hunter's My Blue Heaven quilt--another free pattern on her site.  I'll be laying those out this week sometime, hopefully.  Good to be making progress on multiple quilts--there are a lot more waiting for attention too!

Final Pick for Three for March, and Lantern update

Sliced Cake is the tenth and final pick for my month-long challenge, and was inspired by a fabric I couldn't resist.

The macrame print was so cute. It's a little washed out in this pic, better in the next pic.  It is a Cotton + Steel print.  I last worked on this project in 2017, so it is only toddler aged :)

I saw the Sliced Cake Quilt tutorial on Canoe Ridge Creations' Facebook page using 10" squares, however I'm only making 4 rows of 17 strips.  I bought most of the coordinates from the clearance section on Connecting Threads--more came from stash.  This morning I laid out all the pieces and played switcheroo. 

Bright and fun colors and prints to play with.  There were a couple more switches after this pic.  I got right to sewing the rows before work.

Two rows complete, two to go! I will use the macrame print as borders to make the quilt a bit bigger, child size.   Meanwhile, pick #9 is now a finished pillow cover. 

In laying out the pieces after making the yellow print drunkard's path block, I remembered why this project stalled--the leftover DP blocks were all different sizes.  But since there were only four of them to trim, it went quickly and I sewed the pillow front together pretty easily. Originally I thought about finishing the pillow with a binding, but decided it would cover up too much of the rounded corner effect, so made a regular split back and stitched and turned the cover. 

This made an 18" pillow cover, a good size for a chair or couch.

The split back has >1" hemmed edges and overlaps on the sides by 3".  I'm glad to have the Lantern into a finished item and out of UFO jail.  Jen Carlton Bailly has many more DP-based patterns and lots of tips and tricks for easy construction on her website, bettycrockerass.com. 

Back to piecing and pressing...:)

Design Wall Monday--Fair Entries

Off the Design Wall!  It was a sweatshop weekend trying to finish everything I wanted to enter into our County Fair, with the deadline of Sunday at 5:00 pm for turning in entries.  My main project was the Metro Twist baby/wall quilt.  I made the bias binding from a purple woodgrain print and rounded the corners using the Quick Curve Ruler, and even made a hanging sleeve.  

I spent many hours hand stitching down the binding to the back, but I did a lot of it while sitting out on the patio enjoying the summer skies and a nice breeze on Saturday.  I'm happy with the way it turned out.  It didn't get a label, but someday it may be a gift for a baby so I'm okay with that. 

Next were two squirrel projects, a pillow from the Frolic Turnover (Sandy Gervais) made into Broken Dishes blocks, and the Yarnover tablerunner.

I chose a simple stitch from one of the four stitch menus on my Husqvarna and used the walking foot and a Hera marker for the quilting.

I was happy to find this aqua blue flower print and the binding fabric in stash.  I used the same quilting stitch on the pillow back hem.  This is such a great way to make a pillow cover, assembling it just like a quilt with the bound edge.  I overlapped the back pieces by about 3-4 inches. 

I think it turned out well.  The pillow form I used was a bit flat but I thought it would be better for display at the fair. 

 The other squirrel entry is the Yarnover tablerunner (Anka's Treasures) from Mini Charms.

After some simple stitch in the ditch I decided to add the embroidery detail, again with a stitch from the Husqvarna.  I selected it from the "utility stitch" section, but liked the way it kind of echoed the yarnover points.    To these three projects I added the set of four Tea Time placemats, the Big Bag of all dotted fabrics I made a couple of months ago, a modern tablerunner I finished for Sewtopia, and the May Stamp cross-stitch in  the hoop, so 7 total entries.  Sadly I didn't end up finishing Sue Goes to the Orient, but chose backing and binding and plan to make a mini quilt. 

My timing was good for getting down to the Fairgrounds, there were a lot of folks sitting around waiting for something to do.  We all had a laugh when I pulled out the Metro Twist and had a bunch of thread tails still sticking out.  A kind volunteer gave me some scissors to trim them off.  They were pleased that I had already looked up the categories I thought were right for my entries, saving a lot of time.  A few more people trickled in the last 1/2 hour of the day.  I'll look forward to seeing my entries when the fair opens next week.  

See more Design Walls on Small Quilts and Doll Quilts. 

Stitching Weekend

Sewing room was abuzz with iron, needle, fabric and thread this weekend, as I tried to finish a long list of items to enter into the County Fair.  My first project was the Twilight Hopscotch block pillow, which was stalled at the usual stage, quilting. I told myself to "start by starting", and got the stitch-in-the-ditch portion done, added some straight lines to the corner squares, and then filled in with a very basic stipple in the background.  The star center seemed too empty, so added square in square shapes helped without bringing too much clutter to the simple star shape.  

An envelope backing and regular binding for the finish and this 16" pillow was ticked off the list.  I'm happy with it.   The cheddar fabric in the star has appeared in sooo many quilts, as I bought most of a bolt when the local JoAnn's store closed years ago.  Wish I had a bolt of that Marsha McCloskey background print, I love it. 

Modern Row Robin was next on the list.  It was already a quilt sandwich stalled at the quilting stage.  I doodled some ideas in my Bullet Journal and came up with a plan. 

The overlapping squares seemed just the right fit for my skills and patience, given the time crunch. Bravely, I just started marking squares and rectangles with my ruler and Hera tool.  The walking foot got quite a workout, as did my arms, turning this quilt so many times.  

There were a lot of threads to bury, and a hanging sleeve to sew on by hand, but I applied the binding entirely by machine. The top and bottom rows I made, from Heather Jones' Half Log Cabin class at QuiltCon. It is a very energetic quilt, with all the bright colors and contrast, but I like it.

Unfortunately I ran out of time and none of the quilts got a label, as I spent time adding a hanging sleeve to another quilt and closing binding corners.  All told, I have six quilted items entered--2 larger quilts, a baby quilt, two minis, and a pillow. The projects that didn't get finished will have to wait for next year's Fair, including the Metro Twist quilt, boo hoo.  C'est la vie! 

My sister was waiting for me at the Fairgrounds when I got there 1/2 hour from the entry deadline!  She entered some preserved goods as well as an Art Quilt.  The crocheted items seemed to outweigh the quilt piles, but I hope there are lots of great quilts to see when the Fair opens August 2nd.