A big finish from my UFO wish list!

It's finally finished!

It is bigger than my design wall so the photo isn't great quality, but here it is!

Date started: January 2008

Date finished: March 2010

Number of pieces: 2519 (not counting borders - calculations here)

Pattern designer:  Bonnie Hunter (page 42 in Scraps & Shirttails book)

Pattern name: Carolina Crossroads, but my version is called "Colour Crossroads"

Pieced and quilted in green thread: by me!

All the fabrics on the pieced top, the scrappy backing and the binding came from my stash...woohoo!

I changed the blue corners I had originally sewn on, since none of the blog readers who left comments on this post liked the blue...now they're green and I do like that better...thanks for the advice!

The binding is made from striped black and white fabrics.

And now I will adjust my UFO wish list on my sidebar! It feels so great to meet a goal!

Bonnie's books

I have been enjoying Bonnie Hunter's first 2 books this week. Our guild librarian ordered them for us, and I got first dibs on borrowing them, since I requested them!  There are some great ideas for "green" quilting in the "Scraps & Shirttails" book, but my favorite is the "Leaders & Enders" book, which is full of ideas for organizing scraps and stash, and turning it all into finished quilts.

It is very cool to be reading Bonnie's books for the first time, while I have been machine quilting the first mystery quilt I made from Bonnie's patterns!  I have been really busy at work, so I haven't had much time for fun quilting, but I try to fit in a little bit of quiltyness every day, even if it's late at night. The past 2 weeks have been mostly reading at night and a bit of work on this quilt.

Here is a photo of stitching in the ditch quilting on my "Carolina Crossroads", which I call "Colour Crossroads". It was the first really scrappy quilt I made completely from my stash, and I enjoyed every minute of sewing it in 2008! It was also the first large quilt that I sewed on-pointe, and I was quite worried about all those bias edges, but it came together amazingly well!

It didn't get finished because (surprise, surprise!) I started a few more quilts after that! But I always really liked it and wanted it to be a finished quilt. I put it on my UFO wish list in January, started quilting it at retreat, and have been chiseling away at that quilting ever since.

I did a free motion swirl design in lime green thread on the wide border and circled through as many of the bright green circles as I could find...it has been fun, although challenging with shoving such a large quilt through my machine.

Check back later in the week to see a) the finished quilt and b) my new leader/ender project.

Design Wall Monday #8

I am planning for my upcoming quilting retreat...woohoo! I have been cleaning cupboards and trying to get myself more organized so that I can pack up a month's worth of projects (to finish in 2 days) and everything I might ever need to work on all those projects...I'm sure you know how that goes!

I even dug to the back of the closet and found a UFO that I worked on at the 2007 retreat and I hope to make lots of progress on that this year.

At last year's retreat, I took 14 projects, finished 4, made progress on 2, started 1 (you always have to start something new, right???) and 6 projects did not even get opened! I will try to me more sensible this year and make more realistic goals.

Last year at retreat I machine quilted my Orange Crush quilt, and this year I am forcing myself to quilt my Carolina Crossroads. I finished the piecing at retreat in 2008 - yes, 2 years ago and it has been waiting patiently ever since, so now it's finally ready to be quilted.

This weekend I pieced the backing for the quilt, using up lots of my black and white stash. In this photo it sure looks like there is a blue fabric in there. I'll have to check that tomorrow in the daylight...not that it really matters since I'm not taking it out now! This took me hours to cut and piece, and made me really want to buy wide backings again :) But I recognize the value in cleaning up the stash by making these pieced backings.

Now I just have to baste the quilt and find some thread, and I'm ready to pack up for retreat.

Retreat Report #2

The first project I planned to work on at retreat was my mystery quilt from Quiltville. When I arrived at the retreat I discovered that 3 other quilters were sewing the same mystery...small world! One quilter was assembling her blocks, and the other 2 were working on their piles of 9 patch blocks. It was fun to see their quilts developing and I hope it was encouraging for them to see my finished top.
I had already finished piecing the quilt top before the retreat and my goal was to cut and sew on the borders. I had a black and white fabric from my stash that I thought would make a fun inner border and I cut and pieced it so the sayings would be complete around the quilt...that took some figuring.
Then I cut the fabric for my outside border, which was my only stash fabric that was suitable colours and a large enough piece. But I came up a little short, so had to add in corner stones. Here is a close up of the corner borders. I might take those blue corners out and make them green if I can find enough pieces leftover. I really cleared out my greens and the black and whites from this mystery quilt! What do you think...should the blue corners stay or go?!?!

Mystery solved!

Okay all you faithful blog readers...you are really in the bad books today! That's right...all you folks who read my blog on Thursday and looked at my pieced star blocks, but didn't tell me that I had one pieced wrong! Check out on the star blocks on that post, the right hand column, third block down...UGH! Why didn't any of us see that?!?!
So, I started putting together the blocks. Here is a weird photo of the top left corner of the quilt. It is so busy I was almost going blind! But I was really delighted with how well the seam matching was going, and the rows were coming together really well. I realized as I was sewing that this is the first large quilt that I have ever made on point.
I was merrily sewing along, had all the blocks on the design wall, and about 3/4 of the rows sewn, when my Dad arrived for a little visit. Sometimes he likes to bring me a Tim Horton's coffee, and sit and chat with me while I sew. He sat and stared at the quilt for a long time and said "Sweetie, something isn't right in the middle". I thought it was making him blind too, until I saw the mistake...one twisted QST! There it was, right in the middle of the rows I had already sewn together. So then I thought about calling it a "humility" block and leaving it alone. But it was bugging me, so I had to rip out the block and turn it the correct way.
It made me feel better to know that fellow mystery quilter Jeanne did the same thing...check out her version of the quilt here.
And here is my finished mystery quilt top. As you can see I decided to make it 4 blocks across and 6 blocks down (instead of 5 blocks x 5 blocks). Everyone in my family is tall, and since my 13 year old is almost 6 feet and still growing, I think I better start making my quilts longer! So I have one extra ring block and one extra star block, which I'll either include in the backing somehow, or make into pillow covers.
I am happy with the little bits of light blue that I tossed in and think that it is an interesting looking quilt. I have a great fabric that I am going to try to use for a thin light border, and a black fabric for a wider outside border.
Thanks again to Bonnie at Quiltville for all the fun!
For those who enjoy knowing the details of the number of pieces in a quilt,
my quilt with 39 blocks has:
Ohio star blocks: 15 blocks at 53 pieces each = 795
Rail/ring blocks: 24 blocks at 49 pieces each =1176
Setting triangles: 16 blocks at 30 pieces each = 480
Corner triangles: 4 blocks at 17 pieces each = 68
For a total of 2519!!
That's a lot of cutting and sewing !!

Step #7 blocks finished

I have been a one woman piecing factory today. My family is away skiing, snowboarding, shopping, and working, and I had a glorious sewing day all to myself! This is a very rare occurence and I enjoyed every second of it. On the left is a photo of one of the step #7 blocks of the mystery quilt. On the right is 16 of the finished blocks. Don't they look great together? I thought that I could just add a sashing and have a lovely quilt with these blocks!

But I kept right on sewing and was able to finish all the blocks needed to piece together the mystery and here they are. They don't really look like much sitting here a pile, but just you wait until tomorrow when I sew them all together!!!

Step #6 Finished

This week is just speeding by me! The last block of Bonnie's mystery quilt has been posted and I am so close to working on it. But first I had to finish sewing 16 of these Ohio Star variation blocks. I was glad that I had carefully squared up the hourglass blocks from step #5, since it was tricky to get these blocks to join together well at the seams.
Here are my 16 blocks on the design wall. I like the design that these blocks make when displayed all together. But that's not how it will be sewn...this is only less than half of the blocks I need for the mystery.
I can now start to sew my last blocks from my remaining 100 rail fence blocks, 100 9 patches, and 25 light squares.
Back to "work"....

Step #5 half finished

I didn't have much time to sew this weekend since it was my son's 13th birthday celebrations. It was a weekend of shopping for, feeding and tolerating the noise of a pack of loud boys! But they are great kids really and I'm happy that my son enjoyed his memorable 24 hour party!

I did have some sewing moments, hiding away from all the chaos, and was able to sew up the 16 Half Star blocks. I just keep hoping that my quilt doesn't end up looking like a dog's breakfast! These blocks are quite busy looking, don't you think?? I am looking forward to sewing the 4 Quarter Star blocks and then 16 Star blocks. Some of the quilters on the Mystery Quilters blog ring (links are on the right side of my blog) have already figured out the mystery! I wish my brain worked like that, but I still do not have a clue how this is going to some together. Look at all these blocks sitting in my plastic bin! Where are they going?!?!

Step #5 finished

I finally had time to open up my Christmas present and become acquainted with my new sewing machine. I thought this might be a good block to sew since the quarter inch seam is so different on this machine and it was not as necessary to be perfect in this block. We were working well together as a sewing team and quickly producing the 100 hourglass blocks for the mystery quilt, until I noticed a problem with my blocks. Can you see it in the photo on the right? When I sewed the second seam, somehow it pulled the fabric back in the centres. Some blocks were just fine, but this was happening on about 25% of the blocks. I tried very hard to fix this, putting the blocks through very carefully, but couldn't seem to solve the problem. I ended up having to take out 2-3 stitches in the middle of the seam, fold the lip back and resew that part of the seam. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what is causing this?

Anyway, I persisted and resewed the problematic blocks, and then squared up the blocks to 3.5". It was a lot of work, but I was determined to catch up before Bonnie posted step #6. And I just made it! How are these blocks going to be sewn together?!? It's a mystery!

Step #4 finished

I finished step #4 of Bonnie's mystery quilt today, even though my son has been home sick from school. In between waiting on him hand and foot (and doesn't everyone love being waited on when feeling under the weather?!?) I really enjoyed sewing these cute little units.
Ruthie emailed me to help with my calculations on my previous posts about how many little squares we are sewing in the 9 patch blocks for the mystery quilt...it was even more than I had thought! I adjusted the numbers based on correct addition :)
And another fun happening was that Jeanne honoured my blog today...you can read what she wrote here.
That really made my day!

Step #3 finished

I forced myself to get those little 9 patch blocks done and here they are!

They look so cute sitting there...don't know what all my fussing was about!!!

Now I am ready to get going on step #4. Bonnie said she might post Step #6 on Thursday or Friday, so I am still optimistic that I can get #4 and #5 done before then. Here are all my finished blocks, waiting in a plastic bin...rail fence on the left, 9 patch in the middle, step #2 blocks and filler squares on the right.

I was at quilt guild meeting tonight and I always come home revved up on quilting energy, so maybe I'll go sew some step #4 blocks now...can't sleep anyway!

Step #2 finished

I am on a roll - this is my fourth blogging day in a row! And I am sewing along like crazy, trying to catch up to the rest of the group. I have finished step #2 - 100 9 patch blocks (3" finished). I sprinkled in a few blue squares because I was getting tired of the green and now I like the blocks better. I had a few renegade blocks...don't know how that happened! There are no blocks like these two on the left (so far) in this design.
Now I am off to sew more 9 patches with darks in the corners.

Step #1 finished

I sewed all morning and finished the first step of the mystery - 100 rail fence blocks. Here they are...not looking nearly as wonderful as they should for all that time and effort! Oh well, they will look better when they are put together with their friends! It sure has been great to use up all the small bits and scraps of these fabrics that were just sitting in a box. I already have cut lots of 1 1/2" strips to go right into step #2 this afternoon.

Quiltville Mystery

Yippee...I am finally starting the Quiltville mystery called Carolina Crossroads! I have been thinking about it, dreaming about fabric combinations, and wishing for time to sew, and here it is! My husband is taking the kids to a football game tomorrow, and I get to sew all day...can't wait!
As I wrote on Dec. 26th, if I couldn't make the entire quilt from my stash fabric, I wasn't going to do this project. I dug around in the boxes today and came up with a huge pile of browns, blues, rusts, etc. but wasn't happy with the thought of sewing all those dark colours. Then I found a box of fabrics that were black backgrounds with lots of colour and I was happy to have those as my dark. Then I settled on white fabrics with some black patterns for the lights, and picked bright green for my accent colour. I'm not sure if I'll have enough green fabrics, so I have pulled out some blue to use if I need to. I have cut enough strips to get started on the rail fence blocks.