A Couple of Finishes!

Wow, it has been almost a month since I've written a post.  I knew I was going to likely skip the week that I was preparing for a retreat; however, I was not prepared to come home from the retreat with a horrible cold that lasted for over two weeks.  I am not one that normally gets chest colds or coughing with my colds, but I sure did this time.  The cough is finally about 95% gone and my nose has stopped running 24/7.

I finished sewing the binding down on an old UFO just prior to the retreat.  I originally pieced this little quilt in 2010 while living in AZ.  I was starting my first machine applique project, so I wanted to do some practicing with my machine and the stitches before I worked on the "real" quilt.  I had some scraps of batiks laying around that already had fusible on them from making a Snippet Sensations quilt so I fused them on a piece of background fabric in a random pattern, practiced my machine applique skills around each piece, added a border and dubbed the finished quilt top "Collage Applique".  Just now as I was typing that I realized that "Applique Collage" is probably a more accurate name, but the label is already made (shocking for me) and I am not changing the name now :-).  I got the center half quilted while still in AZ, probably also in 2010 and then the quilt just sat and sat.  I finally pulled it back out, finished the quilting and got it bound.  It has now lived in 3 different states and I've had two different names since it got started, so it was time to get it done.  Here is the finished quilt.  Now I just need to find the perfect place to hang it :-)

I also got my Tumbling Nine Patch quilt completed at the retreat.  This quilt is a shop sample and only baby size, so since it will likely be either donated for a baby or gifted for a baby, I opted to attach the binding by machine to get it done and off the to do list.  There are a number of methods used to attach binding by machine.  I didn't want a lot of fuss and worry about having to line things up so I opted to attach the binding to the back of the quilt, pull it to the front and to stitch it down using a blanket/buttonhole stitch.  I am very happy with how the front looks.  Does the back look great?  Well, not so much, but I used a thread that matched the backing so unless you are looking close, it doesn't look bad.  And again, this quilt will eventually be used by a baby and will get washed and washed, so machine binding was a good choice for this quilt.  Below are pictures of the finished quilt and a closeup of both the front and the back of the binding.  I do have 3 kits of this quilt made up in the shop.  You can find them HERE.

I have also been plugging away on my Perkiomen Daydreams blocks and have 6 rows completely assembled.  Well, technically I have a block flipped on the far left side of row 6.  I have unpicked the stitching since taking this pic, but still have to sew it back together.

Finished Current Projects & Progress on an old UFO

I have made sure to spend time in my sewing room every day since getting home from the retreat and I have finishes to show for it!  Actually one of the finishes came in the truck on a road trip to pick up the 1000 square feet of flooring that we purchased, but a finish is a finish no matter where it happens!

I was on a roll with the Dancing 9 Patch top, so I kept going and not only got the top finished, but I also have the backing made.  I have a huge pile of unquilted tops, so one of my goals this year is to try and quilt each top as it's finished.  Sometimes quilts need to sit for awhile before quilting to figure out what will look best or just because you are so sick of the top by then that you can't stand to look at it for one more second LOL.  I'm still excited about the Dancing 9 Patch top, so I want to strike while the iron is hot.  I have plenty of batting on hand, so I just need to get that cut and the quilt basted so I can start the quilting.

Here is the finished top followed by the quilting design that I have decided on.  It really is true that if you practice a design over and over by drawing it on paper, that WILL translate to quilting your quilt.  I did the same thing when I was trying to learn an allover swirl quilting design and now I'm trying it with another design.  I've seen this one referred to as headbands and mussels and I'm sure there are plenty of other names for it as well.  I get huge pieces of packing paper in with my fabric shipments and I realized last week that they would be perfect for practicing doodling allover quilting designs.

The finish I mentioned came in the form of sewing down the binding on this small quilt that I pieced in 2015 and quilted last year.  It was one of them that got the swirl quilting.  It's a disappearing 9 patch pattern.  I got the entire binding sewn down in about 2 hours of our 3 hours of road time going to and from Fargo for our flooring.  I was shocked at how fast it went and realized that quilts with batik binding seem to take me much longer to sew down as the tighter weave makes it more difficult to push the needle through, even with the use of a thimble.   But I will still use my beloved batiks :-).

I have also been slogging along with updating my UFO lists and creating a detailed list in a notebook with all of the steps/materials needed to complete the project.  One of the quilts in progress was a pineapple quilt.  It's hard to really call it a quilt in progress when all it consisted of was 6 pineapple quilt blocks barely started.  I do still have a large pineapple quilt on my "must make" list, but in the spirit of getting something done with these barely started blocks right now, I decided to finish them all and make a small table runner out of them.  I got 5 of the 6 done before I called it quits last night.  Digging through bags of scraps for just the right pieces was so. much. fun.  Now I actually do want to start a large pineapple quilt lol.  But I will wait on that until I put a bigger dent in that pile of quilt tops to be quilted as well as other UFOs.  Pictured below are a couple of blocks in progress, the five finished blocks and my piles of scraps.

Finally, on a quick note about quilt shop business, it's the time of the month that our latest Fabric Club selections are posted.  We currently have three clubs - a Fat Quarter Club, a One Third Yard Club and starting this month, a Half Yard Club.  In each case, you get six coordinated batik fabrics in the cut size applicable to the club you are in.  This month we have grays and turquoises and the fabric selections are below.  

Where to Begin?

It has been so long since I last posted that I don't even know where to begin.  The good news is that I survived tax season and immediately reopened the quilt studio and have been quite productive!  I had planned to do many posts over the past couple of weeks with progress reports of what I have been working on, but somehow I never got around to actually writing the posts *sigh*.  I did, however, get around to taking pictures of the quilts projects as I worked on them.  That's progress from my last post!

As soon as the tax deadline was over I started my own personal quilting retreat and did basically nothing but quilt for about 5 days.  Oh, and take care of Maya since she decided to blow out her good knee on April 13th.  More about that in a bit.  First I want to talk about the quilting I have been doing.  Echo found the pile of quilts on my sewing table today and decided they were there for him to lay on.  What is it about cats and quilts???

So anyway, as soon as the tax deadline was over, I got busy in my sewing room.  Oh, and I washed the mountain of fabric that I had purchased during the past few months.  But I digress.  The first order of business after April 18th was to get Chocolate Covered Cherries basted and ready for quilting.  I have all of the ditch quilting done and have started the quilting of the blocks. 

Next I basted Fruit Cocktail.  Twice.  I forgot that the backing was just the right size and left the usual margin on the one side only to discover a drastic shortage on the other side when I went to baste that part.  So I undid all of the basting and redid it with the backing properly centered.  This quilt was made during my beginning quilting class in, ahem, 2001.  Yes, it has been sitting here unquilted for nearly 10 years.  But now it is not only basted and quilted, but I have the binding half sewn down.   Speaking of the binding, I have had that made and stored with the quilt for literally years.  As I'm sewing it on by machine, I realize that it is about half as long as it needs to be.  I think I had another quilt with the same binding and probably switched them.  As luck would have it, I found another binding the same width in my drawer of leftover bindings that matched well and was just the length I needed so I added it to the other one and finished up the machine sewing.  For the quilting, I did straight line quilting in the blocks and my wavy line quilting in the border.

The quilted top:

A closeup of the block quilting:


And the back.  It's kind of hard to see the quilting on the back since the fabric is so busy.

Then I quilted this little orphan bargello block.  It had been basted since last fall.  Took all of 15 minutes to quilt so I don't know why I let it sit so long *sigh*.

And finally, I quilted this little Friendship Star quilt.  It is also from my beginning quilting class which hopefully explains some of the whacked off points on the stars.  Thankfully my piecing has improved!  The binding is attached and ready for the hand sewing, which I'm hoping to work on tomorrow at Dawn's.  I ran out of the top thread with about 4 inches left to go on the quilting.  I found a similar purple thread in my stash and finished it with that.  Done is better than perfect!

And the back:

Amidst all of the quilting I also got bit HARD by the needlepoint bug.  I have had some charts forever, as well as threads, but just never got around to trying canvas work.  That has all changed.  I went to a local shop a few days after tax season ended and came home with the canvas and chart for a new project.  I already had the threads in my cross stitching stash.  Shocking I know lol.  For about two days, the quilting sat untouched as I stitched away on my new project.  I have made quite a bit of progress and plan to work on it more tomorrow, so I will save the pictures, etc. for a separate post.

And then there is the real life stuff that has been going on.  As I mentioned above, Miss Maya decided to tear her ACL (her knee) on April 13th.  She had surgery on her other knee in August 2007 when she tore that ACL, but the surgery was hard on her and at her current age, surgery is not an option.  There was quite a bit of drama for a few days as the ex and I came to terms with her situation.  We thought we were going to have to put her down since surgery wasn't an option.  Thankfully the vet said she could heal on her own.  Funny how everyone said differently when she tore out the first knee.  At that time we were told that her knee could only heal with surgery costing in excess of $2000.  So of course we did the surgery.  That was pretty annoying to find out that we wouldn't have had to put her through that, or spend all that money, but at least we didn't have to put her down. 

The other complicating factor was that my ex had arranged for a pet transport service to pick up Maya, Koda and Sammy the cat on April 30th to take them from Phoenix to his new place in Ohio.  He thought for sure that they wouldn't take Maya while her leg was healing, but he was wrong, thankfully, and they all were picked up on the 30th and arrived in Ohio this past Wednesday safe and sound.  So in the last week I have reduced my pet population by half, which has taken a huge load off.  No more barking dogs day and night and no more getting up 50 times a day to let someone out or bring someone in.  Could be why my blood pressure was down to 102/76 at my physical on Wednesday!

So that is what has been happening in my corner of the world for the last month or so!



Work, Olympics, Binding & Shopping

That pretty much sums up the last week.  We are Olympic junkies in this house, particularly the Winter Olympics, which unfortunately take place during tax season.  So, the deal I made with myself was that I had to start work no later than 8 a.m. each day and then work until 7 p.m., and then I was free to watch the Olympics all evening as the primetime coverage starts here at 7 p.m.  To accomplish this I had to give up my treadmill workouts for the next two weeks as I just don't have time to squeeze those in on top of work and still be done by 7 p.m.  The irony that I'm blowing off my own exercise program in order to watch world class athletes do their thing is not lost on me, but that's the way it's got to be right now.  Priorities you know.

While I've been watching the evening festivities, I have been binding the quilts that I quilted in December.  I finished two so far this week and have another in process.  Here's the second 4 Block Christmas Quilt.  You can read about the background of the two quilts here. 

And here's the Fish quilt.  The history of the fish quilt is here.

I've also been cutting some scrap strips of fabric and I purchased some Sandy Gervais Moda pre-cuts last Sunday which arrived on Thursday.  I got one layer cake of Gobble Gobble as well as a dessert roll from that line, and two layer cakes of Frolic.  I've already got a pattern figured out for the Frolic fabric, but the Gobble Gobble was bought just to add to my autumn collection, much of which already consists of Sandy Gervais autumn fabrics.

And finally, I have to ask, does this look comfortable to you?  Echo went to sleep on top of Koda's pen.  All of the magazines, etc. on top are for reading on the treadmill, which is right next to the pen.  It's quite handy as it's just the right height, but does get a bit messy looking, especially after Echo's been through the piles.

Oh, and I had to go back and edit this to show this gorgeous rainbow that showed up outside my window as I was working this evening about 30 minutes before the sun went down.

Quilt from Mereth

After seeing Mereth's post today, I realized that I totally forgot to post about the gorgeous quilt that I bought from her.  It literally arrived within an hour of me hearing of my uncle's death so I quickly took a picture for a blog post and then put it away for safe keeping, and then promptly forgot about the blog post. 

The second I first saw the quilt on her blog, I fell in love with it and it is even more gorgeous in person.  The workmanship is perfect, of course, and the colors are so me.  The borders are really me...purple with dots, and the back is the same fabric as the inner border, so more purple with dots.  Does it get any better than that?  LOL  I recognized some of the fabrics as those in my own stash, so even more confirmation that this should be my quilt.  Mereth commented that I received the quilt within a week, all the way from Australia to the U.S., but actually I received it in 5 days, including Sunday.  I've had a Priority mail package take two business days to get across town here in Phoenix, and a check take 9 days, yet a package can make it all the way from Australia to the U.S. in 4 business days.  Go figure.  But enough about my sometime dissatisfaction with our postal system.  Mereth has a wonderful picture of the whole quilt on her blog post that I linked to above (scroll to the end of the post), and here's a close-up that I took.

And here's the cover of this awesome Australian calendar she sent along with the quilt.  I just love some of the native animal species of Australia, which Mereth didn't even know, so the calendar was a real treat.

Thank you Mereth for the gorgeous quilt!  I just love it!

Scrap Club Floral Quilt Done!

Today I put the last stitches in the binding of the comfort quilt I am sending to my aunt.  I call it the Scrap Club Floral Quilt because it came about from a Scrap Club I was in through a quilt shop in 2003.  It is a very old UFO, so I'm happy to have it done for many reasons.  Here's the finished quilt pre-washing.

And here's the back.  You can see why this quilt needed reversable binding.  The front binding would have looked horrible on the back.  I pieced the back using 10 1/2 squares ala Bonnie Hunter.  I completely used up all of the fabrics except for scraps.  I also took a close-up picture of the back.

Finally, here's a couple of pictures of the reversable binding.

The binding was an interesting technique to learn.  I would use it again if necessary, but wouldn't consider making it my normal binding method as it takes a lot more time to make the binding and I didn't get as snug of a fit as I normally prefer since the seam had to line up on the edge of the quilt.  One bonus is the fact that the front color takes a much narrower strip than normal, so in the case of this quilt, I was able to match the binding to the inner border.  I only had some strips left of that fabric and they were too narrow to cut enough of my normal 2 or 2 1/4 inch binding strips, but there was plenty for the 1 1/8 inch strips needed for this method.

All in all, I'm pleased with the finished quilt.  It is all nice and soft and crinkly after washing.  I hope my aunt likes it.  She doesn't know it's coming, so I'm sure she will be confused by the large box that arrives.  I also found the perfect card today to send with it.

On a humerous note, since it is Valentine's Day, I got up to a lovely card from my DH.  As I began to read the verse on the front, certain parts were sounding eerily familiar.  Yep, you guessed it, he bought the identical card last year, and it was 25 cents cheaper to boot :-).  It's a great card so I can see why he bought it again.  He was mortified when I showed him the two cards, but it really doesn't bother me at all.

Forgotten Finish & Weekend Activities

With the events of last week and the horrible cold that hit me on Friday night and which still continues, I forgot that I hadn't posted about a small finish I had last week.  I got the binding sewn down on this little quilt during the many phone calls about my uncle.  It's my second UFO finish for the year.

This past Saturday Dawn and I had one of our quilting days.  First we hit the Super Bowl sale at our closest quilt shop and this is what I got - 10 spools of some of the new King Tut colors.  I got two spools of Wisteria plus 8 other colors.  Everything in the store was 30% off so it was a great sale.  I didn't even look at the fabric as I didn't need anything.  Please refer to the pictures under the Stash label and you will know why LOL.  I didn't need the thread either, other than it was colors I didn't have, but it's rare to find King Tut on sale, so I figured why not.  The total cost was only $60, including tax, for 10 spools.  Not bad.  And yes, that's Echo's paw in the upper right corner.  I was lucky to get this picture as he was trying desparately to play with the threads.

Speaking of Echo, here's him "helping" me work last Sunday.  I was only away from the computer for a minute and this is what I found when I got back.  Thankfully this time he only launched the task manager.  Earlier in the day he messed up the fonts so badly that we had to go back to a previous restore point to correct it.

After Dawn and I finished at the quilt shop, I got to work on making the binding for a quilt that I'm going to send to the aunt who lost her husband last week.  I made the top in 2003, had it quilted in 2008, I think, and it's sat in the closet ever since as I didn't have any real plans for it. Plus, it needed a reversable binding that I didn't know how to make.  Now that the quilt has a purpose, I want to get it to my aunt as soon as possible, so I figured out the binding, made it on Saturday, and got it sewn to the top today.  Hopefully I can get the handsewing done by the end of next weekend.  We'll see since I'm way behind at work and tax season is in full swing.

The top is made from large floral squares that were exchanged as part of a Scrap Club I was part of in 2003.  My aunt loves her flower garden, so I'm hoping she will like the quilt and that it will give her some comfort as she grieves her loss.  The quilt looks like it was set on point, but it was actually pieced in straight rows and then the quilt top was cut diagonally through specific points, the pieces flipped, and then sewn back together.  Close up you can see that the points are all cut off on the edges, enough so that it gives you a clue that it either wasn't set on point originally, or the maker was really bad at piecing and chopped all of the points off :-). 

That is all I've gotten done the past couple of weeks, other than tax returns and more tax returns, but it is that time of year.

1st Finish of 2010!

I put the last stitches in Candy Hearts tonight, the class I took last week.  In spite of the frustrations with the class itself, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.  I think I will seriously consider not doing the rest of the months as applique/quilt as you go.  The instructor had us spray baste this piece and it seemed that this wasn't quite stable enough of a basting job to then do the applique and the quilting as one step.  I ended up with some poofiness in some spots around the hearts, which you can see in the picture.  I think that spray basting is probably the way to go with these little quilts, but then it is also probably better to do the applique separately from the quilting so you can keep the piece flat. 

Since these quilt of the month kits also include the hanger, I've already got this cutie up on the wall by my front door where all of the monthly quilts will probably live.  Who cares that it's not even February yet LOL.  I don't even normally decorate for any holidays other than Christmas and we don't even do that sometimes, so I'm way ahead of the game right now :-).

Long Tall is quilted!

I finished the quilting on Long Tall last night. Yeah! This is a huge quilt. Now to get it bound and on the bed. I think it's my favorite quilt made to date. I love everything about it. It is a Cozy Quilt Strip Club pattern. I generally design my own quilts and don't often make quilts from patterns, but this one I couldn't resist. The picture is of the unquilted top. I'll take a final picture once it is bound.