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.

2 Hour Table Runner Finish, a New Iron & a Cutting Mat Bath!

I have gotten way behind in my bindings as I've gotten absorbed in my Perkiomen Daydreams blocks and now I have a huge backlog of quilts needing binding. So, to remedy that situation I have decided to go back to only doing hand work while listening to Daily Audio Bible. I have mostly followed that plan and finally finished sewing down the binding on this two hour table runner last week that has been quilted and half sewn down for months.

This version of the runner is sold out in the shop, but we still have black and red versions, blue and tan and a bright reindeer version available.  You can find them all HERE.

I also made progress on the next binding in the queue and should get this little quilt finished this week.

My cutting mats finally got a bath this past week as well!  It was long overdue.  Too long as it turned out as some of the deepest cuts were just too far gone to heal.  Both of the mats that I washed were 10-15 years old and it was becoming very difficult to cut on them and my rotary blades were becoming dull very quickly.  While the worst parts of both mats didn't really get better, both are reversible and the other sides are in excellent shape, as are the outer parts of the bad sides, so they are still usable.  I will be starting this maintenance on my newer mats now to hopefully keep them in great shape for longer.  There are directions all over the Internet and how and why to do this, but these are the instructions I used today:  http://sew-fantastic.blogspot.com/2009/11/make-your-self-healing-mat-last-much.html

Out of the bath and drying:

Finally, it was an exciting week last week in that I got a new iron after at least 10 years of using the old one.  I would have been very happy to continue using the old one as I loved that iron, but it had started to randomly spew rusty water out.  Not good when you are pressing very light fabrics.  And my new ironing board cover has stains now as well :-(.  I am very careful to empty the water after each use and to only use distilled or purified water, but alas, after that much use, this was bound to happen eventually. I paid just over $20 for the iron brand new so I most definitely got my money's worth. And yes, it ...was made in China. Just like the replacement model I purchased. The new iron was still only $28 from Amazon with free shipping so if it lasts half as long as the previous version I will be thrilled, but I am hoping it lasts much longer. I love these Panasonic irons and I really love the retractable cord! They also get nice and hot and they heat up quickly. And they are fairly lightweight which is important to me.

And that sums up all of the exciting events in MY life last week :-).  Oh, and we also found a great like-new sectional for our formal living room, so that was fun too :-).  And of course the remodel work on the rest of the house continues to move along.  Last week involved finishing the painting in the living room.  This week it is back to baseboard cleaning and staining.

Quilting Fun at Retreat!

The weekend before last I attended a quilt retreat at Thumper Pond Resort in Ottertail, MN.  This is my third year attending this retreat, but the first year that I lived only about 60 miles away.  Since the weather forecast was good, I opted to take mostly county roads rather than state highways, hoping for some great scenery as well as the opportunity to see some of the area near our new home.  I was not disappointed.  The drive was beautiful in both directions with lots of lakes, woods, winding roads and rolling hills.  I also discovered that there are Amish living about 30 miles from us.  My husband's heritage is Amish, so we find it very cool to be living so close to them.  We will definitely be going back to that area as it looked like there was at least one family that made furniture and we want to see what other goods we might find.  When I traveled through Amish country in Wisconsin last spring I came home with 3 quarts of honey, some pure maple syrup made by a Gingerich (my husband's surname) as well as several yummy jams.  Scott's father was raised Amish until he was 10 and I wish he were still alive to go with us when we go back to the area.  On my way home, I came across a buggy on the road while in a no passing zone and on a hill.  The horse pulling the buggy was beautiful, but I obviously couldn't get a picture of the horse as I was passing them!  It was just a treat to see them out and about.  On my way TO the retreat, I passed a group of Amish children and their mother playing outside in the snow and having a lot of fun.  While I wouldn't care to give up my conveniences of electricity, computers, etc., it was refreshing to see children outside playing on a nice day rather then glued to various electronic devices.  Of course there are adults who are just as bad and just as addicted to their cell phones, computers, etc.

So back to the retreat.  My first goal was to get some quilts quilted since I was in free motion quilting mode.  I believe I took 5 basted quilts and I got two of them completely quilted and a third one is in process.  The first one I quilted was Tumbling Nine Patch by Sweet Jane's Designs.  This quilt is for a shop sample and I will be putting together some kits.  I really, really like quilting swirls and allover swirls were a good pattern for this quilt, so off I went with my swirls.  Below is the quilted quilt and a closeup of the quilting.

Next up was quilting my Reef table runner.  This should have been a quick and easy job, but it was anything but.  The Sulky rayon thread I was trying to use on the top keep shredding and breaking.  I tried a different size needle.  Same result.  I went and bought Microtex Sharp needles from the vendor and tried one of those.  Same result.  I re-threaded and tried yet another different needle.  Same result.  After consulting my quilting friends, the only thing we could conclude was that the batik fabrics were shredding the thread due to the tightness of their weave.  I have a practice quilt sandwich with me that is made from muslin so I tried the thread on that and it seemed to work fine, so it could very likely be the batiks.  Fortunately, I had a cotton thread with me in virtually an identical color, so I was able to keep going with the quilting without ripping out the first quilting done in the rayon thread.  The two threads look so similar that you really have to inspect to figure out which end of the runner was originally started with the rayon.  The rayon has more sheen than the cotton, but you even have to look for that, so problem handled and the quilting got done.  This little quilt is also a shop sample and it is a free pattern included with the Reef Charm Pack by Timeless Treasures.

Once those two quilts were quilted, I decided to give my shoulders and arms a break and worked on making and attaching some bindings.  The little quilt below had the binding completely attached by machine so I could send it back to Grand Forks with one of my quilting friends for donation to our Guild's Outreach program for foster children.

I got a couple more bindings attached and ready for the hand sewing and then I went back to quilting.  Next up was Oh Christmas Tree and more swirls :-).  What can I say, I've got those down and they look nice as an allover pattern.

I got about half of the quilt quilted and then I reached machine quilting burnout for the weekend and switched to piecing for the rest of the time.  I only brought one piecing project to the retreat because it is in the early stages and has 10,000 pieces, so I was pretty sure I wasn't going to get anywhere close to finishing and needing another project to work on lol.  I've continued working on the project since I've been home from the retreat and I am now working on blocks for row number 4 of 20.  There are 20 blocks in each row.  Now that I've got 3 rows laid out, the design is starting to emerge.  The pattern is Perkiomen Daydreams by Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville and it's in her first book titled Scraps and Shirttails.

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.  

2016 Finishes

I started the year strong thanks to classes and retreats, but then summer hit with gardening and spending time outside and then suddenly we were unexpectedly moving.  The good news is that I did get a lot of quilt tops completed last year even if they didn't ultimately turn into completed quilts.  I already had a pile of unquilted tops, so I guess we know what needs to be the priority in 2017!  Of course, I also just packed and unpacked my personal stash and it's very obvious that a lot more tops need to be pieced as well if I have any hope of making a dent.  At least with all of the projects at the new house and the money required to complete them, I am not even remotely tempted to add anymore fabric to my already huge stash lol.

So on to my 2016 finishes.  January 2016 was pretty productive.  I taught a class for our Guild with my 2 Hour Table Runner pattern and completed a red, black and white version while demo-ing the steps for the class.  I got it quilted a few months later and binding completed in September.  I also got the binding sewn down for the two Floating Four Patch quilts that I had quilted in 2015, so those two little quilts are done, done.

In February I attended a retreat, which is always conducive for getting things done.  I actually got my Black & White Bargello top completed before the retreat so I would have it for Show & Tell.  As a bonus, I also was able to take my Bargello top to a Quilting Cocoon I attended in Naperville in April and get a picture of the quilt top with Bonnie Hunter, the designer of the pattern I used.  It's a free pattern and you can find it here.  During the retreat I pieced my Prairie Stroll top using a collection of fabrics I had purchased when I started quilting in 2001, so I was happy to finally have them into a completed quilt top.  This was a pattern from an issue of Quiltmaker magazine from 2001.  Also at retreat, I pieced a quick little table runner that is a free pattern on the Timeless Treasures Reef Charm Pack.

In March I finished my Mysterious top from a class I took with Doug Leko in February.  This was a great quilt to make!  It's one of those blocks that can result in a multitude of layout possibilities that all look very different.  I also finished a couple of trivets made from orphan blocks.  I like to practice my machine quilting on orphan blocks and turn them into trivets or potholders.

April brought the previously mentioned Quilting Cocoon held in Naperville, IL.  This was a great event set up by Craftours and featured classes with four national/international instructors.  Bonnie Hunter was one of them and while I haven't made any real progress on the class I took from her in April, I did manage to get my Texas Tumbleweeds top completed during the Cocoon and got a picture of the top with Bonnie and myself.  Texas Tumbleweeds was the class I had taken on a Quilting Cruise in November 2014.  The pattern can be found in her More Adventures with Leaders and Enders book and you can purchase it directly from Bonnie here. 

I also completed this little strippy strings top that will be donated once it's completed.  I had short strings I wanted to use so I sewed them onto leftover rolls of paper from the ATMs we used to fill.  I do plan to write up the instructions at some point, but haven't gotten to that yet.  Perhaps that will be a blog post when I finally get this top quilted and bound.  The top does have a bit of a left leaning problem, but I think I will be able to remedy that with a the quilting.

Finally, I finished  sewing down the binding on another of my 2 Hour Table Runners in April.  I call this one the "Caribbean" runner.

The next few months of quilting time were filled with a special project for which I got the top completed in July.  My FIL passed away in 2014 and I am using his shirts to make quilts for my husband and his sister.  I finished his sister's quilt top in July.  It is a combination of string pieced blocks and applique.  I used the quilt Angel Kisses from the Strips and Strings book by Evelyn Sloppy as inspiration for the quilt and for the applique patterns.

While in the throes of buying a house, selling a house and packing to move, I needed some mindless sewing to keep my sanity.  I had received some free strips with my Island Batik orders, so some 16 patch blocks using matching pairs of the strips was just what I needed.  I trimmed the strips to 2 1/2 inches wide for my blocks.  A quick tutorial on piecing 16 patch blocks will likely be one of my future blog posts although there are plenty such tutorials already out there :-).  So here is my 16 patch top.  It's a small top that will be great for a child.  Once I get it quilted and bound it will be donated.

And the final finish for 2016 happened on December 31, 2016 at about 11 p.m. as I put the final stitches in the binding of my Jingle Table Runner.  This was a free pattern on the Jingle charm pack from Timeless Treasures.  I added borders because I wanted a wider runner.  The piecing was super easy.

Christmas in July!

I am continuing to plug along on old UFOs.  The boys are all at my in-laws farm this weekend doing some work for them so I have taken advantage of my time alone and have spent a lot of time in the quilting studio.  I have been itching to do some machine quilting as it's been well over a year since I've done any, so I dug out this Christmas 9 Patch quilt that was ready to go and got it all basted. 

I just wound a bunch of bobbins and will be getting started on the quilting shortly.  I'm going to do an overall grid pattern on it.  As an extra bonus, when I unfolded it I found that I had already made the binding for it, so I can get that attached as soon as the quilting is done.  Who knows, it might actually get done by Christmas!!!

Done!

I got the pieced border finished on this old UFO yesterday and the top is officially done!  I've pulled some fabrics from my stash to make a pieced backing so that is next on the quilting to do list.  It felt good to finally get some sewing time this weekend.  We also got the rest of the garden planted, a good long bike ride in once the rain finally stopped, and watched several movies from back in "our day" with the kids, which they enjoyed.  All in all, it was a great weekend at our house!

Bargello Orphan Block Trivet is Finished!

Woo hoo!  I have another finish already for 2013 and another UFO finish to boot.  It's small, but it's finally done, so it counts.  This little bargello block didn't make the cut for this quilt, so I put a border on it and quilted it.  That was a few years ago.  Last month I finally made and attached the binding and last night after too many hours of tax return preparation, I put in the final stitches of sewing down the binding while watching a movie.  Now I just have to find the perfect place to display it.

And if you are a batik lover be sure to check out our giveaway from My Very Own Quilt Shop that closes this Thursday, February 28th at midnight CST.  Details are in this post.

Quilted, Trimmed and Ready to Bind!

Thanks to a quilting day at Dawn's yesterday, I was able to finish the quilting on Chocolate Covered Cherries today.  This was the first time that I individually quilted blocks and I have to say, between the repetitive pattern and the same fabrics in each block, I got pretty bored.  I have the attention span of a gnat anyway, so the fact that I got all of the blocks quilted this weekend is pretty amazing. 

The quilting is a combination of ditch quilting and my wavy line quilting, all done with my walking foot.  Wrestling the quilt through the machine was a challenge at times, but I chickened out on trying the block quilting with my free motion foot, so I was stuck twisting and turning the quilt quite a lot.  Now I just need to find where I stashed the binding strips to keep them away from curious felines and I will be all set to get the binding sewn on.

The front of the finished quilt:



Closeup of the quilting on the front:



The full back of the quilt:

And the quilting detail of one block on the back of the quilt: