For Finished or Not Friday: One Quick Finish and One UFO

Happy Friday and welcome in for another edition of "Finished Or Not Friday"!

As always we are hosted by the lovely Alycia at Alycia Quilts, well known for her work making, quilting and showcasing quilts awarded to veterans through the Quilts of Valor program.

This week I have two finishes to show:  one that was quick and one that has been a year in the making!  Okay, maybe it's actually just been sitting around for a year but that's all water under the bridge once it gets to the "finished" stage, LOL!!

The Quick Finish:  A Mug Rug Gift

I have a friend that I have made a number of things for, most of which she had used to decorate her work cubicle at her office.  Since the pandemic, her job has retained the policy of remote work so she only has to report into the office once a week.  As such she was recently attemping to spruce up her home work space.  She mentioned she planned to pull out all the things I had made for her and put them into service there.  Of course that led to a discussion of the very first piece I made her:  a mug rug replicating a Kaffe Fassette design:

I made this because she attended her first (and only) quilt show with me back in 2013.  She is not a quilter but fell in love with Fassette's quilt "Girder" that was hanging in the show with all the other quilts from his "Shots and Stripes" book.  Unfortunately, that rug was taken from her desk some years back!  

While I did make her a "keyboard" themed one a few years later (which is pictured later in this post),  she asked me if I might happen to have an extra mug rug laying around that she might add to her setup.  I didn't but then was inspired to make one for her (in secret) when she showed me another new addition to her desk setup:

As soon as I saw this lamp I was like: "Oh, I've got to do this!"  First of all, I have never made a "stained glass quilt" although I've always wanted to try one.  What better way to take a first stab at a technique than a small project like a mug rug?  In addition, I had recently purchased these:

I had this set of Creative Grids "Crazier Eight" templates on my Amazon wishlist for a few years.  It just so happened that about two weeks before our conversation, a Warehouse "Used But Good" set came up for half the normal price.  The  prices on Creative Grids products are tightly controlled so are almost never on sale.  Needless to say as a "Gadget Fanatic",  I couldn't pass that deal up!   Now I could also immediately see trying out the templates by using them to make the stained glass piece.  So I dug through my batik stash for yellows and other fabrics that ombered to that color and came up with this:

 

As the name implies, there are eight templates to make a block but I split the piecing in some of the templates in order to be able to use a few more fabrics and make the stained glass effect come through a little more.  The "leading" print also came from stash.  

I also wanted to give a nod to the butterfly featured rather prominently on the front of the lamp and I knew just how to do that:

I have an old compact Bernina Deco embroidery machine that I purchased used off of eBay a while back and love when I get an opportunity to make things with it.  The great thing about the purchase was that it came with a full set of embroidery threads in a rainbow assortment of colors and so far for everything I've made with it, I've had the color threads needed.   

To give you an idea of how old this machine is, I am unable to download designs to it so have to purchase dedicated "design cards" for it.  It did come with one of those blank card readers but my laptop (which at the time of purchase was running Windows 10, that's how long ago this was) didn't support it.  So now I regularly troll eBay for low priced design cards that have images I am interested in using.  I also lucked up and was able to start the collection of ones I have when I was able to pick up a whole bunch of them at a guild destash sale from someone who had a newer machine so no longer needed them.  

The butterfly design I used came from this card:

First I ran a test of it using what I had that was close to the prescribed colors.  That allowed me to test the size adjustment I made to the design to fit the template section I wanted to stitch it on and see how it stitched out.  For the final design, I chose threads closer in color to the butterfly on the lamp.  Then I layered and quilted it and this was the finished piece:

After she received it, she sent me a picture of her set up!

You can also see the keyboard mug rug here as well!

The UFO Finish: "Roaring Waves"

My other finish is that I finally quilted a top I made up in March of last year.  After making two blue and white quilts back in 2022 for winter decorating,  last year I decided I wanted to make a few more to use for decorating into Spring.  It started with this fabric bundle purchased on the Annie's Attic (then Annie's Catalog) site during one of their fat quarter bundle sales (and is still available now here):

After purchasing it, I happened to see this "color option" design on the American Patchwork and Quilting website:

I could immediately see almost all of the bundle fabrics plugged into the bargello-style design.  I raided my batik stash and a few project stashes to come up with this array....

...that eventually became this top!

I even layered and basted it that year.  And so it has sat until I could figure out how to quilt it.  I was defintely considering going along with the "waves" theme and did try to sketch out something along those lines:

But it wasn't until viewing Angela Hoffman quilting on the #3501 episode of the "Fons & Porter Love of Quilting" TV show that I found something I really liked.

However, I wasn't totally confident about being able to free-hand quilt the waves evenly.  Then I remembered I had a wave ruler:

However I didn't want that deep a wave and the spacing wasn't right.  Doing a little research, I found out that Handiquilter actually has a few different wave rulers and it turned out that they had another one that was perfect for what I wanted to do.  The peaks and valleys of it lined up perfectly with the piecing on this quilt.

It took me about a week to complete the quilting:

And now it's done! 

Front

Back

It's a square quilt and will be used as a wallhanging.  As usual the lesson here is that sometimes a quilt takes a while but it is always satisfying in the end to get it done!

There are many more finishes and progress reports over at Alycia Quilts for this week's "Finished Or Not Friday" so go check them all out!

Stitch May-nia Plans

Hello to all the afficiandos of Slow Stiching visiting in from Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching link up!

In the cross stitch world it is time for May-nia!  May is the month when cross stitchers challenge themselves to make ambitious plans to cross stitch a bunch of projects over the course of the month.  In the past, many set their goals either to the numerical year (like planning to start 25 projects for 2025) or the days of the month (starting 31 projects, one for each day of the month).  However, these days most people just set their own goals based on their own needs, time available and the depth of their project stash!

I still consider myself a relatively new CSer and this will only be my second Maynia so my plans remain far simpler.  I am still shocked at how I have completely fallen in love with cross stitch --- for me, this was one of those "I'll just try it once" things that has bloomed into a bit of an obsession.  Part of the appeal is that cross stitchers are all about displaying their finishes.  I really enjoy that part of the fun is not just stitching a piece but how creatively you can complete it for display too.  I've always enjoyed the idea of decorating with quilts so cross stitch was a natural fit when it came to the idea of creating things specifically for display.

My goal is the same as the last time I did this:  to work on four projects.  My theme is projects for decorating:  that is, projects I had specifically set out to make to fill decorating spots.  With the four that I hope to tackle this month, that sets my schedule to work on one project a week.  To that end I want to work on these:

1.  Finish "Year of the Snake"

This one is already on its way to being finished.  When I last reported on it at the start of April, I was here:

and now it's here:

I just need to finish stitching in yellow on one of the latern motifs and complete that first border line then finish off the red motifs on the last border.  I've already got the materials gathered for finishing this as well.  So I am hoping that May-nia for this project will include a "fully finish" end too! 

2.  Continue "Lies I Tell Myself"

I had started this one while traveling back in February and have not had a chance to return to it since.  This is another project in my continuing attempts to master stitching on Linen.  It had been going pretty well so I am hoping that some focused May-nia sessions will help both get me in the groove on stitching on this type of fabric and at least get the stitching on this one finished by the end of the month.  "Fully finishing" it would be a bonus!

3.  (Finally) Start "Happy Home"

This is one I've been anticipating working on since the start of the year.  We've recently had to make some repairs in our home which has prompted a lot of additional decluttering and re-organizing.  That has made me want to focus on sprucing up some spaces in the process.  

The plan for this piece has been a spot on the wall at the top of our entry staircase to replace some antique quilt blocks that used to hang there.  I already have plans for the relocation of the quilt blocks so would like to get this done to hang on the nail already in place in their old space.  

I had a piece of fabric for this leftover from another project that I've already prepared for use.  I'll be stitching this as three individual pieces in order to fit into the frame openings and to accomodate the size of the leftover piece of fabric I'm using.  Since this is designed as one horizontal piece, it's been a little hard for me to figure out how to break up and space the words and images out to balance and fit the frame openings.  So May-nia will be the time to start working those details out!  

4.  Start "New York Skyline"

I have a space on one of my dining room walls that I've long wanted to fill with something:

My original plan was to make a quilted piece to fill this space:  Jen Kingwell's "My Small World" which I picked up in the Spring 2015 edition of Quiltmania magazine.

This has been a long simmering desire because the problem is that Jen's piece as designed is too big to fit that space.  Reducing the size of it to make it fit presented an issue because the piecing in it is already pretty small so I've never been sure about how to work out going even smaller.  

Then as I discovered things during the course of my burgeoning interest in cross stitch, I came across this design:

I immediately saw it as a perfect place holder until I can get an opportunity to work out the details of doing the Kingwell piece.  I also loved that it is a one color stitch so figure it will be a fast one to get done.  I already have all the supplies for this so I think May-nia is the perfect time to get a start on it.    

So that's it for my May-nia project list!  I actually do have another decorating piece that I'd like to do but it isn't as much of a priority as the rest of these.  I'm thinking that if I get "Snake" and maybe "Skyline" finished well before the month ends,  I might sneak in the other piece as well.  We shall see how that all pans out in the end.   

My additional goals for the month are that at minimum, I want to try to stitch daily which is something that has been hard to do these last few months.  Unfortunately, I already broke that streak since we were busier yesterday than planned and I pooped out at the end of the day and missed out on stitching.  My usual stitch time is in the evening while listening to news shows.  I also take advantage (as I did this week) of taking my stitching with me to the laundry which gives me focus time while the clothes wash and dry.  

No matter, another goal is to possibly try to stitch twice a day.  On the first day of the month, I was up early and was able to sneak in a morning stitching session.  I enjoyed doing that so if I can stitch twice today,  I'll consider it make up for missing yesterday, LOL!  I look forward to seeing what I can accomplish this May-nia round!  

Oh and for all of you quilting Slow Stitchers and Star Wars fans out there:

Linking Up with "Slow Sunday Stitching" at Kathy's Quilts

Finished or Not Friday: A Big Gift Project Is Finally Done!!

I am thrilled to start May off with a report on a big project completed.  Join me as I and other quilters check in at Quilty Girl Alycia's for this week's "Finished or Not Friday" projects! 

I will admit April closed with a lot going on and I must say that quilting was a haven in a storm of health and home repair issues.  For a couple of years now, I have been trying to finish a big projct:  making gift quilts for three members of my community garden's Steering Committee.  

I have displayed my quilts at the Art Shows our garden has hosted and the Committee members had been as enthusiastic about them as other attendees of the shows.  The last held one we held was in 2023 and I had provided a quilt to raffle off at it.  

When the winner of it was one of the four Committee members,  I immediately hatched a plan:  now was the perfect time to make quilts for the other three members!

I actually had a head start on that since I had actually set out to make two quilts for raffling off.  I had used what has become my "go to" and favorite "simple to piece" quilt:  a "9 Fat Quarter Disappearing Nine Patch" quilt that I learned how to make from a You Tube video.  Despite the quickness of the piecing, what I have learned over time in making these is that, at least for me, it takes me a good bit of time to make the fabric choices and placement of them within the top.  As part of the "disappearing" technique, some of the fabrics wind up getting flipped or turned from their intial orientation in the starting nine patch layout.  Once pieced back together to create the top, then I sometimes get hung up on how I want to quilt them.  

Edited To Add:  I realize that for the rest of this, it would also be good to join in over at Andree's "Quilting and Learning - What a Combo!" for this week's "Free Motion Mavericks" link up!

In the case of the second raffle quilt, I had decided to stitch it in what I believed would be a simple stipple variation called "Square Meander".  

I've since found demos of it here and it done in borders here.

I have done Stippling before but not this variation of it.  I thought it perfect for the quilt and I was excited to try it.  I got a late start quilting it right before the show but half way through got a little into my head about whether I was doing it "right".  Also since I was quilting it with a last minute deadline, I was also tense about whether I was filling the quilt space fast and evenly enough.  As a result I decided not to continue to stress myself out and abandoned finishing the second quilt in time for the show.  Of course the good news was that when the Committee member won the quilt I did get finished and I decided to make more, it meant I already had a half finished quilt underway!

Well the plan was to finish it and two more for the other Committee members by the end of that year in the hopes of presenting them at the garden's annual Holiday Party.  Yeah right, that didn't happen!  Then time, tides and "squirrel projects" meant I didn't pick back up on finishing the quilting on that second quilt until the start of this year!  

This time I was determined to get all of the remaining quilts done before our season opened at the end of April so I finally got back on the horse!  What also helped with that was seeing someone demonstrating at a virtual quilting workshop the exact same stitch pattern I had done.  Of course it was immedately confirmed that I had been doing it right all along and getting a grip on myself,  I finished quilting it in one day back in January.

Okay one down and two to go!   Later that month, I pieced the next two quilt tops and finished the backings for both of them right before we made our annual winter visit to my MIL's during the week of Valentine's Day.  I swore when I came back I would quilt them up and try to have them done by the end of March, well before the season opening.  

However, at that virtual sumit I had also learned of two ideas that I wanted to employ on one of the quilts.  To start, in the center of the quilt I wanted to stitch a detailed echoed Heart motif with additional "Ribbon Candy" motifs stitched between the echoed areas.  I was hoping to take advantage of a Ribbon Candy workshop by Esther Frenzel of IPatch and Quilt.  I signed up for it in the hopes of learning more about this motif which it turns out is infinitely more versatile than I had ever imagined.  This quilt could then be one of my practice pieces.  

Again, yeah right!!  Given that this was a gift, maybe using this as a practice piece was not the best idea and I remained terrified of "messing it up"!  So instead it took me a couple of weeks to let go of that idea and just go with the other motif I learned at the Summit and had already sketched out so knew I could easily and quickly execute:  a large "Ribbon Stipple".  

Once I defaulted to the simpler all-over pattern,  I quickly stitched up the second quilt in one day rather than the two I thought it would take.

And with that Quilt #3 was done!

For the last quilt,  I had already planned to go a more traditional route with the quilting by doing another familiar all over pattern: "Baptist Fans".  I have stitched this design on four prior quilts using four different methods.  The last time I did it on my MIL's longarm and prior to that was when I made my civil war repro "Piecing the Past" quilt.  That one I ruler quilted with Westalee templates (and you can see a demo of them in action here).  So I had no concerns that this was doable using a free-motion method and could be completed in two or three days.   

The quilting in progress.....

However, in the end, this one took me almost a week to get done!  The reason it went so slow is that I used 80 wt Wonderfil DecoBob thread to quilt it and it took a while to figure out what my Juki machine needed to work well with that thread.  As it turned out, I had purchased something very helpful when I was first introduced to this thread at 2024's Quilt Con show:

These needles made all the difference!  With the HX-5 high-speed machine needles I normally use on the Juki, I was having trouble with frequent thread breakage.  Then I switched to these and it was "swoosh!" and super fast stitching straight through!  I had spent a day each on the first two rows of stitching but after changing the needles was then able to do four rows in about the same amount of time on the third day, another three rows the next day and finished up the last row on the final day of stitching.  I had picked up a whole bunch of these spools during a recent eQuilter sale so needless to say,  I will now have to stock up on these needles for all future sewing with this thread!  Problems solved, I quickly finished trimming up and binding the quilt and now the last quilt was ready to go!

With the last two finished, all three were now ready for gifting which was done last Thursday and as you can see here, everyone was happy with what they received!

I had asked the committee member on the right to bring the raffled quilt that she won two years ago so I could get a picture of them all together.  I was thrilled to have finally had the chance to honor these ladies for founding our garden fourteen years ago and continuing to work very hard to keep it a going concern ever since!

I had pushed to get the quilts finished and gifted before our garden's season opening which was scheduled for the last Saturday in April and would be our garden's "Earth Day" celebration as well.  Although I got the quilts gifted in time, unfortunately we had to postpone the opening day event due to rain.  We had rescheduled it for tomorrow but rain is now forecast for that day too so we will be trying again the Saturday before Mother's Day which as of right now is forecast to be a sunny day.  

Thank you for joining me on the recap of this latest quilt journey.  I hope you are as excited as I am to see what has bloomed out of everyone else's quilt studio for "Finished Or Not Friday" this week over at Alycia's!  Also get some ideas for approaches to finishing your quilts with Andree's "Free Motion Mavericks" at "Quilting and Learning - What a Combo!"