To Do Tuesday: Two Down, Now Four To Go!

 We are now full on into January and so far it's been a productive one!  I'm checking in again with Carol's "To Do Tuesday" over at her blog Quilt Schmilt (I chuckle every time I say that, LOL!) hoping the productivity good vibes will continue this week.

So last week's list was short and everything got accomplished as planned.  I had two goals:

1.  For Quilting:  Make the next top for another member of my community garden's Steering Committee:

From this....

....to this (backing is on the left)!

Forgive the cropping but still trying to hide these a bit until they are gifted.  The good news is that I went from the fabric piles in last week's post to a finished top and backing that includes the label area too!   I lucked up in that the backing fabric was already in stash and there's enough of it leftover for another project (I see another 3 Yard Quilt in my future!).  

BTW:  If you are a fan of the Fabric Cafe 3 Yard Quilts, did you know that today they premiered their new "5 Yard Quilts" book?  Whereas the 3 Yard Quilts make a lap quilt to start (although there are also instructions in the patterns for enlarging them), the 5 Yard designs will make Twin and Queen/King quilts!  Check it out if you haven't already done so!

I also have batting for this:  I have a package of my favorite (at the moment) cotton batting but it's a Twin so there would be a lot left over if I use that.  Then again, I might be able to take those leftovers and combine it with a bunch of scrap pieces I have of that same batting and make a Franken-batt for the next quilt I still have to make.  However, I also have three big pieces of another batt that would make a Franken-batt just about the size I need.  However, it's a polyester batting and I'm debating on whether I'd rather the easier piecing together of the polyester or the heavier weight of the cotton.  Decisions, decisions!  

2.  For Cross Stitch:  Make a mini wall hanging for my kitchen

Stitching completed and FFO'd

 And hung in place!

Also done!  I had finished the words in the center prior to working on the quilt and thought I'd be able to work on stitching the rest of it a little each day along with working on the quilt.  However, once I started in on the quilt work, I'd get to the end of the day and was too tired to stitch.  So I wound up wrapping up the cross stitching over the weekend after the quilt top and backing were finished.  It is a simple stitch so a few hours of TV with the hubby helped get it done and yesterday was spent on the finishing.  

I even finally, pulled out my serger and used it to secure the edge of the trimmed cloth before I laced it around the back of the hoop!  I am happy I reacquainted myself with that machine so now I can finish the edges of any cross stitch cloth I buy instead of using painters tape for that.  

So what's on the agenda for this week?  Normally I am the queen of "Too Long To-Do Lists" but getting last week's short list done means I should keep trying that and see if it holds.  So this week I'm going with a "flexible" four items:

Quilting

1.   Layer, baste and quilt the Committee quilt top.  What's good is that I attended Bea Byrne's January Quilt 'N Learn workshops Thursday - Saturday and picked up designs to use for this from a couple of workshops.  Tracey Browning who hosts the online Machine Quilting Academy, covered transforming a large stipple into a great ribbon design:

If I can doodle it, I can stitch it!

I also saw a great quilted heart design in another workshop (I can't remember which) that I think I will do in the center of this quilt.  The plan is to echo it and do some Ribbon Candy between the echoed areas.  The good news is Esther Frenzel of iPatchandQuilt (and who I learned about in last August's Free Motion Quilting Summit is doing a free "Ribbon Candy" workshop series on her site over the next few days so I'll get some training and practice on that too! 

2.  Start the next committee quilt.  

For this one I have fabric bundled and want to start the design process.  I'm not rushing it though, if I wind up focusing on the other things on the list and don't get to it, I don't have a problem with the real focus on it waiting until next week.  

3.  My friend's memory quilt.  

I've pulled out the box of fabrics because I have to start the design process if I am going to have any chance of meeting the deadline of her birthday next month.  

Cross stitch

1.  As I had noted in my last post, I had planned to start on another decorating piece for the New Year which was not the one that I just finished.

Pattern by Needle Bling Designs

I have long wanted to do a series of quilts with the theme of "Home" and since I've started cross stitching have found a few designs I like in that craft too.  This one helps me fill out another decorating "hole".  I used to have two antique quilt blocks hung by the quilt display rod at our entry stairs:  

The two frames on the left.

They are Hexagon Flower blocks actually made during the Civil War era that I purchased in the gift shop of a quilt exhibit I had attended years ago.  They were perfect when my Civil War reproduction quilts were on display in this spot.  However, in recent years I have used this area to display other types of quilts so was interested in having something else to display here.

The great thing about this cross stitch piece is that the theme and style of it will work no matter what quilt I put up.  The challenge though is that the pattern I'm working from is laid out horizontally and I will have to either reformat it to a vertical orientation or stitch it as three separate images to work in the frame I purchased for it.  

So my expectation is that this one will take a little thought to get it set up.  I'm hoping that this won't turn out to be a project that puts up road blocks that will disrupt the good intentions of my short project list.  Let's see what happens....  

I'm done so go back over to Carol's at Quilt Schmilt and see what everyone else has planned for the week or even better share your crafty plans too!

The First To Do Tuesday for 2025!

Now that this new year is underway, it's time to start figuring out just how I want it to go.  To help with that, I'm going to start by joining in on Carol's first Quilt Schmilt  "To Do Tuesday" for the year.

My "To Do" list for this week is short so should be doable.  These days my attention is firmly split between the quilt projects this blog was founded on and the cross stitch projects that have invaded and made themselves at home for (as of next month) three years now!  

Quilting

I had noted in my last post that I had finished the quilting and needed to bind a quilt that will be a gift for one of the members of my community garden's Steering Committee.

The good news is that the binding is now done (on the left in the picture above).  I'm not revealing the whole quilt just yet in case any of them happen to read my blog but sneak peeks can be seen in prior posts.  Eventually I will do a full reveal once all the quilts are done.  Now I want to get right on to starting the next one.  I already have fabric bundles sorted for each of the remaining three quilts I need to make.  The fabrics on the right in the picture above are for the next one I will work on.  

It started with seeing an appealing set of seven Fat Quarters anchored by some purple prints (bottom right in the picture above).  I purchased it after overhearing one of the Steering Committee members say that purple is their favorite color.  I pulled some additional coordinating fabrics from my stash and from a stash of fabrics that the garden had purchased for use in an English Paper piecing course I taught for them back in 2020.  The big bundle of purple fabric in the upper right is actually a skirt that the garden's President had passed along to me for use for crafting and that she wanted to clear out of her own supplies.     

For all of these gifted quilts I am using my now favorite quickie quilt design: the "9 Fat Quarter Disappearing Nine Patch" that I learned about in a video on the April's Craft Room channel on You Tube.  When this top is done, it will be the fifth one I have made, three of which have been completed as quilts (and you can see all the ones I've done by clicking on this link).   

Normally when I work on these, I cut the Fat Quarters to the same size, throw them up on the design wall and take pictures of different potential layouts.  Then I print out each layout and cut the printed image up so I can rearrange the four quadrants to see which fabric layout works best to my eye.  However, right now my printer isn't working so I have to take another route for playing with the fabric layouts.

I've had EQ8 for about three years now and have used it successfully to design some layouts.  I have learned how to load fabric images to it for plugging into layouts.  So the challenge this week is to see if I can draft up this "not really blocks based" layout and take pictures of the individual fabrics and plug them into layouts for design consideration.    

Cross Stitch

Over the holidays, I finally hung a wall cubby in my kitchen that I had purchased a while back.  Hanging on a wall that has other decorative items, it left what I felt was a big "hole" in the layout.

While I know I could probably find something to fill it in at one of the local housewares stores, of course I thought "well why not a mini quilt or some cross stitch"?  I knew what size piece I wanted (6" to 8", preferably circular) and found a cute and what I hope will be a quick kitchen-themed design to stitch.  

So that was started yesterday and since it's not full coverage or particularly detailed, I'm hoping I can get it stitched and hung by the end of the week.  Of course I said something similar with the Christmas gift I made my MIL and that didn't happen in the time frame estimated so take that desire with a grain of salt, LOL!  

Speaking of cross stitch,  I had previously said I wasn't going to do the "Year of the Snake" for 2025 by The Frosted Pumpkin.  Yeah, I've already caved on that one too!

It's all kitted up and I've even already made my finishing choices!  Since this wasn't the the one I had planned to start for the New Year, I'm still not sure I will stitch it right away --- but then neither was the kitchen one I did start!  So with just two things on the list this means I should get these done right?  

Well here's hoping that looking at what inspiring things others have on their agendas over at Carol's Quilt Schmilt "To Do Tuesday" link up will keep me encouraged to get these done!

Quiltville Mystery Season: The Reveal Is Out!

Well fellow Quiltville mystery fans, it looks like this year's season is now done!  Bonnie has posted the final part of the mystery and the new quilt has been revealed! 

I won't spoil it for you: go on over to her blog here to see what the final quilt looks like.  While you're there, pick up the finishing details for Part 9 and other parts you may have missed since she doesn't say in the post how long the mystery links will stay up.  Bonnie is headed out of town so if you have questions you better ask them fast!  She will be flying out to Los Angles on Tuesday to pick up her flight to Australia so may be out of touch for a while.  

BTW, if you've ever been curious about just how many mysteries Bonnie has done and when they premiered, check out this Facebook link where you can download a list (in Word format) of all the mysteries up to 2023.  

As for me, despite the fact that I had planned to have only one thing to focus on for this year's mystery season, I never got a chance to get to it!  I should have known that when I picked up Part 7 and in the instructions those that are doing this one had to start combining units that were constructed in the earlier parts, things were getting close to a finish.   I had hoped today's post wouldn't be the last and I might finally start layering my "En Provence".  

As I noted before, I had finished the top all the way back in 2018 and made up the backing in 2023.  In the first post I did about "Old Town",  I talked about how you don't have to color the mystery quilts the same way Bonnie does.  While my "En Provence" followed her color cues to the letter, check out this one that took a really innovative approach to the color choices and placement.  Even Bonnie didn't recognize it as her design at first!

Now that the mystery season has passed and the New Year is underway,  I have other priorities afoot so I think I will just stash this one once again and wait for another opportunity to work on it.  Although I want to more frequently work on quilting my quilts this year,  I still don't have even a "concept of a plan" for quilting this one since that was supposed to be determined when I layered it.  

Speaking of other priorities,  I also didn't get to the binding for the Steering Committee quilt that I finished quilting on Wednesday.

So with the mystery quilt layering now off the agenda,  I can focus on the binding task today -- that is after I get the laundry done.   After binding that one, I think I will also pull out the fabrics for the next Committee quilt and start work on that layout.  

The other priority with an immediate deadline is that I want to finally work on a friend's memory quilt.  Her and her husband have birthdays in February and I've already gotten him a gift so if I could finish her quilt that would be hers.  I know I'm not usually good with such tight deadlines but I might as well start pushing organizing myself to get better at that for 2025!   I think with the right amount of focus,  I could finally get this project done.  Another goal for 2025 is to move a lot of things off the back burner so getting that project done would be an ideal example of that.  

So posting this now then heading out to do laundry and then I can spend the evening binding.  Sounds like a plan!

7 Days of New Year's - Day 7: Happy New Year!!

    

Image by starline @ www.freepik.com

A very Happy New Year to everyone!  Here's hoping that we all have another fruitful year doing the things we love with and for the people we love!

Today marks the end of another  "7 Days" series.  I wasn't able to work on anything or post for Day 6.  DH was off from work so we took the opportunity to make an early run to the warehouse clubs and the supermarket.  Once back home, we needed to defrost and reorganize our auxiliary freezer to fit all the stuff we brought home.  The rest of the day and night was spent fielding calls or texts with New Year's wishes and watching the annual "Thin Man" movies and "Odd Couple" marathons so crafting was knocked off the list of activities for the day!  

And although DH is still off from work today, I'm hoping to start off the year the way I want it to continue: by working on moving some more projects either forward or to a finish!   I had originally planned to try to work on quilting a quilt for Day 6.  For the past few months I've had these three sitting on the back of my sewing table:

The front two (Steering Committee Gift #2 and "Over and Down Under") are partially quilted.  The back one ("Roaring Waves") is layered and pin basted.  The problem with that one is that I am still struggling with deciding on how to quilt it.  

I was tempted to continue the quilting on "Over and Down Under" which is the furthest along.  However, when I last stitched on it, I was still having some issues quilting it with the monofilament thread I was using on top.  Also because I used a National Parks panel in the backing of it,  I really wanted to complete it along with the blocks I started for Pat Sloan's "Ode to Our National Parks" Block Wednesday sew along.  So I think I'll leave both of those projects to work on at another time.  

So resuming the quilting on the "Steering Committee Quilt" it is!   I do have a good reason and incentives for getting this one finished now.  First is that I am not sure why I stopped in the first place!  I had picked out a “square loops” motif that is sometimes also called “circuit board” that I think was influenced by all the squares and rectangles of the piecing:

I thought it was one of those "mindless" designs that really shouldn't have been hard to execute but then I think I got "into my head" as I worked on it.  Looking back at my journal for this project,  I see that I had originally made it to be a second raffle quilt to offer for our community garden's Art Show in 2023.  However, I was "down to the wire" trying to finish it up so was "stress stitching" and of course got frustrated when it wasn't stitching out as quickly as hoped.  Someone once said to me that I must have a lot of patience to make quilts but obviously they aren't around to see me when it comes time to quilt them, LOL!!  Once I gave up on meeting the deadline, it got pushed aside to work on more immediately needed projects.  

Back in August last year (feels odd to say that right now!) when I attended the "Free Motion Quilting Summit"  virtual workshop series, one of the instructors demonstrated this very same stitch pattern.  Watching someone else do it, I was reminded that it really wasn't that difficult a stitch pattern and vowed to get back to it.  I put it on the schedule a couple of times and even took it down with me to try to stitch on while visiting my MIL in October.  Unfortunately, things have been busy up until now so it's finally time to make good on that vow.

The incentive for getting this one done is that this quilt is part of two quilt series:  one is that it is another of my now favorite "9 Fat Quarter Disappearing Nine Patch" quilts.  After discovering this easy piecing design, I've finished two, one of which was the one raffled off and won by one of the members of my community garden's Steering Committee.  Since it had been in my plans for a while to make a quilt for each of them,  now that one of them already had one,  I was prompted to get in gear on making the remaining ones.  I already have FQ bundles picked out and organized for the other three I need to make.  So getting this one done would be an incentive to then get the others pieced up, quilted and hopefully gifted before our Spring season starts in March.  

So that's the plan for today! Oh, that and baking the new set of peanut butter cookies to mail in my MIL's package tomorrow.   Here's hoping that you have plans for working on things that will start you off in the direction you want to head for this new year! 

8:30 PM Update:  Quilting Is Done!  

Guess there is something to be said for taking a break from a project.  Will try to bind it tomorrow.

7 Days of New Year's - Day 5: Finally Back To the Quilting!

After days of focusing on cross stitch, it feels good to finally get back to quilting!  In yesterday's post, I mentioned that at one point my cross stitch work got held up by work on three late Christmas quilting projects.  Two of those weren't finished, one of which was the "Letters To Santa" quilt that despite an early "Christmas in July" start, only got as far as having the borders finally added...

....and the backing made up.

I should also note here that the companion "Letters To Santa" cross stitch while further along than it was in the Summer....

Stitching done from the Summer until now....

...was bumped to work on the piece for my MIL that I talked about finishing in the last post.  I should note that my MIL's gift will be on its way to her the day after New Year's because I now need to bake up a fresh batch of the peanut butter cookies I usually send her.  My husband works for UPS and said if I mailed the ones I had baked last week today, they might wind up sitting and not get delivered until after New Year's anyway.  So I'll make a fresh batch on New Year's Day and in the meantime we don't mind munching on the ones from the batch on hand!

The second project was a new one that I actually made up surprisingly quick after realizing I needed another display quilt in what was supposed to have been this year's Red/Green/Black/Gold color scheme.  That happened because I saw this tutorial in with my Christmas stash.  I found it as I re-organized that stash into a new storage container when I set up to resume work on the "Letters To Santa" top:

Another great storage bin, this one is from Michael's.

It was easily strip pieced using a bunch of busy fabrics pulled from the stash:

The good news is that the backing for this is also already made and the binding cut.  So now it and the "Letters To Santa" quilt sit awaiting quilting in 2025.

So the one thing I did mange to finish in the lead up to Christmas was my Red & Green version of the Temecula Quilt Company's "12 Days of Christmas" mini quilt.  

This design was offered as a quilt along all the way back in 2011 and I had made up tops in three different colorways back in 2020:

In 2022,  I finished the Red & White version (on the right) for holiday decorating that year.  This year since the Red & Green version (on the left) fit my intended color scheme, I layered and quilted it and it went up on display (along with two other older quilts) in time for Christmas as you see in the first picture above.  

To get it done meant I had to quickly decide on a quilting scheme for it.  I had forgotten how simply I had quilted the Red & White one:  for that one I had just outlined the blocks, cross-hatched the side borders and stitched straight lines across the top and bottom borders.  

Reviewing that made it easy to decide to quilt this one even simpler:  For it, I outlined the blocks and just straight line stitched around all the borders, following the path of the side border stripes and the lines of words in the top and bottom borders.  

When that got done in far less time than I expected,  I decided to also finish up the last Blue & White one during one of the "7 Days" sessions which was the task for today.  So like for the Red & Green, I spray basted the layering and then planned the quilting.  

For the quilting I again outlined the blocks.  Sewing the sashing was easier than for the Red & Green since like the Red & White version, this one employs sashing squares so it was easy to stitch straight up and down the sides of the sashing columns and then across the sashing rows.  For the borders I went even easier than the prior two:  I just free-motioned all the borders with loops and swirls.  

Done!  The binding had been picked out when the top was made back in 2020.  As I did for the Red & Green, I used Edyta Sitar's "Faux Double Fold" binding method that uses 1-3/4" cut strips.  The binding strips were attached to the front with the corners mitered in the traditional manner, folded to the back (see Edyta's method in her video for that) and then machine stitched in the ditch from the front to secure the folded edge on the back. 

So that's another project completed for the "7 Days" sessions!  When I checked my email today I had received a notice that Kari Shell was running one of her free EQ8 workshops for a Winter mini wall hanging.  I signed up for the evening session for today although there is another session scheduled for tomorrow if you are interested.  So with this quilt done,  I checked that out as the last thing (before posting this) for today!  

7 Days of New Year's - Day 4: Two Cross stitch Finishes For Some Slow Sunday Stitching!

While I had not expected to spend the first few days of my annual "7 Days" craft-a-thon working on cross stitch, I can now say it has paid off!  Even better, the results happening today means I can join in over at Kathy's Quilts for some "Slow Sunday Stitching" talk!

For the past three days I have been trying to finish up what was supposed to have been a Christmas gift for my MIL.  She and I both quilt but after I started cross stitching a few years ago and then saw this cross stitch design, I just knew I had to stitch it for both of us.

This is "Time to Stitch" by My Big Toe Designs.   I had started it early in the month with the expectation that since this is not a full coverage piece, I was sure I could get it done in time to make the early mailing deadlines for Christmas.  But checking my project tracking notes, I see I lost a week when I stopped stitching to try to get three Christmas quilt projects done in time to display.  Yeah, only one of those got finished in that effort!

As I talked about in my Day 2 post, I had originally purchased an 8"x 10" frame for this.  However, even before I finished the stitching, when I tried to insert this into it, the 14 count natural AIDA fabric I used would not squeeze neatly into it.  In a way that saved me because by then I had decided I wanted to add a line of text to the design.  I wanted to emphasize that the sentiment while stitched in cross stitch, also worked for our joint love of quilting.  However, even though I found a really small font in a book that worked,  it would have put a further squeeze on getting the design to fit in the frame opening even if the fabric had been cooperating.  

So I pivoted on the finish, deciding instead to mount it onto an 11" x 14" piece of painting canvas.  To fill it out, I added fabric borders and padded the bordered piece with batting before bringing the fabric edges around to the back and securing them to the back of the canvas.   

Since I wasn't using a frame,  I wanted to find a way to give my MIL a way to hang it if she'd like to display it that way.  To accommodate that option,  I made twisted cording from the four colors of floss I stitched the piece with using a cording tool I had purchased for finishing another piece.    

To finish the backing neatly, I cut a piece of  flannel fabric from my stash,  stitched a label onto it and used spray adhesive and hot glue to secure the backing over the fabric edges.  

Since I was going to use the cording tool,  I figured I might as well also "fully finish" the piece I had purchased it for!  All the way back in April,  I had started on finishing this year's Frosted Pumpkin "Year of the Dragon" piece which I had finished stitching up in February(!).  

Considering that the year is now almost over, it's about time I git 'er done and display it!

I had purchased both the cording tool and a tassel maker to add embellishments to the piece after I had decided on finishing it to look like a lantern.

The cording tool instructions were all in Japanese but thankfully the University of YouTube came to the rescue to explain how to use it!  

And now it's finally done and hanging with the pieces I stitched to commemorate 2023. 

I've already decided not to do another "Year Of" for 2025 -- well, at least not as a "New Year's Stitch" as I have done the past two years.  I have two other cross stitch pieces that I'm anxious to get started in January.  But who knows, I may decide to do the 2025 Year of the Snake (also available as a printed pattern) later since I've had fun doing this series so far.  The downside of them is that once the year is past, they are not as pertinent for display so I will admit it dampens my enthusiasm for pursuing it.  But now's not the time to stew over such things, there are two more days left before the New Year rings in and more than that many projects left to tackle!

My thanks to Kathy for another year of providing a place for us to share our Slow Sunday Stitching projects.  Wishing everyone a safe and happy entry to another year of relaxing and comforting hand work!  

7 Days of New Year's - Day 3: Slow Progress But Cross Stitching Is Finally Done

Well, I thought I'd get yesterday's stitching completed last night but the later it got the slower I stitched!  I finally called it a night and left the rest for today.  The problem with the "7 Days" period being on the weekend is that weekend doings get in the way.  So it took most of the day but I finally got it all done.

The piece has been washed and is drying.  Before washing, I tried to pick out fabric for the borders.  I've got a few choices to pick from, the last three coming from my "Asian fabrics" stash:

I was surprised how much I liked this one....

Another one that's at the top of the list!

I'm leaning toward either the first one or the last one.  Well since I missed mailing it today, I now have another day to make that decision and work on the finishing.  Let's hope now I can finally get back to quilting!