Make A List Monday

It's the last week before Christmas!  Having participated in whooping it up for a finish at "Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?!?" with Sarah over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict on Friday, this morning I want to follow her example again by setting up a "Make A List Monday" To Do list for this week.

This is one of the rare times that my list is short for a change, Lol!  Here's what's on board for this week:

1.  "Hexie Snowflake" Project 

I started on this one while basting and quilting the "Civil War Strippie" quilt.

This is the next to the last of the Blue & White Christmas decorating projects.  It was (as usual) supposed to have been started long ago but a viable crafting window didn't open up until two weeks ago.  What you see above is only the first block.  As of right now, the snowflake is finished but the papers have to be removed and it has to still be appliqued to the background.  With how long it took me to get that far, I've already switched methods for how I prep the hexies and the project has now been downsized.  Rather than the nine blocks as the pattern shows, I'll only be doing a four block wall hanging.  The blocks are big enough that a quilt of that size will perfectly fill the space I want to display it in.  

I was inspired to try this for two reasons:  First is that it is yet another project on the Edyta Sitar/Laundry Basket Quilts obsessions list (pattern available from Paperpieces)!  Second, ever since I taught an English Paper Piecing class last year, I've wanted to do a more complex project using the technique.  While this isn't as complex as what I really want to do, it is a definite step up from the simple projects I made up as demos for the class.  

Even though it's been slower going than expected, I am really enjoying the chance to try EPP again and am shooting for getting this completed by week's end.  Fortunately, both this and the last of the planned Blue & White projects can also be considered "Winter" quilts so it's fine if this doesn't get done as quickly as hoped and the other definitely won't get started until after Christmas. 

2.  Quilting with Feathers

Back in November, Angela Walters (noted quilt industry long armer of "Quilting Is My Therapy" fame) began another of her "Free-Motion Quilting Challenges", this time on the topic of quilting Feather Motifs.  It's called "Fabulous Feathers" and she has hosted a series of tutorial videos and follow-up live chat discussions on You Tube.  In the videos, she demonstrates how to stitch various feather motifs and how to apply them to a variety of spaces within or around quilt blocks and tops.  

When she announced this, it was a case of perfect timing for me!  Back in the summer I had made this top:

I had envisioned doing feathers in the diagonal dark and light log cabin areas.  However, I wasn't totally sure how to proceed.  At the time I was making the quilt, Angela had another Challenge Series going on called "Flora and Foliage".  I tried using the feather motif from that challenge (the "Paisley Feather") but found it to be a denser stitch pattern  than I wanted to execute (a.k.a. it would take me forever to stitch out where I wanted to use it).  I also tried to do a less dense feather on my own but it wasn't looking the way I hoped.  At that point I put the project aside to "simmer" for a while until I could figure out a better plan.

As always the Quilt Muses look out for me and when Angela announced the new series, I knew this would be my path to completing this project.  Busy with other projects, I watched the first few weeks of videos and immediately saw ideas for applying her motifs to my quilt in a way that suited my taste and time.  Additionally, I had made another quilt top from the leftovers from my "Modern Bohemia" project when I was away at my MIL's back in December of 2020 that I figured would make a great "practice piece" with space to road test all the motifs!

Prior to now, I had no formal plans for the quilting on this project.  I decided that using each of the different colored panels to try out Angela's various motifs and fill techniques would be a fun way to get this one completed as well.   

So looking forward to maybe adding another couple of notches to the WIPS-B-GONE list before the year ends!