It's the First Day of February, Time To.....

 We have already moved into another new month!  Looks like 2022 is going to zoom along just as fast as 2021.  So what's percolating for February?

Carryovers from January: 

Two things I didn't get done in January as hoped was to finish the tops for my "Box Trot" and "Hexie Snowflake" projects.  

I am still going to focus on these two this week and try to get them finished up if possible.

My plan for changing the Box Trot layout is to remove the extra sashing on the bottom right and trim the rows above it to the same length.  Then I want to add a wide border of the pretty fan print from the fabric line that I was able to get.  It is one of the prints in the line that I didn't have in my original kit.  

As a "separator" I also wanted to create an "inner border" by adding scallops in the solid black sashing fabric around the center.  It took me a while to figure out how big I wanted them and whether to do them as one continuous faced strip or individually.  I finally worked out that to get the spacing right without too much futzing, using the individual scallops is the way to go.  The good news is that I lucked up since I had decided on 2-1/2" wide finished scallops and I already had a plastic template for that!

This was the template I made back in 2010 when I did the edge finish on my "Vintage Treasures" quilt.

 I talked about these in the "Edge Finishes" post I did last year for Frédérique's "Quilting A to Z" link up at her Quilting Patchwork Applique blog.  I have eighty-four scallops to make to go around the quilt and as of today, I have about half of them made.

With regards to the "Hexie Snowflake" project, I hadn't taken down the Christmas tree yet because I was hoping to get the "Hexie Snowflake" piece completely done so I could take a picture of it with the tree.  Oh well, taking down the tree is now another task for this week.   

More FMQ Training

Since I had such a good experience last month with using the "Serendipity" quilt project to practice my Free Motion Quilting, I was hoping to do the same again.  When I did the binding on the two quilts in January, I swapped Rhubye, my Singer 401, into the cabinet to attach it.  Now I want to try another FMQ challenge to get some practice stitching with her.  

On Craftsy there is a class called "28 Days to Better Free-Motion Quilting" hosted by Angela Walters and other famous quilters.  I am hoping to spend this month doing that one daily (if possible).  I wanted to do it in big open squares similar to how I was able to quilt the fabric rectangles in "Serendipity".  I found the perfect pattern for that and it gave me another opportunity to use up more of my "Mod" stash.

"Realigned" is from the Summer 2014 issue of Fons & Porter's "Quilting Quickly" magazine and this is the fabric pull I've done for the blocks.  The pattern starts with 10" squares and I'm going to quilt them individually (in effect, "Quilt As You Go") which I figure will make it easier to practice the stitch pieces.  This is the way Leah Day worked when she started her "365 Days of Free Motion Quilting" filler stitch project back in 2009.  Leah is also one of the quilt teachers in the Craftsy class.   

It'll be easier to stitch the little quilt sandwiches in the small harp space of the machine and I won't have to worry about wrestling with the full layered quilt while doing so.  When the individual sandwiches are done, I'll be able to put the final quilt together in sections.  However, what I haven't decided on yet is the sashing fabric and backing I'm going to use for all of this.  So for this week at least,  I'm doing muslin sandwiches and then can later re-do those stitch patterns with the project fabrics when I've worked out those project details.

For Day 1 of the class, all I had to do was set up the machine and a quilt sandwich and just "scribble" to try to get a feel for stitching on the machine.  

I learned that this machine stitches smoothly but like with my old Euro-Pro machine, I get better results if I run the machine very fast and move my hands fast.  Overall though, my stitches are small.  I tried slowing down but there you have to be careful because too slow and the thread breaks.  In FMQ, it's all about finding just the right rhythm with the machine you are using.  

Overall the tension was also pretty good but I found a difference when I changed threads.  I started out using a light Green thread (Aurifil) on top off an almost empty bobbin and black thread in the actual bobbin underneath.  I was surprised that the tension was almost perfect front and back.  When the top bobbin emptied, I switched to an almost full spool of Tan thread on top (also Aurifil).  Now the tension seemed a little off with more of the black bobbin thread pulling to the top.  Hmmm, I will have to see how that goes going forward.  

What's New Pussycat?

I also had to check on a few things:  first of all what's the new APQ UFO number for this month?  

It's #7 and on my list that is my "Modern Twist" project.  I had started quilting this back in 2017 but stalled as this was another quilt that I am looking to create a specific "look" with the quilting and was unsure how to proceed.  This is actually good news because I had already decided that if I was comfortable enough quilting on my 401 after I did the Craftsy challenge, I was going to try to quilt this one.  So APQ and the Quilt Muses were both reading my mind on this one.

Before I went to sleep last night I was reading some Bloglovin' posts and someone mentioned that that the February RSC color was already out and it was Aqua/Teal.   Another good opportunity!

Most of the teal scraps I have are still in my "On Ringo Lake" project box as I had always planned to use them to make a scrappy backing for that mystery project.  So I've brought that box out and before I start the search for Aqua/Teal scraps, I will make that back up which also helps to move that project forward too!  

After I mine the "ORL" scraps, I'll mine the rest of my scrap bins and the boxes of my MIL's scraps that I still have.  Hopefully all three of those sources will fill the coffers enough to cover all the RSC sewing that needs to be done for the month.

So safe to say I have enough to do for the short month of February!