September Recap: A Lot of Life and Finally A Lot of Quilt Stitching!

Unlike the Summer months, September started off with a lot more "life stuff" than quilting stuff. 

Life:  Travel and Gardening 

For the Labor Day Weekend, my DH and I went camping with some of his co-workers to Watkins Glen State Park here in New York.  It is known for its gorge and waterfalls! 

Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

One of my husband's co-workers is a Nascar fan so we also checked out the race track in the area.

We got to watch cars run the track and then visitors got to bring their personal cars onto the track and drive a few of laps around it! 

On this trip, for the drive up and back and for sitting around the campfire, I brought my "Open Your Heart" cross stitch project with me.  When we got back home I continued working on it and got another page of it completed! 

The left side of this is what I worked on. 

In our community garden, the new beds are still under construction.  

My husband and I had demo'd our old bed back in May and I had to move whatever we had in the bed into Grow Bags and keep them on our terrace until we had a bed again.  Then in June we were assigned one of the beds that had been renovated last year since the members who had that bed are no longer using it (although they are still members of our garden).

I returned the pots of mint and the Swiss Chard plants I had salvaged from our old bed although the garlic starts I had planted last Fall didn't survive the move.  I planted a new Collard start that settled in well and we were able to harvest some which we cooked for one of the meals on our camping trip.  I had also seeded a bunch of tomato plants but admit it was a bit too late of a start for those.  I also didn't go over to the garden much due to the very hot Summer weather so only two plants grew enough to fruit and ultimately neither yielded much.    

Determined to do better for the Fall, I watched videos of some of my favorite gardeners on "You Tube University" for tips on what to plant in August but then never got that done.  So I watched what to plant in September and finally got a late start on that during the second and third week of the month.   Luckily, at this point things are starting to sprout so I'll see how it goes as the Fall progresses into Winter.  

Finally A Finish!

As I had talked about in Part 1 of my July Recap, this was the month I finally quilted my "Apple Crisp" project that I started back in June. 

The full finish report is here.

 More Cross Stitch

Cross stitch is slowly but surely becoming the kind of obsession for me that quilting is, LOL!  Despite having "Open Your Heart",  two "Christmas In July" starts and the Summer Camp project going,  I started yet another new cross stitch project!   

If you've read my cross stitch posts, you know I love "snarky" cross stitch designs.  I also love that crafting (either cross stitch or quilting) helps with decorating.  I've had an area on one of my dining room walls that I've long wanted to fill.  I have plans for a mini quilt for it but had also thought about adding cross stitch to the space. Then I saw this kit and had to have it:

However, at almost $35 it was expensive for an impulse buy!  However, I realized that a lot of what was in the kit I already had in the house.  The only thing I needed to purchase was the pattern and frame.  Fortunately, the pattern was available on Etsy.  The frame looked like the ones I have purchased before: 

Sure enough it was and I ordered it, bringing the total cost of the supplies down to $13!  Score!  This turned out to be a relatively quick stitch for me and I got it done in about a week.  In order to prep it for framing,  I realized that a Gadget Fanatic opportunity also presented itself:

I'd long wanted this ruler because the pattern seen here and purchased back in 2021 needed it.  Well now I can justify the ruler purchase, LOL!  Once the cross stitch piece has been washed and cut with the ruler, it'll be ready for framing and hanging!

Pat Sloan Quilt Alongs

This month I started following two of Pat Sloan's quilt alongs.  The first is one I am actively participating in: her  "Ode To Our National Parks" Block Wednesday quilt along.  This is the first time I've been ready to participate in one of her quilt alongs while it is actively going on!  This was partially due to the fact that I knew right away what I wanted to use for it and already knew where to find them.  

I had become familiar with what was offered in Riley Blake's National Parks fabric line when I had shopped for a panel to make a quilt that will chronicle our own National Park journey.  So I mapped out which prints and colors I wanted to stash.  This is what I got:

I'll also be adding some "Grunge" and "Freckles" tone-on-tones to the mix.  One of the prints I wanted to get was the black one in the middle which was on sale at Missouri Star Quilt Co.  Ordering that gave me the opportunity to add something else to the order I had long wanted to buy:

I needed these for the other Pat Sloan project I am following!  Pat has been doing another quilt along for the "Piece and Quilt Sampler" from the book "Celebrate With Quilts" by Lissa Alexander and Susan Ache.  She is using fabrics designed by Joanna Figueroa of Fig Tree Quilts for that.  Rather than doing the sampler, I decided that when she worked on hers I'd work on catching up on my "Scrappy Figs" project.  

I was inspired to make that project when Pat made Joanna's "Christmas Figs" sampler back in 2018.  I started on this project as a self-directed BOM in 2020.  I had made a few more blocks for it back in January when the project came up on my APQ UFO Challenge list.  Now Pat can help me move it further along!  

However, one issue I've had as I have stashed Fig Tree fabrics for this project is storage.  Until now I had used this bag...

...but it was getting difficult to keep the fabric organized and to easily see what I had.  I had seen the MSQC bags earlier this year and figured they might help corral the stash.  Since I was ordering the National Park fabric (and admittedly a few other things during their Labor Day Weekend sale), I decided to also get the bags.  What's lovely is now my Fig Tree stash is neatly stored and visible!

Admittedly though while I did the cutting for one block and pulled stash for another, I didn't get to sew them up.  Sigh!  Oh well, when Pat works on this next month I'll be ahead!   

Quilt Stitching On National "Sew A Jelly Roll" Day 2024

When I saw announcements early in the third week that it was once again time for "Sew A Jelly Roll Day", I decided it was the perfect opportunity for me to continue what I'd been doing!

The term "Jelly Roll" when referring to a rolled up bundle of 2-1/2 inch precut strips was coined by the MODA Fabrics company so they take the lead on promoting this quilty holiday.   Each year they also offer fun free patterns to get your quilt along motors running!  However, all of the quilting fabric industry has enthusiastically embraced this pre-cut which can be also found under names like Rolie Polies, Maple Rolls, Roll Ups, Pixie-Strips or Bali Snaps.  So you can celebrate the day with strips no matter what they are called!

I did so last year with a kit bundled with strips from Windham Fabrics "Gala" line in order to make a quilt I'd wanted to make for years:  Bonnie Sullivan's "Over and Down Under" quilt.  

Last year I spent Jelly Roll Day cutting and piecing the parts and then finished putting the top together about a week later. I had started quilting it right after that but ran into some snags.  My then relatively new Juki 2010Q didn't seem to like the monofilament thread I was stitching with and broke constantly.  Also I had wanted to outline stitch along the "woven look" strips and my Juki walking foot didn't have a guide bar so I had to tape off the rows and columns adding considerable time to the process.  As a result I wound up setting the project aside partially quilted in order to move on to other projects.

Since that time, I've discovered some things that have helped address those problems.  I learned there actually is a guide bar contraption that can be attached to the Juki walking foot and got that.  

I also picked up some tips about working with monofilament during the virtual "Free Motion Quilting Summit" I viewed in August.  The other good news about this project is that since I am currently participating in Pat's "National Park" quilt along, I'd love to finish this quilt during that series for this reason:

I had purchased this Riley Blake Pillow Panels yardage to insert into the back of this quilt for two reasons:  the colors went so well with the strips from "Gala" and I had started the quilt right before my DH and I took a camping trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. 

I had actually hoped to finish the quilt to take with us on that trip but that didn't happen.  We were supposed to go back to the park again this year but we've been so busy with other trips that we did not start the planning for it until late.  By that time there was so much news of increased Bear activity and wildfires in the park that we decided to hold off and do the trip another time.  Good thing we did too since now there's the issue of the hurricane storm damage in that area.  Now that this quilt is a little closer to being finished, one day it may still get to the park!!

So for this year's Jelly Roll Day, I was able to move the quilting on it a little further along which encouraged me to continue stitching on it until it is complete.  It was also great to find another way to enjoy this quilty celebration whether you are able to work on an old or new project!   At this point I am about three-quarters of the way through on finishing the quilting up.  

Unfortunately, I will have to break off from it to work on a deadline project but will probably finish it up when we come back from North Carolina later this month.  

Last Stitching Project:  Heartland

In my August Recap post, I talked about finding inspiration for free-motioning a Fabric Cafe 3 Yard Quilt design that I had made the top for last year.  I had tried to longarm it at my MIL's earlier this year but couldn't get the machine to stitch out the pattern I wanted.  Armed with a design learned in the "Free Motion Quilting Summit",  I've got this one about half way done too!

As with the "Over/Under" quilt, this one will now have to wait until we return from our upcoming trip down South to be completed.  

Lastly, Another Big Quilting Industry Loss

This month I also learned of another loss to the quilting industry.  On Kimberly Jolly's Jelly Roll Day live stream, she mentioned that Daniela Stout of  Cozy Quilt Designs had passed.

I have many of Daniella patterns but admit I haven't made any yet.  Interestingly, Kimberly noted that while Moda gave the name to Jelly Rolls, it was Daniella who started the whole thing about cutting and using 2-1/2" strip cuts for workshops in her store!  Then eventually the quilting fabric industry picked up on the idea of adding strip pre-cuts to their fabric line offerings.  Once again another huge light in the industry has gone out and she will be missed!

Now that I'm all caught up, hopefully I can keep up to date on posting the progress of projects as we zoom towards the final quarter of the year!