To Do Tuesday: Trying To Get Back on Track for June

Ooh, it's been a while since I connected with everyone for Carol's weekly "To Do Tuesday" over at Quilt Schmilt!  The end of April and all of May were busy and only got busier as each week progressed!  It was hard to make time to get to my stitching spots --- whether the couch for some hand work or at my sewing machine.  As a result I feel like I've neglected some of my favorite family members --- my craft projects!!

Some of the life events that got in the way of crafting during this time:  There's been a slate of community association meetings and a related conference to attend.  The community garden season started so there was spring planting,  hosting the 5th grade of the local middle school for their annual Spring visit and attending a virtual eco-gardening course I signed up for.  

Part of our plot in mid-May

Since my last post we've also been on two camping trips with my DH's co-workers: one early season one to test out some new equipment we had purchased and the other our 3rd (for us) annual Memorial Day Weekend trip.  That weekend was also my birthday weekend when I hit a milestone one: the big 6-5!

Just part of our group and a rainy weekend saved by canopies and tarps! 

  

On the crafting front, in late April after finishing the second of two Quilt of Valor tops for the guild that I belong to long distance, it was my plan to then work on quilting a Log Cabin project to submit for their June challenge or to try to work on or finish two LC projects-in-process for the same purpose.  

However that got pushed aside mostly because there have been an over abundance of new quilt project idea "squirrels" that completely overtook my attention and wallet!  I also signed up for both the Quilted Life Summit and the Machine Quilting Summit again this year.  Good thing I opted for the VIP extended access membership for both since I have yet to be able to sit down to watch the sessions!   All of these beautiful distractions and "what ifs" knocked my focus totally off.  While enjoyable and exciting they were all horrible for my productivity!!

All of the same has also been true for my cross stitch productivity as well!  Back in April I couldn't resist embarking on a new Spring themed CS freebie by Jardin Prive.  My hope was to stitch it up quick, finish it using Helen D's "floss wrapped hoop" technique and then also "fully finish" the Lizzie Kate Spring-themed design I stitched up two years ago.  The plan was to put both out on display for Spring before April ended.  

Nope, didn't happen!  This was where the "Peace 'N Love" stitch was as the life events and squirrels got in the way of stitching on it reguarly enough to get it done.  However I'm glad to say that I got in enough time during the Memorial Day camping trip and while doing laundry when we returned to finish it up!  

So now I still need to "fully finish" it as planned.  Unfortunately,  I'll need to get a bigger hoop than the one I originally planned to use to do that since I'd like more space surrounding the stitching in the finish.  

However with June now underway,  I want to focus on "patriotic season stitching and decorating".  In past years I followed the Fat Quarter Shop when they did their "Red, White & June" stitch alongs but I don't see any mention of that on their site this year.  That's probably because they are doing the Celebrating 250 Years of America Quilt Along that started back in February and runs until the same month next year. 

I already had my projects lined up for "RWJ" stitching for both cross stitch and quilting.   For the former there were soooo many great cross stitch patterns being offered to honor the country's big occasion when I looked them up at the start of the year:   

Click the picture to enlarge and excuse the few non-cross stitch images here....

I did finally settle on purchasing just one pattern to try to make:  

I liked this one because it is done in the tiered cake stand format.  It will be similar to the London themed one I made last year from Erin Elizabeth's series of patterns.

I had picked out this Susan Ache design three years ago when she released her "Summer Memories" book:

I had hoped to start both in May for "Cross Stitch Maynia" but I've already shared how May went off the rails for me.  In addtion to those two cross stitch projects,  I can also continue in the patriotic colors theme by getting back to work on my Laundry Basket Quilts "Alaska" BOM project that stalled due to all the other things that came up last month:  

I only got to three and a half of the next eight blocks I needed to get done. 

Additionally there's the possibility of (finally) FFO-ing my Primrose Cottage "United We Stand" WIP and to finish up my "Seeds of Glory" quilted pillowcover since I want to try the same edge finishing technique on both.

The good news is that despite all of those plans, goals and dreams, my actual "To Do" list this week will be super short:   

1. I need to finish quilting my "Rainbow Log Cabin" project to be presented at the June guild meeting in NC the Saturday after next!  

This is my one and only priority right now even though I hope to also still do some cross stitching in the evenings as well.  

Needless to say there's never a dull moment even if it's not always doing the crafty things I love.  So I am glad to jump back in by linking up with everyone for  "To Do Tuesday" at Carol's Quilt Schmilt blog and look forward to seeing what everyone else will be working on this week! 

P.S.  If you are a Tula Pink fan, you've got to check out reports (article here and video here) of her career retrospective that was displayed at the recent H + H industry show.  Very fun, colorful and inspiring!!

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! 

In Honor of National Sewing Machine Day

 As always a lot going on in the studio this week.  I was pleased to find out that today is National Sewing Machine Day.  

We quilters all appreciate how much the sewing machine contributes to our quilty crafting.  In my last post I had talked about wanting to switch over to my Juki machine but as of right now my Singer 401 is still in my sewing cabinet and the project it had been hard at work on was this one:

I had hoped to have finished these but I hit a snag.  I've put the project in time out for a while and then will try to take another stab at it.

In the meantime, a new project has been started:  

These are blocks for "Apple Crisp", a design that originally appeared in the October 2010 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting magazine and is now available free on their website.  

When I started quilting, "background fabrics" for me were almost always light to dark tans because I worked with a lot of shaded fabrics and Civil War reproductions.  However in recent years as I've embraced more fabrics in the brighter modern palette, I have expanded my use of backgrounds to include more whites and white-based "low volume" prints.  

In the process, the darker tans had been languishing but when I saw this lovely project on the APQ website a few years back, I loved its Fall vibe and thought it a perfect way to cull some of the darker tans from my background stash.  Although I had pulled together the group of tans for it a good while ago, the big push to start it now has to do with an upcoming event. 

 Angela Walters is getting ready to do another of her "Free Motion Quilting Challenge Alongs " this time with the theme of "How Do I Quilt It?".  She will be covering stitching designs on Chevron, Log Cabin, Curved and Snowball blocks.  I have a top ready for the Log Cabin session and realized that this was the perfect time to get "Crisp" started since half of the blocks for it are Snowball blocks.

According to the Challenge schedule, Angela will start showing designs for stitching Snowball blocks on July 16th.  If I can stick to a schedule of stitching "Daily Blocks",  I could have the top ready for quilting by then.  I really look forward to seeing what ideas she has that I might be able to use to quilt this one up quick!

However, having made a schedule for daily stitching I did have one issue:  we are going on vacation next week.  In order to stick to the schedule, that means I'll need to take my stitching with me.  Fortunately that's not a problem as I've already put my trusty Featherweight with the travel stuff:

When I took my Juki on my last two travel trips,  I realized something:  the "Catch-All Cutie" I had made a few years ago and love to bring as part of my "sewing machine travel kit" was colored perfectly to go with the Tutto bag I had purchased for toting my Juki machine.  

Rather than having to move that tote between the two travel bags, I thought about making another one that I can leave in my Featherweight tote bag.  I saw some cute "old-timey" fabric on Etsy and knew I still had a little of the "Singer" fabric leftover from making the Featherweight tote bag:

All of this would be perfect for a new "Cutie"!  Recently I also saw that Gaye at Sentimental Stiches had a pair of scissors that I thought went perfectly with my Featherweight so purchased those too (in the lower left) to go in the new "Cutie" bag.  When we get back, I plan to order one of the Lori Holt Red Olfa Splash rotary cutters to add to it as well.  

So as of right now I've cut all the parts out (although still debating between the handle choices on the lower left) and hope I  can get it made up before we leave on Sunday.      

Because it's that time of the year, the Red, White and Blue quilts have gone up for the "Patriotic Season" (May to September) so I also hope to get back to work on these in the coming weeks:

Two years ago, I got as far as quilting the front and back panels for a cover for a pillow for my living room chair so hopefully this year I can assemble and finally finish it.  I also pieced a Lone Star wall hanging that year but could not decide how to quilt it.  

Looking at a picture of it recently,  I suddenly realized exactly how I want to do that.  When we get back, I'm going to try layering it using a glue basting method from You Tube that my MIL has tried and says works great.  If it works for me too, I can get that quilted and hung up --- hopefully by month's end! 

One of the things that had attracted me to quilting was finding out that all of the construction of a quilt  can be done completely by machine.  Having grown up in the days of Home Ec training in school, I was excited to find a new use for a sewing machine.  Over twenty years on, it is still a thrill to put the "pedal to the metal" and get a quilt out of it, LOL!!  I hope you are having an enjoyable time working with your machine today and if not, pull it out and take it for a celebratory spin!   

October in Review

It's the end of October and this is the first chance I've had to post this month!  Well that's because it's been a very busy month!!  It started off with our annual Fall vacation which included:

Click on the pictures to enlarge them for a better view.

A four day camping trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  The park is bisected by the borders of Tennessee and North Carolina and part of that border is also part of the route of the Appalachian Trail.  

My DH and I stayed on the Tennessee side of the park in the Elkmont Campground.  We visited many of the major attractions including the panoramic views after hiking up to Clingman's Dome, the historic Appalachian community buildings in Cades Cove,  the turn of the century summer resort homes in Daisy Town and hiking the Alum Cave Trail.   As usual it was a good trip although GSMNP lived up to its reputation of being the most visited National Park in the country.  Our campground, the park roads and every location were pretty crowded.

This trip was the follow-up to last year's stay on the (North Carolina portion of) the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Back then, I thought the Parkway was part of the GSMNP but I learned on that trip it was not.  On our way out of the park this year, we made a stop back on the Parkway to visit the Ashville Folk Art Center that we didn't get to visit last year.  It did not disappoint and we saw some great craft demonstrations and exhibits there!

Prior to the trip, I had tried to get the "Over and Down Under" quilt I had pieced for "National Sew A Jelly Roll Day" quilted but only got some of it done.

Because of how the backing related to our destination and how cold it was forecast to be in the Smokies, I really wanted to get to use it while on the trip.  However, I was having issues with my new Juki and my choice to use monofilament thread on top to quilt it.  I have one more tip to try out that I hope will allow me to get this one finished up -- perhaps by the time of our next trip there?  Then I also had hoped to work on it at our next stop on this trip but was too busy there to try it out!

That next stop was our two week visit to my MIL's in Rocky Mount, NC.  She is also a quilter so for the two of us, a visit is also a mini quilt retreat!  During our time there, I went to her guild meeting for a class with modern quilter Charles Cameron for his "Crooked Crosses and Bent Boxes" workshop.

Charles has ribboned at Quilt Con and already has two quilts juried into next year's show in Raleigh, NC.  We're planning to head back down for that so I look forward to seeing more of his work at the show.  I also got to go to a mini quilt group meeting where we were given a short workshop by one of the members.  She introduced us to doing "Decorative Big Stitch Binding" (the link is to one of the You Tube videos she recommended).

For the last three years, when we visit in September or October, that also means my MIL and I go shop hopping!

This year's All Carolinas Shop Hop Magazine and my "Passport"

We only did the region in her area this time but as you can see, we did get around!  We did two new stops this year:  one was that we finally got to go to the Quilt Lizzy store in Warrenton.  They were unexpectedly closed the day we went the first year we Hopped and we didn't Hop in that direction last year.  At one of the other locations, we learned they are transitioning this location to only being online.  As such there were huge discounts since we Hopped there during their last week as a "brick and mortar" store.  I mostly focused on stashing two things there:  Grunge and Fig Tree (the two stacks on the right in the picture)!

The darker Grunge pieces on the left were purchased at three other Hop stops and the rolled up ones were remnants.  

The other new Shop Hop stop we made this year was to Whatever's Quilted in Wake Forest.  Big news there, my MIL purchased a longarm!!

It's a floor model Handi Quilter Moxie with the Pro-Stitcher Lite attachment.  Unfortunately, the dealer was vending at a show right after we picked up the machine and frame so my MIL won't be going in for classes on how to use it until November.  We helped her clear out some of the furniture in the room where it was to go, managed to get it assembled and was able to load fabric onto it.  However, after that we were having trouble getting it to properly baste and to set up for the programmed stitch patterns.  I'm hoping that by the time we go back in February, she'll have a handle on how to use it and I can bring down a few tops to get quilted!

I took quite a few projects to work on while away but only got to a few of them.  First, I finally put the borders on Pat Sloan's Fall "Thankful" wall hanging I started back in October of last year:  

I had brought the batting and backing with me hoping to also quilt it while there but just didn't have enough time to get to that.  I also did the cutting for two Fabric Cafe "3 Yard Quilts" but only got one to a top while there.  The good news is I found the perfect backing for it on the sale rack at Bernina World of Sewing in Raleigh while on the Shop Hop.

The quilt is "Dominique" from the "Modern Views book".

For the other 3YQ I cut out,  I realized that I actually had a little more than two yards of the focus fabric (leftover from a prior project) so decided that I would make it twin size rather than the basic lap size Fabric Cafe designs their patterns in.  Using their instructions for enlarging their patterns meant I needed more of the other two fabrics I planned to use.  I was only able to get one while in NC so had to wait until I got home to pick up more of the other in order to finish it. The blocks for that top are now done so assembly of the top will continue as November rolls in.  

Finished blocks and backing fabric for "Heartland" from the "Pretty Darn Quick" book.

Good news is that its backing was also found on a sale rack on the Hop!  This time it was from the Quilt Lizzy store in Wake Forest.  While there and as I have done the previous two years, I also purchased another new 3 Yard kit that comes with a free pattern.   

To add to a future "African Fabrics" themed series of quilts.

I also brought my "Open Your Heart" cross stitch project on the trip.  Unlike on past trips, I didn't get any stitching in while sitting around the campfire (it was too cold!!), had no time to do any while at my MIL's so only got to it once we were on the drive back home.  It's an eight hour drive and between naps, the stops we made along the way and switching off to help with the driving, I didn't get much further on it.  

Not much got done on this trip!

Once back home, it was no less busy!  After putting most of our camping equipment back in storage, within two days of our return, I volunteered at the annual day our community garden hosts the fifth grade of the local middle school.  

Students from the local high school came in the day before to help set up the garden for the middle school garden day.  It also seems my garden bed had a late season growth explosion while we were away so now I also had a lot of harvesting to do as this season comes to a close!

It may have been a bit of a jungle but it yielded some good eats!

So needless to say, October has been uber-busy!  The sad part is that now with the holidays coming up, things are likely to get even busier!!