Quilt Stitching Inspiration Finally Leads To A Finished Quilt

Whew, it's been a while since I've checked in!  It's been a busy summer and I will be posting recaps of all that has been going on quilt-wise.  However in recent weeks I have also been trying to focus on getting some finishes done.  So for starers, I'll debut the first one this week over at Alycia's Finished Or Not Friday !

In July a lot of my piecing focus went towards "Christmas in July" projects.  However, my original plan for that month was to do a lot of quilt stitching!  The impetus for that was the latest Free Motion Quilt Challenge announced by Angela Walters at the end of May and scheduled to run in July.  Titled "How Do I Quilt It",  she planned to discuss stitching patterns that could be used to fill Chevron, Snowball, Log Cabin and Curved blocks and Applique borders.  

That was just the push I needed to start a project I had long wanted to do:  "Apple Crisp" is a design I thought I first saw in an American Patchwork and Quilting "Fall Quilts" compilation (scroll down to #20 for the link to the free pattern).  Later I discovered I had the October 2010 back issue it was originally published in. 

The magazine version and my finished top!

After learning about the challenge, I spent the latter half of June working on the blocks.  I changed the size of all the blocks so I could use my Accuquilt Snowball block die to cut those particular blocks.  In order to get all the blocks done by the time of the challenge,  I even pieced some while we were away camping in Shenandoah National Park!

I finished the top in early July just in time for the part of the Challenge for the Snowball blocks.  However, for the first time watching one of Angela's challenges, I did not immediately get ideas for stitching my own project!  The issue for me was that most of  the stitch designs she showed called for detail stitching in the centers of the blocks.  I was stopped in my tracks by one of the fabric choices I had made during the piecing:

Also didn't realize until this point that I should have pieced those chain blocks differently to line up with the Snowball corners!

I didn't really want to stitch over this guy.  The designs she demo'd were great but wouldn't work for this one block and I wanted to stitch all the blocks the same.  So this time it took looking beyond what she was stitching in the blocks to find inspiration from what she used to fill other spaces around them.  It took me most of August to figure that out as I continued to work on other projects.  Eventually I combined that inspiration with some of my own ideas which led to what I used to finish this one up.

At this point, I'll also join in over at Denise's  "Put Your Foot Down" to share the stitching part of this finish....

and over at Andrée's Quilting & Learning - What A Combo!

The stitch plan started with deciding to just straight stitch through the chain blocks which would also help stabilize the center of the top.  At some point in Angela's demo I saw her do stitch patterns in the Snowball corners -- okay, I can do that.  However, I was still stumped for what to stitch in the block centers.  

I often go very literal when I work on quilt projects.  Since the name of this quilt is "Apple Crisp" why not do an "Apple Core" stitch motif?  But will I need to mark it?  Well, it just so happens that I had this in my template stash:  

This is actually a piecing template that I've had for years.  I've always wanted to make an Apple Core quilt but never got around to it.  I even considered getting the Accuquilt die for making one.  I held off on that because I felt I should at least try using this template before I spend money on another one.  I also don't really know if I'd ever make more than one of these types of quilts anyway.  

Now that I had my stitch plan, I finally layered the quilt sandwich earlier this month.  Luckily for me, it turns out that using the piecing template worked just as well as a quilting ruler since I have a non-hopping ruler foot!  I even used the template in the borders and tessellated the motif like it would be when pieced.  

It's not as even in the borders as it would be pieced since I just used the edge of the template to stitch along instead of lining it up along the seam allowance slots.   

After employing those two stitching motifs,  I felt that I needed to also stitch something in the sides of the Triple Four Patch blocks.  For that I had another ruler -- this time one that is actually for free-motion quilting and that I hadn't used up until now:

I had purchased this Handi Quilter ruler a few years after quilting "Flying For Cover" with free hand clamshells.  For that quilt, I had marked the spacing of the clamshells using Inchie Tape.   However, after quilting it, I realized that while I liked the stitch design, I wanted a way to insure that I could quilt various size arcs as evenly as possible.  This ruler is 1/4" high so is actually for use on a longarm but I had no problems using it from all sides on my high shank Juki machine.  

Doing this many different stitch patterns -- even simple ones --  is essentially considered custom quilting.  So needless to say, it all took far longer than I had expected to spend quilting this project.  

Photographed under the Crabapple tree in our community garden!

Now that it's done, I am happy to say that this is a pretty addition to my Fall decorating.

Linking up with:

Alycia's Finished or Not Friday

Denise's Put Your Foot Down

Andrée's Quilting & Learning - What A Combo

April Recap: Still Busy and Now Blue (and White)

Warning:  As usual since this is a month long recap, it's pretty long so strap in!

The busyness of the last two months has continued a pace.  Our community garden's Season Opening/Earth Day Celebration on the 20th went well.  

 "Mother Earth" (Our Garden President) and some happy Butterflies celebrate the day!

Being in charge of organizing the garden's set up for the day was stressful right up to the end!  While glad to have done it and with ideas for improving it next year,  I would also be more than glad to hand the reins to someone else next year!

As noted in my post for March I had started a blue and white Bargello quilt for decorating for the Spring season.  That quilt is now basted and while I have tried sketching out designs for quilting it, I haven't settled on one yet:

One other thing we were also waiting on this month was word of the health condition of my MIL's ill sister.  Unfortunately, the day after the garden event we were told she lost her battle with lung cancer so now we are organizing things for a trip back down to North Carolina for her funeral.  

My DH and I will be staying at my MIL's house and although it will not be a long trip (this Thursday until Sunday),  I am also packing for our usual mini quilt retreat.  I had gone down to comfort my MIL when her husband passed away in 2020 and had found that what time we could spend together quilting helped blunt the pain of the grief she was feeling so I want to be ready to do that again.

While I had put together the Bargello quilt, I had ideas for two more blue and white quilts.  One was based on a Fat Quarter bundle I had seen on Etsy while shopping for fabrics for another quilt (and more on that later).

Fat Quarter and Half Yard Bundles available from Neemerone on Etsy

As I have noted in the last two years, my new "go to" easy quilt design is the "9 Fat Quarter Disappearing Nine Patch" that I learned about from a You Tube video.  I have finished two so far:

The Last Dash and Lavender Love

When I saw that the FQ bundle above contained nine fabrics, two of which were Grunge, I knew I had to have it and knew just what design I'd make it up in!  However, I replaced the Grunge pieces it came with and added those to the stash I am trying to build of those fabrics.  

The light blue Grunge in the bundle was replaced with a tone-on-tone fabric that was used in the Bargello quilt.  When I realized that it would work here too, I was fortunately able to find more of it.  The white Grunge was replaced with a light batik from my stash.  So that top is now done too!

The fabric bundle was anchored by four indigo prints from Debbie Maddy's "Yukata" line for MODA.  Debbie's Shibori dyed fabrics are reproduced by MODA for her fabric lines.  Ironically,  I have a label panel of MODA designers and one of the labels happened to be by Debbie Maddy!  So of course, I had to use it for this quilt.  

To do so,  I purchased some yardage of a print from one of her other lines ("Kawa") and used that to make the backing for this quilt.    

This has now been put with the things I plan to take down with me.  I am hoping I might be able to quilt it on my MIL's longarm while there.  

It should be noted that this is actually an alternate project to take along.  Originally my plan was to take my Juki sewing machine down with me and resume the quilting of yet another FQ Disappearing Nine Patch quilt I had started as a gift for one of the Steering Committee members of my garden.  

What's funny is that I hadn't unpacked this machine since I took it with me on our last trip down to my MIL's back in February!  However, as plans for family members to attend the funeral got underway, the plans changed to having us ferry some relatives down with us in our car.  That means we would not have as much cargo space as originally planned.  So I decided that I would nix taking the Juki in favor of taking my Singer Featherweight and the new FQ Disappearing Nine Patch project both of which will take up less space than what I originally had planned to bring.

I am also taking another top that I had made after our trip to my MIL's last Fall for the All Carolinas Shop Hop.  I had expected to long arm it on the trip in February but didn't get to it.  So it and the batting for it are also packed.  

I had also planned to bring a scrappy piecing project:  Bonnie Hunter's "Shoo-Fly Shoo".  However, now that plan has changed too.  Ironically, all the recent blue and white quilt project setups had actually started with finding a blue and white fabric picked up when I had visited my MIL in 2020.

I had gotten this fabric as part of a scrap bag I purchased on our first trip to the Keepsake Quilting/Pineapple Fabrics Outlet which had opened that year.  I had come across the scrap bag in March while cleaning up my quilt space and was surprised to find that this "scrap" piece was actually a little over a yard!  After I had put out the few Blue and White Quilts I had for Spring, I got the idea to see if I could find a design that could utilize this fabric to make up another one.  That is when I found the Bargello design but then realized that I already had other fabrics in house to make it.  However, I still wanted to find a design that could use the "scrap" fabric.

In mid-April, Pat Sloan previewed "Celebrate with Quilts", the new book by Lissa Alexander and Susan Ache in one of her daily videos in anticipation of a Quilt Along.  I thumbed through the book along with her since I had picked it up when the Fat Quarter Shop ran a book sale at the end of last year.  That's when I saw this quilt using the "Baby Bunting" block from the book:

Since one of the Blue and white quilts I have on display is this mini I made back in 2017:

I immediately thought the blue and white "scrap" print would be great made up in the "Bunting" quilt and I'd love having another quilt with a basket design!  A bunch of blue fabric purchases later and yet another blue and white "kit" had been established.

With the adjustment to our travel plans, I figured that if I take the FQ Disappearing Nine Patch quilt, I'd just as soon take the piecing for the "Bunting" quilt along instead of the scrappy project.  So I've prepped the block sets for it.

The book gives instructions for making this block in four sizes and my plans are to make it in the nine inch finished version for the lap quilt size I want to make.  The good news there is that all the pieces for the block could be die cut since I have the 9" Cube set from Accuquilt:

This is the first time I've used it!

Of course I am also taking cross stitch with me for the drive down and back.  I admit with the garden work,  I had been too distracted (and pooped) to concentrate on the "Harriet Tubman" piece I had been working on.  Then I saw a You Tube video where 123Stitch.com announced they were doing a Spring Stitch Along!  Although I have shopped with them, I had not been aware before then that they A) had a You Tube channel or B) hosted Stitch Alongs.  So with the usual nod to "squirrels" and FOMO,  I had to make plans to join in!

What I liked about the design they are using is that it is a Lizzie Kate pattern and that is a designer I have not stitched before.  I also liked that they were going to use a decorative button to complete part of it.  Of course, I then decided to take it to the next level:  my plans were to do less stitching of the motifs in it and use even more decorative buttons to create it.  So I found these on Etsy:

A chance to try a new way of embellishing a CS project.

However, while I will take this with me it is not what I'll be stitching on the way down.  At the time I had set up this project, I thought I had an empty project bag to put it in but couldn't find it.  During the AC Shop Hop in the Fall, I had picked up pieces of an older line of Pat Sloan's fabric.  I had decided that I'd use it to do another popular Cross Stitch thing:  make a project bag out of it!  

Not content to just work with the fabric, I noted there had been a pattern I had seen a while back that I had liked and realized it was the perfect thing to incorporate into the project bag.  Luckily enough when I went to look for it, it was on sale so yet another cross stitch project was born!  

This is also another chance for me to practice stitching on an Evenweave fabric.  I had started doing so for last year's Stitch June and I am hoping that this even easier stitch will get me in gear to resume that project.   Actually it looks like I will be attacking this frog design another way -- I see I already need to do some "rippit, rippit", LOL!!  I am hoping that I can finish it during the trip and can start the 123Stitch SAL project during the ride back.  We'll see!  

April has once again been a whirlwind, let's see if May will calm down a bit for a change of pace!

Finished Or Not Friday: Two Fall Finishes

 This week I have a pair of finishes to add to the viewing queue at Quilty Girl Alycia's for: 

First up is a wall hanging that was supposed to have been a "quick make" for decorating last year.  As always, better late than never!  

This is my interpretation of Pat Sloan's "Thankful" quilt (scroll down to #85 on her 2022 gallery section) that you can find in her book "Holiday Hoopla" which was published by the dearly departed and missed Martingale and Company.   

When Pat showed her quilt last year when her book quilts were returned to her by the publisher,  my Fall Fabrics stash had been on my mind.  I had recently gone through it looking for things for two other projects that I wanted to do at the time.  When I saw her quilt, I knew I had enough in house to make it and still not deplete that stash of fabrics so I could also do the other projects as well.  

As I said, I figured it would be quick to make so got right to it.  I did finish the center of the top in a short time but debated about adding additional borders to make it larger.  

Then I moved on to working on holiday quilts and figured with the top mostly done, this would be a quick finish this year.  After I settled the border debate (adding one inch finished borders), then I couldn't decide how to quilt it.  

Pat (or Pat's long-armer) had done straight horizontal and vertical cross hatching on hers but I had initially envisioned Feather Wreaths in the setting triangles.  I tried sketching those out but it wasn't clicking and I wasn't sure what to do for the trees along with that.  Cross hatching kept popping up as the best option and then I got a brainstorm:  I've always wanted to try free-motion curved cross hatching with a ruler.  I sketched that out and decided it was the way to go!  

I combined that with diagonal cross hatching on the trees and now this one is finally up for display! 

The second one is another top from last year that is just now getting the finishing treatment.  This was a Fall-themed "3 Yard Quilt" kit that I picked up during the "All Carolinas Shop Hop" last year.  

3 Yard Quilt kit, backing and thread.

My MIL lives in North Carolina and I learned about the Hop that premiered in 2021 while visiting her.  We usually plan at least one of my husband's vacations each year to coincide with the Hop since my MIL is also a quilter so it adds to the "mini quilt retreat" I have with her when we visit.  

This is the second of the three kits I have purchased (one each year) from the Quilt Lizzy shop in Wake Forest, NC.  They always have a great selection of beautifully coordinated kits and just like when you purchase them from Fabric Cafe, you can pick up a free pattern to go with it.  I had seen a pretty Fall-themed kit in one of the Fabric Cafe videos shortly before the Hop and was thrilled when Quilt Lizzy had just what I was looking for!  Even better, I got the backing as a freebie from my MIL who had picked the fabric up from her guild's "fabric exchange" table.  I made up the top around this same time last year.

When I returned to it this year and even though this is one of the simpler Fabric Cafe designs,  once again I was not sure how to quilt it.  Again, cross hatching was the first idea and seemed fine for the Checkerboard rows but I wondered if I should do something "a little more" for the Pumpkin fabric rows.  When deciding on the quilting, it's always a matter of trying to balance the desired design with your skills and the time you have to work on it.  I really wanted to do something that would be relatively quick.  

Eventually I realized that maybe along the lines of cross hatching, I could use the Checkerboard piecing as the "dot to dot" starting point for a very simple "Zig Zag" motif!  I loved the idea since I could just do that right across the width of the top so wouldn't have to quilt the borders separately.  

I stitched the lines on my DSM with a walking foot and did have to do some marking of the "pivot points" in the Pumpkin sections in order to keep the pattern spacing even.  All in all, it only took about four hours to stitch up the whole thing.  Perfect and now also finished!

Front

Back

With these two done, now I can start putting out the rest of the Fall quilts!  Additionally, I am also still working on a Thanksgiving-themed cross stitch piece that I want to hang on the wall next to the "Thankful" quilt.

 This has been a daily stitch for the last week.  I am not sure I'll get it finished before Thanksgiving but my goal is to continue working on it and "fully finish" it this year so it is ready to be promptly hung up next year.  So I am thankful for my fabric stash and thankful for my crafts!

Edited 11/20/23 To Add:

And thankful to now have a cozy Fall stitching spot!

Let's also be thankful for Alycia continuing to host these "Finished Or Not Fridays" so we get to see what bountiful creative pieces crafters from all over the world enjoy making!  

The First Moving It Forward Monday For November

 Ahhh, another month has started and we are moving quickly towards the end of the year.  So it's time to see what I have going on for this month and what I hope to get done before it ends.

Quilting

On the quilting front there are a few things that I hope to push to completion by the end of the month.  For starters, I haven't even begun to decorate for the Fall.  Part of the reason is that I really want to finish this "Thankful" wall hanging to start that off.  

As I reported in my last post, I had taken the center of the top which was finished last year with me on our recent vacation.  I had managed to put the borders on while away and now that we're back, wanted to really try to move it forward.  

Today I made the backing for it.  I had a nice piece of fabric but it needed additional strips at the top and bottom to bring it to size and allow for extra for the quilting take up.  I did that and added in a light piece into the bottom strip (the background fabric used in the blocks on the front) for a label area.  

I also gave some thought to how I wanted to quilt it.  I think I want to try curved cross hatching in the setting triangles since I've never done that before.   Next up will be layering it and then hopefully I will get this quilted in the next week or so.

A Bunch of "3 Yard Quilts"

Also while away, I had started work on a Fabric Cafe 3 Yard Quilt that started with fabric I had leftover from a previous project.  I had originally thought I was going to make this in their usual lap size.  However, after realizing I had quite a bit of the "focus fabric",  I decided to enlarge it to Twin size.  I had finished piecing the blocks by the end of October and in the first few days of November, got the top all sewn together.

This is the "Heartland" quilt from the "Pretty Darn Quick" book.

I already have the backing for this but don't think I'll quilt it just yet.  I also have another 3 Yard Quilt top that was made while I was away but it too will have to wait its turn for quilting.  The reason for that is that I have yet another 3 Yard Quilt that would be great to finish for Fall decorating this year.

This one is their "Checkmate" design (link is to the printed pattern but it's also available in digital form).  I had purchased this as a kit when I Shop Hopped with my MIL in 2022.  I finished the top that year but it has just sat since then.  I've gone back and forth about how to quilt it:  a simple straight-line cross hatch or something special?  While I'm still trying to decide and since I already also have the backing prepared for it, this is the next one I'll baste and then it too will be ready for quilting and display for this season.

The Quiltville Mystery Season Is Almost Here!

Any Bonnie Hunter fans out there?  If so, you know her annual "mystery season" is coming up!  Bonnie has already released the introductory post for this year's mystery named "Indigo Way" which was inspired by her travels to Vietnam.  

As always, I will be excited  to see each clue drop and see if other quilters have changed the colors used and what their progress is each week.  As tempted as I am to do this one (as it's in one of my favorite color schemes: Red, White and Indigo Blue), I had already planned this year to finally get all of my accumulated mystery tops quilted.  

Clockwise from top left:  En Provence, On Ringo Lake, Old Tobacco Road and Double Delight

I have four so far so I know that is a big task but it needs to be done.  Since the holiday season last year, I have also been trying to focus on completing the fifth one:  Bonnie's "Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll".  It has moved along in dribs and drabs since I started it in 2018 and I am pleased to say that right before October ended I had leader/endered (yes, official quilting term) the blocks and rows to complete the center of it.

Also over the past few months, I've also completed the pieced units that will make up the outer border.

Those now have to be sewn together to be added to the center along with a green inner border which I also have the fabric for.  Last thing will be to make the backing.  The fabric is also already in house for that so hopefully by the end of the mystery season, this too will be ready to be quilted. 

As of right now, the (very ambitious) plan is to spend each week of the mystery working on finishing one of the quilts.  It would be exciting for me to get them all done by January when the mystery season ends.  So this month, I have until the mystery starts on Black Friday to get myself prepared.  After that, we'll see if I can stick to that plan!

Cross Stitch

When I started cross stitching, I had said that I didn't expect/want it to become the obsession that Quilting is for me.  Yeah, that is quickly falling by the wayside, LOL!  Much like with quilting, you see something, say "Ohhhh..." and before you know it, another WIP is in the works!  

That happened to me twice in October and both are the fault influence of Helen D's Flosstubes (love 'ya Helen!!)!  Helen lives in Maine and I have already stitched one of her designs as a memento of our trip to Acadia National Park in Maine although it still needs to be "fully finished".  While I was at my MIL's last month, I  watched one of Helen's videos where she showed this Halloween piece:

I really, really liked it but figured I didn't want to go shopping for the fabric to make it right now.  Yeah, right, never tempt the Crafting Muses like that!  So of course, I'm Shop Hopping (in a quilt store mind you) with my MIL and I see this in one of our stops:

Found @ The Broken Needle

Immediately, I thought of Helen's piece!  Okay the fabric is a little darker but I was intrigued by the idea of adjusting the called for threads to make it work.  Fortunately, at that point we still had another Shop Hop stop to make and since buying cross stitch stuff was not the priority on this trip, I decided to pass on it in favor of the other purchases I was making at that shop and to save some money for the next Shop Hop stop.  

Well, I didn't spend as much as I thought I would at that next (and last) stop sooooo.....of course it was back to the previous shop for the cross stitch fabric!!  Since we were returning home pretty close to Halloween, I knew I wouldn't have time to fully kit up and start this one.  Now that the fabric is in stash, it can wait it out until next year.  I already have another Halloween piece partially kitted up (and come to think of it, that too was influenced by one of Helen's finishes!) so those two will be set up for working on in time for that holiday next year.

However that is not the end of the Cross stitch journey.  I had noted in my last post that I had worked on my "Open Your Heart" piece on the drive home from our trip.  I hadn't gotten much done on it from the previous time I worked on it in July and didn't get all that much done in the car either.  But once back home, I was able to go back to stitching on it daily in the evenings.  I'm pleased to say that as of last night, another page of it is now done!

I've finished Page Six (the right side) after starting the design on Page Five (the left side).  I did that because these sections of the design have the most color changes in them.  Next I will move onto Page Four which will fill in the rest of the left side and complete the bottom half of the whole design.  

However, that is not what I will be working on for cross stitch for November.  That project will be this one:

Which can be seen in this video.

Yes, I'm starting yet another cross stitch project!  Okay, but this one has a quilt angle.  When I finish quilting the "Thankful" wall hanging that I talked about at the start of this post, it will replace the wall hanging currently here:

In the past when I have hung quilts in this space, I have had partner pieces hanging on the adjacent wall to the right of there.

I actually have one for that RWB Log Cabin quilt but it still needs to be quilted (the story of my life).  I would definitely like to do the same for "Thankful" but in a timely manner this time.  I had considered doing another quilted wall hanging but when I once again watched a Helen D. Flosstube and she showed the "Give Thanks" piece it was "Ooooh, I love that and check out that circular frame!".  After stitching the cross stitch piece, Helen had gotten the frame from her mother who had gotten it in a box of frames given to her by a friend.  I had also seen another absolutely stunning circular piece Helen had done for Halloween this year (which is actually by the same designer as the Thanksgiving piece).  She framed it in what had formerly been a mirror frame!

Helen shows how she did the framing process in this video.

When I started this new hobby, I found myself as intrigued by the ways the stitched pieces are finished for display as much as I am by the stitched designs themselves!  I did some research and while I couldn't find the frame she had used for the Thanksgiving piece, I did find an Etsy shop that sells wooden frames that can hold an embroidery hoop as the "backing" for the stitched piece in the frame.

I fully intended to go that route.  After purchasing the pattern*, I found that I already had a fabric for this project having purchased it as part of a discounted pack of fabric when I was sourcing supplies for the cross stitch workshop I led in the summer.  I also already had nine of the thirteen colors of floss needed for it in four other "Haven't Started Yet" projects I have kitted up.  

Prior to embarking on a trip to the local Michael's for the rest of the floss and the embroidery hoop, I looked up "circular frames" to see if  they had any in stock I might like.  There were frames listed but most were either not the size I needed or were a little more than I wanted to spend for a piece to be displayed only once a year.  However, I also saw these:

Grapevine wreaths!  Oooh, how cool and seasonally appropriate it would be if they had one the size of the finished piece that I could frame it with!  At the store I did find one so at least for now, I plan to use this for the framing.

*Note:  As of the time I post this, the link to the pattern is for a "combo deal" for the "Give Thanks" and the companion "Autumn, Please" pattern.  However, both patterns can also be purchased separately. 

So I will stop work on "Open Your Heart" once again in favor of trying to get this one stitched up and "fully finished" in time for Thanksgiving display.  As always, so much to do, so little time!