Finished or Not Friday: A Big Gift Project Is Finally Done!!

I am thrilled to start May off with a report on a big project completed.  Join me as I and other quilters check in at Quilty Girl Alycia's for this week's "Finished or Not Friday" projects! 

I will admit April closed with a lot going on and I must say that quilting was a haven in a storm of health and home repair issues.  For a couple of years now, I have been trying to finish a big projct:  making gift quilts for three members of my community garden's Steering Committee.  

I have displayed my quilts at the Art Shows our garden has hosted and the Committee members had been as enthusiastic about them as other attendees of the shows.  The last one we held was in 2023 and I had provided a quilt to raffle off at it.  

When the winner of it was one of the four Committee members,  I immediately hatched a plan:  now was the perfect time to make quilts for the other three members!

I actually had a head start on that since I had actually set out to make two quilts for raffling off.  I had used what has become my "go to" and favorite "simple to piece" quilt:  a "9 Fat Quarter Disappearing Nine Patch" quilt that I learned how to make from a You Tube video.  Despite the quickness of the piecing, what I have learned over time in making these is that, at least for me, it takes me a good bit of time to make the fabric choices and decide where to place them within the top.  As part of the "disappearing" technique, some of the fabrics wind up getting flipped or turned from their intial orientation in the starting nine patch layout.  Once pieced back together to create the top, then I sometimes get hung up on how I want to quilt them.  

Edited To Add:  I realize that for the rest of this, it would also be good to join in over at Andree's "Quilting and Learning - What a Combo!" for this week's "Free Motion Mavericks" link up!

In the case of the second raffle quilt, I had decided to stitch it in what I believed would be a simple stipple variation called "Square Meander".  

I've since found demos of it here and it done in borders here.

I have done Stippling before but not this variation of it.  I thought it perfect for the quilt and I was excited to try it.  I got a late start quilting it right before the show but half way through got a little into my head about whether I was doing it "right".  Also since I was quilting it with a last minute deadline, I was also tense about whether I was filling the quilt space fast and evenly enough.  As a result I decided not to continue to stress myself out and abandoned finishing the second quilt in time for the show.  Of course the good news was that when the Committee member won the quilt that I did get finished and I decided to make more,  it meant I already had a half-finished quilt underway!

Well the plan was to finish it and two more for the other Committee members by the end of that year in the hopes of presenting them at the garden's annual Holiday Party.  Yeah right, that didn't happen!  Then time, tides and "squirrel projects" meant I didn't pick back up on finishing the quilting on that second quilt until the start of this year!  

This time I was determined to get all of the remaining quilts done before our season opened at the end of April so I finally got back on the horse!  What also helped with that was seeing someone demonstrating at a virtual quilting workshop the exact same stitch pattern I had done.  Of course it was immedately confirmed that I had been doing it right all along and getting a grip on myself,  I finished quilting it in one day back in January.

Okay one down and two to go!   Later that month, I pieced the next two quilt tops and finished the backings for both of them right before we made our annual winter visit to my MIL's during the week of Valentine's Day.  I swore when I came back I would quilt them up and try to have them done by the end of March, well before the season opening.  

However, at that virtual sumit I had also learned of two ideas that I wanted to employ on one of the quilts.  To start, in the center of the quilt I wanted to stitch a detailed echoed Heart motif with additional "Ribbon Candy" motifs stitched between the echoed areas.  I was hoping to take advantage of a Ribbon Candy workshop by Esther Frenzel of IPatch and Quilt.  I signed up for it in the hopes of learning more about this motif which it turns out is infinitely more versatile than I had ever imagined.  This quilt could then be one of my practice pieces.  

Again, yeah right!!  Given that this was a gift, maybe using this as a practice piece was not the best idea and I remained terrified of "messing it up"!  So instead it took me a couple of weeks to let go of that idea and just go with the other motif I learned at the Summit and had already sketched out so knew I could easily and quickly execute:  a large "Ribbon Stipple".  

Once I defaulted to the simpler all-over pattern,  I quickly stitched up the second quilt in one day rather than the two I thought it would take.

And with that Quilt #3 was done!

For the last quilt,  I had already planned to go a more traditional route with the quilting by doing another familiar all over pattern: "Baptist Fans".  I have stitched this design on four prior quilts using four different methods.  The last time I did it on my MIL's longarm and prior to that was when I made my civil war repro "Piecing the Past" quilt.  That one I ruler quilted with Westalee templates (and you can see a demo of them in action here).  So I had no concerns that this was doable using a free-motion method and could be completed in two or three days.   

The quilting in progress.....

However, in the end, this one took me almost a week to get done!  The reason it went so slow is that I used 80 wt Wonderfil DecoBob thread to quilt it and it took a while to figure out what my Juki machine needed to work well with that thread.  As it turned out, I had purchased something very helpful when I was first introduced to this thread at 2024's Quilt Con show:

These needles made all the difference!  With the HX-5 high-speed machine needles I normally use on the Juki, I was having trouble with frequent thread breakage.  Then I switched to these and it was "swoosh!" and super fast stitching straight through!  I had spent a day each on the first two rows of stitching but after changing the needles was then able to do four rows in about the same amount of time on the third day, another three rows the next day and finished up the last row on the final day of stitching.  I had picked up a whole bunch of these spools during a recent eQuilter sale so needless to say,  I will now have to stock up on these needles for all future sewing with this thread!  Problems solved, I quickly finished trimming up and binding the quilt and now the last quilt was ready to go!

With the last two finished, all three were now ready for gifting which was done last Thursday and as you can see here, everyone was happy with what they received!

I had asked the committee member on the right to bring the raffled quilt that she won two years ago so I could get a picture of them all together.  I was thrilled to have finally had the chance to honor these ladies for founding our garden fourteen years ago and continuing to work very hard to keep it a going concern ever since!

I had pushed to get the quilts finished and gifted before our garden's season opening which was scheduled for the last Saturday in April and would be our garden's "Earth Day" celebration as well.  Although I got the quilts gifted in time, unfortunately we had to postpone the opening day event due to rain.  We had rescheduled it for tomorrow but rain is now forecast for that day too so we will be trying again the Saturday before Mother's Day which as of right now is forecast to be a sunny day.  

Thank you for joining me on the recap of this latest quilt journey.  I hope you are as excited as I am to see what has bloomed out of everyone else's quilt studio for "Finished Or Not Friday" this week over at Alycia's!  Also get some ideas for approaches to finishing your quilts with Andree's "Free Motion Mavericks" at "Quilting and Learning - What a Combo!"

To Do Tuesday: Finally Back To the Blog and Some Plans for April

Hello April!  March had started off with the need to finish off some things from the start of the year but I was soon completely waylaid!  The things I had to give priority attention to this past month were:  

• a really unexpected death in the family 
• a new health issue that is in the early stages of establishing a treatment plan 
• embarking on a huge bit of Spring cleaning and organizing
• my community garden scheduling weekend work days to prepare us for our Earth Day season opening at the end of this month 

All of which took time completely away from doing any quilting or cross stitch for the past few weeks. 

In January,  I said that linking up to Carol's weekly "To Do Tuesday" on her blog Quilt Schmilt had been keeping me accountable as this year started.  That turned out to be famous last words!  While I did finish up some quilts in February while away visiting my MIL (and her longarm, LOL!), the ones on my last "To Do Tuesday" list at the end of January still need to be dealt with.  So with a new month just underway, my hope is that those are the tasks I can get done this week.   

I had started the year by trying to focus on finishing up quilts that will be gifted to the members of my community garden's Steering Committee.

1.   Layer, baste and quilt the Committee quilt top (the second of three) made in January. 

After deciding to use a Twin size cotton batting I had on hand to layer this quilt,  I did finally get the quilt basted in early March but the quilting of it has sat since then.  I already had a plan for how I wanted to quilt it, so now's the time to gather my courage and commence with it!     

2.  In my last TDT post, I had finished the top and needed to sew together the backing and make a "Franken-batt" for the third Committee quilt.  

That backing is done but the batting isn't!  The plan still is to use the batting cutoffs from the first quilt to start a "Franken-batt" for this one by adding scraps of the same batting to create a big enough batt.  I hope to sew that all together once I finish quilting the other one.

From my experience in previous "To Do" weeks, I'm going to stop here and consider finishing these two quilts enough to have on my project plate for right now!  

Oh wait, I will add a bit of cross stitch to that!  In a cross stitch update in early March,  I had talked about possibly starting this project:

As you can see here, I did get it started...

...but then the month exploded with all the life "To Do" things so it has been set aside ever since.  Now that things have calmed down a bit,  I am hoping to be able to set aside a little time each day to continue work on it.

 

So with that I hope you'll join me in returning to Carol's at Quilt Schmilt to see what every one else has put on their list of things to tackle for for this week!

Finished Or Not Friday: A Whole Lot of Longarming Going On!

I'm pleased to join in this week at Quilty Girl Alycia's for Finished Or Not Friday!  

Some of these projects have been a long time coming so be warned in advance that this will be a very long post!

This past Sunday my DH and I returned from our annual winter trip to visit my MIL in North Carolina.  As always, since my MIL is also a quilter, these trips also function as a bit of a mini quilt retreat.  Even more so this year as my MIL has a new friend from her guild and also has a new "neighbor" who is a former co-worker of hers from here in NY who retired to my MIL's town last year.  I had taught both my MIL and her co-worker to quilt close to twenty years ago now and the woman still has the quilting bug big time!   So needless to say a few quilt shop excursions and a "sew together" session for the four of us happened during our week long stay.

The machines on break while we ate!

My MIL purchased a longarm during the 2023 All Carolinas Shop Hop so each time I visit it is also another chance for me to learn more about using it.  She has a Handi Quilter Moxie on an 8 ft frame with a Pro Stitcher tablet.  

This picture is from around the time she purchased it.

Each visit since she purchased it has presented a different "learning experience" (aka a need to solve problems, LOL!) for both of us.  This time, the big lessons were on achieving proper balanced tension and learning how to adjust both the bobbin and top tension.  

A very handy video on that topic can be seen on You Tube here.  At another point, a call to Handi Quilter's Customer Relations about the thread popping out of the upper tension disks resulted in a very simple solution:  check to see if you need to clean out accumulated lint between the disks!  The good news was that my reward for learning the lessons is that I managed to quilt three quilts!! 

A New Project For A Gift  

The first of those was not one of the aforementioned "old projects" but a new one that was a birthday gift for a friend of mine.  As I had noted in a "To Do Tuesday" post last month,  I owed this friend a memory quilt that we have collaborated on the planning of for a couple of years now and for which I have compiled a stash of fabric.  The problem has been that I consider this a very personal and important project so of course have been furiously procrastinating on getting it perfectly designed before starting it!  

However, my friend and her husband had visited us over the holidays and she offered an out of just making her any quilt since that is what she ultimately wants.  Now, it should be noted that I have made this friend a number of things but they have been smaller projects like a wall hanging to commemorate her cat that passed away, a jewelry roll, a desk mat and two mug rugs (seen here and here).  I had made her husband a quilt back in 2017 because we shared two interests and despite the many things I've made her, I think she was a little jealous of that.  

Since the request made over the holidays released me from the obligation of specifically making a memory quilt, clearly that tempted the Quilt Muses to provide an opening!  Two weeks before we were due to leave on our trip, I happened on the absolutely perfect line of fabric and even better it was on sale!

Image from Annie's Catalog now Annie's Attic

The Annie's Catalog site (recently renamed "Annie's Attic") had sent word of a big sale on Fat Quarter Bundles that they were having.   One of them was for a bundle of flannel FQs from the Henry Glass Fabrics "I Love Sn'Gnomies" line.  My friend is a huge fan of the Gnome decorating trend!  Of course the first thing I thought when I saw a bundle of six FQs was that it was the perfect start for my current favorite fast and easy 9 FQ Disappearing Nine Patch quilt design!  It also doesn't hurt that I also love working with flannel for quilts.  Annie's also had a panel from the line so I picked that up too (the last one they had!)  to start off the backing so now I had the prospect of giving her a two sided quilt!  

Then I found an Etsy vendor with another of the prints from the line deeply discounted and they had just enough to help fill out more of the back and provide another FQ.  Another Etsy vendor carried a number of the prints from the line so I was able to order two more FQs to round out the nine I needed and some yardage to fill out the rest of the backing and for the binding and to have a little extra for stash.

Both my friend and her husband had birthdays (a day apart) coming up while we would be away so with the clock ticking, the plan was to hope everything would arrive quickly enough that I could get this easy to piece quilt done and in the mail before we had to leave.  

Well, at first that was challenged when I realized after I put in the first Etsy order that it wouldn't arrive until we got back from our trip as the vendor was away.  However as luck would have it, an alternate option turned up!  One of the fabrics I had ordered to round out the nine FQ set turned out to be very directional and was cut as a traditional FQ (18" along the lengthwise grain and 22" along the crosswise) but that didn't work for how I wanted to place it in this design.  

Not exactly to scale but how it came vs how I needed it.

This is another lesson I have learned as I have made this simple quilt design:  you have to pay attention to directional fabrics in relation to where you want to use them when the nine patch is split.  So I had to go back and order more of that particular fabric.  The vendor only had a one yard cut left and it was already in a lot of peoples carts so I snapped it up immediately even though it was way more than I needed.  When it arrived, it turned out the vendor gave me the "End of the Bolt" so a little more than a yard which was great as I was able to both cut the FQ in the orientation I needed and provide enough extra fabric to help fill out the back in place of the first print I ordered that wouldn't arrive in time.

I did get the top and back pieced the day before we left and had then hoped I'd get it quilted right after we arrived in NC so I could mail it from my MIL's and have it arrive at most just a day or two after their birthdays (I had also brought the gift I had for her husband down with me so they could be mailed back together).  Well that didn't happen either due to the aforementioned "tension lessons" I needed to learn.  However, eventually they got resolved and I got the quilt quilted!

I used a "Snowflake" design to quilt this that came in Pro-Stitcher.  

Since I didn't finish everything up until the day before their birthdays and since they live in New Jersey so are actually on the route of our drive back home, I called to ask if they would be home the day we returned and we ended up dropping their gifts off to them as we passed through the state on the way back to The Bronx.  She absolutely loved the quilt so Mission Accomplished!! 

** Now for the "Old Projects" and feel free to take a break or grab a cuppa before continuing! **

Old Project #1:  Beth's Yellowstone Quilt  

I am thrilled to say that I have finally finished my re-creation of the quilt I was immediately taken with after seeing it in the Yellowstone TV show!

If you watched the show, you will remember when Beth Dutton wrapped herself up in it while staying in the homestead cabin with Rip.  It can be seen in the Season 2 Episode 7 called "Resurrection Day" and again in the Season 3 Episode 3 called "An Acceptable Surrender" which is the image I worked from.  If you've never seen the show, you can check out the scene with the quilt  @10:32 in this "Best of Beth & Rip" video on You Tube.  

I soon learned that I wasn't the only one that loved it because there are many, many people on Etsy offering patterns and/or kits for it (just search for "Beth Dutton Yellowstone Quilt"),  people selling finished quilts like it and at least one You Tuber that had hers hanging in the background of her video!  

It's a pretty simple design that I was able to easily draft up in EQ8 to get the fabric requirements for it.  

I had a leg up once I decided to make it since I had stocked a lot of red prints early in 2022 for making a bunch of Red & White Christmas quilts.  The leftovers of that stash provided all that I needed for this one.  Next I found what would ultimately become the backing fabric for it in October that year when my DH and I went camping on the Blue Ridge Parkway in the western part of NC.  We did a portion of the All Carolinas Shop Hop while there since it was an opportunity to go to stores I wouldn't normally get to visit.  

When we visited my MIL for the second half of that trip, I found the perfect fabric for the alternate squares in the "by the pound" sale cubes at the Keepsake Quilting/Pineapple Fabrics outlet as she and I Shop Hopped in the eastern part of the state near her (and unfortunately that outlet has since closed!).  A month later,  I picked a few of the black and white fabrics out of my stash at home and purchased the rest from Etsy vendors.   

When we visited my MIL again in March of 2023 I brought my accumulated "kit" for this along and managed to cut everything out and sew the top together while there.  

On my design wall after I got back home.

At that time, my MIL hadn't seen the show but when she saw my blocks laid out she wanted to make one too, LOL!!  She has since watched the show as well and on our trip there this month and seeing my finished quilt, finally gathered together fabrics for the nine patches for hers.  She had about half of the blocks made up before we left Sunday but still needs to source the fabric she will use for the alternate squares.

 I also always envisioned binding this with a "ticking stripe" and found what I was looking for -- once again from an Etsy source -- later in the year after I had pieced the top.  I debated for a long time after that about how I wanted to quilt this so it never got to the top of the "To Do" pile during the intervening period.  When we began preparing for the trip down this year, I sorted through my projects to consider what to bring with me.  I thought it would be great if I could quilt this in the same place it was pieced and so packed it up to go.  

I wasn't loving any of the pre-programmed stitch patterns in Pro-Stitcher for this and haven't yet had a chance to try doing free-motion on this machine.  So another new longarm lesson happened when I purchased and downloaded a stitch pattern and loaded it onto the Pro-Stitcher tablet.  I found this one that I thought was perfect given the provenance of the quilt:

It loaded up and stitched out without a hitch!

The only issue I had was that I think I should have sized the pattern to stitch out smaller than I did.  I also could have lined up the pattern better by offsetting the alternate rows so it would have not left as large a gap between the row repeats.  The good news is that I can go back in and fill in those spots with a "barbed wire" motif using my DSM if it really bothers me after I wash the quilt.  But for now, once again "Mission Accomplished"!

Okay (finally) the last one:  Old Project #2: "Dominique" 3 Yard Quilt   

Cool, reporting on this is a two for one!  The quilt pictured below was made pre-blogging so I've never had a chance to share it before.  All the way back in 2008, I made this baby quilt for the then President of the Parent Association in my kids elementary school who gave birth to her third daughter at the end of 2007.  

Apologies for the picture quality these are pre-digital printed pictures.

The other old project I'm sharing today began when I re-organized my stash in the  Summer of 2023 and found a little more than a yard remnant of the yellow fabric used in the border of that baby quilt.  By that year I was a big fan of the Fabric Cafe's "3 Yard Quilt" concept so I immediately wondered if I might find a way to use this "found fabric" to make one.  That opportunity came when a pink fabric I had actually purchased to use to make a 3YQ didn't go as well as I thought with the fabrics I had coordinated it with when I ordered them.  However, when I sat it with the yellow print, I thought there was something there --- a bit busy but there was something!

I took the two fabrics and went shopping in person for something that might work.  It wasn't easy (did I mention these fabrics are a bit "busy"?)!  Eventually I found a floral print I thought I liked.  Okay, it too was really busy but again there was something appealing to me about the three together.  I think it was that each picked up a color of the other, the white background of the floral was a perfect contrast to the other two more medium value prints with bright highlights and each print had a different scale (size and density) of print.  I figured what the heck, why not try it!  

Although Donna Roberts and her daughter Fran Morgan who design the 3YQ patterns always say "any three yards of fabric can make any 3 Yard Quilt",  I am not always convinced that is true.  I do however love watching all of their videos to see what fabrics they combine together.   I will admit though that I don't always think all of their combinations make the most of the design they are applied to.  They are never bad but not always "Wow"!  

So needless to say it took me a long time to choose one of their designs for this busy looking bunch!  Eventually I settled on the "Dominique" pattern from their book "Modern Views" (and note both are also available in digital form).  It was the one design that provided separation between the placement of the floral and the yellow print and I liked that the yellow would be in the outer border like in the original quilt it was used in.  

The top and the perfectly coordinating backing!

This was another quilt top that was made while visiting my MIL and one of two 3 Yard Quilt tops made on our trip there in October 2023.  This is also another quilt where I found the backing during the All Carolina Shop Hop that year!  I brought this back down to NC twice in 2024 but never got to quilt it.  I guess three times is the charm!

Originally I had thought about trying to stitch a block sized pattern in the pink centers and do a border design surrounding them and in the borders.  Yeah right, my longarm skills are no where up to that level of pattern placement yet, LOL!  So I settled for a simple all over pattern.  

And so now another old project has been completed!

Front and back with the label area pieced in.

Now that my looong story is done, I can head back over to Alycia's and see what others have to show for their "Finished Or Not Friday" efforts this week!

To Do Tuesday: Batting Two for Four!

As I am trying to stay on top of things this year, I am finding that Carol's weekly "To Do Tuesday" link up on her blog "Quilt Schmilt" is helping keep me accountable. 

So last week, I had made a list of the "Flexible Four" items I wanted to tackle.  How did I do?

#1 and #3.   Layer, baste and quilt the Committee quilt top (finished last week) and start work on my friend's memory quilt. 

Nope, didn't get to either of these.  For the quilt that needs to be basted, I was still debating on which batting to use.  Fortunately something I did get done this week has helped make that decision (more on that next).  

2.  Start the next Committee quilt.   As noted in previous posts, these are quilts I am making as gifts for the Steering Committee members of my community garden.  I did get the top for the next one done.  

Just a peek for now!

Once again, I am cropping the picture for now as these are gifts.  The backing fabrics are also picked and I have a layout.  

Ironically, this was the project that I was "flexible" about not working on until this week if I was too busy with the others.  However, once I started thinking about the fabrics, it grabbed my attention and held it.  

In as much as I love the "9 Fat Quarter Disappearing Nine Patch" design I am using to make these, while the sewing of them is quick, choosing the fabrics and where to place them takes far longer than it does to sew it together!  As I noted in the first "To Do" post for this year, I usually would lay the potential fabrics out on the design wall and then print out a picture to cut up and test the final layout.  With my printer currently out of commission, I instead imported the fabric images into EQ8 to create potential layouts.  Since it is essentially a giant "block",  I had to format it in the software as such instead of as a "quilt made up of blocks". 

It took a long time to choose which one to go with!  What I did do after this one was finalized is type up some notes about what I have learned about this process from the now six tops I have made in this design in the hopes that as I make the next one, I can make the process go a little faster.

#4 was a cross stitch one:  start my next cross stitch project for decorating.  I only got to do a little prep on this one.  The plan is to make this project:

And I had already picked out this 16 count Aida fabric for it with the intention being to make the piece to go into this frame.  

The fabric was leftover from another project and the debate last week was whether I could reformat the design and stitch it as one vertical piece.   Unfortunately while the piece of fabric was long enough to create the three images in the pattern, it was not wide enough as a vertical piece to stitch the images as one long, continuous piece and space them to fall within the frame openings.  However it was big enough to split it into three separate pieces to fit the frame openings.

They are all prepped including finishing the edges by serging them.  

So this week's "To Do" list is pretty much a repeat of last week's:

Quilting

1.   Layer, baste and quilt the Committee quilt top from two weeks ago.  Now that I have the second top ready and will soon have a backing for it,  I've decided to use the Twin size cotton batting I already have to layer this quilt.  I will use the cutoffs to start a "Franken-batt" for the second quilt.

2.  Finish the backing and make a "Franken-batt" for the second Committee quilt.  If I could get it layered too that would be a plus!

3.  Start work on my friend's memory quilt.   I admit I am a little worried for this one.  My friend's birthday is next month and my DH and I are also due to head down to my MIL's the week before it so at this point, I really need to get this in gear!  Even if I can get it just to the point of a designed layout that would be a big plus for this project.

Cross Stitch   

4.  Start stitching "Happy Home" as my next cross stitch project.  Now that I have the fabric prepped, I have to review the pattern and work out the centering of the words and images as individual pieces.  Once that's done, I can then start on the stitching. 

So that's it for me this week.  Now that I've reported in, I'll go over to Carol's Quilt Schmilt blog and check out what every one else will be working on this week!

To Do Tuesday: Two Down, Now Four To Go!

 We are now full on into January and so far it's been a productive one!  I'm checking in again with Carol's "To Do Tuesday" over at her blog Quilt Schmilt (I chuckle every time I say that, LOL!) hoping the productivity good vibes will continue this week.

So last week's list was short and everything got accomplished as planned.  I had two goals:

1.  For Quilting:  Make the next top for another member of my community garden's Steering Committee:

From this....

....to this (backing is on the left)!

Forgive the cropping but still trying to hide these a bit until they are gifted.  The good news is that I went from the fabric piles in last week's post to a finished top and backing that includes the label area too!   I lucked up in that the backing fabric was already in stash and there's enough of it leftover for another project (I see another 3 Yard Quilt in my future!).  

BTW:  If you are a fan of the Fabric Cafe 3 Yard Quilts, did you know that today they premiered their new "5 Yard Quilts" book?  Whereas the 3 Yard Quilts make a lap quilt to start (although there are also instructions in the patterns for enlarging them), the 5 Yard designs will make Twin and Queen/King quilts!  Check it out if you haven't already done so!

I also have batting for this:  I have a package of my favorite (at the moment) cotton batting but it's a Twin so there would be a lot left over if I use that.  Then again, I might be able to take those leftovers and combine it with a bunch of scrap pieces I have of that same batting and make a Franken-batt for the next quilt I still have to make.  However, I also have three big pieces of another batt that would make a Franken-batt just about the size I need.  However, it's a polyester batting and I'm debating on whether I'd rather the easier piecing together of the polyester or the heavier weight of the cotton.  Decisions, decisions!  

2.  For Cross Stitch:  Make a mini wall hanging for my kitchen

Stitching completed and FFO'd

 And hung in place!

Also done!  I had finished the words in the center prior to working on the quilt and thought I'd be able to work on stitching the rest of it a little each day along with working on the quilt.  However, once I started in on the quilt work, I'd get to the end of the day and was too tired to stitch.  So I wound up wrapping up the cross stitching over the weekend after the quilt top and backing were finished.  It is a simple stitch so a few hours of TV with the hubby helped get it done and yesterday was spent on the finishing.  

I even finally, pulled out my serger and used it to secure the edge of the trimmed cloth before I laced it around the back of the hoop!  I am happy I reacquainted myself with that machine so now I can finish the edges of any cross stitch cloth I buy instead of using painters tape for that.  

So what's on the agenda for this week?  Normally I am the queen of "Too Long To-Do Lists" but getting last week's short list done means I should keep trying that and see if it holds.  So this week I'm going with a "flexible" four items:

Quilting

1.   Layer, baste and quilt the Committee quilt top.  What's good is that I attended Bea Byrne's January Quilt 'N Learn workshops Thursday - Saturday and picked up designs to use for this from a couple of workshops.  Tracey Browning who hosts the online Machine Quilting Academy, covered transforming a large stipple into a great ribbon design:

If I can doodle it, I can stitch it!

I also saw a great quilted heart design in another workshop (I can't remember which  edited to add:  Kellie Kaczmarek of Silly Moon Designs workshop "Quilting Your Own Quilts Like a Pro At Home!") that I think I will do in the center of this quilt.  The plan is to echo it and do some Ribbon Candy between the echoed areas.  More good news is that Esther Frenzel of iPatchandQuilt (and who I learned about in last August's Free Motion Quilting Summit is doing a free "Ribbon Candy" workshop series on her site over the next few days so I'll get some training and practice on that too! 

2.  Start the next committee quilt.  

For this one I have fabric bundled and want to start the design process.  I'm not rushing it though, if I wind up focusing on the other things on the list and don't get to it, I don't have a problem with the real focus on it waiting until next week.  

3.  My friend's memory quilt.  

I've pulled out the box of fabrics because I have to start the design process if I am going to have any chance of meeting the deadline of her birthday next month.  

Cross stitch

1.  As I had noted in my last post, I had planned to start on another decorating piece for the New Year which was not the one that I just finished.

Pattern by Needle Bling Designs

I have long wanted to do a series of quilts with the theme of "Home" and since I've started cross stitching have found a few designs I like in that craft too.  This one helps me fill out another decorating "hole".  I used to have two antique quilt blocks hung by the quilt display rod at our entry stairs:  

The two frames on the left.

They are Hexagon Flower blocks actually made during the Civil War era that I purchased in the gift shop of a quilt exhibit I had attended years ago.  They were perfect when my Civil War reproduction quilts were on display in this spot.  However, in recent years I have used this area to display other types of quilts so was interested in having something else to display here.

The great thing about this cross stitch piece is that the theme and style of it will work no matter what quilt I put up.  The challenge though is that the pattern I'm working from is laid out horizontally and I will have to either reformat it to a vertical orientation or stitch it as three separate images to work in the frame I purchased for it.  

So my expectation is that this one will take a little thought to get it set up.  I'm hoping that this won't turn out to be a project that puts up road blocks that will disrupt the good intentions of my short project list.  Let's see what happens....  

I'm done so go back over to Carol's at Quilt Schmilt and see what everyone else has planned for the week or even better share your crafty plans too!