Yesterday, for a day of Pomp and Circumstance....
I had a few stitched keepsakes in honor of the day that are now ready for finishing!
Cross stitch keepsake pattern by Helen Phillips on Etsy
Mug Rug made with Astrid Bordush's Paper Piecing pattern
Fun mementos of a historic event!
Linking up over at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching today
Can you believe that April is now over?!? This year is going by just too fast. For a month in which I thought I had clear plans, things just tumbled and jumbled until where I came out in the end was not where I planned to be in the beginning!
The Raffle Quilts Were A Bust
So I knew it was a long shot when the month started but I had hoped that it might still be possible to get the raffle quilts for my community garden's opening day made up. Nope! I continued to have an issue with the basket blocks coming up a wee bit short of the patterned size. And of course since I was now rushing to try to get this done, I also did things like this:
So before too long, an Executive Decision was made to "Abort Mission!" Since I had not promised the quilts, there was no loss in not having them ready. Additionally, there is a whole garden season ahead of us and we hold at least one other big event each year. If I can eventually get them made up, I could still offer them for raffle at a later date. At the very least, I am now well ahead of the game for next year, Lol!
Added to that, the wide-back fabric I had pre-ordered to fill out around the panel I had purchased for the back of the light version of the quilt still has not come in! Had I gotten to that point, that would have been yet another complication to my plans anyway.
On a plus note, while shopping for border fabric for the leader/ender project I worked on while trying to make up the basket blocks (more on that later), I found a lovely panel depicting realistic images of butterflies to add into the back of the black version of the quilt:
The original plan was to make the black butterfly version with just a solid black backing and the light version was to have the "Be Kind" panel and the "still missing in action" wide-back print. Now that both quilts will have pretty panels in their backs, I think I will buy more of the Kona white to complete the light backing so they are truly "fraternal twin quilts".
Additionally, I decided to purchase two of the butterfly panels so I can use the second one to make a quilt for myself with the leftover pieces that Jenny Doan has us put aside when cutting the fabrics for the basket blocks. Score!
So despite the disappointment in not getting that project done, I did still get to do something special for the Opening Day ceremony. Back in March our Garden's President had asked if I could make a sash for the Grand Marshal for this year's event. I wasn't thrilled with the idea since I had by that time already come up with the raffle quilt plan and had never made a sash before. However, she sent me a link to a site that sold sashes and it didn't look like all that hard a task. I rolled around ideas in my mind for a good while and what eventually resulted was this:
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| I made the dragon in March while we visited my MIL. |
Although there will be no talk of Basketball here, LOL! Is it as chilly where you are as it is here in NY?!? If so, then I'm guessing you are as glad as I am that March is on its way out! Looking forward to the (hopefully warmer) April showers and May flowers!
Once again, I am here at the end of the month reviewing that what I had planned to do and what I did do proved to be two different things. As noted in Part 1 of my Recap for February, the Rainbow Scrap Quilt Challenge color for that month was Teal/Aqua. In order to provide scraps for that, I had started working on improv piecing a backing for my "On Ringo Lake" mystery top. I had left a significant stash of fabric scraps and cuts in those colors with that project for that purpose.
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| Top finished in 2018 |
The good news is that the backing is now also finished!
Back when the mystery started, the quilters from the Chandler AZ Quilt Guild had sent Bonnie Hunter pictures of the quilt labels they made for people who participated in their kick-off day for that mystery.
That meant I had to also provide the finishing date now so I have also committed to quilting and finishing this in May. I hope I won't regret that!
Although the Teal/Aqua scraps were now freed up, I never did get around to doing any RSC work for the month after all. The other downside to all of this is that I thought it would only take me a few days to choose which scraps and extra pieced units to use, make the different sections, figure out what to put where and get the backing all pieced up.
To my surprise, in the end it took ten days to get it all done! While I did leader/ender some other sewing while working on this (See the "Daily Blocks" later in this post), there were other things I wanted to also get started but just didn't have the head space to juggle any additional projects until I was finally able to put this backing to bed.
Pleased with the final backing that I created and still in "pieced back mode", I wondered if I had any others I might want to work on as well. Lucky for me, the APQ UFO number for March was #3 which on my list just happened to be another Quiltville mystery project: "Old Tobacco Road".
I had finished this top in February of last year and had planned to also piece its back so figured I might as well get that done and let that be what I did to move that UFO forward for this month.
This one was a lot easier (and faster) to get done as I had a simple plan for it already in place. I had pieces of two backing fabrics already cut for it but the top turned out to be just a little bit wider than originally planned. Since I just needed enough extra to add to the width to allow for "quilting take-up", I decided to insert some pieced strips comprised of the leftover Flying Geese blocks and fabric "Bricks" not used in the front of the quilt. In the right side strip I added a light "Double Brick" that will serve as the label area when the quilting is done. Easy peasy and this one did only take two days to complete!
As noted in the "Plans for March" in Part 2 of last month's recap, I had also decided to go back to work on last year's "Daily Blocks" project. In that I was influenced once again to join in on Pat Sloan's "Daily Blocks" project for this year. The good news is that they are for the most part now done!
All of the 3-1/2" (unfinished) blocks for the "Wishing Rings" year long project are now completed. I had started these last March and last left off with only five blocks pieced for the month of November. With four months of blocks still to do, I decided that it was doable to work on four blocks a day (!) to finish up all the blocks for the final months. Doable, yes --- as easy as I thought, no! The hardest part was processing the scraps for the block sets which took a lot more time than I remembered. I have to give my MIL a big shout out because I don't know that I would have been able to get a year's worth of blocks done at all without all the additional scraps she had passed my way.
There was also this year's "String Bean" blocks that I had decided to make:
As noted in the previous recap, I had decided to make my blocks smaller than Pat's in order to make use of a big stash of pre-existing strips already die cut with my Accuquilt Log Cabin die. However this also meant I needed to make two blocks a day for this project in order to have enough blocks for a reasonable sized lap quilt when the month was done. The picture above is where I am with those as of yesterday, the last day Pat was piecing blocks.
I had decided on piecing my blocks together into "Seven-Block Sections" to optimize how the finished size of my blocks fit together. As you can see, I still need five more blocks to fill one more section to complete the layout. I've already made three of those today and will do the last two tomorrow. Even then the top will be a little narrow so I now plan to add sashing and cornerstones between the sections and add additional borders to bring it all up to size. That however will be work for another month!
The other thing that helped me get all of this up to date was that my DH had a vacation scheduled for last week so we headed down to spend it with my MIL in North Carolina. For DH it's a vacation, for me a mini quilt retreat! My MIL had purchased a Featherweight last year although it turns out it was missing the drip pan and bottom screw which I helped her order from The Featherweight Shop while there. We also almost ordered the same thread stand as I have but looking around her space for something else, I discovered she already had one! Her electronic machine is in the shop right now so at one point we were set up to sew with "dueling Featherweights"!
My MIL was also doing the "String Bean" challenge. This is her first stab at working really scrappy although she limited it to her Teal/Aqua batiks. At first she had just picked different fabrics for each position in the block but then was making the blocks all exactly the same. I helped her "scrappy it up" more, encouraging her to vary where the fabrics were in each block. We managed to get her blocks done (hers are made the same size as Pat did them).
After we got them to this point, she cut narrow sashing strips in a light batik and cornerstones from the block fabrics to put between the blocks. However after seeing how much additional work that was going to be, she decided instead to just sew the blocks together and add light borders around the outside. She has also prepared scrappy binding by piecing together the leftover strips.
Oh and she thought I couldn't make use of even the littlest bits? Challenge accepted!
Can you say "Crumb-Pieced Mug Rug"?!?! I brought it home with me to finish the backing for it. I'm going to use the no-longer-needed cornerstones and turn the cutoffs from the diagonal binding-joins into HSTs to also help fill it out. When finished, I can send it back to her as a memento of our working together!
Although I brought a lot of projects with me, other than working to catch up on the two "Daily Blocks" projects and helping her with her "String Beans" blocks and Featherweight upgrades, the only other thing I was able to work on was getting started on the quilt for my son:
In last month's recap, I had talked about how my son asked me to make him a quilt. He gave me some colors he wanted but I had also long been stashing "Harry Potter" fabrics with the intention of making him a quilt. He was more than open to getting both! My MIL had purchased an Accuquilt 6-1/2" strip die during one of their sales shortly before we arrived. The good news was that the design I had come up with for the quilt needed a bunch of 6-1/2" squares cut as well as 2-1/2" strips for an inner border and she also has the die for that. So this trip was a perfect opportunity to get all that done.
Additionally, in the design, I plan to add (freezer) paper-pieced blocks for an Owl, a Wizard and a Dragon using patterns from the book "Spellbinding Quilts" by Maaike Bakker. I had two fabric sets for the latter that I couldn't decide between so I started piecing those first to help make that choice. Once again, doable but way more fiddly than expected! The bottom one wins and the other may wind up as a pillow since I already have "Potter" fleece for the quilt back so don't want to use the remaining block to make a label.
A big help to me is that when I told my MIL about the other quilt my son also wanted she was excited to volunteer to take on the making of that one! She is looking forward to deciding what design to use and to go fabric shopping for it.
So that's all I got done for March. Needless to say there was a bunch of other things I was supposed to get to but didn't so I'll review all of that in the next post outlining my plans for April!
September was National Sewing Month and for me it was a month for a bunch of mini quilt finishes!
"Lidia"
First up is a project in my continuing obsession with Edyta Sitar's Laundry Basket Quilts designs! I learned about her mini log cabin quilt design when I saw one of her "Quilting Window" videos on You Tube. She also offers it as a stand alone pattern and in her book "Little Handfuls of Scraps".
I started piecing the blocks for it at the end of July and the fabric for the block "logs" came straight out of the crumb bins. The blocks were only two inches finished and the logs started out at 3/4". I probably needed to block the quilt top when I finished it so the borders are a little wonky. It didn't help that in order for it to fit the space I want to hang it, I had to make my borders smaller than patterned. I fussy cut them from the stripe fabric pictured. Making it with larger borders might have helped me square it up a bit more.
What was cool was that I found a quilting motif for it in an unusual place.
This project was another fun little Laundry Basket Quilts diversion and I look forward to getting it hung up and displayed.
"Gertie"
Next up is my micro-mini version of one of Carrie Nelson's Schnibble quilt designs.
Ironically it was only after I had finished the top that I happened to read a blog post by Janet of the Rogue Quilter blog who is a phenomenal mini quilt maker. Back in 2016 she made a mini quilt by using 1/2" finished gridded fusible interfacing. If I had thought of that, it would have saved me a ton of effort! And wouldn't you know it, I already have some here. Hmmm, guess that means I have to do another one of these, you know for scientific testing purposes, you understand!
This one was also quilted with a walking foot, this time using the freezer paper template techniques from Mary Mashuta's "Foolproof Walking Foot Quilting Designs" book. I used the same technique last year on a baby quilt I made for a relative.
The "binding" on this one was the backing turned to the front using a tool:
"All In A Days Work"
Back in June, I had set up some hand work projects to work on while recovering from surgery. I had started a wool piece that's been a "Hussy" (HSY = Haven't Started Yet) project for years.
Well now it is finished: The original penny rug pattern by Wooden Spool Designs was designed to finish about 16 inches in diameter. For my project, I reduced that to 9 inches so it could be used as the header for a holder for my shopping list pads.
Back in 2015 (which lets you know just how long this HSY has been hanging around!), I saw a similar penny rug design by Bonnie Sullivan called "Sunflower and Chickens". I loved her idea to have some of the eggs on the tongues have "yolks" and decided to do that with mine as well. And don't you just love when a plan comes together: I had the absolutely perfect fabric in my stash to back it with:
I had always planned to make this penny rug design to hang in my kitchen because I have a few other chicken themed pieces in there and have long wanted to add more. I have an old dry erase board for the grocery lists that has seen better days and I've been trying for a while to figure out a way to replace it. Now I have it! I'm thrilled to get this one done and put to use!
"The Purple Pineapple Mug Rug"
Ok, last but not least: my best friend from high school is a grandma and faced with taking on the duties of homeschooling her kindergarten grandson. He and her daughter live with her and her daughter works two jobs. My friend works from home so it was easier for her to take on that task.
As have so many other parents during the pandemic, she is forced to learn how to manage her grandson's school days while juggling her own work. It's an adjustment for everyone, particularly since it's the first structured school experience for her grandson. From what she tells me, what they study in Kindergarten these days is way more advanced than it was in our day!
Since she's working so hard to meet the challenges of teaching from home, I wanted to send her a little "pick me up". I saw these at our local supermarket and just knew she'd love it!
Well, as a quilter if you send a mug, 'ya gotta send a mug rug right? In a recent Skype chat with another friend of ours, she mentioned she liked purple so I rummaged through the stash and pulled as many purple fabrics as I could. But what to make? I've made a few mug rugs featuring inspirational panels from a June Tailor kit I have and still had some left so I started there.
The kit has patterns to use with the panels but none would allow me to use as many fabrics as I wanted to, Lol!! So I went looking for another design that could accommodate the panel AND a generous fabric pull. As I was reading blogs, I read about someone making a Pineapple quilt and I thought, that just might be the ticket! Particularly since I knew I had this:
Very early in my quilting journey, I wanted to make a Pineapple quilt. Back then, most were patterned to be made by paper piecing the blocks. I did start one using that method and quickly found that to be very tedious and that project is still a UFO (but will have its day in the sun again one day).
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| BTW, This pattern is in the June 2000 issue of QNM. |
Eventually, I found out about the Pineapple Rule by the Possibilities/Great American Quilt Factory ladies Lynda Milligan and Nancy Smith. The sales pitch was that you could make Pineapple blocks without having to paper piece them. When I got the ruler, I immediately made a test block. That "orphan block" eventually became a journal cover.
Unfortunately, I haven't used that tool since -- that is until now! Their method uses 1-1/2" strips. Normally the block would start with a 2-1/2" square but the June Tailor panel I was using is 4-1/2" square. No matter, that just meant less rounds of strips to sew to get to the 12" finished size!
I kept this one simple: I only had four light fabrics so used one in each of those rounds. I placed the medium and dark fabrics scrappy throughout the block. Then it was a simple pillow turn finish (no binding!) and some simple stitch in the ditch and stitching down the center of the logs and it was ready to be mailed out!
I still have two AQS BOM blocks to finish up for September and I had another BOM project I had hoped to work on. I guess they will instead be early October projects!
