February Trip Review #2: The Mini Quilt Retreat

 My MIL is also a quilter so when my DH and I visit, she and I also have a mini quilt retreat!  Athough with all the projects I brought with me (and one picked up during the trip) this was more of a "maximalist-mini retreat",  LOL!!  This covers the two weeks we were there so this is your advance "long post warning"!! 

As usual, I brought a lot of projects down with me as I can never be too sure what I will get to or feel like working on day to day.  So here's all the stitching and quilty doings during our stay: 

#1.  I had brought down the "Year of the Red Horse" cross stitch project I had been working on.  When I left home it was here:  

I was able to get everything including the numbers for the year (but not the orange highlights) and brown outer border line done before we left on Sunday.  I finished the highlights on the numbers and the border and center floral accents in the car during the the first half of the drive home.

Now it's ready for "fully finishing"!

#2.  I was also able to finish stitching down onto its background the last half of the "Hexie Snowflake" block I had set up before we left.

Pinned....

Stitched!

I actually brought all four of the blocks for this wallhanging project as I was hoping I could get them all done and bring them home ready to constuct the top.  Nope!  

After stitching that block, I only managed to get the papers pulled from half of the next block.  Part of the reason was that I forgot to also bring my "Sixth Finger" stilleto tool.  Ironically I saw one at the Quilt Con show we attended but at almost $20 I decided to try to just find a tapered cuticle stick to use temporarily.  That turned out to be hard to find too but eventually I got one from a manicure kit sold in Dollar Tree.

"Sixth Finger" Stilletto vs Cuticle Stick

Since it is thicker than the stilletto, it was a little harder to work the glued fabric loose from the papers  so it took longer to release them than it had for the first block.  As a result, I only got half of the papers in the second block out during our trip and then finished removing the other half in the car on the last leg of the drive home.  When we got back home was I able to pin it to its background so it's now ready to be stitched down.

#3.  I've visited my MIL enough that I had often attended her guild meetings with her if they were scheduled during our trip.  As a result, last year I joined the guild as a "long distance" member!  We arrived on a Friday and the next day was the Guild's monthly meeting.  There was a great show and tell and some of the Guild members did a presentation on one of my favorite topics:  adding labels to quilts! 

After the meeting,  my MIL and I went to purchase a ruler table and foot for her Handiquilter Moxie longarm.

We agreed to go "halfsies" on the purchase.  I had brought down with me all the rulers I have that can be used on a longarm.  

The plan for this trip had been to try learning to do ruler quilting on her machine.  To facilitate that I brought my "Modern Bohemia" project with me as I originally had plans to ruler quilt it at home anyway.  

When we got back to her house, my DH helped us install the table onto the machine.  Later we took it back off the supports that hold it on the machine as my MIL had a project we needed to quilt but would be using programmed stitches for that.  

In the end, we never did get around to doing the ruler quilting lessons so it looks like those will have to be a project for our next trip down!

#4.  Long aside for a back story:  Each year "our" Guild (still feels a little funny saying that) does a member challenge.  Sometimes it's a specific project, other times it is making a quilt in a specific color or using a specific type of fabric.  Prior to us coming down, my MIL let me know that the Guild had announced that this year's challenge is to make a Log Cabin quilt.  It can be in any design of your choosing for presentation to the membership at the June meeting. 

This is right up my alley!  Every since buying the Accuquilt Log Cabin die as my first BOB purchase, I've been obsessed with the idea of making a lot of Log cabin quilts.  I think this block is one of the most versatile in quilting next to HSTs or Flying Geese.  I believe that you could spend your whole quilting life just making LC quilts and never make the same design twice.  Heck, you could make the exact same block layout but color it different ways and still have them all look different!   

So this was my opportunity to bring down two projects that I've long wanted to make.  

Years ago I regularly followed the blog of Elaine Adair and back in 2006 she designed a quilt called a "Rebuilt Log Cabin" (the one on the left).  I always thought it was such an innovative and unique looking Log Cabin design so of course wanted to make it.  However, this was also well before I had the Accuquilt die so while I collected red fabrics for the block centers,  I never really focused on all the other cutting that needed to be done for the rest of the blocks.  However, once I had the die, I planned to make it using scrap strip cuts like the ones stored in the box shown.  

Eventually, I discovered another design that also became a "want to make priority" that could use the same scrap cuts:  Carrie Nelson's (of Miss Rosie's Quilt Co.) "Raise the Roof" (on the right).  I generally kept these two patterns sitting by each other as I believed if I had reason to make one,  I'd also start making blocks for the other.  So with the Guild Challenge in mind, I brought both patterns and the LC Strips box down with me figuring I'd see which I wound up working towards.  

At the Guild meeting they announced there'd be an open "Sit and Sew" session the last Saturday of our stay.  So I figured if I didn't get to these before then, I'd get a chance to sew some blocks up on that day.

However, I also had another "must make" priority LC design I've long wanted to do.  

From the American Patchwork & Quilting December 2020 issue.

In the spirit of Quilt Con, this one is a bright colored log cabin quilt made in what I like to refer to as "mod" fabrics.  The fabrics I put towards this came from the stash I built when I had decided to make the "Modern Boehmia" quilt referred to earlier.  I pulled some background prints from my stash to put with them for the lights.  I also added a bunch of fabrics purchased in 2024 when Keepsake Quilting had the Andover Fabrics "Century Black on White" line on sale which I thought would also work well for this.   

This project has been sitting in a project bag ever since.  When I did the Just Get It Done Declutter Challenge earlier this year,  I thought this would be an easy one to tackle in order to free up the bag.  So I also brought it along on this trip to add to the Log Cabin fun!  I should note that it is a little diffferent approach to LC as the blocks are pieced "Courthouse Steps" style and the "logs" are made using 2-1/2" cut (aka "jelly roll" but not pre-cut) strips. 

I figured the priority was to cut the fabrics for this project first but that wound up taking two days to get done.  Then busy with other things and interrupted by the four days spent at the Quilt Con Show,  in the end I only managed to leader/ender the center of one block before we went home.   I should note here that we got word the day before the "Sit and Sew" session that it was being canceled because the heating sytem malfunctioned at the meeting center they were going to hold it at.  

#5.  Also in the spirit of Quilt Con, I brought the pattern, a sweatshirt and charm squares from my scrap stash to work on a "Charming Hoodie" that I hoped to wear to the show.  I picked up some addtional supplies I needed from Hobby Lobby once we got down to my MIL's.  

However, even though I started working on it about five days before the show, I had to alternate focus on it with some of the other projects that follow.  So I only got the sweatshirt deconstructed and prepped for adding the charm squares to it.  

I did get another coordinating charm pack of tone-on-tone prints at the show so am actually happy about what they will add to this once I can get back to it.  

#6.  Another benefit of being in the Guild is that members lend out Accuquilt dies they have.  I've enjoyed making Bowl Cozies for a while now using square ruler cuts and templates to round the corners and cut the darts.  However, I've long wanted to try the Small Bowl Cozy Die to compare the finished size of it to the method I've been using before committing to buying it.  My MIL let the member who had it know and I was able to pick it up at the meeting we attended.  

I had brought fabric for four Cozies (three "Yellowstone" and one for "Bridgerton") and immediately cut them so I could return the die ASAP. 

I did get them all stitched to their batting.  I started the darts on one of them and got another one pinned and ready for stitching around the perimeter but that's as far as I got.  However, I plan to work on finishing them up them so I can add them to my next "Finished Or Not Friday" post.

#7.  For Black history month my MIL volunteered to make an "Underground Railroad Quilt" for a presentation at her church of the "Quilt Codes".  A few years ago she had borrowed the one I made and used it for a similar presentation and ever since has wanted to make one for herself.  Using the Eleanor Burns book as I had, she had been piecing it over the last couple of months but was having problems with a few blocks.  So when I arrived, we worked out the kinks on those and I helped her decide on the final sashing and border fabric.  

This was the first project to get longarmed on this trip.  We discussed potential stitch patterns to use and finally settled on doing "Baptist Fans" which I was familiar with from having quilted one of my quilts on her machine using that pattern two years ago.  This is when we took the ruler table we had purchased off the machine.  

The good news is that we spent the two days before Quilt Con getting it done which gave her time after our show days to trim the quilt and prep and apply the binding for the presentation that Sunday.  

Since Sunday we'd be at the last day of the quilt show,  my DH was given the task of delivering the finished quilt to the church and helping set it up for display.  The presentation was made by one of her church members and assisted by my MIL's friend (also a quilter) who had retired to her town last year.

On display at the church.

#8.  The day before the first day of Quilt Con, we went to the home of one of the chairs of the Guild's "Patriotic Bee" to pick out fabrics for "Quilt Of Valor" kits.  This is also the member who owns the Bowl Cozy die so I returned that on that trip too.  

The guild had been able to purchase fabric for members to make these quilts because of a grant they had been awarded.  It was my intention to get fabrics for two kits:  one was to fill out the additional fabrics needed for a pattern called "Picture That" that I plan to use with a panel I am donating.  

I was able to get the fabrics I needed and since I only brought the panel down with me, I'd wait until I got home to add in the other fabrics I have and work on that one.  

I also picked up enough fabrics to make another top called "Freedom Stars".  My hope was to try to get this one to a top before I left.  I got it all cut and partially laid out and where I could, I pieced the star points.

I did them as Flying Geese as it was also an opportunity to give my MIL a hands-on demo of the Eleanor Burns method I use to make them.  I had also brought down the rulers I use to trim them even more quickly than with a regular ruler so I could demo those too.  

She had also looked at the "4 at a time method" and wasn't sure she was doing that right either.  I had originally learned to do that method and only abandonded it because there is less cutting with the EB method and to get the exact size geese needed, the math for that method wasn't as simple as for Eleanor's method.  

However my MIL showed me a tutorial that gives a simple math formula for doing the "4 at a time method" with oversized squares so now I can go back to using this method in those cases when I need to use different colors for the two "sky triangles" and need to control where the colors are placed.

But back to the QOV:  I did lay out the squares I cut but as I got down to the last of them,  I was finding it hard to keep the variety of prints evenly distributed which left me with a few holes in the layout and kept me from starting to stitch the rows.  

It wasn't until our last Friday there that we went to run what was supposed to be a few errands and make two fabric stops.  Well that turned into a mini shop hop as we wound up making stops at four fabric shops but the good news there was that I found another print at one of them that depicted all the armed forces:  

It was perfect for filling the holes in my layout!  So as I completed the layout...

...and while continuing to work on longarming my quilt (the other  UFO --- details to follow),  the next day I did get to leader/ender this project a bit and get four of the rows stitched up before we had to leave.

And now they are home on my design wall!

  #9.  So the only big thing I actually finished on the trip was that I got to longarm the other of the two UFOs I brought:  a quilt I call "Pulpit Tile".  

A closeup of the different stitch patterns used around the quilt.

I pieced this all the way back in 2006 in my early quilting days.  Made with "Jack in the Pulpit" and "Snowball" blocks, it has sat for so long because after I made it I could never decide how to quilt it.  In my mind, I thought it needed very traditional patterns like Feather Wreaths and other advanced patterns that were definitely not in my wheelhouse at the time.  Then once I gained some of those skills, I had moved on to other styles of quilts so finishing this wasn't a big priority.  

It came around now because I thought I might be able to actually get this done simply using stitch patterns programmed into my MIL's longarm tablet.  I was also looking forward to learning to connect continuous patterns to fill borders which is something I really haven't done up to now.  On my last visit, I had taken a picture of all the stitch pattern screens so I could sit down and figure out possible designs to use for the blocks before I arrived.  

I had my choices mapped out but things went sideways (figuratively) once the quilt was loaded!  This was a doozy that didn't progress at all the way I planned.  Due to throat space limitations and not remembering to bring the right thread for this,  I had to change my pattern choices on the fly.  However,  as usual I learned a lot of longarm lessons.  I won't go into further detail here,  I'll also save that for the next FONF post.   

CODA:  I should note, I also brought two more things that I didn't get to work on:  I had my scrappy "Magic Cube" Shoo-Fly blocks to also use for leader/enders.  

Had I got to do more sewing they might have gotten worked on but the good news is that needing to work on the two QOVs at home now (and on deadline) means they will get done now!

The second thing was that during the December Accuquilt sales,  I had lucked up on getting two of the June Tailor "quilt-as-you-go" kits to make covers for the Accuquilt Go! machine.  

I got one for my MIL and one for myself and had gotten the fabric bundle of the Accuquilt fabrics.  We split the eight fabrics in it between us (she took the light/white/blue fabrics and I took the lime green and orange fabrics).  We both had to add two additional fabrics to our sets because the kit requires having six fat quarters to make the cover.  I added the white and grey and the turquoise prints at the top to fill out mine.  Both of us also made some cuts at the Accuquilt booth "make & take" station at Quilt Con that we hope to add to our covers.  So that too is another project for future sewing or the Fall trip back!

So a lot attempted but definitely not as many things finished up as hoped.  Our next visit in September will be quieter as the annual NC Shop Hop dates have been changed to May/June so we won't have that to participate in.  We will be coming in time for the guild meeting that month.  If DH and I come down on the Friday before as we did this time,  that will also lessen the impact on the rest of the time spent there.  And thus ends the maximalist-mini retreat report!       

Two more finishes....

I realize I haven't posted in a while so I want to post a couple of updates.  I finally got Gift #2 for my friend finished (Gift #1 was finished at the end of last year and can be seen in this post).  This was a panel she purchased when we attended last year's Mancuso New Jersey Quilt Fest.  I should have quilted it much sooner but I'll settle for getting it finished. I finished the quilting at the end of February and attached the label (by hand) earlier this month.

This panel was special because at the time we attended the show, my friend's black and white cat was ill and then died a few months later.  So I call this quilt "Remembering Pepe" and hope it serves as a commorative gift for her.

Another (relatively) quickie project but one that has been on my idea list for a long time is this reproduction wallhanging I'm calling "Honoring the Journeys:
 

   
I made it to help fill the wall adjacent to where my Underground Railroad and Pioneer Samplers hang.

This shows the Pioneer Sampler side of the wall hanging.

I found poems and images on the web about both historical movements and combined them in Microsoft Word so I could print them out on muslin I tea dyed.  I surrounded them with a Judy Rothermel/Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum "Tumbling Blocks" cheater print I had purchased in the early days of gathering my CWR stash.  Originally I had planned to use the fabric as a backing and fortunately I still have enough of it that it might still be used to back a CWR cot quilt I plan to make.  The pictures below it are ones I took of the Frederick Douglass traffic circle here in New York.  There are "quilt code" blocks set into the pavement and the fencing around the circle, most of which are also in the UGRR side of my wall hanging (which can be seen here).

Now back to Gift #3 (the first started and last one to be finished!) for my friend so I can clear my table and finally move on to a big project I've been putting off for way too long.

First 2013 Finish

Happy dance, happy dance!  The Underground Railroad and Pioneer Sampler wall hanging is finally complete!  I put on the last of the binding on Wednesday and ran out and bought the rod to hang it as well.  Now heeerr's the samplers!
 
Pioneer Side

 UGRR Side

And yes, it is reversible!

So a little (o.k., a lot of) background:  these samplers are from the books of the same name published by Eleanor Burns of Quilt In A Day fame.  The Pioneer Sampler was the first QIAD TV series I ever saw back in 2003 (my second year of quilting).  I fell in love with Eleanor's techniques and loved the shaded colors of her quilt not realizing then that it was to be "my style".  That same year I heard mention that the UGRR book was also going to be released and vowed to eventually get it too. 

And the episodes can still be seen on QNNTV.com.

After seeing the UGRR series when it came on TV and once I had both books, I realized an important history lesson.  Although I had always known about both of these two movements in U.S. history, I had never really taken note of the specific time period they occurred in.  By the time I got the UGRR book in 2005, Civil War Reproduction fabrics were all the rage.  I was surprised to realize that all of these social movements were happening around the same time!  Needless to say I immediately decided that both of these samplers had to be made in the CW palette and began collecting stash. 

But I also felt that these two needed to be part of the same quilt since to me they represented two sides of the same coin:  a difficult and hazardous flight to a new place for a new and better life.  As intense as we feel our own time is, imagine living through an age where the political upheaval of the War was going on along side the fight over slavery and the migration of thousands across country to establish new homesteads, towns, cities and states.  The idea to make this a reversible quilt was furthered when I read an article in a back issue of Quilter's Newsletter Magazine.  In the November, 1996 issue (#287), Elizabeth Akana gave instructions in a "Quilters Workshop" article for making a rod pocket between the layers of a two-sided quilt (“Invisible Sleeve” with Kaye Jesse).

Like most projects this one progressed in dribs and drabs.  I started piecing the blocks in 2010.  Wanting a wall hanging, I planned to make both with  6" finished blocks.  Easy enough for the UGRR since that book provided instructions for both 6" and 12" blocks.  But the Pioneer book only provided 12" blocks so that meant I had to redraft them myself to the smaller size as I went along.  I got them done but didn't put the tops together until 2011.  

At that time, to even out the tops so they could be made back-to-back (the Pioneer sampler is only 12 blocks while the UGRR has 15) I added text blocks with information about each that I printed on muslin that I tea-dyed and prepped with Bubble Jet Set (the UGRR text was provided in the book and the Pioneer text was information I had collected from reading while making the project.  You can see close-ups of the text in this post).  They got layered because I hoped to push myself to finish the project by joining Myra's PHD Challenge that year.  I was disappointed when I didn't get them finished but appreciated that I managed to get them that far and was determined they would not languish forever. It also helped that Myra extended the Challenge into the new year!

By this time I decided that I wanted to hand quilt the two pieces.  But admittedly daunted by that prospect (well, that and I had a lot of other projects on my plate), I let it sit until December when I started on the hand quilting in the hopes of putting this one to bed as my last finish for 2012.  Didn't happen but once it was underway there was no chance of letting it flounder any longer.  After quilting in the ditch around the blocks, sashing and sashing squares (and finding that rather difficult to do with all the seams), I was not sure I wanted to quilt the blocks themselves.  I felt the power in the samplers were in the blocks and their story and since this was not a show quilt, it wouldn't suffer from the lack of extra quilting.  Not to mention it would save me about another two months of work! 

But once the centers were quilted, I felt the borders still needed something so I set out to find a stitch pattern -- nothing too complex -- to finish them off.  I found two great but simple cable designs in the book "Quilting With Style" by prolific hand quilters Gwen Marston and Joe Cunningham. 

You can see the stitching better from the back.

Since the borders had no seams, they were far easier to quilt (a note to myself for future hand quilting endeavors) and the stitching finished off the borders perfectly.  

By now I really wanted this up on the wall!  I was willing to bind it, live with it for a while and (heretical for me) be willing to go back and remove the binding and quilt them more at a later date if it really, really, REALLY bothered me. After tack stitching the wrong sides of the two quilts together, it was on to the binding.  And THAT almost didn't happen when I couldn't find the fabric I had planned to use for them, then found it but realized it wasn't going to work after all!  But scraps to the rescue!  Like many, I keep the leftover lengths of binding from my projects.  It just so happened that this plaid binding....

....leftover from making this quilt in 2008....

....turned out to have the perfect coloring to be a good finish for this project as well.  Bonus:  it was already cut!  This was a brushed cotton fabric and although I used the "fuzzy" side on the original quilt (which was made with brushed cottons and flannel), for this quilt I used the flat cotton side which is more in line with the fabrics used in these quilts. Although I usually add my bindings completely by machine, I finished this one by hand to insure that it was presentable on both sides.  It took a little finagling to cover the join where the two quilts form the sleeve but it got done and I even figured out how to add a label!

 

So the first finish for 2013 is in the can and I hope it won't be the last!

UGRR/Pioneer Update

Well 2013 is starting off promising!  After getting these sampler tops completed in 2011 , I fully expected to quilt them as part of Myra's PHD (Projects Half Done) Challenge in 2012. 
But I really wanted to hand quilt them and then was stumped about what to do for that.  I was admittedly disappointed when I let them remain undone as 2012 was coming to a close.

But I finally decided to step it down a notch.  Looking at the Quilt In A Day books that these projects were drawn from, I realized that many of them were quilted simply-- the blocks and borders just stitched in the ditch.  That seemed to me to be simple enough.  To me, the blocks themselves were powerful enough that they didn't necessarily need additional stitching which admittedly would be difficult for me to do by hand given the amount of piecing in them and the size (6") of the finished blocks.  Since getting these displayed was more important to me than how ornately they were quilted, the week before Christmas I decided to get started.

To date, I've completed the ditch quilting of the blocks on both tops and am now working on the borders.  I wasn't going to quilt the borders but decided they did need a little something more.  I found two cable designs in Gwen Marston and Joe Cunningham's Quilting With Style book that added just enough without being too much for my current hand quilting skills or patience. 

I am happy with the progress on them even if my quilt stitches are still far from proficient.  I learned a lot doing this one:  how important the thinness of the batting is in getting good stitches (need to test for that in the future) and why it may be better to do larger blocks and outline stitching or a wholecloth for my next hand quilting project if I want to get my stitches per inch down. I even came to the heretical (for me) decision that once they were up, If I wasn't satisfied with the level of quilting, I'd take them down, take off the binding and add more quilting.  We'll see if that happens though!

I am very happy that this is finally moving toward completion and hope to be able to display them in the coming weeks.

Missed the Deadline

Despite making a lot of progress on the UGRR/Pioneer project over the last few days I was unable to get this completed by the PHD Challenge deadline.  I am not totally disappointed since I know that without the pressure of the Challenge deadline, I probably would have never gotten this project even this far.

As it stands now, the two tops are layered, having added borders to the centers and even adding some monogramming to the Pioneer top. 

I'd still like to get this done before summer's end but also have the three other Civil War fabric projects that I want to work on, a quilt I want to make to display for the Fourth of July (at this point crazy, I know) and I got the yellow solids I wanted for Bonnie Hunter's latest quilt-a-long.  But now I can relax a bit and try to work at my own pace while still pushing myself to stay on task.

Progress!

As of yesterday, the centers are done. 

Text blocks were prepared on tea dyed muslin, treated with Bubble Jet Set and printed through my printer.  The Pioneer information came from book, newspaper and internet sources.  The UGRR text was in the pattern book.

Next stop borders and layering.