A HOT July Recap!

Another busy month not as focused as planned.  It was sooo brutally hot this month that it was often hard to feel motivated to work on things!  At the same time, staying in under the air conditioning was also good for when I was able to try to put in some time on some projects.  So here are all the scatter shot doings from the soon to be past month:

UFOs

At the beginning of the month, the hope was to use the inspiration of "UFO Day" to do some work on UFOs.  The grand plans to work on multiple ones devolved into just catching up on two.  The good news was that one of them was a finish!

Back in October, I had done the "All Carolinas Shop Hop" with my MIL for the second year in a row while we visited her in North Carolina.  The Hop issues a magazine that has projects in it utilizing fabrics designed for the Hop.  One of the patterns in last year's magazine was the By Annie "Piecekeeper" bag which is also offered as a free pattern on the By Annie website.  

Prior to us traveling to NC,  I had purchased the magazine along with some of the HOP fabrics.  I didn't want to take a chance that they might be sold out by the time we would be shopping towards the end of the Shop Hop period. 

During the Hop, I was lucky enough to find one of the prior year tone-on-tone prints that coordinated well with the current year Hop prints I had chosen to use.  In the course of making our shop rounds, I also picked up all the additional finishing supplies to make the bag up.  I had started on the cutting and made some applique additions to the focus print while at my MIL's but once we got back home, I went into "holiday projects mode" so never got around to finishing the bag up. 

Fortunately for me, Annie Unrein announced a sew along in July to make the "Piecekeeper" bag and I took that as a sign that the Quilt Muses wanted me to "get 'er done" and so I did!

Front and back of the bag

Mine finished a little different than patterned as I used a portion of a border print from the Hop fabric line for the bottom part of the front of the bag.  The section of the print I used is taller in height than the strip of fabric called for in the pattern.  Annie talked about making adjustments to the design at the end of the sew along video but unfortunately, I didn't see that until after I had already cut all the parts for the bag per the pattern instructions!   I'm happy with it though and am now debating between two zipper charms to add to it.  

When I had received the Shop Hop fabrics, I also picked out two of the prints to use to finally try making the "A Tisket, A Tasket: 2 Fat Quarter Basket" pattern by Me And My Sister Designs.  Since I finished the Piecekeeper bag, I decided to get that done too!  

This was actually pretty quick and fun to make up! 

In other UFO news, I finally put my Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll blocks up on the design wall.

The wall is now full and on the corner of the sewing table is the additional row of the blocks bordered with the red and white HSTs and the bottom row of string pieced setting triangles that also have to be added to the layout.  I thought I'd get the whole top assembled this month but rather than starting to sew the blocks together, I wanted to work on the pieced outer borders so I could lay them out as well.

The borders are made up of the pink and green pieced strip set units that were made in the first part of the mystery and now need brown triangles attached to their ends.  As you can see from the pieced strips on the left, there is still a whole lot more that need triangles attached!  After that I have to sew the strips together to make up the outer borders.  

Okay, looks like this WISP* is going to continue to cook for a lot longer!  The good news was I had already had the quilting of RRCB on my "To Do" list for August so I will stick with advancing toward that plan by continuing to work on the top construction next month (aka starting tomorrow).

*WISP = Work In Slow Progress

Continuing the Cross Stitch Journey

The hot weather and A/C combo made me far more interested in working on Cross Stitch --- well that and frequent doses of Flosstubes, LOL!  I did make some progress on the two projects that were in progress at the end of June:  

"Home of the Free" started for "Stitch June"

One page done on "Open Your Heart" and starting on the next one.

Working on the Evenweave fabric for the little patriotic stitch is still very slow going.  It's easier to stitch when I have to do "fill in" work and harder when establishing a new line of stitching.  "Open Your Heart" is relatively easy to stitch overall but counting correctly for the color changes does keep me on my toes.  As a result, the Frog Prince has visited a few times (rip it, rip it)!

The founders of my community garden are a very artsy bunch and are always looking for classes we can offer for free to our members and the general public.  This year they got a grant to do art/craft classes and I was asked if I had anything I might want to do.  Previously I had led a class on EPP that went well despite my limited knowledge of EPP at the time.  

In thinking of a class to do, I am always constrained by the need to offer something that can be completely made by hand.  Then I saw this free pattern and loved the idea of being able to offer something in the cross stitch vein that was related to something we actually grow in our garden:

I will be using an easier Aida base fabric than patterned.

At this point I'm still working on my samples and sourcing supplies to make up kits for it.  I'm hoping to offer this in August although I'm a little crunched for time at this point.  Thankfully we could hold this in our gazebo which would provide a cool shady spot to stitch should the weather continue as it has.

So that's it for July!  As usual, I'll be hoping for a little more focus (and a lot less heat) for August!

Design Wall Monday: This, That and the Other.....

The blog's been fairly quiet because things have been a bit busy lately and not all of it has been related to my own projects.  So to catch up on recent events:

Bonnie Hunter's "Frolic" mystery is now history!  Well at least in terms of it being available for free from her blog.  Since Valentine's Day, she has offered the newly released digital pattern of "Frolic" for purchase at half price until the end of February!  As for me, I had hoped to finish the top for "Old Tobacco Road", the Quiltville mystery that I had been working on while everyone else was Frolic-ing. I did manage to finally get all the center rows stitched together:

Once the center was all pieced together, the debate became whether to just add a border for a quick couch-quilt-finish (which was how I originally envisioned using the finished quilt) or to continue on and add the Flying Geese borders Bonnie used in the pattern (and was one of the things I really liked about the design).  I have everything for both....

...it is just a matter of trimming up the center and laying things out on the design wall to finalize that decision.  However, I couldn't do that for two reasons:  first was that it was (finally) time to teach the English Paper Piecing workshop I had been hired to do:

The projects I chose for the EPP workshop.

My community garden President is also the treasurer of her Building Association and after seeing one of my projects we had been in talks for about two years about having me do a quilt class for one of their craft events.  Last Summer we were finally were able to narrow down on the "what" (had to be a hand work class and centered on the theme of "recycling") so I suggested an English Paper Piecing class.  Mind you, the only EPP I had ever done was this rosette after watching an episode of "Simply Quilts" back in the early 2000s!

So needless to say I had to do a lot of research about current methods and notions to bring myself up to speed.  Then I looked around the web and in books for some simple projects that I thought students would be interested in completing either in or after class.  The projects I settled on for students to choose from were the "Scrapbusting Hexie Hot Pad" by Cintia of My Poppet Makes (uses only 6 Hexies), the "Hexie Pincushion" by Jessica of Life Under Quilts (uses only 8 Hexies) and the "advanced" project and my absolute favorite, a hexie mini quilt version of the "Potholder Organizer" by Marti of Sewlicious Home Decor (for the student who really gets into making hexies!).  I love my sample of that one so much that it is now my permanent hexie project carrier!

My workshop was one of four offered over two community "sewing days".  Since I knew I wouldn't have time to make a whole quilt for the class, I lucked up on finding this beauty on eBay and used it as a backdrop/display in the class and to discuss the popularity of the "Grandmother's Flower Garden" style quilts.

It's all done (hand pieced and quilted!) except for the binding which I want, at some point, to add on.  I'm hoping I already have a fabric in my 30's reproduction stash that will go with it.  Hmmm, gives me an excuse to move up my plans for working on a series of quilts using that stash!  Also once again points to the importance of labels --- I'd love to know who did all this work and why it wasn't completely finished.  But then do you label your quilt before it's bound?  I know I don't!

I had originally agreed to do the workshop (my very first!) last November and I made up the organizer and hot pad samples for it back in the Fall.  However, scheduling snafus regarding the class space forced a change in format from just offering my class to hosting a multi-day, multi-class arrangement.  That actually proved to be fortunate for me because it gave me a chance to find and add an "intermediate" level project to my class plans which was the pincushion.  I got that one ready in December for the re-scheduled workshop which at first was tentatively planned for January but then was ultimately finalized for the first weekend in February.  In the end, it went well and I look forward to either doing this workshop again (along with ideas I have for improving how I teach it) or being able to solidify some ideas I have for other classes I could offer.

In between all of that, their organization got a request to do a workshop with one of our community's Girl Scout troops.  After discussions with one of the troop's leaders, we settled on doing a quilt where the girls would decorate fabric blocks.  Originally the plan was to have the girls just use fabric paint and markers to draw out their designs.  However, it was eventually expanded to adding the opportunity for them to get even more creative using felt appliques, decorative trims and to do a little hand stitching as well.  

Three of us facilitated one session in December and another one in January where the girls worked on their blocks in small groups.  I brought my Accuquilt Go! die cutter and dies so the girls could choose shapes and colors to add to add to their blocks using felt that was provided.  One of the troop leaders had asked if we could also have blocks that would quote this year's "G.I.R.L. Leadership Agenda" so I printed those out on fabric (prepared for printing) adding letter die cuts to take them up a notch.  When we were done we had these:

My garden president and I had shopped for Girl Scout themed fabric and the plan was that we had hoped to have some time either before or during the workshop "Sew Day" sessions to put up the blocks (I brought some gridded flannel for a design wall) and work on the layout.  However, there were lot of attendees and each facilitator also served as assistants for the other workshops so I wound up just bringing the blocks back home to work out the final layout by myself.  And that's what's (still) on the design wall today:

I had to combine elements from a few partial blocks and added things to others to fill them out and now these are all ready to be sewn together.  There are places I expect to have to hand stitch the seams in place to work around some of the embellishments.  Once I have the center done, I'll cut the outer borders (GS Cookie fabric!!) and then have to put together a backing.  When we shopped, we had mistakenly also purchased 4-H themed fabric -- in our defense it was sitting right along with the Girl Scout fabric and the colors coordinated!  In fact, the sashing squares here are fussy cut from one of the 4-H prints since hearts were the most requested die cut by the girls.

Edited To Add:  You can see the finished quilt here.

Last but not least:  I've picked out the fabrics for this week's BOM blocks so have to also get those made up over the next few days as well.

Ok, all caught up and it looks like it will be another busy week!

The Seven Days of New Year's: Day 4, 5 and 6

I continued work on projects in the days between the Day-After-Christmas and New Year's Day.  Although I still have some more blocks to make for my "Make It Scrappy" quilt, I needed to change things up a bit.  I have some workshops coming up and needed to get some hand work done for them so figured now was a good time.  One of the things I want to do more of next year (so weird to say that when it is only a few hours away!) is to do more "Slow Stitching" through hand work.  So that is what has been on the agenda for the last three days.

Three weeks ago, I, my community garden President and another garden member did a workshop with a troop of Girl Scouts.  We had them decorate fabric squares that are going into a banner quilt for their troop.  This is an idea I got from Val's Quilting Studio and an article on Storey.com by Amy Petronis Plumley.

The other two ladies live in the same building and are also officers of their Building Association.  Their Association regularly sponsors community art workshops (which during the summer months are often held in our community garden) so brought their experience to work with the girls.  They had them draw, paint and stitch their ideas onto muslin fabric squares I had prepped with freezer paper backing.  One group of girls had an idea to add a picture to the crazy quilt style block they designed so the garden member is printing up the image they chose on fabric and we will help them sew it in and finish the additional embellishment they want to add to the block.

My contribution was to bring my Accuquilt Go! cutter and provide dies that they could use to cut felt we had brought to add decorative shapes that they would stitch down onto their blocks.

The Hearts were very popular!

The troop has two leaders, one of whom is also the Community Relations Director for our co-op's management.  She has made a quilt in the past so she and I discussed what the layout of the quilt would be. The quilt uses 10" blocks in a 4 x 3 setting and we plan to sash and border it.  For that part, we'll use Girl Scout fabric purchased from Joann's.

I know, some of that is 4-H fabric.  When the garden President and I went to buy the fabric, all of it was sitting together.  It was only when I brought it to the workshop did the troop leader immediately recognize it as 4-H.  Well, the goals of the two organizations --- to encourage and develop self respect, skills and youth leaders ---- are similar.  At the least, we can use the 4-H fabric for the back.  The troop leader also wanted to incorporate this year's Girl Scout leadership mottos.  So I formatted them in a wordprocessing program and we purchased printer fabric sheets to create those panels.  I suggested that since I had letter dies, we might add another 3-D element to the panels to spell out "G.I.R.L" on each panel.

I had set my task for Sunday to be to print the panels and stitch the letters down with some variegated Perle cotton thread I had purchased to add to the project stash. However, after getting the fabric printouts done, I realized the garden President had taken all the thread we brought to the event home with her.  I had to wait until Monday to connect with her to get it and then sewed them down today.

I'm glad to get these done since we are returning to work with the Troop this coming Friday to finish up their blocks and the layout.  As of now, the plan is for the adults to put the quilt together once the girls finish the blocks and then have a reveal ceremony in the coming months.

Edited To Add:  You can see the finished quilt here.

The other workshop related work:  for this same Building Association, I've been hired to give a quilting workshop.  They had secured a grant to do craft workshops with the theme of "recycling" and they have already held a few in the Summer and Fall.  Of course, quilting fit right in with that theme!  However, the limitation was that their Association room doesn't have the capacity (in space or electrical outlets) to accomodate a bunch of sewing machines so it would have to be a workshop using a hand work technique.  I suggested to them that we do an English Paper Piecing class since it is both a historically and currently popular technique in the quilting world.   While I was familiar with the technique, admittedly, I had only made one EPP rosette prior to now.

So I've spent the last few months gathering a lot of information and books about the subject and familiarizing myself with all the popular ways to prep them.  I gave a "hands-on" demo of the various techniques to the Association's Class Committee back in October.  They all got a big kick out of prepping the hexagons and fabric I provided and were excited about the design possibilities.   We had planned on holding the workshop in November but they had a scheduling snafu so it was moved up to January.

In the mean time, I've tried to find and make a few easy projects of varying complexity that the workshop participants can choose to make once they have tried the various techniques to prepare the shapes.  I had these two ready for the session planned for November:

The Hexie Hot Pad only requires participants to make one rosette.  If they get their fill of trying the technique from that, it will be simple (I hope) to show them how to applique it to a circle of fabric and then layer the circle with batting and stitch it closed.  The EPP Organizer is my variation on a Pot Holder Organizer project I found on the web. This one will be a more advanced project for those who really get into prepping and joining hexies.  I figure if they like it a lot, they will love the opportunity to make a pouch that will allow them to carry their stitching supplies for future projects.

However now that I had more time to prepare, I decided on adding at least one more mid-level project.  I'm trying to keep the projects relatively simple since many of the people who have expressed interest in the workshop have not quilted and some have not even sewn before.  I also wanted the projects to have practical use in the hopes that will encourage participants to want to finish whichever project they choose to do.

I had an idea about making what I thought would be a simple Key Chain Chapstick holder.  When I couldn't move forward on the Girl Scout letters Sunday, I worked on cutting fabric for that EPP project.

However, as I laid them out, I realized my original plan wasn't going to be as simple to execute as I thought.  So I had to trash that idea (although not the hexies!) and come up with something else.  That killed the momentum for that day.

As I said, I went to see our garden's President on Monday and wound up staying way longer than planned.  She is a crafter too so we started "talking craft" between reviewing and packing up the items she will be bringing for the return session on Friday.  When I finally got back home, I did manage to pick another EPP project:  I decided on a Hexie Pincushion project that had been part of a hexie project blog hop.  Like the Hot Pad project, it only requires prepping one rosette plus an extra center hexie.  I managed to get the fabric cut before calling it a night.

I got them all prepped today before needing to run out to pick up some things.  While out, I had hoped to find the crushed walnuts suggested for stuffing the pincushion.  The tutorial noted that either Craft or Pet Stores carry them --- in the latter they are used as Reptile bedding.  However, the nearest craft store to me was a Michael's and they didn't have any.  There was a pet store next door but they also didn't stock it.  I went to a second mall only to discover the pet store there had closed!  When did that happen?!?  I called a third one that was in driving distance but they don't carry it either.

So for now, I've completed the pincushion up to the part where I'll remove the papers and then fill the pincushion.  I had planned to shop on line for my new sewing chair tomorrow so I will order the walnut shells while I'm at it.  That's it for me for tonight.  We're headed out in a little while to go see a late night showing of  "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker".  A great way to welcome in the New Year!