Checking In For National Quilting Day!

Before the day is over, I want to wish a very happy National Quilting Day to everyone!

 

 

Since this is my first post for March, I also wish you a happy National Craft Month as well!

Image courtesy LotsOfLime.com

If you are looking for fun quilty things to do for the day, you can check out the Quilt Alliance's home page -- they have links to free pattern sites for many industry companies.  I particularly look forward to trying Anita Grossman Solomon's "Make It Simpler" Hexagon cutting shortcut for 10" squares.  I think I might be able to make it even simpler using freezer paper.  We'll see!  I loved using Anita's technique for her Anita's Arrowhead blocks a few years back so like having an opportunity to try another of her shortcut block cutting techniques.

I started off my NQD celebration by taking a page out of the blogging book of LeeAnn Paylor at the Not Afraid of Color blog and making an "I Like" list of the things I enjoy so much about quilting:

I like Quilting #1: Utility

Brrr! quilt and coordinating neck roll.

I love that quilts can be pretty but also useful.   

I like Quilting #2:  Creativity


 Always a favorite of mine:  High Strung +2

 

Even with basic designs there also comes the chance to play around with layouts or add design motifs in order to "add a little something extra" to the things you make or to completely reimagine them or create something new.  There are no "shoulds" or limits --- whatever you can think up, there's usually a way to bring it to life.

I like Quilting #3:  Community

With so many blogs to read, social media to follow, linkups to join, guilds and sewing groups to meet with, podcasts to listen to, Pinterest boards to ogle  -- any way that you'd like to interact with like minded people, there is a way to do it.  Many times it doesn't even require you to leave your own home!


I like Quilting #4:  The History

Block purchased at a NY Historical Society exhibit.

I love seeing antique quilts in museums and quilt show exhibits.  I can read about the background of fabric and quilt style trends in books and on websites like Barbara Brackman's Material Culture and Civil War Quilts sites.  In fact, Barbara just did a post listing exhibits across the country that will be featuring antique quilts over the next few months.


I like Quilting #5:  The Goodies

This is the prize package I won from Meg Cox the Quilt Journalist from a giveaway offered in her January newsletter.   With prizes received from Meg (the True Blue charm pack), Victoria Findlay-Wolfe (a FQ bundle of her new "Parts Dept" fabric line) and Jane Dunnewold (her Creative Strength Training book had been on my wish list!), I think I got something better than the leprechaun's pot 'o gold this month! 

 My celebration activity for today is to continue what I've been working on all month:  I've been steadily (if not consistently) working on basting my wholecloth project.  Basting the high loft poly batting for the trapunto  layer took a lot longer than I had expected.  With my larger electronic machines still out of commission, I wasn't able to baste it the "tradtional" way by using wash-away thread and stitching it by machine.  I say traditional in quotes because the truly traditional way to do trapunto is to stuff cord, thread or yarn in through the back of the quilt after the quilting is finished.  Basting the first of two layers of batting with wash away thread behind the motifs you want to make "pop" is actually the modern approach to trapunto.  Since I've been sewing on my Featherweight this year and its throat space is small, I had to do the trapunto basting by hand.  I finally finished it all earlier this week.

It's also hard to get a good shot of all that white-on-white fabric and batting!  Now the quilt is layered with the second layer of cotton batting and I'm hand basting the three quilting layers together. 

Once that's done, this baby will be headed into the hoop for what I'm estimating will be the rest of the year.  Or at least I hope I can get it done that fast -- I found a few other examples on the web of people who had completed one of these preprinted tops and they have taken as long as four years to complete!

I hope you enjoy your National Quilting Day activities and any other projects you may have lined up to work on for the rest of this crafty month!

En Provence and Ringo Lake Update and Moving On To the Wholecloth

Joining in again for another edition of "Moving It Forward Monday" over at Em's Scrapbag:

In my last post, I thought I was done with the updates on my En Provence project since I had finished the top.  However, I had plans for one more touch to add to it and wound up getting it done a lot faster than I thought I would.

One of the quirks of this particular project is that when I started pulling fabrics for it, I found that I had at least one polka dot fabric for each of the colors called for in the quilt.  When I went shopping for additional project fabrics, I found even more so using polka dots became a sub-theme of the project.  Ironically when it came time to choose the magenta "focus fabric" I once again found a polka dot fabric for that too!  So needless to say polka dots abound in this top!

As I got to the part of the mystery where we had to piece the neutral borders for the top, I thought it might be cute to add "polka dots" to it as well.  My original plan was to do that by swapping in a dark square in some of the four patches that make up the last border but that didn't balance out visually.  So instead I decided to applique circles on the border as my "polka dots" instead.

As I found out in a previous project, an Accuquilt  GO! cutter makes short work of prepping circles for applique since you can cut both the fabric:

...and either fusible or (since I planned to do this by hand) templates (out of doubled freezer paper) for turning the circles.  Just cut a smaller circle for the templates than you do for the fabric.

As seen in the picture, I also used the templates from the set of  Karen Buckley Perfect Circles I have to turn the circles.  Since there were only five templates of the size I needed in her set, I die cut the extra freezer paper templates so I could prep more circles at a time.

So now the neutral border has polka dots too!

Also this week, I finally finished up the last of the blocks needed for the "On Ringo Lake" mystery -- Woo hoo! 

Next step for this one will be to put these blocks up on the design wall with the units we had to piece for sashing and play around with the layout.  If you check out some of the linkups for this mystery, you will see that people have employed some creative placements of the sashing units --- and not always as sashing!

However before I get to that, I'll be focusing this week on setting up my wholecloth project.  I've finally decided on the additional stitch elements I want to add and have made templates (in freezer paper again) for those so have to trace them out onto the top.

Since the whole cloth is one of the big "Bucket List" projects for this year and I'm way behind on getting start on it, I'll be taking this week to focus on that.

There's so much more to see over at Em's Scrapbag so why not go and check out what everyone has been up to?

En Provence and Ringo Lake Update: One Down, One To Go!

This will be the last time "En Provence" will be part of the Moving It Forward Monday link up for a while because....

....it's a top!  Finally got it done on Friday and it's a big'un!!  Right now it's topping out at 123" square so even with shrinkage when I quilt it, this one will be generous on my queen-size bed.  Well, it's done in terms of the mystery --- I still plan to "add a little something" to that second neutral border.  I've also got ideas (and leftover fabric) to start on the backing but that too will probably wait.

I also added to the "Ringo Lake" block stack during the week but didn't sew anything this weekend so have some catching up to do.

 I was also supposed to make decisions on the wholecloth this weekend but I think I was in "flimsy focus withdrawal" so took the weekend off from doing anything quilting related.  I've got a few shows on the DVR to watch so once I post this, I'll be heading back to the machine!

You can find out what other projects where nudged a little further along last week over at Em's Scrapbag blog for Moving It Forward Monday!

En Provence and Ringo Lake Update: More Progress!

Once again, I am joining the crew over at Em's Moving It Forward Monday!

 

 

 As before, it's been "all Bonnie Hunter, all the time" around here in terms of the projects I've been working on.  While the stitching lately hasn't been as consistent as in previous weeks, what was accomplished on the days I did sew helped me hit two milestones.  For the "En Provence" mystery, I've got the center of the top all sewn together:

 

 

Now there's only a few rows of border units to be sewn and this top will be finished! 

 

For "Ringo Lake", I've got half of the total number of blocks needed sewn up:

 

 

It's gratifying to see the block stack growing, this one could also be a top by the start of Spring. 

 

At one point I needed something else to leader/ender to push those other two through so I pulled out some strips and was able to finish another Scrappy Trips block!

 

 

These have been fun to make and I look forward to the day when this one can become the main project.

 

I had planned to only sew a few of the mystery blocks a day but once the "En Provence" rows started coming together, I was anxious to see the center get done so pushed forward to getting a whole row done on those days when I did get to sew.  I have an idea for slightly altering the borders for it so finishing the borders may move a little slower than the rows did.  So once again, I'm hoping to try to finally start on my big 2018 goals.  

 

Up to now I've been stalled on moving forward with my wholecloth project but have found a resource that seems to have the inspiration I was looking for to help me take it in the direction I want to go.  With any luck, that project will be the subject of next week's "Move It Forward" post.  Fingers crossed! 

 

 

Now, I'm going to go check out what other people have been working on all week.  Join me over at Em's Scrapbag and see who's sharing something on today's "Moving It Forward Monday"! 

En Provence and Ringo Lake Update: Blocks on the Wall and the Table

It's another Moving It Forward Monday moment!

 

 

I'm linking up once again with everyone over at Em's Scrapbag with the progress from last week.  Fortunately for me, the momentum from the previous weeks held.  This time the work on the 2016-17 Bonnie Hunter mystery "En Provence" took precedence because I really wanted to get the last of the blocks and all vertical sashing units pieced.

 

 

 I now have a wall full of wonderfulness!  Now it's on to getting the pieces in the horizontal sashing rows pieced together - that's why they look so off line in the photo. 

 

As I have throughout the mystery quilt season, I used the block piecing for one mystery quilt as a leader/ender for the other one I'm working on.  Here's the progress on this year's "On Ringo Lake" blocks:

 

 

So the good news there is I got a bunch of those blocks done too.  I'm hoping to keep piecing a little of both each day but the work may slow a bit while I squeeze in some other things. 

 

Now that the block piecing is under control, I'd like to try to also get a start on my big 2018 goals.  My plan for the year was to work on big "Bucket List" projects and I had two I wanted to get started for this quarter but with focusing on the mysteries, I've already used up a month of that time!   Fortunately the first one is a hand work project so I can continue to piece the mystery quilts as I set the hand work project up.

 

I've  shown you mine, now you can show me yours!  Link up what's been making your machine hum all week over at Em's Scrapbag for some "Moving It Forward Monday" fun! 

 

 

On Ringo Lake Update: Moving On To the Blocks!

Whew!  It took all weekend (and a few stragglers finished this morning) to finally finish piecing the last of the parts for Bonnie Hunter's "Ringo Lake" mystery:

It got a little dicey as I had miscounted how many neutral triangles I had already cut for all of those Part 3 and 5 corners and had to cut more.  I've used up all the neutral stash I had for this project so it meant digging in the Scrap Users bin for a few more strips to cut from.  I also dug into the Scrap Triangles bin I keep for all of those cut off triangles from projects to see if I could find some that could be cut down for use here.

I try to keep the triangles in that bin sorted into baggies by approximate sizes (Micro, small, medium, large and deluxe/setting sizes).  I've used some before to make a journal cover and have a number of patterns already picked out for a "one day" All-Or-Mostly-Triangles project.  So now all the "Ringo" Parts 1 - 6 units are all snug together in its project box.

But not for long -- now I can focus on piecing the blocks together!  Part 7 of the mystery is to piece together the coral and brown flying geese into one unit.  I've decided to just do that as part of the overall block piecing.

What's great is that can be done leader/ender style along with the rest of the "En Provence" blocks and sashing (from last year's mystery) that I also have to finish piecing.  I figure a block a day each should be doable.  I guess I can honestly say Monday IS so good to me!

Linking up with other Monday Movers for Moving it Forward Monday over at Em's Scrapbag.

 

Ringo Lake and En Provence Update: A Leader/Ender Spree

Up First: Ringo Lake

It's been a real challenge to try to keep up the steady work to get the "Ringo Lake"  parts finished.  I failed over the weekend --- didn't sew a thing!  I went to a guild meeting on Saturday and picked up waayy too much eye candy in the form of old magazines so spent most of the weekend oohing and ahhing and placing bookmarks. 

So I made up for that on the holiday Monday, making up more Part 4/6 combo units, the pieced triangles needed for the setting triangles in Part 9 and more Flying Geese for Part 5. 

About those combo units:  I've been piecing mine using the shortcut from Deb Tucker's Studio 180 Shaded Four Patch Technique Sheet which I talked about in my last post.  Even though I had written notes on both Bonnie's instructions and the Technique Sheet telling me exactly what size strips to cut out of which fabric to make the blocks in the format needed, what did I do?  When I started this round of piecing, I thought I knew exactly what to cut and sew.  Yeah, about that....

Needless to say these are wrong....

Really wrong.....

Oh so much wrong!   Note to self:  If you are using a shortcut but haven't sewn with it in a few days, it's a good idea to review your notes before starting!

Fortunately, these were cut from only one strip of each fabric and I had more than enough of the turquoise and brown fabrics left to cut more to make the corrected set.  However, I had to remove and salvage the coral triangles from the blocks I had completed (the ones in the upper right in the picture) because I only have some yardage left of one of the coral fabrics --- I've used up everything else to cut what was needed for all the other parts of the mystery. 

When I had cut the turquoise strips for that first errant set, I also cut all the triangles and squares needed for the setting triangles in Part 9.

I did some more stitching Tuesday and finished up all of the rest of the Part 4/6 combo units.  I also got some more Part 5 Flying Geese and Part 3 units done but there's still a lot more of those to make. 

I want to start on my 2018 goal projects but want to get these parts finished first.  Once I'm able to move "Ringo" onto the block piecing stage, then I'll be in a good position  to break off to work on something non-mystery related.

On to En Provence

This time last year I was getting a late start on piecing the parts for the "En Provence" mystery.  This year, while working on the parts for "Ringo Lake", I was also able to finally start putting together the blocks for that quilt.  This was where I was at the beginning of last week:

The first competed block is on the upper left of the design wall and the second one was down on the table queued up for sewing together.  This is where I am with it now:

 

 

With nine blocks pieced, now I'm going to start piecing the sashing units that surround the finished blocks so I can move everything tighter together to be able to add the rest of the un-pieced block parts onto the wall.  During all this leader/ender-ing (I know, not a word), I also finally finished piecing all the sashing Tri-Recs units too.

One of my goals for this year is to get both mysteries at least to tops.  Of course, it would be even more fabulous to finish both quilts completely but baby steps, Padewan, baby steps!  Many people have already finished their tops and a few have even already quilted theirs. Check out the last link-up if you want to see those beauties!

More good news: the first part of my Zazzle order came in on Friday.

Woo hoo!  Is this an incentive to try to make another of the Quiltville mysteries?  Well, to that end I realize I have a lot of the brown fabrics left over so I am thinking about that too..... 

 So many quilts, so little time!  Happy Quilting!