The Seven Days of New Years 2021 - Day 6

We're almost there.....

So this is the last check-in for 2021.  The good news is that one more "Snowflake" is done!

Hopefully by the end of the weekend, I can get the last block done and have a winter wall hanging well before January ends!  

On the quilting front, I started on the green "Wine Glass" sections today and got three done.

I played with two more feather types today, one from Angela Walter's Fabulous Feathers Challenge and one from a book by Sue Nickles.  So at this point I have about a third of the quilt done and look forward to getting to the finish line on this one soon too.

Also, let me say this:  An important gadget that has helped keep the stitching going without interruption:  my Sidewinder Bobbin Winder!

So, I'll be spending the rest of the evening waiting for the ball to drop.  Hoping you are either celebrating with friends and family or relaxing and waiting for another New Year to start.  In either case, I look forward to seeing you on the other side!

The Seven Days of New Years 2021 - Day 5: Another Snowflake and More Quilting.....

 Another busy day!  This morning there was work on the "Snowflake" from yesterday while DH and I watched a little TV.  

The center is stitched together and I should get the last outer ring done while watching tonight's Accuquilt Live in a little while.  They are once again looking at quilts currently displayed at the Boston Museum of the Arts.

On the quilting front, I got a few more panels stitched using the feather designs from Angela Walter's Free-motion Feathers Challenge (Week #2).  

Today I used the "Basic" and "Wonky Feathers" in two purple panels, the "Ferny Feather" in a brown panel and the "Feather Meander" in two white panels as well as continuing the practice of stitching the "Custom Feathers" along both sides of the vertical seam allowances of the panels I've stitched.  They are hard to photograph at night due to the matching thread so I look forward to getting a better shot during the day when this is all done.

Gotta run, the show's starting!

The Seven Days of New Years 2021 - Day 4: Quilting Has Commenced!

Before going to bed last night, I laid out the next "Snowflakes" block:

I had to make a few extra of the textured medium blue hexies since I had changed the color placement in the patterned layout a bit.  Wanting to get started on the quilting, I decided to save the "sit and stitch" on it for this evening's Accuquilt Live event and I'll work on it then. They will be viewing quilts from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts both tonight and tomorrow night.  

I'll update this post with the actual video links once they air since the videos live on You Tube and Facebook for good.  Actually if you like quilt museum visits, you can also check out the ones they made at the International Quilt Study Center back in July and September.

Today's focus project was quilting the "Serendipity" quilt.  It took me a while to review all of Angela Walter's Feather FMQ Challenge videos again and make some decisions about what to quilt where.  One thing I had decided last week was that I wanted to use Angela's "Custom Feather" (seen in this video) to quilt along all the vertical seams that run the length of the quilt.  

It is the one motif that doesn't work from a pre-stitched center stem and she used it to quilt along block seams.  The twist for me is that I'd need to watch how the feathers transition from one rectangle to another since I'll need to change the thread color then.  I also decided to take her advice and mark the outer line that the feathers needed to meet to help keep the stitching even (I'm using 1-1/2" away from the seam as my guideline).

I started in the middle of the quilt with the blue rectangle and once the feathers were stitched on that side, I decided to continue with the same thread and stitch the feathers in the center of that rectangle. I really debated for a while about what to use here as on close inspection of the print I used, it actually has a sort of feathery/frondy motif in it already.  I decided to use those as a guide to stitch along.  Initially, I sketched out on preview paper Angela's "Basic Feather", then thought her "Curly Feather" would look better.  However, I have a few other books on stitching Feathers that I decided to consult and found another option that I liked even more.

Patsy Thompson's book "Feather Adventures" always intrigued me with her technique of layering colors when stitching feathers to make them pop.  I won't be going that far this time but I did find a feather motif that when sketched out on preview paper, really picked up the underlying motifs on the print so I went with that.

Oops!  While I marked the right side of the rectangle for the seam feathers, I forgot to mark the left side before stitching the feathers in the center!  Not a big deal, fortunately I realized it before I had stitched the rest of the rectangle.  I just fill stitched by the seam around those bottom two and resumed the feathers along the seam further up the rectangle.  

It's a little hard to get a good shot of it at this hour but it all stitched out pretty good!  Needless to say, I know I was pretty tense because I was starting off so, I'll break from this for tonight.  I am pleased with the good start and hopefully tomorrow, I can continue and get a good deal further now that I've warmed up!   

Now back to the hexies for the rest of the evening!

The Seven Days of New Years 2021 - Day 3: Continuing with Hexies and Setting Up for Quilting

Not a lot done for the "Snowflake" project this morning beyond finishing the prep of the dark blue hexies that I didn't get to last night and starting the center of the third block.

Re-purposed food containers make the best organizers!

The main focus for the day was to be on setting up the "Serendipity" project for quilting.  I had decided last week that I'd probably change threads over each of the different colored sections to help highlight the different motifs to be used in each.  Of course that meant picking and auditioning threads.   

These are the final choices.  It worked out that I can use the same thread on the peach and cream print as well as the wine bottle print.  Unfortunately, the closest I had to the purple print was a brown that sort of blends.  I'll settle for that as I have two spools of it so don't have to worry about running out during what I expect to be a lot of intense stitching.    

I interrupted the quilt work to watch today's Accuquilt Live during which I had lunch.   I also had received word today that Kari Shell was giving a free special Techno Quilters workshop on creating Snowflake designs in EQ8 and of course I had to see that!  I had signed up for the classes back in August but have only completed one module so far.  I have to get back in the flow with those in the (soon to be) New Year as I have a commission project that I want to design using the program. 

That accomplished, this evening I did the stabilizing stitch-in-the-ditch on the quilt using smoke monofilament thread on the top.  For this project with just flat expanses to be quilted, I removed all the pins now before I move on to doing all the decorative quilt stitching.  

Tomorrow, I'll preview the motifs and hopefully can try to get a significant portion of it done! 

The Seven Days of New Years 2021 - Day 2: More Hexies and Some Layering

A full day to say the least!  Despite some interruptions, I've almost got what I wanted to accomplish today completed.  

For the "Snowflake" project, this morning I picked out the fabrics for the next block and die cut them.  I started prepping them while watching the two You Tube shows that I spoke about yesterday  that aired this afternoon.  

I'm going to finish up the rest of the dark blue and gray ones while watching the late night news shows. 

Something I had hoped to start on last week was quilting on two projects, one of which needed to be layered.  I had a call to return that I expected to take a while so after finishing the shows and then having lunch, I decided to work on layering the quilt.

The quilt top that needed layering is called "Serendipity" and was made back in December 2020.  

The only batting I had closest to the size of this top was some Hobbs Tuscany Silk in a Twin.  

This will be the first time I've used this batting formulation.  I have another one in Queen size and I think I got both years ago during one of Connecting Threads big batting sales.  I'd love to also try a cotton/wool batt which they also carry under the Tuscany brand name.  It's a small lap quilt with no blocks to pin around so the easy layering is all done!

Backing is a Kim Diehl wide back print called "Spiced Pomegranate".

Here it is with "Hometown USA" which is the other quilt I want to get done.  What has energized me to get started on quilting both of these is Angela Walter's recently completed free motion quilting challenge that focused on "Feathers" .  She ran the last tutorial last week and there will be an additional wrap-up video to follow on the 30th.  I am looking forward to trying out all the various motifs she demoed and can see some possibilities for some fun filler stitching practice too.  

Edited 12/29/21 To Add:  Turns out Angela actually did one more tutorial today on quilting Feathers in borders.  Check it out here!

I'd love it if I could get them completely done by New Year's but I'm not holding my breath on that one!  Ok, now I can relax (?) with the news and the remaining hexie prep and then head to bed!  Tomorrow's another day!

BTW:  For those of you that like the "Accuquilt Live" events that air on You Tube (and also on Facebook), there's going to be another one tomorrow called "Squared Away" which will be demoing their "Cubes".  The special guest on the show will be Eleanor Burns!  More hexie sewing time for me, ha, ha!

The Seven Days of New Years 2021 - Day 1: Hexis and a Slow Sunday Stitching Day

Well, Santa Is Ready to Relax, How About You?

It's time again for my own special holiday crafting celebration:  a Quilt-A-Thon from the day after Christmas leading up to New Years!    It was another quiet and subdued Christmas which seems to be the hallmark for our family of how holidays are celebrated during this pandemic.  

At the start of last week, I had the usual ambitious plans to try to get my "Hexie Snowflake" project wrapped up and done.  At the time, I had one block done with hopes to make three more:

Of course,  I soon learned I was crazy to think that on the last big week of the holiday, I'd be free to just sit and work on a project, Lol!  Pretty much every thing I had mapped out got upended by unexpected calls or changes in when or how I'd get the things other than quilting done.  Not to mention that after spending most of the holiday season not shopping in person last year, it was a shock to the system to see how busy the stores were back to being this year!   

There was very little stitching accomplished over the last two days so I spent today catching up and have managed to finish up the snowflake for the second block:

The great thing about this project is it can hang for the whole winter, so I'm still excited to get it finished.  Now I have two more blocks to make for the four block wall hanging I want.  

The good news for some additional stitching time is that tomorrow there are two "live" events to sit and watch!  As a Gadget Fanatic, for the last year, I've really enjoyed viewing the twice weekly (usually Tuesdays and Wednesdays)  "Accuquilt Live" events that air on You Tube (and also on Facebook).   There are usually special purchase deals promoted and the chance to win gifts or reward points if you register in advance to view the events.  During the holiday gifting season they really upped their game and have run three or four events each week!  On Christmas Day, I saw that they had scheduled another new event for Monday called "Countdown to the New Year".  

Barbara Black of "My Joyful Journey" announced on her last blog post that she will be doing a live broadcast on The Quilt Show's You Tube channel to discuss choosing fabrics for the 2022 TQS Block of the Month:  Irene Blanck's "Garden Party Down Under".  I'd love to finally get to do one of the TQS BOMs.  These are just the kind of shows to provide a little more "sit and stitch" time!   

Are you doing anything special in preparation for the New Year or are you blissfully relaxing and waiting for the clock to turn the dial on 2022?   Sounds like a sweet way to spend the week either way!

Linking up with:

Kathy and all the lovely stitching going on over at Kathy's Quilts 

Make A List Monday

It's the last week before Christmas!  Having participated in whooping it up for a finish at "Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?!?" with Sarah over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict on Friday, this morning I want to follow her example again by setting up a "Make A List Monday" To Do list for this week.

This is one of the rare times that my list is short for a change, Lol!  Here's what's on board for this week:

1.  "Hexie Snowflake" Project 

I started on this one while basting and quilting the "Civil War Strippie" quilt.

This is the next to the last of the Blue & White Christmas decorating projects.  It was (as usual) supposed to have been started long ago but a viable crafting window didn't open up until two weeks ago.  What you see above is only the first block.  As of right now, the snowflake is finished but the papers have to be removed and it has to still be appliqued to the background.  With how long it took me to get that far, I've already switched methods for how I prep the hexies and the project has now been downsized.  Rather than the nine blocks as the pattern shows, I'll only be doing a four block wall hanging.  The blocks are big enough that a quilt of that size will perfectly fill the space I want to display it in.  

I was inspired to try this for two reasons:  First is that it is yet another project on the Edyta Sitar/Laundry Basket Quilts obsessions list (pattern available from Paperpieces)!  Second, ever since I taught an English Paper Piecing class last year, I've wanted to do a more complex project using the technique.  While this isn't as complex as what I really want to do, it is a definite step up from the simple projects I made up as demos for the class.  

Even though it's been slower going than expected, I am really enjoying the chance to try EPP again and am shooting for getting this completed by week's end.  Fortunately, both this and the last of the planned Blue & White projects can also be considered "Winter" quilts so it's fine if this doesn't get done as quickly as hoped and the other definitely won't get started until after Christmas. 

2.  Quilting with Feathers

Back in November, Angela Walters (noted quilt industry long armer of "Quilting Is My Therapy" fame) began another of her "Free-Motion Quilting Challenges", this time on the topic of quilting Feather Motifs.  It's called "Fabulous Feathers" and she has hosted a series of tutorial videos and follow-up live chat discussions on You Tube.  In the videos, she demonstrates how to stitch various feather motifs and how to apply them to a variety of spaces within or around quilt blocks and tops.  

When she announced this, it was a case of perfect timing for me!  Back in the summer I had made this top:

I had envisioned doing feathers in the diagonal dark and light log cabin areas.  However, I wasn't totally sure how to proceed.  At the time I was making the quilt, Angela had another Challenge Series going on called "Flora and Foliage".  I tried using the feather motif from that challenge (the "Paisley Feather") but found it to be a denser stitch pattern  than I wanted to execute (a.k.a. it would take me forever to stitch out where I wanted to use it).  I also tried to do a less dense feather on my own but it wasn't looking the way I hoped.  At that point I put the project aside to "simmer" for a while until I could figure out a better plan.

As always the Quilt Muses look out for me and when Angela announced the new series, I knew this would be my path to completing this project.  Busy with other projects, I watched the first few weeks of videos and immediately saw ideas for applying her motifs to my quilt in a way that suited my taste and time.  Additionally, I had made another quilt top from the leftovers from my "Modern Bohemia" project when I was away at my MIL's back in December of 2020 that I figured would make a great "practice piece" with space to road test all the motifs!

Prior to now, I had no formal plans for the quilting on this project.  I decided that using each of the different colored panels to try out Angela's various motifs and fill techniques would be a fun way to get this one completed as well.   

So looking forward to maybe adding another couple of notches to the WIPS-B-GONE list before the year ends!