43.8 More Ruler Work Observations from Beginner – MAL 2019

I am staying as true as possible to the quilt for 15 minutes challenge for the month of March – aka March A Long. The only date that might have been missed was Friday. Even on Thursday when I was feeling a little under the weather, I looked through some designs in books that have been sitting on the shelf for years.

I have been staying on my free motion / ruler work for quilting working on my practice project.

Last week I did some cross hatching, this week, I tried out the football curved ruler.

A little bit of practice every day. One day was the outline of two footballs offset on the same row, the next day was the pebbles.

I filled in the corners with this weird gap thing set aside for something and the swirls that I almost see as my default traveling pattern.

I have found that instead of a generic meander, I tend to go with swirls as a “I don’t know what filler to go next with” filler to get from place to place and to speed up.

As you may notice I have a strange red thread design in the center of these white patches.

I did this with the marking pen around the ruler for the center of the design. This was to practice using my marking pen. I am not known to do a ton of marking or registration marks on my quilting. The pen took a while to get used to being used again, but seemed to do decent with the initial design.

This was before tackling any of the “rulers on the machine” work. Then I echoed it. Three times. Uhhh… two echoes, three lines.

Anyway, I am mostly happy with the work I did on the first pass, but my echoing skills leave a lot to be desired.

I am wondering what about this is hard for me to do correctly. Is it that I go too fast, or I can’t see well enough or I just “lose where I am” a little, or am a little careless, or I try to “make up for previous passes” by making a change the next echo and then actually make it worse.

Granted, this would be better if the thread color actually matched the background.

This is a small issue I have to work out on my own. This quilt has both light and dark patches, and for some reason, I have decided to make it all symmetrical. Same shapes in each corner, same threads. Sometimes it means that the thread color contrasts, the other times it blends. More or less.

I am finding myself feeling moments of “rush” with this quilt. It is practice, I did not piece it. I do not see it hanging in my house, or given to someone else. I don’t know if it would be “good enough” to donate to the local hospital or not (for a lap quilt), I am mostly going through the motions on this quilt to really use as practice.

So I am periodically “speeding up” through some of the quilting.

When I first started, I was having lots of shredding thread issues. Because of that, I lowered the tension “way down”. So what did that cause? Eyelashes.

I went through the entire corner blue section with this rushed, low tension top which caused the back to eyelash incredibly badly throughout.

I am finding it hard to make myself stop and figure out what I am doing wrong, just getting through the section of practice without doing as much learning as I “could be.”

Since I was needing more practice echoing, I decided to use the curved rulers to help me out on echoing this.

And then finding a fill that works too. This worked well. I am amazed at how much I get confused or frustrated when turning the quilt around to the the other side of the design. Somehow now doing the same shape, in the same way, on the same kind of quilting background, I feel more frustrated on the 2nd half than the first half. Almost every time.

I am finding myself hitting the ruler on the machine, or getting it stuck behind where the foot gets in the way.

At least I figured out that the more I can do on the machine in one direction, the better off I seem to be. The first few circles/loops, I was turning all the way around instead of working “just the tops,” or “just the bottoms”.

I think if this machine was a higher shank machine with more throat space, this task would seem way easier at the moment.

Which I have to use what I have at the moment. I need to start a fund for getting either a Juki or something bigger like a sit down 16 HQ. But that, being down the road a bit, will have to wait. It’s hard to say, because I do really like piecing a LOT, and designing a LOT, and for those activities I only need the machine I have now.

I hate to come away from this post feeling negative about the whole experience. I am not feeling that way necessarily.

This is fun, I might need to figure out how to move on to my real projects pretty soon though. Keep my tension in check. Watch for my foot slipping off the screw and falling down – something that happened this morning and caused issues trying to get through some of the tough seams on the underside in particular.

This is really nice, and I am glad I am working on this, and I know in a few short weeks I will be piecing again.

This is my stopping point at the moment. I need to get on and do a few other things this weekend. I have a plan for the other four corners in this section, and I have three of them to do still. I really hope this practice quilt doesn’t take the entire month of March to quilt, but as long as I March-A-Long and keep at it, I will eventually be done! And I will have a nice reference too!

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43.4 Sukey’s Reverse Quilt Top Completed!

After coming back from a much needed vacation, I set up to finish the quilt top for the Sukey’s Reverse quilt for the guild. Last post, I was waiting for some blocks, and with special guidance, was able to ask for last minute help getting the blocks done and to me in the deadline I set for myself.

So, just before leaving on vacation, I was secure in knowing I had the blocks in my possession, and the weekend I got back, was able to “vacation de-stress” and make my “at home” quilting retreat to work on the final borders and layout and quilt top for the Sukey’s Reverse quilt.

First, I made some of what I called, “magic sashing”. 

The very edges of the quilt, I made a 1.5″ strip with mostly white, but with “cornerstones” on each side of 1.5 by 1.5 so that the sashing is the same size as the final unfinished quilt block: 12.5″ Pieces added were 10.5 X 1.5

This finished out the larger block design on the outside edge.

Another guild member made several of these “inset border” blocks, just the same small block pieces that were in the rest of the quilt. I tested out the “seminole piecing” technique of surrounding these blocks by triangles cut by a quarter square triangle method.

These borders were fun and it’s always fun to “fudge” the numbers of each color needed for the side of the quilt. The quilt is based in blues, so the swirly blue is the main color in the border. But the quilt is also based in some other cool colors, and it was fun to put them into the quilt in addition.

By surrounding the block by the same color as the white (one of the colors of the four patch) the two colored pieces appear to “float” in the quilt. Since I was doing the seminole piecing, I decided one side of the triangles would be the same background, and the other side would be colored. This also makes the pieces appear to float in the middle of the border without being too wild or hard to do.

By the end of the weekend I came back, I had the whole top together and pinned to my design wall, and all the pieced borders of the quilt done. Notice how the center fabric was one fabric I had in my stash that leans purple, and somewhere in the middle on each side, is one or two fabrics that lean blue green, but the rest are blue.

The following weekend, or maybe it was the one after, I was able to attend a sewing day and get a “stay solid border” in between on the edge of the quilt.

I had electric quilt calculated the number of blocks needed for the quilt as I had made, and then got a rough idea of the full size of the inner border of the quilt.

I was originally going to make the dark border a little narrower, but tried to “size up” a little bit to try to match the pieces on the outside.

I was close. So very close. Different adjustments might have had to be made as necessary.

Turns out each pieced border was 0.25″ too long. Trimming it up, I now have added my quilt borders shown above to the edge of the quilt.

The edge of each of the side borders is also the same background color as the rest of the background. This made it really easy to be able to trim up my slightly too long pieced borders without sacrificing the design. Also lucky me that after sewing was only 0.25″ off!

I was going to add one more dark border (hard to see in the picture above, but dark blue/blue-purple is the inside border).

This quilt is measuring 103.25 by 90.25. and this part is done up to here. I am hoping to turn it over to the quilter to have it done in the late winter/early spring for the 2019 fundraising.

Lots of work, a few “rouge blocks”, lots of cajoling or reminders of getting the blocks back, and lots more organization than I really wanted to do.

At the end, I did push my guild members to get the blocks done. But contrastingly, I did push myself to get the rest of the quilt done also. Most large chunks of spare time on the weekends so far in the last month and a half have been doing something more on my part of this quilt.

I was pretty exhausted this year doing all this guild work for 2018. Doing a large part of putting together the guild show and putting this together also, not a great idea to do both around the same time frame. Maybe if there was only one or the other, it would have been a little more manageable.

A few personal items in my life early in the year, and extra hobbies this year have pushed everything so squished for 2018.

But even with all the issues, prodding, pattern writing stress, I am happy with the quilt as it is. I find it funny that my extremely scrappy blocks made first almost look out of place. But not. Not really. So many “quilt philosophies” here. I love group quilts and seeing everyone’s creativity!!!!

I haven’t quite finished the updated instructions on the borders. It’s been a mish-mash of pictures and ideas so far which I haven’t edited down to a complete item. And it turns out that the borders fit better than I originally planned as they were actually cut.

I am going to miss having Sukey’s Reverse quilt in the house! I will need to do a major amount of donations to be able to get the quilt back! Or I could make a second one. A year from now the quilt will be drawn for. A large year and fun year of this quilt in the making.

I am also going to be happy moving on to something else for a while!!!

43.2 Waiting game for last of the opportunity quilt blocks

Racing back to the opportunity quilt my guild is putting on, I put down in a post a lot of feelings I have had about working on the quilt. Currently (at the moment of writing, not the moment of posting) waiting on 7 blocks to show up in my hands to finish the center of the quilt top we are working on. I have decided (at the moment of writing) to have faith that the blocks others have signed up to do are done. I designed the quilt, ended up making the deadline for the blocks middle of September, and now am in a waiting game for the last blocks to show up in my hands to be able to put the top together with the extended deadline of next weekend.

I am re-releasing my thoughts here about working on the quilt top. A lot of it I feel are current blocks I am trying to work through on my own about my own failings, and what types of things I am personally working through that have come up with the working on this quilt. Most are how I feel about myself. Of note: I got into a huge fight with one of my friends while working on this quilt and with the guild this year. Because of my feelings towards myself, and my attitudes and my expectations. I know I do show some judgement of others below. Hopefully it doesn’t come off as too strong to anyone but myself. Comments shared word for word elsewhere are in italics.

Feel free to skip this post if you aren’t interested in quilting with self reflection.

The quilt is called Sukey’s Reverse, and it is re-designed from a generic block called Sukey’s choice from a block I got somewhere in some calendar or post. To my knowledge, this block doesn’t exist out there yet to any kind of popularity.

Thoughts on my adventures of “ being in charge of the group opportunity quilt”. Have been spending the extra time this weekend on getting parts made for the borders of the group quilt to be ready for when all the blocks magically show up in the next week. Also prepared to angel yet another two blocks in case I don’t get them by Friday. As in, one extra block is done and will go in my own quilt if they all come back, completed as promised, and the other block all the dark rectangular and square pieces are together. I have already signed up and made 4 blocks for this quilt already, and started looking at options for the “too small” blocks, of which I think I have found 2. No one seemed interested in helping with the pieced borders, which is fine, not everyone’s taste, but it is good to get started on some of the pieces already. I also have some “magic sashing” and cornerstones to do to finish out the design just before the rest of the pieced borders. I have yet to sit down and actually measure any one of these blocks to the “correct size”, but along the wall the other day, no one block stood out as being extra big either.

I think some of my stress is not physically being able to be present at the October meeting, and wanting the top done by the last meeting of this year. (In November) I have had fun with it, in the design, but not necessarily in the constant going back and picking up blocks part of this quilt. I think a lot of it is because if I don’t work “really hard” at being organized, I am forgetful enough that I do get off track more than I should. It has been a testament of faith trying to wait for people to make them. Here is hoping that the faith is not misplaced. I am happy enough with the blocks I have that I can shorten up the quilt now if I would absolutely need to in a pinch. Nonetheless, I still have angel blocks in the wings. I am extremely grateful for the ladies who not only promised to fill the last remaining spots that no one else seemed anxious to fill, but for getting them done and to me as well already. Now is a sitting and waiting game for the rest of the blocks by the deadline of next Friday.

This year, I have completely overextended myself with my activities with the guild, taking on this, taking on the organization and entry of the quilts for the local show. It has felt like this year, my extra time has not been mine. With a very small exception of a month or two at most. I realize a lot of this is my own fault, my own complications, my own overexplanations that no one will listen to, my own constant need to ‘oversacrifice’ to prove to others that I am worthy or worth any attention. I have been known for getting attention for my quilts and my quilting, and my designs, and so I have leaned on that hard to “validate my self worth”.

(Some of this over-sacrifice has even lead to my insistence that I was eventually going to “figure out the borders” later. Even though I had a design that had good borders that I liked. But no time did I really ever give everyone the “here’s how to make the borders” part of the quilt, and no time except for the first pass around of the sign up list in March did I ever again ask for people’s help doing the borders) Which means I do have another thing to do now. I am currently ‘reworking’ part of the  borders of this quilt.

I know that I don’t do a lot of things for other people, and see these acts of service as “helping the greater good”. A lot of quilters that I know make quilts for others as a regular part of their quilting lives, and I can’t get a chance to finish anything I have started. But some of that is because of this. I do tend to keep the smaller quilts I make. There is also lingering guilt that I never got a quilt made for her before she passed on, and that my indecision in things never gets anything completely made unless I have a deadline, or unless other people are counting on me.

(I wrote once fully, and then rewrote smaller two separate versions of the pattern for this quilt).

(I was very excited to get the instructions down to one page, but yes, I did just say we’re going to do the borders later in the instructions, and then put a picture of the original block there). Being asked now by one of the people who have been done and wanting to help as of now).

Then I start thinking about how the whole opportunity quilt thing works.

I wonder how easy it will be to be sitting selling tickets for this quilt next year at the large quilt show, and how I will handle any off-hand remark from others about not liking the quilt after putting this much work and effort towards it. And I wonder how I will feel when it leaves the guild’s hands completely at the end of the year next November. Oh, am I supposed to be the one who organizes people to sit with this at other guild’s shows to show it off to sell tickets to it? I hardly want to think about adding that type of task to my list as well next year. I hate that type of task, and am slightly hoping that once this quilt top is made and at the quilter’s it becomes someone else’s issue to deal with. I suppose I can ask, but there is a nagging feeling that no one else will want to do that part either, and it will also fall to me, but we will see.

(picture below me sitting at the last opportunity quilt at the event described above)

Something about quilting that is somewhat unique is the sheer amount of planning, preparation, doing of tasks to get a piece like this done. As with any art, it has gone through many hopes and dreams, many aspirations, many variations and explanations. A lot of thought goes into this. Including the “oh, I haven’t finished my part in this”, and the “why hasn’t everyone even signed up to do this” and now the ecstatic joy to see the matching fabrics contrasting the ‘very, very scrappy’ fabrics, the possibilities, and even the condescending comments about how I am over explaining too much again in effort to be helpful, but also sting slightly. Which is nothing new to hear, but still hard to hear as well. In addition to the blow up over a promise that didn’t get fulfilled in the time frame as well. In these hopes and dreams and feelings, are each stitch, all these promises of getting things done, of helping others, of the greater good, and of “getting this thing off my plate already so I can get going working on something else for once” too.

Just a quilt, huh? Just a blanket? Something pretty on the wall. Or on the bed, or on the couch, or hopefully not, in the dog bed. I just hope the person who draws the # for it has an appreciation of it. I was glad to be a part of this quilt, and hope someone else can carry the “weight” of it next year!

(Not so sure I will abstain from doing designing and collecting of blocks the following year. I have been overwhelmed for the timing of both the quilt show and the opportunity quilt being the same, similar time frame, in 2018. I am sincere in hoping others will be able to manage the distribution and sale of this quilt I am working on now for the time of 2019. Timing of the next opportunity quilt will also fall on the same year as the local show, 2020, of which, I still hope to be a major part of that project.) Not sure now how I feel about that right now.

As someone said, I shouldn’t have to do it alone. I don’t know why I always struggle to ask for specific help. Somehow, it’s a part of who I am – or so I think. If I work on the skill of figuring out what specific help to ask for, and being specific on what is needed, then maybe I will be able to ask and receive the help. But, sometimes, the anxious part of my brain is worried that things will fall through and will be on my shoulders again at the end anyway. In all honesty. If I can figure out how to quiet that part, or work with it, instead of against it, things might feel more peaceful.

I have been surprised at my feelings of waiting for blocks the last week and a half. I have said to myself and at least one other, “I have to have faith they will arrive.”

41.2 Some stitching at home

So it seems like lately I have been wanting to be under the radar in about all areas of my life, so, naturally, no blog posts. Whoops.

The weather being nice, and the prompting of Tabletop day, and the various activities for others have kinda kept me from sewing. That is, unless I employ the “March a long” strategy of sewing after work and sewing daily. Which doesn’t /didn’t happen after March this year.

Anyway, I have a few sewing objectives in the last month. My small quilt was picked to be part of the guild group for the upcoming Kansas City Regional Quilt Festival (KCRQF) in less than a month. And it wasn’t finished quilting.

I did get a start on this right away beginning of april. I did the long figure 8’s and the long thin lines, as what I had decided a year ago on my quilting diagram.

But then I went to change it up on the alternate blocks from my original plan.

And this is not my best work here, but I really liked the way it brought a different dimension to the quilt with a different type of design. And I froze on it. For a while.

Finally decided to press on and complete this quilt. I took one long weekend day to get all the rest of the blocks done, and then put the binding on while sewing at my friend’s house.

I forgot to take a picture of this with the binding sewn all the way back.

I have since turned it into my guild so they will have it by the time they need it for the show. Next picture I will have will be of it in the show itself. Here’s hoping it still looks ok after not seeing it for a month. I did a large rush job to get it finished by the end of the guild meeting in May, and I’m not proud of that, but it is what it is.

Here’s an up close version of the quilting/quilt.

It’s a fun and cute little quilt made with alternating blocks, one of which is called footstool, and one is Grandma’s Choice (modified). So naturally the quilt name is: Grandma’s Footstool.

I didn’t make a fancy label for it – usually my quilt labels are printed on from electric quilt onto that printable fabric, but for this one, I just used a pigma micron pen for marking the label.

And finally, I got some good quilt fabric for my ladders and bubbles quilt for the border blocks.

I went to a quilt shop to help a friend design a quilt for her church, bought a plain blue (with green tint). Later I went to a small quilt show which then prompted me to go to another quilt shop in the area, and actually I found fabric that I liked even better for the borders.

This is still in the planning and cutting stage, but mainly I spent time ironing the fabric down to be manageable after getting it prewashed.

So now, instead, I’ve been wanting to piece, and wanting to work on older stuff. The blocks that I have been staring at for a while now found their way into my sewing machine.

I did massacre the points on this quilt, and if it’s for me, I don’t care. I am considering this as our guild auction quilt for next year’s show for our charity work. It’s small and bright and cheery. And now will need quilted. Or I may not donate it if I think the cut off points show way too little care. The unfinished size of the block was 1.5 inches each.

Trying to get other things off my design wall, I decided to next work in stages on the single patch quilt that is the other quilt with these same batik/black leftover quilt bit blocks.

I have batched them to help me sew these up better. I don’t really care too very much about colors except for orange. I have an orange stripe (3 of them) that I am trying to keep in diagonal ripples in this quilt. I am actually not batching them in the end, just for the temporary time before all the seams are sewn.

I find it cathartic to sew one line of new patches, one line of double patches, and then one line of 4 patches, then I go back to the single new patches, and I am rippling my way through the quilt. I do this so I can keep each line of patchwork straight. I can easily tell what I am sewing and where the next line of patches I need to sew are, and where the newly sewn patches can go.

I am curious to know exactly how much fabric I will lose to the seam allowance. This will also be a nice wall hanging but not super big in the very end. But that’s ok with me, easier to swap out in the rest of the house that way!

Well there is more to share, but this is enough! Thanks for letting me share my quilting progress. The past few days are more “march a long” and doing sewing during the work-week as a heads up for the nice long memorial day weekend coming up!

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38.9 Quilt Accomplishments for 2015 – the Year of Scraps

I would like to recap my 2015 quilt related accomplishments. Many of them are tops, I really did little to no Free Motion Quilting during the year of 2015. I did have three quilts quilted during the year.

Some of the blog posts I was about a month or two behind. Usually I am finding myself sewing or surfing with my extra time, or board game playing, or football watching, or video game playing, or playing solitaire on my phone, or chatting with ladies from 4 other quilting states at the big quilt show this year.

You get the picture. Distractions abound.

From the beginning of the year, I did spend a lot of my weekends quilting, even if they weren’t documented immediately afterwards.

I will try to recap my quilt life 2015, using some familiar pictures, some new.

I started off with the last round of the Twilter Round Robin quilt I was working on for Diane.

I did the last bargello style border (green to blue waves). I drafted this from graph paper. I made more work for myself than I needed to because of the multilevel greens that I added.

I completed the quilt top for fellow quilter (and also once “quilt” podcaster) who lost her husband suddenly in the fall of 2014.

Looking back through my archives, I can’t believe that I forgot to blog about this quilt. It was meant as a nice surprise for Ruthann. She wanted something “green and sciencey”. I had seen this quilt in a book I got in 2014. I had emailed a bunch of other people in our group, most of which remembered Ruthann, but not all of them had.

I had a list of the strip sizes I needed, and instead of the other people sending me “completed blocks” I asked if they could send strips and/or strip sets. I was amazed at what was sent on this quilt.

And I did lots of extra work, cutting up and only using a portion of what was presewn  for me just so I could have a lot of variation on the quilt.

I completed the top in early January, and completed the finished quilt in May, after our meetup with Jackie from Sew Excited Quilts quilted this quilt (and one other) for me.

I had overestimated the size of making 5 full DNA strips, so the last one became a “bed runner” which was quilted separately by me at home.

In Feb, at the annual guild retreat, I finally finished my borders and my backing for my Royal Red King’s Puzzle quilt.

In March, I translated the quilting pattern from my Dancing ribbons quilt to ceramics. I need to mount this.

I also finished the borders on my weave quilt after figuring out how to do the ends.

I brought a small quilt I had worked on a few years ago, a disappearing four patch quilt, to the lady who was quilting my Royal Red quilt. Sandy from Artfully Quilted did the honor for me for the red quilt, and also works on donation quilts for the local hospital. I was happy to donate my disappearing four patch, even though I was originally going to practice free motion quilting on it.

I think sometime I worked on the back for the weave quilt, I didn’t finish it, but I got some pieces together for it. I usually piece my backings so I don’t buy the extra large fabrics that often. But it takes some time.

April I made some things for the quilt show, in addition to another quilt block for another quilty podcaster.

I also received my fantastic Round Robin quilt back and in the squeak of time, got arrangements for this quilt to be in the regional festival. I think I was on top of the world one minute of the day, and I was crying in disappointment the other part of the day. This quilt, didn’t almost make it into the show, and I am blessed that things either worked out for it to be there, or someone gave up a spot or something else happened to allow me to have the quilt in the show. Anyhow I can only take credit for the center, some of the fabrics, and the tiny outside border.

May was the finish for the show, getting all these quilts ready with labels, sleeves, and everything prior to June. It was also time for me to get extra wound up for inviting some friends to Kansas City area.

May I also met with Jackie for our (now annual sorta) sewing day at her studio!

June was our regional quilt festival, and fantastic meetup with friends and with guildmates, seeing other friends’ quilts and making new friends.

In July I finalized my “watermelon dresden” pattern for myself, and worked on getting my studio organized, and set myself up for the fall of scrappy quilts.

August, I was getting myself organized and sewing all the 16 patches that eventually became my Arkansas Crossroads quilt. And getting more strings for the hashtag quilt swap.

And I was starting to make shoo flys for the disappearing shoo fly quilt.

I also took some time out to make a few small blocks for other small projects. These went to different quilts for different projects, but are both definitely “my” style.

I made my hashtag blocks to be sent out to the twilter swap.

And received some different ones in return.

Then the end of the year I started sewing together all the scrappy pieces I was working on in the fall.

I think I just blogged about unsewing and resewing my Winslow’s Corners quilt, which took up some of my November time.

I experimented but haven’t yet committed on a low contrast, but high saturation scrap chevron quilt. (still in many smaller pieces)

One weekend I looked at all the scraps I had left over from Ruthann’s quilt in the spring and put together a different top for picnicking.

And on Thanksgiving day, got my Watermelon Dresden quilt layout figured out with actual fabric pieces I am working on.

Currently I am in a “small battle” (with myself) as I ran out of the background fabric needed to make the quilt. The shop that sold it to me in November, I called, and they don’t have the same fabric anymore. I am working out how to do it since I started some of the border pieces already in one fabric.

Actually, the quilt will have lots of background space due to how I set the border pieces. I figure there will be lots of room for background quilting on this quilt.

And since I am writing this in January, I will hold off on my latest quilt block project. That is actually finished – for January anyway.

Oh… and in April, just before all the mess for the quilt show started, I attempted to quilt my Samurai Sudoku quilt. But I was having a bad day, things weren’t lining up right. I haven’t yet told myself to rip out and start over on the quilting, but I almost have. I have been avoiding the longarm rental since I have to make a decision on this quilt that I will not like to make right now.

38.8 Winslow’s Corners quilt an Arkansas Crossroads pattern

The end of 2015 was surrounded by creating quilt tops of the “scrap” genre.

Quilts with lots of different fabrics in them, sometimes color controlled, sometimes completely random.

I readily obtain many 2.5 inch blocks by my “cut out strips” method of using fabric for projects. I know the value in 2.5 inch squares and so tend to cut squares into this shape when I have no set purpose for these squares.

 

I have posted about this top a few times already, but I did finish the top at my recent Arkansas retreat.

I was trugging along, trying to get everything sewn down, I knew how I wanted the borders to match the rest of the quilt.

As you may be able to see the quilt is a simple idea.

• Alternating 16 patches filled with all the scrappy 2.5 patches I sewn together earlier the past summer
• Alternating x blocks made of 4 album blocks “pointed” inward together
• Borders consisting of each piece being a “half album” block with the two corners together

This is how I organize this quilt in my head when making it.

I have noticed it is starting to become “popularized” – aka I have been seeing it on some websites, or mainly the quilting group on FB as a single block, rather than 2 blocks of different styles.

Either way works, it depends on how the maker would prefer to work on the designs.

I made my album blocks by a simple paper piecing method. Very easy to paper piece.

In fact, I would recommend this quilt to anyone who wanted to learn a little bit about paper piecing. Not too many tiny paper pieces, the quilt seems satisfying in scope when done.

In any event, while at my November retreat, I was in a rush to complete the quilt and I didn’t consider “row placement”.

I ended up with my X blocks (four album blocks) on the outside corners. All of them.

So the very corners are these silly little hour glass type things.

I finished the quilt top, but I didn’t really like the corners of my Winslow’s Corners all that much.

But then later that month, I was thinking. And thinking.

I figured out a relatively easy way to correct the corners on Winslow’s corners.

Since both edges ended up being off, if I would remove the last row on one side, move it to the other side, scooting it down some, remove both small borders.

I had some “downtime” aka non-internet non-machine sewing time planned for the Thanksgiving holiday, I could unpick all the edges, get the quilt prepared, and then just had to do a few quick seams after black friday.

So that’s what I did, picked off one border, took a whole row including the border, scootched it over to the opposite side of the quilt.

The left over border on my “left” in the picture above is good since I removed the “offending row” and put it on the right.

And scootched it down by one block.

You can see from here, I still had to pick out the extra X block, and I had to quick make an extra 16 patch block.

But only minor changes from this point and now the quilt top has much better border corners.

No funny corners on my Winslow’s Corners quilt.

Did I mention why I am calling the quilt Winslow’s Corners? My annual fall retreat is in Winslow, Arkansas. And the quilt pattern is sometimes named Arkansas Crossroads.

 

38.7 What happens when you disappear a shoo fly block

I have been sewing shoo fly blocks as leaders and enders for several months during other projects.

I started with two 5 inch blocks, right sides together. I did the trick where you sew around the edges of the pieces, then cut diagonally both directions.

A result is 4 half square triangles that are sewn with the bias edges on the outside.

I trimmed these 4 pieces down to a size of 3″ unfinished.

Then I collected groups of 4 squares for the background fabric – white in this case – also cut to 3″ unfinished, and a random assortment of colored middles – also cut to 3″ unfinished.

I had these piles of blocks done for most of the summer, just grabbing and sewing together these shoo fly blocks over and over. As you can see a shoo fly is a 9 patch block with the 4 half square triangles on the outside corners. The outside corners color matching the background squares in the middle of each 9 patch block.

At the retreat I recently attended, I put them up on the “design wall” with a possible plan that I had tried not to talk myself out of over the last few weeks.

I saw a design first on Pintrest, a disappearing shoo fly block from Tuxedo Designs blog.

So that’s what I did, I cut the shoo fly into squares, sewed them all back together to make the disappearing shoo fly quilt.

Here’s a picture of the quilt as it was on the wall before it was sewn.

As you can see, I tested it out first using just 4 blocks (leftover blocks), so I have a mini quilt from this too!

And here, as a “tabletopper”.

I honestly don’t know why this design isn’t more popular. It’s pretty easy to do and I love the resulting rows that come from it.

Really once you get the quarter blocks made, they only rotate two ways, up and to the left, and down and to the right, alternating each row/column.

How fun is this top?!

37.3 Finishing the old inspires the new

One major benefit of my annual March-A-Long is that often times to help fulfill my self requirement of 15 minutes of sewing a day, that I dive onto Quilter’s Cache or into EQ7 and start looking at new quilts, new blocks, new ides, new patterns.

Also, working on the long-ago formed Weave Quilt last month, made me think about other quilts that I have been close on. Figuring out what steps need to be done to finally finish those that are close or “oh so close” that sit in the corner unused, unadmired.

I have been wanting to get back to work on the longarm again, but to do that, I needed a quilt that was ready with a finished backing. I end up piecing like “all” of my backs for some reason or another, I don’t like buying backing fabric.

And I have been about 16 inches short on a back for my samurai Sudoku quilt for a few years now. So close. I have the pattern for the quilting picked out, I have the hours prepaid for renting time on the long arm.

But my aversion to phones & appointments, and the not finished back has kept me down, kept me from getting another bed sized quilt done.

Until this past weekend. Whoo! The back of this monster is done!

This does not fit in my living room.

Luckily, I just had to make the backing a little larger. I hope it is square enough.

I even sewed the zippers on because I knew I wanted to quilt this one next.

As much fun as it would be to do custom quilting on this quilt, I don’t have the time or energy to do so, I have a large pantograph for this quilt that I bought a few years ago when I finished the border.

And finally I had an open day off with nothing else planned, and so decided to call to rent time on the long-arm.

Thanks to the guild for having a long-arm panel this last month and opening up the conversation to getting quilts done that way.

And I have an appointment for friday. I hope I remember it all! I think I will!

And then since I was on a “finishing up borders kick” I decided to stop where I was on the gemini sky quilt, which in my mind I had been wanting something else on the borders than what I had already done.

And I finished pieces for the backing on this quilt too. since I was thinking about backings.

So I have another quilt ready for the quilting stage. 🙂

And then thought of 2 other things to do to other quilts, other ideas for new quilts. Neither of which are matched up yet, and I misplaced something I need for one thing.  My hand appliqued hot air balloon has the perfect backdrop once I figure out where I stashed it.

I am excited to get these old items done & done. Then I can say I completed more than like 1 quilt in 2015.

I would like to do more of these. Maybe as a series.

And since I wanted a “dice bag” for my carcassonne tiles. I made 2. One for me and one to sell at the quilt show. 2nd one is the same, but not pictured here.

Anyway, wish me luck. I am heading friday to quilt the samarai sudoku quilt, and then saturday to play tabletop games for tabletop day. Looking forward to my long weekend of fun!

36.9 Weave On took over March-A-Long

I am not certain how or why, but possibly when I was doing the ceramics last week on my day off, I woke up the following day with a solution to a 4 year old problem. Well probably a 2 year old quilting problem.

Four years ago, I, on a whim, made a quilt with 3 main colors, blue, red & yellow. I improvised a pattern that I saw online, but I couldn’t have told you who or what then, all I know is I made what I called a Weave quilt.

Then I came up with a variation on borders that I have seen several places that involved paper piecing & bias tape. I made lots of these border blocks using 3 fabrics for the borders that I also bought on a whim.

It turned out that I didn’t plan ahead on borders, I was originally when I bought the fabric, thinking I would do inner, middle & outer border in plain sizes.

This often happens, I was starting to run out of red fabric in the borders, but I wasn’t all the way around the whole quilt.

So then I decided to well, stop making the weave borders that I had planned & already started. And then I needed to come up with a clever end to this pattern, this quilt.

That was 2 years ago. I am certain I talked of this quilt before on this blog before at least once or twice.

Any event, the ephiphany happened and now I suddenly gotten taken over by this quilt, a desire to finish it before guild (tonight) pushed aside plans on both Sunday and today (my day off this week instead of Saturday).

It still took a good chunk of time on Sunday, and I did some unsewing of blocks once I figured on size, and measuring, and drawing what to do both on paper & EQ7.

I had figured out the two corner blocks a while ago, but hadn’t made them.

The ends are little applique circles of the fabric I had stored with this quilt.

The biggest compromise I had to make with myself is not floating the border in blue fabric. I still wish I could have done it that way, but I completely didn’t have enough of the same blue, and I do like that the red just trounces off the edge of the quilt while the yellow stays connected.

Wow it feels great to get this done. My March-A-Long which I was only going to work for 15 minutes turned out to be another full weekend of mostly quilting. That is both good and bad.

I could feel an urge to get this done before the guild, to finish it off before my mind was tired of working on it. It really only needed the bordered finished and then attached.

More borders, who would have thought? I wonder if any more quilts only need borders on them? I could get a lot of these UFO’s to the next stages.

36.6 I am Planning on Entering Kings Puzzle quilt in a Regional Show!

Hey everyone! Long time no see here.

I have been working on projects for others. Until 2 weeks ago, I went to a retreat, and I finally finished up the borders on my Royal Red Kings Puzzle quilt.

And I have a great picture of it. Okay, still slanted, but I may have actually gotten the reds & greys close to accurate — do you know how hard it is to photograph such a graphic quilt?

Ta-Da!

Anyway, there is a regional show here in Kansas City. The Kansas City Regional Quilt Festival.

I was tired of deadlines and not wanting to think about the quilt show, so I bailed for the guild selection of quilts. However, after I brought this beauty out at the guild retreat, I had more than one person come up & tell me this quilt needed to be entered.

The show for judged quilts is first come, first served, it is not juried. There are also guild entries that each guild selects to represent their guilds. I was hesitant when we decided to vote on quilts for the guild, but now I am sticking my neck out there wider & getting this quilt judged! AS long as it makes it in time.

I am heading to fill out the form right now, as soon as I am done with this post. First day for postmark on the quilts is tomorrow, so hopefully the mail here won’t be too slow for my entry to show up late at the headquarters. We do have a slow mail system, but I can’t mail it until Monday afternoon.

Anyway, for those of you keeping reference, the pattern of the center of this quilt is called King’s Puzzle, made by Lois Hatleberg. I contacted her and she is fine with me putting this quilt in the show.

And since I had all the extra dark reds I collected to find the last border, I pieced the backing into also a square. I tried to go from light to dark, inside to out.

This quilt will be the first one that I don’t do start to finish. I know I could figure out & work through quilting this quilt on my own, but since I want some form of custom work on this quilt, and I don’t own a long arm, and it takes me enough time loading & unloading when I rent the long arm, that I would get frazzled doing this sort of work in a shop where everyone could see me.

So I am reaching out to Artfully Quilted by Sandy Morgan Cockrum to quilt this quilt. We’re meeting to discuss next week. Here’s hoping that meeting goes as planned on both sides. She does amazing work and may work well for this “modern style” quilt. I do have to figure out what category this is going into. Maybe modern? There aren’t many categories.

In Other Quilt Show news:

The show is also making me extra excited because several #twilter friends are going to come & make a special trip for a meetup! What a great day when I found out they were coming!

If you’re coming, buy tickets through the website rather than in person if you can. Or I assume you can contact me & I can get you the tickets myself once I have them to sell.

The website for the show is http://kcrqf.com

Looking forward to it. Maybe I’ll see YOU there! And if so, maybe you’ll see MY quilt? I hope so!