I love redwork, and I love the designs of Bobby Socks Quilt Company. Her designs are so whimsical and so much fun. Check out the website here. Fairy Tales was the BOM for 2010, and is still currently available, but I'm not sure for how much longer. I've been working on my blocks in between the applique blocks, and the Raggedy and Friends redwork BOM.
I was hoping to show my progress on the scrappy pineapple blossom quilt, but I didn't get the final borders stitched yet. I added a plain, then a pieced, then another plain border. I'm not sure what I am going to use for the final border - time will tell. I think I have enough of the fabric used in the setting triangles for the pieced borders, but I'm not sure if I like it or not. Maybe stash usage will win - who knows.
Check out everyone's design walls at Judy's blog.
I've been working hard this week, but since I decided to report fabric used when projects are completed, I have little to report!
Used this week 0 yards
Used Year to Date 29.875 yards
Added this week 0 yards
Added Year to Date 2.5 yards
Net Used 2011 27.375 yards
My jacket is partly made, but I have to use the parts as samples until all the participants in my group catch up. I pin-basted 3 baby quilts and finished the pieced border for my Pineapple Blossom quilt. Lots of fabric in the works, but nothing finished. That should change by next week!
I almost forgot.... head over to Judy's to see how everyone else is doing.
Winter is quilt show season in Florida. Some weekends there are 3 or 4 to choose from. Today DH was our driver to The Villages for their show. There is a large guild in the community, with 10 different branches, with around 1000 members! They have a great facility for their show, although like most, the lighting leaves something to be desired. There was a great variety of quilts, nice vendors, several raffle quilts, a "Chinese Auction", a silent auction of quilts and a huge boutique area. They also had a demo area, as well as a "learn to applique and handquilt" booth.
"Stars and more Stars" by Pat MacGowan. This quilt won a 1st in its category and was also voted "viewer's choice"
I made one addition to the jacket pattern - after sewing the strip sets in order, and pressing the seams in one direction, I sewed the bottom strip to the top strip to make a tube. I have done this on other bargello projects, and it makes it easier to cut the strips, and also to decide which colour should be at the top of each strip, as it changes with each new strip.
The strips are sewn to the inside of the sweatshirt. This is the beginning of a sleeve. A line was drawn vertically in the centre of the sleeve, and another drawn at right angles about 3-4 inches from the cuff. The bargello strips grow by 1/4 inch, beginning with the first cut at 1 1/4 inch wide. A 3/4 inch accent strip is stitched in between each bargello strip. I don't usually use many pins, but as you can see, I used lots in this project.
The accent strip adds interest, and makes it less obvious if the seams are not perfectly matched, but I still tried my best.
The design is beginning to emerge.
Here is one completed sleeve, except for the cuff, which will be covered in the "accent" fabric, matching the narrow strips. The rest of the pieces look like this:
They all start with a strip in the centre except the front. This begins with a narrowest strip sewn to the highest point of the shoulder seam. It builds in two directions - toward the centre and toward the sides. This allows a perfect match in the centre. It is cut into two pieces after all the sewing is complete. Some of the longer strips require an additional piece sewn to the bottom.
Unfortunately, my jacket won't be making any progress until the rest of the class catches up - our group is very flexible. When you spend the winter in Florida, you expect the occasional visitor or outing to conflict with quilting! Now I'm back to working on my scrappy pineapple block project......
This year, one of the requests was to make a quilted jacket. I had seen a fractured bargello jacket, made with a sweatshirt on a TV show, so I hunted down the pattern. It is by Nanette Weaver and is found here.
We began today by cutting up our sweatshirts, and marking the centre of each piece. The front is left as one piece until all the strips are sewn, so the front edge matches.
I think that the hardest part of this jacket for most of the quilters, was picking out the fabrics. 11 or 12 fabrics are required, plus an accent fabric.
The picture shows my choices. The fabric on the far right is my accent fabric, used for the fracture strips, as well as the sleeve cuffs and the binding on all the edges. So far, 3 have chosen batiks, and one in black and white prints with red accents. The rest didn't bring their fabric today. Those who did, managed to get the strips cut, so will probably have their strip sets together to begin sewing onto the sweatshirt parts next week. I did play a bit to reorganize the order of their fabrics. Everyone had placed them in dark to light order, but with this project, I think it looks better if you have 2 different areas of dark to light, or change from one colour to the next.
My jacket parts have to stay as samples until everyone gets started, so I won't be able to show very much progress.
These are 4 of the 48 blocks I've sewn. I had intended to make a lap quilt, but this is so much fun, and I had so many 2 inch strips in my scrap bin, that I had to make it larger!
Since Bonnie's method uses a square, stitched corner to corner to make the light triangles, I decided to double stitch the seams (add one just less than 1/2 inch from the first). That provided me with a pile of two-toned half square triangle units, just perfect for making pinwheel blocks to use in one of the borders. Since I made 48 blocks, I ended up with 48 pinwheel blocks too!
This is Miss Sophia. She comes for a visit whenever her family is going to be out all day, or occasionally overnight. She's my assistant in the sewing room today.
I just completed the hand-stitched applique on the tenth block of "Baltimore Bliss", a BOM from Fat Cat Patterns.
I've also been working on some scrappy pineapple blocks, but haven't had time to take any pictures. Pattern is found at Bonnie Hunter's website. It uses 2 inch strips and 3 1/2 inch squares - a great way to use up leftovers. Now head over to Judy's blog to see what everyone is working on now.
Here's my loaf of braided Italian bread, ready for dinner guests.
And here's the lemon meringue pie for dessert. I love lemon pie, but don't make it unless it will be eaten quickly. I use an oil pastry, made with canola oil, as I find it bakes well as a pie shell, and doesn't seem to get as soggy as regular pastry.
The stock and the roux are made, and onion, celery and green pepper chopped fine, and two pounds of shrimp. scallops and crab are waiting to become a pot of etoufee. I'm serving it over rice, with steamed broccoli. Can't wait!
I finished "Those Swingin' Cats" lap quilt, as well as a cloth book this week. I did buy fabric for binding on two baby quilts, so my results are"
Used this week 7.75 yards
Used year to date 29.875 yards
Added this week 2 yards
Added year to date 2.5 yards
Net Used 2011 27.375 yards
This cute Bazooples cloth book matches one of the baby quilt panels waiting to be quilted. I'm going to begin teaching a quilted sweatshirt jacket this week, so Monday and Tuesday will be my prep days. I'm also working on some scrappy pineapple blocks.
Check out Judy's blog to see everyone's stash report this week.
At 8:30 Friday morning, we packed lunches in the cooler, and DH and I, along with 5 other quilters from my group headed out for the show. There was a lovely variety of quilts displayed, and great vendors. I was good, and didn't buy anything. Here are a couple of my favourite quilts.
These are just a few of my favourites. There were so many beautiful quilts, and lots of scrap quilts as well. I liked the way they decided the categories, based on size. This is something that my guild needs to improve for the next show.
This little quilt was shown at a vendor. The English paper pieced hexagons are just 1/4 inch! They laser cut the papers for these tiny minis and doll quilts in several different shapes.
I think I'm on a roll! Three lap quilts in about a week!
I decided to split the border, as it was too wide. It allowed me to add some more of the hot pink fabric, and the light blue/green gave me a great place to quilt. I stitched music notes, as it is a recurring theme in the original blocks.
"Those Swingin' Cats" finished at 50x56.5. I used the darker green fabric for sashing and binding. More SITD along all the straight lines, then I outlined all the cats and the block borders with monofilament (invisible) thread. More variegated thread to stitch the musical notes. Machine quilted using my Juki, without a frame. This one was entirely made from stash - Hooray!
I also stitched a cloth book - Bazooples. I brought a panel to make the book, one to make a baby quilt and some flannel for backing as one of my "must do" projects this winter. Just found out that my best friend's niece is expecting a baby in July, so this will make a nice gift.
Another yard of fabric from my stash!
The small half-square triangle blocks were quilted with a leaf design, using variegated Rainbows polyester thread by Superior Thread.
I continued with the same type of leaf in a continuous zig-zag line in the the white border. The friendship stars were done by SITD with monofilament thread, as were the sashing strips between the blocks.
I used the same white-on-white fabric for the binding, to finish this lap quilt. The half-square triangles were leftover from a quilt I made in 2005! The best thing is that the whole project was made from my stash!
Here is the quilt I made in 2005.....
My "wall" is empty , as I have been quilting! Two quilts finished and one to go.
I call this one "Critter Churn Dash". It is lap quilt sized, and mostly quilted by SITD (stitch-in-the-ditch). I did stitch leaves in the wide gold print sashing.
I used a Rainbow polyester thread by Superior Threads for the leaf stitching - it really sparkles.
I had planned to photograph the purple and teal quilt this morning, but we are having thunder-storms, with dark threatening clouds making the morning dark. Since I usually lay the quilt on the driveway to take the picture, I'll have to wait for a better day.....
Head over to Judy's blog to see what everyone is doing today.
Finished the purple and teal quilt that I posted about here. I decided to keep it lap size, as it will probably be donated to my guild's community quilt program. I also finished the first stash quilt, using the small animal squares shown in this post. Since I decided to claim fabric as used, only when the project is completed, here's my stash report for this week.
Used this week: 13.125 yds
Used year to date: 22.125 yds
Added this week 0 yds
Added year to date .5 yds
Net used 2011 21.625
I'm off to a good start, but I know this will become harder as the year progresses! Head over to Judy's blog to check on everyone else's progress.
Several years ago, I bought 2 panels of cute cats, as a friend wanted a cat quilt. Unfortunately, she wanted realistic cats, so the panels went into the stash closet.
There are 6 different designs and 12 squares on each panel. They aren't quite square, but that's OK. Unfortunately, I couldn't leave any of the background fabric, as the cut edges were too close to the blocks.
Then I headed to EQ7, and designed a quilt, using 24 blocks. I decided to make the centre 4x5 blocks, leaving 4 blocks to use in the corners of the borders.
I pulled 3 fabrics from my stash to use with the blocks
I'll use the darker green as sashing, and the hot pink as the cornerstones. Using design software helps to audition fabrics (I just use similar colours), gives rotary cutting instructions, and estimates fabric yardage.
I completed the centre section, add the sashing and cornerstones, then added a 1 inch green border. The size and shape was limited by the number of leftover animal squares. I have none left!
Next, I opened one of my "parts" bins. I keep 2 1/2 inch strips in this one, along with orphan squares and left-over half square triangle units. I found some gold squares that were from my "One Person's Trash" quilt, and some extra rust plaid half square triangle units that were orphaned from my "Oh my Plaid Stars" quilt. I stitched these into pinwheel blocks, and added green borders to the gold squares.
I decided to alternate the blocks and add a border to the two long sides of the quilt to make it a bit wider.
Thanks to the cool Florida weather, I've managed to get two more blocks finished for my applique quilt. I'm using the "Baltimore Bliss" pattern from Fat Cat Patterns. It was a free BOM last year. I'm also getting some regular sewing done, as my room is warmed by the sun, so by about 10am, it is warm enough to sew on even the coldest day in Florida. Before long, I'll have the windows wide open and the ceiling fan running......
Check out what everyone else is working on at Patchwork Times. Thanks Judy!
Since I am new at this, I decided to only count fabric as used, when the project is finished! This will also force me to complete things in a timely fashion. Fabric added was a half-yard of batik for a jacket project (I had already picked the rest of the fabrics, but needed one more). The used fabric is from the two small projects finished this week - Meadow Breeze and Friends. Let's hope I can continue to keep ahead of the game! Check out everyone's progress at Judy's blog.
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| Used This Week | 9 |
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| Used Year To Date | 9 |
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| Added This Week | 0.5 |
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| Added Year to Date | 0.5 |
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| Net Used 2011 | 8.5 |
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For the past two years, I've been making a concerted effort to use my stash. I have forced myself to shop there before heading to the fabric store. In the fall, I made some "kits" to bring south, so that I could still work on stash, as I don't leave much fabric here over the summer.
I also searched through all the bags of "stuff" leftover from previous projects. I found some 4 inch cut squares with a different woodland animal in each. I had used these as the centres of log cabin blocks in 2004, and made a green and gold log cabin quilt (donated to the nursing home that took such good care of my Mother-in-law,) for a raffle. I counted the squares, and decided that I had enough to make 6 blocks, and use the remaining blocks as setting squares for sashing the blocks. I did a little EQ7 design, then shopped my stash for fabrics.
The blocks look like this.....
Here is a picture of the log cabin quilt, taken on a windy day....
Meadow Breeze was designed by Pat Sloan. I hand appliqued all the pieces, using a "back basting" method. Then I added some thread painting to the blocks before finishing with machine quilting. It finished 37"x37"
My second finish this year was a hand-stitched redwork panel. I found the design while going through some old files and thought it would make a wonderful gift for a friend who is having a difficult time right now. Sorry I can't give credit to the designer - info is lost!
I found the red and black music fabric, and the whole thing came together. It is machine quilted, and I even finished the binding by machine, using a blanket stitch. This little project finished 17"x14"
I've been keeping myself occupied machine quilting, and I've finished two projects in the last few days!
I had fun, stitching leaves and swirls to fill all the areas of the centre block of Meadow Breeze. First, I stitched in the ditch around all the pieces, as well as the borders and triangles, using monofilament (invisible) thread. Then I changed to a "just off white" thread to stitch the designs to fill in the spaces.
I just completed the redwork embroidery on block six of "Raggedy and Friends" BOM from The Painted Quilt blog - thanks Kaaren for your lovely designs.
Today I'm getting caught up on laundry, including washing some backing fabric for a couple of small projects, and I plan to tidy my sewing room, so I can begin some new projects!
Let's see what everyone else has on their design walls - find the links at Judy's "Patchwork Times" blog.
I decided to join Judy and friends with a weekly stash report. I've been trying to shop my stash, but one of my problems stems from spending the winters in Florida, while my stash is in my home up north! I try to bring fabric kits with me for the winter stitching, but new designs and patterns are available so often that I just HAVE to add to my stash from time to time.
Week One
Used This Week 0 yards
Used Year to Date 0 yards
Added this week 0 yards
Added year to date 0 yards
Net Used 2011 0 yards
Great start!
