Delaford - by Katrina Hadjimichael

 As if I do not have anything to work on, I have started a new project, designed by Katrina Hadjimichael called Delaford.  When I first saw this quilt on her website, I knew it was destined to be in my projects, but had to wait until she offered if for sale to the public.  She does the workshops for new patterns and does not release them until at least a year of workshops - so I patiently waited.  Oh how I would love to attend one of her workshops - but they are all in Australia or England.

I had been collecting fabric for awhile now in anticipation of starting the project.  I love the Bohemian fabric I found at SewEndipitous and have added some batiks to it to complete my palette todate.  I have started working on the border beside the flowers, mainly because I wanted an EPP project to take places, and had none in process (well I do have that pi quilt, but I keep forgetting about it.)  

This is my fabric palette to date, I am sure I will probably add more.

So here is the border as shown in the picture above:

And the one using my fabrics:

My background color not showing up so great, but it is a pale yellow - the color of butter.  I am using white in the blocks and the white will show up other places on the quilt as well.  These are not sewn to the border fabric yet, and will be spaced correctly.  I am excited to have begun working on the quilt :)

I am also progressing on my second Dear Jane Quilt - making this one as a teaching quilt for a class I am currently conducting.  I have completed all 169 blocks (made between mid-October thru mid-February) which was a feat for me, considering my first DJ took me three years to get to that point.  I am now working on the triangles and 26 of the 52 completed. I completed the last two after I took this picture.  This is the top and bottom borders.

Also trying to keep progress moving along on my Americana Sampler quilt and completed these blocks since my last club meeting on February 8:

.....and one last picture of my progress on my guild's block of the month.  A quilt called Lasting Legacies and I am doing mine from my stash of batiks.  There are the March blocks:

Ahhhhhhh....quilting

 There is something so soothing to my spirit when hand quilting.  I just sit in quiet and hand quilt - enjoying the relaxing peace and thinking of my many blessings.  God is so good to me!

Hampton Court Table Runner

 Last night I completed the Hampton Court Table Runner, designed by Katrina Hadjimichael of Australia.  She is one of my favorite designers and I have a gorgeous quilt-in-waiting named Delaford which will be my next project. All the flowers are English Paper Pieced and then hand appliqued to the background.

I used fabric from my stash that has gold metalic designs, hand quilted it with gold metallic thread and added a string of gold seed beads around the border.  Following are some close up pictures of the flowers, beading and a couple of the hand quilting on the back.

Dear Jane Squares done

Today I made M11 Dear Jane block and that finished up all the small square blocks for me.  I did not do them in order, but rather in what I thought was Easy - Medium - Complex.  I started this around Mid-October and finished the squares this morning.  The blocks are sewn into rows, but I have not sewn the rows to each other yet.

I have 4,382 pieces so far.  Not using sashing but putting borders around the blocks and then squaring to
5 1/2" , which is what I believe Jane Stickle did.   

Now - on to Triagles for the borders!

I have also started a Block of the Month my Guild (York County Quilters Guild) is hosting called Lasting Legacy.  Doing mine scrappy style from by Batik stash  and also some bright "near" solids I have been saving in my stash.  Each month we make the same block twice.  Here is Block 1.  I have challenged myself to not foundation paper piece these block like I usually would, but work on my machine piecing skill in making 1/4" seams.  I am not the best at being precise, but these came  out ok.

Goodness - Where as my time gone?

 I can't believe I have not posted since October - it cannot have been that long!

Since then, I have started hand quilting my GFG quilt - but I notice two of my fingers had gone numb on my left hand.  Mentioned this to may doctor who sent me to a neurologist, who diagnosed nerve damage in my hand originating from a pinched nerve in my left elbow.  This will require surgery to fix, but really????  I have no pain, just two numb fingers. The neurologist and my doctor have both told me to either have surgery, or risk losing the use of my left hand as it will have permanent nerve damage that will continue to get worse.  The neurologist also told me to stop doing any handwork - which is like telling me to stop breathing.  My new year's resolution is to take care of this problem.

Needless to say, I continue to hand quilt, embroider and work on other projects.  There is just so much time I can spend reading and I am still concerned about going out among crowds because of the Covid, and now flu.  Most of shopping is on-line, except visits to the grocery store and quilt shop to get essentials.  I do my grocery shopping early in the morning (like 7:00 when Food Lion opens) to avoid crowds and sanitize that cart handle when I go in. Sigh.....I am probably over-doing it, but I do what I feel is the least I can do.

I am enjoying quilting on my GFG.  This is the first time I designed my own appliqued border.  I am using different colors of thread for the quilting.  To get the colors I needed I ordered some 40wt aurifil fabric and am not happy with it as it breaks too easily.  I use Coats & Clark hand quilting thread when I could find the right color and am trying some Gutermann hand quilting thread that I am very satisfied with.  Below are some pictures of my quilting and borders.

I also started another Dear Jane quilt in October and have completed  over 130 of the 169 quilt center blocks.  I agreed to start a Dear Jane club in October which will begin in February and felt the need to make blocks again if I plan to teach them.  I finished my first quilt in 2019 - so I definitely needed a refresher.  Looking forward to sharing this project with others, but it sure is a lot of work to prepare for teaching.

I have also purchased the Delaford quilt pattern from Katrina Hadjimichael.  I knew I had to make this quilt when she first posted it  on-line, but had to wait a year or so until she made the pattern available to the public.  Have started collecting my fabrics and hopefully can start working on it soon.  Lots of English Paper Piecing and applique.

Back to my DJ Blocks.  I will post some pictures of them soon - but here is one of my favorites:

A new Thimble - woohoo

 Recently, while spending time in the hospital with my husband after back surgery, I lost one of my prized quilting tools - my silver thimble.  I had purchased it years ago from TJ Lane and just loved using it.  I was heartbroken when I lost it, which may sound silly to some, but those folks out there that have an absolute special tool know what I mean.  Many times in the hospital I had to help my husband turn over or just straighten up his bed, and I am sure it was one of the times I forgot to take it off and it got wrapped up in the bed linens and went out the door with the soiled linens.

That was several months ago, and was so exited when I found out that ThimbleForYou would have a booth at the Ashville, NC quilt show.  Jan Marie Larsen is great person and told me that TJ Lane had been her mentor.  She had a beautiful selection of thimbles to choose from, and I came home with this pretty thimble and acorn thimble holder. 

 

Before getting my new thimble, I had been using my Mother's thimble.  I remember seeing this on her finger many times as she did her quilting, applique and mending.  I was very surprised it fit me, as Momma was much shorter and smaller than me.  I have to wonder how she kept it on her finger as it fit me perfectly.  

I completed the applique on my GFG borders and took my quilt to Martee, a good friend with a long arm machine, to have it basted for hand quilting.  I took it to her on Thursday, with Hurricane Ian supposed to come through here on Friday.  Martee was so sweet and got it basted for me in one day, so I began quilting it on Thursday night, Sept 29 and continued on Friday, Sept 30.  I record the dates just so when people ask me, and they always do, how long it took to quilt I can at least count from when I started it.  I have kept a record once on a quilt - recording the time each time I quilted, but see no need to do that anymore.

This is one completed block. I am quilting the brown ring in a brown hand quilting thread.  The remainder of the block will be quilted in the color of the first ring, in this case blue.

Back side of the quilt - to show you the pattern I am using.  Quilting along the outer edge of each ring.

My hand quilting thread of choice is Coats & Clark or YLI 40wt hand quilting thread as they  both have a glaze on them that makes them glide through the fabric and batting.  Unfortunately, they do not have the variety of colors I need for this quilt, so I am using a 40wt Aurifil cotton thread that has a nice selection of beautiful colors.  I was able to select my colors at Serendipitous Quilt Shop and Lisa, my friend and shop owner, ordered the 40 wt that I needed. 
 

Fortunately I had C&C brown and blue that matched my quilt on hand so was able to start the quilting  now.   My father made this thread holder for me years ago, and I enjoy using it .  It is so special to have things to use that were my Momma's and things Daddy made for me. (that gold is more tan than shows in this picture.)

GFG Progress - Applique basted

This afternoon I finished basting all the applique into place on my GFG quilt.  I am so excited to get started on actually doing the applique and then the hand quilting.  Here are snapshots of the borders I have set up.  

I am recovering from Detached Retina surgery and trying to work with only one good eye.  I have this gas bubble that shows up in my right eye and am wearing a patch.  The gas bubble really distorts my vision so the patch allows me to at least see somewhat better out of my left eye.

Corner of bottom border

Top border center

Top border center - closeup

 

Top border corner

GFG Border design

Finally, after much deliberation and racking my brain, I came up with a border design for my Granny's Flower Garden quilt. I had already decided to make a blue border of hexies and then do some applique on the border. But what to do????? Here is the design I have decided on for the two sides and bottom border. The top border is still under design but very nearly done. So this is the design I came up with - not appliqued down yet.

 

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Days of Delight Calendar

 Woohoo, today I caught up on the BOM Days of Delight Calendar by Val Laird.  I did not get started until June, so I had a lot of catching up to do.  Following are my blocks for June, July and August and some pictures of all the blocks together. This has been a challenging BOM as Val likes to include some more challenging embroidery stitches, and I love it!!!!  One of my stitches I think I "invented" but then it may have been around for awhile and I had just never seen it used.  I call it Bullion Daisy and first you make a Bullion stitch and then surround that stitch with a Daisy Stitch.  I did this on my June month block.

So here is my progress as of Today!