RSC Challenge

Last Saturday of the month and I have all but two of my February 9-patches done.  Still have a few days to finish up the month, and also a few I still need to do from January.  I try to make one 9-patch each day, and on a few days 2.  If I keep this up, by the end of the year, I should have enough to make my Jack's Chain quilt.

Anxious to see what the color for March will be :)
Teresa

Hand basting vs Long Arm Machine basting ?

I recently had my first experience with having a long arm quilter (LAQ) machine baste my quilt for hand quilting.  It is a queen size quilt and I was not looking forward to the back breaking job of hand basting, also wanted to make sure there were no wrinkles or puckers in the backing.  The LAQ did a really nice job of the basting and only charged $60, which included her furnishing the batting.  I thought that was a good enough deal.

I discovered two things that did not work for me with the machine basting.

1. She used a white thread and my quilt has a lot of white background...sure made it hard to see to remove the basting stitches, which I like to do once I have the quilt in the hoop.  This was really my fault, I should have asked her to use a grey thread.
2. I found that once I hooped the quilt, removed the basting stitches, the bobbin thread would get all tangled up in my underneath hand - like a spider web.  Since my hoop is on a stand, I could not easily clip the bobbin threads.
3. So I tried quilting the next area hooped with the basting left in place.  But then when I tried to remove the basting after quilting, my quilting in many place had snagged the basting threads and it was a real chore to remove the basting thread.
4. I tried getting under the hoop to clip the bobbin thread, but that was awkard and once I clipped those thread, it seemed to me that the other basting thread all started coming undone.

I quickly realized this was not going to work for me and this was too big a quilt for me to be aggravated with that bobbin thread the entire time.  So I took two days to hand baste the quilt top and then once hand basted, I removed all the machine basting. 

 Have any of you hand quilted a machine basted quilt in a hoop on a stand, and if so, how did you handle the bobbin thread?

Now another question.  I will be hand quilting all the white spaces and border for sure.  But, I am considering machine quilting the straight lines along the Irish Chain blocks. 

Have any of you combined machine and hand quilting?  Would a quilt show judge frown on the combination?

Just curious.

Still working on the RSC 9-patches for my Jack's Chain quilt.  This month is Blue/Green fabrics.  So much fun and I am having a relaxing time making them,

Also completed another English Paper Pieced Star of Bethlehem block.  That makes 4 blocks made, 8 to go for my quilt.

Thanks for stopping by,
Teresa

Quilting my Irish Chain

 
 
 
 
 


 Today I started quilting my Irish Chain quilt.  I find hand quilting so relaxing and am enjoying the start of this new quilting project.  This quilt has EPP Dresden plates and I wanted to quilt them a with something different than quilting around the edges of each piece.

The pattern I cam up with in a scallop around the outer edge of the plate that echos the Dresden blades.  Then an inner scallop row with a circle in the middle. 

 

 

I finished one plate today.

And here is how the back of the quilt is looking.

 

I think I am going to like this pattern.  There will be other designs in the blank spaces, but for now this should keep me busy.

 

Thanks for stopping by,

Teresa

 



A Finish and another on gets hooped

Tonight I finished hemming and putting on the hanging sleeve on the my Winter Wreath quilt.  The pattern is from the September and November, 2015 issues of the AQ magazine.  The pattern is entitled Harvest Wreath and is done in Fall colors, but I wanted mine to be in jewel tones.  I also modified the pattern to use machine paper piecing, rather than the regular machine piecing used by the designer. 

I know I am going to enjoy this wall handing for years to come.  Seems the house always looks so drab after all the Christmas lights and glitter get packed away, so hopefully this one will bring some color and joy to the house on these dreary winter days.  (Although, lately our Winter days have been warm temperatures in the 70's and seem more like early Spring.)


Close up of Quilting in the center



48" Square quilt 

So now my hoop is empty and I always seem to have another project in the queue waiting to be hooped and hand quilted.  Here is my Irish Chain that I started in 2007 (I think) and finished in 2016.  I English Paper Pieced the dresdens (6") and appliqued them to the quilt.  Some of the white spaces were left open to allow for hand quilting some wreath type designs.  I am looking forward to getting started on this one, but know it will be awhile before it will be done.  But then...I am in no rush.

Thanks for stopping by,
Teresa

2017 RSC Feb 4





I got started on time this month with my RSC 2017.  I was fortunate in that I have a separate bucket for blue/green fabrics as I never could decide whether to put them with the blues or greens.  I decided I would make one block a day and since this is the fourth I have 4 made :)  I have also been working to catch up on my red ones from January sine I got a late start on those.



 

My sweet husband has been cutting out he 1 inch squares from card stock for me since I am English Paper Piecing these.  I found on Amazon a 1 Inch hole punch so he is pretty happy about that. I am making a Jack's Chain quilt with these and need over 2,700 little squares!

 

Heres my fabric color chart updated for February.  I cut out enough squares for each day of the month plus 2.  My goal is to make one 9-patch a day, plus a couple of times during the month I will make two.  That way, but the end of the year, I will have enough to make the Jack's Chain quilt. 



Thanks for stopping by,   Teresa



Rainbow Scrap Challenge - January Last Saturday



I got off to a late start making my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks and did not get as many done as I had hoped to do.  Add to that I did Red instead of Purple cause I did not closely read the instructions, hopefully I will do better the rest of the year.

 

My goal is to make one 3" 9-patch each day plus 2 extra sometime during the month.  I am English Paper Piecing these, so they take a little longer, but they come out so accurate. EPP is my all time favorite piecing method.

 

I have all the January blocks cut out, and will continue making them each month until I get those caught up, but will also begin the next months, and make every effort to keep the new months current.  Should not be so hard, as I just love making these sweet little blocks.

 

 

I checked out the blogs posted on the link page and am so impressed by what you are all doing.  It will be fun to see the progress throughout the year.

Thanks for stopping by,
Teresa

Star of Bethlehem - Block 3

Just posting the completion of Block 3 in my Star of Bethlehem quilt.

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by.  Back to my RSC 9-patches :)

Rainbow Scrap Challenge - The beginning

The Rainbow Scrap Challenge has been going on for few years now, but this will be my first year to participate.  I have loved seeing the quilts others have made and like the idea of a color for each month.  You can get information on this challenge at SoScrappy blog.  I am still not sure how to link up with the challenge, but I have begun my project.

There is only one problem so far, I began with Red which was the first color on the list, but the color for January is actually purple. Hmmmm....off to a bad start already.  So I will just continue with my red since I have already cut out the fabric, but when the month for Red comes along, I will do purple.

We were to pick out a project, and my project is a Jack's Chain quilt. I first saw this quilt in an old quilt magazine and just fell in love with it, but there was no pattern.  An internet search yielded this pattern published by Lessa Siegele in Australia and available for purchase as a download.  The original quilt that I saw did not have the flowers in the center's for the rings, and I may leave those out as well.  To make this quilt I will need 332 three inch 9-patches!!!

 

One of my favorite things to do when starting a new project is to get organized.  I wanted all 332 9-patches in my quilts to be made of a different fabric (each 9-patch would be the same fabric, but would be different from all the other 9-patches.)  Having made scrap quilts in the past, I knew I needed to keep a record of the fabrics I had used, so I came up with this chart.  I cut out 20 different red squares for making 9-patches.  (Reminder - these should have been purple)  I may come back and add more red squares, so I have left space for up to 40 different reds.



 

 

Next step was to get my stuff organized.  I have all kinds of these neat storage bins and it is just fun  for me to get my stuff organized all in one place.  I cut out 458 white squares, which is enough for a little over 100 blocks.  (Oh yes, I had to purchase 8 1/2 yds of white fabric - Yikes! All the remainder of the fabrics will come from my stash).

 

 And here is my first sweet little 3" 9-patch block.  I am going to English Paper Piece the blocks just cause that is my favorite, and most accurate,  way of piecing a quilt.  My plan is to cut out 20 blocks worth of squares each month, and hopefully get most of them done that month.  I can make one block in about 40 minutes and if I make one a day, all should be good.  It will take a little more than a year to complete, but I am not in a hurry and just love the process.  My husband cuts out the paper pieces for me after I print them out on my computer. 

One down, 331to go!

Inauguration Day Sewing

Today is a day that makes USA proud as a new president is inaugurated.  Whether you voted for the new president or not, it still shows the greatness of our country and as the newscasters keep saying, the peaceful exchange of power.   I just pray that all goes well for our peace keepers on this day, and I pray for our new president, vice president and their families.  God bless America!

This morning I spent my time hand quilting:

Wreath quilt project - working on border

 This afternoon I have been working on  my Star of Bethlehem quilt.  The star blocks are English Paper Pieced and there will be two of 6 different colosr, one on a pink background and one on a yellow. I have completed all the hour glass blocks made that separate the star blocks as well as the HST that make up the borders.  That outer dark color is actually a dark pink, with light pink and yellow flowers. 

 

 

Patchwork of the Crosses

I did not realize I had never posted pictures of my Patchwork of the Crosses quilt after it was quilted until I received a nice letter from a Shelly asking to see a picture.  Then I realized I did not even have pictures of the quilt once it was quilted.  The quilt is rather her large and heavy, so I spread it over my guest room bed to take these pictures.

The quilt was quilted by Donna Sawyer, of Heath Springs, SC.  She did a marvelous job, custom quilting each block with a motif that I selected and then doing a lovely border design. 

The off white border around each block are made with a variety of shirting fabrics, which I fell in love with during this process. 

This motif was quilted on the back of each block

Eli's quilt continues

 

So here are the blocks in process showing the colors I used.  Its funny, but when I downsized the blocks so they would not take so much memory, the colors dimmed.  They really are quite bright.

 

7 colors (counting the teal and blue as one color - Blue, Orange, Green, Yellow, Red, Purple and Brown

 I laid the quilt out on my design wall to make sure I was getting a good balance of colors.  And of course, I liked it on the design wall, but when looking at this picture I realize I have some shuffling to do.  This is actually sideways as it fits better on my wall that way. 

Swap yellow on bottom  with one of the browns on the row above, move teal over beside the red and yellow above the red.  Have to study picture some more to see if I need to move anything else.

 My "plan" was to do a "quilt as you go" adding a black 1" sashing between the blocks.  But now, looking at them on the design wall, I really like the secondary pattern that is formed when the blocks are next to each other.    I wanted to quilt concentric circles over the blocks, and not sure I can manage the free motion on my domestic machine.  I could just do a grid, but I really like the idea of circles.

What would you do ?????????

Gonna set it aside for a bit and think about it.

Oooops

 

So I am sewing away on Eli's quilt - and realized that I had sewn the white fabric on WRONG!  The one on the left is correct, the one of the right is WRONG.  Dagnabit......

 

 

 

I have 60 of these strips to unsew and resew!!!!

 

By the way, the pictures are showing sideways - they were right side up when I uploaded them.  Go figure.

 

 

One hour later......blocks all fixed.  Watched two episodes of Fixer Upper while is did some Fixer Uppers myself.

Star of Bethlehem quilt block

Spending my days with my husband in the hospital and now in rehab.  He just had his second back surgery this year  since October .  He is doing great and pain free for the first time in many months.

While here I have been working on my current English Paper Pieced project- Star of Bethlehem . I need to make twelve of these blocks, and this is block 1.

I have designed this quilt using EQ7 and it will have 12 star blocks, using 6 different color
combinations for the star ring. The center star is fussy cut and will vary with each star.  Each color combination will be made up using a pink background on one and a yellow background on the other.

This is a rough layout of the quilt top.  The plan is to use the fabric that I fussy cut for the star centers also as the outer border on the quilt.  I am sure the plans will change as the quilt evolves.

New Project - Eli's Quilt

Back when I had only 3 grandchildren, I started a tradition of not only making each new grandchild a baby quilt, but once they moved out of the crib into a bed, they got a big boy or big girl quilt.  I now have 10 grandchildren and an 11th one due to arrive in June - and yes, I am behind.  I need to get two big boy quilts made, not to mention the baby quilt for #11.  We don't know the gender of the new baby yet, but gotta get ready :). 

I also make each of my children a wedding quilt when they marry, and yes, my daughter and son-in-law have been married 3 years now, and they are still waiting on their wedding quilt.  So that is my resolution for 2017.....get caught up!  My daughter chose a Bali Wedding Star quilt for her wedding quilt. Hmmm...could she have picked anything any harder?  She does not want it in batiks either, so we have to go shopping for fabric.  I promised her we would do that in January.

I have started a quilt for Eli and having fun doing it.



This is the block I have selected for his quilt.  It was part of the Aurifil BOM for 2016, and I played with using a black and white background with color strips.  I thought this a great block for a very energetic boy.

 

Each block will have a different color strip with the black and white background - all bright happy colors.  Using 7 different colors, and each color has 2 or 3 different fabrics. 

Each block has a black and white pinwheel in the center.  Quilt will be 5 x 6, or 30 blocks total. That means I need 120 HST triangles.  I have them made, and am squaring them up now.

My organization.  All the strips are cut and sorted into individual trays, labeled with size and letter identifier used in the pattern.  My friends will tell you I am an organization freak when I am putting a quilt together.  I just love having everything laid out like this.
 

Aurifil BOM 2016

I have participated in the 2016 Aurifil Block of the Month sponsored on Pat Sloan's blog.  Seems like each block required a little different skill in making the block and that made it fun to do.  I chose to go with batiks and I do love bright colors!   I am thinking that I might try a quilt as you go method in assembling this quilt.  I just purchased a book, "Quilt It As You Go" from Annie's Quilting and am anxious to try it out.

All 12 of my blocks, not necessarily in the right order.

Block 12 - Something gone terribly wrong!  This is what happens when you sew C to A instead of sewing it to B like you are supposed to.  You would think I would have seen this error BEFORE I sewed the entire block together!

 

Block 12 as "re-sewn"