Gail Pan - Bring Me Flowers quilt top

 I finished the quilt top for the Gail Pan Block of the Month - Bring Me Flowers.  I added a flange in the border, the first time I have tried this and I do like the look it gives.  I made the flange 3/8" and wish I had just done a 1/4" flange, but its done now.  I hope to do a mixture of machine and hand quilting which I have done on other quilts and liked the look.  The embroidered blocks will be hand quilted and the remainder of the quilt machine quilted.  Can't wait to start on it, but need to finish the quilting on the Brimfield first.

Brimfield - quilting

 I have started quilting my Brimfield quilt.  I have had more trouble deciding on thread choice and pattern for this quilt than any other I have done.  I started out with just regular hand quilting thread (40wt) and the dark green just did not look dark enough on the back of the quilt.  So I ordered Bold (25wt) Coats and Clark hand quilting thread from Sewing Parts on-line.  It is almost impossible to find local sources of C&C thread other than Michaels and they have a very limited selection. This is odd being that the C&C threads are headquarted in Charlotte. I can drive to Charlotte to Joanns and they have it, but once again a limited selection.  Once I had my thread, I then debated on the pattern to use.  It took me quilting three blocks and ripping out the stitches twice to finally get what I am satisfied with.  Now I can really enjoy the process.

These are pictures of the quilting on the front.  The area in the dark green sections are done with Forest Green thread.  I use a white chalk pencil for marking and left it on for the picture just so the quilting would show up better.  The actual EPP blocks are quilted in white bold thread.  I did not like the way the dark green thread looked against these blocks.

And here are a couple pictures of the back side of the quilt.  The white thread does not have a strong contrast against the backing, which is a golden yellow.  In person you can see it better, but in a photo it is hard to see.

To me there is nothing more relaxing than hand quilting and I am thoroughly enjoying quiet times in the morning and afternoon, listening to a book on Audible and doing my quilting.

Spikes and Specks - Katrina Hadjimichael

Here is my finished Spikes and Specks quilt, designed by Katrina Hadjimichael (https://katrinahadjimichael.com.au/ ).   I thoroughly enjoyed making this quilt. It will be a gift to my special niece, Cindy, and right in time for her wedding :)  My dear friend, Donna K, quilted it for my on her long arm.   I will give it to Cindy on Thanksgiving Day when she and her future husband will be here.

My sweet niece Cindy with her quilt

Chickadee Workshop with David Taylor

 I attended the first in-person workshop yesterday since this Pandemic started.  It was great fun to spend a day with quilting friends and learn some new techniques. The workshop instructor was David Taylor. 

Three techniques that will especially impact my future applique were:

1. How and when to use a lining behind the applique pieces to keep a shadow of the fabric from showing through, as well as what fabric to use for the lining.

2. When David applique curves, he only turns the fabric under on convex curves.  For concave curves, he does not turn the fabric under, but rather fits the adjoining applique piece such that the adjoining convex curve overlaps the convave curve.  Hard to put this into words, and can be a little complicated doing it as well, but was an interesting technique to learn.

3. How to use a finger stilletto.

    I finished up my little 12" square Chickadee block this morning. Sweet little Chickadees are among of my favorite wild birds, right up there with blue birds.  Not sure yet what it will become, but I am considering a pillow, and maybe more "bird" theme pillows to put out in the spring.

Gentle Gems Block of the Month update

 An update of my progress on the Val Laird, Block of the Month - Gentle Gems.  These are so fun to make!

September blocks

 

Blocks January - September

English Paper Pieced blocks

 I have been doing a lot of English Paper Piecing lately, working on my Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt and some additional blocks to use in the border of this quilt.   My plans are to make a series of 7" EPP blocks to put all around the border of the quilt.  To date I have 3 rows of the GFG sew together, and additional 1 1/2 rows of completed blocks for Row 4 and Row 5.  I have made 5 blocks to go around the borders.

Daisy block- Sharon Burgess block

Geranium Delight; I first saw this one on Samilia's Mom blog.  I elected not to include an outer round of pieces.

May Blossom - Elise Baek pattern

Tenderness - Sharon Burgess pattern

Round We Go - Sue Daley pattern

Mosaic Tile Quilting

 I recently became interested in Mosaic Tile Quilting and found a book on Thriftbooks called Tile Quilt Revival. I believe I saw a reference to this book on Barbara Brackman's blog.  I also did some researching for YouTubes showing how to do the technique, and nearly all  involved fusible applique, which I am not interested in.  I did find one site that was all sewn by machine and I did not like that either. 

The Tile Quilt Revival book shows how to do the technique with needle turn applique and gave excellent pictures and instructions on the technique.  I am somewhat comfortable with needle turn applique so was anxious to try.

One particular difference in this technique is to only fold under 1/8" seam allowance, I usually try to allow at least 1/4".  I wasn't sure I would like this, but I am game to try anything.  After a few efforts, I found that I really like the 1/8" seam allowance.  This is the piece I chose to work on, and I had already appliqued the blue bird, but you can see how close the pieces are.  The way you cut out the pattern, they should fit exactly together like a puzzle, you baste in place and then applique with the 1/8" fold under.  This will reveal a 1/4inch "grout" once all the pieces are appliqued.  Obviously I did not cut my pieces exactly right, but not too bad for a first attempt.

I would have preferred a white fabric for the "grout" but because I used light fabrics for the block backgrounds, they did not show up well on the white base fabric.  So here is my finished block:

Obviously I have a ways to go, but I enjoyed the process and will do better on the next block.  I am making the table runner below:

Spikes and Specks

 Yesterday I finished a quilt top called Spikes and Specks.  This is a Katrina Hadjimichael pattern, one of my favorite Australian designers.  The quilt will be a gift to my special niece Cindy.  I had shown her the pattern and asked if she would like a quilt made with this pattern, and I let her choose the type of colors she would like in the quilt.  She sent me color swatches that she liked and I matched those colors in the backgrounds of the blocks.    I took the quilt to my dear friend, Donna, who will quilt it for me on her Handi Quilter long-arm quilter.   Here's the quilt top and next picture will be a completed quilt :)

The fabrics are all batiks.  I used two different hombre batiks and these were used in piecing the rings.  The  leaves are all the different batiks used, both for the backgrounds, center circle and pieced rings.

August blocks

 I did get my August blocks of the month blocks completed.  Cutting it close on the Gentle Gems by Val Laird but was determined to have them done before the end of the month.  

Gail Pan - Bring Me Flowers:  One of her August blocks had a very cute Bumble Bee, but I am just not a big fan of any kind of bee - so I did a hummingbird instead.  Its fun when you can take a block of the month and choose your own fabrics and in cases designs to use.  

Val Laird's Gentle Gems: Ok so one of the blocks is sideways.  But I had already put them away before I saw this oooops - so just have to tilt your head a little to see the bike :)   This pattern used bullion stitch which I love to do, but do find it awkward.  I am considering getting a hoop on a stand to do some of these stitches that are challenging. I did message Val Laird (and she replied promptly) asking if she used a hand held hoop, hoop on a stand or no hoop when she embroiders.  I was surprised she said she does not use a hoop.  Hmmmmm...maybe I need to try this again.  I find it hard to get my stitches the right tension and consistent this way, but then practice would probably help.

Ooooops

Got up early this morning to complete a row on my Grandmother's Flower Garden.  Got it done and laid it out on the floor to admire my progress.  Ooooops - maybe I should have waited until I had more coffee!

 So got out the ripper, moved the block and fixed that - sigh - took about 45 minutes out of my morning.

Have to admit, not the first time I have done this oops on this project :(

Spikes and Specks quilt - Katrina Hadjimichael designer

 I showed a picture of one block I had completed on the Spikes and Specks quilt, designed by Katrina Hadjimichael.  I continue making progress and thought I would document how the  quilt is coming along.  I am doing mine in batiks using a color pallet requested by my niece.  This is quite different from the palette used by Katrina.

The next step is to make the sashings.  There are 36 sashing strips to make, and each requires an 18" bias strip for the vine and 4 leaves.

My bias strips for the vines are made from the same fabric I will use for corner stones and for the setting triangles as the blocks above are to be set on point.  I used the technique of cutting an 18" strip, 1 1/4", folding the strip in half with right side out (not that it matters with batiks) and then sewing a seam along the long side 1 /4" from raw edge.  Once sewn, I trim the seam to within 1/8" for stitched seam, and using a 3/8" bias bar, I pressed the strip flat with the seam down the middle.  This makes a 3/8" bias strip called for in the pattern.  I made all 36 "vines"

Next up are the leaves.  I am using Katrina's technique of English Paper Piecing applique.  I cut out the patterns for the leaves, then cover with fabric just like I do in EPP.

After that I press it for a tight crease, then remove the paper and applique it to the sashing strip.

  I do not like raw edge applique and this way my seams are nicely folded under.  I also usually do my applique by hand, but since I have 36 of these strips to do, and I want the quilt to be as sturdy as possible, I elected to sew the applique down by machine, just using a straight stitch right along the edge.  I also did this for the vines.    I have completed 12 of the 36 sashing strips.

So here is a taste of what it will look like, with the blocks on point and the sashing:

I got so excited at this point as I am pleased with how it looks and anxious to get it done.  I still have 24 more sashing strips to make !!!  The leaves look like Christmas lights and I am thinking how pretty this would be done in Christmas fabrics!

 

PIQ - The start of a new project

 Recently reading either facebook or someone's blog, I saw a reference to a PIQ quilt and became enthusiastic about making one.  That is the problem with checking out facebook and other blogs, I find so many ideas and quilts I want to try.

This PIQ stands for Pi Quilt. Having a  BA in math, the Pi immediately got my attention.  Not that I even remember what I did with the Pi function, but I do remember it goes to infinity.  This clever quilter had made a quilt by assigning fabrics to the digits 0 - 9, and then using the Pi number to determine the order to use the fabrics in her quilt.  I believe her pieces were squares.

Well I added this interesting method to my desire to make a thousand pyramids quilt someday, and presto I had a new project.   Using EQ, I drew a quilt with 1,000 "pyramids" or equilateral triangles. I liked this and determined to get the 1,000 pyramids I would need 513 digit pyramids and 487 background ones. I did not want to count the half triangles and the beginning and end of each row.

The next step was to determine what the first 512 digits were in Pi.  I googled this and found a function where I could enter the number of digits I wanted and it not only gave me the list of digits, but also told me how many of each digit was listed.  Amazing what you can find on the internet.  It did not include the 3 but that was easy enough - just add one more 3 to the list of digits.

The first 512 decimal places of Pi contains 45 0s, 59 1s, 55 2s, 54 3s, 55 4s, 50 5s, 50 6s, 37 7s, 54 8s, and 53 9s. Below is "3 dot" followed by the first 512 decimals of Pi.

3 . 1 4 1 5 9 2 6 5 3 5 8 9 7 9 3 2 3 8 4 6 2 6 4 3 3 8 3 2 7 9 5 0 2 8 8 4 1 9 7 1 6 9 3 9 9 3 7 5 1 0 5 8 2 0 9 7 4 9 4 4 5 9 2 3 0 7 8 1 6 4 0 6 2 8 6 2 0 8 9 9 8 6 2 8 0 3 4 8 2 5 3 4 2 1 1 7 0 6 7 9 8 2 1 4 8 0 8 6 5 1 3 2 8 2 3 0 6 6 4 7 0 9 3 8 4 4 6 0 9 5 5 0 5 8 2 2 3 1 7 2 5 3 5 9 4 0 8 1 2 8 4 8 1 1 1 7 4 5 0 2 8 4 1 0 2 7 0 1 9 3 8 5 2 1 1 0 5 5 5 9 6 4 4 6 2 2 9 4 8 9 5 4 9 3 0 3 8 1 9 6 4 4 2 8 8 1 0 9 7 5 6 6 5 9 3 3 4 4 6 1 2 8 4 7 5 6 4 8 2 3 3 7 8 6 7 8 3 1 6 5 2 7 1 2 0 1 9 0 9 1 4 5 6 4 8 5 6 6 9 2 3 4 6 0 3 4 8 6 1 0 4 5 4 3 2 6 6 4 8 2 1 3 3 9 3 6 0 7 2 6 0 2 4 9 1 4 1 2 7 3 7 2 4 5 8 7 0 0 6 6 0 6 3 1 5 5 8 8 1 7 4 8 8 1 5 2 0 9 2 0 9 6 2 8 2 9 2 5 4 0 9 1 7 1 5 3 6 4 3 6 7 8 9 2 5 9 0 3 6 0 0 1 1 3 3 0 5 3 0 5 4 8 8 2 0 4 6 6 5 2 1 3 8 4 1 4 6 9 5 1 9 4 1 5 1 1 6 0 9 4 3 3 0 5 7 2 7 0 3 6 5 7 5 9 5 9 1 9 5 3 0 9 2 1 8 6 1 1 7 3 8 1 9 3 2 6 1 1 7 9 3 1 0 5 1 1 8 5 4 8 0 7 4 4 6 2 3 7 9 9 6 2 7 4 9 5 6 7 3 5 1 8 8 5 7 5 2 7 2 4 8 9 1 2 2 7 9 3 8 1 8 3 0 1 1 9 4 9 1 2 9 8 3 3 6 7 3 3 6 2 4 4

So now I have my design and the numbers.  I know from my EQ drawing that my quilt will have 39 pyramids per row and 26 rows.  Each row is 20 digit pyramids and 19 background pyramids. Now what fabrics to use????  I really wanted to use only fabric in my stash, but using only one fabric for each digit is only 10 fabrics and to me that is not very scrappy.  So I decided to go with one color per digit and then use 7 or 8 fabrics in that color for each digit.  Now that is scrappy in my book.

Now to my fellow quilters, I am known as someone who obsesses over organizing my projects.  As I began to think through this process, I knew I needed a way to keep up with the pyramids so I kept them in the right order when making the quilt.  As I usually do, I started with an Excel spreadsheet  with 20 columns and 26 rows.  I then wrote in each cell the Pi digits, with row 1 being the first 20 digits in Pi, Row 2 being number 21 through 40, and so forth.  On the 26th row, I only needed 12 pyramids, so the remainder of that row will just be a place for my signature block and story of the quilt.

Now the  fun began of cutting out my fabrics for English Paper Piecing.  I used illustrator to draw 2" equilateral triangles for the paper foundations, and used 60" triangle ruler to cut out 2 1/2" triangles from the fabrics. Fortunately I have my fabric stash of pieces less than one yard (most much smaller than that) sorted by color, so it was just a matter of pulling the buckets by color, selecting 7 or 8 different fabric of similar color value and cutting out the triangle.

I am storing the triangles in photo cases, two colors in each case:

I needed 5 cases for the 10 colors, and I labeled each case.  

I needed two cases for the white/off white background triangles.  I believe I have over 30 different fabrics there. The circle dot is just there to separate the different stacks of white.  Eventually I think I will just stack them randomly and now worry about keeping them separated.

So now I am all neatly organized and ready to go :)  I had to try out my method to make sure it would work, so here is the start of row 1.   I love English Paper Piecing, so this was a joy to do.

I am excited about my new project.  I like the organization I chose and I am sure it will be with me for several years.  I am in no hurry to finish this project.  Some may think me obsessive about how I approach a project, but that is half the fun for me.

Wish You Well Complete!

 This is a 2020 Block of the Month designed by Gail Pan.  I had the top completed in January, but just recently completed the quilting by hand.  I am attaching closeups of the blocks to show the quilting as I did a lot of various quilting patterns through the quilt.

March and April

January and February

May & June

July & August

September & October

November & December