christmas

 

Whatever form it takes this year

I wish you a peaceful Christmas

and prosperous New Year

stalled

 

Number 16 . . . last, last lucky last

Sewing stalled when some Spring cleaning started around here. You never really appreciate how much house there is until you have to give it a good deep clean.

First world problems.

We've had no appreciable rain for weeks so the dust bunnies were getting out of hand. 

Carpet has been purchased for the sewing room. (I know, right? That's not finished yet, you exclaim!? I hear ya). Yep, work stalled while I dithered about what kind of flooring to use. In the end $150 worth of carpet and underlay beat $625 worth of laminate timber flooring.

Just need to order the new storage cupboard - timber this time and I can start putting the room back together. Decisions on a new sewing table are pending. I'd like that to be timber as well.

Anyhoo . . . I finally managed to get some sewing done. All 16 blocks are pieced and next up is quilting them. I'm sort of making a Quilt As You Go and will join them with sashing after they have been quilted.  Just need to decide how - Stitch in the ditch? An all over pattern? Something a little more detailed?

Urrgghh!! Decisions, decisions. I may need some thinking chocolate.

Hope you been able to make a dent in your projects.

halfway

 

So I'm halfway through the number of blocks I plan to make. Trying to be as random as I can be.

These blocks make me smile.

trimming

 

Quilting and gardening have quit a few things in common. One of them is trimming. Which I seem to be doing a lot of.

Inside and outside.

At least we had a little rain over the weekend . The garden was thirsty. This azalea flowers like crazy every year. I originally planted five but only one survived. She sure makes up for it.

dandelions

The sky yesterday was ludicrously blue. The temps a delightful 23 degC. A perfect day in my book, especially as I managed to finish this.

It measures 42 inches square and is all cotton, including the batting. I just did a loopy meander in the outside border and Katie May inspired the dotty, spotty binding.

I've given this quilt a name - Dandelion Kisses. There is a stylised dandelion print on the border fabric and the crosses are often read as a kiss. 

I particularly like the backing and it managed to hide any wobbly quilting.

So that's another finish from me. I'll be back working on Garden Path soon but I keep leaning towards VTQuilter's Endless Diamonds. Deb has even drafted a pattern for us.

meandering

 

We've just had a beautiful spring weekend. The warm sunshine was simply too good to waste so some outdoor time was to be had.

I still managed to spend some time at the machine working on this.

Hopefully you found time to do something enjoyable over the weekend.

gardening

 

So, a certain person was supposed to have basted a certain baby quilt for quilting this weekend.

That certain person didn't get her act together and instead played with these.

Well, at least I'm sewing. I think this block is called Garden Path. I've been taking more care than usual when piecing these blocks and opening the seams to reduce bulk. Starching the fabrics has meant that they are easy to finger press as well.

Spring is in the air, the days are warming and there are kookaburras in the gum tree of my neighbour's yard cackling away as I type this. They are sometimes called Laughing Jacks. It's incredible that they make their home in suburbia.

 I hope you and your loved ones are safe - we are seeing some dreadful images on the news about the wildfires in California and the devastating hurricanes in Louisana and Texas.

monochrome

Well, almost.

The top is finished. Those borders look wavy but that's just the way it was hanging. There's nowhere to hide when you use white fabric.

Gee, those seams stick out like . . . . there's a phrase. Never mind.

I was planning to use a white backing fabric but I'm not all that confident about my free motion quilting so I think I'll go with a print of some sort.

Next weekend, we quilt! Well, I quilt. You know what I mean.

criss-cross

 

Thank you for all the lovely comments on my last post. Since Blogger changed over to the new format, your comments aren't coming through to my email. Obviously, I need to change a setting somewhere.

Withe the Scrappy Cats Cradle finished, I can play with some new fabric and make some of these.

The pattern is All My X's (video tutorial) from the Missouri Star Quilt Co.  They have lots of easy to follow patterns.

It will be a baby quilt for a very modern couple who have created a neutral themed nursery. Apparently, babies can only distinguish black, white and red in the early days.

I'm aiming to finish this one before baby is born - well at least before he/she is three months old.  

Let's not get carried away.

scrappy-cat

I'm not sure why this block is called Cat's Cradle. Perhaps it's after the yarn game we played as children. I could make a teacup and cat's whiskers.

Let's just take a moment here to absorb the concept that I have started and finished a quilt . . .

In. The. Same. Year.

Marjorie, bring the smelling salts!

I know, I know. I should have warned you. Prepared you for the shock of it all.

The quilt measures 48 x 60 inches so not big, just a lap quilt. It is a Quilt-As-You-Go construction. 

I really enjoyed making this quilt; quilting this quilt; stitching the backing seams by hand and sewing down the scrappy binding.

I don't seem to have made a noticeable dent in the stash though.

. . . ann . . .

clarification

It's time to add binding!

Just to be clear - I am not hand quilting this quilt.

It's 100% machine quilted but for this no-sashing version of Quilt-As-You-Go, I chose to hand stitch the backing seams, kind of following the method Jera Brandvig from Quilting in the Rain uses.

You can machine stitch the backing joins with a stitch in the ditch foot (how is it I don't own one of these?)

In other news, I found a bottle of Marking Pencil Remover by Quilters Rule International in the back of a cupboard and by using a cotton bud (Q-tip?) was able to remove some of that wretched Hemline water-soluble (it's not) pencil.

Not perfect but much better. As always - test, test, test on your fabrics before using.

. . . ann . . .

therapeutic

I find hand sewing rather therapeutic - almost meditative. Now that all the blocks are quilted it's time to start stitching them together.

There are a couple of different methods for putting together the no-sashing method of Quilt-As-You-Go and I am using a combination.

Machine stitching the fronts and hand stitching the back. Good thing it's been a wet, wintry weekend to keep me indoors with needle and thread.

. . . ann . . .

convinced

Based on Lori Kennedy's trials, I decided to give these markers a go. Here's my sample piece marked with the dark blue fine point marker.

I deliberately chose the dark colour and to really test it, left it to dry for four hours. Normally I would wash a marker out as soon as I had finished quilting.

I only rinsed out quickly under cold running water. This was the result.

I have circled a couple of  very small areas of residue which washed out after another run under the tap.

Feeling reasonably confident with the results, I decided to mark up one of the quilt blocks using the light blue marking pen. Here's the block marked and pinned ready to quilt.

You can clearly see the marks. Here's what the block looks like after quilting and a good rinse. The block was air dried.

I have to say that I'm impressed. The markers do what they say - wash out in cold water. The whole packet of markers cost just over $4 compared with the $12 paid for the Hemline water erasable pencil. Which didn't.

Here's a reminder . . . 

After rinsing and marked with Hemline's Water Erasable Pencil

 Lesson learned.

Disclaimer: Please check the markers on your fabrics before use. 

. . . ann . . .

deception

I am loving my new machine and quilting on it is a dream.  I just threaded it, dialled in the recommended settings and started sewing. No tension issues, even stitches( mostly) and FMQ on the individual blocks has been a lot easier then wrangling a whole quilt.

Only one set back. . . 

See those blue lines? They are supposed to be water soluble. As in water. And soluble. Yeah right. More like water resistant.

This is the culprit.

It says it right there. On the packaging. Water Soluble. Easily removable. To be fair it doesn't say what kind of water. Perhaps I should have used Evian. Or Mineral. Or Spring. Or Holy. 

Tap water? That's a Nope.

After saying a few choice words I checked the internet for a remedy and came across a suggestion to use baby wet wipes. I was sceptical but had a packet of ordinary wet wipes in the cupboard so tried those.

Surprisingly, they actually worked. Completely removed in some places, not all and not great where I've stitched over the markings but much better than the image above.

If only I'd checked out Lori Kennedy's blog post on markers, I would have learned that Crayola Ultra Clean Washable Markers are some of the best to use (not the red, yellow or orange ones).

So, I'm going to buy some and test them on a sample piece. I'll let you know the results or you can head over to Lori's blog and see how she fared.

Wishing those of you who do, a Happy Canada Day or Fourth of July.

...ann...

twelve

Twelve is my new favourite number.

That's because I have twelve of these and I'm going to make them into a quilt. Usually I like a square quilt but this will be a rectangle.

The finished blocks are 16 inches square. Okay, so not twelve.

I was browsing the 'Net and found some videos on Quilt-As-You-Go with no sashing. It involves a lot more hand sewing but I don't mind that. It also means that I can comfortably quilt each block first.

To do that, I have another twelve. Inches that is. On my new sewing machine. Of throat space.

I'm really excited to have a machine (and on sale at 50% off retail mind you) that is a whole nine more inches of throat space than on my other machines.

Okay, so I'm more than a bit rusty when it comes to free motion but hey, it's a start. I used an 11 inch quilt stencil and manipulated the design to fill out to 15 inches. 

Look at those 12 inches of throat space! Did I say I was excited? You bet I am - jumpy claps!

chains

This weekend proved to be less eventful than the last and I've been able to catch up on some stitching and made some of these . . . 

and these . . .

and these . . .

until I had these . . .

I am one and a half blocks away from having enough to start putting this together as a quilt top but there has been a change of plans. More about that next post.

I've just noticed that I have put some of these blocks together the wrong way. Oh well, I can see a little unpicking in my future!