FMQ progress

I've been spending all my free time free-motion quilting my J'aime Paris quilt, in hopes that I will finish it by our guild meeting this weekend. We'll see if I make the deadline!

In each of the blocks, I did a stipple.

To square up the blocks, I had framed each one with either white or light gray solid. I stitched pebbles in those frames. I like the look of the pebbles, but boy do they take a lot of time to quilt!

Now I'm working on quilting the background "negative space." I'll show you pictures of what I'm doing there soon.

Happy stitching!

Happy Birthday, USA!

Happy Independence Day to all my fellow Americans! In honor of this special holiday, I thought I'd show you the latest work that I've done on my hexie QOV quilt.

I hope you all have a wonderful day!

Happy stitching!

Design Wall Monday ~ July 1st

Back in February, I mentioned that I joined a local chapter of the Modern Quilt Guild. I've been enjoying the meetings, and it's helping to push me out of my comfort level :) In May, we had a workshop that taught us how to make an improvisational log cabin block. Most people brought various scraps, but I fell in love with this wonderful Mon Amie fabric line by Robert Kaufman Fabrics, so I decided to use them along with some other fabrics in my stash.

At the workshop, I made three of these blocks, then I made a fourth one at home:

I really enjoyed this process; it was quite liberating to not have to be exact with everything. It reminded me of  when I piece crazy quilt blocks, although we did not use foundation fabric like I do when crazy-quilting.

I have sewn these blocks into a top, using solid charcoal Kona fabric as a background. This will be my first quilt with a lot of "negative space" ~ big in the modern quilting movement. I would show a photo of the finished top, but I forgot to take a picture of it and right now, it is in my machine being quilted. I'm hoping to have it done by our July meeting, because all the workshop participants were challenged to make their improv log cabin blocks into some sort of finished project by then.

Did I mention that I'm calling this quilt "J'aime Paris"? I truly do love Paris. I've been there twice when my husband and I have chaperoned groups of high school students from his school on trips to Europe, and I'd love to go back sometime with just my husband to explore the city.

Be sure and see some of the other projects that are on quilters' design walls over at Judy's.

Happy stitching!

July Goals

As you know, I took a 2-month sabbatical from blogging. I didn't really plan it, it just happened. As a result, I haven't written any goals since April. Here's how I did on those goals:

1. Finish the 3rd border and make the 4th border for my Fibonacci's Challenge quilt. I finished the 3rd border, but am still working on my final border. Here's how it looks with the 3rd border. 

2. Make label for my QOV quilt. Finished. See here.

3. Finish top of All-Star UFO quilt. Haven't gotten any further on this one.

4. Embellish the March and April seams of CQJP 2013. Done. Click here for March and here for April.

I had three extra credit projects in April:

1. Finish 8 setting triangles for Easy Street. This is my current leaders/enders project, so there's a good chance it will get accomplished. Still working on this one.

2. Quilt McKenna Ryan 12" mini-quilt. Finished. Plus I mounted this and my two other McKenna Ryan quilts on 12" X 12" canvas stretchers. They are now hanging on the wall over the jetted tub in our master bathroom. There are no windows in there, so the lighting is terrible...sorry.

3. Baste my AP and Q Mystery Quilt. With my new J'aime Paris project, this has gotten pushed to the back burner. Maybe I'll have this quilt basted before the end of this year and quilted by the end of next year!!!

July Goals:

1. Finish quilting and then bind J'aime Paris (see tomorrow's Design Wall post for more info on this new quilt).

2. Make the 4th border for my Fibonacci's Challenge quilt.

3. Finish top of All-Star UFO quilt.

4. Embellish the May, June, and July seams of CQJP 2013 (Okay, this goal is probably way too ambitious).

I have two extra credit projects this month:

1. Finish 8 setting triangles for Easy Street, my current leaders/enders project.

2. Totally finish Fibonacci's Challenge quilt (quilt, bind, and label) so I can enter it into the show that is put on each August by the quilt shop that sponsored this challenge.

Here's the poster I made for my studio wall:

Pop over to Judy's to see how other quilters are doing on their monthly goals.

Happy stitching!

Bloglovin' ~ I'm claiming this blog

Follow">http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/5266199/?claim=7zqukxzebzp">Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Crazies at International Quilt Festival ~ Chicago

Have you heard the good news? International Quilt Festival returned to Chicago this summer! That's a lot closer for me than Ohio, so I took a little trip there last week. I took tons of photos, but today I'm just going to show you some of the crazy quilts that were displayed, since crazies often get overlooked. Keep in mind that the lighting's not great, the quilts are hung on black fabric, and it's not an ideal photo-taking situation, so some of my photos aren't all real good!

This first quilt had cute dogs appliqued on a neutral background, surrounded by crazy patches. Unfortunately, it was one of the very first quilts I saw, and I didn't take note of the title or the quilter's name. If you know this information, please leave it in the comments and I'll add the info, so I can give credit to the quilter.

This second crazy is called "The Shoulders I Stand Upon", by Carmen Huggins. She put black patches to give the eye a rest from all the craziness. I love all her beading..

This house quilt is called "Beach House Crazy Quilt" by Carli Heinrichs. Lots of cheerful colors.

Susan Jaenen-Griffin made "Diversity". I love how she made the map of Canada and included lots of regional details.

Isn't it fun how different from each other these crazy quilts are? I hope that we continue to see more crazy quilts at big (and small) quilt shows in the future!

Happy stitching!

I'm Baaaaack!!!!!

Hello again!

I didn't plan on taking a two-month break from blogging, but it was a crazy spring: both boys ran track (one high school and one middle school), so many weeks we had 4 track meets per week; plus the normal craziness of end of the school year stuff when you work in an elementary school; plus my oldest child graduated from high school; plus we had out-of-town relatives visit for the graduation festivities; plus we got a new puppy two weeks ago.

Isn't she cute? Her name is Jetta (we just kept the name the shelter had given her) and she's a black lab/Chesapeake retriever mix. She is now 12 weeks old.

Although I haven't been blogging lately, I have been working on some quilt projects.

Here's the latest on my patriotic hexie quilt for Quilts of Valor. My daughter and I have been watching old DVD's of the TV show Monk, and I add a few hexies while we watch. Yesterday I had to pick up something for the puppy, and so I took a detour to a quilt shop that I've only been to once before. I bought a few more patriotic fabrics that I haven't seen at any of my local quilt shops. This is a perfect time to stock up on patriotic fabrics :)

Edited: The flag embroidery pattern came from Carole Samples' book, Treasury of Crazy Quilt Stitches.

I just realized that I need to take some photos of the other things I've been working on, so I guess I'll have to post those later on.

Happy stitching!

Hexie organization

I've decided that I will need to be organized with my hexie project. I had this basket with wooden dividers that was being under-used in a closet, so I cleaned it out and claimed it for hexies.

In the back, you can see one blue hexie that's ready to be sewn on. In the two empty slots, I will put white hexies and embroidered hexies. On the right are my 2" templates from Paper Pieces and a package of small binder clips.

In the front, I have my red and white threads. Then some red hexies that are ready to go in the quilt. Next is a coffee mug with a small pair of scissors inside. I'm also using this mug to put my scraps and thread clippings into. As a side note, I got the mug when I graduated from junior high school many years ago! The mug never had a handle, so it fits perfectly in this spot. To the right of the mug is a spot to put hexies that I've basted but not pressed yet.

I've sewn three red hexies onto the white flag embroidered hexie, but they are not sewn to each other yet.

Happy stitching!

Back to the Drawing Board with Fibonacci

A few weeks ago, I posted about this month's border requirements for the Fibonacci's Challenge quilt, which included making some Tri-Recs units with the Tri-Recs rulers. I had made up one sample block with a 4-pointed star. Susan at desertskyquilts commented that she usually makes the stars with the points going the other way. I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of that!

So I made a sample block of that version, and I really like this star. I asked my 11-year-old which version he liked better with the rest of the quilt, and he said this 8-pointed star. He is quite proud of himself for helping me make design decisions on two of the borders for Fibonacci! I would say he might be a future quilt-maker, but he is so full of energy, I cannot see him sitting still long enough to do any piecing. For now, he is my design consultant!

Of course, in the actual quilt, I will be using Christmas quilts to match the rest of the quilt! I've started cutting out the pieces, but haven't sewn any together yet.

See what others are doing at Judy's.

Happy stitching!

CQJP April

I've finished all my April seams for CQJP 2013. I'm so happy to be done on time!

I think I got all of these seam ideas from Carole Samples' book Treasury of Crazy Quilt Stitches. As usual, all the fabrics are black, but some look grayish in the photo, probably because of where the sun was when I took the picture.

Here's how the whole quilt looks so far. April's section is on the middle right.

First Hexies Basted

Monday, when I was looking at some Design Walls, I came across Sarah at sarah did it! She makes hexie quilts, and on the 17th of each month, she hosts a linky party for people to share their progress on hexie projects (called HeLP for Hexie-aholics). Today I'm linking up there for the first time.

Sarah and I emailed a bit, and she gave me two great tips: (1.) Simple math for cutting fabric squares: add 1/4" to the hexie size and double it. 2" hexies need squares at least 4.5" and (2.) when basting the fabric, use tiny binder clips to hold the seam allowances down. This is working well for me.

After looking at some different tutorials online, I decided not to baste the fabric to the paper templates. I'm just basting each corner to the seam allowance next to it, then taking my needle over to the next corner. Two advantages are that you don't have to remove the basting stitches after you sew your hexies together and the paper will be reusable.

I finished my flag embroidery and basted that hexie plus four red ones. I'm excited to have started this journey!

 

Happy stitching!

UFOs on Parade

Some years ago (at least 13), the city of Chicago had an outdoor art exhibit called "Cows on Parade." Different artists decorated life-sized fiberglass cows, which were then placed all around the city. Many other places copied this concept. Okay, maybe Chicago didn't start the trend, but they're the first city I'm aware of who did this.

This summer when we went out west, one of the towns we stayed at in South Dakota had "Buffalo on Parade." I posed with this buffalo that had a lone star quilt painted on its back.

In a similar fashion, Judy is encouraging us to parade our UFOs. No, she doesn't want to see photos of alien spaceships, rather Un-Finished Objects. They say confession is good for the soul, so here are some of my UFOs:

I started making these Dresden plates for our first house. We had a little breakfast bar in our tiny kitchen that had room for two barstools. The idea was to make each Dresden into a cushion for a barstool. I obviously didn't get real far, and we sold that house 14 1/2 years ago, so these babies have been sitting in the UFO pile for quite some time!

Many years ago, I started making this red and white Double 9-patch quilt. Somewhere I had read a tip to sew two long strips together after you sew strips for a different project, almost a leader/ender project, but they never mentioned leaving the strip in the machine to save on thread. I slowly got lots of strips sewn together and then cut into 3-piece units. Then they sat in this box for a long time. Since hearing about Bonnie Hunter's leaders/enders idea, I've been working on Easy Street as my L/Es, but when I'm sewing the Easy Street units into the blocks, I've been using these 9-patches for my L/Es. (I hope that makes sense!) I keep this box with its envelopes on the table next to my machine, so I can just grab two units when I need a L/E.

This is my dozen long-stemmed roses wall hanging. I had seen a similar quilt but with daffodils in the center, hanging on the wall of a house in some magazine. I came up with my own dimensions and I used roses and stems from Elly Sienkiewicz's book Baltimore Beauties and Beyond. The applique is all hand needle-turned, with stuffed, 3D roses. There was a perfect spot in our master bedroom at our 2nd house, so I was making this for that area. But we moved out of that house 5 years ago. I LOVE this quilt and would really like to finish it, but I'm a bit unsure of how to quilt it. So it sits, all folded up and forlorn, in my UFO armoire.

Back in January when I came up with my 2013 Goals, I mentioned having some UFOs made of Christmas fabrics. This is one of them. The pattern came from a magazine (I can't recall which at the moment). It's supposed to be a gift for a certain someone if I ever finish it! I have all the blocks made.

Here's another Christmas UFO. This one will make a star when it's put together. All the blocks are made. Another someday gift...

And a third Christmas UFO to be a gift, from another magazine. I have all the 9-patches made, but they are supposed to alternate with stars, which I haven't even started.

Does it count as a UFO if I've only cut out the strips, but not done any sewing yet??? This will be another Christmas quilt, a red and green log cabin, but I'm keeping it for my hubby and me. Yep, I do love my Christmas fabrics!

Here's one of my more recent UFOs. It's called "Climbing Roses," and I got the pattern from a "Quilt Sampler" magazine. I don't usually make a quilt with the exact fabrics that are shown in a magazine or pattern, but I absolutely FELL in LOVE with these fabrics. Top is all put together (not looking so great after being folded for the past few years); needs quilting and binding.

Then there are a few other UFOs that I didn't drag out for photos. I have another red and white quilt that consists only of two different sized squares (top is not finished yet); my All-Star quilt that I've been slowly working on each month since the summer; Northern Lights, a patriotic star block that I was going to use in my All-Star quilt, but I didn't like how different it was from the other blocks (I plan on making it into a pillow); a small (wall-hanging or pillow) quilt with American flags in the shape of hearts (started that at a class, I think it's ready for quilting); Robbing Peter to Pay Paul red and white quilt that I started hand-appliqueing because I didn't want to do curved piecing (less than half the blocks are done); a broderie-perse type doll quilt I started in another class (needs fusible applique to finish the top). There might be more lurking about the back corners of the armoire.

That doesn't include the numerous projects that I've got in progress right now! If I would just focus on one or two and not start new projects, I could probably finish a lot of these up. But where's the fun in that?????

Head on over to Judy's to see more confessional UFOs on parade.

Happy stitching!

Miscellaneous Design Wall Stuff

First up, I sewed the label to the back of my QOV.

Then I made the presentation case for my QOV (I had almost forgotten that I needed to make one!) I didn't have enough yardage for the body, so I just HAD to stop at the quilt shop the other day on my way home from work. I ended up buying all three of the fabrics for the case, plus a few fat quarters of other patriotic fabric for my new hexagon quilt. The blue star fabric that makes up the body of the case looks like denim in real life ~ very fun.

Sunday, I got some stitching done on my first embroidery block for my new hexie quilt. You know how much I love Carole Samples' book, Treasury of Crazy Quilt Stitches, for embellishing the seams of my crazy quilt blocks! But in the back of that book, she has several pages of motifs that could be used in the center of crazy patches. This waving flag was one of her designs. I traced all of the flag-pole, but I won't need it to be so long for the 2" hexagon that I'm using, so I didn't stitch all the way to the bottom.

 

Thursday after work, I ordered some hexagon paper templates from Paper Pieces. I was very surprised to get them in the mail on Saturday! They seem like a good quality paper. I haven't had time to baste any of my fabrics to them yet, so I can't show you any pictures of that.

 

Judy has more design walls up.

 

Happy stitching!

First Hexagon Project

Susan at CQ4fun is starting a new hexagon quilt, and she's invited people to join her. She is making it a redwork quilt by sewing scrappy red hexies into flowers, with white centers that have embroidery. I was intrigued by the idea, especially since I've never made a hexagon quilt before. But let's face it, I need to start another quilt as much as I need a hole in the top of my head! I tried to be strong. I really did. But I realized that resistance is futile!

As much as I love red and white quilts (I have made 2 red and white wall-hangings and I have 4 red and white lap-sized UFO projects, including my Winter Wonderland redwork quilt), I'm going to make my quilt a bit different than Susan's.

I've had this Moda "red white and bold" charm pack of patriotic fabrics for several years. The 5" squares were too small to use in my Quilt of Valor, but they will be perfect for 2" hexagons. I also have other patriotic scraps. So I'm planning on making another QOV quilt. I'm going to sew the hexies into a star shape, adding some patriotic embroidery to some of the white hexies.

If you want to sew along, Susan is going to be posting different embroidery designs to fit inside 2" hexies each week. You don't have to use them, they are just suggestions.

PaperPieces looks like a good resource for hexies and other English paper piecing templates. They have a free downloadable hexagon graph paper so you can design your own quilt. They also have cutting guides to see how large of a square of fabric you need for different-sized hexagons, and how many you can get out of different pieces of fabric. I've never dealt with this company before, so I do not know how their service is. And no, I am not affiliated with them in any way.

Of course, since I've never done paper piecing before, I might decide I hate it after I sew a few hexies together. In that case, I'll make a little mug rug and call it done!

Happy stitching!

QOV label

I've been working on the label for my Quilt of Valor. The website requests that you write "Presented to:" and they will fill in the recipient's name later.

I'm dedicating this quilt to my Great-Uncle Mike, who fought during World War II. He was a full-of-life Italian, always the life of the party at family gatherings. My fondest memory of him was when he *attempted* to teach me how to waltz at my Uncle Mark's wedding. It was not a success! LOL!

To make the label, first I typed out what I wanted in a Word document. I used Kristen font at size 22. Then I printed it onto plain paper and used my light-box to trace it onto a piece of Kona snow that I had leftover from my nephew's quilt. I pressed under a 1/4 inch seam allowance on each side, and now it's ready to be hand-stitched to the back of the quilt.

Happy stitching!

Design Wall Monday - April 8, 2013

This weekend, I picked up the instructions for the fourth and final border of my Fibonacci's Challenge quilt. This border needs to be 12" wide and include some "Tri-Recs" units. This is a new unit for me! The finished unit is a square with a triangle inside, kind of like a flying goose that's been squished on both sides.

Included with the instructions was a coupon for the Tri-Recs ruler set, so I bought it to work on this border. It works in a similar way to the Easy Angle and Companion Angle rulers for making flying geese.

I experimented a bit with the Tri-Recs unit with some scraps (obviously not fabric that will go in my Christmas Fibonacci quilt!). The four points of this star are each Tri-Recs units. I'm not yet sure if this is the arrangement I'll use, but it's one possibility. Since I have 8-pointed sawtooth stars in the center and 2nd border, and 5-pointed stars in the 3rd border, I kind of like the idea of 4-pointed stars in this border.

I need to think about this a bit more before I decide what I'll do. Even if I make these stars, I'm not sure how I'll arrange the colors.

Judy has more design walls at Patchwork Times.

Happy stitching!

CQJP March block

I finished stitching the seam treatments for my March block of CQJP (Crazy Quilt Journal Project) 2013. The fabrics are all black, but when I take close-ups, they look a bit washed out.

Almost all of my seams are from Carole Samples' book, Treasury of Crazy Quilt Stitches. I could make crazy quilts until I die and probably not use every stitch in that fabulous book! There is one seam, above, that was inspired by Susan at CQ4fun. The half circles above are kind of similar to a stitch she did recently, although when I went to copy her stitch, mine didn't quite turn out the same. If you haven't seen her wonderful CQJP blocks, you have to go over to her blog. She's making all of them with mini "war propaganda posters" - very fun!

Here's how the whole thing looks now. The March block is the one in the upper right corner.

Happy stitching!