March and April Goals

Happy Easter...He is risen!

We had a wonderful church service this morning, celebrating Christ's resurrection. We weren't able to get together with my sister and her husband today, so we had our Easter celebration yesterday, which was very nice. My parents and my younger sister live 1800 miles away, so we couldn't celebrate with them. So today we've had a quiet day at home.

Since it's the last day of the month, it's time to talk about monthly goals. Even though this past week was Spring Break for me, I didn't get all my goals accomplished. But it was a good week off work, so I'm not complaining. These were my March goals:

1. Piece the 3rd border for my Fibonacci's Challenge quilt. Done, but I also decided to do some applique on this border, which is not finished yet. See here for the latest progress.

2. Sew twelve blocks together for my All-Star UFO quilt. Done. But you'll have to come back this Friday for my First Friday UFO post!

3. Embellish the February and March seams of CQJP 2013. Done with February, about half done with March seams. The photos of the February seams are here.

4. Trace, cut, and fuse appliques for McKenna Ryan 12" mini-quilt. Done. Here's the post about this project.

My two extra credit projects were:

1. Finish 3 block B's of Easy Street. Done. Here's how they look, along with the first B block that I made back in January.

2. Baste my AP&Q Mystery Quilt. Still not done! I guess this is getting transferred to next month's goal list, again....

April Goals:

1. Finish the 3rd border and make the 4th border for my Fibonacci's Challenge quilt.

2. Make label for my QOV quilt.

3. Finish top of All-Star UFO quilt.

4. Embellish the March and April seams of CQJP 2013.

I have three extra credit projects this month (I know, wishful thinking for sure):

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.

2. Quilt McKenna Ryan 12" mini-quilt.

3. Baste my AP&Q Mystery Quilt.

Here's this month's poster for the studio wall:

 

See how other quilters are doing on their goals over at Judy's Get it Done post.

 

Happy stitching!

Happy Mail!

Look what the mailman brought me today:

My Quilts of Valor quilt, all quilted and sent back to me by Leisa, a long-arm quilter who I got connected with from the QOV website. The pattern for the quilt was a freebie from Judy at Patchwork Times. Leisa did a fabulous job on the quilting! I did a little happy dance when I opened the box :)

In each of the centers of the blocks, Leisa quilted a little flag with one star and some stripes.

In the "frame" of each block, she quilted a star in each corner, connected with wavy lines.

In the inner  (red) border, Leisa quilted different words such as thank you...

...USA, freedom, liberty, etc. There's a star in between each word.

This little corner was too small for a word, so she made a cute little flag.

For the outer border, she stitched around each large star then quilted swirly lines in between each star.

When my husband saw the quilt, he said it's beautiful and then he asked me where in the house we're hanging it up. Ummmm, we're not. It's being sent to a soldier!

Now it just needs a label and some binding.

Happy stitching!

Work on Fibonacci's 3rd Border

I've taken a bit of a break from my laptop this week...it's been a nice change of pace. But I have been working on my 3rd border for my Fibonacci's Challenge quilt. The four border sides are each sewn, but not attached to the center part yet. The quilt is on the ping pong table, so there's actually some green that's not part of the quilt.

I really like the way this border looks as it is, but one of the requirements is that I use the challenge fabric in each border, so I am currently working on appliqueing 5-pointed stars onto each side. Once I'm done with the applique, I will sew the borders to the center.

Have a wonderful Easter!

Happy stitching!

First Day of Spring Break

Today is the first day of Spring Break! We're staying home this week, so it will be a great week to sleep in, hang out with my husband and kids, get a few jobs done around the house, and work on some quilts!

This weekend, my brother-in-law, sister-in-law, and their two boys came to visit. Their older son is the same age as my youngest, and their other son is a year and a half younger. The three boys are inseparable when they're together, which is so much fun to see! We had a nice visit, but I didn't get much quilting done. Since their boys had spring break last week, they had to leave Sunday to get back home. So Sunday afternoon, I worked on my McKenna Ryan 12" X 12" mini-quilt from her "Out & About" series.

Since I had cut all the shapes out last week, I spent the afternoon peeling the backing paper from each little applique piece and placing it where it goes.

For this type of fusible applique project, I use The Applique Pressing Sheet, made of Teflon. I placed the pressing sheet over the diagram. You can just see the black lines showing through in the photo above. Then I place each little applique piece where it goes. Once things are where I want them to be, I press them while still on the pressing sheet. Then I can peel the fused piece off the pressing sheet and place it onto my base fabric.

Here's the whole block, all fused together. Now I just need to pin-baste then free-motion quilt. Since it's only 12" X 12", it's easy to maneuver while I'm quilting. It just takes awhile because you have to quilt around each of the little pieces. But I've made two other blocks in this series, and I like how they turn out, so I think it's worth the time.

I'm linking up to Judy's Patchwork Times for Design Wall Monday.

Happy stitching!

Getting Closer

Oh happy day! I finished the four Block B's that I need for my smaller version of Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street quilt.

Yes, I purposely used the same green plaid in the center of each of these blocks. I like how the lighter green fabric looks inside the star.

In the quilt, they won't be side by side like the above photo. They will be set on point, in between all those Block A's I finished last month, like this:

Now I need to start making the setting triangles. I kind of did things backwards from Bonnie's directions. I wanted to see how the blocks look, so I made those before the setting triangles.

Happy stitching!

Starting Fibonacci March Border

I think I've decided what I'm going to do for my March border of my Fibonacci Challenge.  The rules for this month include:
1. Use some of the challenge fabric.
2. Incorporate strip-pieced 4-patches or 9-patches. They can be even or uneven 4/9-patches, and they can be set straight or on point.
3. Use a new fabric.
4. Border should finish at 8".

After thinking about different possibilities over the past week, I've decided to make 4" red 4-patches, alternating with 4" green squares. Over this background, I will machine-applique stars using my different creams and golds, including the challenge fabric. The stars will be assorted sizes.

I wasn't planning on doing applique on this quilt, but this just feels "right" for this border. I will be continuing the star motif that's in the center block and in the second border. Since I'm appliquing these stars, I can scatter them randomly to create some movement.

Since some of my reds are getting depleted, I pulled a few more red fabrics from my stash. This one is actually a marbled red, but it shows up solid in this closeup. It feels so good to be using up fabric that's 17 years old. LOL

Here are some of the red 4-patches that I've made so far. The fabric on the lower left of the left 4-patch is the marble fabric from the first photo.

See more quilt projects at Judy's Patchwork Times.

Happy stitching!

Friday night stitching

My 15-year-old daughter loves fairy tales *almost* as much as I do. Lately, we've been watching some of the different movie versions of Cinderella. A few weeks ago we watched "Ever After" with Drew Barrymore as Cinderella and Anjelica Huston as a really good evil step-mother, and last night we watched "A Cinderella Story" with Hilary Duff. While we watched last night, I worked on a few projects.

First I cut out some of the pieces for my McKenna Ryan mini-quilt. Cutting those little curves and notches got to be a bit mundane, so after a while, I switched over to some hand-sewing.

After working on my black CQJP project a few other nights this week, I wanted a change of color. Plus, I wanted to be able to just mindlessly sew without thinking about what stitch combination to do for each seam. So I pulled out my current Winter Wonderland block and made the snowflakes. When I trace these patterns, I use a very fine red Micron pen (I think it's a 005). That way if a stitch is slightly off the drawn line, it's not obvious like it would be if I traced with a black pen. I don't like to use a washable marking pen for this purpose because those are so thick.

Today is the first Saturday in months that we haven't had to go sit in a school gymnasium for a basketball game or track meet. I love that my boys are involved in sports, but I'm glad for a Saturday at home. I have some laundry going and now I'm off to do a bit of sewing on my Fibonacci quilt.

Happy stitching!

CQJP 2013 February Block

Here's the stitching I've done on the February portion of my 2013 CQJP (Crazy Quilt Journal Project). I've realized that a main reason I'm not as motivated to work on CQJP this year is because I'm not doing lots of fancy, colorful stitches and I'm not adding any beads or other embellishments to the black fabrics. Once I get to the center, I will add lots of bling, though, so I just have to get through this part. It's certainly been challenging to come up with seam treatments that will look okay with the colors (or lack of variety in colors).

I'm not sure if I'll keep the two seams on the left as they are. They're a bit boring compared with the other seams.

Here's a closeup of the "basket weaving" I did on one seam. You can also see the "Danish knots" to the left of it and the curvy buttonholes with chain-stitched flowers and the triangles with French knots to the right of the weaving.

Here's how the whole thing looks so far. February's section is the top middle.

Happy stitching!

Crawling down Easy Street

Where has the weekend gone? It feels like all I had time for at home was sleeping and eating until last night!

Last week, I was able to drive out to the quilt shop that is hosting the  Fibonacci's Challenge to show them my progress on border #2 and to get the instructions for the March border. While I'm thinking of different possibilities for my 3rd border, I worked a bit on Easy Street.

I've got the sub-units sewn together for block B. Since I'm making a smaller version of Easy Street than Bonnie Hunter's, I only need a total of four of block B.

Visit Judy at Patchwork Times to see what other quilters are working on.

Happy stitching!

Guild Sew-in

I don't think I mentioned it, but I recently joined a quilt guild...a MODERN quilt guild. Now I know you're thinking, "Ummmm - Jill - your quilts don't exactly fit the modern label." But since I want to try some modern looks, I figure the best way to learn is to join a guild that focuses on modern quilts.

So the guild had a sew-in yesterday. I decided to just bring work I could do by hand. I didn't know what the set-up would be for sewing machines and I don't have any super-long extension cords. Plus, I didn't want to lug my heavy, old, heavy, mechanical, heavy machine there. (Did I mention that my sewing machine is old and heavy due to all the metal inside? No computers in that baby. Maybe one of these years, like after my 11-year-old is graduated from college, I'll get a new machine. LOL)

I had a great time. Of course, I probably did more chatting than sewing, but that's okay. Isn't that one of the points of this type of thing?

The first thing I worked on was my name tag to wear at the guild. I had done some prep work at home: used my light box to trace my name onto solid white fabric, then sewed the four logs of the asymmetrical log cabin onto the center. At the sew-in, I used red embroidery floss to stitch my name. Then I hand sewed the front to the back, with a layer of batting inside to give it some substance. Finally, I stitched a safety pin onto the back.

After I finished the name tag, I started working on my 3rd McKenna Ryan 12" mini quilt from her Out and About series. This one is called Room with a View. After our trip to Yellowstone and Grand Tetons this past summer, I bought two other kits from this series. I realized that the space I want to hang them in is big enough for a third mini-quilt, so I went back to the shop and got this one. The bonus is that each kit was 30% off! I don't think most people would consider this a "modern" quilt, it's more of an art quilt, but it was something I could work on without my machine. I figured if the quilt police kick me out of the guild for not working on something modern enough, then it's probably not a guild I really want to be a member of! As it turned out, there were several people working on projects that might not necessarily fit in the "modern quilt" label.

I traced most of the pieces onto Lite Steam-A-Seam 2, and that's as far as I got. I think this little quilt has a lot more little pieces than the other two did (or maybe my memory is going bad!).

Lots of other quilters are linked up to Judy's to show what they've been working on. Have fun looking at all the eye candy.

Happy stitching!

March First Friday UFO

Happy First Friday of March!

 

Last night I finished my last block for my All Star UFO, and I didn't have to stay up til midnight! I machine-appliqued a heart onto the center of the star. The center fabric is different than the outer background fabric, although it's hard to tell that in this photo.

 

I considered hand-appliqueing the heart, but then I decided I didn't want to put that much time into one block of a quilt that will be used in the family room, where the kids and their friends hang out.

 

Now that I've made my 12 blocks, I'm going to start assembling the quilt top. When I first started making these blocks 12 years ago, I was going to do a traditional setting with sashing and corner blocks. Now, though, I'm not feeling the love for that. I'm going to go with a slightly more modern setting with more "negative space". I'm still making my final decision of what that's going to look like, so stay tuned to see how this turns out!

 

Happy stitching!