Hand Stitching

My 18-year-old daughter and I have been enjoying watching some TV shows together while we do handwork; she knits and I either do EPP or embroidery. I've started the third point for my QOV Star quilt:

I've also made some progress on my current block for Winter Wonderland. This fabric is about 20" X 22", but I think I'm supposed to cut it down after the embroidery is finished. Since I'm still embroidering, I haven't really paid attention to that part of the directions!

I'm linking up to:

Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching

Life Under Quilts

 

 

Happy stitching!



Friday Finishes

I haven't finished any quilts this week, but I want to show you two other projects I've finished recently:

The one on top (red) is an English Paper Piecing Travel Kit. I used Haley's tutorial over at the Zen of Making. Her tutorial is very well-written. I did make a slight modification: she called for making two full rosettes of hexies, one for the flap and one for the pocket. The two sit right on top of each other, so I decided to make two half-rosettes. If I made this again, I would only make one full rosette and put it on the front flap. However, I still LOVE this little travel kit!!!

Here's what it looks like inside:

In the front pocket, I put a pair of scissors, an Altoids tin, and a needlebook I made. The Altoids tin nicely holds my 1" hexie papers and a spool of leftover thread for basting. (Ignore the numbers inside the tin; I'm keeping track of how many hexies I've cut out so far.)

A finished rosette of 1" hexies fits right into one of the back sections:

Looking down into the travel kit, there are three sections: the front has my scissors, Altoids tin, and needlebook; the middle has fabric squares ready for basting; and the back has basted hexies and that finished rosette. Haley said that one of the sections will hold a fat quarter, but I prefer to pre-cut 2.5 inch squares for my 1" hexies. That size allows a good amount of seam allowance.

My second recent finish is a hussif. I've been seeing hussifs online for several years and have been wanting to make myself one. I've gotten tired of carrying my embroidery blocks around in a Ziploc bag, so I decided it was time to make this project. Originally, hussifs (the word comes from "housewife") were small sewing kits carried by women around the house. I believe soldiers also took hussifs to war for mending of their clothes.

Although I found some tutorials online, none of them had exactly what I wanted, so I designed my own. Folded it's about 7.25 X 7.75 inches. All the fabrics were leftover from my J'Aime Paris quilt. Even the binding, which was already cut and folded!

Here's the inside with some labels, so you know what's what:

 

I made the needlebook open upwards, so the hussif would close easier than if the needlebook opened on the side:

Behind the charcoal gray section is a pocket extending all the way across the width of the hussif. It's the perfect size for my Winter Wonderland redwork embroidery block!

I'm linking up to Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.

 

Happy Stitching!

Design Wall Monday Update

Hello! Yesterday I promised that I would show you some of what I've been working on lately. You may remember, before my "quilting drought," that I started an EPP hexagon quilt with patriotic fabrics. My goal is to make a large star quilt to donate to Quilts of Valor. I have gotten some work done on that since I last wrote about it. The hexagons are 2" per side, so 4" going straight across. The center measures 28" across:

The first two star points are finished, although they are not actually attached to the center yet:

This has become too large of a project to really take anywhere to stitch on, so this summer, I decided to start another EPP hexagon quilt.

I'm using Kaffe Fassett's delicious fabrics, with his "grape" colored shot cotton for the center. I have one little rosette finished. Eventually I plan on making some stars out of these hexies, so for now, I'm calling this "Hexie Stars". For this project, I'm using 1" hexies. Here are some more hexies, basted and ready to go. I basted these while in the car on the way to my in-laws' farm. Basting doesn't require too much precision stitching, so it's a great way to while away the 5-hour trip.

Shelley at Elsie's Girl had a fabulous suggestion: buy a Fiskars hexagon punch (available in the scrapbooking section of your local craft store) and use it to punch out all those magazine subscription inserts. The inserts are a great weight for EPP papers, and much cheaper than buying the papers pre-cut.

 

Besides these, I've started a new leaders/enders project. (If you're not familiar with leader/enders, here's a description by Bonnie Hunter.) I first fell in love with this pixelated heart quilt a few years ago, and kept it in the back of my mind. Then Sharon brought a pixelated heart quilt which she had made to quilt guild, and I knew I needed to make one soon. So I've been cutting out 2.5 inch squares of low volume/neutral fabrics for the background. I have a few sewn together so far:

Hopefully I'll have this done in time for Valentine's Day, but we'll see!

 

I have actually been working on some other things as well, lately, but the laundry is calling, so I'll have to tell you about those on another day.

 

I'm linking up to Judy at Patchwork Times and Jessica at Life Under Quilts.

 

Happy stitching!



I'm BAAAACK!

Hello! It's been awhile since I posted! Over two years in fact. Long story short: two years ago, I was working part-time in an elementary school. My principal called me at the end of July, 2013 and offered me a job as a first grade teacher. I was thrilled to accept, but going back to full-time teaching kept me really busy! Everything in education has changed dramatically since I taught 2nd grade before my kids were born...20 years ago! So for the past two years, I have been too consumed with my teaching responsibilities (plus my family) to have much time to quilt, and if I'm not working on quilts, there's not much to blog about!

I've missed the quilt-blogging community, so here I am again. Although I can't promise to be very consistent once school starts up again next month. ;)

I have managed to do a bit of quilt-related things over the past two years. In January, 2014, my guild started a block of the month program. Different guild members designed or suggested blocks for the BOM. I decided to challenge myself to make each block improvisationally. Although I finished all the blocks last year, I didn't finish the quilting and binding until this month.

For the prints, I used some of the 2014 Downton Abbey fabrics. I supplemented with a few Kona solids. I offset the grid to add to the modern feel of the quilt. Here are a few closer shots of the various blocks:

For the back, I used some yardage of the Downton Abbey castle fabric, with a strip of the blue DA fabric on the side. The small square is my label.

Here's a close-up of my FMQ in the background. I did swirls and flowers. In each block, I FMQed different designs to go along with the block design.

My quilt guild is part of the Modern Quilt Guild, so last summer, I participated in their Michael Miller fabric challenge by making this wall hanging.

I received fat eighths of these fabrics, and I was able to add Kona snow for the negative space and (I think Kona azure?) for the binding. I enjoyed playing with asymmetry and deconstructing the square-in-square block. I FMQed the negative space in my favorite concentric circles design.

This summer, I've been enjoying some time off school to work in my studio. I'll catch you up to some of what I've been making soon!

Have a fabulous day!

Happy stitching!

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!