ufo's and wip's - what an adventure

I finished this quilt this morning. It felt really good to get it finished. I spent a little time figuring out some of the odd sections to get together at Sarah's Friday and managed to bring home the top in a good enough preparational state to get it finished up. This one is a couple years old!

I don't really have space to lay it out at home, so this teaser will have to do the job. I'll get some full sized shots when I get it ready for quilting.

A few months ago, I looked over my UFO and WIP list (maybe it is the same list for some projects!) and decided to start hammering them out. I managed to finish a bunch of quilts over the summer, including Sparkle Punch, Snapshots, Tetris, STARS, Postage Stamps,  and probably some others I am forgetting.

Pat linked up with Leah's first UFO Sunday. What a great idea! The main reason I blog about quilting is to share what I'm doing and to get ideas from others. With new ideas often comes too many started projects that quickly turn into UFOs. As we would say in my household, RUT ROH!

In the spirit to laying my UFOs on the table, I've decided to put them all out there for the world to see. Before you think I've become a hot mess, I think it is going to be therapeutic to get them out there. Then maybe I can remember what needs to be done.

So, with no further chit chat from the peanut gallary, my UFO and WIP list.

Fenced In - Not so much!

ATCFA Swap Blocks in American colors

Beejeebers blocks

More swap blocks in purples, greens and golds

Batch of Brownies. Very UFO

More swap blocks - but this time with sashing!

Ugh, too many! Some I don't even want to work on but I know I should. I might have to start some other projects to break these up. If you feel adventurous today, go ahead and link yourself up!

feeling lost in this project

I received bad news today. I didn't know what to do with myself so I pulled this old WIP out because I thought it would be simple to get together. I just want to do some easy sewing because it soothes my soul. When you are sad, says my former doctor, it is always good to do something. Sewing is my something.

I had it laid out on the back of a plastic, flannel backed table cloth. Those things make fantastic portable design walls. When you don't want to work on something, just fold it up and tuck it away. Maybe that is why this project escaped me for so long.

 Instead of having a nice, easy sewing session, I found a big mess. I poorly planned this quilt and, instead of working section by section like any normal person, I just sewed things together and filled in the gaps as I laid it out back whenever.

I tried using my trust ABC pins to keep order, but that doesn't work well went there is no order in the first place. Instead of having neat, tidy rows and blocks, I have odd sections and L seams to figure out. I could rip things apart in section that need it and start again, but it seems like too much work.

I guess I'll see what happens. Maybe I need to tuck it away for some more time before picking it up again.

binding backwards

This week I finished up two of the quilts on my list - the postage stamp quilt and the tetris quilt along quilt.

Stamps - DONE!

Tetris - DONE!

I decided to try something new with the binding. I like to do machine binding because hand sewing takes a long time (and my arthritis is going a little bonkers). Usually, I would sew the binding to the front and then fold it to the back before "stitching in the ditch" on the front of the quilt to secure the binding to the back. This worked okay but I would occasionally find spots on the back there the needled didn't catch the binding. This got me thinking about reversing things, so that I would sew the binding down to the front. DING DING! I had an idea.

With these quilts, I sewed my binding to the back and then flipped to the front. I found it really easy to sew along the edge of the binding on the front to hold it down.

I love this quilting!

 For the postage stamp quilt, I used 2.5" binding. I felt I had a little too much fabric to fold over and the seam on the front is inconsistent at times. I don't think most people would notice but I do!

Purple binding everywhere!

 For the Tetris quilt, I reduced the binding down to 2" and it was a lot more manageable. I had a nice, tight fold over and the stitching was easy. I had to trim the batting and fabric in the corners to get my miters to look good, but this was really easy to do.

I love the backing on this!

I plan to keep doing my bindings this way, except for maybe very special quilts that need the hand touch. I totally suggest giving it a try if you like to machine your bindings! Maybe I'll do a tutorial for it next time I'm binding - I was so focused on getting these quilts together (both are gifts for friends) that my picture taking skills failed me!

tetris qal - week six

Here comes the final installment of Tetris. Up to now, I've made 5 tetris blocks for this top and the quilt looks like this:

And now, the final block:

What a fun quilt along. Next up is to get this puppy all put together and to prepare it for quilting. I have some fun variegated purple thread I'm going to use for straight line quilting. I'll post when it is done!

fat quarter shop - 12 pound grab bag review

Yup, as you can read from the title someone received one of the Fat Quarter Shops 12 pound grab bags. Someone (who shall remain nameless) forgot my holiday gift and, since my birthday is coming up and that will likely also be forgotten, sent one of these to me as a joint holiday/birthday box.

I checked out a couple reviews online before we ordered. Looked good! Both reported more fabric than expected and the boxes they received were super yummy - one was a bunch of fabric from simular color lines and the other was a true grab bag!

I'm pleased to report that my box did not disappoint! For all the "cut from bolt" pieces (that is, ones cut X lengh by WOF) I had over 30 yards of scrap (conservative measure). I also had about 2-3 yards of odd sized pieces. All the fabric was pretty good sizes - the smallest cut was 3ish by WOF and the smallest hunk was about 10 inches square. Most of the cuts were between 6 and 17 inches long by WOF, which means they are great for working into projects. The most common sizes were 6 and 9 -17.

Below, I've put in some pictures with comments. I totally recommend picking one of these up if you love scraps and fun fabric. Most of the fabric was more traditional (vs. modern prints) but it was a good mix. I had a few holiday prints and a couple novelty (super heros?!) in there also.

The box overflows... very well packed!

So much fabric!

There were a lot of fun prints in the box. Below are some of my favorites.

Perfect for a baby quilt!

snapshots - all done!

I finished my Snapshots quilt this week. The pattern is in The Practical Guide to Patchwork by Elizabeth Hartman.

I have really liked making 36 patch quilts since making my lemonade quilt during Crazy Mom Quilt's 36 patch quilt along. I keep dreaming of making all my jelly rolls into 36 patch quilts but end up stopping before I get going. Variety is needed!

 

This quilt started after I received the book. Her Snapshots is done with black and white prints. I really liked that look. Then last fall I noticed the holiday fabrics coming out at Jojo's. The red and white prints stood out to me so I started collecting ones that were not too obviously Christmas. The plan worked because most of the reds matched pretty well.

This is the first pieced back I've ever done. I don't know why it took me soo long to give one a shot. It was a lot of fun! I really like the yellow on the back of this top. It just makes it fun.

 I quilted this diagonally on the whites. I noticed another top that did this and really liked how it looked. I have been in a meandering rut and decided to try some new ways of quilting on the next few quilts I finish up.

The binding is nice and scrappy. I really like this stripped print. I wish I had enough to do the whole binding!

echo quilting - marking a quilt top

I started quilting my postage stamp quilt. I spent a bit of time thinking about how I wanted to quilt this one. I've done a lot of meandering quilting in the past and wanted to try something different. I was looking at a couple of my quilt books (the 100 patterns kind) and noticed some of the patterns used on the antique quilts highlighted in the book. One that I really liked was this clamshell pattern. I wasn't sure if I wanted to try that on a bigger quilt. I also noticed a lot of quilts with overall echo quilting. These seemed to match what I was looking for for this top.

I decided to do a giant X though the center of the top and then echo each section with V's. I tried a couple different ways to mark the top. If anyone has other ideas, let me know. I have mixed feelings on the methods I tried.

Method 1: Painters Tape. To use this method, you lay the tape on your top and then using it as a guideline as you sew. Since I was doing 2" intervals, I used my ruler to lay the tape down.

Pros: I didn't have to use the stupid marking tools (see below). It was also pretty fast to lay the tape down for long lines without having to measure all the time.

Cons: I found it to come up a bit when I sewed, or sometimes I would hit it with the needle. The biggest con was that I found it hard to mark where I wanted to sew - I would have to offset the tape from the sew line a bit so that I didn't sew on the tape.

Method 2: Marking Tools.  These are pretty easy to use. They are pens or pencils made for sewing and quilting. I used a blue wash out pencil (shown in the first picture) and a disappearing ink pen (second picture). I would lay out my ruler and use it as an edge to mark the cloth.

Pros: I liked sewing over the links much better. I could mark exactly where I wanted to sew and then sew on top of it. It also was easy to mark and note the piviot while sewing with the marks.

Cons: Both tools I used were very light and I had to work to get a mark I could see. I found the marker was easier to use but also vanished within a few hours of using, making it impossible to mark the whole top before sewing (unless I wanted to quilt the whole thing in one day!).

Blue pencil - pretty easy to see once marked.

You can hardly see the marker!

Despite how much of a pain marking this top is, I really like how the sections are turning out! I have half of the top done now and plan to finish it up over the week.

tetris week 5

The tetris adventure continues... da da da!!

That this point there is only one more block left in this QAL. It seems to be good timing, since next week (the week the last block posts!) is the last week I have off before starting my new job! I'm pretty excited to have a full time "real" job (not to say adjunct teaching isn't a job, it just pays really, really poorly for the amount of education and work it requires). The time line also gives me a good week to finish the quilt for my friend's birthday on the 26th.

This week I had to go off grid a little more than normal to get the blocks in. I have good carryover into Block 6 for next week. This will be a fun one to get finished and quilted!

quilting on a grid

I quilted my Red and White Snapshots Quilt. This pattern is in Elizabeth Hartman's excellent book The Practical Guide to Patchwork. This quilt was a little different because I decided to do a pieced back (like a real one, not just sewing hunks together like I usually do!).

I did straight line quilting on the white diagonals. I saw a this pattern quilted this way on Flickr and loved how the quilting frames each of the print blocks.

I used a walking foot to do the quilting and decreased the foot pressure a little bit to get nicer stitches. This quilt isn't too big so I didn't have problems feeding it through my Brother (1500S) while managing the bulk in the neck area. I've been working on a larger top over the weekend and I've had to be more careful with thinking about where the bulk would end up as I sewed.

I love this quilt. It reminds me of the holidays but not in a super obvious way.

The front!

The back!

I have to find some fabric in the stash to use for the binding.  I'm thinking red but who knows!

polaroid block

For August Beejeebers, Lindsay requested we all make her a Polaroid block. I had seen this block  bit in the couple of weeks prior to her posting it, so I was excited to try something new by making this block.

First, I framed all of my sweet fussy cuts in white.

Then I trimmed them down. Be sure to do this - I see blocks that miss this step in the instructions! The block looks much better when the white is trimmed before adding the background.

Once trimmed, I framed each in Kona Coal. Then I realized I had two different dye lots going on :(

Then I trimmed them to 4.5" square. I posted here about how to get the tilts going how you want them.

Arrange as you like them....

Then you have a really sweet looking block! I shipped this out the other day - I can't wait to see this quilt finished!

tetris week 4

This week for the Tetris QAL (hosted by Happy Quilting) I kept thinking "and the adventure continues!"

The blocks this week created very few challenges for my marker placing skills. I started by working in the blocks from the block 2 carry over. Once I got to the top of the block, I considered seeing if I could work the Block 3 top left carry over into Block 4. As you can see from the X's and redirects, this didn't work out.

I did manage to get some good placement into Block 6.

Here is the finished block:

 It is a very pink and orange block this week. I put all the blocks together and it is BIG! I don't have space to lay it out for a good photo so I'll have to update when the time comes!

sparkle punch

I finished my Sparkle Punch quilt.

I love it.

getting fussy tilts right

I'm not sure what the actual term is, but I have always had a hard time figuring out how to lay down my ruler when trimming blocks so that they "tilt" to one side or the other. I was working on my Beejeebers block for Lindsay and figured out a method that works great!

She picked out a very fun block - Polaroid Pictures - and wanted boy themed prints with Kona Coal background. I found enough prints by the skin of my pants (I'm not a fan of novelty prints!) and got to work. As I started to trim the blocks, I realized I needed to pay more attention to the way the block "tipped."

Let's keep those tilts orderly!

I spent a little time thinking about it and realized a very easy way to manage these tilts.

 First, I laid the block down in the position I wanted it to finish at. Here, you can see I want the right side of my mushroom to be "up" and the left to be "down."

 I then positioned my 5x5 ruler. I was cutting these to 4.5" square, so I noted where that line was as I laid out my ruler. I put the ruler down straight with the cutting mat. That is important because it will give you the right "tilt" when finished!

Trim the top and right side. If you are left handed, you might do this the other way around.

In this horrible picture, you can see I trimmed mine.

 Rotate the block around, align the ruler with the freshly cut edge, and trim the other two sides.

 Ta da! My block is trimmed and tipping the way I want it to. EXCELLENT.

Once you are done, you can trim all your blocks. Then they will look super nice once you get your block together!