A Bit of Applique

American Idol had a three night finale as they ended the 15 year series this past week.

 I got to sit and watch all 3 nights and get some hand stitching done. Yea me!

1857 Block 13

1857 Block 11

1857 Block4

1857 Block 8 in process

1857 Block 14 in process. I do not like that yellow and will try to find something a bit more cheerful

Blessings,
Chris

Prepping Area

I was asked if I had a prepping area in my quilt room. Well, yes and no. I have so much room in my quilt room. It is the "parlour" in our 1842 farm house and measures 14 by 14 feet with a 9 foot ceiling and 3 large windows facing south and west so lots of sunlight when the sun shines.

I had been machine quilting the Blue roses quilt and it took up the better part of two 8 foot tables set at right angles with the machine in the center in a craft table so the it was the same height as the tables. I found this a bit claustrophobic, so I took out one of the tables and slid over the glass top table I use for a light table.
When I finished, I had the long table folded up and moved out to the hall also, so I could photograph the quilt on the 96x96 inch design wall. Then I set up a folding card table for my other computer and printer as I was doing some editing. Now it is just holding more clutter.

 I got a treadmill this winter so had it set up in the hall just outside the quilt room so I can look out the windows through the ginormous geranium plants when I go walking. This meant moving the elevated 6 foot cutting table into the quilt room. So I ended up having 4 tables, 2 craft tables with machines, a desk and no less than 7 shelving units, my comfy office chair, a less comfy student chair and 2-3 other chairs for students, 4 table lamps and 10 geranium plants on the windows, a card table and a partridge in a pear tree. Now, with the warm weather last week, I was host to some visiting ants. And I took down the ironing board and it is leaning on the wall in the hall.

 I have been trying to do some de-clutter and created a lot more clutter as I have cleared off some of the book shelves. This is also my office and computer workplace. I work better in a cleared organized space, but do not have really good skills to accomplish that. My best clear out times have happened in years past when I got stinkin' mad after kittens had peed on stuff, or, like last week, when there was a dead mouse somewhere in here and I tore the place apart trying to find it. It was not too cold outside and I opened windows to clear the air but found nothing. Well, actually, I found some photos I was looking for.

 So, where do I do my prep work? I usually slide a bunch of stuff over and just do the prep work. But that sounds so, so unorganized. I like the back basting method now that I know how to do it and find that it is now a part of the relaxing handwork that I have come to love so much. I prep parts of several blocks and then have them ready to pick up whenever I am avoiding doing any work, or when I am traveling or babysitting or sitting in long meetings. It is fun to put the blocks up on the design wall to see my progress, photograph or to have them all up so I can make informed colour choices for new blocks.

A quick look in here today would have observers wondering how I ever get any work done in this clutter and I wonder the same thing. I plan to have a machine quilting workshop here for my GORF girls (well, it was supposed to be last week until the mouse thing) and I have to make room for the girls to set up their machines. It will work. Maybe I will even take pictures to remind me how nice and organized it can be.

Blessings,
Chris

Slow Stitching

I had been working on  machine quilting the Blue Roses   but found time to do some hand applique on the 1857 blocks. New blocks were released on Fri and I quickly prepped them so I would have some hand work in the days ahead.

 I found my Karen K Buckley perfect circles in the bottom of a box of unused small rulers and gadgets. I will finally use them on the circles for several of the blocks but not today. 

 I have a brand new quilt to start and have a limited timeline. Still deciding on the pattern.

 I am pulling all the fabrics in my extensive stash in the new colours. Hopefully I will not have to purchase any new ones but we shall see.

 I completed these 2. They were kind of fun. I do not especially like the reproduction chrome yellows but did use this yellow Dear Jane 2 for that crown.  Looks like either it has the pox or is covered in bugs. 

Spring is here and so is a brand new snow cover on my growing green grass and crocuses. Well, that gives me more indoor time since I cannot rake pine tree debris from under the snow.

blessings,
Chris

April OMG

And the Blue Roses quilt is finally quilted. I started making the thing in 2009 and was planning to have it completed quickly but I was doing my  masters and had started the Dear Jane quilt, so it ended up in  a project box. A friend's daughter was getting married so I offered it to her as a project and she ended up doing all the machine applique and sewed it all together. She now knows the difference between freezer paper on the back and raw edge. She prefers raw edge. I prefer needle turn hand applique, but this is her quilt to give her daughter. I machine quilted it as a whole and struggled with  tension and sore hands, broken needles and fraying thread. I had to change machines to complete it and am so glad I had the binding done half way with the big Brother machine. I also realized that you have to replace your Machinger gloves after a while.

Blue Roses

For my April OMG I plan to complete the 5 blocks for Ben Biggs that I did not get done last month. The pieces are all sitting up front here now that the tables and machines have been cleared of the big quilt.

Ben Biggs

 Blessings,
Chris

First OMG Challenge

I signed up for the OMG challenge - One Monthly Goal - thinking that it should be a piece of cake to complete these 5 Ben Biggs blocks. How wrong I was. I had too much time and did not get to it until today and have to post a blog about it by tomorrow. Tomorrow I will be sitting in a Canadian Guernsey annual meeting all day just like I was exactly a year ago when I cut out all those 140 buds and leaves out of Florianni wash a way fusible in preparation for the corner buds for  this quilt. Sigh.  To my defense, I baby sat sick little girl grand children a lot, was sick myself, took  8 year old Ava to New Brunswick to spend a week visiting Auntie Melanie and her babies, took a blogging break and had no internet for a week because of the ice storm here last week.

Ben Biggs Corner Buds so far

Also, I was machine quilting the Blue Roses quilt and having a most difficult time. My hands hurt a lot as I was trying to move the bulk around, I broke 3 needles on the Brother yesterday and finally switched to the Bernina and after resetting everything, and unstitching one of the blocks I finally completed the thing. In my mind, I could not get at the OMG because I had this thing spread out all over the tables and wanted to complete it first. Did I mention I do not do deadlines well?  

Quilting the Blue Roses

In reality I was having a too much fun working on the 1857 blocks. I had to prep a few to take with me and I ended up stitching a few extra corner leaves in preparation for the blocks to be released on Friday.The bottom 3 are not complete yet and I have not started 2 of the blocks. Those purple leaves with the hearts look a bit dark but maybe its the pink hearts that are a bit light. I am using left over reproduction fabrics from my Dear Jane journey. I did not realize just how many double pinks I had until I cut out lots of leaves using my GO cutter and custom leaf die. Those leaves are really easy to do this way and it takes about a half hour per block.

1857 Blocks so far

So, all in all, my first OMG was not an epic fail so much as I did not give it enough importance to get it done on time. I will try again next month but you will have to wait until April first to see what it will be.

Blessings,
Chris

Blue Roses

The sun is shining, Spring has arrived and so has the mud. I am taking a blogging break for  a couple of weeks. Going to visit the little boy grand children and I have some deadlines that are looming and I have been ignoring. So need to prep a couple more 1857 blocks and  finish quilting the Blue Roses. I put the binding on by machine. Usually, I stitch the binding to the back of the quilt, turn it over and top stitch it down from the front. I did not realize that I had stitched to the front until I was clipping it over. The mitered corners do turn over neater this way I found.

Blue Roses Binding

I love using these wonder clips for this. They do tire my hands though. It takes a bit of pressure to squeeze them open and my arthritic fingers do not like that.  I started the quilting by stitching in the ditch all around those sashing strips. Then I measured the border, marked it and basted all the way around and trimmed it before  putting on the binding. I still have all the free motion quilting to do in the blocks. This will be a simple scribble of hearts and flowers. I often do it in this order so there is less bulk around the outside for shoving into the machine opening. Sometimes I have a deadline for the quilt and quilt until I run out of time, but the binding is already on. This way, I only have to change the presser feet once. I started out using the walking foot. I will now drop the feed dogs, put in the see-through darning foot and go free motion. I am using a WonderFil wt 80 thread for the first time. It is finer than I am used to but it seems strong enough since I have not had any thread breakage so far.

When I get home I have my one monthly goal of completing 5 Ben Biggs to get done. I still have to prep 20 buds and 20 leaves to machine applique in the corners. I have 3 weeks to get that done. I can do this. 
Also, I have to get another wedding quilt going. And No, it will not be  hand appliqued.

Blessings,
Chris

One Monthly Goal

I have been seeing this OMG logo around blogland lately and wondered if I could join in and be successful. First of all, I have to understand the rules. Set one quilting goal for the month, write a blog post about it and link at the beginning of the month. Then write another blog post at the end of the month to show the completion of this particular goal. I could try it once. I might even succeed.

I found this out on Feb 8th just after the Feb link was closed. Okay, I will aim for March 1-7. Now to choose a doable goal and do it. That sounds easy enough. But what one quilting goal will I choose from the 471 things I am presently doing? It's not like I have to complete an entire quilt during the month. I can choose a doable chunk. I will have to be accountable. My integrity is at stake! Well, maybe not.

So often, I operate out of impulse. I might jump in and start a new quilt because I have all the fabrics and pattern sitting here, forgetting that I have done this a few times in the past couple of years, and  as a result, forgetting that I have many unfinished quilts on the go. When does a work in progress become a UFO? Let's just say, I have a few of each.

Or I operate out of necessity. I committed to completing a specific quilt for a specific person for a specific date. So I put everything else on hold and get it done. Or, I hop on a plane to visit someone and take along a few hand applique blocks. When was the last time I used the sewing machine? Oh, yes, back in November I sewed together all the CCCQ blocks and machine quilted it and bound it and gave it to my aunt for her 90th birthday. That's something I planned and worked towards for a year.

My One Month Goal for March will not be to complete anything. It will be to advance one specific quilt. But which one?   Since I wrote on my 2016 goals to complete, quilt and bind at least one quilt and that being Ben Biggs, then my OMG for March will be to complete 5 blocks that are already started. That is doable. It is machine applique work. Something I cannot take on a plane with me.

These are 5 blocks in progress. I pulled the pictures from my blog.

There will be no less than 4 buds and leaves in each corner of all 25 blocks. That's 100. Each.

I am using a wash-away fuseable called Floriani. I cut out the shapes, pressed them to the back of the fabrics, cut them out, then turned under a scant 1/4 inch and glued the edges under. Yes a lot of work. And I thought this would be a quicker way of doing it.Some of these are already applique down. Now to complete them.

Blessings,
Chris