Orange Crush Revisited

At long last, my Orange Crush quilt is completely finished--quilted, bound, and yes, it's labeled. The top has been done since last October, almost a year now. I guess I was putting off quilting it until I got more proficient at quilting from a pantograph, but I decided it was past time to get it done, good or bad. I quilted the bubbles I wanted on it, and I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. I'd forgotten how big this quilt was, nearly queen sized. I love this quilt!

It's A Top!

I spent all week trying to get this top done in between outings. I put the last border on the Orange Crush quilt this morning, yay! It took me forever to make up my mind whether or not to add the pieced border that Bonnie used, and I finally decided I liked just a plain border better. I also wanted to include an orange border in between the black and the red; but my husband vetoed that idea, and in the end I had to agree with him. So I'm binding it off with the orange, good or bad!

I've ordered a Bubbles pantograph to use for the quilting, which seems right to me, considering that the quilt is named after a carbonated beverage. If I can get the pantograph quick enough, I'd sure like to get the quilting done by the end of the week, but I go back to work Monday so there are no guarantees.

Credit where credit is due:

Orange Crush quilt design by Bonnie Hunter, Quiltville.com

Orange Crush Again...

... or maybe I should say still. Lately I have managed to get a few more border blocks finished in between blocks for other projects, and today I finished the rest of them and started sewing the blocks into rows. When I mentioned in my last post about how I wish quilters would share more about the ways in which they work on a quilt, Lori took me at my word and posted about how both she and her friend Henrietta approach the making of a quilt. I enjoyed reading every word about the nuts and bolts of their process. Lori likes to cut all her pieces right away, which is something I rarely do. It blew my mind to think about cutting 1,469 pieces for her quilt all at once, but I think it's a good idea to reevaluate the way I do things once in a while, and maybe this method has some advantages. Sometimes mindless piecing is really what I want to do! I thought the ziploc baggies were a great idea. See, that's just what I'm talking about!

Today was a Special Day, and I spent the entire day engaged in my two favorite activities, sewing and eating. I puttered around this morning finishing up the border blocks, one by one. I was focused, but some of these split half 4 patches, or whatever they were called, didn't come out to exactly the right size, so I was working with a paper foundation putting them together so they'd turn out the right size. Who would do it that way? Probably only me. It was a one by one kind of activity, and I poked along, thought about lots of other things, and just enjoyed myself.

Long about 2:00, I decided to make a blueberry pie with some fresh Maine blueberries I'd gotten at the grocery store the other day. The crust of my pie is a mixture of ground up oatmeal, ground up pecans, brown sugar, and butter, and it's delicious. The recipe calls for a cream topping, but I love the pie so much that I never made the topping before. Today I thought was a good time to try it. The topping is made with melted marshmallows mixed with half and half , whipped cream, and vanilla. Never did get around to finishing the topping. I melted the marshmallows and mixed in the half and half, stuck it in the frig, and there it sits.

Because it was a Special Day, my husband and I went to dinner at The Sedgley Place in Greene, and what a wonderful dinner it was. Like so many businesses in Maine, the building looks like it might once have been a private home in a quiet rural setting. The interior is decorated in such a way that you feel like you're eating in someone's home--wallpaper, lace curtains, fireplace, just a lovely quiet setting. No kids either. No menus. No annoying background music. No crowds. Just fine dining.

We had a 5-course meal with reasonable portions at reasonable prices--another thing that sets the restaurant apart. And absolutely everything was made from scratch in their kitchen, right down to the blue cheese dressing on my salad. For dinner I had creamy vegetable soup and mushroom caps stuffed with scallops for the appetizer; fresh homemade bread; all organic Maine grown vegetables in the salad and the meal; a 7-oz filet mignon grilled to perfection and Bearnaise sauce; and peach melba for dessert. Sound good? You bet! Surely this must be one of Central Maine's best kept secrets.

And now, I'm back in the sewing room!

Orange is in the Air

Bonnie posted Part 5 of the Orange Crush mystery last night, and this is the orange I'm using for the next set of blocks we're supposed to make. Pretty bright, isn't it? I wavered when I took it out of the cabinet; but emboldened by VickiW's choice of fabrics for her Quilt for an Hour project, I decided to live on the edge and put it in my quilt. It may be obnoxious, but you can't deny it will be bright and cheerful. And anyway I like it. Besides I've already changed my mind once on the orange, and I'm not buying any more fabric for this project! What do you think, Margo?

Because this is going to be a busy quilt, I decided to use just one blue in the centers, and not a particularly bright one at that. I'll use up a few more blue scraps in the half- and quarter-album blocks.

The mystery deepens... I still have yardage left over from the red, black, blue, and orange fabrics. What do you think? Sashings? Borders?

Saturday Update

This afternoon the bathroom got scrubbed, and I ran to the grocery store for a few things. Then it was back to the sewing room, and I made 9 more blocks for the Orange Crush mystery. Thats a total of 30 blocks I've made today! Tomorrow I'm going to finish the last 9 blocks for Step 4, and I'd like to play on my Tin Lizzie for a while in the afternoon. I've had enough for today though. My shoulders are killing me, so now I'll have a little supper and plant myself in front of the telly for the rest of the evening.

Sunday Stash Report

Spring is a busy time of year for most of us, and it must have been a busy weekend for everyone as well. I saw lots of Quiltathon posts for Saturday but none for Sunday, and only a few Stash Reports. Maybe more folks will add them in a day or so.

Our yard is in terrible shape after many years of not really caring for it properly, so this spring we're trying very hard to whip it back into shape. One of the things we're having a real problem with is wild violets. They are lovely, with their tiny white blossoms, but they are incredibly invasive and fast spreading, and they crowd out the grass. Although we spent some time digging weeds out of the lawn this weekend, there are too many violets in the lawn to dig them all out by hand; and I'm not sure exactly how we can tackle the problem. If anyone knows any magic that might work to get rid of them without also killing the lawn, I'd appreciate hearing from you.

Day lilies are also incredibly hardy plants and expand in the beds every year, so we dug them all out of one bed and transplanted hostas to fill up the space. We are beginning to grass in some of the many beds in our yard from when we bought the house, as we simply don't have time for all the maintenance; but we want to keep some of the hostas, and this is a good place for them. We set out a hummingbird feeder every spring and have lots of visitors, and the hostas will continue to attract them. The hummers also seem to like the Solomon's Seal, which is clumped in the corner, and which has small cream colored blossoms.

I worked odd shifts this week, which threw my schedule way out of whack; but I did manage to accomplish a few things in the sewing room. I cut out all the pieces for JudyL's Quilt for an Hour, which used about 5-1/2 yards. Then I thought I'd try to get just one block together because I was anxious to see how it would look. Morah was commenting on her blog a couple of days ago that she was having a little trouble getting those Peaky and Spike units--the star points--to be the correct size. I tried a couple of them, and I'm having a little trouble myself. They seem to want to pull in at the top of the larger triangle, throwing off the size of the unit.

I tried paper piecing an entire block, which turned out better. I'll try a few more of the Peaky and Spike units; and if I still can't sew one the right size, I may paper piece just those units. There's really no need to paper piece the whole block, as I have no problem with the half square triangle units. Judy's method of making them slightly oversized and then squaring them up works like a charm.

I also got all the black/red half square triangle units finished for the Orange Crush mystery, which used up about a yard and a half; and I've started putting the blocks together. I want to get all of those finished this week, and I'm hoping Step 5 won't go up just yet. Nobody else in the family likes these blocks so far---thank goodness for quilters who will tell me what I want to hear!

So here's the Sunday Stash Report:

Fabric used this week: 6-3/4 yards
Fabric used year to date: 70-1/4 yards
Fabric added this week: 0 yards
Fabric added year to date: 125-5/8 yards
Net year to date: - 55-3/8 yards

Sunday Stash Report

I'm a day late with the stash report, but better late than never. I sewed all week long but didn't use up any stash. I am, however, still headed in the wrong direction for stashbusting (is that a surprise?). I did buy 8 yards of fabric, but all of it will get used in short order. I found a different orange that I liked better for my Orange Crush mystery plus the red I needed for it. This is a BRIGHT red, and I just love it. Actually it had to be bright to keep up with some of the scraps I used. I wanted to see right away how a block would look with the red and black units, so I put a few together and just laid it out on the table. Only 29 more to go!

I also bought 4 yards of background fabric that I plan to use in JudyL's upcoming Quilt for an Hour. Many times I don't have yardage available for backgrounds and borders; and while I stock up on these now and then, I still don't always have available what I want. The remaining fabrics all came from my stash; and I'm using all batiks, except for one piece of fabric I hand dyed at least 10 years ago. It's in the upper right corner of the photo. I hated to cut into it because I liked it so much, and now I've found the project I've been saving it for all these years!

Somewhere I've got all the figures recorded for the stash report; but truthfully, I don't want to know right now. Next week will be better!

Orange Crush Step 3

I had a late shift today, so I knuckled down this morning and finished up the last of the half split four patch units before I went to work. 44 units for Step 3 was really a baby step compared to the first two steps. Now I'm excited to see the next step.

There are now 94 people on the Mystery Quilters Web Ring! As much as I enjoy seeing what other folks are doing, there's just no way I can get through all the blogs on the ring. So I try to choose a few different ones each time I have an opportunity to do a little surfing. How does everyone else do it? A few at a time, like me? View them all once a week? Bloglines?

Orange Crush Step 2

At last Step 2 of the Orange Crush mystery quilt is finished, all 142 units! I am really beginning to love how these are turning out. One of my goals this week was to finish Step 2 and get started on Step 3--mission accomplished. I started cutting more strips and triangles for Step 3 last night and sewed one together to see how it looked. With only 44 of these to make, I'll finish these this week.

Quiltathon Wrap Up

I really wanted to make the most of the last couple days of my Quiltathon, so I didn't take the time to post. Monday morning I was up bright and early and printed out another 300 raffle tickets for our quilt to be raffled off at the quilt show. For anyone who may be local, our quilt group, Backroad Quilters, is hosting a small quilt show at the West Gardiner Fire Station on Saturday, May 3 from 10 to 5 and Sunday, May 4 from 10 to 3. Please stop by and visit us.

By noontime I was ready to start quilting the Scrappy Bargello on my Lizzie; but when I dug out the backing for it I discovered I had never finished sewing the strips together. After I got that done, then I realized I'd have to piece some batting together to get a large enough piece.

I've tried some different ways of piecing batting, all tedious and not with the most satisfactory results; so I tried something new this time. After squaring up the smaller pieces of batting, I cut 2-inch wide strips of lightweight fusible interfacing (which has the fusible dots on one side only), butted up the edges of the batting, then fused strips of interfacing to both sides of the batting. Fusible interfacing is not so expensive; and if you have a coupon for JoAnn Fabrics, you can get it for a pretty good price. Piecing the batting this way worked well--no ridges, no separation, and it was faster than any other method I've tried. In fact, I'd do it this way next time too.

By the time I got done just getting the quilt ready to be quilted, it was time for supper and my quilt meeting. By 8:00 pm I was finally ready to start loading the quilt onto the frame. I had a little trouble with advancing my practice quilt on the frame before, so this time I decided to float the batting and top.

I learned a lot working on this small top. I knew I had a pre-existing problem with my tension, and I spent forever trying to get it adjusted correctly. It didn't help much that I was turning that little set screw on the bobbin case in the wrong direction. I had a small quilt sandwich I was using to adjust the tension, and I lost track of how many times I forgot to lower that darn presser foot. Wow, it really makes a big mess on the bottom of the quilt when you do that. I had no idea you could create a thread nest so big! Then I basted all the way across the top of the quilt and down one side without lowering the presser foot. Well, it'll all be covered by the binding, so no problem there. When I finally started actually quilting on the quilt, I stitched about 5 inches, realized the presser foot was still up, ripped it all out--and that was the last time I forgot!

I banged into the side clamps with the machine and had to come up with a fix for that, and I banged into the belly bar and came up with a fix for that! Haven't figured out yet what to do when you run out of bobbin thread, which happened twice. That would probably be because I used up quite a bit of it in thread nests on the back! I just stitched over the last half inch or so of the existing stitching where the bobbin ran out and called it good. Anyone have any advice on this?

It took me four hours to quilt a large meander on the quilt. It was so much fun, and when I finally finished it was midnight. I took it off the frame right away, and I was overjoyed to see it still looked pretty square, and the borders were nice and straight and flat.

Next day when I trimmed it up, it really was square! I cut and pieced the binding and sewed that on; and now all that's left is to hand sew the binding to the back. I left a 10-inch gap in the binding, which I'll use to demonstrate securing the ends of the binding at our quilt show. This will be my sixth quilt finished for the year.

I'm already chomping at the bit to get another quilt on the frame. Pat over at Bell Creek Quilts has been creating strippy tops to practice on. Mary over at Making Quilts from Stash created the pattern for these, and it will be a lovely quick quilt to create with lots of space to practice some quilting on. On the way home from work today, I stopped by Staples with my longarm machine quilting book by Linda V. Taylor and had them cut off the binding. I removed all the pattern pages from the back of the book and then had them spiral bind the rest of the book. I should have done this a long time ago, but I procrastinate with just about everything. Now it's done, and I can use the patterns to create some pantographs to practice with. Trying to trace them out of the book would have been a pain in the neck.

My stitch regulator hasn't been working quite right since I got it, and the new part to correct that problem arrived in my mail today; so hopefully that will be fixed on the next quilt.

I worked on Step 2 of the Orange Crush mystery some more and have about 60 of those split 4-patch units completed. I'm still hoping to finish these by the end of Sunday. I already have some blue fabrics I'll be using in future steps, and today I bought a couple yards of orange for the quilt. I still need the red and black fabrics, and I'll be shopping around for those soon.

I am entering four quilts in our show, which are shown below, and must get sleeves and labels sewn on before Friday. Nothing like waiting 'til the last minute, is there? These are the Blooming Nine Patch, which you've seen before; Cabin at Patch Mountain; Leaf Season, one of my favorite quilts; and the little Prairie Braid quilt, which measures 14" x 20" and contains 150 different fabrics in the braids. It is based on the palette quilts Jinny Beyer creates, but I found the foundations in my sewing room one day while I was rummaging around for something else, and thought they'd be great for this little quilt.





Credit where credit is due:
Blooming Nine Patch from Tradition With a Twist by Blanche Young and Dalene Young Stone
Cabin at Patch Mountain quilt design by Koleen Painchaud, The Quilted Cardinal
Leaf Season quilt design by Judy Laquidara
Prairie Braid quilt is my design.

Quiltathon Day 2 - Orange Crush

10:00 am - This morning I want to finish cutting the pieces I need for Step 2. Going through the stacks I culled from my stash yesterday, I've certainly had a lot of those what-was-I-thinking moments. I remember buying this collection of stars years ago from Keepsake Quilting, but I haven't the foggiest idea what the plan was. I can get a 2-inch square out of the centers, so they're all going into the Orange Crush!

5:00 pm - I spent all day cutting strips and finally got them all done. I chose 20 0r 25 fabrics for the Orange Crush, cut one strip from each fabric, then cut the rest up of the fabric up and added it to the strip bins. They've swelled dramatically, which is good! I can really see the value of cutting strips and squares ahead of time, like Bonnie does in her ScrapUser's System, so they're all ready when you're ready to sit and sew. Preparation takes so much time!

At 5:00 I finally sat down to sew and got exactly one split four patch unit together when my husband called me for supper.

Oh! I just discovered Bonnie has posted Step 3. I'm still behind!

12:00 pm - I finished about 20 split four patch units, and it's time to hit the hay. Tomorrow I'll be doing some things to get ready for our quilt show coming up next weekend, but I might get a little sewing time in.

Quiltathon Day 1 - Orange Crush

I am off work the next four days, woohoo! so I'm having my own Quiltathon. I have a few other things I'll have to do over the weekend as well, but mostly I'm sewing! Today is Day 1, and my focus is the Orange Crush mystery quilt. Step 2 has already been published, and I'm still on Step 1 so I'm behind, but I'll catch up today.

9:00 am - Last night I finished sewing together the rest of the required 150 four-patch units, and this morning I am pressing and squaring them up.

4:00 pm - The four patch units are finished! Step 1 is now complete, and I moved on to Step 2. I needed to cut more strips for the next step, so I spent a fun afternoon going through my stash. Since I was pulling more fabrics for the Orange Crush, I also decided to cull some other fabrics that I'm tired of or don't like. Later next week or whenever I have some time here and there, I'll cut them all up and add them to the strip drawers. I've needed to do this for a long time, and it freed up some space in my fabric closets.

10:45 pm - I've finished sorting through my stash, the fabrics I'm using for the Orange Crush are in the wash, and I've started cutting strips for the squares in Step 2.

Sunday Stash Report

Today was Quiltathon Sunday for me, and I spent all day cutting strips and sewing them together for the Orange Crush mystery. All 300 subunits are now done, and I have sewn 10 four patch units together. Only 140 more to go!

I worked on my 30s repros quilt some more this week. I had also hoped to get many more log cabin blocks done; but that didn't happen, so I'll be working on these three projects again this week. Ideally I'd like to have the 30s repro quilt and the four patches done by the end of the week, and I'd like to get some log cabin blocks made. I'd feel like I was making some headway if I could get 12 or 14 done by next Sunday. When I've finished 50 blocks, I'll calculate about how much yardage I've used for them.

This week I used 3 yards for the four patch units, so here's the Stash Report:

Fabric added this week: Zero!
Fabric added year to date: 113-1/8 yards
Fabric used this week: 3 yards
Fabric used year to date: 61-1/8 yards
Net used year to date: -52 yards

Progress Report

The bird feeder in my back yard is always a source of entertainment, and since it's right outside my kitchen window, I have plenty of opportunity to look at it. The other day I noticed a little head popping up right above the window sill. I stood on my tiptoes to see what it was, and a large turkey was standing below the bird feeder picking at the seed on the ground. Of all the birds I thought I might see at our bird feeder, a turkey was just not one of them! I ran downstairs to grab the camera, but he was a skittish fellow and was halfway across my neighbor's yard through the woods before I could snap a photo.

So I thought I'd make a quick progress report on this week's activities. I haven't had as much time as I'd like at the sewing machine because of work and working on the taxes, which are due next week, yikes! But I've made another pile of half square triangle units for my 30s repros quilt. I also made a few more crazy log cabin blocks for JudyL's log cabin challenge. These blocks will finish to 6" square. I think I'd like to have a queen size quilt, which means I'll need to set them about 15 across and 15 down, so I have a lot of sewing left to do on this project!

I've also made about a third of the sub-units needed for the four patches for Bonnie's Orange Crush mystery. Brights are not my favorite fabrics, so I'd like to use up as many of those as I can. I also have lots of scraps that are muslin or white on whites, so I'm using those up too. I'm hoping I'll be able to get these finished before Bonnie gets back from Maryland and posts the next step! I'd love to watch everyone else's progress on the mystery--does anyone know of a link to other bloggers who are doing the mystery, or is everyone following along on the QuiltvilleChat list on yahoogroups?