That's Progress

We are finally on the back end of last night's nor'easter, and I think we have a foot or so on the ground. Before last night, most of our snow had melted, which I was glad about. Now they are already talking about another potential nor'easter on Monday/Tuesday. It's really been a very strange winter here in Maine.

The weeks have really flown by, and progress has been made on several quilts. This one is Stella Blue, by Miss Rosie's Quilt Company, pieced by my dear good friend Koleen. I've mentioned Koleen once in a while on the blog. She passed away last July after a nine-year battle with cancer, and I miss her so much sometimes that my heart hurts. Koleen left most of the contents of her sewing room to our other dear good friend and me. As a consequence, I inherited this top, and I'll return it to Koleen's husband when it's finished. Up close, it's a gorgeous quilt.

Koleen pieced the middle of this top before she passed away, and she made the flying geese units but hadn't sewn them into border strips yet. I had a devil of a time adding them because her quarter inch seam was a less generous than mine, lol. But it's now ready for quilting.

Welcome Home, Baby was my February finish. I bought several packages of those Cake Mix triangle papers, which I think are very clever. I have become a big fan of creating half square triangle units with triangle papers. I usually print my own from the Inklingo software or Brenda Hennings' Triangulations software, but the cake mix recipes were something different and fun.

I also bought some Cupcake Mix papers, which make smaller quilts; and this quilt was made from a block design on the Cupcake Mix #1 package. I had two sets of the block panels, so I'll make another one of these at some point to use the other panel.

I have two pumpkins left to stitch out for my Halloween quilt, and then I can add the borders and toss it in the RTQ pile. Yay! I enjoy machine embroidered applique, but the prep takes time, so this has been a long slog.

And this is my One Block Wonder, an experiment from Maxine Rosenthal's book of the same name. The stack and whack quilt I finished in January was supposed to have been a workshop last year for my quilt chapter, but it was cancelled due to weather, so I made it on my own. The workshop did occur last month finally, but I wanted to try some other stack and whack project, so I dug this fabric (on the left side of the photo) out of the closet and decided to give it a try. Didn't think I'd like it, but actually, I love it.

I still need to shift a few blocks around along the left and right edges, but I've already started sewing vertical rows with the blocks in the middle of the quilt. Only half the hexagon block is sewn together, then vertical rows are sewn and joined so there are no inset seams.

All of these quilts were new projects, started within the last six months or so. When they're finished, I've GOT to get back to the UFO pile.

Catching Up to July

I've been busy the last three months, but I can't even remember what I've been doing. Except, that, in May, I got myself involved with the state quilt show; and that has tied up an amazing amount of my time the last two months.

My granddaughter turned a year old last month, and we've spent as much time with her as we could. We also made a trip down to Maryland for a nephew's graduation. Thankfully, it wasn't too awfully hot, but I was still happy to get back to Maine weather. It's been a very nice summer here so far.

One thing is for sure, it's been kind of a dry year for quilting and knitting for me. I got exasperated with the 365 Challenge when it began to take up all my quilting time and I didn't have time to sew anything else. I am still collecting and printing out the blocks, and if it takes me three years to finish them, so be it.

I did finish up the last of the Farm Girl Vintage blocks but don't have the top together yet.

In April, Leslie Muir Volpe, a Maine artist who specializes in miniature quilts, did a workshop for my quilt chapter. I love minis and have been making them for years; even still, I learned a few new tricks from Leslie.

Our project for the workshop was Charming Churn Dash, and five of us finished ours by the next meeting. I am in the middle!

I put the workshop information to good use for this little sampler for a quilt chapter challenge. The quilt will finish at 24" square and contain 23 blocks in sizes 3", 6" and 9". The feathered star is the last block I have to finish before I can sew them all together.

The quilt has to be finished and turned in on July 19, so I don't have much time left. Nothing like waiting til the last minute, is there? lol

I put the last stitch into the binding just this morning on Neptune's Hexagons. As so often happens to me, I didn't like it when I was working on it, but now I do. Too late, I already promised it to my dear DIL.

It was constructed from a jelly roll plus background and borders.

Credit where credit is due: "Jelly Girl" by Joanna Figueroa of Fig Tree & Co.

I like the back of this quilt as much as or more than the front of it. It looks modern to me (and I know Nothing about modern), and I love the mixed up colors in the hexagons.

I wish I had had enough fabric to make the hexagons blocks all the way across, but I only had the one jelly roll, and I used every scrap of it. I did a progression thing, you know, 6 wedges, 5 wedges, 4 wedges and so on in the hexagons, but I'm not sure anyone understands it but me. My husband looked at it and wanted to know what was wrong with the blocks at the end. Sigh.

 

One bad thing--when I was squaring up the quilt after machine quilting it, I found a pin sticking out of the back of the quilt--not once, but twice. I use those flowerhead pins, and the flowerhead was lodged inside the quilt. Luckily, in both cases, it was close to the seam in the backing, so I was able to pick out a little bit of the seam, remove the pin, and stitch it back up.

No idea how those pins got left inside the quilt, never happened to me before. Isn't that your worst nightmare, to give someone a quilt and discover there are pins in it.

A Lucky Day

It was -5 degrees this morning when I woke up at 7 o'clock. We experienced a week or so of the so-called January thaw; and now we are in an arctic freeze, probably for another week or so. Last night the wind chill was 25 below. It simply takes your breath away.

I had a great day yesterday, went to a workshop for quilt group; but first, a little catching up. We had a good Christmas because both my sons were home; but they were both in and out, which made for a hectic couple of weeks in December. After Christmas, my older son had to go back down to New York to work two days, then he was back up to Maine until New Year's Eve. My younger son was here for Christmas, then left for Boston in the middle of a snowstorm so he could catch a flight to Dublin, Ireland. He finally came home Jan 8 and stayed with us another day.

I spent most of November and the first half of December planning the Christmas party for our quilt group. My co-planner Koleen spent much of her time shopping for items for gift bags, game prize bags, and accessory items for the party. I spent most of my time machine embroidering 37 candy cane holders, one for each member's gift bag, and we stuck pencils in them instead of candy canes. The pattern for these came from Embroidery Library. Both of us also made quite a few baked items to fill the giftie bags.

Koleen planned a couple of Q & A games, and I worked out a Bingo game, where each player had a blank bingo card and a list of holiday related words, which they used to create their own unique bingo card. Each player also received a small baggie filled with red and green M&M's that they used for the markers.

We had a potluck meal, so there were lots of good things to eat at the party. All in all, I thought the party was a great success, but I was exhausted by the time it was all over, and I dragged through the rest of December trying to finish getting ready for our own holiday. In November I finished a tree skirt for my older boy, and my husband took that down to New York with him for delivery, but I never got the second one done for my younger son until January. Had it quilted, but never got the binding on. It didn't matter though, because my son was too busy with college finals before Christmas and never got a tree, then he was off to Ireland.

Here's the second tree skirt before it was quilted and bound...

 ... and here's the quilting on the back after it was finished. I used a holly berry and leaves design from Lorien Quilting.

The hexagon blocks got put on hold again because I had so many other things to do, and I haven't been able to get going with them again. I think I'm about 6 or 7 behind now. This is the last one I got finished, Hexie #54. I suppose it's a little boring, but it looked good to me when I started it.  Maybe you need a few toned down ones to focus some attention on the more interesting ones.

The only other sewing I really did over the holidays was Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street mystery quilt.  I finished building all of the block components, assembled the four corner units for the quilt, and got 4 of 12 setting triangles done. Hope to get back to it this week.

Yesterday was a workshop at my quilt group, Tacoma Lakes Quilters. Before we got started, we had the Mini-Raffle, which is a small fundraiser we've been doing for the last year and a half. Members donate items throughout the year, then we sell raffle tickets for a dollar a ticket. It's been quite successful and a whole lot of fun.

I really liked this little pincushion with the matching lamp that was for the raffle yesterday, and I was absolutely delighted when I won it. My good friend Barb made the pincushion, which has little pockets round the outside to hold spools of thread. The gray cording is fed through the holes of each of the spools to keep them in place.

Then, with the same fabric, she had a shade made for a small Mason jar lamp, which is now filled with buttons and residing in my sewing room. I love, love, love this set!

For our workshop yesterday, we did a Jelly Roll race. If you google it, you can find videos on YouTube for the way this works, but the general idea is to take the strips in a jelly roll and sew them end to end as if you were making a very long binding strip. Then you find the midway point of that long strip, cut it in half and sew the long edges together. You repeat that process until the quilt is the size you want.

A jelly roll typically contains about 40 strips. We used only 10 strips for each little quilt and wound up with about 30 quilts in just a few hours. The remaining kits that weren't sewn up were dispatched to folks who will take them home and finish them. Once they're all quilted and bound, they'll be donated to nursing homes and assisted living facilities locally. Their small size makes them just right for folks in wheelchairs.

Because it was a timed race, prizes were awarded to the first three contestants who completed a top, and one prize for the person in last place. I finished in second place and won this gift bag, comprised of paper and pen, candy, a pack of Kleenex, tiny candles that look like chocolates, a candle holder, and a heart shaped plaque with a cute saying on it. My favorite stuff. How come quilters like office supplies and candy so much?

More Hexies

I finished five more hexies in the last several weeks, hexies #49, 50, 51, 52, and 53. Less than 30 full-sized blocks left to go to reach my goal. Never imagined I'd get this far. The two on the left are my favorites this month. I fussy cut the outer ring of the one on the lower left and liked it well enough to fussy cut another one this week.

When I finished the last of these five, I was all caught up. But I didn't finish the one from last week yet, and I'm not on target to finish the one for this week either. Just too many other things to do to finish getting ready for Christmas. The hours I've been keeping are awful, and I'll be glad when this year is over.

Hexies #47 and #48

Chalk up two more hexagon blocks for this month. I'm using some of those oranges and yellowy greens from Jo Morton in this next bunch. I'm still a couple of blocks behind but hope to finish two more by the end of the week.

Hexies #42, #43, #44, #45, and #46

Even though I was pretty busy in September, I didn't miss a beat with my hexagon blocks. I finished five more and started the next one this evening. I am determined to get these blocks done and get this quilt on my bed in my lifetime!

I haven't done much knitting all summer though, and I think the one-pair-a-month challenge has gone by the wayside. I have two different socks on the needles right now, but I've had so many other more pressing things to do that I've only knit a few rows here and there. In another week or so, I expect things will get back to a slower pace, and I hope to get back to my knitting. I have a new scarf and a sweater I want to start, but not until I get those socks done!

Hexie #41

This hexagon block was the one for last week, I just didn't get it posted because we were on travel. I've already finished the one for this week, but I'll wait til Sunday to post it. Half way there--41 blocks left to go.

This past Wednesday I went to Busy Thimble to look for some purple civil war repros. I was kicking around adding some purples, and Purple Pam convinced me to do it. I found a few, but purple didn't seem to be a popular color back then. But I'm very partial to Jo Morton fabrics, and she's come out with a new collection that features oranges and yellow greens. I really liked them, so I thought, why not? I found some salmon colors I liked too. You'll be seeing all those in upcoming blocks. You know how some quilters say to "let the quilt speak to you"? Well, this quilt is really speaking to me. I'm not sure how much it will look like the original at this point, but I think I'll really like it.

Hexie #40

There has been no let up around here with my schedule lately. This is the hexagon block for last week, but this is the first opportunity I've had to get it posted. I do like the color of that outer ring, sort of a salmon color. One more hexagon block, and I'll hit my halfway point. Yay!

The original hexagon quilt I was trying to replicate appeared to me to be reds, pinks, blues, browns, and tans--and I tried to maintain that color scheme for a while. But I found I wanted more color, so I added greens and yellows. Before I'm all done, I may have to throw a few purples in there too.

My Christmas Lights quilt is off the frame now, and I'm trying to finish up the binding before the end of the month. I won't be loading another quilt until I get the raffle quilt done, and then I'll load that one. My deadline is looming.

It's been three weeks since Maine Quilts, my state guild's annual quilt show, and I still haven't gotten any photos posted from that show; and I went to another quilt show last Thursday. We went to the Mancuso show in Manchester, New Hampshire. I had a great time but didn't take many photos because the great majority of quilts in the show were art quilts. While I appreciate the effort and workmanship in many of those quilts, I am a traditional quilter through and through, so there are very few art quilts that inspire me enough to take a photo. My favorite though was an Asian themed crazy quilt that had tons of handwork and embellishments. I'll try to get those photos posted in the next couple days. I know I have some emails to answer too, and I'm trying to get to those as well.

Hexie #39

I actually finished this block a few days ago, but I always like to wait until Sunday to post them. I really like the red print in the outer ring; and for the next one, I'll use the same print but in a different colorway.  I'll probably use it the week after that too. Then it might be time to hunt for some new reds.

We've had showers and cloudy weather the last couple days. Who doesn't need some wet weather right now? I'm afraid it will be short lived though. Our lawns are so dry that they crunch underfoot when you walk on them, and its supposed to be sunny tomorrow.

Hexie #38

I've hardly gotten any sewing done since Thursday, but Monday is Sew Day with the girls, and I'll get some of my chain blocks done for the raffle quilt. I had hoped to sew today, but I spent all morning trying to print out hexagons for two more blocks. I use the Inklingo software to do this, and my printer was giving me fits. One wrong setting can screw up the whole process.

The next couple weeks I'll be making red hexagons. Only three of the 38 hexagons I've finished are mostly red, and two of those I don't think I like, so I'll be adding more.

My older son turned 27 today. Geez, if your kid pushing 30 doesn't make you feel old, I don't know what would. He is currently stationed in upstate New York for several more months, going through school. It's been over a year since we've seen him, and we've planned a trip to go down for a visit in a few weeks. I'm excited!

Hexie #37

I finished the last three seams on this hexagon block this evening, and I've got the next one all ready to start stitching tomorrow. I'm glad I dug out these blocks because I really do enjoy hand piecing.

This weekend was the annual quilt show hosted by the Pine Tree Quilters Guild for the state of Maine. Over 600 quilts, 40 vendors, special exhibits, lectures and demos, and of course, classes. I took classes on Friday morning and all day Saturday and have photos to share, plus some from the quilt show, and I'll upload those over the next few days.

After two full days at the quilt show, I was tired and my legs and back just ached. Hubby and I had planned to go to Card's Berry Farm Sunday afternoon to pick blueberries. I thought I might be too tired, but we went anyway and had a fun afternoon, even though we got caught in a downpour just as we finished picking and before we could get back to the car. These are high bush blueberries, which I prefer over the Maine wild blueberries, and we picked and froze about four quarts. We try to get out to pick blueberries at least once over the summer, and we always go to Rocky Ridge Apple Farm right down the road afterwards for a Rocky Reuben. It's a sandwich made with corned beef and homemade cole slaw and served on a kaiser roll, and it is THE best reuben we've ever had. A bottle of root beer and a freshly-made strawberry turnover topped it off.

Tomorrow I have friends who come over every Monday to sew with me, so quilting weekend continues for one more day.

Hexie #36

It's been nearly two years since I worked on my hexagon blocks, so it was high time to get back to them. I don't know why they ever fell by the wayside because I really like handpiecing. I also don't know what made me think of them, but I'm glad I dug them out again. Actually I do. I wanted to use those civil war reproduction fabrics in another project, but I didn't want to shortchange myself, so if I just get the blocks done, that will free up the fabric. In the short term, guess I'll have to buy more civil war repros. Good rationalization, huh?

The original quilt that started it all required 82 full-size blocks plus some half-sized blocks for the edges, and for now I'll stick to that plan.   Hexie #35 was the last one I finished in August 2010, so I have quite a ways to go. You can see all the other hexagon blocks I've made, plus the original quilt, if you click on the "Hexagons" label in the sidebar.

My goal at the time was to complete one hexagon block a week, and that worked reasonably well, so I'll stay with it. I finished this hexagon Sunday night, so it was for last week. I only have a few seams left to stitch to finish the one for this week.

Hexies #34 and #35

Here are two hexies I finished two weeks ago while the chimney was coming out. I haven't finished the one from last week yet, but I hope to have two more finished by the end of next week.

JudyS wanted to see a picture of all the ones I've finished so far, so here they are. They're not arranged any way, just took them out of the box and slapped them on the wall, so there are pockets of the same colors and fabrics next to each other. The sashing hasn't been sewn to anything yet either, I just wanted to see how it might look.

Hexies #31, #32, and #33

I am making great progress with these hexagon blocks. I take great pleasure in the variety of fabrics I'm using in the blocks, and it's so enjoyable to watch how each one comes together as I'm handpiecing them. I'm starting two more this evening.

It has been a very pleasant weekend here in Maine. There may a little humidity creeping in today, but it was 59 degrees this morning at 7:30, and I sat and handpieced this morning with a sweater on. I love this weather!

Hexies #29 and #30

Two more hexagon blocks finished this week. I can hardly believe I've finished thirty blocks. I just love, love, love the Jo Morton Civil War reproduction fabrics.

We had a little rain yesterday, and hubby said it was pouring when he got up this morning. Last month we picked 30 pounds of strawberries and some beets at a local pick-your-own farm. Now it is blueberry season in southern Maine, so we're going blueberry picking today, rain or shine.

Hexies #27 and #28

I meant to get these up on the blog Sunday morning, but I just didn't get a chance. I have enough hexagons sewn to assemble a couple of rows now, but I'd be struggling to find the time to do it. I still have plenty more hexagon blocks to make though to keep me busy.
















It is much cooler in Maine today, and we are expecting some showers this afternoon.

In the garden, my tiger lilies are almost ready to bloom. I've waited several years for this moment. Last year the chipmunks climbed up the stalks and ate all those black pods (what the heck are those anyway?) in between the leaves. In the process, they pushed the stalks down and broke them. The year before, red beetles ate every leaf on the lilies before I even knew what hit them. I looked out the window this morning, and one stalk is pushed way over. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that nothing will happen to the rest.