Almost There

First, sometimes I am just exasperated at how difficult it is for me to leave comments on other blogs, to the point where I just give up. When I manage to have some success, they don't always show up on the person's blog. I don't know whether it's because they never got it, or if it's because it never got moderated and posted. 

I too have enabled moderation on my blog, but I have comments forwarded to my regular email address. I don't always get them, particularly if it's been a while since I blogged, and I don't always think to check the blog, which means I may not respond. My apologies if I failed to respond to a comment. 

Today I had to go into the blog and delete about 8 spam comments, all from the same source. So I fully understand those who also have comments moderated. Who needs all that? I also accidentally deleted a comment from Alycia, who hosts Finish or Not Friday. No idea how to get it back. :(

So today is Finished or Not Friday on Alycia's website. Linking up here. Or not! Can't get the LinkZ to work correctly. 

Finished or not? No! But almost there--on several fronts. I finished the quilting on Tango yesterday and got the binding machine stitched to the front ...

... and started hand sewing the binding to the back this morning. I machine stitch binding on a charity quilt but hand stitch the binding on quilts I plan to keep. It's the only hand work I really do anymore, and I enjoy it. Sometimes I think maybe I should start hand piecing again, but it never happens. 

For the quilting, I used a pantograph called Gussied Up by Urban Elementz. I hadn't used it before, but it was easy, quick, and fun to do. Not a very dense pantograph, which seemed fine to me given the finished size of these blocks. 

 

The little hourglass blocks are all sewn together now, and every single edge is on the bias, so that should be interesting when I get to binding. A little extra care may be required.

 I had three blocks left over that didn't fit in the quilt. I plan to incorporate them into the backing but in a little bit different way. I have a fairly plain light blue backing picked out, and that should work just fine. 

I have been hell bent on finishing all the scrap bin fold up baskets, and I now have 8 of the 11 baskets I had planned done. 

As you can see, I am using rainbow brights for the baskets, and each basket has a lining with a white background and a small motif the same color as the outer fabric. 

 

I was stumped however, when I got to the one for neutral scraps, until I found these two fat quarters in the stash. These so work for me, and this basket is done!

Same with the one for multicolor scraps. How perfect is this!

I'll be making the last three, orange, purple, and multicolor over the weekend. I don't often come across  black scraps, so I eliminated that color in my line up. Didn't have any more room across my countertop anyway, lol. 

I am a fan of Emily Dennis at Quilty Love. I like her aesthetic very much, and I look forward to her newsletters. She wrote one the other day about some string blocks she was making. It might have been just in her email newsletter because I'm not seeing it on her blog. 

Anyway, she was using scraps of batting to do her string piecing on instead of fabric of paper, which I thought was a brilliant idea. Who among us doesn't have batting scraps? I have bunches. Her only concern was the bulk in the seam allowances when she sewed the blocks together. 

It occurred to me to cut the batting square to the finished size and sew the strips on. I asked Emily about it, and it had occurred to her too, only she said the batting shifted when she tried it. 

Then it occurred to me to sew the strips on using a walking foot, and that worked pretty well! You can see in the photo, that the batting square still measures a pretty square 7", which is what I started with, with some minor pulling away at the edges. I haven't tried sewing two squares together yet, but I think I can work with this!

  
 
 

My chapter is having a Stay in Your Own Bed retreat in April. We did this last year and had a blast. The idea is that you go to the venue, sew like a maniac all day, then go home, sleep in your own bed, rinse and repeat next day. It's a three-day retreat and catered for lunch for a nominal fee. 

The coordinator for this event likes to have some little giftie bags for each participant, and this year she decided to do personal care items. I volunteered to make soap, so I am making spools, buttons (two to a bag because they're small), and flowers, all in spring colors. I only have one spool mold and two button molds, so I can only make a small batch at a time, and I can make about three batches a day to allow them time to set in the mold. 

I need about 25 all together, and I have 17 done now. Plenty of time for the rest--started early because I didn't want to be rushed. 

So many projects, so many things in my head, so little time. If you're bored in this life, you're doing it wrong. 

First Finish for February

I finished machine sewing the binding on the Courthouse Steps quilt this afternoon; and as soon as I get it laundered, it will be ready for donation. 

Linking to Oh Scrap 

It may not be the most beautiful quilt, but it's all made from scraps, at least some of which I used up completely. That's always a good feeling. In the end, I liked it, and I hope someone else will too. 

Today I am working again on the aqua and purple square in a square quilt top, and this little hourglass quilt. These little blocks came to me in a scrap bag. I don't know what the quilter's intention was with these, but I decided to sew them up into a mini. They have a modern look to me, so no borders. The blocks finish at 2" square, so the whole quilt will finish at 10-1/2 x 12-1/2. 
 

A Very Crafty Month

My yard still looks exactly the same as it did in the photo from my last post, only there's more snow. A LOT more snow. We had a little January thaw in the middle of the month, and most of the snow on the ground melted. Sunday's nor'easter dumped 14 inches in my town, and it's been so cold there's no hope of melting. We're still waking up to mornings near or below zero this week with daytime highs in the teens. Perfect sewing weather!

The second little Courthouse Steps mini got finished earlier this month. The fabrics are mostly the same as the first one, except where I ran out of the original fabric or changed my mind. I hang my minis down my hallway wall with the Command strips, which work perfectly, and this one has been hung.

I finished quilting the big Courthouse Steps yesterday afternoon. Once I settled down to work on it, I was surprised how fast the blocks went--they're 14 inches finished. The quilt will finish at 56 x 70 inches, which is a fine size for a lap quilt. This one will be donated to Maine Veterans Home after I get the binding on. 

I used a pantograph called Two Fold Feathers by Lorien Quilting. I love this design because it's easy and not too dense, and because I love feathers. The large scale of the pantograph worked well with the big blocks, I thought. 
 

With the last of this hunting print stripped into the middle of the backing, I had just enough green to finish it off. More fabric out of the stash, my quilt chapter's stash, that is. 

It would be nice to get another finish for the month of January; but with only two days left in the month, I doubt that will happen.  

At our second chapter meeting this month, we did a square in a square workshop for charity. The blocks are set 7 x 7 and finish at 7", so the quilt should finish at close to 50" square. 

These block were pretty fast to make, and I especially liked them because the on point squares are floating; that is, after the seam allowance is taken, the point of the square is back from the seam line. That means nothing to match when you sew them together. 

There are plenty of patterns out there for square in a square blocks and variations, so I could see another one of these in my future. 

 We cut 5" squares for the centers of these blocks, but you could substitute a pieced square if you wanted. Coincidentally, Studio 180 just came out with a brand new ruler for nine patch blocks in nine sizes or something, so for example you could put a nine patch block in the center. Or you could change the dimensions of the outer triangles so you didn't have to deal with crazy math. 

The Tango top has been finished for a little while and will be the next quilt to go on the frame. This was from a workshop I took with Diane Harris, the Stash Bandit, last summer at Maine Quilts. It was a fun class, but I changed up my methods a bit when I got home. The fabrics are all from my Lori Holt collection. Because like 30s repros, they just all go together, lol. 

This is another pattern I've seen around the web in different sizes and variations. SewCanShe has one called Fancy That, 1 and 2, I think. 

The block size was pretty big, and I took all my cutaways from the corners of the big blocks, turned them into half square triangle blocks and sewed them together this way, which will turn into a nice sized baby quilt. 

I'm hoping I can find a backing fabric in the stash big enough to quilt both of these tops at the same time.

I have large scrap bins with lids in every color squirreled away in another part of the sewing room. The organization of said scraps occurred several years ago, here, one of the most sensible things I ever did. Additionally I had a big drawer full of scraps, also sorted by color, that I could dive into for something quick or throw in a few handfuls left over from some other project. It was handy to have that drawer full so accessible right in the sewing room. When it got too full, I'd move some scraps into the larger bins. 

Last month I guess, the triangles got out of control; so I moved all the scraps out of the drawer and replaced them with these containers of triangles. These are baby wipe containers I saved from when my granddaughter was still in diapers, because what good quilter doesn't save all kinds of containers? 12 of these containers fit perfectly in the drawer, all sorted by color. Brilliant.   

Then I had nowhere to throw a few scraps before I either sorted them into the big bins or used them. So I cleared everything off my countertop, and I am making these small bins in rainbow colors for a quick toss of a handful of scraps. 

I am loving these containers. The pattern is the medium fold up basket from SewCanShe, and they finish at about 5-3/4 x 7 inches, plenty big enough for a few good handfuls of scraps. After the sewing is done, the flaps allow you to fold it up into a basket. 

These fold up baskets are available in three sizes. The directions are free on the website, but you have to contend with ads; so the patterns are also offered as pdf files for $5. 

You need two fat quarters to make the medium size basket, so that's another half yard out of the stash! 

The best part about these containers is that they're easy to sew, there's no hardware to attach, and they unfold to store flat. This is what it looks like unfolded. 

I have three made so far and trying to get two more made this week. 

Two more ornaments were finished this month. This one is called Bethlehem Star....

... and this one is called Reflection and was given to a friend for Christmas. 

I finished this little cross stitch last week too. This design hung in the bathroom in my friend's quilt studio for years. When she passed away, it was given to our other friend Sherry. 

I hunted in vain for the pattern online and never found it, so I borrowed it from Sherry and duplicated it. At long last it is finished. The cost of having it framed like Koleen's original is stupid, so I want to make it into a small quilt. I haven't a clue how to do that right now, so I'm trying to find out something about that online. Blue Pip Designs has a little tutorial on how she finishes her small cross stitch pieces, so there's a starting point. 

Somewhere in there, a dishcloth got finished this month too, but I didn't take a snap of it. 

More fun next week! 

**Linking to Alycia's  Finished (or not!) Friday

 

 
 

January

Here's hoping everyone had enjoyable holidays, and Happy New Year to all. My granddaughter was sick on Christmas Day, so we didn't get to see her until after New Year's. With blended families to contend with, catching up with everyone has become difficult, but we try to make it work. 

We've had plenty of winter weather this past month, but mostly it's been bitter cold. Cold enough in fact to break some records around the state for the month of December. We had about three inches of snow last night, on top of what's already on the ground, which isn't vey much; and we're expecting another three inches tonight, followed by sleet and freezing rain in the morning. Delightful. We'll miss the second quilt chapter meeting in as many months. 

This little mini Courthouse Steps, which measures 14 x 17, was my last finish for 2025, making a total of 9 finishes for the year. Not my best year, but a nice balance of large and small, scrappy quilts and planned projects, and new and old projects. 

I have a friend who has been more than generous with her scraps, so this little quilt is for her. I had hoped to have it to her before Christmas, but I couldn't get it finished in time. Since our meeting tomorrow will likely be cancelled, it'll have to wait until mid January. 

The little blocks finish at 3", so it's paper pieced using mostly civil war reproduction fabrics. 

  
 

There were a few tiny quilt blocks and a strip set that was probably supposed to get cut apart in one of the scrap buckets I got from my friend. I didn't have a project in mind for them but didn't want to throw them out, so they went into the backing. 

My husband was quite taken with this little quilt and wasn't too happy to hear that I was giving it away, so I started a second one. Most of the fabrics are the same as the first, but I did have to switch some out because I ran out of some of the fabrics. He particularly liked the inner and outer border fabrics, and luckily I have enough of those to finish it the same way. 

These little blocks are fun to make, and they don't take hours to sew. I think there may be a few more of these in my future.  

After foundation paper piecing for 30+ years, I was pretty sure I knew everything there was to know about the subject; but nope, someone is always coming up with something new. This was something I just learned, but I forget where I saw it. 

I usually prefold the lines on my paper pattern to make it easier to trim seams after stitching. Instead of prefolding, someone thought to use one of those rotary cutter blades with the perforated edge to go over the lines in the paper beforehand. I was amazed how well this worked. Not only was it faster than folding by hand, but it saved some wear and tear on my fingernails.

A very light touch is required so the pattern doesn't fall apart before you finish stitching. Perforation worked well on paper you normally use for printing, but not as well on a lighter weight paper like Carol Doak's foundation paper. Still, a dandy tip indeed. 

And here is an ornament called Pirouette that I made a few weeks ago. I love it, but I say that about most of them, lol. 
 

Bowl Cozy Day

Brrrrr, it was a very cold 16 degrees when I got up this morning, but still no snow in the forecast. Which isn't a bad thing. 

The last several days of the Advent Calendar gifties have consisted of a good mix of notions and project ideas. Along with the Parking sign, there was a small embroidery project. Neither one is really my thing, but my daugher-in-law suggested that a little duck in a charm for a necklace for my granddaughter would probably be well received. A great idea, and I'll wait til next year to make that up. the charm is tiny, about an inch in diameter. 

There was a button jar, to include a little yellow duck button (the company mascot) with directions to make a pincushion top for the jar. Using one of the unused squares from the charm pack from Day 3. 

The next day featured some blue fabric and a pattern for this snowflake pillow, using the buttons in the button jar. 

Yesterday's giftie was a needle threader and needles. Haha, they should have got someone to make a needle threader with a duck. 

Today's giftie is a stashbuilding yard of white on white fabric and a couple spools of cotton thread. 

Personally speaking, I may not use everything in the Missouri Star Advent Calendar box, but whoever put this together put a lot of thought into choosing useful items and fun projects. I have already decided to do this again next year. 

I haven't made quite as much progress as I had hoped on my current projects, but I am moving forward. Wiggle Time Oceana is on the frame, and I've made several passes. The Riptide pantograph seemed like a good choice for a quilt that reminds me of ocean waves and uses some ocean-themed fabrics. 

 

The Cozy Cup mini top plus one mug rug is complete. I still have to add the side borders to the other two mug rugs. 

Whoever designed this quilt did an odd thing with the sashing between the rows. The directions had you add a narrow 1/2" strip to the top and bottom of each cup and snowflake. After I had the top together, I realized it would have been easier, faster and less wasteful to omit the strips on the top and bottom of the cups and just use a wider piece for the sashing. No idea what they were thinking. This would make a great giftie for someone, so it's likely I'll make another; and I'll make the adjustment for the sashing. 

Before I can get these items quilted up, I need to finish the quilt on the frame and get some bowl cozies made. 

Anything that is not quilting is what I call utility sewing, and mostly I don't like to do it. Only occasionally will I make household items like curtains, a tote bag, or anything like that. I did, however, offer to make 4 small and 4 large bowl cozies for my kids, to use up a LOT of yardage of vegetable fabric I acquired at a very cheap price. Why so much? Because I thought I might use it for adult cover ups (bibs), only my quilt chapter never worked on that again as a group project.

So naturally I'm going to use every shortcut I can come up with to make this kind of sewing as painless as possible, so I bought precut bowl cozy batting from Gypsy Quilter. Turns out Creative Grids got together with Gypsy Quilter and made a set of 2 bowl cozy templates which are the same size as Gypsy Quilters batting, which will make it faster to cut out the fabric and more batting. Brilliant!

I made a set of two bowl cozies long enough ago that I forgot some of the little improvements I made to the method, which I remembered after I had most of the first one together last night. 

As I was getting ready to topstitch the outside of it, I realized I had no idea whether my thread was all cotton or a cotton/poly blend, which could be flammable in the microwave. I still have some of the Coats & Clark blends that I am using up, so it very well could have been one of those. So I wound up taking it all back apart, ripping the thread out of the one half, and today I'll put it all back together with the proper thread. I can also include some of those method improvements too.

One side of my bowl cozies is yellow onions, and the other side is red bell peppers. Once I get the first one together, I figure I can put three more together assembly line fashion, to limit how many times I have to change the thread colors. 

A Top and Another New Project

I didn't expect for it to take all afternoon and most of the evening to get the Wiggle Time top together, but it's done. It measures 60" x 74", which will be just right. This evening I found a piece of flannel in my stash to go on the back, and tomorrow I'll try to get this loaded on the longarm sometime in between running errands.  

This pattern was fun, fast and easy to make; and I'll be using it again, probably more than once. The other thing I really liked about it is that there are no seams to match except for the block seams when you're joining the rows--four in each row. Easy peasy!

Advent Calendar Day 3 - today's giftie was a pattern for a mini quilt and a half yard of fabric. Surprise, it's the project directions for the charm pack I opened yesterday, and the red is for the binding for the mini quilt and three mug rugs.  

 

 

 

 

 

I decided to get started on this project right away. Except for the handles, the six cups are made, four for the quilt plus two mug rugs.

I like these colors a lot. It's a departure from the typical Christmas reds and greens and seems to be the fashion more and more these days. And they're not really Christmas-y, so I could use the quilt and mug rugs all winter. 

The charm pack, like most precuts, had pinked edges; and you know what a mess it makes when you take them apart. I have a new tool for cleaning up the mess! It's a desktop mini vacuum made by Odistar. I LOVE this thing! The picture is a little blurry, but it's a handheld device with brushes underneath and some suction. It is perfect for vacuuming up all those tiny bits on the cutting table that otherwise might wind up all over the floor. You can also use it to vacuum up the dust on your keyboard; and it occurred to me it will be perfect to vacuum up all the dust that comes out of a new puzzle box. I'm sure I'll think of some other uses.

This is what the underside looks like. It comes apart easily to empty the contents of the vacuum and to clean the filters.

These things come in seven different colors; and there are two models, one that uses batteries and one that comes with a USB charger. I got the ones with the charger for just $12.98. I thought these would make great stocking stuffers, so I bought four of them. 

I checked Amazon today, and they've  gone up in price by a couple of bucks since I bought mine. I've noticed that the prices on Amazon fluctuate all the time for the same item; so if you're interested, I'd keep checking back to see if the price comes back down.