New Year, New Projects

The weather has been bone chilling this month, especially at night; but we don't have much snow on the ground. When we first moved to Maine nearly 20 years ago, the snow might be up to my waist some winters, but not anymore. Snowmobilers and skiers aren't happy about it, but I'm fine with it. Pandemic or not, I've stayed in because it's just too darn cold to go out. 

The holidays passed uneventfully. My sister-in-law was here for two weeks, and it was nice to have the company. We worked on a puzzle together, something I hadn't done in years; and I enjoyed it so much that I hauled out a few more and built those too. The last one was 2000 pieces, and I have one left I haven't built yet that is 3000 pieces. That might be big enough, lol. Ravensburger, whom I heard from my SIL is a premiere puzzle maker, has one that is over 40,000 pieces. Can't imagine. 

Hardly any sewing got done in December because of the festivities and company, but I did manage to get the Holiday Extravaganza top put together. These fabrics were a collection from Alison Glass, and I just love them. Not a clue how I'm going to quilt this yet. 

Nothing much got done in January either, but the Christmas Cards I was working on as a leaders and enders project is now a finished top as well. The letters are machine embroidered, and the tiny Christmas bulbs make them look like strings of lights. No clue how I am going to quilt this one either. 

I'm not in the mood for One Monthly Goal anymore, preferring to start new projects and skip around between the new ones and the old ones. I updated it and left it in the sidebar simply as a space holder so I could remember how to do the html if I go back to it at some point. There seem to be a bunch of sew alongs that started in January, and I decided to follow along with a couple of them. 

Michelle Renee Hiatt's Best of the 60s mystery quilt actually started in mid December. This block of the week focuses on the use of Studio 180's Star 60 ruler; and as you can see, all of the blocks so far have been 60-degree pieced triangles. Clues up through clue 11 have been posted, but I've only worked up through clue 8 because I am having a bit of trouble with fabric choices. That should be resolved by clue 13, and then I can get back to work. 

There are three of each block so far, and I'm wondering if the entire quilt will be pieced blocks or if there will be any plain filler blocks.
 

I've had a couple sizes of Strip Sticks for quite a while, and they're working especially well to press open all the seams in these blocks. Batiks press up well anyway, but the strip stick helps my blocks stay nice and flat. 

For those who might not know, strip sticks are wood sticks covered with a thin layer of padding and some muslin. They are flat on one side and rounded on the other, making them especially handy for ironing strip sets. In blocks like these triangular blocks where there are a lot of seams close together, the strip stick is superb at isolating one seam so you don't accidentally mess up any surrounding seams with the iron. 

In February, Moda started a monthly sew along called My Favorite Color is Moda.Sampler style quilts are suddenly appealing to me again, so I bought a kit of fabrics in a colorway I liked plus the pattern book and got started.

I have never like working with solids, and this kit is all solids. Some of the fabrics in my Holiday Solstice were solids, hand dyed fabrics with a little texture actually, which I liked. So I decided I would give this a try. So far I'm bored, lol, but I think it will get better. 

The blocks in the sampler are variously sized, and block 1 is the largest at 36" square, big enough for a one-block baby quilt. I didn't imagine this block was so big in the picture above, but it's a pretty big quilt. 

The projects above are on hold for the time being, so I've switched gears to pineapple blocks. The colored blocks were swap blocks from years ago, and I dug them out two summers ago to work on at camp. The colored blocks are finished now and sewn together in rows of two; and I'm working on a border of blue pineapple blocks at the moment.

I've always been a slow sewist, slow at everything really; and these blocks take a long time for me to make. I'm about halfway there, and if I can make  two a day or every other day, I can finish the rest by the end of the month. Then there is another pieced border and some plain borders, so there's still a lot of work left to do. My goal is to have the quilt completely finished by mid May in time to register it for Maine Quilts 2021. It's virtual again this year, so the quilt has to be finished to take the photo.

Working with scraps always seems to beget more scraps, and the pineapple blocks are no exception. I continue to accumulate strings from strips that are no longer wide enough to use in a round. Coincidentally, I came across this block on Pinterest the other day, and a light bulb went on. This block is absolutely perfect to use up the blue strings, along with smaller chunks. I decided that my only rule for these blocks was that the fabrics had to be predominantly blue. Other than that, I don't care if the fabrics are prints, plaids, batiks, calicos, whatever. As long as they read blue, they're going in. No worries either about contrast or value, just sew them together. How refreshing! Mindless sewing at its best.

The pattern for this block linked from Pinterest to happyturtlequilts.blogspot.ca. If you search on Eastern Sunrise, you'll find it. It's 7-1/2" finished, and it's paper pieced, but that's not a hard and fast rule for me. If my strings are too narrow, I'll add more until the paper is filled. Plus they're pretty fast for me to make, a lot faster than pineapples anyway. A size 90 needle and a 1.5 stitch length makes quick work of removing the paper. Put together in rows, these blocks kind of remind me of barbed wire. I love this!

I plan to go through the stash and cull all my blue fabrics that are ugly, unappealing, old as the hills, or problematic in some way, and cut them up for this quilt. I could probably use the ones that are fat-quarter size or larger and piece them together for the back. Probably won't put a dent in it, lol. I also have a stack of muslin I've been trying to figure out what to do with, and these blocks will be perfect for that too.

One Monthly Goal for December

My favorite thing to do is quilting, and my favorite quilting thing to do is piecing--units and blocks. Which is why I have 3 almost finished tops at the moment. I decided to join the One Monthly Goal bandwagon once again because it is a good motivator, so my goal for the month of December is to finish the aforementioned 3 tops. 

To see what others are working on this month, visit Elm Street Quilts here.

In last month's post, I uploaded a photo of the holiday medallion I've been working on, Holiday Solstice. The only difference between that photo and this month's photo is that the quilt is now sitting on the table instead of on the design wall. The rest of the borders have still not been added. There is one more pieced border to add plus 2 plain borders for a total of 3 more borders. I want to get this top done!

This was last year's holiday medallion mystery quilt from Michelle Renee Hiatt called Holiday Extravaganza. I am in the process of adding pieced borders....

... and I still have to finish the round I'm on, plus one more pieced border, plus 2 plain borders. I want to get this top done!

Then there's this--blocks and parts of blocks, and none of it has been put together yet. So the third top I would like to try and finish this month is Ticker Tape Parade, another Michelle Renee Hiatt mystery quilt from last year. I want to get this top done!

If I really put some serious effort into it, I could probably get the first two tops put together in a week; but there are just too many other things to do. Well, anyway, 3 finished tops is the goal this month. 

My little Leaders and Enders envelope blocks are also coming along. I think I probably have a pile of about 25 by now. Also, I lied in my last post--these will finish to 2-1/2", not 3". 

These little blocks are composed of 4 half square triangle units. I could have used a flying geese unit for part of the envelope, but it didn't occur to me to do that immediately. Going forward, I'll try that if the remaining scraps I have for this project are large enough. 

It is stunning how rapidly Covid is spreading everywhere, including in Maine. Today we had the largest single day total of new cases since the pandemic started. I wonder if people are throwing caution to the wind because they are so fatigued with all of it. Two of the people in our family circle decided to visit the Maine Mall on Black Friday, and the mall was packed that day; so we cancelled our plans to have our granddaughter up for the weekend, which was disappointing. Just didn't want to take the risk. At Christmas time, we may just have to do a drive by and throw the kids' gifts out the window.

Stay safe, everyone!

Poking Along

It's been a while since I've blogged, and it's been a long, looong year. My family has stayed well throughout the pandemic, as I hope all of you have; but I am suffering from covid fatigue, election fatigue, civil unrest fatigue, and husband fatigue, and I know I am not alone. And by the looks of it, there is no end in sight to any of it. So! Perhaps reading and connecting with my favorite bloggers again will help!

We were up to camp more often this summer because hubby is now retired (husband fatigue). We have no internet up there, and cell phone service is sketchy; so I missed the first couple One Monthly Goal signups after the end of June. I was also discouraged with it because I won a prize in April and still haven't seen it. The host has responded to my queries, but still nothing. I haven't decided if I'll restart the OMG or not, even though I've left the widget in my sidebar.

Maine Quilts 2021, which is normally held at the end of July, has already been canceled; and we are gearing up for a virtual show instead. My quilt chapter, like so many others, has not met since February; and locally, quilt chapters most likely won't meet again for many months. Covid is rising sharply in Maine, as it is everywhere. In the meantime, I updated my UFO Challenge in the side bar from a group challenge with my chapter to a personal one. Lofty goals, and I may not finish a thing, but there it is. 

I have just been playing in my sewing room since July, making a few blocks here and there for new projects, experimenting, and learning new tools. I've probably said it before, but I am a big fan of the Studio 180 rulers. It is exactly the same concept as oversizing half square triangle units and then squaring them up; and the rulers work perfectly for a variety of units. 

Michelle Renee Hiatt is one of the certified instructors who branched out on her own, and I like her designs a lot. Even took a couple of classes with her at Maine Quilts one year. Last year, I discovered she was doing a holiday mystery medallion quilt, but I was too late to get in on it, so I had to buy the pattern. Michelle leaves each clue up for one week only. After that, if you miss a clue, you have to buy it. Still working on that one. 

This year her holiday mystery medallion was Holiday Solstice. It was a whole lot of sewing, and it looks complicated; but these blocks go together easily with the Studio 180 rulers. I still have to finish adding the last pieced border, then a couple of plain borders, then it will be Ready To Quilt. 

Her next mystery, Best of the 60s, starts this Friday. This one is not a freebie, but she offered a great price for the clues if you signed up right away. There is an awful lot of work for her in the instructions sheets, so I think it's fine for her to charge for the patterns. I bought one of the batik fabric packs she suggested, so I'm all set. Can't wait to get started. 

I've had one finish since July--this little Thimbles quilt. It measures about 9" x 12". I had a small bag of scraps that all coordinated, so I cut out the thimbles and pieced them as a Leaders and Enders project. Bonnie's Leaders and Enders challenges are fun to do, and I love the concept; but I don't seem to have the patience to work on a big project like that for a year. It finally occurred to me that making mini quilts as L&E projects holds my interest much better and greatly shortens the time to finish.

My next L&E mini is going to be an envelope quilt, made with a  baggie of Christmas 30s repros someone gave me. These little blocks will finish to 3" square.

 

 

January OMG - Mission Accomplished

My One Monthly Goal for January is completed, quilted and bound. This was my little Twister quilt that I'm calling "It's A Girl!". Backed with flannel, which is my favorite backing for kids quilts.

To see what projects others completed in the month of January, click here.

The quilt was quilted with a simple pantograph, Angel Wings from Willow Leaf Studio, I think. You almost can't see the quilting because of the cirles in the background fabric, haha. Simple was good in this case.

I've been busy with other quilting projects too all month but very scattered in my approach. Seems like everybody had a new block of the month starting up at the beginning of the year, and I started collecting the instructions for no less than four of them, lol, and I'll be starting another with a friend later this month.
-- Michelle Renee Hiatt is doing a mystery quilt on her blog, Sew On The Go, called Grand Central. I am still working on her last mystery, Ticker Tape Parade, which just finished last month, I think; so I haven't started the Grand Central yet.
-- Alex Anderson's The Quilt Show online has started a BOM from one of Sue Garman's patterns, Afternoon Delight. I saw Sue's quilt a long time ago and always liked it, so I'm collecting the patterns for that one.
-- Moda is hosting their third Blockheads block of the week on their blog, so there are over 50 blocks that will be presented. There are 14 participating designers, each of whom will contribute one or more blocks. I decided to make mine up in batiks that I've had sitting around in the stash for years. The blocks can be made in multiple sizes, so I have to decide what I'll do for a layout before I can start sewing. I think I'm going to go with multiple sizes like the Blockheads 2 Moda hosted in 2018.

--The last one is the only one that is an actual BOM where the instructions and fabrics are shipped every month. Esther's Bloomers is a block of the month by Kim Diehl using her new Heirloom Shirtings collection, and I loved it when I first saw it back in November. It's a 6-month program, so fabric and instructions for multiple sections are shipped every month.

This is the center block. I made a bunch of four patches from a variety of backgrounds to surround it. Some have applique, and I'm still working on those. I think the next installment  ships around the 10th of the month, so I have time yet.

One of my friends will start receiving her Farm Girl Vintage 2 BOM kits later this month. I already bought the book and the fabric collection, so I'll do mine along with her. Lori Holt of Bee in My Bonnet, who is the designer, has already started a quilt along on her blog, so we'll follow along with that too.

Guess that's enough Blocks of the Month!

This is not a block of the month, just what I hope will be a fast project to make to use up some fabric and which will probably be my One Monthly Goal for February. I'd like it to be a shelter quilt to donate but haven't decided yet. It is Happy Trails from a tutorial by Missouri Star Quilt Company using a different setting that I really liked. I modified the size so I could get a larger quilt and also so I could use my Studio 180 rulers, which I have come to love.

I may make some other blue and white scrap quilts this year. I want to make a few more shelter quilts and also some quilts for camp. Next up is a blue and tan snowball quilt with a flying geese border from last month's issue of American Patchwork and Quilting. I've made snowball blocks before but never a whole quilt full, and I think it will be relatively quick. Plus I can use my Studio 180 Corner Pop ruler on the corners so I don't have to draw all those lines on the corner squares. A great invention, those rulers. Wish I'd had them years ago.