Quilting the Easy Street quilt

Outside of finishing the Bears yesturday morning, for most of the weekend when time allowed, I have been working on quilting my daughter's Easy Street quilt.  I am showing you only a part of the back at this time, until the quilt is finished.

Currently I have all the chains going through the green blocks done.  All the outlines of the purple stars are done.  I finished all the side half squares and all the double lines going in the one direction that follow the green blocks.  So, I am getting there.

What I have left are the double lines going in the opposite direction and the large design in the remaining blocks, to finish the centre, plus the two borders.

Quilt patch bears

I am not sure if anyone remembers when I spoke of our first quilt casualty.  If not, you can refer to the August 6th post where I wrote about it.  It ended up that the quilt was basically irreparable, due to the disintegrating backing.  I spoke to my mom about doing something with the quilt that my niece could keep as a momento of the original.  Something that would not require that we remove all the quilting and take the baking off. 

I came up with the idea of the teddy bears.  My mom helped.  I was just able to cut out enough parts for two bears, out of the good parts of the quilt.  Mom sewed them together.  When it came to the placement of the arms and legs she called me to do them and together we put in the pieces that make the head, arms and legs operable.  I stuffed the bears.

The bears you see in the picture above are almost done.  Mom just has to sew up the seams.  We put a green piece of material around the neck as a scarf to see how it would look.  Now that I see it looks nice, I am going to make a matching scarf from the green that was used for the small border of the original quilt.  You may not see it in the picture, but the same green is forming a band around the bear's ankles.

After mom sews up the seams, she is going to give them to me to sew on the nose and the mouth, and they will be done.  One is for my niece and one is for me.  I think they are cute.  Thanks for helping me get these together mom.

Fast forward to a week later and the Bears are delivered to me on the Saturday to finish off.  I did the faces of these two bears plus a smaller third bear that my mom made herself out of fake fur.  When it came time to do the scarves I realize that I am out of the green fabric that was used for the small border on the quilt.  Instead I found another green fabric that will suit the purpose.

Here is the picture of one of the completed bears.  My niece came by today to drop off some men's shirts for me to use in my quilts, the Bonnie Hunter style of quilt.  Her expression told me that she like the bear.

Mom's red work quilt

We went to dinner at my parent's house last night.  My mom and I are working on a bit of a project that I can't quite disclose just yet.  Just in case a curtain person is reading these post.  It would spoil the surprise. 

So instead I thought I would share with you the progress of my mom's red work quilt.  The last time I posted about this quilt was on June 6th, when my mom had the four corners done.  Since,she has completed the centre basket square and also the four triangle blocks that go between the star points.

Now she needs to do the large border.  Before she starts that though, she wants to do the red and white star that surrounds the basket block and the first little red and white half square triangle border to confirm she has the right size.  She feels she has to do it that way because the last red work border is all connected, all the way around the quilt. If the size is off, the red work will not match.  At this point she can make adjustments.

This morning I've taken out a dozen reds that I will cut a 2" strip from for her half square triangles, to give her some variety.  I always find the more variety the better.  The reds she is going to use are Christmas reds and a little darker.

I am a list person

My morning musings.

I am a list person.  I am writing lists for almost everything like groceries, to do list, chores list, book list and quilt list, you name it I probably have a list for it.  They help me focus.  If it is not written down I will probably forget to do it.

Just the other day I was going through my quilt list. Within my quilt list I have subdivisions, in other words list within lists.  Crazy I know, but I just can't stop.

My quilt list has one side for the quilts I am making for my family/friends or myself.  The other side has the quilts I am making for charity or quilting for others.  The latter list is full of completions, but the other side has not a single one done.  I plan to change that.  To do that I started yet another list.  A shot list, with just about five things that I am going to concentrate on, for the next few months.  I want to get some of the 26 things done.  These little lists work for me.  They help me not get distracted.  Between working on the quilts for others I will also work on the new short list.

While I was looking at my list, I realized that I have a bunch of quilts that are waiting to be quilted that I haven't shared with you.  Maybe in a future post you we'll see some.  They are all wrapped up with the backing and batting, just waiting there turn to be quilted.  I just haven't decided if I am going to show them now or wait until they are quilted.  Probably soon for a before and after example, but we will have to wait and see.

Back to working on the Midnight Flight quilt

When I got home from work Tuesday I wasn't feeling all the well, the Wednesday comes around and I end up sick in bed all day.  Not much to report quilt wise for these days.

Today I got up to go to work.  Feeling better, just a bit of an upset stomach, but nothing that I can't function with.  It was a late night for work today so I had a couple of hours this morning to do something quilt wise.

I was thinking my stomach would not like to handle maneuvering a heavy quilt under the needle, so I decided to finish ironing all the blue four patched.  It did take some time and now they are all done.  Two steps completed.  After that I pulled out the box of pieces for the Midnight Flight quilt and decided to sort the half square triangles.  I sort them to distribute the lights evenly amongst the darks.

These are now ready by the machine to sew.  After I finish this step there will only be one more step left before I start assembling the actual blocks, however the last step has two steps.

I may not be able to post tomorrow as we are off to my parent's place for dinner.  Mom has been moving her livingroom around and may be ready to layer her 99 blocks quilt.  If I remember to take pictures of what she is working on and maybe if I don't get back too late I can post about it.

Quilting Sabryna's Easy Street quilt

I am now working on quilting my daughter's Easy Street quilt.  I started with the chain that goes down the green blocks and branches out with small loops along the way on the small white block.

I've completed the chains going in one direction.  Sabryna wants to also do a straight line going down the black small squares to frame out the large design she wants.

For the bulk of the quilt she decides to use a pattern from Quilting Creations called Elegance.  She tracked the design and I enlarged it to fit her block do 12 1/2" square.  Now I have to make a template for it so that I can use the chalk.  It's a pretty design. It will fill in the areas nicely.

On the small border Sabryna chose another design by Quilting Creations, this one called Scroll Border.   This pattern needed to be reduced in order to fit.  The design extends the theme of the fleur-de-lis from the large pattern she chose.

For the last border she went with a design from the book Designs for Continuous Line Quilting by Shirley Thompson.  This design also has the fleur-de-lis theme, just a bit fancier.

Overall I think she did well with her planning for the quilting designs.  This is her first real grown-up quilt.  I think it will look nice.  I hope it turns out to her liking and the way she envisions it in her head.  I will post pictures when I am done.

Finished Sharon's flannel quilt

This is Sharon's quilt.  I quilted it for her.  It's a large quilt at 81 1/2" x 101".  Sharon wanted something simple for this quilt.  For the centre I outlined all the squares and quilted a straight line on the diagonal both ways creating an X in each block.

For the small first border I did a double chain, and in the small second border I decided to just do straight lines a 1/4" away from each seam.  For the third border I needed to think about it a bit.  The third border is not the same all the way around the quilt. On the head of the bed and the foot the border is only about 6" wide and on the two sides the border is closer to 9" wide.  Sharon did this so that the sides would hang down the bed just right.

I needed to choose a design that would looked good on both the skinny side and the wider side.  Something that when quilted will not look cut off on the skinny sides and something that on the wider side would not have a lot of empty space below that would require another design.

I ended up choosing a twirl, that kind of looks like a wave.  The twirl design has two echo lines that resembles ripples in the water.  I felt this would work good, because I was able to add two more echoes/ripples to complete the wider side and reduced the echo/ripple by one for the skinny side. The above picture shows how it will look when it hangs down the bed.  On the two sides that hang down, there is actually one more border to finish off the quilt sides.  This last border is only on the wider border side.  It is the same width as the second border, so I did the same straight line a 1/4" away from the seam.  The binding will close off the edge and Sharon will take care of that.

Doing stuff to help my daughter

Today I am going to fix the backing on my daughter's quilt.  The green she chose is a wide backing fabric.  We bought it for this quilt and added some extra for shrinkage while quilting.  Unfortunately after washing we ended up with a backing that is about 5" short.  Just enough to mess me up.  Today I am going to fix this.  I have no extra fabric on the other side, so I had to go buy another small piece to sew on to the end.  The reason we bought an extra wide backing was to avoid piecing, but now it cannot be avoided.

My daughter is now working on another quilt.  She has all the 1 1/2" squares she needs sewn into pairs and she has about half of the strip half square triangles.  All this so far came from my scrap drawers or containers.  She went through all my pre-cut 1 1/2" dark and medium squares.  This pre-cut stuff is great.  If it was up to my daughter, she may not have gotten to this quilt if she had to cut them all on her own.  She ran short of the pre-cut squares, so moved on to my pre-cut 1 1/2" stripes.  All the plain white comes from various hand work projects.  She is now ironing the pairs.  So far the only fabric I had to buy was the black and later I will probably have to buy a deep pinkish purple for her centre squares, but she hasn't decided for sure yet.

This is the quilt my daughter decided to make.  It is called Fair & Square from the book Scraps & Shirttails II written by Bonnie Hunter.  My daughter, like me, is addicted to the scrappiness of  Bonnie's quilts.

Bow ties and four patches

I am getting ready to head out for my Parent's place and thought I should just check in.  I have been up early doing all sorts of stuff this morning.  With my quilting I made some bow tie blocks.

While I was making my blue four patches for the Midnight Flight quilt I was making some more bow tie quilts between sets of ten.

All different colours.  So far not a single repeat.  I like making these little blocks.  They go so fast.  When I am done enough to make a quilt, I don't know what I will do.  Well, I am sure I will have something to do instead as my leader/ender.  The only think will be to decided which one I will work on first. 

Pleated log cabin blocks assembled

Last night when I got home I was treated to my daughter making dinner.  It was nice.  We ate and chatted for a while, and I headed to my quilting room to finish the pleated log cabin quilt.  My daughter followed.  She kept me company while I finished the second half of the quilt and as I did the leader/enders, she ironed them for me.  By this time, my iron was across the room because the blocks were getting big.

The centre set in a barn raising setting looks really nice.  I feel the design is more noticeable because the light side uses just the one fabric.  I love these older fabrics with darks that ranging from a light medium all the way up to a dark.  

These close up pictures give up a real look at the variety of fabrics that make up each block.  They are all very different from each other.  Overall I feel the quilt takes on a light blue or greyish tone.

Now I have to put this one away until I can hunt down some old vintage fabric for the borders. I was thinking a light to medium blue for the first small border than a greyish to charcoal coloured second border.  It may take a bit of time, but I have some scouts out looking for me.  I should also go on eBay to see what comes up.  I already tried a red for the small border, but I am not quite sold on it.  Maybe once I find enough fabric for the second border I can try the red again and see.

One more thing off my to do list, for the moment.

Thursday morning

Thursday morning already.  Is it just me or has this week gone by fast?  

 

Last night I finished a few bow tie blocks.  This morning I put all the rest of the pleated log cabin blocks together into four patches and I have a half completely done. I have the second half pinned and ready to finish.  Maybe this evening I will be able to finish this top, minus the borders.

Between putting the rows together I was able to get another few bow tie blocks done.  It doesn't take long to get these done as leaders/enders.  Now I have to get ready for work.

Another small block done

I decided not to bore you with another picture of my blue squares for the Midnight Flight, but I got them all sewn.  Now I have to iron them all, sort them and sew them into four patches.  

Instead I thought I would show you the little block that I just finished this evening.

Again, these blocks are part of the pillow I am making called P.S. Don't forget to... and this particular block is called laugh.  I have four out of twelve blocks done.

Now I am working on another block.  This one is called wish.

Trying to get a few things done

Before I got distracted this weekend, I had intentions of trimming my lights to match the darks of my bow ties, sew my blue pairs for the Midnight Flight quilt, finish sewing the pleated log cabin top and quilt the last border of my friend's quilt.

Last night I did finish trimming all the light fat quarters that I had to match the bow tie blocks.  I now have five bundles to sew as my leader/enders.

  

I almost finished the blue pairs.  I only have two hundred left to go.  I didn't get to the log cabin blocks yet or the quilting done yet, but we will see what I can get done tonight after groceries.

I know it may be boring from time to time reading daily posts of the same things.  That is because quilting is a repetitive thing.  For example, when you consider that I am working on the Midnight Flight quilt which is a queen size quilt, and consider that each blue block starts out at 1 1/2" square, you should be able to put it into perspective.  So, when one considers that I work full time, have a family, run a household and do work on the side, you can see that it does not always allow for long periods of sewing.  It will take me some time to make this quilt, but that's ok.  It is not a race, I want to enjoy the process.  Sometimes when I get bored of one thing I will switch it up and do something else for a little bit.

That is why I planned four different things this weekend, each doing something different.  One was cutting and sorting, the second thing was piecing, the third was assembling a quilt top and the last was quilting.  I was sure to have something to interest me.  All the tasks were also small enough that if I had the weekend to do it, they could have been accomplished.  You just have to keep plugging away at it.  It will get done.

Another small block done

With all the distractions this weekend, I don't have much to post this morning.  I did get the love block done from the P.S. Don't forget pillow.

I started work on the laugh block last Wednesday and haven't touched it since.  Hopefully I can resume doing these blocks this week.

Enjoy your day everyone.

Changing my sewing room

Since Friday I have been distracted.  We heading to IKEA for my daughter to buy her bed with her birthday money and some of her own.   While I was there I was checking out some storage solutions.  This is what prompted it.  My sewing room is so full of bags and containers that I do not know what to do with it.  But I need it all.  I decided to show everyone the before and after pictures.  

The above picture is of the before and below is the after picture of my corner, on the left hand side of the window.  I still have to cut up some lights to match all the bow tie blocks.

The following picture is of the window wall.  I started building my units, when I realized I should be taking the pictures of the before and after.

Here it is the next day (today) all cleaned up again.  I still need to finish sewing the log cabin blocks that are on my sewing table.

This next picture is the opposite corner from the treadle. I only had two rolling plastic drawers with a piece of wood on top.  This is where I kept my sewing accessories handy and tools, plus the extra boxes of projects I am working on.

These are the two units I bought to replace my set up above, for storage.  I added a desk top to attach the two units together and divided them by one of my rolling drawers (minus the wheels).  I still have to work on the blue four patches for the Midnight Flight quilt that are on top of the units.

The next two pictures are close ups of the before and after of the same corner above.

These last couple of pictures are of the second sewing machine I have set up, on the right hand side of the two new units.  Not very attractive with two fold up TV trays, but it suited the purpose at the time.

This is the after picture.  Now I have a permanent table set up for piecing, when my other machine is set up for quilting or when either of my children wants to sew with me.  I bought a matching desk top, cut it to size and attached it to the units with two legs on the right side of the table.  The only thing left to do here is tie up the electrical cores and hang them on a hook attached to the underside of the table, to clean it up a bit more.

What a difference the two units and a side table make to my room!  I feel so much better now that I can pick things up and put them away.  I like it when the clutter is gone or at least hidden for now.  Eventually I will look into proper containers that will fit better in the units to organize everything better, but for now it will do.

Now, I am off to bed.  I've had a long and busy weekend.  Back to work tomorrow.

Hexagon parts and sections

This is the last of what came out of the two paper boxes that my cousin and her husband brought. These are bits and pieces of very old fabric.  Some of these are even fussy cut to show off some flowers or not sure if you can see it but the man walking a donkey.  There are three of them.

My cousin requested that I help her to complete the quilt tops that she had and the left over pieces were for me to do with whatever I wanted.  I figure I will make some smaller quilts with the left over Dresden Plates as some give away/charity quilts for those in need of a warm hug.  I already have an old reconstruct Dresden plate quilt in the process of being remade.  I think though that I would like to keep these hexagons and try my hand at making my first hexagon quilt.

There are some hexagon diamonds already started, some hexagon patties ready for assembly and even some small bits of fabric to be turned into patties.  This would be my first hand made quilt if you do not include the hand stitched blocks or any appliqué I did. This would be the first completely hand assembled quilt.

Once I finish my small fairy pillows and the blocks for my P.S. Don't forget pillow, I can use these hexagons as my grab and go project.  There has been quite a buzz about hexagon quilts lately on Bonnie's site and many others.  It was only a matter of time before I was going to start one myself.  Now I don't have to fuss about what pattern and what style.

I like the diamond quilt with all it's variety of fabrics and I absolutely love the fact that they are old fabrics.  My hands are itching to get started, but I have to finish the small projects first.  Need to get the two things off my list before adding another. 

The little red box in the picture held 42 diamond sections already assembled.  They measure 7 1/2" wide x 12" long.  These hexagons are slightly bigger at 1 1/2" across.

Pinning the floret hexagon quilt

On the weekend I went to my friend Carol's place to get some batting and backing, to start on quilting the floret hexagon quilt and the diamond hexagon quilt that were completed tops.  When I got home that day after running around, I managed to have enough energy to throw the backing in the wash.  I am trying to stay as close to period here with these two quilts, so I got a cotton batting and a natural muslin fabric for the backing.

Tuesday I have a few hours that evening after work and groceries that I decided to piece the backing for one of the quilts.  My daughter chose the floret hexagon quilt for the first one.  I iron all the fabric and pieced it together, pressed the seams and headed for the basement.  The only room big enough to lay out a whole quilt. The carpet is not pretty, but it helps keep your feet warm.  It was the carpet we tore out of the living room.  For now it will.

Everything is going smoothly and I still have time.  I laid out the backing good side down, smoothed out the batting and lastly the quilt top.  I started pinning the layers together.  On the weekend I had also boughten 300 safe pins just for this quilt.  The layout of the pins was one in each floret which is approximately 4" apart and the edges.  I am getting excited to start quilting this quilt.  I am pinning and pinning until I run out of pins.  Can you believe it!  It is now about 10:30 pm, I am getting tired and I only have about four rows of florets to go, but I can't finish them because I run out of pins!

It doesn't stop there though.  The next day was Wednesday when I have a quilt bee meeting, I decided that as the children are having a fend for yourselves dinner, I was going to run down to Fabricland and purchase some pins from them.  Well I could not have pick a worst day as there was a major amount of traffic that day because it was raining quite a bit.  But I persevere thinking I really want to get going on this and the following day is a late start at work so I could finish the pinning that morning.  I get to the store and only realize that I don't have my wallet. OMG!!!  I could not believe it.

I trudge back in the rain and traffic to head home.  Something was working against me.  I decide, oh well, I will have to make another plan another time, because I don't want to be late for the bee meeting.  We had a nice meeting, with a lot of discussion and some stitching.  We're saying our goodbyes and I re-encounter my trip to the store.  I get the supportive ooohhhs, to help cheer me up, when  Sharon realizes she has a lot of pins she is not using right now and offers them on loan to me.  Wow, I thought, I can still finish pinning in the morning.

I did.  I finished pinning the floret hexagon quilt.  Thank you Sharon.

Dresden plate parts

These are the Dresden Plate pieces that came from the boxes my cousin brought me to assemble.  These are a completely different type of quilt and a more resent pattern than the first few.  From all the details that I have gathered from the pieces, a French note attached to a plates plus a news letter from Trenton, I have to determine that these pieces were actually made by my cousin's mother, my Aunt Alice.  Aunt Alice passed away a few years ago.  God bless.

I figure they were assembled to make six different quilts.  A note that was pinned to the batch indicated that the blocks were to be 16" square, with sashings and a border that would make a good crib size quilt.  Each colour has seven plates, so I figure that was to be a quilt with two blocks across by three blocks down and an extra for a matching pillow.

My Aunt Alice had six children, maybe she intended to make each of her children a baby quilt with a pillow for each of their first born child.  It could also be coincidental the number that was made, because my Aunt was around when each of her children had their children and none of the quilts was made.

This will always be a mystery.  None of her children know what was meant to be.  This sort of thing happens often, with someone passing away and others having to deal with all their belongings.  This was a topic on a yahoo group several years ago.  It kind of hit home.  I don't want that happening to me.  For this reason alone I have started putting diagrams with layouts and instruction with my containers of parts and I started a list if my quilt projects.  That is what I have done for now, but what I really want to do is finish more stuff to leave less behind to be dealt with.

My cousin is thinking of combining the plates and instead of six crib quilts, just making one large queen size quilt.  I think it could work.  When I am ready to tackle this one we can go over it again and make the final decision at that time.

Log Cabin Scene quilt

This Log Cabin Scene quilt was another quilt that I quilted for my friend Sharon.  I was reminded of it when I noticed today is a quilt bee meeting.  Sharon hosts our meetings at her home.  The last time I was there we took a few pictures of a couple of quilts that she made and I quilted.  This was one of them.  It was in the early days of quilting for someone else.

The scene is all free hand quilted with waves following the clouds. Zig zags in the trees, out lining the animals and cabin, that sort of thing.  It's a flannel quilt with log cabin blocks surrounding the scene.  Sharon also made a matching log cabin block bag that can be used as a storage bag, but also a pillow.  It is a neat idea to preserve the quilt when not in use.

In the above picture you can see the quilting better.  The quilting is of oak leaves and acorns.  For the log cabin blocks themselves I just did in the ditch.  It turned out nice and Sharon likes it.

A little bit of hand work

Not much quilting was done yesturday, as I went to workout and I had to register my son for hockey.  But I did get a little bit of hand work done during my lunch and some while waiting for dinner to simmer.  

I finished the p.s. don't forget to block and started on the love block.

On those days that I don't get much accomplished I keep saying to myself, one step at a time and I have more done now than I had done the day before.