Its Whoopsday Again... WIP Thursday

Once again I am a day late with my WIP - Work in Progress report. Its coming to you on Thursday BUT its still Wednesday somewhere.

This past week I have achieved some great things. I was going to settle for Good but no I will claim GREAT. This week I learned how to do a Pantograph on the longarm. Well I started to learn. I will still need lots of help doing them but I did use the pantograph on 2 quilts and that rates as great. My friend Lorraine had to help me each time we had to advance the quilt, and help solve any hassles BUT I got 2 quilts quilted AND I used a pantograph so that rates as Great. No photos (I feel a bit self conscious taking photos in public so to speak for my blog... silly probably but you get that).

I did the quilting Friday and Saturday. I have since then trimmed both quilts and made and attached the binding on one of them and tied off the ends of the threads. So one, En Provence is completely finished (apart from the label) and the other still needs to be bound. I have also loaded (With lots of help from Lyndi) another quilt and I plan to go and quilt it today (in between bible study, house work and helping with worship at our aged care facility). This one will be free motion quilting but I am hoping to mimic the pattern from one of the pantographs I used... a series of circles in circles... a bit like bubbles.

A local quilt shop is having a 40% off sale this past 2 weeks and I am afraid I caved (my Stash figures are going to be woeful this week). Whilst cleaning up and sorting my craft cupboards in January I found that I had the Labrynth pattern - that gorgeous puzzle like pattern that was doing the rounds on the internet last year and a few years before that too. I got tagged in it numerous times by various people who really liked it. Obviously I must have too (the first time it went around) and bought the pattern and then forgot about it. Anyway... I decided since it was a pattern that I had to buy fabric for, that I couldn't shop from my stash to make, I would lash out and take advantage of this sale.

So yesterday I visited the shop and purchased the many metres of fabric that I was going to need and came home, went back to get my pattern that I had left on the shop counter, and THEN when home started cutting for the quilt. I wanted to get it all cut out for 2 reasons.

1. I had to convert the required fabric from yards to metres and I wasn't confident that I had got it correct
2. If I had made a mistake and needed more then I needed to get back before they sold all the fabric and before the sale was over!

So I spent the rest of the late afternoon and evening cutting fabric and... I had heaps. The patterns are usually pretty generous and I didn't cut back too much for each measurement (A metre is about 3" more than a yard).

So that was another great achievement. I am not sure when I will actually start sewing it. I want to get on with some more sewing for Comic Con but with it cut I can take it with me when we got away and work on the blocks as we travel.

I made another large messenger bag for Handmade With Love during the week using some gorgeous monkey fabric. Whilst not strictly pop culture it is cute and quirky so should appeal to the crowd that goes to Comic Con (at least I am  hoping it will)

My other sewing for HWL this week has been sewing 2 size one rompers at our weekly get together. I am not a great one for sewing clothing with cotton fabric (I learned to sew clothes using knit fabric and was confident sewing that for many years although since I got into patchwork I haven't sewn much of the other) Anyway Peggy, our HWL leader is a fantastic sewer. She had cut out two pairs of rompers and I sewed them with help from her. She did a fair bit of pinning and we would work out the next steps together. She did the overlocking. The look really cute.

That is about it for me... a great week of sewing. Hope you too have had a good week.

Linking up with 

Marchalong

The idea of March-along is to spend at least 15 minutes every day in March  doing something quilt related. Sewing, cutting, reading, sorting, watching a class online, browsing quilt related websites ... anything quilt related counts

It started on March 1st but I didn't hear about it till later in the first week. My first weekend of knowing about it got a bit sabotaged by life.  

Friday 7th I left home at 10.45 AM to drive 4 hours to Mackay for our church (Uniting Church of Australia) Presbytery (Central Queensland) meetings. They are held every 4 months (well 3 times a year) around our presbytery and the minister and a member of the congregation goes to  the meetings for each congregation. I am the journal secretary ie I take the minutes so don't represent our congregation. I traveled with our rep, his wife and our minister. No chance to sew before I went (Does a bit of tidying up of my sewing area count? Hope so) I flicked through a quilting magazine in the car. We had meetings that night 7.30-9 PM

Saturday Meetings started at 8 AM and ran through till 9 PM (we do get morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner breaks) I looked at another magazine when I got back to our unit and also read some blogs during the day when I didn't have to be paying attention

Sunday. Worship 9-10.15 was the closing activity of Presbytery. We stopped at Spotlight (big fabric/habbie/craft/homewares store) for about 20 minutes... not for me but our minister. I had a brief look at fabric but no purchases. Home 4.30. I got organised for some quilting ... don't think I started that night although I might have. I didn't actually sew

Monday. Got me my quilty on well and truly. I started quilting my "Pretty Pinwheels" Disappearing Pinwheels Quilt from Missouri Star Quilt Company. Worked on it all day and eventually got it finished including binding

Tuesday. Worked on my "Sombre Blue" My Shirt Off My Back Recycling quilt. Its from a challenge that we had at our 2013 retreat where we swapped pieces of men's shirts and had to make a quilt using the fabric. Got it done including the sashing

Wednesday Our regular patchwork group get together (we have our own rooms and can go up there whenever we like but our regular sewing day is Wednesday) I was up there from 9-3. I worked on my other disappearing Pinwheel quilt which I am doing in blues. I've called it "Disappearing into the Blue". I got all the blocks assembled by the end of the day and had even started on some of the pinwheels for the border.

Thursday I ironed my disappearing pinwheel blocks.

Friday I started quilting my Brown SOMBrero (my other Shirt off My Back quilt which features some brown sashing instead of blue) after dinner. Ran out of the thread I was using so had to stop mid evening

Saturday Finished quilting Brown Sombrero including the sashing.

Sunday I have started cutting fabric for my hopefully last project using the fabric from the SOMB blocks. I had made 350 nine patches from the fabric. Have used 121 in Sombre Blue and 144 on the front of Brown Sombrero and another 20 or so on the back. Have just under 60 left to use up. My aim is to try to use just recycled fabric in all the projects. Currently cutting extra fabric for the block I am planning on using in the last one. Its going to have the nine patches in the centre of a star block. Cutting rectangles and squares to make flying geese units to go around that as well as corner blocks etc. Having fun trying to figure them out.

Monday Continued cutting the scraps for the block. I am using fabric from old curtains, sheets, doona covers, shirts.... its fun but time consuming. I will get there... eventually. Don't think I am going to have any finishes at this rate for a while though.

Pieces for the star blocks I am making

Any fabric not the right size for my next quilt I am cutting up to go in my scrap boxes

You can read more about Marchalong at Scientific Quilter

Stash Report - 3 finishes

So excited to report today. I have had 3 finishes this week. Yay! Go me! 

I have finished
 Pretty Pinwheels - This quilt is destined for my next great niece or nephew, due in April (I think... bad great aunty I am) Its bigger than the quilts I usually give to babies but since this bub is their 3rd I asked my nephew and his wife if they would prefer a bigger quilt this time and they said yes. They use the quilts I have made their son and daughter now aged almost 4 and 2 on their beds and they are a bit small for that purpose. Hence... the disappearing pinwheel quilt that grew considerably from my original plans for it... is perfect for them. I detailed my quilting and finishing of this in my Work In Progress Wednesday  last week but because it is so gorgeous here is another peak at it

Pretty Pinwheels from Missouri Star pattern Disappearing Pinwheels

My next finish, which was also detailed in my WIP report was Blue Shirt Off My Back (SOMB) which I have decided to call Sombre Blue... Shirt Off My Back Recycled.

Sombre Blue

My third finish for the week was the brown version of the SOMB quilt now called Brown Sombreoro (Shirt off my back recycled original oi .. the oi is very Aussie... there is a well known Australian Chant... Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi) I finished it last night about 10 PM... I was determined to have it done by today.

My husband, Fixit Guy, was tied up with meetings all weekend so I had a pretty clear run at the work. Started quilting in Friday afternoon and was really cranky with myself when I ran out of thread mid evening. Darn it. I didn't even have something close that I could fudge it. It felt like a really wasted opportunity.

I bought more thread and was able to get back to it Saturday afternoon. I had lots of fun with this one trying a few different things with my quilting. I used lots of general stilping but also incorporated some shapes - I did an abstract tree in the centre, It didn't show up well in the photo so I haven't included it. I did some clouds and a sun up the top and down the bottom a did a heap of flower shapes. I did a vine and flower motif around the border. 

The Sun and Clouds showed up well on the back

You can see the sun on the front as well

'

Once again I have machined stitched the binding. I am really enjoying using the different fancy stitches on my machine. This time the wiggley line echoed the wiggles of the stipple stitch I used which was a nice contrast to the super geometric design of the nine-patch and sashing blocks.

Quilt pieced back

My stash report for my three finishes is as follows

Pretty Pinwheels 6.69m fabric used

Somber Blue 7.39m  used 

Brown Sombrero 8.12m used for a total of 22.2 metres used this week (and this month)

Purchases - .7 m of little cake fabric (sorry refuse to say cup cake as that is very American. I would use patty cake which is what we called them when I was growing up and I continue to call them that but recognise that my international audience might struggle with that expression) I am collecting patty cake fabric for a quilt that I am making to celebrate my trip to the UK last year. Fangirl and I made morning/afternoon tea stops a feature of our trip. I loved visiting Brittish tea shops. I found an applique pattern featuring a teashop on my one and only visit to a quilt shop whilst overseas. I haven't made it yet but plan to ... as soon as I can find what I did with the pattern.

Oops digression there. Back to stash report

So totals for the year

Total used                              53.06

total purchased                       13.31

Net fabric used                       39.75         


Other stash reports can be found at Patchwork Times         

Work in Progress Wednesday - Getting my Quilty On

I wasn't able to do any quilting for 3 days leading up to my last stash report but have made up for the lack since.

At home I managed to get 2 quilts finished - quilted and bound although not as yet labelled. One I can't label till the baby it is for is born but the other one can be finished off... will do that soon. 

My disappearing pinwheel quilt, my first one, is done. I've called it Pretty Pinwheels.  This is to be a gift to my next great niece of nephew due in a few weeks. I was really happy with how it finished up. 

My quilting was far from perfect... lots of bubbles and pleats but still... looks good and I was a bit more adventurous than I have been. First of all I sewed stitch in the ditch along the sashing strips. This might have been a mistake as it trapped excess fabric and I ended up with some pleats and puckers when I came to quilt the sashing strips themselves. 

I did a spiral over the pinwheel at the centre of each block . I echo quilted around the churn dash block. I was lazy and did it with the darning foot. I started off using the walking foot but man I got sick of trying to manhandle the quilt around each time I came to a corner I changed direction so gave up on that very quickly

 I did more spirals in some of the sashing strips going one way but continuous ones this time so I went in and then came out.  I continued the spirals on the white border all around . They worked pretty well and I was happy with them (apart from the pleats and puckers that came up at times) 



On the sashing going the other way I did chains of hearts;

The hearts on the border

 I did large hearts on the pinwheel border with smaller hearts on the white strips between. I machined the binding back and front choosing one of the many decorative stitches my machine has.

The cornerstones -mini disappearing pinwheels

Quilt corner

The Blue Shirt Off My Back (SOMB) was my second finish this week. I decided not to stay stitch this, which was the recommendation I had been following from my Wendy Butler Byrnes quilting class on Craftsy.


 I decided to stipple this one.  I am trying to improve my quilting and do stuff that is more challenging but... I love stippling so decided that it was the best choice for this super scrappy quilt. So I stippled the body of the quilt. On the blue border though I decided to echo the square nature of the quilt with a continuous square pattern.

 

It was fun to do. For the binding which I also machined back and front I chose a square pattern and I loved the way it turned out. I decided to be a good little quilter and put in a new needle to quilt this quilt and wouldn't you know it... I hit a pin about half an hour later and broke it. New needle in I set off again only to break another needle an hour or two later probably by pulling to hard as I moved the quilt under the needle. Man was I annoyed at myself!

My other work in progress is my blue Disappearing Pinwheel "Disappearing into the Blue". I worked on it today at our patchwork meeting and made good progress. All the blocks are together and I have started to put the pinwheels for the border together. I am only working on it on Wednesday. These photos were taken over a few weeks.

The pinwheel blocks all done

Sewing the blocks

All the blocks sliced up ready to be reassembled

arranging the bits

assembling the block

assembling the blocks some more

The finished blocks.

Work in Progress Wednesday

Shirt Off My Back Quilts

This week I have been continuing to work on my  Blue Shirt Off My Back Quilt (SOMB). I got all the blocks put together by Thursday of last week and then sashed them. I chose a royal blue from my recycled fabric stash for the borders and backing. I will bind it in that as well. I got the quilt sandwiched on Tuesday afternoon






I had over 200 of the 9 Patch blocks left to use up. I found some brown fabric in the recycled fabric stash and used that for the sashing of 144 more of the blocks. I got the blocks all done by Saturday and the top put together by Sunday night apart from the borders which I completed on Monday using cream calico from my recycled fabric stash

Brown SOMB sans cream border

This is the backing fabric I used. It was new but very old. It was fabric that my aunt had bought many years ago but never used. My aunt died in 2012 in her 100th year and last year I helped my cousin's wife, Joyce, do some of the packing up of the house. My aunt was a real pack rat and never, it seems, threw anything away. Joyce gave me lots of fabric and linen that I could use in my various quilting projects. I am just very glad that I wasn't tracking my stash then!

This fabric is gorgeous. I can just imagine it made up into a dress in the 50s or 60s style. It was 36" wide so that gives you an idea of the age. Dress fabric hasn't been sold in that width for many many years. There was about 10 yards of it, enough to make two quilt backings and a bit left over. I joined the two pieces I needed for the backing with a strip of 9 patches with a band of brown between each block

On Tuesday I took the Brown SOMB along with 2 other quilts I had to sandwich, up to our club rooms in order to use the big table we have up there for the job.  I got the Disappearing Pinwheels repinned and the blue SOMB quilts pinned no dramas but when I laid out the brown  SOMB  I found that the backing wasn't big enough. I had forgotten the borders when calculating the width of the backing I had to make and instead of being 3-4" bigger all around it was about the same width. I had remembered to make it longer. I was so cross with myself.  I bought it home and spent Tuesday evening piecing in another strip of the nine patch blocks. I got the back completed late Tuesday night which meant I would be able to pin it Wednesday at our regular group sewing day.

The two strips of 9 patches on the back. Sorry the pictures are wrinkled... I took them after I had pinned the quilts

I now have 3 lovely quilts to quilt. Think I will have to revise my Craftsy class with Wendy Butler Byrne to review what I want to do

I made 346 of the 9 patches to start with. I used 121 in the Blue SOMB and 144 in the Brown SOMB top and another 24 on the back and I have 57 left which I would like to make into something by our retreat in June.

this is all I have left. The box was full before I started.

 I am looking for patterns that could incorporate a 5" 9 patch centre square. I found this one at Quilters Cache. Its called Dolly Madison's Star #2 which I can adapt pretty well I think. My centre block will be multicoloured rather than dual coloured. It will take a lot of other fabrics and I may not be able to stick to my "Only recycled fabrics" in the SOMB quilts which was a challenge I had set myself. I will have to see. I don't think I have enough coloured fabrics. However I really like it. If anyone has any other suggestions I am happy to hear them. My other concern with this block is that the 9 patch is such a small part of the block that will end up 13". I will probably only end up using 25 or 30 of them in a pretty decent sized quilt! I could use more in the borders and on the back I suppose.

Work In Progress Wednesday

WIP Wednesday
Two projects have kept me busy this past week or so.
Wednesday at our Patchwork Group sewing days (we have them weekly. We are blessed to have our own club rooms supplied by our local council) I have been working on a blue version of the Disappearing Pinwheel. Made good progress on it. I have all the 10" blocks sewn together cut and have started to make the pinwheels. I have also made the units to make the pinwheels for the border.

some of the fabric for my Blue Disappearing pinwheel quilt

At home I have been working on a quilt I have called "The Shirt off My Back"
Last year at the quilt retreat I go to called Patch n Peace, I entered a men's shirt swap. We all took along a certain number of 2nd hand 100% cotton men's shirt which we cut into 4 pieces ( 2 front pieces and the back cut in two) and swapped among the groups we were put into, keeping one piece for ourselves and swapping the other 3. The challenge is that we have to bring back a quilt this year using the fabric. We are supposed to have at least one piece of each shirt in the finished product and we can use some other back ground fabrics. Actually we are going to be pretty easy on the rules. We all wanted to end up with a quilt that we liked and would use.

I found inspiration for my quilt on a Facebook group I am a member of but I can't remember which of the several groups that it was on so can't find the post that so can't give credit there. It was based on 9 patches with sashing on two sides arranged in such a way that whilst the blocks are all sashed the sashing lines aren't in a continuous straight line but each one is offset.


Firstly I had to cut the shirting into strips. I chose 2". I ended up with quite a pile which I had to iron nice and straight.

 Then I sewed 3 strips together, trying to match lengths of the strips but not worrying about the colour combinations

The seams were all pressed flat, going the same way and then sub cut into 2" units and the resulting 3 patch units were sewn into 9 patches. As far as possible no colours were repeated but some repeats slipped in but so long as two units the same colour weren't next to each other I tended to let it go. My original aim had been to make 120 units. The 9 patches measured 5" square. With 2" sashing on two sides they would end up 6.5". A quilt 10 x 12 units would measure 60" x 72" plus borders and would suit my purpose. I didn't realise that the amount of shirting I had would eventually make 350 of these units! I just kept sewing till all the strips were used up and then kept sewing units till they were all done

Each pile had 10 9-patches in it. I had more piled on the ironing boar

I wanted to keep the recycling theme going with the sashing fabric so I looked among my 2nd hand fabric and found some nice blue stuff that I was able to re-purpose. This was going to determine how big my final quilt would be. It turned out that I had enough to sash 123 9- patches so I can either make it 10x12 as I'd originally planned or 11x11 if I chose to. Haven't decided yet

"The Shirt off my Back" quilt laid on on my floor

That's as far as I have gone with it. I am really thrilled with how it is looking

I've added this to a blog linky sponsored by Freshly Pieced Modern Quilts

Family Reunion

Family Reunion
This weekend we had a family reunion to celebrate amongst other things my sister Beth  and my cousin Syds' 70th birthdays. The invitation specified no gifts but I had made both of them a quilt. (I never could do what I was told) Actually I had embarked on the making of both quilts before the invitations to the party were issued but my story makes me out to be more of a rebel.

For my cousin I had made a tie quilt based initially on 14 ties that had belonged to his dad (who died in 1970) which were found in his mothers things when she died last year (aged 99 and 9 months) I gathered up ties from other family members, friends and from second hand shops. It was quite a mammoth undertaking but I really enjoyed the whole process. Firstly I washed the ties and then pressed them. I used iron on interfacing to stabilize the ties and stop them stretching out of shape. Ties are cut on the bias and so stretching can be a real issue. Then I made 25 crazy patchwork blocks using the blue and red ties from the 60 plus ties that i]I had amassed. I cut a 5 sided shape from the widest end of the tie  and attached it to the centre of a 14" sq piece of white fabric  (from an old sheet) I used a bit of fabric glue to do this. Then I built up the block with strips of the ties working my way around the shape till all the white fabric was covered. I trimmed the block to 13" square. I sashed the blocks with navy blue fabric and then put on a plain red border around the centre. Next I put on a piano key border using left over ties, red fabric scraps and fabric from my uncles old pajamas. I paper pieced the corner blocks so that the piano keys went around the corner.

I thought that my cousin knew I was making the quilt for him but apparently not. He was stunned by it when I gave it to him and very appreciative. Lots of my extended family are on facebook so had been following the quilts progress as i had posted lots of progress pictures on Facebook and so they were delighted to see the quilt in reality. Their interest was most heartwarming.

Syd and I with his quilt "Family Ties: The Ties that Bind"

The quilt I made my sister was a surprise to her. I made it using a variety of half square triangles from knitnitblogspot in green and brown fabrics. There were 16 blocks each from a different green fabric with a plain brown in the half square triangles. My sister was delighted with it. I stayed on with her after the reunion weekend and we looked at it in detail and i explained the half square triangle concept to her. She and her husband were fascinated by the variety of blocks that could be made from the one unit. Whilst my cousin's quilt (which I called  Family Ties:The ties that bind) featured heavily on Facebook my sister's quilt didn't get shown at all because she is my friend on Facebook.

The front of my sister's quilt. It also featured a piano key border but no pieced corners this time

The back of the quilt. it took as long to put together as the front I swear!

 My sister and I were discussing why I chose green and brown for her quilt. They are not her colours and don't feature in her current decor but they were the ones I was strongly drawn to when choosing the fabrics for the quilt. In discussion we remembered that 35 years ago, at the end of the 70s when I was living in Sydney attending teachers college and regularly visiting their home their kitchen chairs were lime green and the family room had a lot of brown trim in it. This was the period that I would have spent most time with them - visiting regularly, babysitting my niece and nephew, getting some family time. So we decided it came from then. She has already used it to snuggle under for a nanna nap whilst I have been staying here with her.

Beth and I with her quilt

I also bought with me the quilt for my newest great nephew Lucas. He wasn't at the reunion but I was able to give it to his grandma, my sister J.