Wednesday progress....

Last week I showed a picture of the beginnings of the quilting on Grandmother’s Diamond Ring. It’s a pattern designed by Judy Martin, found in her The Creative Pattern Book. Well, it is now finished. Here she is. The roses look fabulous in all the white hexagons. The pieced areas all have continuous curves, as do the smaller filler white areas. It’s bound with a faux piped binding using a diagonally printed stripe, which enables the binding to be sewn on completely by machine. The roses in the borders don’t show up very well on the front. Here’s the backing where everything shows up so well. I’m really happy with this one.
The other major thing I’ve done is finishing all the piecing on the LFQG blog sampler, and it is now loaded onto the machine and the quilting is started. It needs to be done by this coming Monday, since we are leaving for a week’s vacation on Tuesday. I’m hoping I can make it. With that in mind, I’m going to link up to Lorna’s Let’s Bee Social and also to The Needle and Thread Network, then I’ll have something to eat and get back to work.

It’s going to be gorgeous!!

I’m so excited,  can’t stand it. I have one full row of Grandmother’s Diamond Ring, a design by Judy Martin, finished. I love it!!!  I’ve figured out the stitching path, and I can go from one side to the other without stopping now, which is a big added bonus. Much faster, and less thread ends to have to tie off and bury. It’s time for a break for something to eat, and then I’ll be back at it again this evening.

Wednesday progress

I’ve finished quilting Northern Tree Line, but it is still waiting for its binding. It’s waiting on trimming, as well, as I ponder how much extra to leave around the edge in order to be able to get binding on without cutting off all the triangle points. I used a very simple quilting design called Ferns, designed by Barbara Becker.
Today I loaded on a very old quilt. It’s called Grandmother’s Diamond Ring. According to records here on the blog, the piecing was finished in July of 2012. I have no record of when I started it.  I suspect it pre-dates the blog. Which means it is older than 2010, which is when I started blogging. It’s been hanging around because I wanted something special in the white background hexagons. I finally found that something special earlier this year in the form of these roses. It’s a Rose hexagon designed by Judy Allen and Jessica Schick. I have a stencil for the border using the same rose that I bought years ago. Maybe that’s why the roses in the hexagons caught my eye. It’s kinda hard to see the design in the border, but the picture can be biggie sized if you click on it.
This one is going to take a while. The borders have to be marked with chalk and the hexagons each have to be marked with disappearing marker. I worked on it most of the afternoon, but a large part of that was spent figuring out how to do the borders. There isn’t a corner turn on the stencil, so that took a bit of thought and finessing. This will likely be on the machine for the rest of the week.
I’m continuing to work on the binding for La Passacaglia. I’m hoping to have it done for a Friday finish celebration.
I’m linking up to Lorna’s Let’s Bee Social. Then it’s time for some supper and maybe trimming Northern Tree Line and making its binding. Who knows, there might be two finishes for Friday.....

Design Wall Monday, Nov. 11, 2013

 I have my next UFO project up on the wall today. It's a pattern called Thanksgiving from a book by Judy Martin called Patchwork Among Friends. I have 8 blocks done, and 8 more to do. Then there are the border units. It actually goes rather quickly, once I set my mind to it, and work at it steadily. I'm not going to set myself a time limit on this, but at the same time, it would be nice to have this one done by the end of the year.

And now, I'm, looking for some opinions. I've had my Grandmother's Diamond Ring down off the racks where my quilt tops are stored, and I'm trying to come up with a design for the quilting. I've got something laid on top of the quilt in this picture to the left. What do you think... is it too much for this quilt? Do you like it or do you have any other ideas? There would be continuous curves in the piecing. I'm not sure about the borders, yet.
I'm linking up to Judy's Design Wall Monday

July UFO is a flimsey

I made it, with 8 hours to spare. Grandmother's Diamond Ring, designed by Judy Martin, is a finished flimsey. That was my goal for July, so I'm pretty pleased with myself. And to make it even better, I love it!! And now, it goes onto the pile of Mount-To-Be-Quilted. Judy Laquidara, who sponsors the monthly UFO challenge, pulled number 7 for August, which is the Spring Swap quilt that I did a couple of years ago. It is a flimsey, and needs quilting. The challenge will be to fit it into August sometime to get it done.

I'm sure, if I manage to get it done, that there will be some continuous curves in the pieced areas, and probably some feathers in the setting triangles around the outer edges. Either that, or it might be fun to do continuous curves in the setting triangles a filler. I'm linking up to Judy's UFO report, where there are a few more people with finishes this month.

Design Wall Monday

This is my July UFO, and it is almost finished. Grandmother's Diamond Ring, by Judy Martin, found in her book, The Creative Quilt Pattern Book. The center section is done, and it just needs borders added to it. I'm going to take some of the 2 1/2 inch strips of the leftover 30's fabrics and use them sort of randomly as the borders. I'll put them all up on the wall first, just to make sure there are no overlaps of the same fabric touching. And looking at it now, I think I might put a four patch of 30's fabrics on each corner. I have until midnight tomorrow to get it done in time to have it finished in July. I wonder if I'll make it, considering I have to work tonight.
I'm linking to Judy's Design Wall Monday.

Design Wall Monday July 23,1012

I have Grandmother's Diamond Ring, designed by Judy Martin. The pattern is in her book The Creative Pattern Book. This one is going to be up there for quite a while, I think. The blocks are all odd shapes, so it doesn't work well for chain piecing, plus it would be very easy to get them mixed up, or turned in the wrong direction. So, I'll be sewing them together slowly, one piece at a time. However, that means there will be a lot off leaders and enders going though, so the Irish Chain quilt that will be built from those will go faster. I sure am liking the way this is looking, so far. This is the first quilt I've ever done with the 1930's reproduction fabrics. They are fun to use, so bright and happy and whimsical. I have lots of them left, so there will be more 1930's quilts in my future.
I'm linking up to Judy Laquidara's Design Wall Monday party. There is lots of fun eye candy and inspiration to look at over there.

Tuesday was such a fun day

Jannette came over to play on Tuesday afternoon. We had such a great time chatting and visiting, and sewing. It has been so very long since I have had company to sew with. At least a couple of years, if not longer. I am hoping we can do it again, soon.
I pulled out my UFO for July, which happened to be another Judy Martin pattern. It is from her book The Creative Pattern Book and is called Grandmother's Diamond Ring. It is quite a challenge.
 
I already had all the coloured diamonds and triangle units pieced, so I am now adding them to the background shapes. I have found, however, that I wasn't to terribly accurate in my piecing when I was sewing them together, so some of them are going to be a bit wonky. Hopefully, once it is all sewn together, it won't end up too distorted. But I must confess that there is a lot of fudging going on. It is actually going fairly quickly, even with the fudge factor, so I'm hoping to have most of it pieced together by the time I go back to work on the weekend.
And our new front door came today, and was installed by a couple of really nice young men, who were quite good at what they were doing. As far as I can tell, that is. Now we won't need to hang a quilt over the door to keep out the wind next winter and  we don't have to hold the screen part of the screen door in place with duct tape. The quilter in me really likes the way the curves on the top of the screen door pick up the curve of the little window in the door. All in all, a couple of really good days.