Leo’s Mane Sew Along

Showing posts with label Northern Tree Line quilt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Northern Tree Line quilt. Show all posts

Tuesday, 2 February 2016

What I’m working on....

I’m continuing to work on the sampler quilt for the London Friendship Quilters’ Guild Blog. It is now halfway finished, for me at least. These last three blocks take it into the summer now, I think. I just need to get them written up and then scheduled. I would like to have it done in time for the guild quilt show in October. That should be doable, depending on what I decide to do about borders. The blocks are 12 inches finished, so without borders it will be 60x84, which would be good enough for a twin bed, I suppose. But I think it needs borders of some sort to finish it.
The other thing I’m continuing to work on is Northern Tree Line. I’ve been using the pieces for this as leader/enders for the sampler blocks. I was planning on putting a few more together tonight until I discovered that I’d put some of the green wing triangles on wrong. There aren’t a lot of them wring, maybe 7 or 8, but it was enough to make me decide that it was enough for the day. It won’t take long to rip them reverse sew them, but it can wait until tomorrow. Another hour or so should see at least ten more of these blocks up on the wall. Maybe tomorrow. For now, I’m going to link up to Connie’s Linky Tuesday and the Canadian Needle and Thread Network. After that, it might be some Tv and knitting time.



Monday, 25 January 2016

Design Wall Monday

I worked in the studio today and actually got some my own stuff done. I worked on Northern Tree Line for a bit, and got six more blocks done. I have 35 blocks out of 100 now. Then I cut and made up the binding for my Great Granny Square quilt.
I was up there until about 7:30 pm and then came downstairs, ready to write up a post about what I’d done today. However, about 5 minutes after I got down here, I got this text message from Becca:
So, we’ve spent the last couple of hours cuddling and snuggling and playing with and feeding this precious little baby girl. How on earth could anyone ever say no to visiting with this sweet face? She’s three weeks old on Tuesday, already. She just got here and it feels like she’s been here forever.
I’m linking up to Judy’s Design Wall Monday.





Monday, 21 December 2015

Design wall Monday

There is absolutely nothing new on my design wall. Northern Tree Line and the LFQG Blog Sampler look exactly the same as they did several weeks ago. However, I do have one of my own quilts on the machine right now, and spent 3 or 4 hours today working on it. It’s a Great Granny Square that I pieced a few years ago, and then placed into the line up of my own quilts waiting their turn. I’m doing some very fun custom stuff on this one.
After working on this for most of the afternoon, I came down and made supper and then sat down to watch my favourite Christmas Movie. A Muppets’ Christmas Carol. Of all the version of this movie, and characters, it’s my favourite. I think Michael Caine did a great Scrooge. While watching that, I stitched on a few more fillers to La Passacaglia. Once I finish this, I think I’ll switch out to knitting.  I’m linking up to Judy’s Design Wall Monday.




Tuesday, 1 December 2015

Tuesday news

There hasn’t been a whole lot of quilty stuff done in the last few days. We had a wonderful visitor this past weekend, our grandson Avery. He is very well behaved, easily amused, plays well by himself and with others, and talks non-stop. And when he wasn’t talking, he was singing to himself and he has the typical four year old boy’s love of silly noises. I spent a lot of time smiling and laughing while he was here. There was a little bit of knitting time after he went to bed on Saturday. And then I did a blitz of knitting and stitching on Sunday after he left at about 3 in the afternoon.  Between the stitching and knitting and watching Call the Midwife on Netflix, I kept my mind occupied while Noel drove Avery the 3 1/2 hours to get him home and then another 3 /12 hours to come back again.
I did make a little bit of progress on my Northern Tree Line quilt on Friday. It’s going together quite easily, in between other things, since I’m using it as a leader/ender project. It’s amazing how many half square triangles can get sewn together while making sampler blocks. I got three more blocks done for the London Friendship Quilters’ Guild Blog Sampler. This now takes us up to the end of April. I got them written up and scheduled for their publishing dates today. It’s free and anyone interested can follow along. And that’s about all that’s been going on here.




Wednesday, 25 November 2015

Wednesday workings

I like alliterations, words beginning with the same letters in sentences are always such fun. Doesn’t take much to amuse me, does it? Monday's musings or how about Thursday thinking...  Anyway.....
I started writing this post on Monday, using my iPad and blogsy. For some reason I couldn’t get  the blogsy app in my iPad to load the pictures, and then someone came to drop off some quilts, and before I knew it the day was over and the post didn’t get written. Then, I meant to get back to it and write it yesterday, obviously unsuccessfully. So that takes me up to today just a few minutes ago and I decided that I would do it, only to be unable to find my camera that I used on Monday to take the pictures. I’ve looked in the most obvious places, and moved a few piles to look under things, without success. So I went back upstairs armed with my iPad to take the pictures, then came back downstairs to use the computer to write the post.
I’ve been working on my Northern Tree Line quilt a little bit at a time when I get a few minutes, using the pieces as leader/ender between other projects. I really really like the way this is looking! I’ve also been doing little bits on the sampler that I’m writing up for our guild’s blog. It’s free and anyone interested can go to the link at the London Friendship Quilters Guild and play along. I’m trying to get as far ahead on this as possible before our grand daughter arrives in January. The top row has been published, so far.
The main thing I’ve been working on though is customer quilts. This one was fun. It’s for a little boy who’s a baseball fan. The quilting design is called “Batter Up”. It has baseballs and bats and caps and gloves. The other thing I’ve been working on is learning a new technique for knitting called Double Knitting. It’s challenging and slow going, but I’m getting the hang of it. I’m hoping to have enough of the project done by Friday for an On the Needles report. In the meantime, I’ll publish this and get back to the knitting.




Tuesday, 10 November 2015

How did it get to be Tuesday already?

I missed Sunday’s stash and stitching report, but I have a good excuse, really I do. Our son Noel is going away for his birthday this coming weekend....... he turns 36 on Friday.... so we had him over for dinner on Sunday. I did a little bit of hand stitching on La Passacaglia but not enough to show a difference from the last picture I showed. I have one more small rosette to stitch in place around the bigger one, and then I can start adding the filler pieces around the edging. I’ll get a picture of it next week. I did however, get a quilt cut out on the weekend. That one that I showed here, the one that I was silly enough to ask whether I’d start cutting it or not...... well I did. I used the Go Cutter, and cut out the whole thing. Enough to make 100 eight inch blocks. Not only that, but I’ve sewn up eight of them already, only 92 to go.
 I have learned however, that I have to be very careful which way the triangle squares are facing before I sew the wing triangles on and I also have to be careful about which way the wing triangles are facing. Lets just say that there has been some ripping involved and I’m glad I didn’t sew a whole lot of them assembly line style. So far the large green corner squares aren’t showing up as true greens, but they will as more get added in. I found 58 greens in my stash, of all shades and values and tints, and I cut large and small triangles from all of them. I’m mostly just grabbing at random right now, trying not to have too many of the same ones too close together. But I suspect it won’t matter much once I really get going on this. They don’t really take all that long to do, providing I pay attention, and don’t have to rip any more.
My design wall has a bad case of quilter’s A.D.D. In addition to the blocks above, it also has 12 blocks from the LFQG Blog Sampler.
Once I get the instructions for the four I’ve recently finished written up, this will take us to about the end of February. And, as is visible in the left hand bottom corner of the above picture, the Disappearing Four Patch that I’m making for the soon to be grand daughter is also up on the wall. Somehow I don’t think it’s the design wall that has the bad case of quilter’s A.D.D. Oh, and those shorter posts that I was going to write more often, rather than long ones many days apart...... that doesn’t seem to be happening. Oh well......
For the record for this week, my stash numbers are:

Used last week:                    9 yards
Used this year:                    80.1 yards
Added last week:                   0 yards
Added this year:                 110.7 yards
Net stash added:                   30.6 yards

And now, I have to go find that to-do list so that I can remember what it is I have left to do. I think I need to start using the Notes or Lists features of my computer gadgets so that I don’t keep losing the lists. My gadgets all sync with each other, and while I often lose track of where my phone is, I don’t usually lose track of the tablet or the computer. So if I find the list, maybe I’ll transfer it to the computer. Sounds like a plan..........




Friday, 6 November 2015

On My Needles......

Or in this case, on my crochet hook. It has been years since I’ve done any crochet, and when I first picked this up, I remembered why. I was trying to use a basic metal crochet hook. It was slippery, I couldn’t seem to get a firm hold on it, and when I did, the hook wouldn’t hook the yarn. My fingers were getting cramped from holding the hook, and my mood was getting really bad since I was getting so frustrated. Fast forward one day and a visit to my local yarn shop, and the problem was solved. They sell ergonomic crochet hooks these days. Way too expensive, but oh so worth it, as long as I do lots of crocheting with this particular hook. The whole reason I was so set on getting back to doing crochet was these adorable booties. They are from a pattern called Crocodile Stitch Booties. 
They are not for the faint of heart, and probably weren’t the best choice for starting back at this. However, I have never been known to do things by half measure, and if I’m going to start doing something, I’ve been known to jump in all the way, with both feet, and sometimes nearly drown. It has taken three or four evenings of working at these to get this far. They’ve been ripped out several times, and figuring out the instructions has been a challenge. These are the newborn size. I think there will also be a pair in the larger size, since they are just so cute!! I’m linking this up to Judy’s On the Needles.
In between doing these, I’ve been working on other projects. I have a customer quilt on the machine that is getting feathers around the borders. I love doing feathers, but my head has to be in a certain space before I can get them to come out evenly. I wasn’t in that space yesterday, so I decided to start making a sleeper for our grand baby-to-be instead. Turns out my head wasn’t in the space it needed to be for doing that either. I cut out two pieces backwards, and had to re-cut them, wasting precious, expensive and cute little baby girl knit fabric in the process. Yesterday was redeemed though, by dinner out with friends and a Cheryl Arkinson trunk show. One of her emphasis points last evening was to just take your fabrics and give yourself time to play. Earlier this afternoon I sort of took that advice, but I inserted a step into it, being get out my EQ7 program and play, before cutting into fabrics.
Last summer during all our travels throughout Ontario, I was struck by green, all the various shades and values of green, all hanging out together and getting along quite nicely up against the background of the sky. So, during our visits to various quilt shops on our travels, I picked up green fat quarters, with plans for making a quilt using greens and the various shades of grey and blue for the sky. This is what I’ve come up with. It’s an 8 inch finished block and uses 6 inch and 2 inch triangles. I have both those sizes of dies for my Go Cutter. I just might start pulling out fabrics and start cutting this evening. I’m thinking of calling it Northern Tree Line. This is one of the photos I took during one of our hikes that kinda inspired the colour pairing. So, stay tuned..... will she or won’t she start this in the next few days?